R1b and Native Americans

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ericrdpilot

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Location
Southwest Michigan
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US/Dutch
Y-DNA haplogroup
R1b1a2
mtDNA haplogroup
K
The more I learn about genetics's, the more confused I get. Many native tribes in the America's have a large percentage of the R1b haplogroup. This seems to be the only European haplogroup that made its way to the across the Atlantic. Any one have an opinion on this?
 
This has been discussed before. In some cases, it's reported as R, not further defined, but wherever there's sufficient information available, it's clearly R1b. For example, the Ojibwe appear to be nearly 80% R1B and only 4% other "European" Y haplotypes, but it's nevertheless been assumed by researchers so far that all the R1b is from post-contact sources. Interestingly enough, the non-Dene groups that seem to have high R1b are also the groups that have significant mtDNA X2. Among the Ojibwe, the amount of X2 is 22%, I believe.

My own opinion is that it doesn't make sense to assume that all the R1b is recent European, unless there's a problem with the sampling methods. Although I do think that a problem with the sampling methods is a definite possibility, given the small sampling sizes so far, and the fact that the more traditional Native people seem to shun DNA testing because of doubts about the motives of the testers.

From what I've seen, the position of any professional geneticists who've commented on the issue seems to be "All the R1b is recent, post-contact European DNA and the reason we know it must be is because any subclade information shows that it's the same subclades as European R1b, so shut the eff up about the whole subject."
 
FrankN said:
If I understand correctly, the Ojibwe are geographically linked to the "Old Copper Complex", and the "Hopewell tradition". Do such linkages also exist for other Native American tribes with elevated percentages of hgs R/X2?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Copper_Complex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopewell_tradition
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Some of the other tribes that have elevated levels of R1b are in northwestern Canada and in some cases are Dene. Plus, there are apparently high rates of R1b among the Dene who migrated into the southern U.S. about 400 years ago (the Navaho and Apache). Of course, there are other tribes in eastern and central North America that have significant amounts of R1b but they also have significant amounts of other "European" Y haplotypes and a history of heavy intermarriage with whites, so I wouldn't make too much of the R1b in those tribes - examples are MicMac, Quebec Cree and Cherokee. But it is odd that at least one Dene tribe has about 40% R1b and apparently no other "European" haplotypes and that the Ojibwe, which historical records would suggest have less admixture than some tribes, have nearly 80% R1b and only about 3% other "European" R1b. So the distribution might suggest that some group of Siberian R1b types, perhaps distant descendants of Mal"ta Boy's relatives, migrated across the Bering Straits after the initial peopling of the Americas and that some of them eventually settled around the Great Lakes, where there was copper to be had. Except that in order for that theory to work, the R1b should consist of unique subclades, and I'm not aware of anyone finding any so far.

At this point, I'd still be inclined to consider the possibility of sampling issues. If you look up the original studies, the number of samples is fairly small, and I don't know what the selection criteria were.
 
I think there are some R1b in Nepal.
 
oriental said:
I think there are some R1b in Nepal.
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There's R1b in many parts of the world, but none to speak of in Siberia. In any case, the R1b among Native Americans doesn't seem to differ from European DNA. If the subclades were markedly different, I think someone would have noticed. The amount of R1b among some Native American groups can be explained by recent admixture, but the amount that seems to be there in some tribes (all out of proportion to evidence for admixture and all out of proportion to other "European" Y haplotypes) just doesn't seem to fit any reasonable explanation, IMO.
 
Aberdeen said:
Some of the other tribes that have elevated levels of R1b are in northwestern Canada and in some cases are Dene. Plus, there are apparently high rates of R1b among the Dene who migrated into the southern U.S. about 400 years ago (the Navaho and Apache). Of course, there are other tribes in eastern and central North America that have significant amounts of R1b but they also have significant amounts of other "European" Y haplotypes and a history of heavy intermarriage with whites, so I wouldn't make too much of the R1b in those tribes - examples are MicMac, Quebec Cree and Cherokee. But it is odd that at least one Dene tribe has about 40% R1b and apparently no other "European" haplotypes and that the Ojibwe, which historical records would suggest have less admixture than some tribes, have nearly 80% R1b and only about 3% other "European" R1b. So the distribution might suggest that some group of Siberian R1b types, perhaps distant descendants of Mal"ta Boy's relatives, migrated across the Bering Straits after the initial peopling of the Americas and that some of them eventually settled around the Great Lakes, where there was copper to be had. Except that in order for that theory to work, the R1b should consist of unique subclades, and I'm not aware of anyone finding any so far.

