Genome of Iron Age Thracian

[Angela]

Well, they've finally published the paper on the genome of the Iron Age Thracian reputed to be another "Sardinian" like individual.

The paper: Martin Sikora et al...Population Genomic Analysis of Ancient and Modern Genomes Yields New Insights into the Genetic Ancestry of the Tryolean Iceman and the Genetic Structure of Europe.
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.1004353#pgen-1004353-g001

Dienekes' take on it...
http://www.dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/05/ancient-dna-from-balkans-iron-age-thrace.html

 

[Fire Haired14]

I just read that study, but not thoroughly. It is nothing compared to Laz(Historic and groundbreaking), but is still great. I expect these early Iron age Thracians to be most similar to modern Bulgarians and Italians, and I'll be very surprised if they are not. I can already tell that the Thracian individual K8 is significantly more north European-like than the other Thracian individual P192-1. Also, i see evidence in the admixtures, that Basque have a high amount of native Iberian hunter gatherer ancestry, since like in many admixtures La Brana-1 scores highest in a west European-specific component that is highest in Basque.

 

[LeBrok]

It looks like this individual, from Iron Age, didn't mix with Indo Europeans much, genetically. Too bad that this sample wasn't in good genetic shape. They've mentioned sever damage and contamination.

 

[Fire Haired14]

It looks like this individual, from Iron Age, didn't mix with Indo Europeans much, genetically. Too bad that this sample wasn't in good genetic shape. They've mentioned sever damage and contamination.

That's true but we can still learn alot through these Iron age Thracians.

How can we determine if they had mixed much with Indo Europeans, if we aren't sure how Indo Europeans affected people genetically, and specifically the ones who spread the Thracian language? There are alot of theories though, and the extra north-European-like ancestor of K8, who they mentioned had rich grave goods, may be because of more ANE and or WHG ancestry. He also may have extra west Asian ancestry, west Asian components are a mixture of middle eastern and ANE, and are closely related to north European components which are a mixture of middle eastern and WHG. I expect these Thracians to be very similar to modern Bulgarians, and i am disappointed that this study did not compare them to any populations from the Balkans.

It is interesting to get genomes from historical ancient people, who are still from pre-Roman Europe, because more is known about who they were.

 

[LeBrok]

That's true but we can still learn alot through these Iron age Thracians.

How can we determine if they had mixed much with Indo Europeans, if we aren't sure how Indo Europeans affected people genetically, and specifically the ones who spread the Thracian language?

It could be just this individual with limited IE ancestry. It is hard to be sure about population when we have just one individual.

I expect these Thracians to be very similar to modern Bulgarians, and i am disappointed that this study did not compare them to any populations from the Balkans.

Good point. I think this paper is lacking in good sample quality and background/local population comparison. Was this paper rushed or is it very hard to find good samples?

 

[Sile]

I expect these Thracians to be very similar to modern Bulgarians, and i am disappointed that this study did not compare them to any populations from the Balkans.

Impossible, modern bulgarians have some turkic mix in them from central asia, Thracians where 0% in turkic. Since the bones are iron-age, then its 0% for turkic bulgarians.
Even the paper states that they will refer to the bones as thracian and not bulgarian

 

[Sile]

Thracian P192-1 is U3b in mtdna, other thracian is too damaged to get a mtdna reading

Maciamo, needs to add the first U3b in ancient mtdna to his list

 

[Alan]

I expect these early Iron age Thracians to be most similar to modern Bulgarians and Italians, and I'll be very surprised if they are not.

In the opening post it says the two Iron Age individuals were Ötzi like (so basically EEF DNA) so how can they be similar to modern Bulgarians which have a good chunk of ANE and WHG in form of Caucasus_Gedrosia and North European?

 

[Fire Haired14]

In the opening post it says the two Iron Age individuals were Ötzi like (so basically EEF DNA) so how can they be similar to modern Bulgarians which have a good chunk of ANE and WHG in form of Caucasus_Gedrosia and North European?

You can't just assume they were 100% Otzi-like, i think the authors are not giving enough detail and are basing that statement based on one admixture. I will make a thread about these two iron age Thracians today, then you'll see my full opinion on this.

 

[Fire Haired14]

Thracian P192-1 is U3b in mtdna, other thracian is too damaged to get a mtdna reading

Maciamo, needs to add the first U3b in ancient mtdna to his list

Maciamo hasn't added anything to his ancient DNA article for about two years!!!! He probably realized there are better ways to organize the ancient DNA and that it is very difficult to put all the info in an article in a readable fashion, and that hardly anyone is reading it.

 

[Angela]

You can't just assume they were 100% Otzi-like, i think the authors are not giving enough detail and are basing that statement based on one admixture. I will make a thread about these two iron age Thracians today, then you'll see my full opinion on this.

