Y-DNA from Germany in the 300s-400s AD shows 58% frequency of I1 and not much R1b

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Tomenable

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12 samples from Görzig (Saxony-Anhalt) dated to the 300s-400s AD, of whom 7 or 8 were I1:

I1 --------------------------------------------------------- 7 (~58%)
I (likely I2 but can be some Russian clade of I1) ---- 1 (~8%)
R1b ------------------------------------------------------- 1 (~8%)
R1 (most likely R1a, or some eastern R1b) ----------- 1 (~8%)
R1 (likely R1b but can be R1a-Z284 or L664) -------- 2 (~17%)

Source (see Table 3. on page 6 out of 7): LINK

Location of Görzig:

karte_g%C3%B6rzig.png


This shows that Ancient Germania was dominated by I1, not by R1b like today.

In this sample I1 is between 58% and 67%, while in modern Germany just 16%.

==========================

R1b came to dominate what is now Germany only as the result of Frankish conquest:

Here is my hypothesis:

1) Frankish realm = R1b majority; Germanic tribes between Rhine and Elbe, including Saxons = I1 / I majority:

6th+century.png


The extent of the Frankish realm in the 5th century and its early expansion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJHEXQdtt6Q

Frankish_homeland.jpg


2) Franks expand into Pagan Saxons, Thuringians and others; with Frankish authority come many R1b settlers:

9th+century.png


3) Further expansion of East Francia - or Germany as it is now called - into Slavic lands between Elbe and Oder:

12th+century.png


Settlers who expanded into lands between Rhine and Oder came mostly from these areas:

Ostsiedlung.png


"Ostsiedlung" settlers came from areas which are today the Netherlands, Belgium, and the French-German borderland. Most of them spoke West Germanic dialects, but many also spoke Romance (e.g. Walloons). Ashkenazi Jews were part of that too.

Many came from westernmost parts of modern Germany (the Rhineland). Many also came from Friesland (Frisia).

Modern situation (numerically dominant haplogroup by country):

Of course details are wrong in this map (for example, the most numerous hg in Sardinia is in fact I2):

Obecnie.png
 
Modern Germans are largely descendants of settlers from the French-Dutch-Belgian-German borderland and from Southern Germany who re-populated Central, Northern and Eastern Germany during the Medieval "Ostsiedlung". In Ancient Germania and in Early Medieval times after the Migration Period, haplogroup frequencies in what is now Central & Eastern Germany were much different than now.

Even Pagan Saxons were decimated by Charlemagne, and huge immigration of West Frankish settlers to their lands took place.

So Northern Germany is also different than it used to be before the bloody conquest of Saxons by Charlemagne. Probably before Charlemagne Northern Germany was dominated by I1 (like modern Denmark is), and only after Charlemagne by R1b.

Remember, that we already do have an Anglo-Saxon ancient DNA sample from England, and it turned out to be I1.

We also have Roman era Y-DNA from Britain, and among it there were 2 samples of R1b-U106.

So the presence of U106 in what is now England actually pre-dated the Anglo-Saxon conquest.

Anglo-Saxons who came to Britain, were probably mostly I1. Just like Pagan Saxons before Charlemagne.

The conquest of Saxons by the Frankish Empire lasted around four decades (years 772 - 804).

We don't know how many died and how many survived, but sources indicate that losses were very heavy. For example in year 782 Charlemagne massacred 4500 Southern Saxon captives. In 795-798 there was enslavement and forcible population transfers of Northern Saxons. In year 804 Charlemagne expelled over 10,000 Northern Saxon families to Gaul - their descendants speak French today, and are no longer parts of the gene pool of modern Germans. In 798 in the battle of Bornhöved 3000-4000 Saxons were killed. These are just some examples of war crimes and casualties inflicted by Charlemagne and his allies against Pagan Saxons - there were more casualties for sure. About the massacre of 4500 captured Saxon warriors in 782: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Verden

What is now Northern Germany was largely devastated and depopulated during those wars.

