August 25, 2010

R1b founder effect in Central and Western Europe

Post will be updated after I read the paper. (Last Update: Aug. 29)

UPDATE I:

From the paper:
The ages of various haplogroups in populations were estimated using the
methodology described by Zhivotovsky et al,30 modified according to Sengupta
et al,10 using the evolutionary effective mutation rate of 6.9 x 10^-4 per 25 years.
The accuracy and appropriateness of this mutation rate has been independently
confirmed in several deep-rooted pedigrees of the Hutterites.
Of course readers of the blog are aware that I disagree with the use of the evolutionary rate. My comments on the Hutterites paper will be posted separately after I read it. I will simply say that there are numerous cases where the use of the genealogical rate makes better sense of the evidence than use of the "evolutionary" rate. Off the top of my head, the genealogical rate harmonizes with the Genghis Khan cluster, the expansion of Na-Dene speakers into the Americas, the expansion of Balto-Slavic, the Bronze Age spread of Semitic speakers, in accordance with the linguistic evidence, the expansion of Bantu in Angola, more recent British surnames, the formation of Arabian kingdoms, Greek colonization of Sicily, and the Bronze Age origin of Indo-Aryans and Finno-Ugrians (and I skipped a few).

UPDATE II (Aug 26):

Here is the phylogeny of R-M207 from the paper. For reference, the R-M207 page from ISOGG.


UPDATE III (Aug 26):

Going through the material in this paper in a systematic manner is not easy, so I will probably do a potpourri of updates covering various topics of interest.



As noted in the other recent paper, and shown in the above Figure from the current one, R-U106 peaks in northern Europe. Its frequency (including the R-U198 sublineage) is 36.8% in the Netherlands, 20.9% in Germany and Austria, 18.2% in Denmark, 18.2% in England, 12.6% in Switzerland, 7.5% in France, 6.1% in Ireland, 5.9% in Poland, 5.6% in north Italy 4.4% in Czech Republic and Slovakia, 3.5% in Hungary, 4.8% in Estonia, 4.3% in south Sweden, 2.5% in Spain and Portugal, 1.3% in eastern Slavs, 0.8% in south Italy, 0.6% in Balkan Slavs, 0.5% in Greeks (i.e. 2 of 193 Cretans, and no mainland Greeks), 0.4% in Turks, 0% in Middle East.

The age of R-U106 is estimated by the authors as 8.7ky BP, which translates to about 2.5ky BP with the germline rate. The existence of R-U106 as a major lineage within the Germanic group is self-evident, as Germanic populations have a higher frequency against all their neighbors (Romance, Irish, Slavs, Finns). Indeed, highest frequencies are attained in the Germanic countries, followed by countries where Germanic speakers are known to have settled in large numbers but to have ultimately been absorbed or fled (such as Ireland, north Italy, and the lands of the Austro-Hungarian empire). South Italy, the Balkans, and West Asia are areas of the world where no Germanic settlement of any importance is attested, and correspondingly R-U106 shrinks to near-zero.

UPDATE IV (Aug 26):

Another informative lineage, as noted in the other recent paper as well is R-U152:


Of interest is the fact that while
R-U152 has a clear French-Italian center of weight, the locations exhibiting highest STR variance are Germany and Slovakia, i.e., Central Europe. My guess is that R-U152 originated in Central Europe spreading to the west and south, perhaps with Italo-Celtic speakers or some subset thereof. In its home territory of Central Europe, its frequency decreased by the introduction of the Germanic and Slavic speaking elements which dominate the region.

Irrespective of what the ultimate origin of R-U152 is, it provides us with a good diagnostic marker for population movements out of the French-Italian area. In Italy for example it is noted at 26.6% for the north and 10.5% in the south. It would be extremely interesting to see its occurrence in Balkan Vlachs, as this would confirm/disprove the Italian component in their origin. However, R-U152 occurs in 7.3% of Cretans, suggesting introgression Y-chromosomes of North Italian (Venetian) origin, from the 4-century period of Venetian rule of the island. It also occurs in 4.1% of Greeks, where it might come from any period since the Roman annexation of the Hellenistic states to the Vlachs. However, its presence at only 1.8% of Romanians makes a large Italian contribution to the Romanian population unlikely. Balkan R-U152 chromosomes should be better resolved to determine when they arrived from the northwest.

The paucity of R-U152 in Turks (0.6%) make tales of wandering Galatians less likely to be true. There is no doubt that Galatians settled in Anatolia, but they were probably so few in numbers that they did not permanently alter the population. Knowledgeable readers should chime in about the Lebanese Christian R1b which was posited as a signature of the Crusades a couple of years ago, and its position in the phylogeny.

UPDATE V (Aug 26):

The most commong R1b subgroup in Europe is R-M269 and the most common subgroup is R-L23 which encompasses the vast majority of European R-M269 chromosomes. It is interesting to see where R-M269(xL23) is concentrated. In Europe I see cases in Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, Russia, the Ukraine. It is most prominent, however, in the Balkans, where every population except Croatia mainland (N=108) possesses it. In the Caucasus it does not exist except in the northeast. In Turkey and Iran there is some, albeit it is not clear in which regions.

UPDATE VI (Aug 27):

The authors write with respect to haplogroup R-V88:
With the exception of rareincidences of R1b-V88 in Corsica, Sardinia13 and Southern France(Supplementary Table S4), there is nearly mutually exclusive patterning of V88 across trans-Saharan Africa vs the prominence of P297-related varieties widespread across the Caucasus, Circum-Uralic regions, Anatolia and Europe. The detection of V88 in Iran, Palestine and especially the Dead Sea, Jordan (Supplementary Table S4) provides an insight into the back to Africa migration route.
Haplogroup R-V88 has been the subject of a recent study and was associated with the migration of Chadic speakers in Africa. It is difficult to say whether or not the authors' results really provide any insight into an alleged movement of this haplogroup from Asia to Africa, as it occurs in only a single Palestinian, and a single Iranian. Neither is the higher frequency (13.7%) observed in the Amman and Dead Sea area of Jordan really evidence of its antiquity there.

Neither the aforementioned paper nor the current one presents any evidence (e.g., Y-STR variance) for any great antiquity of the Asian R-V88 with respect to the African one. Indeed, with the exception of the aforementioned Jordanian sample, R-V88 is rare in Asia, while it is widespread in African Berbers. I see no clear reason at present to think that it migrated to Africa from Asia, and not to think of it as a relic of an older, widely dispersed R1b population leading to R-V88 in Africa itself.

UPDATE VII (Aug 28):

The paper repeats the standard claims about the origin of R1b and its main sublineage R-M269 in Asia, but presents no new information that would support this claim. With the state of the evidence, I see no real reason to prefer a West Asian to a Southeastern European origin for this haplogroup.

I don't give much credence to small differences in Y-STR variance, due to the large confidence intervals associated with such estimates, and it is interesting that the authors do not present an argument from Y-STR variation about the origin of R1b, preferring to make broad statements about Mesolithic-Neolithic movements into Europe.

A study of supplementary table S2 which gives coalescent times reveals that there is no clear pattern of greater Asian diversity within haplogroup R1b or its subclades. And, while Central-Western Europe does appear to be an outgrowth of R1b rather than a place of origin (with the dominance of derived R-M412 lineages) there is nothing in the paper that would make one prefer West Asia to Southeastern Europe as a place of origin.

Personally I think the issue cannot be settled yet, but there are reasons to prefer the latter option. An Asian origin of R1b has a major parsimony hurdle: it would require a seemingly directed drang nach westen for R1b, into Europe, and into North Africa, with a paucity of R1b in the opposite direction (among Arabians and to the south and in South Asia) and a scattering of very young R-M73 and R-M269 to the east of Europe.

