Physical trait PCA Ancient Europeans and World

A good job from Doggerland, 'the picture' of my parents and me.







Some educated guesses, a few remarks. I can only see this with a bird eye.

I guess my father and I come a bit more close to the Battle Axe/ Swedish Viking so more 'stereotype' Germanic phenotype, which as such is recognizable (although we are certainly not very high blond / blue eyed cheeseheads:kidding:).

My mother comes from a region which has the oldest continuous population (of course not jurassic park but still can contain bits and pieces from very ancient times). She is certainly for a North Dutch pretty darkish, dark hair, dark eyes, prominent nose....when I saw this reconstruction this is also recognizable.... but I'm aware of "hineininterpretieren' / projection Doggerland....may be this is case, I would be glad to know your opinion as designer of this all!

Iron Gates HG



Yamna

 
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May be this remarks of Maciamo are relevant too:

The high CHG admixture in elite Kurgan samples was not found in earlier Steppe cultures, apart from a single R1b sample from the Khvalynsk culture that differed from non-R1b samples in that regard. This indicates that a foreign intrusion from the South Caucasus is responsible for this unusually elevated CHG among the Yamna elite. The considerably lower CHG admixture observed in German Bell Beaker and Unetice samples (average 10%), whih represent the advance of R1b tribes into Central Europe, hints that the rest of the Yamna population had higher Mesolithic European and lower Caucasian ancestry than the Yamna samples tested to date, and could consequently have looked more like modern Scottish and Irish people. This would mean mixed blue and brown eyes, and mixed hair colours with brown hair being predominant, but with a sizeable minority of red hair and perhaps also blond hair. Blond hair appears to have originated among Mesolithic Northeast Europeans, and is therefore be more common in populations with high levels of (Baltic, Slavic and Germanic) R1a.
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The fact remains that the depigmentation of Europeans is a relatively recent phenomenom.

See Razib Khan's discussion of a paper I recently posted here on the site. The comments are particularly informative.
Razib Khan – Gene Expression (gnxp.com)
 
Angela said:
The fact remains that the depigmentation of Europeans is a relatively recent phenomenom.

See Razib Khan's discussion of a paper I recently posted here on the site. The comments are particularly informative.
Razib Khan – Gene Expression (gnxp.com)
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I guess that's absolute true......and may be the darker complex of my mother (I'm kind of mixed like my father) is due to the more 'ancient' influxes....but like to see the opinion of Doggerland.
 
Fwiw, the Iron Gates HG look like Amerindians from North America to me.

Makes sense. I remember one of the first Reich Lab papers putting the internet community into spasms because they thought there was evidence of Amerindian in Europeans.

"Two years ago, Reich's group uncovered genetic evidence that most present-day Europeans are a mixture of groups related to southern Europeans, Near Easterners, and a third group most closely related to Native Americans. “That was a crazy observation, but it's very strong statistically,” Reich says. “We argued that this is because of the contribution of an ancient north Eurasian population some of whose members contributed to the peopling of the Americas more than 15,000 years ago, and others of which later migrated to Europe.”"

The "southern" ancestry of the CHG changed the look somewhat, if these recreations are accurate, which is a open question, imo.
 
Angela said:
Fwiw, the Iron Gates HG look like Amerindians from North America to me.
.
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Yes this was my first impression too....if this reconstructions are accurat indeed.
 
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Angela said:
Fwiw, the Iron Gates HG look like Amerindians from North America to me.

Makes sense. I remember one of the first Reich Lab papers putting the internet community into spasms because they thought there was evidence of Amerindian in Europeans.
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According to the World PCA they don't posses any relevant East Asian/Native American related traits.
If they where somehow in that direction, it would have been detected, like it happened with the Tarim Mummies.
IronGatesHG don’t posses the East Asian EDAR alleles at rs3827760.
Their hair was likely wavy and dark brown. Their skin was brown, mixed eye color(Hazel or Green)
But they can look somehow Native American, if you consider “Fake Natives for TV Shows” also as looking like Natives:

https://www.turn-on.de/media/cache/...s/2019/01/Winnetou-old-shatterhand.jpg?994189

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AGkQmeyF43o/maxresdefault.jpg

What Reich was trying to say is that some European populations had Admixture related to Native Americans for example ANE. But Admixture is not based on physical traits.
For example two people can have nearly the same admixture, but look different.

