North Asian mitogenomes hint at the arrival of pastoralists from West to East ca. 2800-1000 BC

Open access Investigating Holocene human population history in North Asia using ancient mitogenomes, by Kılınç et al., Scientific Reports (2018) 8: 8969.

Abstract (emphasis mine):

Archaeogenomic studies have largely elucidated human population history in West Eurasia during the Stone Age. However, despite being a broad geographical region of significant cultural and linguistic diversity, little is known about the population history in North Asia. We present complete mitochondrial genome sequences together with stable isotope data for 41 serially sampled ancient individuals from North Asia, dated between c.13,790 BP and c.1,380 BP extending from the Palaeolithic to the Iron Age. Analyses … Read the rest “North Asian mitogenomes hint at the arrival of pastoralists from West to East ca. 2800-1000 BC”

Pre-Germanic born out of a Proto-Finnic substrate in Scandinavia

A commenter, Old Europe, drew my attention to the Uralic (Finnic-Saamic) substrate in Germanic proposed by Schrijver in Chapter V. Origins of Language Contact and the Origins of the Germanic Languages, Routledge (2014).

I wanted to share here some interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

NOTE. I have avoided many detailed linguistic discussions. You should read the whole chapter to check them out.

The origins of the Germanic subfamily of Indo-European cannot be understood without acknowledging its interactions with a language group that has been its long-time neighbour: the Finnic subgroup of the Uralic language family. Indo-European and Uralic are

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The future of the Reich Lab’s studies and interpretations of Late Indo-European migrations

Short report on advances in Genomics, and on the Reich Lab:

Some interesting details:

The Lab is impressive. I would never dream of having something like this at our university. I am really jealous of that working environment.
They are currently working on population transformations in Italy; I hope we can have at last Italic and Etruscan samples.
It is always worth it to repeat that we are all the source of multiple admixture events, many of them quite recent; and I liked the Star Wars simile.
Also, some names hinting at potential new samples?? Zajo-I, Chanchan, Gurulde?, Володарка

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Mitochondrial DNA unsuitable to test for IBD, and undersampling genomes show biased time and rate estimates

Two interesting papers questioning previous methods have been published.

Open access Mitochondrial DNA is unsuitable to test for isolation by distance, by Teske et al. Scientific Reports (2018) 8:8448.

Abstract (emphasis mine):

Tests for isolation by distance (IBD) are the most commonly used method of assessing spatial genetic structure. Many studies have exclusively used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences to test for IBD, but this marker is often in conflict with multilocus markers. Here, we report a review of the literature on IBD, with the aims of determining (a) whether significant IBD is primarily a result of lumping spatially discrete

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Enigmatic -nt-Stems : an investigation of the secondary -t- of the Greek neuter nouns in -men- and *-r/n-

Interesting Master thesis Enigmatic *-nt-Stems: an investigation of the secondary -t- of the Greek neuter nouns in *-men- and *-r/n-, by Stephanie Stringer, Université de Montréal (2018).

Abstract:

This paper aims to provide an explanation of the secondary -t- found in the oblique stem of ancient Greek neuters such as πρᾶγμα, πράγματος and ἧπαρ, ἥπατος. After a brief overview of the Greek data, and a survey of the relevant nominal classes in Greek and Indo- European, previous hypotheses are evaluated. To this end, several problems of nominal morphology are discussed, including the existence of a PIE suffix *-m(e)ntom, the

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Ancient human parallel lineages within North America contributed to a coastal expansion

New paper (behind paywall), Ancient human parallel lineages within North America contributed to a coastal expansion, by Scheib et al. Science (2018) 360(6392):1024-1027.

Abstract:

Little is known regarding the first people to enter the Americas and their genetic legacy. Genomic analysis of the oldest human remains from the Americas showed a direct relationship between a Clovis-related ancestral population and all modern Central and South Americans as well as a deep split separating them from North Americans in Canada. We present 91 ancient human genomes from California and Southwestern Ontario and demonstrate the existence of two distinct ancestries in North

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Reproductive success among ancient Icelanders stratified by ancestry

New paper (behind paywall), Ancient genomes from Iceland reveal the making of a human population, by Ebenesersdóttir et al. Science (2018) 360(6392):1028-1032.

Abstract and relevant excerpts (emphasis mine):

Opportunities to directly study the founding of a human population and its subsequent evolutionary history are rare. Using genome sequence data from 27 ancient Icelanders, we demonstrate that they are a combination of Norse, Gaelic, and admixed individuals. We further show that these ancient Icelanders are markedly more similar to their source populations in Scandinavia and the British-Irish Isles than to contemporary Icelanders, who have been shaped by 1100 years of

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On Latin, Turkic, and Celtic – likely stories of mixed societies and little genetic impact

Recent article on The Conversation, The Roman dead: new techniques are revealing just how diverse Roman Britain was, about the paper (behind paywall) A Novel Investigation into Migrant and Local Health-Statuses in the Past: A Case Study from Roman Britain, by Redfern et al. Bioarchaeology International (2018), among others.

Interesting excerpts about Roman London:

We have discovered, for example, that one middle-aged woman from the southern Mediterranean has black African ancestry. She was buried in Southwark with pottery from Kent and a fourth century local coin – her burial expresses British connections, reflecting how people’s communities and lives

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Mitogenomes from Thailand offer insights into maternal genetic history of mainland South-East Asia

Open access New insights from Thailand into the maternal genetic history of Mainland Southeast Asia, by Kutanan et al. Eur. J. Hum. Genet. (2018) 26:898–911

Abstract (emphasis mine):

Tai-Kadai (TK) is one of the major language families in Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA), with a concentration in the area of Thailand and Laos. Our previous study of 1234 mtDNA genome sequences supported a demic diffusion scenario in the spread of TK languages from southern China to Laos as well as northern and northeastern Thailand. Here we add an additional 560 mtDNA genomes from 22 groups, with a focus on the

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