UPDATE VIII (Aug 29):



R-S116 shows maximum Y-STR diversity in France and Germany but maximum frequency in Iberia and the British Isles. In the latter region it is represented mainly by R-M529 with the R-M222 subclade being particularly prominent in Ireland but also North England. It would be interesting to see data for Scotland, and I do not doubt that R-M222 would be prominent there as well. R-S116 also shows signs of being a Celtic, or Celtiberian-related lineage.

European Journal of Human Genetics doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2010.146

A major Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b Holocene era founder effect in Central and Western Europe

Natalie M Myres et al.

The phylogenetic relationships of numerous branches within the core Y-chromosome haplogroup R-M207 support a West Asian origin of haplogroup R1b, its initial differentiation there followed by a rapid spread of one of its sub-clades carrying the M269 mutation to Europe. Here, we present phylogeographically resolved data for 2043 M269-derived Y-chromosomes from 118 West Asian and European populations assessed for the M412 SNP that largely separates the majority of Central and West European R1b lineages from those observed in Eastern Europe, the Circum-Uralic region, the Near East, the Caucasus and Pakistan. Within the M412 dichotomy, the major S116 sub-clade shows a frequency peak in the upper Danube basin and Paris area with declining frequency toward Italy, Iberia, Southern France and British Isles. Although this frequency pattern closely approximates the spread of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK), Neolithic culture, an advent leading to a number of pre-historic cultural developments during the past ≤10 thousand years, more complex pre-Neolithic scenarios remain possible for the L23(xM412) components in Southeast Europe and elsewhere.

Link

65 comments:

Gioiello said...

M412? Is it perhaps the "Rozen's SNP" I ask to test from many months?

Vincent said...

Readers should note that there are not any new SNPs within R-M269 in this paper. The authors use existing names for L11, L23, and S116. The "new" M-series SNPs are the same as existing ones:
M412=L51
M529=L21


Three other SNPs were are phylogenetically equivalent to known SNPs (though not exactly the same mutation):
M415 is equivalent to P25, but the authors remove this level of phylogeny altogether - a nice development
M520 is equivalent to M269
M478 is equivalent to M73

Interestingly, the one new SNP in the paper is in haplogroup R2: M479 now defines R2, while the known M124 now defines R2a.

Gioiello said...

Hot from Worldfamilies:


Mikewww, I thank you for your considered answer. My theory is complex and I wasn't
able to summarize it in a few words. Actually it presupposed a migration to East,
the formation of the Indo-European languages (that I presumed linked with the
Rhaetian-Etruscan ones), the expansion linked with the diffusion of agriculture
from Asia Minor (then for me cultural and not demic, if not in the South Balkans
and partly South Italy) etc.

The knot is for me R-L51, centered in Italy, the not yet resolved problem of L150-
(if found thus far in the only Romitti, in favour of an Italian origin, and the
dubious result of Sutherland: R1b1b2* but L150+ on the Adriano's spreadsheet), the
migration to North Africa of R1b1* from North (Italy) and not from East, as the same
Cruciani does think, the Yoruba found R1b1b2a with the L216 mutation (with R1b1*
there were already R1b1b2a?), I who at the same level have the mutation S136 (a
deletion of 9bp in the region of L50), and above all the dating of R1b1b2, that
I presuppose more ancient than others are thinking...
For this I am waiting for the aDNA and Oetzi, who was certainly an ancient Italian,
above all.
(...)


Interesting news from EJHG: Natalie M. Myres et al., A major Y-chromosome haplogroup
R1b Holocene era founder effect in Central and Western Europe.

M412? Is it perhaps the "Rozen's SNP" I ask to test from many months?

Anyway is fundamental that this SNP "largely separates the majority of Central and
West European R1b lineages from those observed in Eastern Europe, the Circum-Uralic
region, the Near East, the Caucasus and Pakistan".

This for Vizachero and my two banishments!

"more complex pre-Neolithic scenarios remain possible for L23(xM412) components in
Southeast Europe and elsewhere" always from the paper. And on this I have said and
will say mine.

Maliclavelli (Gioiello Tognoni)



(from Rootsweb)
"This paper seems to validate Vince V's approach in the Ht35 project...
or maybe they followed his project and decided to research it. I'm
glad they are looking in the right places.

I don't see this as a Holocene series of events, at least the
first half of it. The good news is that we are no longer talking
about Paleolithic timeframes for R1b in Europe.

Mike"


Mike, how can you say this? They are talking of R-L51, but R-L23 they date to
about 10,000YBP. And R1b1b2*? And R1b1*?

eurologist said...

S116 is pretty far downstream and this study says nothing about its ultimate upstream origin (other than that it does not conflict with the notion that both R1a and R1b have their origin outside of Europe way before LGM, and that sub-groups that spread with agriculture are essentially of European and not near-Eastern origin).

I find the association with LBK not convincing, here - especially since the authors don't address the upstream sources, locations, and ages at all. We don't even know at his point if the first wave of central European agriculture provided the most important population growth and substrate for subsequent distribution (as compared to the multiple expansions just after LBK).

Vincent said...

With regard to the dating, I of course agree with Dienekes that the evolutionary rate is a poor approach. However, in fairness to the authors of this paper they do provide a very pointed addendum:

"Important caveats to consider include the fact that coalescent times (Td) is sensitive to authentic rare outlier alleles and that multiple founders during population formation will inflate the age estimate of the event."

Elsewhere, they go out of their way to emphasize that their dates are not necessarily on target:

"As the methodology assumes one founder, the expansion times will be inflated if multiple founders or recurrent gene flows have occurred. Thus, these estimates should be viewed as the upper bounds of dispersal times."

It seems to me there is a growing awareness that the Zhiv approach is not entirely satisfactory (remember, this paper is written by a largely Stanford-centric group). What we really need is a solid peer-reviewed and published alternative to Zhiv, so that authors will have something to cite.

Vincent said...

S116 is pretty far downstream and this study says nothing about its ultimate upstream origin (other than that it does not conflict with the notion that both R1a and R1b have their origin outside of Europe way before LGM, and that sub-groups that spread with agriculture are essentially of European and not near-Eastern origin).
This study does not claim that R1a or R1b have an origin "way before LGM".

The paper does make a case that several subclades of R-M269 may have evolved within Europe, but do note that the immediate predecessor to these clades (e.g. R-M269(xM412) were likely West Asian in origin. In short, the story is WAY more complex than the simple (and wrong) Semino/Wells version.

"Our results implicate complexity in the post-glacial formation and
expansion of populations in Europe during the past ca 10 000 years.
The narrow temporal window between potential expansions by
Mesolithic foragers at the onset of the Holocene (10k years ago)
and pioneer farmers from the Near East during the early Neolithic into
Central Europe (7.5k years ago) is exceedingly difficult to discern with
genetic tools. Thus, invoking the pronounced transformation of the
pre-Neolithic European gene pool by intrusive pioneer farmers from
the Near East must be viewed cautiously especially when such an
argument is based on just a single incompletely resolved haplogroup."

Andrew Lancaster said...

Note that they call their age estimates upper limits.

Also note that they properly reference the genetic genealogy community by name as a source of information.

Good.

Andrew Lancaster said...

The Bashkir R1b gets discussed reasonably often. Of course founder effects are again quite reasonably invoked here, but it is fascinating to see how many different clades of R1b are there, including some common in Europe and some not. At first sight this does seem to argue that this population has its roots in the same dispersal which so massively effected modern Europe's male line diversity.

aargiedude said...