If you have Admixture Studio, you can look what SNPs the calculators are using. It is a lot of SNPs, but they don’t use all those that are linked to physical traits so they cannot be used for predicting someones appearance.
And the most samples out there are too low in quality and don’t contain enough of them.

It is also a problem getting modern samples from private users. 23andMe and Tellmegen for example seem not to test for the most of them, while FTDNA is testing more. But you have to merge your RAW from different companies, to get as much SNPs for physical traits as possible.
 
Doggerland said:
According to the World PCA they don't posses any relevant East Asian/Native American related traits.
If they where somehow in that direction, it would have been detected, like it happened with the Tarim Mummies.
IronGatesHG don’t posses the East Asian EDAR alleles at rs3827760.
Their hair was likely wavy and dark brown. Their skin was brown, mixed eye color(Hazel or Green)
But they can look somehow Native American, if you consider “Fake Natives for TV Shows” also as looking like Natives:

https://www.turn-on.de/media/cache/...s/2019/01/Winnetou-old-shatterhand.jpg?994189

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AGkQmeyF43o/maxresdefault.jpg

What Reich was trying to say is that some European populations had Admixture related to Native Americans for example ANE. But Admixture is not based on physical traits.
For example two people can have nearly the same admixture, but look different.

If you have Admixture Studio, you can look what SNPs the calculators are using. It is a lot of SNPs, but they don’t use all those that are linked to physical traits so they cannot be used for predicting someones appearance.
And the most samples out there are too low in quality and don’t contain enough of them.

It is also a problem getting modern samples from private users. 23andMe and Tellmegen for example seem not to test for the most of them, while FTDNA is testing more. But you have to merge your RAW from different companies, to get as much SNPs for physical traits as possible.
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Question Doggerland: what are the features that my mother shares with Iron Gates HG?

'Their hair was likely wavy and dark brown' is at least recognizable ;) But may be there are other features at stake....
 
Northener said:
I guess that's absolute true......and may be the darker complex of my mother (I'm kind of mixed like my father) is due to the more 'ancient' influxes....but like to see the opinion of Doggerland.
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Data interpretation is a thing that is a little bit like a horoscope. There are always reasons why someone is clustering with samples or why not. Different sets of SNPs and different sample environments can create different results.

Many people already know that from the ancestry calculators on Getmatch or their different results from different companies or if a company is updating their database or algorithm.

“Oh now my results fit much better to my known ancestry!” Or the other way around: “Since the update it doesn't make sense anymore, we are from France and now my brother gets 25% french and I only got 5%!”

Finally there is always a kind of spectrum of the highest matches a person can have, depending on the used variables.

Northerner has inherited many of the alleles that where associated with ancient populations in the Euro PCA. Some people don’t have any of them or very few and then they will end up at a strange positions. For example the LinearPotWest sample on the far left of the PCA only had neolithic related alleles.

The GotlandViking on the bottom only had Steppe related ones.
That does not mean he never had any Neolithic or HG ancestors, but he don’t inherited the alleles that where once dividing those populations in a physical sense, he only got the ones from the Steppe.

Iron Gates Hunter Gatherers are known for their mixed ancestry, like it is also the case for Yamnaya or modern people. So it is generally more likely if someone has many different specific alleles inherited, that he or she will be near those samples.

Samples on the right of the PCA are European HGs, on the left are the Neolithic ones. The bottom is Steppe and at the top right the SHGs are hanging around.

Northerner has inherited alleles that make him in their composition more similar to a Swedish Viking, someone from the Battle Axe Culture and Michelsberg and the Western Linear Pottery (LinearPotWest2 HG mixed outlier)
Western Linear Pottery and Michelsberg had been Neolithic cultures near the Netherlands. Vikings where also present in the Netherlands, Battle Axe was once the dominating culture in Scandinavia and an offshoot of Corded Ware, which inhabited lager parts of Northern Europe.

