At present, ancient Y-DNA tests have only confirmed the presence of haplogroups G2a and F among the remains of Neolithic farmers from the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) in Central Europe. Elsewhere, only G2a and E-V13 have been found, besides the Mesolithic lineage I2a. Most people now agree that G2a and E-V13 were key paternal lineages in the spread of the Neolithic across Europe, although some still disagree that they originated in the Fertile Crescent. Personally I think that E-V13 came to Greece and the southern Balkans during the Late Glacial or immediate postglacial period, probably accompanied by J2b, and that these lineages were just picked up early by Near Eastern farmers and spread with them across Europe.
But then what lineage did the original agriculturalists from the Fertile Crescent belong to ? Obviously G2a (although Ray Banks disagree, seeing it as native to Mesolithic Mediterranean Europe), but that is not the only one, nor perhaps the main one. I have long said that the Near Eastern haplogroups E-M34, J1 and T were all minority lineages of Neolithic farmers in Europe. But seeing just how high the percentages of mt-haplogroups N1a (13%) and K (19.5%) were among the numerous LBK samples tested to date (mostly by Brandt et al 2013), it makes me think that J1 and T in particular must have been major lineages of the LBK culture. Two months ago I tried to retrace the original mtDNA lineages of J1 and T and came to the conclusion that mtDNA N1a and K must have been the maternal equivalent of J1 and T during the Early Neolithic. In fact it is very difficult to split populations of J1 and T as these two paternal lineages seem to have evolved side by side as a single population at least since the immediate postglacial period (perhaps since the Natufian culture). This J1+T population would also have carried a small percentage of HV and U3 lineages, and indeed both were present in the LBK samples (5% and 1% respectively).
The rest of original maternal lineages associated with the J1 and T populations from the Neolithic Near East would have been essentially mtDNA J and T, particularly J2b1, T1a'3 and T2c. And indeed all these were found in the LBK or cultures descended from it, alongside other J and T subclades picked up in Anatolia and the Balkans along the way (J1c, T1a1, T2a1b, T2b, T2e and T2f1) with the E-V13 and J2b2 male lineages. Unfortunately deep subclades haven't been tested for all J and T samples. What is sure is that there were three T2c among the 102 LBK samples.
J1+T people might have carried some H subclades too, but I haven't been able to distinguish those linked to G2a or E-M34 from those linked to J1 and T. Overall, Near Eastern farmers must have carried H2, H5, H7, H13 and H20, but most are probably linked to G2a, or perhaps even to the Balkanic E-V13 and J2b. Among them only H5 and H7 were found in LBK-related cultures, though none during the LBK period itself. The only H subclade clearly identified in LBK samples was the extremely rare H46b.
It's not easy to sort out the LBK mtDNA lineages as they are already a blend of three distinct populations:
1) Near Eastern farmers (linked to Y-DNA E-M34, G2a, J1 and T)
2) Assimilated Mesolithic West Anatolian, Greek & Balkanic hunter-gatherers (linked to Y-DNA E-V13 and J2b)
3) Assimilated Mesolithic Central European hunter-gatherers (linked to Y-DNA C, F, I and R1a)
I have summarised the respective maternal lineages of these three populations here.
How much Near Eastern vs Balkanic ancestry ?
Overall I estimate that approximately 45-50% of mtDNA from the LBK culture came directly from the Near East and was mostly associated with Y-haplogroups J1 and T, and to a lower extent also G2a(xG2a3b1) and E-M34.
About 50% of the LBK mtDNA comes from the Mesolithic Balkans or western Anatolia, and barely 5% could be of other Mesolithic European origin (haplogroups H1 and U5). Interestingly the proportion of Mesolithic European lineages slowly but progressively rises over time, showing that more intermarriages took place between farmers and hunter-gatherers.
In summary, LBK men belonged essentially to E-M34, E-V13, G2a, J1, J2b and T. I expect 50% to 70% of J1 + T + G2a + E-M34, and and 30% to 50% of E-V13 + J2b. It is not clear yet whether G2a should be considered of Southwest Asian origin like E-M34, J1 and T, or East Mediterranean like E-V13 and J2b. Actually, if G2a originated in Anatolia, the original admixture of its people would be more Caucasian-like or West Asian-like, depending on what admixtures are used.
Based on modern frequencies, E-V13 seems to have been the most numerous lineage, but that may also be because R1b Indo-Europeans picked up E-V13 lineages in the Balkans before moving to central and western Europe. We won't know until we have hundreds of Y-DNA samples from the LBK culture.