Saxon lands were then largely re-populated by western settlers coming from Western Francia.

It seems that Thuringian genetic distinctiveness surived better until the present-day than Saxon.

Thuringia has the lowest frequency of R1b-U106 and the highest of I2a2 out of all regions of Germany.

This is probably the reason why 23andMe cannot genetically distinguish French people from Germans today (see the link):

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?5236-23andme-s-quot-German-Problem-quote

The same process (depopulation + repopulation by Western settlers) later took place after crusades against Pagan Slavs.

You can read about this for example in the following book:

Gerald Stone, "Slav Outposts in Central European History: The Wends, Sorbs and Kashubs"
 
Thanks for the info.
 
I'm not sufficiently proficient in ancient German history to judge, but it's a very interesting theory, Tomenable. If true, that might explain why the "northern" yDna associated with Lombard sites in Italy is almost always I1. Of course, that leaves U-106 to be explained.
 
There is also Y-DNA from 13th century (1200s AD - "Ostsiedlung" era) Berlin, and it is 100% R1b.

But the sample size is in this case very small - just 2 boys, both of whom are R1b (one of them was surely U106):

LINK

They examined autosomal DNA too, but only write about eye colour, not about affinities to modern populations.
 
Tomenable said:
There is also Y-DNA from 13th century (1200s AD - "Ostsiedlung" era) Berlin, and it is 100% R1b.

But the sample size is in this case very small - just 2 boys, both of whom are R1b (one of them was surely U106):

LINK

They examined autosomal DNA too, but only write about eye colour, not about affinities to modern populations.
Click to expand...

Thanks Tomenable, but 12 is also a relatively SMALL sample; I would not build a theory upon so small sample. And I doubt it could reflect East Germany at this time.
Have you details about the auDNA of these people and their origin(s)?: are they not relatives, kind of brethren?
Frisons speak a language akin in a big part to anglo-saxon but with some phonetic evolutions close to the scandinavian ones (ancient TH >> T, F = F (opposed to dutch V), S (opposed to german and dutch Z) + Frisons are very nordiclike, but they show the maximum for Y-R1b-U106 spite they have also a high % of Y-I1 (28% in some survey). Sure, the S>>Z and F>>V evolution in dutch and fleming and partly in german could be a west-germanic late evolution showing a distinct origin of West and Eats Germanic tribes.
or otherwise a Belgae celtic evolution (by substrata) ;
whatever the cause of some voicing for S and F, it could be not directly linked to Y-U106. My thought is Y-I1 and Y-R1bU106 mixed in North-Germany before 500 BC at least, the only difference being in the respective ratio's for West and East. I posted already about this stuff, in a thread about U106, I think. West Scandinavian have respectable amount of U106, and U106 looses weight gradually southwards compared to other R1b, showing it is not a SO WESTERN PHENOMENON; I'm still waiting serious samples for Walloonia and Luxemburg concerning U106 and U152.

And is the strong enough percentage of Y-R1bU106 in Estonia the only result of late germanic colonisations? I avow I lack precise knowledge here.
 
concerning auDNA of French and German people, uneasy to tell one of another for some DNA companies, in more than a plotting they are clearly distinguished as a whole, except some mergin indivudual cases.
 
Tomenable said:
12 samples from Görzig (Saxony-Anhalt) dated to the 300s-400s AD, of whom 7 or 8 were I1:

I1 --------------------------------------------------------- 7 (~58%)
I (likely I2 but can be some Russian clade of I1) ---- 1 (~8%)
R1b ------------------------------------------------------- 1 (~8%)
R1 (most likely R1a, or some eastern R1b) ----------- 1 (~8%)
R1 (likely R1b but can be R1a-Z284 or L664) -------- 2 (~17%)

Source (see Table 3. on page 6 out of 7): LINK

Location of Görzig:

karte_g%C3%B6rzig.png


This shows that Ancient Germania was dominated by I1, not by R1b like today.

In this sample I1 is between 58% and 67%, while in modern Germany just 16%.
Click to expand...

