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

[Sile]

I have started a page summarising all the ancient mtDNA and Y-DNA results from Bronze Age Proto-Indo-European cultures. I have only added Yamna at present, but will add other cultures soon.

I have also created a map of the Yamna + Maykop cultures.

in the link you would mean, I guess, T1a or T1a2 but not T1a1 ............is it a misprint?

 

[Sile]

Isn't the pigmentation based on this report now?
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/pigmentation-phylogeny-history-and-adaptation/

 

[Maciamo]

in the link you would mean, I guess, T1a or T1a2 but not T1a1 ............is it a misprint?

Actually it should be T1a2 (L131) and T1a1a1a (P77).

 

[Alan]

Just a question

these are my results for the aforementioned SNP's

HERC2 rs12913832 AG

SLC45A2 rs16891982 CC

TYR rs1042602 AC

What does that say about my hair, eye or skin color.

 

[Angela]

Just a question

these are my results for the aforementioned SNP's

HERC2 rs12913832 AG

SLC45A2 rs16891982 CC

TYR rs1042602 AC

What does that say about my hair, eye or skin color.

Well, SLC45A2 derived allele "G" is strongly associated with fair skin, although it also affects hair and eyes. You are homozygous for the ancestral allele. To give you a point of comparison, that's rare for Europe. Do you know if you are derived for SLC24A5? I would assume you are derived for those snps.

TYR "A" allele is likewise associated with light skin and eye pigmentation, although it also affects hair color. It also indicates absence of freckling, or, in another words, the pigmentation is even throughout the skin, even after exposure to sunlight. Here you are heterozygous.

You are also heterozygous for the HERC 2 snp which is heavily associated with iris color, with GG indicating a higher likelihood of light eyes. It also affects hair and skin color, however.

So, my guess would be dark brown hair, olive toned skin within the Near Eastern spectrum, and brown eyes with perhaps some lighter flecks, i.e. green or gold?

How'd I do?

 

[Alan]

Well, SLC45A2 derived allele "G" is strongly associated with fair skin, although it also affects hair and eyes. You are homozygous for the ancestral allele. To give you a point of comparison, that's rare for Europe. Do you know if you are derived for SLC24A5? I would assume you are derived for those snps.

TYR "A" allele is likewise associated with light skin and eye pigmentation, although it also affects hair color. It also indicates absence of freckling, or, in another words, the pigmentation is even throughout the skin, even after exposure to sunlight. Here you are heterozygous.

You are also heterozygous for the HERC 2 snp which is heavily associated with iris color, with GG indicating a higher likelihood of light eyes. It also affects hair and skin color, however.

So, my guess would be dark brown hair, olive toned skin within the Near Eastern spectrum, and brown eyes with perhaps some lighter flecks, i.e. green or gold?

How'd I do?

These are my SLC24a5 results.

Thats interesting that you mention lighter flecks of green, because according to GEDmatch too I should actually ended up with Green eyes. But as you said, I have brown eyes (Must have been more of coincidence than). Since my mother has blue and my father brown eyes, the G must have been from maternal and A from paternal side I assume. I have (light) Olive skin with some weird reddish/rosy tone in it. My hair color is Dark Brown. So you were right good guessed.

 

[Sile]

These are my SLC24a5 results.

Thats interesting that you mention lighter flecks of green, because according to GEDmatch too I should actually ended up with Green eyes. But as you said, I have brown eyes (Must have been more of coincidence than). Since my mother has blue and my father brown eyes, the G must have been from maternal and A from paternal side I assume. I have Olive/light Olive skin with some weird reddish tone in it. My hair color is Dark Brown/Black. So you were right good guessed.

Mine...............we only match with your AA lines

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[Alan]

Mine...............we only match with your AA lines

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

And one CC line (rs2433354)

 

[kamani]

So to recapitulate: The Indo-Europeans had predominantly brown hair and eyes, 60% olive skin, and Neolithic farmer mtdna.
And according to the paper their appearance changed considerably towards "blondism" in Northern Europe due to extremely fast selection in the last 5000 years. It is hard to refute their experimental data; the only thing that I don't quite buy is their conclusion about "fast selection in the last 5000 yrs". It just seems that the early Indo-European pioneers were more of a Near-Eastern/Anatolian/(Neolithic Farmer) package that only culturally and linguistically dominated Northwest Eurasia. The current genetic map of Europe is more of the most recent migrations of the "Barbarian" tribes from extreme and isolated Northern areas.