There might also have been minorities of J2a and R1b-V88, especially considering that LBK farmers kept mainly cattle and pigs, rather than goats and sheep, and cattle were supposedly domesticated by R1b people in eastern Anatolia.
A look at modern distributions
Looking at the distribution maps of these haplogroups in Central Europe today, the distribution of J1 is particularly striking, being found in isolation in northern Germany and western Poland, as if cut off from southern Germany by the Indo-European migrations, notably the R1b people of the Unetice culture, that would have emerged around the Czech republic, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, and pushed Neolithic farmers to the north and south as they advanced through central Germany. The G2a map is not representative as most G2a men in central and northern Europe today are G2a3b1, a lineage brought from the northwest Caucasus and the Pontic Steppe by the Indo-Europeans, alongside R1a and R1b. I lack the data to make a map of G2a excluding G2a3b1 at the moment, but I expect to find isolated pockets in northern Germany too, as well as southern Germany and Switzerland.
G2a men might well have been native to Anatolia during the Late Glacial period, in which case they would have only converged with the J1 and T from the Fertile Crescent during the Neolithic period. We could even imagine that J1 and T were the first cereal farmers in the Levant, while G2a domesticated goats and sheep, the two groups converging around modern Syria and southern Turkey. However various tribes might have had widely different frequencies of J1+T (presumably more in societies of cereal cultivators) vs G2a (higher among pure herders, especially in mountain areas unsuitable to cereal cultivation). Such a dichotomy explains why G2a is so much more common today in mountainous parts of Europe and the Near East.
If that is the case, it would make sense that the LBK farmers should have been predominantly J1 and T, with only a minority of G2a.
The history of E-M34 (the Near Eastern and European branch of E-M123) is probably more closely linked to that of J1 and T, being most common in the Fertile Crescent. Its distribution in Europe is more Mediterranean and Atlantic though, hinting that E-M34 spread mostly through the Mediterranean route, then expanded to Western Europe through the Megalithic cultures. But an important Roman redistribution cannot be excluded considering that near absence of E-M34 outside the borders of the Roman Empire. Therefore E-M34 might be more of an Etruscan, Greek and Roman marker than a Neolithic one in Europe, notwithstanding its Middle Eastern roots. I do not doubt that E-M34 was found among Neolithic farmers from the Near East, but founder effects might have privileged J1 and T among LBK farmers, E-M34 being only a minor lineage.
UPDATE: I have created a map of the LBK culture.
But then what lineage did the original agriculturalists from the Fertile Crescent belong to ? Obviously G2a (although Ray Banks disagree, seeing it as native to Mesolithic Mediterranean Europe), but that is not the only one, nor perhaps the main one. I have long said that the Near Eastern haplogroups E-M34, J1 and T were all minority lineages of Neolithic farmers in Europe. But seeing just how high the percentages of mt-haplogroups N1a (13%) and K (19.5%) were among the numerous LBK samples tested to date (mostly by Brandt et al 2013), it makes me think that J1 and T in particular must have been major lineages of the LBK culture. Two months ago I tried to retrace the original mtDNA lineages of J1 and T and came to the conclusion that mtDNA N1a and K must have been the maternal equivalent of J1 and T during the Early Neolithic. In fact it is very difficult to split populations of J1 and T as these two paternal lineages seem to have evolved side by side as a single population at least since the immediate postglacial period (perhaps since the Natufian culture). This J1+T population would also have carried a small percentage of HV and U3 lineages, and indeed both were present in the LBK samples (5% and 1% respectively).
The rest of original maternal lineages associated with the J1 and T populations from the Neolithic Near East would have been essentially mtDNA J and T, particularly J2b1, T1a'3 and T2c. And indeed all these were found in the LBK or cultures descended from it, alongside other J and T subclades picked up in Anatolia and the Balkans along the way (J1c, T1a1, T2a1b, T2b, T2e and T2f1) with the E-V13 and J2b2 male lineages. Unfortunately deep subclades haven't been tested for all J and T samples. What is sure is that there were three T2c among the 102 LBK samples.
J1+T people might have carried some H subclades too, but I haven't been able to distinguish those linked to G2a or E-M34 from those linked to J1 and T. Overall, Near Eastern farmers must have carried H2, H5, H7, H13 and H20, but most are probably linked to G2a, or perhaps even to the Balkanic E-V13 and J2b. Among them only H5 and H7 were found in LBK-related cultures, though none during the LBK period itself. The only H subclade clearly identified in LBK samples was the extremely rare H46b.