Lets clear up the position of the Saxon homelands in the period you mentioned ......................it was always stated that the Saxons lived on the north sea coast between the frisians in modern netherlands and the angels in and around the german-danish border.
They spoke an old-germanic language associated with the frisian language ............actually frisians lived also in pockets on the coast from Netherlands to Denmark.
Frisian is the father of the English language.

When the Romans left Britain , the saxons logically should still have been on the coast to migrate to Britain around 400AD ................they now live on the old east german-west german border. So , what marker was the saxons on the coast?

BTW..........the Vandals where I1, I2a1 and R1b
 
Ah, we have ancient Vandal y dna as well?
 
This is related to important part of history. End of Roman Empire, just before big population movements and expansion of Slavs there.


Tomenable said:
Remember, that we already do have an Anglo-Saxon ancient DNA sample from England, and it turned out to be I1.
Click to expand...
And now we have a place where Saxons migrated, Saxony. All rich in I1. Definitely a marker of Saxons.

You also might be right that Francs were U106 dominant and all middle ages east expansion brought lots of U106 to Eastern Europe.

This means that 2 germanic tribes carry different Y dominant haplogroups. In this case I wouldn't be surprised to see other dominant haplogroups in Vandals or Goths.
In this sample I1 is between 58% and 67%, while in modern Germany just 16%.
Click to expand...
Seems like Germans came through recent drastic changes.

 
LeBrok said:
This is related to important part of history. End of Roman Empire, just before big population movements and expansion of Slavs there.


And now we have a place where Saxons migrated, Saxony. All rich in I1. Definitely a marker of Saxons.

You also might be right that Francs were U106 dominant and all middle ages east expansion brought lots of U106 to Eastern Europe.

This means that 2 germanic tribes carry different Y dominant haplogroups. In this case I wouldn't be surprised to see other dominant haplogroups in Vandals or Goths.

[/COLOR]Seems like Germans came through recent drastic changes.
Click to expand...

Maybe the original Franks were also mostly I1 but absorbed a lot of r1b from their conquests to the west. Population density was likely far higher in post-Roman Gaul than in Germania due to the technological differences. So a lot of the Romans/Gauls would have been absorbed by them, passing on their language and culture and therefore also ethnic identity.
 
Tomenable said:
Remember, that we already do have an Anglo-Saxon ancient DNA sample from England, and it turned out to be I1.

We also have Roman era Y-DNA from Britain, and among it there were 2 samples of R1b-U106.

So the presence of U106 in what is now England actually pre-dated the Anglo-Saxon conquest.

Anglo-Saxons who came to Britain, were probably mostly I1. Just like Pagan Saxons before Charlemagne.
Click to expand...

I'm still not seeing any real reason to come to this conclusion.

One single person in this context is largely meaningless. If that Anglo-Saxon I1 sample had instead been R1a, it wouldn't be logical to conclude Angles or Saxons were probably mostly R1a.

The two Roman-era U106 samples from Britain have affinities to northeastern European (Polish/Lithuanian, IIRC) populations, which rather suggests that they weren't purely the product of some large/long-settled pre-Germanic British population of U106. On the other hand, we know that people have been coming to Britain for a long time...a third of the remains from that Bronze/Iron Age grave in Kent came from Scandinavia (where, as I pointed out in the other thread, our oldest U106 remains were from: Corded Ware southern Sweden). So U106 in Britain prior to larger-scale Germanic invasions isn't any sort of proof that it isn't Germanic, or that I1 is "more Germanic," or that Germanic peoples were predominantly I1, etc.

The most likely scenarios still seem (to me, at least, and speaking with large generalizations) to be that either Germanic languages are the product of R1b Indo-Europeans and I1 pre-Indo-Europeans mingling, or I1 Indo-Europeanized by R1a, with Germanic the result of further mingling with U106. In either case, there's again no reason to think that that I1 is "more Germanic," or that Germanic peoples were predominantly I1, etc.