Wooowww!!!! One of the best genetics studies ever. Absolutely amazing. Wow, wow, wow! This thread had better go to 100 comments. This is absolutely unreal. They have tested all the commercial R1b1b2 SNPs that we've always lamented that scientists weren't testing, including even the recent L21. They've also tested all the battery of ht35 SNPs. They've included the marker DYS461 in the haplotype data, which is different in ht15 and ht35 samples. They even tested, fresh new samples ("this study"), 367 samples from southeast Europe, arguably the most unreported region of West Europe, and the results are very interesting... 67% R1b1b2. This study is just absolutely beautiful. And it was about time (the commercial SNPs, I mean).

I've prettyfied their supplementary files and you can download it below. I've changed some of their obscure marker denominations and renamed them by their better known labels, such as M529 which is better known as L21. I also adjusted their DYS461 results, adding 1 repeat to the originally reported values, to bring them in line with the widely used standard for this marker. So the ht15 samples have DYS461=12 and the ht35 have DYS461=11.

R1b1b2 excellent sub-haplogroup study (Myres, 2010).xls

Someone could reciprocate by informing us if the China mtdna study from a few days ago, that tested a whopping 6,000 samples, included supplementary data about them.

If you find anything wrong in the file let me know so I'll correct it and reupload it. One thing I didn't understand was this:

"Previously M269 derived Turkish samples were determined to carry the M412 mutation: haplotype numbers 392,416,419,420,421,425,433, and 439."

It's in the notes of the supplementary file ejhg2010146x4.xls

This study is a work of art. Absolutely beautiful. I hope this thread goes to 100 comments. I hope it goes to 367 comments, and that 67% of them are intelligent, worthy comments, and the remainder stupid and irrelevant.

Sincerely,
argiedude
A proud member of the supreme lineage that rules them all, R1b1b2, Giver of light, Discoverer of New Worlds, Inventor of the theory of Evolution, Not responsible for starting WWII, etc., etc., etc... Oh right, almost forgot, Builder of Pyramids and Most famous of all Pharaohs. Wow, how would the world have been able to manage if that M269 mutation had never occured?

eurologist said...

I don't find the arguments concerning L23 convincing, at all, and at that level the time scale could be anything from 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, given today's uncertainties.

What I really would like to see is a plot of M412(xL11), since at the L11 level, there already is a lot of substructure in western Europe. And more importantly, how about M269(xL23), since the outliers of L23(xM412) and their location could be explained in many different ways (including spread from Danubian agriculturalists). And M269(xL23), from what I can extrapolate, is the only one that shows significant presence in Eastern Europe and North Africa - perhaps indicating a very early age and a very early dispersal.

Basically, what is missing in the story is the expected trail from the near east into the Balkans, diversification there, then a split into a southern and northern/central part, with subsequent diversification of these two, and a spread north and eastward from the lower Danube.

Instead, what we have in these maps looks like the end result of some population that suddenly appears and expands in western Europe almost out of nowhere, with perhaps an origin in northern Italy [M412, L11(xU106,S116)] and a second one in Iberia [S116].

The only subgroups that - from the plots, without using the dates - I would be willing to directly subscribe to agricultural expansion are M529 and U152. If that is the case, that would make them >6,000 years old (based on the introduction of farming to England). Then S116 immediately becomes too old to have been introduced by Iberian agriculturalists. Likewise, U106 and even L11(xU106,S116) then simply look like the expansion of a pre-existing (~>~8,000 years old) indigenous population that benefited from the introduction of agriculture. This is also consistent with maps of I subgroups that show similar (and in part parallel, e.g. U106 and I-M253) distributions that appear to show dispersal from the beginning of agriculture, but existence before then.

And before 6,000-7,000 years ago population densities were so tiny in comparison that there should be an enormous change of genealogical time scales associated with that. Which means, with all the uncertainties, that L23 also could be 15,000 or 20,000 years old...

One should also note that existing mtDNA data do not support an expansion and continuity originating from LBK. If anything, to me both data sets make it more likely that what we see today is continuation after break-up of LBK and subsequent expansion of local groups that brought in their own make-up (from Iberia, Italy, and northern Europe, and also, later, from Eastern Europe).

AWood said...

Good comment eurologist, I agree...
Interesting to note the founder effect of U152+ among the northern group of Bashkirs, not too dissimilar from the U152+ Kazakh who was tested at FTDNA from only a handful from that country. Galatian warlord/elite line no doubt.

Some interesting things to note. Highest subclade diversity of R1b is in France, probably the homeland/branching expansion of P312 and subclades.

P312*/L21/M22 are mostly confined to the Atlantic coasts.

U152+ is just an all around expanding badass.

R1b has very little association north of the Black Sea, NE Europe, Western Russia, with the exception of possibly central Russia and areas of the Caucasus, particularly the east.

aargiedude said...

argiedude said:
367 samples from southeast Europe, arguably the most unreported region of West Europe


I meant to say:
367 samples from southeast France, arguably the most unreported region of West Europe


What I really would like to see is a plot of M412(xL11)

Oh, no, don't start using the obscure labels from the study. Use the labels we are all accustomed to. M412 is L51. L51. L51. Got it? Check out YCC for the final word on the matter:

R1b1b2 excellent sub-haplogroup study (Myres, 2010).xls


And M269(xL23), from what I can extrapolate, is the only one that shows significant presence in Eastern Europe and North Africa

I just noticed that the study didn't test anybody from North Africa. Neither North Africa proper or Egypt. Damn, that sucks. Though the study is still absolutely spectacular, but what an oversight. Anyhow, exactly how do you extrapolate North Africa if it wasn't included in the study?

And while on the subject of North Africa... about half of North African R1b1b2-L11 belongs to a peculiar clade that seems virtually exclusive to North Africa. It has an extremely rare characterizing feature, which is a .2 mutation in DYS385a/b. This .2 mutation shouldn't be confused with another .2 mutation in DYS385a/b that occurs in a very different clade of R1b1* in Central Africa. Thanks to some results in ysearch and smgf, it looked highly likely that it belonged to U152. It would have been very nice if this study had included North Africa. Oh, well.

Jean said...

Dienekes: UPDATE V (Aug 26):

"It is interesting to see where R-M269(xL23) is concentrated. In Europe I see cases in Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, Russia, the Ukraine."

Where are you seeing this? There is no map of R-M269(xL23) - only R-M269 all inclusive. There were too few cases of R-M269* to make a map worthwile. They appear in Supplementary table 2: Romania 5 and Turkey 10.

I suspect that you are looking at L23(xM412).

Dienekes said...

Where are you seeing this? There is no map of R-M269(xL23) - only R-M269 all inclusive. There were too few cases of R-M269* to make a map worthwile. They appear in Supplementary table 2: Romania 5 and Turkey 10.

Table S4

Jean said...

Table S4

Thanks! See it now.

princenuadha said...

The map of u106 distribution is by far the single best piece of evidence for a historical and genetic Germanic population. The spread of the marker seems relatively recent and intense. I get this impression because the change in frequencies are abrupt. If the spread was old or more gradual the distribution map would look a lot more smooth. All this fits with "Germanic" migrations.

I'm so amazed at how closely this map follows historical/cultural accounts. On top of dynekes analysis there are many other details that follow historical record which could not be coincidence.

Look at how perfectly the higher frequencies wraps around Czech R. just like ethnicity predicts. Also notice how different eastern Germany is from Poland also in accordance with ethnicity. The high frequency stays in Austria very well and does not leek into its non Germanic neighbors. Notice how eastern Switzerland has higher frequency than western Switzerland, which is also in accordance with ethnicity. Northern France has higher frequency than southern. Eastern Ireland more than western. Northern Italy more than souther. In Iberia the distribution mirrors occupation of the suevi. Also interesting is how the very northeastern strip in Italy has higher frequency as it also has German speakers there.

