May 20, 2009

Review paper on Y-chromosome haplogroup E-M35 (Lancaster 2009)

This is quite useful as a reference for those interested in E-M35 and its many subclades.

A quick comment on p. 53 where Sicily is discussed and the prevalence of R1b and I1 in the West is mentioned in the context of Phoenicians who settled in West Sicily.

Haplogroup I1 is probably to a large degree due to the Normans whose capital was in Palermo (NW Sicily). R1b on the other hand may have been added by the Normans, but may also be due to the pre-Greek populations of Sicily, such as the Sicani who were (after Herodotus) of Iberian origin.

Journal of Genetic Genealogy Volume 5, Number 1, Spring, 2009

Y Haplogroups, Archaeological Cultures and Language Families: A Review of the Possibility of Multidisciplinary Comparisons Using the Case of Haplogroup E-M35

Andrew Lancaster

Abstract

Archaeology, comparative linguistics and population genetics all have something to add to speculation about early human migrations, and the three disciplines often make reference to each other in broad terms. But, in reality, the results are often disappointingly indecisive. This article explores the case of Y haplogroup E-M35 (E1b1b1), which has so far mainly only been mentioned in a passing way in archaeological and linguistic debate, but which, it shall be shown, shows great promise as more detailed about it's phylogenetic structure, and its regional distribution becomes available each year.

Link (pdf)

36 comments:

Crimson Guard said...

Sicani and Sicels were the same and there is no East West divide between then archeologically or genetically. North African admixture is very minor in Sicily. As for I1, southern France and the Italian peninsula are possible sites for its dispersal's into Northern Europe after the Last Ice Age.

Dienekes said...

Sicani and Sicels were the sameSays who?

Gioiello said...

Certainly Sicels (Siculi) came from Central Italy and were close to Latins and if you compare Siculi/Sicani with Romuli/Romani you can understand which was probably their origin. If you then read the paper on paleolithic Sicilians, close to Central and South Italians, perhaps you can undestand where they came from and why Sicilians have a good dose of Hg. R1b, and particularly the most ancient R1b1b2/L23-. That Normans have had a genetic impact on Italy I think nobody believes it.

Gioiello said...

At the same page 53: "It is hard to avoid concluding when looking at such data,
that north-western Iberia and parts of Sicily took part in the same ancient movement of peoples which somehow combined Y lineages that are today associated separately with the Maghrebin Northern Africa, and the Middle
East. Given the position of both places, it seems we must be looking for a movement of people around coasts, but was there such a movement that was
important enough to leave patterns so significant that
they seem to dominate the more recent effects we would
have expected from Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans,
Berbers and Arabs?"

Then?

Maju said...

Very nice paper. Thanks for posting.

I think it basically adresses the state of the art on haplogroup E1b1b and (surely related, even if not strictly) Afroasiatic language spread in a quite comprehensive manner.

I must again mention that NW Iberia (Galicia, Northern Portugal) were apparently uninhabited before late Neolithic (i.e. just before Chalcolithic and Megalithism), what allows for some notable founder effects to have happened in that area at a rather late date. It's harder to explain similar patterns further east (in Asturias and Western Cantabria, inhabited since Paleolithic) but guess that it basically means a "silent" expansion from that NW area in the Bronze Age and later probably.

...

On the controversy on ancient Sicilians, I'd say that even some groups may be IE speakers from mainland Italy, this does not mean they would have to show a distinct Y-DNA pattern, as normally aculturation and not replacement is what actually happened in such socio-political changes. Additionally peninsular Italy (i.e. excluding the North) is not significatively distinct from Sicily (nor has been through history and prehistory).

Then?.

They mean Neolithic Cardium Pottery culture. In fact, it could be a more complex pattern anyhow, as Portuguese CP mtDNA did not show any clear Mediterranean clades yet, so it's very possible that the flow of these lineages through the Mediterranean may need to be looked for in later periods such as Chalcolithic and Bronze Age.

In Chalcolithic we do find in Iberia the first civilizations (i.e. urban cultures) with possible (but highly controversial) links to the Eastern Mediterranean (Cyprus is the strongest candidate) and, much more clearly, to Atlantic Europe and all the Western Mediterranean (both Europe and North Africa) - Megalithism.

