I did not read these, but it appears that the case for East Eurasian mDNA in Neolithic Hungary may in fact be suspect.
‘Early Neolithic’ graves of the Carpathian Basin are in fact 6000 years younger—Appeal for real interdisciplinarity between archaeology and ancient DNA research
Eszter Bánffy, Guido Brandt and Kurt W Alt
J Hum Genet advance online publication, June 7, 2012; doi:10.1038/jhg.2012.36
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Response to Data on Hungarian Early Neolithic graves by Bánffy et al
Tamas Zeke and Zsuzsanna Guba
J Hum Genet advance online publication, June 7, 2012; doi:10.1038/jhg.2012.64
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2 comments:
If the graves are 6000 years younger than previously thought, then they correspond in time with the early middle ages, a period during which there were several waves of steppe migrations to the Pannonian Plain from the east, including the one bringing the Hungarian language.
It would be interesting to ascertain when the westward movement into central-eastern European steppe began. I recall some early studies of "Scythian" mtDNA suggested 'east Eurasian' Hgs were found. However, defining exactly what is east Eurasian might be problematic, and timing it exaclty eve moreso.
Does anyone have full access to these articles ? Normally I have full electronic access via my institution but there appears to be a "lag" here
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