 

[Knovas]

My results are the same as yours, Sile.

HERC2 rs12913832 GG

SLC45A2 rs16891982 GG

TYR rs1042602 AC

I guess this matches my pigmentation quite well: Blue eyes, very light skin, and dark brown hair. There are lots of SNPs to consider though, the ones listed by 23andme regarding hair colour say rather the oppostie for me:

rs1805007 CC (Typical odds of having red hair) - T is the mutation which seems responsible of red hair

rs1667394 TT (Typical odds of having blond hair) - C means decreased odds

Actually they should revise their research and give more info. It is tedious to look for community threads to get a better idea.

 

[Nobody1]

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.

I agree that only more data (testing/results) can answer that question; Before Yamna [Pit Grave] there was the Sredny-Stog/Khvalynsk complex contemporary with Cucuteni-Tripolye of East Europe and Yamna was contemporary to Maykop/Kura-Araxes (South Caucasus) and Baden (Central Europe) i.e. results from those culture zones could reveal a lot;

Also more data from Europe itself; All those Scandinavian (hunter-gatherer) samples of Motala (1/2/3/4/6/9/12) and Gotland (Ajv52/Ajv70/Ire8) and the farmers lady from Gökhem (Gök4); Ötzi (as far as i know) was also just tested for rs1426654 but not also rs16891982; Maybe however the current data remains representative in that only the Neolithic Farmers had rs1426654 A/A light-skin (as is the case Ötzi and Stuttgart) and remains absent in Hunter-Gatherers (as is the case Loschbour and La Brana); And if rs16891982 G/G light-skin remains absent in all Mesolithic/Neolithic Europe samples (as is the case so far La Brana/Loschbour/Stuttgart) than it could only have come from the Steppes (Yamna [Pit Grave] folks) for so far only the Steppe peoples (Yamna) have been results for rs16891982 G/G;

 

[Aberdeen]

So to recapitulate: The Indo-Europeans had predominantly brown hair and eyes, 60% olive skin, and Neolithic farmer mtdna.
And according to the paper their appearance changed considerably towards "blondism" in Northern Europe due to extremely fast selection in the last 5000 years. It is hard to refute their experimental data; the only thing that I don't quite buy is their conclusion about "fast selection in the last 5000 yrs". It just seems that the early Indo-European pioneers were more of a Near-Eastern/Anatolian/(Neolithic Farmer) package that only culturally and linguistically dominated Northwest Eurasia. The current genetic map of Europe is more of the most recent migrations of the "Barbarian" tribes from extreme and isolated Northern areas.

This seems likely to me. The Germanic migrations must have had a huge impact, I think.

 

[Wilhelm]

Edit......

 

[Nobody1]

So to recapitulate: The Indo-Europeans had predominantly brown hair and eyes, 60% olive skin, and Neolithic farmer mtdna.
And according to the paper their appearance changed considerably towards "blondism" in Northern Europe due to extremely fast selection in the last 5000 years. It is hard to refute their experimental data; the only thing that I don't quite buy is their conclusion about "fast selection in the last 5000 yrs". It just seems that the early Indo-European pioneers were more of a Near-Eastern/Anatolian/(Neolithic Farmer) package that only culturally and linguistically dominated Northwest Eurasia. The current genetic map of Europe is more of the most recent migrations of the "Barbarian" tribes from extreme and isolated Northern areas.

Where exactly did the study mention Northern Europe? Unless i missed something it does not mention Northern Europe at all; The selection process described is for the Steppes/Eastern Europe itself;

'Dietary change during the Neolithization process may have reinforced selection pressure favoring depigmented skin. The individuals analyzed in this study lived ∼500–2,000 y after the arrival of farming in the region north of the Black Sea (42, 43).'

'In sum, a combination of selective pressures associated with living in northern latitudes, the adoption of an agriculturalist diet, and assortative mating may sufficiently explain the observed change from a darker phenotype during the Eneolithic/Early Bronze age to a generally lighter one in modern Eastern Europeans, although other selective factors cannot be discounted.'