I am most similar to Scythian2. If i cut the sample out, I am together with BattleAxe and AcientGreek in a cluster. The BattleAxe merge is most close to Cimmerians in terms of Ancestry Admixture (Cim357)
If I cut out these two, IronGatesHG is the closest to me.
I personally think this is accurate, because my great Grandfather(Mothers side) was from Austria-Hungary. My Fathers family is from Eastern Germany. Both my Father and my Grandmother where black haired, my grandmother had light brown skin.
The Scythian samples are the ones from Hungary, so it is not clear what they really where, just locals or "real" Scythians.
I am brachycephalic, brown haired, hazel eyes, broad face, aquiline nose, light skin.




Edit: I will look this evening, what is similar between your mother and Iron Gates HG.
 
@Doggerland, thanks!

Data interpretation is a thing that is a little bit like a horoscope. There are always reasons why someone is clustering with samples or why not. Different sets of SNPs and different sample environments can create different results.

Many people already know that from the ancestry calculators on Getmatch or their different results from different companies or if a company is updating their database or algorithm.

“Oh now my results fit much better to my known ancestry!” Or the other way around: “Since the update it doesn't make sense anymore, we are from France and now my brother gets 25% french and I only got 5%!”

Finally there is always a kind of spectrum of the highest matches a person can have, depending on the used variables.

Northerner has inherited many of the alleles that where associated with ancient populations in the Euro PCA. Some people don’t have any of them or very few and then they will end up at a strange positions. For example the LinearPotWest sample on the far left of the PCA only had neolithic related alleles.

The GotlandViking on the bottom only had Steppe related ones.
That does not mean he never had any Neolithic or HG ancestors, but he don’t inherited the alleles that where once dividing those populations in a physical sense, he only got the ones from the Steppe.

Iron Gates Hunter Gatherers are known for their mixed ancestry, like it is also the case for Yamnaya or modern people. So it is generally more likely if someone has many different specific alleles inherited, that he or she will be near those samples.

Samples on the right of the PCA are European HGs, on the left are the Neolithic ones. The bottom is Steppe and at the top right the SHGs are hanging around.
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Clear explanation, ok taken with salt a horoscope can be nice....;) I understand that the 'more mixed' in 'phenotype' SNP in Europe stay close to for example Yamna that already a somewhat mixed ancestry. Clear thanks.


Northerner has inherited alleles that make him in their composition more similar to a Swedish Viking, someone from the Battle Axe Culture and Michelsberg and the Western Linear Pottery (LinearPotWest2 HG mixed outlier)
Western Linear Pottery and Michelsberg had been Neolithic cultures near the Netherlands. Vikings where also present in the Netherlands, Battle Axe was once the dominating culture in Scandinavia and an offshoot of Corded Ware, which inhabited lager parts of Northern Europe.
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I guess basically in my region, top of the Netherlands along the North Sea Coast, are these influxes: Funnelbeakers> Single Grave Corded Ware> Bell Beakers> Unetice/BA> Anglo-Saxons> NW Germans (line East-Frisia-Westfalia)

You already see that the intermixture is rising also in terms of 'founding populations'. Single Grave and Unetic for example both came from the Central (bit Central East) room etc the Anglo-Saxons clearly from Schleswig/border Denmark etc.

So that "battle axe" and "michelsberg" kind of "phenotype snp's" could have been brought in by diverse influxes....

Nevertheless it stays at least a nice 'fun fact' to know this:
Edit: I will look this evening, what is similar between your mother and Iron Gates HG.
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in the knowledge that there are several ways that brought this specific phenotype SNP's into of specific "genetic pool" (in casus NE Dutch).