In the Bronze Age we do find what seem to be important Mycenaean Greek influences in SE Iberia (with some backflow possibly), surely associated to the geostrategical access to Galician tin (at that time Cornwall was surely not as important yet as tin producer but was anyhow reachable by the same routes more or less). The comercial links with Sicily and Cyprus remained in the late Atlantic Bronze Age (which is Iron Age already elsewhere) until the Celtic invasions and Phoenician settlement in the south, which mark the beginning of protohistory and Iron Age.

Leaving Iberia, in southern Italy anyhow there is a marked Aegean influence through the Chalcolithic (early Bronze Age in the Aegean). It's hard to determine wether this influence would have meant much genetic flow though but it's a possibility, along with later Mycenaean and Classical Greek periods. In the opposite direction, Megalithism may have served as pathway for some clades to flow from SW Europe or NW Africa into Italy as well.

Anonymous said...

In south italy came only few groups of mercenaries, their cenetic impact is irrilevant. I wonder someone can argue really about this. They was able to conquer the power, but the army of Robert Guiscard (the fox) the first duke of Apulia, was composed manly of natives.
But we have to contemplate that after arabs left the island, it was repopulated wwith pepole from mainland. There's no doubt Sicels an Sicans where from mainland too.

Anonymous said...

Normans mercenaries, of course.

Gioiello said...

“Hg J is most common ( 50%) in the Middle East and Anatolia, with a spread zone spanning from northwest Africa to India. It has been related to different Middle Eastern migrations. In addition to Hg J-M410, Hg G-P15 chromosomes, which are also common in Anatolia, have been implicated in the colonization and subsequent expansion of early farmers in Crete, the Aegean and Italy. Earlier studies have concluded that the J-M410 sub-clades, J-DYS445-6 and J-M67, are linked to the spread of farming in the Mediterranean Basin, with a likely origin in Anatolia. Interestingly, J-DYS445-6 and J-M92 (a sub-lineage of M67), both have expansion times between 7000 and 8000 years ago, consistent with the dating of the arrival of the first farmers to the Balkans. The first detection of milk residue in ceramic pottery occurs in sites from northwest Anatolia 7000–8500 years ago, an age that approximates the Hg-expansion times”.(EJHG, Vincenza Battaglia, Y-chromosomal evidence of the cultural diffusion of agriculture in Southwest Europe)

To Pinzochero: Where was Hg. R1b1b2when J-M410 and G-P15 migrated from Asia Minor to Southwest Europe?

Maju said...

Yah, I forgot about Dienekes' comments on Sicily. Ok, it's mentioned that I1 is found in Western Sicily but... in what ammounts? Would it be a ridiculously low ammount and associated with R1a, then it could be Norman, sure. But it if is in larger ammounts and dissociated from R1a then it requires some other explanation.

One issue I always have with haplogroup I in general is that most SW I has never been properly tested for subclades and only part of it is actually I2a, which can be associated with Mediterranean or Celtic migrations. Considering that I might well be a really old lineage (though I1 appears more recent) this would be nice to clarify.

Andrew Lancaster said...

Hi everyone, and thanks for the nice remarks. I think many of you have picked up on something which should be picked up on which are the "leads" concerning places like Sicily and Northwestern Iberia and the question raised about whether there is a pattern reflecting Cardial migration. I think it needs to be said that I wanted to point to a lead that seems obvious if you read through all the different isolated materials I was reading but which definitely does not much more looking into. Fortunately there are many ways to do this. The review only discussed ONE Y lineage, E-M35 in any detail. So I hope this will be something that gets worked on.

Maju said...

@Andrew Lancaster:

...thanks for the nice remarks.

You're welcome. They are well deserved in any case. I have discussed these issues often as of late (notably at Mathilda's Anthropology Blog, that has a strong focus on North Africa) and was very glad of finding in your paper such an excellent synthesis of what is known and what is controversial on E1b1b and Afroasiatic.

...the question raised about whether there is a pattern reflecting Cardial migration.