If the argument is going to be "the U106 is Frankish," it still doesn't address the question of why it's more common in Anglo-Saxon-Frisian areas than the "real Saxon" I1. While that could be explained by any number of factors (founder effects, etc.), it rather seems to be putting the cart ahead of the horse, as we're left wondering why we're assuming the Franks were Celts (or whatever) that were Germanicized by "real Germanic" I1, or absorbed so much "Celtic U106," or whatever. It seems like retroactive reasoning to support a conclusion rather than evidence supporting a conclusion.

All that said, I suppose it could be true.
 
Thanks a lot Tomenable. England has huge amounts of R1b-U106, almost as much as Germany does. Anglo Saxons brought most of it. The U106s from those Gladiators were exceptions and not the norm. We also have to take a deep look at U106 diversity. There's some clearly West Germanic-clades, that many of the U106s in England belong to and the Gladiators did not have.
 
what is the origin of the Franks? what is the origin of the Saxons?
both probably came from the north but can there be pointed to an area of origin?
aren't they the result of merging and fusion of older tribes?
wouldn't their Y-DNA be a mixture?

for some reason Charlemagne couldn't get along with the Saxons, while it was easier for him to integrate other subdued people into his empire
maybe the Saxons were just to proud to give up their identity
in spite of these wars and defeats there was still a 'Saxon identity' and language left in the middle ages :

http://lowlands-l.net/grammar-new/saxons.php
 
Le Brok said:
This means that 2 germanic tribes carry different Y dominant haplogroups.
Click to expand...

Rhenish Germanics had absorbed a lot of Non-Germanic substrate (mostly Gauls and Belgae).

In my opinion U106 had originally been more Belgian (carried by Belgae) than Germanic.

Only later as Germanic tribes expanded south-west they absorbed more of U106 from Belgae.

Fire Haired14 said:
Anglo Saxons brought most of it.
Click to expand...
No, in my opinion the Belgae brought most of R1b-U106 and Anglo-Saxons the rest.

We have 2 samples of U106 from Roman era York and there is no evidence that it was Germanic.

They do show some indications of foreign ancestry, but not Germanic, and not paternal.

Check these Supplementary Figures (especially Table 9, Table 10 and Figure 12):

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160119/ncomms10326/extref/ncomms10326-s1.pdf

And also Figure 2 here: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160119/ncomms10326/pdf/ncomms10326.pdf

Pre-Germanic individuals with U106 are 3DRIF-16 and 6DRIF-3, Anglo-Saxon with I1 is NO3424.

Let's take a closer look at these samples:

Man 3DRIF-16 (Roman Eburacum):

Y-DNA haplogroup - R1b-U106
mtDNA haplogroup - H6a1a
autosomal similarity - Scots, Welsh and Lithuanians-Poles

Man 6DRIF-3 (Roman Eburacum):

Y-DNA haplogroup - R1b-U106
mtDNA haplogroup - J1b1a1
autosomal similarity - Irish, Welsh and Lithuanians-Poles

Man NO3424 (Anglo-Saxon man):

Y-DNA haplogroup - I1
mtDNA haplogroup - H1b
autosomal similarity - Irish, Welsh and Norwegians

All three were most likely born locally (NOT first generation immigrants), and all were of mixed Celtic + something ancestry.

Figure 12 shows that 3DRIF-16 shows autosomal affinities to Scots, Lithuanians-Poles and Welsh, while 6DRIF-3 to Irish, Welsh and Lithuanians-Poles. By contrast, the Anglo-Saxon NO3423 shows affinities to Irish, Welsh and Norwegians.

This makes perfect sense for NO3423, since Norwegians are Germanic and he was too - at least partially.

By contrast, neither Poles nor Lithuanians are Germanic. 3DRIF-16 and 6DRIF-3 were most likely as well not.

There is no proof that their Y-DNA (U106) was foreign. They could be Celtic Belgae paternally, and foreign maternally.

For example mtDNA hg of 3DRIF-16 was H6a1a and mtDNA hg of 6DRIF-3 was J1b1a1.