At this point, I'd still be inclined to consider the possibility of sampling issues. If you look up the original studies, the number of samples is fairly small, and I don't know what the selection criteria were.
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Thanks! That doesn't really look like a R1b spread along the Mississippi system promoted by the Hopewell tradition. Do we know about sub-clades? In a post-Columbian scenario, escaped Yoruba slaves might have played a role, especially a concerns tribes in the SE USA. The Ojibve could have shown a special kind of hospitality to early French trappers and traders, many of which might have originated in R1b-rich areas such as the Bay of Biscay.
There is the possible Nordic connection, and Vikings might not have been the first people making it from Scandinavia via Iceland and Greenland to North America (but such a scenario would of course imply substantial R1b presence on the Norwegian coast during earlier climate optimums, i.e. at least during the Roman age, which is questionable). Nevertheless, a spread along the east coast, as well as via the Hudson Bay and the river & lake systems of the North-West Territories could explain quite a lot of the geographical pattern. A hypothetical Phoenician link can probably be ruled out - it should have transported other hgs on top of R1b, and carried it further into the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. In the Mal'ta boy scenario, I would expect R1b to be similarly highly concentrated in Eastern Siberia as it is in Alaska , which it isn't. Furthermore, as Ojibwe appear to have originally lived much closer to the East Coast, how did they get there from Alaska without leaving genetic footprints?
It's all quite mysterious. I guess, aside from a deeper breakdown of the genetic structure of Native Americans, we also need to know a lot more about their prehistory.
 
FrankN said:
Thanks! That doesn't really look like a R1b spread along the Mississippi system promoted by the Hopewell tradition. Do we know about sub-clades? In a post-Columbian scenario, escaped Yoruba slaves might have played a role, especially a concerns tribes in the SE USA. The Ojibve could have shown a special kind of hospitality to early French trappers and traders, many of which might have originated in R1b-rich areas such as the Bay of Biscay.
There is the possible Nordic connection, and Vikings might not have been the first people making it from Scandinavia via Iceland and Greenland to North America (but such a scenario would of course imply substantial R1b presence on the Norwegian coast during earlier climate optimums, i.e. at least during the Roman age, which is questionable). Nevertheless, a spread along the east coast, as well as via the Hudson Bay and the river & lake systems of the North-West Territories could explain quite a lot of the geographical pattern. A hypothetical Phoenician link can probably be ruled out - it should have transported other hgs on top of R1b, and carried it further into the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. In the Mal'ta boy scenario, I would expect R1b to be similarly highly concentrated in Eastern Siberia as it is in Alaska , which it isn't. Furthermore, as Ojibwe appear to have originally lived much closer to the East Coast, how did they get there from Alaska without leaving genetic footprints?
It's all quite mysterious. I guess, aside from a deeper breakdown of the genetic structure of Native Americans, we also need to know a lot more about their prehistory.
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As far as I know, nobody has looked at the samples deeply enough to check the subclades. However, I would assume that by now some of the Ojibwe would have had their DNA tested for personal reasons, and I haven't read anything about unique subclades of R1b showing up among Native people who chose to get tested. As for the east coast thing, the levels of R1b are lower among the more eastern tribes than they are among the Ojibwe and some of the Dene, and they also show significant levels of other "European" haplotypes, such as R1A and I1, so the R1b in those tribes can be explained by significant recent European admixture. The oddly high levels of R1b show up among some of the Dene and also in some tribes that traditionally lived above and below the Great Lakes (Ojibwe and a few other groups), rather than on the east coast. Maybe the Hudson Bay Company only employed Irishmen. Except I know that wasn't the case. And it wouldn't explain why the Apache and Navaho, Dene speaking people who migrated from northern Canada to the southwestern part of the U.S. a few hundred years ago, appear to have surprisingly high levels of R1b.

I can't see a good explanation for the situation.
 
Well, maybe we will figure it out someday. Thanks for your thoughts. I will contemplate on it some more.
 