This is major but still unclear issue. If E1b1b1, notably E-V13 but not only, expanded with Cardial culture, it did so in a very irregular manner and associated surely to other lineages. This could fit the pattern of occasonal colonizations surrounded by much larger aculturation areas but some of these Mediterranean flows could also belong to post-Neolithic rather than purely Neolithic epysodes.

My major caveat to a Neolithic flow of West Asian lineages, specifically to Iberia, is the apparent lack of West Asian mtDNA in Neolithic samples from Portugal (the only novel clade found is V, while U(xU5), probably U6, is found both in Epipaleolithic and Neolithic populations at similar levels (Chandlers, Sykes and Zilhao 2005). And Portugal is the area most affected (after the already commented NW) by relatively high presence of haplogroup E1b1b1, in both the Greek and North African versions, within Iberia.

Without this ancient mtDNA data I'd be really inclined to think with you of a Cardial founder effect for West Iberian E1b1b1. Guess it could still be argued but the total lack of anything that is not H, V or U(xK) in the Neolithic Portugese sample of 23 individuals casts a doubt on any East Mediterranean gene flow at that time, IMO.

Of course, it might have been a purely male migration and the mtDNA J, T, K and N(xR) have arrived at later times.

Andrew Lancaster said...

If E1b1b1, notably E-V13 but not only, expanded with Cardial culture, it did so in a very irregular manner and associated surely to other lineages.Yes indeed and by the way I would say E-M78 missed the boat and shows no major correspondence with Cardial colonization any further than Southern Italy. It think we need to look at a wider range of data including small haplogroups like E-M123.


My major caveat to a Neolithic flow of West Asian lineages, specifically to Iberia, is the apparent lack of West Asian mtDNA in Neolithic samples from Portugal (the only novel clade found is V, while U(xU5), probably U6, is found both in Epipaleolithic and Neolithic populations at similar levels (Chandlers, Sykes and Zilhao 2005). ... Of course, it might have been a purely male migration and the mtDNA J, T, K and N(xR) have arrived at later times.Right. I believe Y DNA is best for looking at things like colonization, movement of languages and technologies. It does not really show who is closest related to who at all.


And Portugal is the area most affected (after the already commented NW) by relatively high presence of haplogroup E1b1b1, in both the Greek and North African versions, within Iberia.I would not say so. I would say both the Balkan version (E-M78 = E1b1b1a) is not common there. The North Afican E-M81, and the Levantine E-M123 are surprisingly common though - just to look within E1b1b1.

Thanks again
Andrew

Dienekes said...

I would say both the Balkan version (E-M78 = E1b1b1a) is not common there. The North Afican E-M81, and the Levantine E-M123 are surprisingly common though - just to look within E1b1b1.
I don't find that surprising as there were no major Greek colonies in Iberia. If I had to guess, most of the E in Iberia is due to population movements in Roman times or as a result of the Islamic occupation.

Maju said...

would not say so. I would say both the Balkan version (E-M78 = E1b1b1a) is not common there. The North Afican E-M81, and the Levantine E-M123 are surprisingly common though - just to look within E1b1b1.

Unsure. I am founding my belief mostly in Adams 2008, notably in the map posted here at Dienekes', that uses an obsolete nomenclature. I assumed then (as I have not access to the full paper - but nobody has contradicted this assumption so far) that E3b1 would be modern E1b1b1a-M78 (the "Balcanic" clade), E3b2: E1b1b1b-M81 (the "North African" clade) and E3b3: E1b1b1c-M123.

This appears corroborated by Cruciani 2007, which mentions 4-10% of E-M78 (mostly E-V13 but also some E-V22) in Western Iberia. Semino 2004 is soemewhat less informative (no Atlantic samples) but also detects levels of E-M78 among Andalusians that are not that far below those of E-M81 (2-4% and 5% respectively).

You are the expert anyhow.

Maju said...

I don't find that surprising as there were no major Greek colonies in Iberia. If I had to guess, most of the E in Iberia is due to population movements in Roman times or as a result of the Islamic occupation.

Cardium pottery stems from (roughly) Albania that has even higher apportions of E-V13 than Greece. So that's a possible origin.