H6a1a was found in Corded Ware and in Srubnaya, both associated with Satem languages and with R1a paternal hg:

http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/ancientdna.shtml

The highest frequency of J1b1a1 - 3,4% (9/267) - is in Belarus and also 2% (9/440) among East Balts:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Cc7Q1fdVQj-FWZ_Fwj5C4lnjI/edit#gid=1484072995

3DRIF-16 and 6DRIF-3 are actually more "exotic" for British standards in terms of mtDNA than in terms Y-DNA.

To sum up:

In my opinion 3DRIF-16 and 6DRIF-3 were of mixed Celtic and Balto-Slavic ancestry, with their Y-DNA - R1b-U106 - coming from Celtic paternal ancestors, and their mtDNA - J1b1a1 and H6a1a - coming from Balto-Slavic maternal ancestors.

If someone is autosomally a bit like Lithuanians, then he is partially Baltic - not partially Germanic. Simple as that.

Had that Anglo-Saxon sample been like Lithuanians too, I'd have agreed that Roman-era samples were Germanic.

But the Anglo-Saxon had Norwegian affinity (makes sense, he really was Germanic), and Roman-era samples - NOT.
 
those Gladiators were exceptions and not the norm.
Click to expand...

Haven't you noticed that their mtDNA - J1b1a1 and H6a1a - look even more foreign in Britain than their Y-DNA?

Your own spreadsheet shows that J1b1a1 is typically Baltic & Slavic today. Also H6a1a was found in Srubna culture in Russia, and in Corded Ware culture - both associated with ancestors of Satem-speaking peoples, such as Balto-Slavs. Autosomally those gladiators resembled Insular Celts, Lithuanians and Poles. They had Baltic mtDNA, Belgian Celtic Y-DNA, and mixed autosomes. The Anglo-Saxon man autosomally resembled Insular Celts and Norwegians (which shows that he was of mixed Celtic-Germanic ancestry, just like modern English people). Autosomal affinity to Lithuanians and/or Poles doesn't proof that someone was Germanic.

IMO those gladiators were local paternally and in terms of Y-DNA, but with foreign maternal ancestry and mtDNA.
 
]There's some clearly West Germanic-clades, that many of the U106s in England belong to
Click to expand...

Perhaps typically Belgian clades. Before Germanics came, there were Belgae in that area:

Belgica.jpg


Most of R1b-U106 in modern Belgium and Netherlands is likely from those Ancient Belgae.
 
Thanks for posting this paper.

12 samples is not representative for frequencies. Mind you, even 100 samples doesn't give reliable frequencies. If I understood well, all the samples come from a collective tomb, and so could be an extended family or at least a same small group of people. It's not clear whether all the I1 share a similar haplotype or not, but it would not be particularly surprising that many individuals should share the same Y-DNA if they descend from a common paternal ancestor.

So I won't read too much into it for the moment.
 
Athiudisc said:
The two Roman-era U106 samples from Britain have affinities to northeastern European (Polish/Lithuanian, IIRC) populations, which rather suggests that they weren't purely the product of some large/long-settled pre-Germanic British population of U106. On the other hand, we know that people have been coming to Britain for a long time...
Click to expand...

Yes they have autosomal affinities to Balto-Slavs (Lithuanians-Poles), not to Germanics (Norwegians). By contrast, the Anglo-Saxon sample has affinities to Norwegians. And they have typically Balto-Slavic/Eastern European mtDNA. What it shows is not that they were "Germanic", but that trafficking women from [North-]Eastern Europe to Britain dates back already to Roman times!

Maciamo said:
12 samples is not representative for frequencies.
Click to expand...

Not fully representative, but the difference is quite striking (58% in that sample, vs. 16% in modern Germany).

Even if in that sample I1 is overrepresented, I don't think that it will go down to 16% with more samples.

Probably in reality it was something like ~35-40% (or somewhere in the middle between 16 and 58).

IMO we can safely assume that I1 was more frequent in Pre-Frankish Germania than in modern Germany.
 
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