Again - unless i have missed something than this study is not talking about a selection process from the Steppes into Northern Europe but solely for (within) the Steppes itself; For the rest i agree the majority (in the steppes) was still Neolithic stock;

 

[kamani]

Where exactly did the study mention Northern Europe? Unless i missed something it does not mention Northern Europe at all; The selection process described is for the Steppes/Eastern Europe itself;

I cannot find Northern Europe specifically mentioned either, but they say things such as:
Our results indicate that strong selection has been operating on pigmentation-related genes within western Eurasia for the past 5,000 y...
Conversely, continuity between early central European farmers
and modern Europeans has been rejected in a previous study
(33). However, the Eneolithic and Bronze Age sequences presented
here are ∼500–2,000 y younger than the early Neolithic
and belong to lineages identified both in early farmers and late
hunter–gatherers from central Europe (33). A plausible explanation
for this is that the prehistoric populations sampled in this
study are a product of admixture between in situ hunter–gatherers
and immigrant early farmers during the centuries after the arrival
of farming, and that this admixture was a major process
shaping modern patterns of mtDNA variation (34) and possibly also the variability observed in European hair, eye, and skin color...

So it seems they try to draw conclusions about the whole Europe, in places. I agree thou that their samples are only from Bronze Age Pontic-Caspian Steppe; supposedly the center of Proto-Indo-Europeans. Which comes back to what I said that Northern Europeans are more of a product of Iron Age and later Southern expansion of Germanic tribes and not direct descendants of Proto-Indo-Europeans. Now, who did these Germanic tribes descend from and how did they become "blonde" in the last 5000 years, it is still open for debate. So far I can deduce they descend from other tribes within Europe, because blue eyes are exclusive to Western Eurasia. Simply put, there must have been a tribe somewhere in North/Central Europe with blue eyes that got conquered by a minority of Bronze Age proto-Indo-Europeans.

 

[Angela]

I agree that only more data (testing/results) can answer that question; Before Yamna [Pit Grave] there was the Sredny-Stog/Khvalynsk complex contemporary with Cucuteni-Tripolye of East Europe and Yamna was contemporary to Maykop/Kura-Araxes (South Caucasus) and Baden (Central Europe) i.e. results from those culture zones could reveal a lot;

Also more data from Europe itself; All those Scandinavian (hunter-gatherer) samples of Motala (1/2/3/4/6/9/12) and Gotland (Ajv52/Ajv70/Ire8) and the farmers lady from Gökhem (Gök4); Ötzi (as far as i know) was also just tested for rs1426654 but not also rs16891982; Maybe however the current data remains representative in that only the Neolithic Farmers had rs1426654 A/A light-skin (as is the case Ötzi and Stuttgart) and remains absent in Hunter-Gatherers (as is the case Loschbour and La Brana); And if rs16891982 G/G light-skin remains absent in all Mesolithic/Neolithic Europe samples (as is the case so far La Brana/Loschbour/Stuttgart) than it could only have come from the Steppes (Yamna [Pit Grave] folks) for so far only the Steppe peoples (Yamna) have been results for rs16891982 G/G;

If I am reading this correctly, Oetzi was "G" or derived for SLC45A2 or rs16891982. See Table S6 of the Supplementary Information of Keller et al. That, and his other pigmentation snps, is undoubtedly why he was described as "very fair skinned".
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n2/full/ncomms1701.html#supplementary-information

So, if this is correct, rs16891982, or SLC45A2 was already in a yDNA "G2a" member of a central European Neolithic/Chalcolithic culture in 3300 B.C.

 

[Nobody1]

I cannot find Northern Europe specifically mentioned either, but they say things such as:
Our results indicate that strong selection has been operating on pigmentation-related genes within western Eurasia for the past 5,000 y...
Conversely, continuity between early central European farmers
and modern Europeans has been rejected in a previous study
(33). However, the Eneolithic and Bronze Age sequences presented
here are ∼500–2,000 y younger than the early Neolithic
and belong to lineages identified both in early farmers and late
hunter–gatherers from central Europe (33). A plausible explanation
for this is that the prehistoric populations sampled in this
study are a product of admixture between in situ hunter–gatherers
and immigrant early farmers during the centuries after the arrival
of farming, and that this admixture was a major process
shaping modern patterns of mtDNA variation (34) and possibly also the variability observed in European hair, eye, and skin color...