While Classic Greeks had a limited presence in Iberia, there are at least two older epysodes after Cardium Pottery when Eastern Mediterranean clades could have flown to Iberia. One would, if anything (is quite controversial), be originated at pre-Hellenic Cyprus (so it's an unlikely source) but the other was a relation with Mycenaean Greece that was intense enough as to make SE Iberians adopt the Greek funerary custom of burial in pythoi (large jars), as well as probably send the tholos burial style (much older in Iberia than in Greece) to the Aegean.

The main problem is that E-V13 is not really found in SE Iberia as much as in Atlantic Iberia. But you have also posted here for instance mentioning the finding of Mycenaean Greek jars near Denmark, so it's clear to me that in the Bronze Age (early and middle for Iberia, late for Greece) there was a pretty intense and adventurous Greek comercial interest in the Atlantic. Interest that may have been variegated (gold, silver, amber...) but that surely had as main goal the obtention of tin (Bronze Age's most strategical and limited resource) at Galicia and Cornwall, where it was extremely aboundant (unlike anywhere else west of Afghanistan, it seems).

From the sources I mention above, it does seem that there is some E-M28 (and E-V13 specifically) in Iberia, notably in the Atlantic area.

Katharós said...

A note on the classification of Old South Arabian. John Huehnergard does not classify Old South Arabian as a South Semitic language but as a Northwest Semitic language.

John Huehnergard: Features of Central Semitic. In: biblica et orientalia 48 (2005).

Andrew Lancaster said...

I don't find that surprising as there were no major Greek colonies in Iberia.I think it is surprising to anyone who reads the literature about Iberia because it is widely assumed that E in Iberia is mostly of the typical European types, just in lowish levels. In fact, E-V13 seems to be less common in many parts of Iberia than it is in many parts of Northern Europe!

If I had to guess, most of the E in Iberia is due to population movements in Roman times or as a result of the Islamic occupation.How does this fit with the concentrations of North African Y haplotypes being by far at their highest levels in the North of Iberia? It does not.

I think it also needs to be stressed that in Iberia, where we see North African Y haplotypes we also see Middle Eastern ones.

But it also has to be said that this region in the north is a patchwork of probable founder effects and also includes pockets of R1a for example. The whole region deserves careful attention.

Andrew Lancaster said...

I assumed then (as I have not access to the full paper - but nobody has contradicted this assumption so far) that E3b1 would be modern E1b1b1a-M78 (the "Balcanic" clade), E3b2: E1b1b1b-M81 (the "North African" clade) and E3b3: E1b1b1c-M123.Within E-M78 most clades are not of the Balkan E-V13 type, but in Europe they are. We knew that in southern Italy that some of the other clades are relatively common, but in more recent work, and if you look through the STR values in data like that of Adams et al. It appears that E-V13 is only one of the E-M78 clades found in Iberia, perhaps slightly the most common, but still, this is quite different from the initial results of Cruciani.

You have to keep in mind that we now have a lot more STR data for Iberia than when Cruciani did his 2007 paper.

pconroy said...

Maju said:
I must again mention that NW Iberia (Galicia, Northern Portugal) were apparently uninhabited before late Neolithic (i.e. just before Chalcolithic and Megalithism), what allows for some notable founder effects to have happened in that area at a rather late date.What evidence is there for NW Iberia to be uninhabited - that's just nonsense.

Far more likely would be hunter gatherers there in the pre-Neolithic, followed by colonizing metal miners, traders and farmers coming in from the Eastern Med, and by a process of elite dominance + maybe pathogens, slowly eliminating other male lineages.

Maju said...

@PConroy:

What evidence is there for NW Iberia to be uninhabited - that's just nonsense.

No it's not. Have you ever read any manual on Iberian prehistory? I have, more than one in fact.

No UP remains are found ever east of central Asturias. The closest are occasional findings in the area of Salamanca and the more solid and persistent colonization of the Lower Tagus area. In the Epipaleolithic there is some progression of colonization to Western Asturias an NE Galicia but that's it.

In Neolithic again Galicia is empty except for random and undated findings of polished axes that are better thought of as belonging to later periods like Chalcolithic. Only in the Chalcolithic/Megalithic period there is a clear human presence in the area.

