Taking another look at the phylogenetic patterns of E-V13, I tried to categorise all old-main branches of first E-BY3880 and then the remaining E-V13 of old age into three categories.
1) Northern
2) Central or unclear because of lack of data
3) Southern
Typical for Northern branches is:
a) Lack of older, diversified Near Eastern branches, especially practically no testers from Arabian countries East of Syria and Iran. Very low relative presence in the Near East.
b) Many older branches with an exclusive presence in modern testers from Northern and Eastern Europe
c) Strong founder events in the Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age transition, most likely associated with Gáva-Holigrady and/or Belegis II-Gáva- and Vartop-Gáva.
d) Ancient DNA samples primarily from the Carpathian basin, barely any samples from Thrace and Moldova-Ukraine in the Early Iron Age period. Low frequency South of the Danube up to the Late Roman period.
Typical for Southern branches is:
a) Disproportional presence of Near Eastern branches, especially from Arabian countries and Iran. Very high relative presence in those regions.
b) Strong presence in Southern Italians and Greco-Turkish samples with old TMRCA and little overlap to Carpatho-Balkan and Eastern European samples.
c) Ancient DNA finds from Thrace, Moldova-Ukraine in the Early Iron Age and South of the Danube in general, including Mediterranean coast.
d) Many branches show "paradox pattern" in their distribution, having members from say Saudi Arabia and England in one younger subbranch.
e) Lack of the Late Bronze to Early Iron Age transition founder events. Barely any significant, disproportional growth associated with Gáva and Channelled Ware period expansions.
For E-BY3880 branches:
Rather Northern:
E-FT171969 (too young)
E-BY152493 (intermediate)
E-S10174 (intermediate)
E-FTT49/Z5018
E-Z5017
Rather central or unclear, not enough data:
E-BY6527 (intermediate)
E-Y19509
E-BY6484
E-BY6527
E-BY6250 (too young)
E-FT350463
Rather Southern:
E-FT334643 (too young)
E-BY6283 (intermediate)
E-Y16729
E-FGC44169/BY5022
For Non-E-BY3880 branches:
Rather Northern:
E-S3003/E-L540 (too young)
E-BY6550 (too young)
Rather central or unclear, not enough data:
E-Z16663 (characteristics of Northern and Southern branches)
Rather Southern:
E-FT7781
E-PH1246
What is astonishing if looking at the E-V13 phylogeny that way, is that the most clearly Northern branches are completely dominated by E-Z5018 primarily, and E-Z5017 secondarily, which is already a bit more Southern relatively speaking.
Contrary to that, many of the bigger, clearly assignable branches of E-V13 are in the Southern category like
E-FT7781
E-PH1246
E-Y16729
E-FGC44169/BY5022
But all in all, if concentrating on E-BY3880 primarily, we can conclude that it kind of "split in half" possibly. And this split happened soon after the emergence of these haplogroups, because of the vastly different pattern in the next generations of the new branches.
The central topic I'm thinking about in this context is the emergence of three groups:
1) Eastern Otomani-Wietenberg
2) Verbicoara-Tei
3) Vatin
The big question here is, could there be a common source group contributing to the emergence of all three, spreading E-BY3880 branches into them.
Obviously the most likely scenario is a transition from Nyirseg-local Transylvanian post-Cotofeni groups contributing to both Eastern Otomani, Wietenberg and Verbicoara.
What any scenario must achieve is how the main South Thracian branch of
E-FGC44169/BY5022 could end up in Verbicoara-Tei into Zimnicea-Plovdiv-Cerkovna or in a much less likely alternative scenario in Vatin and from there in Brnjica-Belegis.
Why? Because it must end up in the South Thracian groups which established themselves in the area later occupied by Psenichevo culture,
BEFORE the LBA-EIA transition expanson of Gáva-related Channelled Ware into the Balkans.
Why that?
Look at
https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/E-BY5022/tree
TMRCA of
E-FGC44169 is around 2200-2100 BC. It is has a lot of early branches, major founder events already 2000 BC, most notably E-BY5022, which had a
big growth spurt around 1700-1500 BC (when ZPC moved into Thrace!).
But despite all of this, despite its huge effective population size already in the EBA, it has very little going on for the LBA-EIA transition. Only two to four rather Northern oriented subbranches have any sort of expansion, and these are untypical (Northern oriented) for E-BY5022!
Therefore it looks like some E-BY5022 branches could have participated in the LBA-EIA expansion, even if only on a very limited base, but the bulk did most definitely not. Like if they were not attendants to the same party, not in the same population as the Northern oriented branches any longer.
And the reason for this is in my opinion that:
This could mean that some branches of e.g. E-BY5022 stayed behind in areas like Oltenia-Muntenia, the original source region for the Verbicoara-Tei/Fundeni-Govora groups. But all the typical branches with a significant growth in the ZPC expansion period, paradox pattern, Near Eastern branch members, ancient DNA finds (like in Kapitan Andreevo) where moving South of the blue line already by around 1700-1500 BC.
And I think the other "Southern pattern branches" did the same. This was a fairly big Southward push in the MBA-LBA.
