RISE1.SG, R1b from Poland CWC, a likely mislabelled Balto-Slav

bronze-age-unetice-trzciniec-iwno-mierzanowice-

When I started ruminating in 2016 over the apparent differences between populations that kept the two-velar distinction of Indo-Tocharian, and the only two unrelated dialectal groups that showed a strong satemization trend, I believed that – much like in modern times – there would be no clear-cut division in terms of ancestry or Y-DNA haplogroups between neighbouring forest-steppe and steppe populations.

The answer to the question of interacting ethnolinguistic groups had to lie, as everything else, on the investigation of fine-scale population movements that must have put Uralic-speaking peoples as the main substratum of Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian.

Still, … Read the rest “RISE1.SG, R1b from Poland CWC, a likely mislabelled Balto-Slav”

Survival of hunter-gatherer ancestry in West-Central European Neolithic

Recent papers on France and neighbouring regions, Ancient genome-wide DNA from France highlights the complexity of interactions between Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers, by Rivollat et al. Science Advances (2020) 6(22), and Ancient genomes from present-day France unveil 7,000 years of its demographic history, by Brunel et al. PNAS (2020).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

I. Survival of HG ancestry in Central Europe

From Rivollat et al. (2020):

Here, we present newly typed genome-wide data from 101 individuals from 12 sites from modern-day France and Germany (3 Late Mesolithic and 98 Neolithic, 7000–3000 cal BCE (…)

We explored

… Read the rest

Maros shows Yamnaya-derived East BBC ancestry and local admixture

New preprint Kinship, acquired and inherited status, and population structure at the Early Bronze Age Mokrin necropolis in northern Serbia, by Zegarac et al. bioRxiv (2020).

Intersesting excerpts about this 2100-1800 BC cemetery (emphasis mine):

Ancestry

The individual Mokrin genomes are best modelled as a mixture of Central European hunter-gatherers, Aegean Neolithic farmers and influences from the Eastern European steppes (mean qpAdm tail probability individually 0.46, pooled 0.08).

We observed no significant variation in the eastern European steppe-like component between individuals. Pooling individuals, admixture proportions are estimated to be around 8% (± 1.2% SE) western hunter gatherers, 55% (±

… Read the rest

Early arrival of Steppe ancestry in Switzerland

Open access paper Ancient genomes reveal social and genetic structure of Late Neolithic Switzerland by Furtwängler et al. Nat. Commun. (2020).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

The ancient individuals from this study originate from 13 Neolithic and Early Bronze Age sites in Switzerland, Southern Germany, and the Alsace region in France. All samples taken from the individuals were radiocarbon dated.

The arrival of Steppe ancestry

Two distinct clusters can be identified and were also confirmed by ADMIXTURE analysis, one consisting of individuals dating to 4770–2500 calBCE, and one comprising individuals dating to 2900–1750 calBCE. The oldest individuals from the sites of

… Read the rest

The Corded Ware culture, more complex than previously thought

Open access Corded Ware cultural complexity uncovered using genomic and isotopic analysis from south-eastern Poland, by Linderholm et al. Scientific Reports (2020).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

We have obtained genetic data from 19 individuals (16 of CWC and 3 of BBC). All examined individuals come from three geographical regions: the Rzeszów Foothills (part of the Subcarpathian Region; sites of Szczytna, Chłopice, Mirocin and Święte), the Małopolska Upland (Mistrzejowice, Proszowice, Bosutów, Pełczyska) and the Sokal Ridge (the western part of Volhynian Upland – site of Łubcze). All burials are of similar type exhibiting the same funeral rite with some differences

… Read the rest

qpAdm best practices and common pitfalls

The recently published preprint Assessing the Performance of qpAdm, by Harney, Patterson, Reich, & Wakeley at bioRxiv (2020) offers some interesting clues about what previous papers using qpAdm might have done right, and – more importantly – what they might have done wrong.

Since it doesn’t make much sense to repeat what this open access paper says within quotes, I will try to use short sentences or rework them to sum it up, illustrating best practices and common pitfalls with what I believe are corresponding examples with Steppe-related populations to date, with an emphasis on Bell Beakers. Most … Read the rest “qpAdm best practices and common pitfalls”

European hydrotoponymy (VII): Celtic From the West or the East?

Recent paper (behind paywall) An Alternative to ‘Celtic from the East’ and ‘Celtic from the West’, by Patrick Sims-Williams Camb. Archaeol. J (2020) First View.

NOTE. For those who don’t have access to it, you can check other recent similar papers by the same author, like Sims-Williams (2009, 2012, 2017).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

Celtic origins

(…) there have been three main stages of scholarship: (1) the Celts are identified with the Hallstatt and La Tène ‘cultures’ of the first millennium BC; (2) then the discovery of contemporary Celtic language inscriptions (Lepontic and Celtiberian) in the ‘wrong’ areas

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R1b-rich Proto-Indo-Europeans show genetic continuity in Asia

Another preprint came out at the same time as Wang et al. (2020), from the Jena Lab of the Max Planck Society: A dynamic 6,000-year genetic history of Eurasia’s Eastern Steppe, by Jeong, Warinner, et al. bioRxiv (2020).

NOTE. I have now updated the Ancient DNA Dataset, the Prehistory Atlas – with PDF and GIS files including Y-DNA and mtDNA of all newly reported samples (starting with the Neolithic) – as well as the PCA files with those from Wang et al. (2020).

The conclusions are similar, but with some interesting twists. Relevant excerpts (emphasis mine), … Read the rest “R1b-rich Proto-Indo-Europeans show genetic continuity in Asia”

Fully Steppe-like Proto-Corded Ware Late Trypillians

The genotypes from Human auditory ossicles as an alternative optimal source of ancient DNA, by Sirak et al. Genome Res. (2020), have been finally published by the Reich Lab, so we can get a sneak peek into what’s coming in future papers about the origins of R1a-rich Proto-Corded Ware and R1b-rich Italo-Venetic peoples.

NOTE. To avoid adding potential errors, I have merged the Reich Lab’s Curated Dataset (v. 42.4, March 1 2020) with these new samples before performing the qpAdm analyses. If you find something different with your files, you should probably check out this simple setting first. … Read the rest “Fully Steppe-like Proto-Corded Ware Late Trypillians”