Additionally you have (a little more to the south) the very late "Neanderthaloid" finding of Lagar Velho (that post-dates other Neandetrhals by 10 ky) and an even more enigmatic datation of (not even Mousterian) but Acheulean artifacts to 12,000 BP in Galicia. Such findings lacking of larger context that could confirm them are generally cautiously ignored (except the Lagar Velho kid by partisans of hybridationaism) but in any case they do not suggest AMH presence in the eare either, presence that anyhow has not a single piece of evidence supporting it before at least late Neolithic or more likely already the Chalcolithic period, as part of the expanson of Dolmenic Megalithism through the Atlantic.

Of course there could be someone - but the lack of any findings whatsoever suggests that they were not many in any case. IMO it may well have been the last holding of pre-modern human species in Europe (of course, just a speculation).

Maju said...

@Andrew Lancaster:

Within E-M78 most clades are not of the Balkan E-V13 type, but in Europe they are. We knew that in southern Italy that some of the other clades are relatively common, but in more recent work, and if you look through the STR values in data like that of Adams et al. It appears that E-V13 is only one of the E-M78 clades found in Iberia, perhaps slightly the most common, but still, this is quite different from the initial results of Cruciani.

Well, as mentioned I do not have access to Adams' paper (except for the simplified map posted here) but in any case it does look like it is E-M78 and not E-M123 which is most common after E-M81. And, as you admit, E-V13 is important within E-M78.

Both lineages are curiously enough most common not in the Mediterranean area, not even in the South (the area closest to North Africa and most affected by historical colonizations from overseas) but in the Atlantic West. This certainly demands an explanation and the easiest one is maybe a male-only Cardium Pottery founder effect, maybe after a "bounce" in North Africa, where it would have picked E-M81.

Andrew Lancaster said...

We've posted a lot of the Adams data on the E-M35 Wiki: http://www.haplozone.net/wiki/index.php?title=Adams_et_al._(2008)

Andrew Lancaster said...

I agree with Maju that most archaeologists specialized in such areas seem to think that the European areas of Mediterranean climate had very low populations before the onset of farming. This surprised me to be honest, perhaps given our positive feelings about the Mediterranean today. But when it comes down to it, it is very barren. The farmers had the answer.

terryt said...

"No UP remains are found ever east of central Asturias".

What could possibly have kept Upper Paleolithic humans from that region? Neanderthals? Heavily forested mountains? Obviously not the latter because heavily forested mountains were certainly no obstacle at all to modern humans as they moved through mainland East Asia. Well, no obstacle according to you.

Maju said...

We've posted a lot of the Adams data on the E-M35 Wiki...

Thanks, I did not know about that site. Still the nomenclature is not corrected for mutations or modern one. I think anyhow that my original interpretation that makes E3b1 be modern E1b1b1a-M78 is correct.

I agree with Maju that most archaeologists specialized in such areas seem to think that the European areas of Mediterranean climate had very low populations before the onset of farming. This surprised me to be honest, perhaps given our positive feelings about the Mediterranean today. But when it comes down to it, it is very barren. The farmers had the answer.

That was not my point. Italy and Mediterranean Spain were maybe not as densely populated (always following the archaeological record) as the Franco-Cantabrian region or other less important "northern" areas. But they do show continuous population anyhow.

PCconroy and I argued about NW Iberia (Galicia, Northern Portugal), which has not yielded UP remains and was probably uninhabited (or nearly so) by AMHs until late Neolithic or Chalcolithic. It is a region of Atlantic or Oceanic climate in any case (or transitional in the case of northern Portugal maybe).

...

What could possibly have kept Upper Paleolithic humans from that region? Neanderthals? Heavily forested mountains? Obviously not the latter because heavily forested mountains were certainly no obstacle at all to modern humans as they moved through mainland East Asia. Well, no obstacle according to you.

I have not the slightest idea in fact. The climate today is very similar to that of the Cantabrian strip and mountains are not any unsurpassable barrier (though it's indeed a mountainous region). I do speculate with pervivences of archaic human species (take with all precautions) or maybe ecological factors that I fail to understand.