On the other hand, the Northern branches, presumably from the Tisza-Transylvanian-Banat regions, moved into the Southern branches former homelands of Banat-Oltenia-Muntenia en masse, expanded there big time with Gáva, Belegis II-Gáva and Vartop, established themselves as dominant groups in Southern Romania - where those Southern branches ancestors lived before as well.
That's why the Southern branches were so strongly concentrated South of the Balkans and had way more gene flow into the Near East, than the Northern branches, with which they still lived together/in close proximity at the very least up to around 2300-2200 BC.
And I think a crucial split could have been between Wietenberg and Verbicoara.
Verbicoara has strong Glina-Schneckenberg traditions, but there was a break and massive transformation between G-S and Verbicoara. Then both Wietenberg and Verbicoara emerged and roughly about the same time, with many characteristics in common. This could have been a second pulse from post-Cotofeni Transylvania, in my opinion.
There was a zone of interaction between Balta Sarata, Verbicoara and Wietenberg. And I think that's absolutely crucial and where E-BY3880 expanded from, spreading into both Wietenberg-Eastern Otomani and Verbicoara.
On the close interaction of Otomani, Wietenberg, Balta Sarata and how Suciu de Sus and Cehalut can be derived from these interaction together with new Tumulus and Noua culture impulses in the LBA:
Looking to the location of late Wietenberg sites, it is obvious that most of them have a different position than the ones belonging to previous phase (III Chidioan or C Boroffka). These small-scale movements in the habitation area could be connected to the Noua penetration in Eastern Transylvania. However, the high frequency of Suciu de Sus and/or Cehlu pottery imports also points towards North-Western disturbances, maybe associated with the expansion of the Carpathian Tumulus Culture 89. It is important to stress the fact that only Suciu de Sus incised pottery is present in most of the Wietenberg IV sites, as C. Kacsó already noticed90. It is not easy to make a clear distinction between the Suciu de Sus and Cehlu pottery often mixed in late Wietenberg complexes from central and South-Western Transylvania. However, a Suciu de Sus biconical pot with incised decoration and protuberances could be identified in the Geoagiu de Sus pit (pl. I/1), with parallels both in Suciu de Sus I91 and Otomani IIIb92 sites. Several Cehlu-type bowls are to be found in the Mhceni ritual pit (pl. II/3-4, 6), one of them (pl. II/6) with perfect parallels in the Acâ- Crasna Veche site93. A perforated lid (?) from the same Mhceni pit94 has an almost identical parallel in the Lucceni site95. Cehlu-type bowls with large conical knobs are widespread in the late Wietenberg sites96, but we would like to stress the replacement of grooves with „Zahnstempelung“ bands in the Alba Iulia–Ijac site.97 Together with the arcades decorated in the “Zahnstempelung” technique from Aiton “Locul lui Pou” site98, these finds are clear proofs for the reproduction of Cehlu-type motifs and shapes in a traditional Wietenberg technique. This is just one side of the complex cultural interferences that took place during the Late Bronze I period in Central and Southern Transylvania. In the Haeg region, the Wietenberg culture came into contact with Balta Srat group99, a relation which evolved up to phase IV (D), as the finds from the Cauce Cave seems to illustrate100. The fragment of a typical Noua kantharos with disc-shaped button on its handle was also found in the same site101 .
What happened after the Noua invasion:
The Late Bronze I is represented by the last phase of the Wietenberg culture in Western Transylvania and the penetration of the Noua I groups in the Southern part, while Suciu de Sus II and early Cehalut phase covers the North and North–West.
This would have caused a wedge between the Southern groups (Verbicoara-Tei) and the Northern ones (Otomani-Wietenberg), with the locals (Eastern Otomani-Wietenberg) retreating to North and North West-West - forming Suciu de Sus and Cehalut (this is exaclty the time frame for E-Z5018 starting to expand!).
The Late Bronze II is the time of major expansion of the Noua culture (phase II) over Central and South-Western Transylvania, while late Cehalut and Igrita groups evolve in the West and Lapus group start its development in the Northern area. Probably late Balta Srat and Igria mixed groups are present in a quite limited area from the South–West (mainly the Haeg region, with intrusions towards Hunedoara and Deva). By the end of this phase, the early elements of the Band-Cugir group probably penetrated from the North-West and reach the middle Mures valley.
In the next phase the offensive of the Gáva- and Belegis II-Gáva, related groups start:
The Late Bronze III is divided in two sub-phases, according to the evolution of the early Gáva phase. Late Bronze IIIa is represented by the Band-Cugir group in the West and the late Noua (phase III) in the South-East, while Lapus II group develops common features with the earliest Gáva (Ia) groups from the North-West. A limited penetration of the Susani group could be detected in South-Western Transylvania. Late Bronze IIIb represents the time of the early Gáva (phase Ib) expansion over the Central and Southern Transylvania, up to Southern Carpathians.
Source:
The Late Bronze Age in Transylvania
www.academia.edu
The Southern branches of E-V13 must be separated from the Northern ones in the MBA-LBA, and there are just two viable scenarios for that talking about the BY3880 split:
1) Verbicoara-Tei split from Balta Sarata-Wietenberg-Eastern Otomani
2) Vatin-Verbicoara split, with later Belegis and Brnjia starting to move South too
Currently I'm strongly preferring the 1st scenario, because it fits the whole chain of events much better, especially the Z5018 vs. BY5022 split.
