Sites with E-M78 individuals:
1) I16530
Polgár-Csőszhalom (Hajdú-Bihar County) - core territory of the later groups in question.
E1b1b1a1b
E-Z1919*(xV13)
T2c1d+152C!
2) I5104
Polgár-Basatanya (Hajdú-Bihar County)
E1b1b1a1b
CTS11953
K2a
3) I5105
Polgár-Basatanya (Hajdú-Bihar County)
E1b1b1a1b
CTS202 CTS4235
H+152C!
4) I23126
Urziceni-Vamă (Satu Mare County)
E1b1b1a
E-L546*(xBY8199,Z42903,V22,Y21100)
H1
This is, I have to stress it, the absolute core region for the later groups in question at the Upper Tisza and here we have the first better sampling for the Copper Age and it didn't disappoint!
From the paper:
The geographical position of the Carpathian Basin (CB) makes it a crossroads between79
South-East and Central Europe. The fertile river valleys of the Danube and its tributaries80
offered optimal conditions for settlement and facilitated the development of efficient81
transport and communication networks for early farming communities. Since the advent82
of the field of aDNA research, the prehistoric populations of the CB have been the83
subject of intensive study, primarily due to the critical role they played in the84
Neolithisation of Europe1,2. The population genetic history of the Neolithic (N) (6000-85
4500 cal BCE) of the CB is well-established3–6. However, the subsequent Copper Age86
(CA) (4500-2800 cal BCE) is underrepresented in the available genetic data4,7–10.87
The Copper Age is characterized by the spread of significant technological innovations,88
including metallurgy11,12 and the wheel and wagon13,14, which profoundly impacted89
human culture. This period is regarded to coincide with the emergence of salient social90
ranking and craft specialization15,16
The use of these extensive settlements terminated96
by the end of the LN, between 4500 and 4450 cal BCE22. Profound transformations were97
observed on the GHP, affecting all segments of life. In contrast to the large horizontal98
LN settlements, a dense network of small, farm-like settlements emerged across the99
GHP23,24. During the LN, the deceased were buried within the settlement boundaries or100
through rites that left no archaeologically visible traces25. However, in the ECA, from101
4400-4350 cal BCE, formal cemeteries – the first in the CB – appeared that were102
spatially separated from the settlements22. Meanwhile, the practice of settlement burials103
persisted26,27, with even LN tells being repurposed for burial grounds28,29. These104
changes coincided with shifts in the material culture, particularly in the pottery style.105
Subsequently, on the GHP, the Tiszapolgár30 and then the Bodrogkeresztúr style106
emerged31,32. In parallel, in Transdanubia (Western Hungary, west of the Danube River),107
the pottery style of the Lengyel complex underwent transformation33,34.
Note that all E-M78 individuals are from the Copper Age - apparently E-M78 spread in that period:
To investigate these questions, we125
conducted a comparative analysis between two significant LN archaeological sites,126
Aszód-Papi földek and Polgár-Csőszhalom, and two large, almost completely excavated127
ECA cemeteries, Tiszapolgár-Basatanya (referred to as Basatanya in this paper) and128
Urziceni-Vamă, which exhibit a high degree of cultural similarities to each other.
This is very significant, as it shows, for the first time, that in a region, in the core Cotofeni/Gáva region of later periods, E-M78 actually expanded. Like I always said, wait for data from the Upper Tisza:
The Polgár microregion, situated on the Upper Tisza River, provides an ideal setting for130
investigating the question of local continuity
The sites with E-M78 are both more Eastern and newer, I always said: We need to cross the Tisza river to get to the core.
Even more than that, we might be able to grasp the Indoeuropeanisation of this E-M78 population:
In182 contrast, contemporaneous ECA individuals from Urziceni-Vamă (Romania) and others183
from Romania and Bulgaria63 exhibit signs of increased ancestry diversity, reflecting184
new Eastern European genetic contacts. Using Mahalanobis distance and testing based185
on a chi-square distribution, we detected in Urziceni-Vamă five female and three male186
outliers on different PC axes (p<0.05, Table S3), with some individuals shifting toward187
the Eastern European steppe, and others toward Northwestern or Anatolian188
populations.
Will be highly interesting to see whether the E-M78 indiviudals are locals or newcomers with steppe admixture. If they are the latter, that would point to the mentioned Usatovo-Gorodsk/Late Tripolye connection.
Like expected, dominant EEF ancestry with steppe admixture:
In our analyses, ANF was the dominant194 component in all N-CA populations of the GHP (88% on average, Fig. 2B, Fig. S1-S2).195
The distribution of EHG and WHG components shows limited EHG in the LN GHP196
communities on one end, and more in ECA Urziceni-Vamă on the other (a two-sample197
t-test of their pairwise comparison resulted in p<0.002 for the EHG component variance198
Fig. 2B, Table S5A-B).
Also interesting, there are outsiders and migrants, again, worth to check if the E-M78 individuals are among them:
Although the394
genomic and uniparental genetic make-up of these two IBD outlier males is not unusual395
for the time or region, their IBD connection patterns point outside the site, toward396
Urziceni-Vamă and ECA populations on the southern GHP and Transdanubia. The male397
in grave 83 had no detected ancestor or descendant in the community, whereas male398
45 has a single 12 cM IBD connection to an individual in grave 36. Their limited ROH399
signals suggest also that they were likely outsiders, not part of the typical closed400
community patterns seen in the Basatanya community. Other individuals with high ROH401
are scattered throughout the cemetery, without any clear association to family ties or402
pottery styles (Fig. 5). Despite these two male IBD outliers, analyzing the 72 cliques403
observed at Basatanya, we found more female connections between sites, whereas404
males predominantly participated in cliques within the Basatanya community (p=0.0036,405
Chi2 test, Fig. S15C).
It is not conclusive, not the final word on the issue, but it proves for the first time two things:
- E-M78 was present at the Upper Tisza and seems to show a better presence East and later.
- steppe influences reached the area early and are noticeable
One E-M78 (I23126) is from the same site as an R1b individual (I23123) in the Transtisza area, in the mixed site of Urziceni-Vamă (Satu Mare County).
None of the E-M78 individuals has identified relatives, implying they might have come from outside.
It never made sense that we have E-M78 from Lengyel and Michelsberg in the West and Tripolye-Cucuteni in the East, but not from the Tisza-Transylvanian zone. That gap being closed!
www.biorxiv.org