All I know is that there are just no findings whatsoever, that this strongly suggests a human-deserted area and that this lack of population surely allowed for much stronger founder effects when the first colonists arrived with Megalithism.

Andrew Lancaster said...

Thanks, I did not know about that site. Still the nomenclature is not corrected for mutations or modern one. I think anyhow that my original interpretation that makes E3b1 be modern E1b1b1a-M78 is correct.Sounds right. Concerning nomenclature the wiki aims to standardize nomenclature and also even to put STR data into standard formats. If you have time to work on it... :)

Regards
Andrew

Anonymous said...

First of all I think that just because there is a lack of human remains dating to the Paleolithic period in parts of Iberia does not mean humans did not live there in Paleolithic times. The area is moist and cool, not the ideal conditions for preserving remains.

The Neolithic period to me is mostly cultural with little involvement of immigrants from the Levant shores of Mediterranean. Don't buy the Neolithic demic movement of Levantines. Studies of Balkan haplogroups show that haplogroups supposed to be more classically Levantine/Middle Eastern, are lacking in the Balkans where the farming lifestyle change took place in Europe. The Mediterranean islands and some widely separated Mediterranean bays and valleys may have received a some Levantine immigration via the sea. Mr. Lancaster mentioned the finding of imprinted Cardial Pottery on scattered west Mediterranean Islands. I found mention of Cardial Pottery in Sicily, Malta, and the Aeolian Islands. This shows that sea travel was important. The Megalithic structures, and the worship of fertility Goddesses started somewhere in Southern Italy and progressed westwards sojourning in North Africa, Mediterranean Islands and SW Europe and eventually left impressions in the North of Europe. Either way, Cardial Pottery or Megalithic structures show an east to west movement in Europe which implies movement of the people making those pottery and structures.

I am not sure about the linking of Afro-Asiatic language group with E-M35. The language group is somewhat airy fairy. Greenberg and Ehret have a lot to answer for this state of confusion. What is apparent is the division of the language families into South and North means Negroid and Caucasoid. The Northern division, Semitic, Berber, Egyptian being mainly Caucasoid.

I am more interested naturally in my haplogroup J-M267 and its movements and from where. J-M267 is higher in North Portugal and Galicia than elsewhere in Iberia, and mtDNA U6 is found in both places. The Moorish presence was limited or not present in that part of Iberia. West Sicily does have more J-M267 than East Sicily but not by much. Sicily is also a contradiction as mentioned in the report. The Moorish and Phoenician sections of Sicily, the West, is more "European" than the Greek side or East side. Exceptions exist of course like the men of Sciacca who are more "Grecian". The Maltese have been found to be similar to West Sicilians in their frequency of R1b, presence of R1a and haplogroup I. The place is full of Megalith structures, a coincidence?

Maju said...

First of all I think that just because there is a lack of human remains dating to the Paleolithic period in parts of Iberia does not mean humans did not live there in Paleolithic times. The area is moist and cool, not the ideal conditions for preserving remains.

No stones either. There's nothing, zero, nada, in that region between the Acheulean (oddly enough dated to 12kya) and the Neolithic (rather Chalcolithic in fact).

The Neolithic period to me is mostly cultural with little involvement of immigrants from the Levant shores of Mediterranean.

Yes but not so much.

First European Neolithic appears to expand from Greece and the Balcans, not the Levant (though it's geneally accepted that it arrived to Greece from southern Anatolia, which was in turn intensely influenced by the Levantine Neolithic).

Second, there is little direct genetic connection with the Levant as such (unlike with the southern Balcans and North Africa).

Third, there are some clear, albeit scattered and minoritary, cases of coastal colonization by CP immigrants through the Western Mediterranean. Of course they could have arrived from somewhere nearby but it's also possible that they brought a still more dense genetic component from the original starters of CP Neolithic in Greece, Albania and Adriatic Yugoslavia and maybe from even Lebanon, where CP eventually became popular (Biblos culture).

I am not sure about the linking of Afro-Asiatic language group with E-M35. The language group is somewhat airy fairy .