You're on a thread about the two Iron Age Thracians. That's the paper that was posted. Hadn't you noticed?

These are the modern Bulgarian numbers as per Lazaridis et al. No need to guess...
EEF: .712
WHG: .147
ANE: .141

They seem to be closest to the north Italians, which Cavalli-Sforza told us more than twenty years ago.
EEF: .715
WHG: .177
ANE: .108

They are not as close to Sardinians.
Sardinian numbers:
EEF: .817
WHG: .175
ANE: .008

Then we have Maltese, Ashkenazi Jews, Sicilians etc., who are more than 90% EEF.

So, no, they're not as Oetzi like as their ancestors.

Ed. Alan wasn't assuming anything; he was repeating the findings of the paper.

Ed. 2 To add numbers for northern Italians

 

[ElHorsto]

You're on a thread about the two Iron Age Thracians. That's the paper that was posted. Hadn't you noticed?

These are the modern Bulgarian numbers as per Lazaridis et al. No need to guess...

EEF: .712
WHG: .147
ANE: .141

They're closest to northern Italians, it seems, which Cavalli Sforza told us more than twenty years ago.

Sardinian numbers:
EEF: .817
WHG: .175
ANE: .008

So, no, they're not as Oetzi like as their ancestors.

But do they also compare the Iron Age Thracians directly with modern Bulgarians, Tuscans or any other similar population except Sardinians and Ötzi? Sorry, I can not find it in the paper.

 

[ElHorsto]

Impossible, modern bulgarians have some turkic mix in them from central asia,

So far I've not seen any admixture analysis which supports this claim.

 

[Angela]

But do they also compare the Iron Age Thracians directly with modern Bulgarians, Tuscans or any other similar population except Sardinians and Ötzi? Sorry, I can not find in the paper.

I can't find it either, and that's a flaw in the paper. I think we got spoiled by the Lazaridis paper and have come to expect that kind of exhaustive and sophisticated analysis, and we're not getting it.

I also have a problem with the PCA and where the ancient samples land, and the admixture analyses are surprising in some ways. Why didn't they do an IBD analysis to clear it up?

It's also disappointing that the second Thracian sample seems to be contaminated, and so it's difficult to draw any conclusions about differences based on social status at this point in time.

 

[Sile]

So far I've not seen any admixture analysis which supports this claim.

correct, these Thracians are NOT bulgarians

Why do you think they are Turkic, ?............because the "royal" k8 one is southern Russian?...........do you have proof?

 

[Nobody1]

I could be wrong or completely dyslexic but this study seems to be more about Ötzi (the Iceman) than anything else;

"we confirm that the Iceman is, indeed, most closely related to Sardinians.....the Iceman is always significantly more closely related to Sardinians than any other European population..........."

And the Thracians are not of the same class as one was found in a pit and the other in a grandeur tomb; And the one from the pit seems to be the more Neolithic; But the Bootstrep is only 56% to Sardinians whereas Ötzi and the Sardinians share a Bootstrep of >96% (gök4=83%); crazy crazy

 

[Sile]

I could be wrong or completely dyslexic but this study seems to be more about Ötzi (the Iceman) than anything else;

"we confirm that the Iceman is, indeed, most closely related to Sardinians.....the Iceman is always significantly more closely related to Sardinians than any other European population..........."

And the Thracians are not of the same class as one was found in a pit and the other in a grandeur tomb; And the one from the pit seems to be the more Neolithic; But the Bootstrep is only 56% to Sardinians whereas Ötzi and the Sardinians share a Bootstrep of >96% (gök4=83%); crazy crazy

check this out

http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/2009185252/2031618619/mmc1.pdf

 

[ElHorsto]

correct, these Thracians are NOT bulgarians

Why do you think they are Turkic, ?............because the "royal" k8 one is southern Russian?...........do you have proof?

That's not what I quoted and replied. Please read again more carefully. Thanks!

 

[Nobody1]

check this out

http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/2009185252/2031618619/mmc1.pdf

I know that;
Thats pre-hysteria of the current study; p.6 is very informative with the noble Thracians are close to modern Central/North Europeans and the common/peasant (more Neolithic) Thracians are closer to modern South Europeans (Tuscans); But the current study has both Thracians in the center of all modern Europeans (Figure S2) but also K8 clusters more towards North/Central and P192-1 clusters more towards South (more Neolithic); I thought both but app. just P192-1 (the pit corpse) is U3 mtDNA;

 

[Sile]

That's not what I quoted and replied. Please read again more carefully. Thanks!

ditto, re-read my original post instead of chopping it up in small parcels