Aberdeen said:
There's R1b in many parts of the world, but none to speak of in Siberia. In any case, the R1b among Native Americans doesn't seem to differ from European DNA. If the subclades were markedly different, I think someone would have noticed. The amount of R1b among some Native American groups can be explained by recent admixture, but the amount that seems to be there in some tribes (all out of proportion to evidence for admixture and all out of proportion to other "European" Y haplotypes) just doesn't seem to fit any reasonable explanation, IMO.
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we all know now from ancient DNA, R was in Siberia 35000 years ago, before the last ice age
they seem to be swept away by the ice age, but these fugitives did quite well

there is some R1 left in the extreme far east of Siberia, next to Alaska, another indication that not all R1 among native Americans is due to European admixture
 
Aberdeen said:
There's R1b in many parts of the world, but none to speak of in Siberia. In any case, the R1b among Native Americans doesn't seem to differ from European DNA. If the subclades were markedly different, I think someone would have noticed. The amount of R1b among some Native American groups can be explained by recent admixture, but the amount that seems to be there in some tribes (all out of proportion to evidence for admixture and all out of proportion to other "European" Y haplotypes) just doesn't seem to fit any reasonable explanation, IMO.
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There's a new paper out by Stanford, Bradley, and Oppenheimer on the genetic aspects of the Solutrean hypothesis here: http://www.academia.edu/9562579/Solu...th_in_the_room In the paper, this is what they say about Y-dna R1 in Native Americans:

“In geographic plots, R1 frequencies in native populations, of the Great Lakes/ Algonquian-speakers stand out as the great majority, having among the highest worldwide R1 rates (e.g., Malhi et al. 2008; and World frequency map as of 1 June 2014), even higher than non-western Europe and far higher than other Native Americans (c. 0 – 10 per cent). When further characterized in the USA (Hammer et al. 2005), 97 per cent of R1 had the M269 SNP (unambiguous Single Nucleotide Polymorphism), which defines R1b1b, the main West European Y-haplogroup, which possibly originated there before the LGM (Morelli et al. 2010). The less-reliable P25 was used in an earlier US study (Zegura et al. 2004).

The main problem with interpreting unusually high Y-R1 frequencies in Northeast Native Americans, is that the published SNP characterization is still too poorly resolved in all studies to differentiate ancient migration from post-Columbian introduced R1. STR (Short Tandem Repeats – more rapidly mutating, but less reliable than SNPs) characterization of R1, however, indicates a substantial proportion of derived, STR-haplotypes not shared with Europeans (Bolnick, Bolnick, and Smith 2006, Fig 6b; Zegura et al. 2004, Fig. 5). This would not be expected if those R1 STR types were all recent European introductions, and could be consistent with being derived from more ancient founders. While better phylogenetic resolution is needed, these results, far from refuting the SH, are more consistent with its predictions than solely with massive recent male replacement.”

So, some people have noticed STR differences, at least. I suspect there’s reluctance on the part of academic geneticists to consider the Solutrean hypothesis for fear of harming their careers or not getting the funding. There are many examples of this overlooking the ancient trans-Atlantic crossing scenario in other papers illustrated throughout the paper. That’s why the paper’s titled: “Solutrean hypothesis: genetics, the mammoth in the room”.

Also, in the Lazaridis et al 2014 paper they give an admixture graph on page 11 of the paper here: http://genetics.med.harvard.edu/reic...Ancestries.pdf

For the highest level, K=20, the Algonquin bar-graph appears to have some European-like admixture, although it seems to lack the West Asian component -- though maybe the sample size isn’t sufficient and it is recent European admixture.
 
When further characterized in the USA (Hammer et al. 2005), 97 per cent of R1 had the M269 SNP (unambiguous Single Nucleotide Polymorphism), which defines R1b1b, the main West European Y-haplogroup, which possibly originated there before the LGM (Morelli et al. 2010).
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Honestly, I find it quite ridiculous that anybody would still adhere to the LGM Cantabrian refuge origin hypothesis for R1b, because its totally against all the evidence that we do have. The oldest sample of R1b in Europe is from the Kromsdorf site, from circa 2600 to 2500 BC, and there hasn't been a single evidence of R1b from the multitude of Neolithic sites. Indeed, we shouldn't expect one, because the "tree" of R1b suggests that its oldest subclades were located decisively outside of western Europe.

I think its fairly obvious that this Native American R1b must be of more recent European origin.
 