Afroasiatic is old but totally accepted. The only issue seems to be with internal structure (something also happening with IE) and the status of a minor tribal language of Ethiopia, which is AA would be certainly from a pre-agricultural period.

What is apparent is the division of the language families into South and North means Negroid and Caucasoid. The Northern division, Semitic, Berber, Egyptian being mainly Caucasoid.

If you want to see things that way. When I first read about human "races" in a prestigious encyclopaedia of the 60s, Ethiopians were Caucasoid. While for our usual Nordicists, North African and even southern Europeans are Negroid. So, hmmm, sure, whatever... I don't really care: both language and genetics trascend your arbitrary "racial" boundaries and show these are artificial constructs and not anything real.

Maju said...

I am more interested naturally in my haplogroup J-M267 and its movements and from where. J-M267 is higher in North Portugal and Galicia than elsewhere in Iberia...M267 is J1. J(xJ2) is quite rare in Iberia pre Adams 08 and concentrated (if anywhere) in the SE (probably due to recent Islamic influence). By the older Flores'04, J(xJ2) is also very rare. It is J2 which is common in all the peninsula and I suspect that, if you're following Adam's map, you're confusing it with either E3a (E1b1b1a) or G, both of which have similar colors.

...and mtDNA U6 is found in both places.

There is some reason to think of U6 as having a somewhat similar pattern to Y-DNA E1b1b1a and E1b1b1b (but not J1) in Iberia. From Maca-Meyer'03, Portuguese have 2-6% U6 (depending on the sample) and Maragatos (a mountain population of León) as much as 8%. Iberian average is 3% (compare with 11% in North Africa). But Galicians have only 3% too.

The main problem is that most Iberian U(xU5) is U6 and from Chandler'05 we know that both Epipaleolithic and Neolithic Portuguese had already some U(xU5). This is particularly important in regard to Epipaleolithic ones, suggesting that U6 in Iberia may well be of Paleolithic origins, possibly a back-flow from the time when H1, H3 and V crossed into North Africa (IMO in the Iberian Gravetto-Solutrean that would hae triggered the North African Oranian culture).

This situation casts some doubts on Iberian E being Neolithic. But, as we lack of direct confirmation of this U(xU5) being specifically U6 and we also lack of any direct info on ancient Y-DNA from anywhere in Iberia, the doubt remains.

The Maltese have been found to be similar to West Sicilians in their frequency of R1b, presence of R1a and haplogroup I. The place is full of Megalith structures, a coincidence?.

Possibly not. I still don't seem to fit R1a in this equation anyhow. The highest apportion of R1b in Italy is anyhow in the North, precisely the area that was never Megalithic (though they did participate of clannic "collective" burial style albeit in non-megalithic forms). There is not possible correlation between R1b and Megalithism in North Africa either anyhow (R1b is just too low in North Africa).

terryt said...

A summary.

The authors suggest the Sahel as a centre of origin for E-M35. This makes sense. Y-hap E as a whole seems to have occupied the complete Sahel region from east to west. According to a relatively recent diagram of Y-hap E's diversity (I'll find a link if you insist), early branches are especially common in the west, both in Mali and in the Cameroons. As branches of Y-hap E moved south, to become the major haplogroup within Africa, a branch (M35), stretching from Ethiopia to Egypt, also began to expand. From there Y-hap E expanded along the southern Mediterranean coast, north of the Sahara, into Northwest Africa, and even out of Africa into the Middle East and Southern Europe. The article's authors argue persuasively that this branch of Y-hap E carried the language that gave rise to the Hamito-Semitic, Afro-Asiatic, or whatever else you choose to call them, languages. There is no way this migration is connected with any original 'Out of Africa'.

And it doesn't mean at all that E's ancestors had necessarily been in Africa since Australopithecus times. In fact D (E's closest relation) is found in East Asia. It's been argued that D's expansion was centred in the mountains northeast of the Bay of Bengal. How do we explain that separation? Spaceship?

E and D are obviously related, somewhere. They presumably developed at opposite ends of a cline within a widespread population. They may even have become isolated from each other by an expansion, outside Africa, of the C/F Y-hap. Anyway D/E related haplogroups have become extinct through the region between the two surviving haplogroups.