Some incongruities with ethnicity are:
British have too high of frequency and it is too evenly distributed. Sweden has low frequencies and it trails far behind Norway. I expected Alsace and nearby to have higher frequencies.

McG said...

I also like Eurologists comments. On the speculative side, the U106 map suggests a possible doggerland source? The distribution to England, Scandinavia and western europe would support that contention as a source? This would also tie down some dating because the inundation occurred pre 5500 BC?

pconroy said...

Princenuadha,

I too noticed that U106 is a good proxy for Germanic areas, with the exception of Sweden.

So I guess in Sweden's case, it must be a Baltic population that became Germanized culturally, right?

Fanty said...

"So I guess in Sweden's case, it must be a Baltic population that became Germanized culturally, right?"

What about "East-Germanic" tribes?

I have the impression, that this marker wasnt present in "East-Germanic" populations too.

On the other hand, the East-Germanics had not been part of the Mannus Myth too.

Mannus Myth in a Nutshell:
All Germanic people originally come from a halfgod named Mannus (whos father possibly is the sky/war god Tyr/Tiu/Diu)

Mannus had 3 sons:

Ingo, who s mytholoical father of the tribes of Denmark and the German and Dutch coast.

Irmin, the mythological father of the tribes along the Rhine

Suevo, mythological father of the so called "Suebian" group. Amoung them Lombards, Markomanni etc (tribes of Eastern Germany, Czechia and Bavaria)

The eastern Germanic tribes (mainly in what is now "Poland" are missing in this Myth!

Several of these "Eastern Germanic" tribes have mythes on their own. Often pointing to a origin in Sweden, wich by most modern Archeologists is hardly disputed. them claiming there is no evidence of massive migration from Scandinavia to Poland and the "Eastern Germanic" tribes are most likely "Multi Ethnic" tribes that formed in Poland itself.

Paul_Johnsen said...

There were no Norwegian samples in this study, so assuming that U106 is higher in Norway than in Sweden is pure speculation. From what I have seen from Ysearch etc the opposite seems to be true.

Unknown said...

Myres et al has the disadvantage of no data from Belgium, which I think would show up with high U106 because of the concentrations seen in FTDNA projects and elsewhere along the RHine.

Cruciani et al seems to have data along a line from Italy through Germany and Denmark, so of course that map shows a gradient just like that.

Myres includes the small high-frequency low-N data from Austria from an old study but not the more recent study with similar high Austrian U106 percentages (Innsbruck area, specifically).

These notes aside, the combined data looks to me like U106 is weighted for a possible origin along the Danube or Rhine in Austria or Germanyu. Or maybe further east, spreading along the rivers and to some degree by sea (jumping to England, Portugal). The coalescence and variance values suggest something interesting with U106 going on in relation to eastern Europe, maybe.

My guess on the peak in the Netherlands is that it's a double amplitude wave kind of thing washing east to west first and then back from Great Britain. I don't see U106 originating here (or earlier in Doggerlands) given how far east it goes and how high a percentage of M269 it is in the east.

Given the territory covered by U106, it seems to take in all the Celtic and Germanic heartlands and later migrations as other people suggest.

The big surprise is the Italian peak for U152 which is even higher than France, with Switzerland a third level. This seems to make it unlikely that this was primarily a Celtic-civilization SNP as has frequently been suggested. I think both U152 and U106 probably predate the Celtic culture in any case, but it no longer seems to overlap the Celtic heartland strongly based on these samples. It centers further south on the other side of the Alps based on this data.

Anonymous said...

Fanty : "I have the impression, that this marker wasnt present in "East-Germanic" populations too."

Yes, the Goths (supposed to originally come from Sweden like the Burgundians and Vandals) migrated in the north of the Balkans and Ukraine where the Huns barged into them later, provoking the Visigothic migration within the Roman empire (the last place where Gothic was spoken in teh world, in the 16th century IIRC, was Crimea) and no tracks of the haplogroup to make visible this (relatively not too negligible in size, I assume) historical migration.

Anyway IMO, R-U106 is not to be directly linked specifically with Germanic migrations, even though the Germanic peoples had obviously lots of it.

Tom Gull : "I think both U152 and U106 probably predate the Celtic culture in any case"

Me too.

Gioiello said...

Dienekes writes:
“Neither the aforementioned paper nor the current one presents any evidence (e.g., Y-STR variance) for any great antiquity of the Asian R-V88 with respect to the African one. Indeed, with the exception of the aforementioned Jordanian sample, R-V88 is rare in Asia, while it is widespread in African Berbers. I see no clear reason at present to think that it migrated to Africa from Asia, and not to think of it as a relic of an older, widely dispersed R1b population leading to R-V88 in Africa itself (…) The paper repeats the standard claims about the origin of R1b and its main sublineage R-M269 in Asia, but presents no new information that would support this claim. With the state of the evidence, I see no real reason to prefer a West Asian to a Southeastern European origin for this haplogroup (...) A study of supplementary table S2 which gives coalescent times reveals that there is no clear pattern of greater Asian diversity within haplogroup R1b or its subclades. And, while Central-Western Europe does appear to be an outgrowth of R1b rather than a place of origin (with the dominance of derived R-M412 lineages) there is nothing in the paper that would make one prefer West Asia to Southeastern Europe as a place of origin (...) Personally I think the issue cannot be settled yet, but there are reasons to prefer the latter option. An Asian origin of R1b has a major parsimony hurdle: it would require a seemingly directed drang nach westen for R1b, into Europe, and into North Africa, with a paucity of R1b in the opposite direction (among Arabians and to the south and in South Asia) and a scattering of very young R-M73 and R-M269 to the east of Europe”.

This said, if the Argiedude’s map on R-L51* is reliable (and I think so), the origin is in Italy, which has also the upstream haplogroups that Balkans haven’t. In my theory of the Italian refugium I have always said that it included not only Italy but also the coasts of South France, the North Adriatic not yet submerged and the coasts of Balkans. Probably the presence of R-L23* among Aromuns, which can be very ancient, may testify an ancient situation submerged by late invasions or migrations. That, after the Younger Dryas, R1b, carrying Etruscan-Rhaetian languages, has migrated to South, to the edges of the Black Sea before their flooding and before returning to Central Europe with the first agriculturists, was hypothesized too. Of course for this my times aren’t yours. But perhaps it is too early for understanding all these details. What we have thus far understood I think it is very much, respect a few time ago. Anyway only the aDNA will be able to say a definite word, and this is said also by the paper.

Marnie said...

Is is possible that during the LGM, R1b carriers took refuge in the Southern Balkans, Southern Italy, the Islands of Sardinia and Corsica, Crete, as well as North Africa?

aargiedude said...

An Asian origin of R1b has a major parsimony hurdle: it would require a seemingly directed drang nach westen for R1b, into Europe, and into North Africa, with a paucity of R1b in the opposite direction (among Arabians and to the south and in South Asia)

Is this a change in your point of view, though cautious, from an Anatolian origin? Nice phrase, by the way: "drang nach westen". And I totally agree with it. The comeback to it would be that Europe was uninhabited, relatively speaking, so the Anatolian explosion would be very lopsided into the west, kind of like the reason why today Australia is inhabited by British people but not southeast Asia. Yet such a comeback would force the entry of M269* and L23* into Europe back to at least 5000 BC, since after this time Europe became just as densely populated as any other region south and east of Anatolia. And the emergence of P312 and U106 can't be too far behind that of L23*, given that their modal haplotypes are extremely similar (in fact just 2 STRs out of 67 are different, I believe; DYS393 and DYS461). TMRCA estimates place the origin of P312 and U106 at around 1500 BC.