These Iron Gates HG could be part of what Olalde (2018) suggested (also published on BB blogger):
at Szigetszentmiklós in Hungary, we found roughly contemporary Beaker-complex-associated individuals with very different proportions (from 0% to 75%) of steppe-related ancestry. This genetic heterogeneity is consistent with early stages of mixture between previously established European Neolithic populations and migrants with steppe-related ancestry. One implication of this is that even at local scales, the Beaker complex was associated with people of diverse ancestries.
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and again Maciamo:
The considerably lower CHG admixture observed in German Bell Beaker and Unetice samples (average 10%), whih represent the advance of R1b tribes into Central Europe, hints that the rest of the Yamna population had higher Mesolithic European and lower Caucasian ancestry than the Yamna samples tested to date, and could consequently have looked more like modern Scottish and Irish people. This would mean mixed blue and brown eyes, and mixed hair colours with brown hair being predominant, but with a sizeable minority of red hair and perhaps also blond hair.
Click to expand...

Of course pure speculative!

It's at least nice to know which features my mother shares with the Iron Gate HG types. Curiosity killed the cat you know....
 
Perhaps Doggerland is really too modest with his model. Of course 25 SNP's are really not enough to come up with an opaque whole for the phenotype. But nevertheless. It seems more striking to me than a horoscope ;)





Because my mother came close to Iron Gates Mesolitic in the 'mix', I specifically asked him about it:



I was especially curious about the specific HG component. Including three face defining SNPs related to: a flat face, broader nostrils and a higher nasal angle(upturned nose). I share these three with my mother.


I don't think it's a coincidence that this trait shows up in many people especially in the Baltic, as the Baltic has the highest HG content in Europe.



In a general sense we have an unDutch high HG content, my mother even goes beyond the Scandinavian towards the Baltic.




My suspicion is that the horsocope of Doggerland is not far off....
 
So it's recommended to fill in the SNP list!!!
 
The genetic differences regarding the phenotype of European HGs, Steppe people, Neolithic people and SHGs are very few in comparison to the differences in world populations (European, Middle Eastern, African, East Asian). Only 29 SNPs reached a relevant difference in their occurrence in ancient Europeans.


There is a question of what to measure or not. Mathematical values and human ratings can be different and stand against each other. A unique allele of a SNP that creates a specific facial shape counts only 1 for the program, but can be rated by humans as very important for their racial classification.


For example there are some eye color related alleles that differed between those ancient populations. But most people would not rate eye color as a significant criteria of someones race. The data says yes, it is significant, human view says no. Who is right?


Another good example is light skin. There are different version of light skin, some are Neolithic, some HG and some are Steppe related.
That someone has light skin does not indicate a relationship to a single one of this populations. From the outside it is not possible to identify, which of the populations is responsible for the light skin of a European person, it depends on the specific alleles and can be multiple ones. Without a DNA test, no chance to say.


What counts more: The social world of humans, or what the data says?
This topic is not new, it was also often present in the US Media when racial passing was intensively discussed.


Some people posses not any of the ancient alleles. They are super-modern Europeans.
What would the average super-European look? I looked at the SNPs and used faceMaker.


Super-Modern(No ancient alleles):





Super-Mesolithic European(All Mesolithic alleles):





Super-SHG(All SHG alleles):





Super-Neolithic (All Neolithic alleles):





Super-Steppe (All Steppe alleles):


 
Doggerland said:
The genetic differences regarding the phenotype of European HGs, Steppe people, Neolithic people and SHGs are very few in comparison to the differences in world populations (European, Middle Eastern, African, East Asian). Only 29 SNPs reached a relevant difference in their occurrence in ancient Europeans.


There is a question of what to measure or not. Mathematical values and human ratings can be different and stand against each other. A unique allele of a SNP that creates a specific facial shape counts only 1 for the program, but can be rated by humans as very important for their racial classification.


For example there are some eye color related alleles that differed between those ancient populations. But most people would not rate eye color as a significant criteria of someones race. The data says yes, it is significant, human view says no. Who is right?


Another good example is light skin. There are different version of light skin, some are Neolithic, some HG and some are Steppe related.
That someone has light skin does not indicate a relationship to a single one of this populations. From the outside it is not possible to identify, which of the populations is responsible for the light skin of a European person, it depends on the specific alleles and can be multiple ones. Without a DNA test, no chance to say.


What counts more: The social world of humans, or what the data says?
This topic is not new, it was also often present in the US Media when racial passing was intensively discussed.


Some people posses not any of the ancient alleles. They are super-modern Europeans.
What would the average super-European look? I looked at the SNPs and used faceMaker.