So E could well have developed from a movement into Africa, perhaps accompanied by the enigmatic Y-hap R found in that continent. It's therefore quite possible that just one Y-haplogroup emerged from Africa to spread around the rest of the world. But did he and his descendants always take their own women with them? We have to consider Y-haps and mtDNA separately.

Julius said...

Dear Maju

What are you talking about???

NW Iberia (Galicia, Northern Portugal) were inhabited!!!!

Do you know about Vila Nova de Foz Côa, the Côa Valley Paleolithic Art site????

This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site placed in the northeast of Portugal that has art from the Palaeolithic period. This site is so outstanding that have thousands of engraved drawings spread over a large area and time (from 20000 years) that are consistent with a permanent population settler.

Maju said...

Yes, Côa, sure. I forgot it was so far North. Still near Salamanca. There's still a whole region west and NW of it that has no findings whatsoever: not in Aurignacian, not in Gravetto-Solutrean, not in Magdalenian and not even (for the most part) in the Epipaleolithic.

pconroy said...

Galician paleolithic sites haven't been found yet, that doesn't mean the area was uninhabited then - it just means the evidence is lacking.

Some such sites may simply be submerged, or ploughed over.

The case of Galicia is similar to parts of Ireland; during the LGM, South Western Ireland, and a strip along the Southern coast was ice free. The Irish hare is a distinct species from the European hare, same too with an Irish frog species - both survived in Ireland from pre-LGM times. So it's likely that humans could have survived here too and maybe did. So far no Mousterian remains have been found in Ireland, including this area. However like Galicia, this area is the part of Ireland with most haplogroup E - not sure which clades/sub-clades. It also has distinct cattle - Kerry Cattle.

Maju said...

South Ireland did have a wider coastal platform, which is a prime fishing area nowadays. This is not the case of abrupt Galicia (nor most of the Iberian peninsula, that sends fishermen overseas for a reason).

The question is why do we find such aboundance of remains from central Asturias to the East through all the Upper Paleolithic and absolutely nothing to the West (only a very shy expansion in Epipaleolithic). There should be no climatic or orographic barrier but for some reason humans did not adventure (at least in numbers large enough to leave remains) farther West.

Was there some people? Maybe. But we have absolutely no trace of their presence until Chalcolithic, what means that their densities were ridiculously low and that people arriving in Neolithic/Chalcolithic could easily have made a major founder effect type of impact.

Btw, much of the same can be said of SW Iberia. There's not really much outside the Tago valley before Neolithic west of Gibraltar. But at least we can already talk of a vigorous and innovative Neolithic that seemingly developed the would-become most widespread funerary monument later on: the dolmen or trilithon (and wheatever religious beliefs attached to it). And some evidence may have been lost to sediments in the Guadalquivir valley anyhow.

Teresa Osorio said...

It is not true that Galicia was uninhabited before the pre-neolithic times. Maju knows perfectly the recientel finding of five teeth in a cave from Triacastela (Lugo, Galicia) correspondents to H. Sapiens, and whose chronology has established in 30.000 years.

Teresa Osorio said...

1.- It is not true that Galicia was uninhabited before the pre-neolithic times. The very recent descovery of five theeth from the Cave of Triacastela (Lugo, Galicia) concludes that de H. Sapiens Sapiens presence in Galicia has a rough chronology of 30.000 years.

2.- The European GM*3 5 haplotype (which includes GM*3 23' 5* and GM*3 23 5*) reached a value of 0.679 in Galicia. The GM*3 23 5* haplotype represents 73% of the global value for both haplotypes. In contrast, Basques from Guipúzcoa and Pasiegos register the lowest frequencies of the GM*3 23 5* (0.383 and 0.341, respectively) of all Spanish samples. This cluster (C3)is the nearest to the centroid and groups Western Europeans from France (including most French Basques), Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

3) the enormous incident in Galicia in the gene Apo B 3500 alteration, mutation that has more than 6.000 years, returns to relate Galicia to Central Europe, Great Britain and Ireland.

Galicians are more related genetically, bearing in mind these markers, to French, German and Hungarian populations, for example, that to Andalusians and Basques.