A Lost European Culture [New York Times, November 30, 2009]

At its peak, around 4500 B.C., said David W. Anthony, the exhibition’s guest curator, “Old Europe was among the most sophisticated and technologically advanced places in the world”

A few towns of the Cucuteni people, a later and apparently robust culture in the north of Old Europe, grew to more than 800 acres, which archaeologists consider larger than any other known human settlements at the time.

Marnie said...

Varna has come up before in Dienekes' posts.

The flooding and salinization of the Black Sea could have been a cause for the "drang nach western" of this population.

Here's a nice link:

http://www.robotwisdom.com/science/blacksea.html

Dienekes said...

Is this a change in your point of view, though cautious, from an Anatolian origin?

When did I advocate a specifically Anatolian origin for R1b? The closest thing to what you are saying that I can think of is a correlation between J2 and R1b in southeastern Europe that I noticed a few years ago.

Gioiello said...

Marnie says: “Is it possible that during the LGM, R1b carriers took refuge in the Southern Balkans, Southern Italy, the Islands of Sardinia and Corsica, Crete, as well as North Africa?”
It is possible, but I prefer North Italy at the feet of the Alps, because I think to the Younger Dryas and the other regions were too dry.
To Argiedude I can say if he has remade his map of L51 and if has published it somewhere. From that map, and from many exams I did upon the Pichler’s paper, North Italy had the highest percentage and variance of R-L51.
The hypothesis of the coming from East was one of the two also for me, as R probably arose in Central Asia and Indo-European has links with Uralic, Altaic more than with other language groups (I have written of a link even with Sino-Tibetan, that arose in the high course of the Hoang He). But, till the aDNA will not falsify my hypothesis, I believe in it. The problems that a coming from East resolves are less than those that makes arise, first of all the mtDNA. Where are in Europe all these mitochondrions A, B, C, D etc.?

Marnie said...

Wiki's gotta be good for something. Picked this off of the Proto-Celtic language wiki page.

*dānu ‘valley river’ (neuter?)
number nominative vocative accusative genitive dative ablative instrumental locative
singular *dānu *dānu *dānu *dānous *dānou *dānū *dānū *dānū
dual *dānou *dānou *dānou *dānowou *dānoubom *dānoubim *dānoubim *dānoubim
plural *dānwā *dānwā *dānwā *dānujom *dānoubo *dānoubi *dānoubi *dānoubi

McG said...

I should have used the term redistribution to describe what may have happened to U106. I do believe that doggerland is a strong potential source for R-L21.

Further, I think this article and these entries on this blog support the thesis, that, for whatever reason, father/son rates underestimate tMRCA's for periods exceeding 2 to 3k years?

I further believe that a possible source of the problem is hidden mutations. It seems to me that the modal value is a preferred value and will be returned to preferentially? High rate mutators such as CDYa,b may have more than one "modal" marker value. This effect would give the appearance of less mutations occurring than really occurred, and an underestimate of tMRCA.

Marnie said...

Is it reasonable to assume that S116 is a "Proto-Celtic" lineage?

How much of Greek R1b is comprised of S116?

I'm just going to spill the beans here and say that it has long puzzled me that the settlement at Dispilio, which is on a fresh water lake known for its delicious fish, seems rather "Celtic" in several aspects.

First, there is the manner of settlement, in which residents lived over the water in a way that seems strangely reminiscent of a Scottish Crannog. Then, there are the flutes.

What is even more puzzling is that the residents of the area continue to have a custom, Ragoutsaria, that to my eye seems boldly Celtic in origin.

The date of initial settlement at Dispilio corresponds very closely with the flooding of the Black Sea.

There seems to be a pattern here, where displaced Black Sea residents went searching for a new home at fresh water lakes and rivers.

Dienekes said...

How much of Greek R1b is comprised of S116?

0% in the Greek sample and 1% in the Cretan sample.

Marnie said...

Both R-S116 and R-U152 show an island of increased intensity in the vicinity of the Danubian city of Budapest. The authors note highest STR variance for R-U152 in Germany and Slovakia.

I'd also note that there are many place names along the Danube in Hungary that appear to be the ruins of fortified settlements with Proto-Celtic namings. The Proto-Celtic place names disappear going upstream into Austria.

eurologist said...

Not to stray too far away from the topic, but (I have said this before), at one point early proto-Celtic is identical to early proto-Germanic. For example, dan-ou or don-au (Ger.) are both the valley of the river "Don" - the latter being a pan-European (IE?) word for river (from the big one in Russia to 4 instances in England). In Germanic, Au = Au(ge) = eye = is(land) = oog (e.g., Langeroog etc.) means a flat plane/place either caused by periodic river floods or a flat place (and thus island) in the sea.

The Celtic culture had a large extent to start with, and a huge one at the end. There is no question it spanned numerous peoples (e.g., lower Danube, middle Danube, upper Danube, Rhine area, and later into France, Northern Italy, and Britain) and numerous languages. IMO, east of the Rhine there is almost no clear evidence for Celtic ever having been spoken: whatever little evidence there is typically has simple relations to proto-Germanic, but not to derived, later Celtic.

Especially after the advent of agriculture, people didn't move as much as some believe.

McG said...

eurologist: I have been trying to understand what language the belgic tribes spoke. I believe it was q celtic. However, wikipedia tells us that c. 200 to 400 bc. the original inhabitants of the lowlands were driven out by german tribes. These people came from east of the Rhine,and became what Caesar called "the belgic tribes" and apparently spoke q celtic. The displacements caused by Rome, c. 50 BC, then resulted in the q celtic appearing in England, Ireland etc? I do agree with your comment, that people didn't move as much after agriculture unless there was a force such as Rome, climate etc. involved.

Fanty said...

Hmm.

Is there evidence that the "Germans" did speak celtic?

What I mean is the tribe who really called himself by this name.
(Tacitus claims that the first tribe who crossed the Rhine and settled in Belgium, named himself "Germani" and so, the Gauls called everyone east of the Rhine by this name from then on and the Romans copied this behavior.)

I mean, I read that the original "Germani" tribe happend to be a celtic tribe by modern observaton but I did not read the reason why one believes this now.

The question is also, why would a celtic speaking tribe be a name giver for dozens of germanic speaking tribes?

On the other hand, Tacitus claims there are tribes who claim Germanic heritage but Tacitus thinks the lie. He thinks they are Celtic but claiming Germanic heritage because the Germanics are the most feared barbarians of the day and to be related to them could scare enemies away. But he does not write details about, why he does think them Celtic rather than Germanic.

On the other way, how much could one count on what he says, because he claims the Swedes, who live on the other side of the "Mare Germanicum" as the most northern Germanics but does not believe the Goth to be. So, I dont think that he judged by language (or he never ever met a Goth himself?)

Anyways, today we have several "definitions" of "Germanic" wich are not compatible to each others.

1. "Historical Definition":
Whoever claimed himself or was claimed by others (Romans for example) in "historical documents" as beeing "Germanic" is "Germanic".
Neither Goth nor Franks are Germanic by this definition! (No one ever claimed them "Germanic" in a "Historical" document.)

2. "Linguistic Definition":
Who ever speaks a Germanic language, is Germanic.
This makes Goth and Franks "Germanic".