Super-Modern(No ancient alleles):





Super-Mesolithic European(All Mesolithic alleles):





Super-SHG(All SHG alleles):





Super-Neolithic (All Neolithic alleles):





Super-Steppe (All Steppe alleles):


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I think this provides a very nice starting point!
 
I challenged Doggerland to make a face phenotype of me based on more than 100 phenotype snp's. And I guess the result is not bad!

This is the SNP prediction:



And this the real one, from a few years ago, (temporarily link I don't want to make it a 'freak show'):

-del-

I guess the resemblance is there!

Then the 'buddy's' from the past, my first match is Srubnaya, the second is Cheddar Man, the third Andronovo.



Two things. Obviously 'Steppe' and 'WHG' had partly the same kind of 'robustness'. And I guess man could have been a bit higher if he had a lighter skin. Nevertheless stays fascinating a modern man with a robust c.q. Steppe/ WHG appearance...

Nice link:
Anfänger said:
It's not speculative, it's just that with the data available today, dark is the most likely skin colour. Maybe they will detect other skin depigmentation genes in the future. The study also show strong selection for the main skin depigmentation genes in Europe, you wouldn't expect selection for these genes if the WHG cluster was light skinned but instead we see selection for light skin AFTER these skin depigmentation genes come into the gene pool of former WHGs, for example SHG or Anatolian farmers.


Very interesting and plausible explanation, starting at about 25:40 :
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Thanks to doggerland!!!
 
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Srubnaya (nr 1) on wiki:

The Srubnaya culture is generally considered to have been Iranian.[2][3] Its area, which coincides with the presence of Iranian hydronyms,[3] has been suggested as a staging region from which the Iranian peoples migrated across the Caucasus into the Iranian Plateau.[2]


Physical type
Physical remains of Srubnaya people have has revealed that they were massively built Europoids with largely dolichocephalic skulls. Skulls from the early (Pokrovskiy) phase of Srubnaya are purely dolichocephalic, and very similar to those of the earlier Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture, Abashevo culture and Sintashta culture, and the western areas of the contemporary Andronovo culture. They differ from the less dolichocephalic skulls of the Potapovka culture.


With the expansion of the Srubnaya culture onto the southern steppe, Srubnaya skulls become less dolichocephalic, probably through the absorption of elements from the earlier Yamnaya culture and Poltavka culture. In later phases however, dolichocephaly increases again among the Srubnaya. The physical type of the Srubnaya is very similar to that of the succeeding Scythians, suggesting that the Scythians were largely descended from the Srubnaya.
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Andronovo nr 3
Physical anthropology[edit]
The Andronovo have been described by archaeologists as exhibiting pronounced Europoid features.[30] The population of present-day Kazakhstan was Europoid during the Bronze and Iron Age period.[45]


Archaeological investigations likewise suggest that in the steppe region of Central Asia and the Altai Mountains, the first food production began towards the end of the third millennium BC and that the peoples who first entered this region were Caucasoid of the Afanasevo culture who came from the Aral Sea area (Kelteminar culture).[46]


Physical remains of the Andronovo has revealed that they were Europoids with dolichocephalic skulls. Andronovo skulls are very similar to those of the preceding Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture, Abashevo culture and Sintashta culture, and the contemporary Srubnaya culture. They differ slightly from the skulls of the Yamnaya culture, Poltavka culture, Catacomb culture and Potapovka culture, which although being of a similar robust Europoid type, are less dolichocephalic. The physical type of Abashevo, Sintashta, Andronovo and Srubnaya is later observed among the Scythians. Through Iranian and Indo-Aryan migrations, this physical type expanded southwards and mixed with aboriginal peoples, contributing to the formation of modern populations of India.[c]
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Srubnaya and Andronovo are closest phenotypically ? Northerner, you have officially become a Proto-Indo-Iranian.:laughing:
 
Anfänger said:
Srubnaya and Andronovo are closest phenotypically ? Northerner, you have officially become a Proto-Indo-Iranian.:laughing:
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Nevertheless WHG like-Cheddarman was in between them.....so close resemblances of these phenotypes?
 
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