So it seems they try to draw conclusions about the whole Europe, in places. I agree thou that their samples are only from Bronze Age Pontic-Caspian Steppe; supposedly the center of Proto-Indo-Europeans. Which comes back to what I said that Northern Europeans are more of a product of Iron Age and later Southern expansion of Germanic tribes and not direct descendants of Proto-Indo-Europeans. Now, who did these Germanic tribes descend from and how did they become "blonde" in the last 5000 years, it is still open for debate. So far I can deduce they descend from other tribes within Europe, because blue eyes are exclusive to Western Eurasia. Simply put, there must have been a tribe somewhere in North/Central Europe with blue eyes that got conquered by a minority of Bronze Age proto-Indo-Europeans.

What was before the Corded-ware/Bronze-age (proto-Germanic/Germanic) peoples was the Neolithic complexes of LBK (+ successors) and later TBK [Funnel Beaker];
Sample of LBK is Stuttgart (mtDNA T2) and samples of TBK are Gök4 (mtDNA H) and Ste7 (mtDNA T2);
Both Stuttgart and Gök4 (Lazaridis et al 2013) are akin to each other and cluster together along with Ötzi (mtDNA K1) from the Neolithic Alps; The same scenario that the new study describes in the steppes i.e. 'A plausible explanation for this is that the prehistoric populations sampled in this study are a product of admixture between in situ hunter–gatherers and immigrant early farmers during the centuries after the arrival of farming,' could also have occurred during Neolithic Europe in LBK and TBK with the admixed steppe folks further admixing when they appeared during the Chalcolithic/Bronze-age; For what they found in the steppes was both light-eyes [rs12913832 G/G] as well as light-skin [rs16891982 G/G]; Ultimately it could all result from the admixture of all these three movements (+ ANE Afontova) as is also the case for modern Europeans;

If a tribe existed in Europe that had all that in combination on its own than future data will reveal it; As of now the current data of Mesolithic and Neolithic doesnt suggest it at all;

 

[Angela]

These are my SLC24a5 results.

Thats interesting that you mention lighter flecks of green, because according to GEDmatch too I should actually ended up with Green eyes. But as you said, I have brown eyes (Must have been more of coincidence than). Since my mother has blue and my father brown eyes, the G must have been from maternal and A from paternal side I assume. I have Olive skin with some weird reddish/rosy tone in it. My hair color is Dark Brown/Black. So you were right good guessed.

This is only a very rough analysis, of course. Last time I looked, there were over 120 snps that affected pigmentation, although SLC24A5, and SLC45A2 account for up to 80% of the variation. I don't know if there is a thread here devoted to results for pigmentation snps, but if there isn't and some people are interested in comparisons, someone could probably start one.

 

[Nobody1]

If I am reading this correctly, Oetzi was "G" or derived for SLC45A2 or rs16891982. See Table S6 of the Supplementary Information of Keller et al. That, and his other pigmentation snps, is undoubtedly why he was described as "very fair skinned".
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n2/full/ncomms1701.html#supplementary-information

So, if this is correct, rs16891982, or SLC45A2 was already in a yDNA "G2a" member of a central European Neolithic/Chalcolithic culture in 3300 B.C.

Excellent find Angela;
So Ötzi was rs16891982 G/G and rs1426654 A/A where as Stuttgart was rs16891982 C/C and rs1426654 A/A; Was Stuttgart admixed (more) with Hunter-gatherers?

 

[Angela]

Does anyone have the most up to date figures from archaeology for when the Yamnaya people are estimated to have arrived in, say, Hungary? I may be mistaken, but I thought the dates were more recent than Oetzi's 3300 B.C.

I realize this has nothing to do with where or when these "Indo-Europeans" got the SLC45A2 "G" marker themselves; I'm just trying to think through whether the marker arose solely in Neolithicized populations around the Black Sea, or if it occurred in a wider Neolithic context.