3. "Archeological-Cultural Definition":
About 7, totaly different cultures, who are either linguistical or historical "Germanic" (But who no sane modern scientist would ever call "One people") are declared "Germanic founds".
The Cultural diversity of the tribes who are all claimed "Germanic" is extremely higher than the cultural diversity of the tribes claimed "Celtic" (Typical counter argument to the claim that the "Germanics" had been "one people")

Marnie said...

eurologist:

" IMO, east of the Rhine there is almost no clear evidence for Celtic ever having been spoken: whatever little evidence there is typically has simple relations to proto-Germanic, but not to derived, later Celtic."

Looking at the phylogeny of S116 and the maps, I'd guess that it is Proto Italo-Celtic that was spoken east of the Rhine, likely on the Danube, below the confluence of the Danube and Drava rivers.

McG said...

My source for my comments re: the belgic tribes is Caesars, "Conquest of Gaul". The Remi, a tribe which aided Caesar stated as follows: "The envoys stated that most of the Belgae were descended from tribes which long ago (before 50 BC) came across the Rhine from Germany and settled in that part of Gaul on account of its fertility, expelling the former inhabitants. The Belgae, they said, were the only people who half a century earlier, when all of Gaul was overrun by Teutoni and the Cimbri, prevented the invaders from entering their territory". The migration of the Belgic tribes to Britain is supported as follows: "The people responsibile for the adoption of this policy (tribes fighting Rome) he continued have now relized what a calamity they have brought upon their country and have fled to Britain". And this comment about the Nervii, who supposedly fielded 50,000 soldiers in the war against rome: "So ended this battle, by which the nervii were almost annihilated and their name blotted out from the face of the earth".

These excerpts support the contention that the Belgae tribes of 50 BC were from Germany; that they fled to Britain to escape from Rome and that the devastation imposed was very high.

Finally, a comment about the beginning of book I which includes the famous "All Gaul is composed of three areas inhabited by the Belgae, Aquitani and a people who call themselves Celts, though we call them Gauls. All of these have different languages, customs and laws. The Belgae are the bravest of the three people..."

eurologist said...

Marnie,

I find it difficult to associate haplogroups with relatively recent cultures - let alone languages.

Just as an example, the finds from the ~3,000 year old central-German Lichtenstein cave include I(2b2, M170), R1b(U106), and R1a - the same mixture that you would find in that region, today. And also in majority mtDNA H, and then U, J, and T. Roughly speaking, not much has changed there in 3,000 years. What language did they speak? Very likely some early Germanic. What culture is that area strongly associated with? Celtic.

As to the languages spoken east of the Rhine and in the upper/middle Danubian region, my personal opinion is: there is such a strong cultural link to what is now central Germany and northern Germany for several millennia, that most likely people then also spoke a very similar language, given that there are no serious geographic boundaries.

Probably somewhere around the eastern Alps central European IE developed into proto-italic and proto-celtic - but even in Caesar's times (from what little evidence is left) the language there was not all that close to the celtic of Gaul, let alone the islands.

There have been so many theories of Germanic tribes originating from Scandinavia and migrating south all over the place over the centuries - most have been refuted.

We know pretty much for a fact though that in Caesar's time, Germanic was spoken on both sides of the Rhine (of course not too far west of it) all the way down to Suebia (now Baden-Wuertemberg and west Bavaria), and at least on the north shores of the Danube by Vienna.

It is possible that somewhere in what is now southern Germany and Austria people spoke a dialect that had some proto-Celtic or proto-Italic elements - but I see no reason why they should have spoken a Celtic language.

As to "historic" sources: they are so riddled with obvious mistakes and tainted with political agenda that they are almost useless. In early Roman times, the cis-Alpine "Gauls" where their cultural and military equal - no one in Rome could seriously put them down as barbarics. Same, by extension is true for much of Gaul, Alpine inhabitants, and the Austrian region from which Rome resourced its swords. But the "Germanic tribes" where Caesar's convenient enemy #1, and they were accordingly painted in all kinds of bad colors. Boundaries were drawn for military convenience, not where particular languages were spoken. And with the advent of large standing armies, rivers (that formerly were typically home to the same agriculturalists on both sides - i.e., the valley) where often chosen. Helvetia and and its neighboring northern regions (Suebia) where brought into Roman control early on - thus, by definition only the uncontrolled tribes to the north were "Germanic" - even if the language in Suebia was (likely) the same.

And what other people called certain tribes is equally unreliable. For example, Germanic tribes called all tribes that collaborated with/were subjugated by the Romans "Welsh" or "Valachs" (same word) - regardless whether they spoke Celtic, Germanic, or whatnot.

pconroy said...

Eurologist,

I disagree with your supposition that an early form of Germanic was spoken 3,000 years ago in today's Germany, much more likely is that Balto-Slavic was spoken along the North European plain, from Belarus to the Netherlands, later when the Celts pushed North into the Netherlands and Northern Germany, they mixture of languages produced a creole called Germanic.

pconroy said...

McGregor,

BTW, Caesars book, which I studied in Latin class, was called "De Bello Gallico" - The Gallic Wars.

At the time Rome controlled Gallia Cisalpina (Gaul on this side of the Alps - roughly Northern Italy) and also Gallia Transalpina (Gaul on the other side of the Alps - roughly Provance), and they wanted to stop the Helvetii, a tribe from Switzerland from moving into Gallia Cisalpina or further West.

eurologist said...

Balto-Slavic was spoken along the North European plain, from Belarus to the Netherlands, later when the Celts pushed North into the Netherlands and Northern Germany, they mixture of languages produced a creole called Germanic.

I know of no sources that would substantiate (a) Baltic or Slavic in that region before the much later move of Slavic peoples north and and west (~1,500 years ago) and Baltic people/language into the Baltics, (b) a move of Celts north, nor (c) any evidence that Germanic is some sort of amalgam between Celtic and Slavic. On the contrary: proto-Germanic and proto-Slavic have almost no relation, but there are the expected proto-Germanic loan words in Finnish/Estonian (which was spoken in a wider region before the Baltic people moved north).

Yet, Baltic and Slavic are closely related. In fact, there is so little overlap between Germanic and Slavic that it is clear that their populations shared little common boarder and had little, if any, interaction until recently.

Germanic was spoken from the Baltic at the minimum west of the Vistula into much of today's Poland and today's Czech republic - between that and the Slavic parts of the Ukraine likely was a buffer zone, with people speaking yet different languages, especially in the south.

East Germanic (Gothic) may be an exception: from the little text I have seen so far, I could actually imagine some West Baltic (Prussian) influence.

eurologist said...

Probably somewhere around the eastern Alps central European IE developed into proto-italic and proto-celtic

Sorry, this somehow got garbled up. I see proto-Italic as something almost pan-Alpine (but definitely quite south) in origin, starting with IE people moving south and later interacting with Greek settlements, and proto-Celtic from the very eastern Alpine fringe spreading through most of nowadays France, and then into the isles - all very early and much earlier than dated by illusionist based on some silly believes.

In the end, the diaspora paradigm tells us that the Isles preserved ancient Celtic the same way as Scandinavia and Gothic preserved ancient Germanic - because they were located at the fringe.

McG said...

Conroy: Mine is the latest hanford edition of what you read. I find Caesar compelling when he is talking about non-war items, using exploratores (spies), describing Druids etc. Remember this was written for the Roman Senate from whom he got his legions and funding.

We have very few historical records from a person who personally experienced what he is writing about. So much of early Greek and Roman sources is secondhand.

I have been told that the Belgae didn't speak a different language, just a different, at most, dialect of P Celtic. That just doesn't seem to agree with what little data we have.

In my genetic studies of scotland I find that the scottish modal never goes further back than,at most, 100 to 300 AD. The displacement of the Gaulic and Belgic tribes occurred in two waves: 1. Caesars conquest of Gaul 2. Agricolas invasion of Britain. I see not reason not to believe that they are the sources of the Picts and Scottis in Scotland?

