Tag: atlantic

North-West Indo-Europeans of Iberian Beaker descent and haplogroup R1b-P312

iron-age-early-mediterranean

The recent data on ancient DNA from Iberia published by Olalde et al. (2019) was interesting for many different reasons, but I still have the impression that the authors – and consequently many readers – focused on not-so-relevant information about more recent population movements, or even highlighted the least interesting details related to historical events.

I have already written about the relevance of its findings for the Indo-European question in an initial assessment, then in a more detailed post about its consequences, then about the arrival of Celtic languages with hg. R1b-M167, and later in combination with … Read the rest “North-West Indo-Europeans of Iberian Beaker descent and haplogroup R1b-P312”

Common pitfalls in human genomics and bioinformatics: ADMIXTURE, PCA, and the ‘Yamnaya’ ancestral component

invasion-from-the-steppe-yamnaya

Good timing for the publication of two interesting papers, that a lot of people should read very carefully:

ADMIXTURE

Open access A tutorial on how not to over-interpret STRUCTURE and ADMIXTURE bar plots, by Daniel J. Lawson, Lucy van Dorp & Daniel Falush, Nature Communications (2018).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

Experienced researchers, particularly those interested in population structure and historical inference, typically present STRUCTURE results alongside other methods that make different modelling assumptions. These include TreeMix, ADMIXTUREGRAPH, fineSTRUCTURE, GLOBETROTTER, f3 and D statistics, amongst many others. These models can be used both to probe whether assumptions of the model

… Read the rest “Common pitfalls in human genomics and bioinformatics: ADMIXTURE, PCA, and the ‘Yamnaya’ ancestral component”

Cystic fibrosis probably spread with expanding Bell Beakers

indo-european-uralic-bell-beaker-corded-ware-migrations

New paper (behind paywall) Estimating the age of p.(Phe508del) with family studies of geographically distinct European populations and the early spread of cystic fibrosis, by Farrell et al., European Journal of Human Genetics (2018).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

Our results revealed tMRCA average values ranging from 4725 to 1175 years ago and support the estimates of Serre et al. (3000–6000 years ago) [11], rather than Morral et al. (52,000 years ago) [6], but the latter figure was challenged by Kaplan et al. [26] because of disagreement with assumptions used in their calculations. In addition, the tMRCA values from western

… Read the rest “Cystic fibrosis probably spread with expanding Bell Beakers”

Heyd, Mallory, and Prescott were right about Bell Beakers

yamna-migration

Sometimes it is fun to read certain “old” papers. I have recently re-read some important papers that predicted what we are seeing now in aDNA analysis with surprising accuracy:

– Harrison & Heyd (2007): “We predict that future stable isotope and ancientDNA analyses of Beaker skeletal material will support our view that immigration played an important role in the Europe-wide Bell Beaker phenomenon”. – Duh, obvious, right? Wrong. Read the whole paper. It was already becoming a classic in the study of the Bell Beaker culture before the latest research on Bell Beaker aDNA, and it will be … Read the rest “Heyd, Mallory, and Prescott were right about Bell Beakers”