JS Bach said:
Also, in the Lazaridis et al 2014 paper they give an admixture graph on page 11 of the paper here: http://genetics.med.harvard.edu/reic...Ancestries.pdf

For the highest level, K=20, the Algonquin bar-graph appears to have some European-like admixture, although it seems to lack the West Asian component -- though maybe the sample size isn’t sufficient and it is recent European admixture.
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It is possible that this admixture comes directly from Europe (Celts? Basques? I also read somewhere someone proposing that Basque language originated in America, odd thought.).
But the European-like admixture in Amerindians like Algonquin is always accompanied by East-Asian admixture (yellow) at K<12, which is otherwise lacking (not really lacking, but subsumed under the "new" Chipewyan component). For K>11 it gets almost subsumed under Chipewyan.
Second, the Aleuts and Tlingit appear even more "european"-like admixed than Algonquins, which is very unlikely. I think the European-like plus East-Asian admixture in Algonquin is just a lightly altered "Chipewyan" component where the calculator failed to identify it as such due to the minor alterations. A similar effect like for Chipewyan can be seen for the Kalash. Therefore I rather believe this European-like admixture comes from paleolithic siberian. Maybe even R1b came from paleolithic siberia.
 
ElHorsto said:
It is possible that this admixture comes directly from Europe (Celts? Basques? I also read somewhere someone proposing that Basque language originated in America, odd thought.).
But the European-like admixture in Amerindians like Algonquin is always accompanied by East-Asian admixture (yellow) at K<12, which is otherwise lacking (not really lacking, but subsumed under the "new" Chipewyan component). For K>11 it gets almost subsumed under Chipewyan.
Second, the Aleuts and Tlingit appear even more "european"-like admixed than Algonquins, which is very unlikely. I think the European-like plus East-Asian admixture in Algonquin is just a lightly altered "Chipewyan" component where the calculator failed to identify it as such due to the minor alterations. A similar effect like for Chipewyan can be seen for the Kalash. Therefore I rather believe this European-like admixture comes from paleolithic siberian. Maybe even R1b came from paleolithic siberia.
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One would expect to see more European admixture showing up in autosomal samples from eastern Algonquins simply because they've been in touch with Europeans longer than any group of Native Americans other than Mexicans and some South American groups and are in fact fairly admixed. That's why they have significant levels of other "European" Y DNA. I do find it puzzling that some other Native groups with less recorded European admixture have huge amounts of R1b and very little trace of other "European" haplotypes. I also find it odd that high levels of R1b don't show up among groups that have been in contact with the Spanish for centuries. However, given the small number of samples and the bias against DND testing among the more traditional Native types, I don't think we can rule out sample bias.
 
Could have been from Vikings, that's 1,000 years ago. Long enough for R1b to spread around.
 
Does anyone know off hand how the levels of R1b correlate with the levels of mtDna X2 in North American Indians? Are both high in the same tribes? What might that tell us?
 
Angela said:
Does anyone know off hand how the levels of R1b correlate with the levels of mtDna X2 in North American Indians? Are both high in the same tribes? What might that tell us?
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There is some correlation between Y haplotype R1b and mtDNA X2. The most noticeable example is the Ojibwe tribe, a quite numerous group centred around the Great Lakes. Mostly R1b and over 20% X2 according to a couple of studies, although the sample sizes were small. And it can be confusing because the Algonquin, Ojibwe, Chippewa and Saulteaux tribes are closely related and different bands are given different labels by different researchers. Although the Chipewayan are a different group than the Chippewa. Confused yet?
 
Actually guys; I believe it is R-M173. I would say that Natives with R1b have a recent European paternal contribution. R1b and R-M173 are split separated by thousands upon thousands of years; and I don't believe they are the same clades, but both are derivative of R.


It is about as significant as finding E or E1b1b seen both in fair-skinned Europeans (E-V13) and Sub-Saharan Africans with dark skin.
 
Melancon said:
Actually guys; I believe it is R-M173. I would say that Natives with R1b have a recent European paternal contribution. R1b and R-M173 are split separated by thousands upon thousands of years; and I don't believe they are the same clades, but both are derivative of R.
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"R-M173" is another way of saying R1. R1b is a type of R1, of course. The reason you see "R-M173" in studies and maps of Native Americans in generally because they didn't test more specifically than R1. That, of course, is no evidence that the R1 present in Native Americans is from a pre-Columbian source. In fact, I've yet to see a single haplotype in a Native American R1 carrier that is best explained by a pre-Columbian source. If we're talking Solutrean, it would have to be a very ancient branch, about 17k years old at least, which is a good deal older than R1b in Europe anyway.
 
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