Marnie said...

eurologist:

"I find it difficult to associate haplogroups with relatively recent cultures - let alone languages."

I'm not associating haplogroups with relatively recent cultures. From linguistics, the age estimates for Proto Italo-Celtic are early Bronze Age. S116 looks to me to be a marker for a Bronze Age Proto Italo-Celtic migration westward from the Danube, with the Proto Italic speakers heading into Italy, perhaps by way of the Drava River, and the Proto Celts by way of the upper Danube. This would concur with the earliest appearance of Bronze age copper axes in Ireland.

"Just as an example, the finds from the ~3,000 year old central-German Lichtenstein cave include I(2b2, M170), R1b(U106), and R1a"

You have your answer right there. In the R1b phylogeny, U106 and S116 split early, perhaps even before the Bronze Age. U106 continues up the Danube to its headwaters, Innsbruck and Bodensee for example, and settles down. Notably, the Proto Italo-Celtic "dun" namings for fortified settlements disappear traveling from Hungary to Austria.

S116 does show up in Germany, but mostly at its extreme south western edge, as if S116 also travelled to the head waters of the Danube, but then pushed on through to the headwaters of the Rhine, near Strasbourg.

"As to the languages spoken east of the Rhine and in the upper/middle Danubian region, my personal opinion is: there is such a strong cultural link to what is now central Germany and northern Germany for several millennia, that most likely people then also spoke a very similar language, given that there are no serious geographic boundaries."

Nothing I am saying comes into conflict with Germans speaking German for several millennia.

"Probably somewhere around the eastern Alps central European IE developed into proto-italic and proto-celtic - but even in Caesar's times (from what little evidence is left) the language there was not all that close to the celtic of Gaul, let alone the islands."

Again, I put the Proto Italo-Celts on the Danube between between Budapest and Belgrade, and perhaps further downriver, into Romania.

"It is possible that somewhere in what is now southern Germany and Austria people spoke a dialect that had some proto-Celtic or proto-Italic elements - but I see no reason why they should have spoken a Celtic language."

Haven't said anywhere that Germans or Austrians ever spoke a modern Celtic language.

It should be noted that both the words "Danube" and "Drava" are believed to be Proto-Celtic in origin.

Peter Princeton said...

This young subhaplogroup appears to be rather rare in mainland Scandinavia. I find it quite unlikely that this haplogroup be associated with Germanic languages although perhaps it may be associated with the west Germanic languages.Nevertheless if we ever want to really know we need to study the ancient bones which always seem to prove something contrary to what the present data seems to show.

pconroy said...

McGregor,

As I've said on other fora and maybe here before, I think the Belgae spoke a West Germanic language, and settled in Southern Britain and were the founding English population - ther is no evidence of mass migration to England after the Romans left, all the evidence points to the Belgae as bringing Germanic language to Britain. The Belgae were from the Litus Saxonicum (Saxon shore) of today's Belgium and Holland. Saxon in tis case being a generic name applied to sea rovers/piates, like Viking was used later.

Belgae also settled in South Western Ireland, and an unknown Germanic language called Yola was spoken there up till the mid 1700's.

Marnie said...

In the abstract, the authors are associating M412 and by inference, its sublineages, U106 and S116, with the Linearbandkeramik culture.

from http://archaeology.about.com/od/lterms/qt/lbk.htm:

"The earliest LBK sites are found in the Starcevo-Koros culture of the Hungarian plain, around 5700 BC. From there, the early LBK spreads separately east, north and west."

"The LBK reached the Rhine and Neckar valleys of Germany about 5500 BC. The people spread into Alsace and the Rhineland by 5300 BC. By the mid-5th millenium BC, La Hoguette Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and LBK immigrants shared the region and, eventually, only LBK were left."

Marnie said...

From Wiki, Starcevo culture:

"The Starcevo culture was a widespread early Neolithic archaeological culture from Eastern Europe and the Balkans. It dates to between seventh and fifth millenia BC."

"Starcevo is a site located on the north bank of the Danube in Vojvodina; opposite Belgrade in Serbia."

"Parallel and closely related cultures also include the Karanovo culture in Bulgaria, Cris in Romania and pre-Sesklo in Greece."

Anonymous said...

eurologist :

"proto-Germanic and proto-Slavic have almost no relation, but there are the expected proto-Germanic" - "there is so little overlap between Germanic and Slavic that it is clear that their populations shared little common boarder and had little, if any, interaction until recently"

On the contrary, there is a well-known link between Germanic and Slavic. It is pretty visible in the vocabulary and a few declination suffixes (at least one anyway IIRC, plural dative if I'm not mistaken) also support it.

"For example, dan-ou or don-au (Ger.) are both the valley of the river "Don" - the latter being a pan-European (IE?) word for river (from the big one in Russia to 4 instances in England). "

I-E, I'd say. I've read that Don, Donets, dniepr, Dniester probably came from an Indo-iranian word for river "danu" (read in a Mallory book and here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_River_(Russia)#History), whose tracks are found up to south Siberia (where tracks of "Scythian" settlements exists)

pconroy :

"much more likely is that Balto-Slavic was spoken along the North European plain, from Belarus to the Netherlands, later when the Celts pushed North into the Netherlands and Northern Germany, they mixture of languages produced a creole called Germanic"

I wonder why you would think such thing. Baltic was indeed much more widespread in the past than today (toponymy reveals it almost went up to Moscow) - as for Slavic it's not that clear - but why would you think it went as west as the Netherlands?

McG said...

Conroy: These are moot points, what we need are more facts/data. re: "there is no evidence of mass migration to England after the romans left". There is evidence of migration, after their defeat, to south western england from the lowlands where the map shows the presence of Atrebates and Belgic Tribes. re: language, I am no linguist, but Rhys in his book(s) that two pockets of q celtic were spoken in Wales, close to where the tribes are indicated to be or were in Agricolas time. The languages spoken by the German tribes needs to be better understood. What did the teutons speak. I read that their language died out?

pconroy said...

McGregor,
The Romans weren't defeated in Britain??!! They recalled their legions to defend other areas of the empire, and so they abandoned Britain and left it defenseless.

As regards Q-Celtic being spoken in Wales: Deisi tribes from Ireland carved out colonies in Wales during this period, and they were Q-Celtic speaking.

pconroy said...

Wagg,

Balto-Slavic languages were spoken as far West as Hamburg and Bremen - maybe not in Holland itself.

The German word for themselves Deutsch, derived from teuta/tuath a Celtic word meaning "people" or "the People"

Germanic has a Balto-Slavic substrate and a Celtic superstrate.

Marnie said...

Oh. That would make English a language with a Balto-Slavic substrate and a double Celtic superstrate. Hold the mayo.

eurologist said...

Marnie,

Only my first paragraph was a direct response to you - the remainder was a more general comment with regard to the thread. And I totally agree with your assessment as early bronze age for proto-Celtic and proto-Italic and their first spread.

Perhaps I came off a bit negative because I see so many posts and web sites with ridiculous claims and time scales that make zero sense - for example, proto-Celtic developing in the iron age, or origin of Balto-Slavic at around 500AD. With regard to the latter, people have to understand that the various Baltic languages are incomprehensible to each other, and about as far apart from each other as to Slavic. In Germanic languages, for comparison, it took about ~2,000 to 2,500 years for them to drift apart to that extent. Even today, any Austrian (with a bit of training on how to pronounce idiosyncratically spelled letter combinations) can read and understand much Dutch.


@waggG:

On the contrary, there is a well-known link between Germanic and Slavic.