It's not easy to sort out the LBK mtDNA lineages as they are already a blend of three distinct populations:
1) Near Eastern farmers (linked to Y-DNA E-M34, G2a, J1 and T)
2) Assimilated Mesolithic West Anatolian, Greek & Balkanic hunter-gatherers (linked to Y-DNA E-V13 and J2b)
3) Assimilated Mesolithic Central European hunter-gatherers (linked to Y-DNA C, F, I and R1a)
I have summarised the respective maternal lineages of these three populations here.
How much Near Eastern vs Balkanic ancestry ?
Overall I estimate that approximately 45-50% of mtDNA from the LBK culture came directly from the Near East and was mostly associated with Y-haplogroups J1 and T, and to a lower extent also G2a(xG2a3b1) and E-M34.
About 50% of the LBK mtDNA comes from the Mesolithic Balkans or western Anatolia, and barely 5% could be of other Mesolithic European origin (haplogroups H1 and U5). Interestingly the proportion of Mesolithic European lineages slowly but progressively rises over time, showing that more intermarriages took place between farmers and hunter-gatherers.
In summary, LBK men belonged essentially to E-M34, E-V13, G2a, J1, J2b and T. I expect 50% to 70% of J1 + T + G2a + E-M34, and and 30% to 50% of E-V13 + J2b. It is not clear yet whether G2a should be considered of Southwest Asian origin like E-M34, J1 and T, or East Mediterranean like E-V13 and J2b. Actually, if G2a originated in Anatolia, the original admixture of its people would be more Caucasian-like or West Asian-like, depending on what admixtures are used.
Based on modern frequencies, E-V13 seems to have been the most numerous lineage, but that may also be because R1b Indo-Europeans picked up E-V13 lineages in the Balkans before moving to central and western Europe. We won't know until we have hundreds of Y-DNA samples from the LBK culture.
There might also have been minorities of J2a and R1b-V88, especially considering that LBK farmers kept mainly cattle and pigs, rather than goats and sheep, and cattle were supposedly domesticated by R1b people in eastern Anatolia.
A look at modern distributions
Looking at the distribution maps of these haplogroups in Central Europe today, the distribution of J1 is particularly striking, being found in isolation in northern Germany and western Poland, as if cut off from southern Germany by the Indo-European migrations, notably the R1b people of the Unetice culture, that would have emerged around the Czech republic, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, and pushed Neolithic farmers to the north and south as they advanced through central Germany. The G2a map is not representative as most G2a men in central and northern Europe today are G2a3b1, a lineage brought from the northwest Caucasus and the Pontic Steppe by the Indo-Europeans, alongside R1a and R1b. I lack the data to make a map of G2a excluding G2a3b1 at the moment, but I expect to find isolated pockets in northern Germany too, as well as southern Germany and Switzerland.
G2a men might well have been native to Anatolia during the Late Glacial period, in which case they would have only converged with the J1 and T from the Fertile Crescent during the Neolithic period. We could even imagine that J1 and T were the first cereal farmers in the Levant, while G2a domesticated goats and sheep, the two groups converging around modern Syria and southern Turkey. However various tribes might have had widely different frequencies of J1+T (presumably more in societies of cereal cultivators) vs G2a (higher among pure herders, especially in mountain areas unsuitable to cereal cultivation). Such a dichotomy explains why G2a is so much more common today in mountainous parts of Europe and the Near East.
If that is the case, it would make sense that the LBK farmers should have been predominantly J1 and T, with only a minority of G2a.
The history of E-M34 (the Near Eastern and European branch of E-M123) is probably more closely linked to that of J1 and T, being most common in the Fertile Crescent. Its distribution in Europe is more Mediterranean and Atlantic though, hinting that E-M34 spread mostly through the Mediterranean route, then expanded to Western Europe through the Megalithic cultures. But an important Roman redistribution cannot be excluded considering that near absence of E-M34 outside the borders of the Roman Empire. Therefore E-M34 might be more of an Etruscan, Greek and Roman marker than a Neolithic one in Europe, notwithstanding its Middle Eastern roots. I do not doubt that E-M34 was found among Neolithic farmers from the Near East, but founder effects might have privileged J1 and T among LBK farmers, E-M34 being only a minor lineage.
UPDATE: I have created a map of the LBK culture.
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