If you read my comment more carefully, my statement was a bit more subtle and distinguishes between the lack of relation between their respective proto-languages and that of the modern languages, and it also relativates this relation.

Proto-Germanic will have had first extended contact with the Finnish-speaking new-comers to the Baltic, and only later with the Baltic language, and then only in the past 1,500 years with Slavic.

In other words, given the past 1,500 years of closeness between German(ic) and Slavic populations, and perhaps 1,000 years of Germanic and Balto-Slavic before, it is almost astonishing that they don't form more of a Sprachbund (compared to the Balkans or Iberia/France/Italy, for example).

The most straightforward explanation is that proto-Germanic formed before any first contact (see above) in a large, quite homogeneous area, while the Baltic and Slavic languages were initially isolates and only spread much later into more northern and western regions.

Unknown said...

So, as I see it:

R1b* (M415) starts a westward migration from somewhere east of Europe.

It splits at the mediterranean with R1b1* travelling north of the mediterranean and R1b2* (V88)travelling south of the mediterranean into north Africa.

R1b1b1a1* (L11) splits again at the Alps, with R1b1b1a1a* (U106) travelling north of the alps into Europe. R1b1b1a1b* (S116) travels south of the Alps into Europe, and hairpins back into Italy.

The southern European migration of R1b1b1a1b* (S116) splits again into inland R1b1b1a1b1*(U152) which travels to the Atlantic via France, and maritime R1b1b1a1b2*(M529) which travels around the coast to Ireland.

We really, really need the data from North Africa to complete the picture. Why is this data always missing?

Unknown said...

Wish they would nt keep changing the coding. Ijust got used to R1b1b2... Its all very Euro-centric.

McG said...

Conroy: we are not communicating. I'm talking about the Belgic tribes migration to Britain after their subjugation by the Romans in Gaul c. 50 BC. I believe they migrated to several places probably including southern Ireland. I'm doing all this by matching haplotypes, not historical records or linguistics which I find to be of dubious use? I am trying to plot the path of the tribe called the Scottis by Romans c. 360 AD. I see very little record of them in Scotland before 100 to 300 AD. I think they migrated to Antrim from southern Ireland due to famine? I hope to be able to show similar haplotypes to R-L21, but not M-222.

Anonymous said...

This may facilitate the discussions on language issues.

https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/noonan/www/Celtic%20lecture.IE.pdf

Marnie said...

Dienekes, your comment:

"It is interesting to see where R-M269(xL23) is concentrated. In Europe I see cases in Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, Russia, the Ukraine."

Yes, and Western Europe, especially Scotland and Ireland.

How about that R-M269?

My comment from January:

"To my mind, the most likely candidate for a group that would have been motivated and able to move into a marginal climate, such as icy Northern Europe and the British Isles, would have been shepherds."

"I'm just wondering why people keep talking about farmers, rather than perhaps, a transhumant people who both farmed and shepherded in order to subsist."

"That lifestyle would account for greater mobility than families of farmers gradually, through population growth, diffusing northward."

"Many European transhumant groups today seem to share some characteristics such as cheese making, to supply food for the winter and stone house built for overwintering."

"I've read that sheep were first domesticated about in about 10,000 years BC in Southwest Asia."

Strange that Scotland and Ireland were not more heavily sampled in this paper. Perhaps another paper on the way for an early M269 pastoral migration across Europe?

Marnie said...

Perhaps, for the most part, Europeans are "Caucasians" after all.

Looking at the R-M269 and R-M269(xL23) maps, as well as aargiedudes data over on Maju's sight, it's hard to miss the association with pastoralism. Importantly, Myres notes that the R-M269 expansion appears to be at the beginning of the Holocene, just as the LGM ice was melting.

R-M269 shines out in the British Isles and in parts of France where there is a tradition of shepherding: Provence and Rhone-Alpes. It is only a bit less frequent in Basque territory.

There is a notable blip of intensity in the Southern Caucasus, another area with a strong pastoral tradition.

Recent linguistic evidence indicates that the Basque language may originate in the Caucasus.

Looking at L23(xM412), it's presence in Switzerland is notable. The authors describe a sample in Switzerland's Upper Rhone Valley which showed a frequency of 27%.

"After the end of the last Ice Age, Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic hunters colonised the Rhone Valley by two different routes: over the high mountain passes in eastern Valais (connecting northern Italy) and by the Lower Rhone Valley in the west (connecting Lake Geneva). Early Neolithic culture spread to Valais over mountain passes linking the Alps with the Po Valley, possibly by grazing small herds in high pastures in summer. " Reference: Prehistoric settlement in the middle and high altitudes in the Upper Rhone Valley (Valais-Vaud, Switzerland): A summary of twenty years of research, Philippe Curdy.

aargiedude, looking at your M269 data, I see frequencies upward of 5% in Cyprus and Albania and > 2% throughout the Balkans. More shepherds!

L23(xM412) reaches it's greatest intensity in the southern Caucasus and overlaps the M269 South Caucasus island.

Myers et al. note that the expansion of M269 + L23(xM412) was followed by an expansion of an M412 agriculturalist LBK expansion:

" The coalescent estimate for the Y-STR network tree of 245 M269*+L23(xM412) chromosomes is 10 270±1680 years Before Present (BP). This estimate approximates the median TMRCA dates (8.5–12.5k years) of M269 clade across Europe based on alternative demographic inference methodology. 33 Our estimate of 8870±1708 years BP, based on 757 M412 chromo- somes, suggests that the M412 lineage evolved in Europe soon after the arrival of a L23* ancestor."

This suggests that a pastoralist expansion paved the way for the LBK agriculturalists who not long afterward, followed them into Western Europe.

It's my belief, based on the survival of M269 and L23(xM412), that the agriculturalists and pastoralists coexisted. They simply carved out different niches.

The rapid expansion of M412 into Western Europe also suggests that M269 led the way for M412.

All in all, the picture is of an expansion of M269 and L23(xM412) pastoralists at the end of the LGM, from the Caucasus into the eastern Europe, followed by a second wave of expansion of M412 agriculturalists from the Balkans westward, traveling up the Danube.

Fanty said...

@McG:
"What did the teutons speak. I read that their language died out?"

Its not exactly known what they spoke.

But by the way the Romans wrote the names of Teutons and Cimbri, these tribes languages did not yet have passed the first Germanic soundshift. (the Romans name them "cimbri teutonique". But they SHOULD have been "chimbri theudonique" if they already passed the soundshift.

This means, they did not even speak "Proto-Germanic" but "Pre-Germanic" (I read in english the correct name is "Germanic Parent Language")
The estamination when "Germanic Parent Language" came to live is at 2000BC-1500BC

It is usualy estaminated that "Germanic Parent Language" turned to "Proto-Germanic" somewhere between 500BC and 1AD

princenuadha said...

What is this, marnie's starting to use some technical language.

Rob said...

Does anyone know the breakdown of Greek & Turkish R1b sub-haplogroups ?

Unknown said...

Hi I am from Bulgaria originally. Stranja mountain on the border of what is Turkey now. Sheep farming is in my blood. I just done my y tests with ftdna and is m269. I also come across new 2013 research from Italians and Bulgarians showing East Bulgaria and 18% of the Bulgarians with R1b ( 5% m269 and rest m23). Standja mountain was not affected by the last ice age. On my genetic exact matches shows exact match with people from Ireland, Scotland, England and Germany. The region was populated by Thracians tribes. Interestingly region was called also Mala Skitia which sound a lot like Scotia. Mala Skitia means the small Skitia the big Skitia is the Caucasian region and namely the land of the proto Bulgarians.