January 14, 2015

Y chromosome super-fathers

This is a very exciting paper. Most of these lineages are so young that there are good chances that their founders were figures from history or mythology.

The most interesting one is DC2 which was also found in south Siberian Kurgans, belongs to haplogroup R1a1 and is given an age of 3,284 years by the authors (with some almost impossibly wide confidence intervals). Based on its distribution, and if a Bronze Age date is right, it is difficult to see in it anything other than a patrilineage that was present in Proto-Indo-Iranians.


European Journal of Human Genetics advance online publication 14 January 2015; doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2014.285

Y-chromosome descent clusters and male differential reproductive success: young lineage expansions dominate Asian pastoral nomadic populations

Patricia Balaresque et al.

High-frequency microsatellite haplotypes of the male-specific Y-chromosome can signal past episodes of high reproductive success of particular men and their patrilineal descendants. Previously, two examples of such successful Y-lineages have been described in Asia, both associated with Altaic-speaking pastoral nomadic societies, and putatively linked to dynasties descending, respectively, from Genghis Khan and Giocangga. Here we surveyed a total of 5321 Y-chromosomes from 127 Asian populations, including novel Y-SNP and microsatellite data on 461 Central Asian males, to ask whether additional lineage expansions could be identified. Based on the most frequent eight-microsatellite haplotypes, we objectively defined 11 descent clusters (DCs), each within a specific haplogroup, that represent likely past instances of high male reproductive success, including the two previously identified cases. Analysis of the geographical patterns and ages of these DCs and their associated cultural characteristics showed that the most successful lineages are found both among sedentary agriculturalists and pastoral nomads, and expanded between 2100 BCE and 1100 CE. However, those with recent origins in the historical period are almost exclusively found in Altaic-speaking pastoral nomadic populations, which may reflect a shift in political organisation in pastoralist economies and a greater ease of transmission of Y-chromosomes through time and space facilitated by the use of horses.

Link

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

I cannot get the full article, but have two questions:

1)DC2 looks too late to be PII. Could it reflect the population that remained in central Asia?

2)Is DC11 H1a? Can anyone say more about it? Also, it looks like it contributes to the Kalash.

Nikolay Myakishev said...

Well there is something odd in the results.
The men represent different haplogroups with common ancestors tens of thousands years ago.
Neveretheless, all the markers barely differ from each other.

andrew said...

DC3 which shows Y-DNA L going from the highlands of Iran to South Asia ca. 1100 CE is particularly notable, as generally, one thinks of Y-DNA L as being an autochronous South Asian lineage, and not a recent arrival in Medieval times.

obsi said...

I haven't looked at the date of DC11, but couldn't it be related to the spread (and foreign campaigns) of the Maurya empire? If the date fits, it would make sense, I think, geography- and influence-wise.

obsi said...

Sorry, just saw the date in the larger map. The date fits like a glove! I am pretty confident now that it must be related to Maurya expansions. What does the paper actually say about it?

terryt said...

I notice on Razib Khan's blog he wonders if this rapid spreading of male haplogroups is a recent development or if it is an ancient phenomenon. Like him I think it is an ancient phenomenon but perhaps sped up with the development of agriculture and, especially, domestication of the horse.

Nirjhar007 said...

@Guys
These results are baseless Indus Valley Civilization aDNA will provide Y-DNA R1a1a,J2a,R2,F,C and also G2.
BTW PIE homeland was most likely in Northern Iran as it is finely described here-
http://new-indology.blogspot.in/2014/10/can-we-finally-identify-real-cradle-of.html
And Indo-Europeans were present in SC Asia at least from Chalcolithic as the Archaeotextual,Anthropological and Archaeological data all agree!
Just see the website and wait for the reliable aDNA to come out....

dtvmcdonald said...

Lets be blunt and say the truth: this paper is based on junk data.

8 marker (!) haplotypes and a
minimal SNP panel render it that.

Were I to referee this, I would give it the most savage review I ever gave, which is is a lot.
"Utter garbage, the authors must
repeat the data collection (on
thousands of samples) with at least 40 SNP markers and
at least 10x average coverage next generation sequencing on at least 6 megabases."

These days its silly to use STRs
without adequate SNPs. Note that
they can't use "chip" technology for SNPs (as a similar European paper could these days!) because
there are nowhere near enough
next generation sequencing results covering most of Asia
(outside China).

Anonymous said...

I bought the article. It refers to specific STR modal haplotypes, and I have to say that I am somewhat sceptical of the whole thing.

DC11 seems to originate in Gondwana, which indicates a central-Dravidian speaker as an ancestor. More importantly, his haplotype is concentrated amongst tribals populations. However, it seems to be 20% amongst the Kalash, and represent all H haplotypes. This implies that 20% of the Kalash are descended from a Maurya era Gondi male, and similar traces are found amongst South Indian upper castes, despite those areas never falling under Maurya dominion and other studies.

DC3 is also found concentrated in several non-Muslim populations. Considering the socio-religious dynamic of the Islamic conquest, it more likely points to a non-Muslim male from Iran. Considering the general assumptions about L, his ancestors may have come from India, which indicates that he was returning to his homeland. He may have even been a Shahi....

Grey said...

@terryt
"I notice on Razib Khan's blog he wonders if this rapid spreading of male haplogroups is a recent development or if it is an ancient phenomenon."

Logically I think it must have happened whenever some little group developed a competitive advantage for some period of time.

Kristiina said...

Cluster DC10, i.e. geneflow from Hezhen to Buryats in the form of K(xN1c1,P), is not very convincing. So, the frequency of all N in Hezhe is 8/45 and all of it is N1b. The data on Buryats is taken from Kim et al 2011 (http://www.investigativegenetics.com/content/2/1/10), and in their chart the different subclades of N are not specified but the frequency of all N is 25%. However, considering the four other studies on Buryats (Karafet 2002, Kharkov 2005, Hammer 2006, Derenko 2007), the great majority of N in Buryats is N1c. According to Karafet and Hammer, Buryats have 28.4% of N1c and 2.5% of N1b, and according to Derenko, Buryats have 18.4% of N1c and 0.5% of N1b and according to Kharkov, Buryats did not have any N1b at all.

I also read the Wikipedia article on Nanais (Hezhen), and I really didn’t find any mention about their migration to Mongolia. The article only tells us that Nanais ”are a Tungusic people of the Far East, who have traditionally lived along Heilongjiang (Amur), Songhuajiang (Sunggari) and Ussuri rivers on the Middle Amur Basin.”

I also checked the autosomal chart where both Hezhen and Buryats are included (http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/suppl/2014/07/30/005850.DC1/005850-1.pdf). Hezhen have almost a 30% of the typically Japan-centred cluster and if there was any important geneflow from Hezhen to Buryats, there should be traces of Japanese element in Buryats, but Buryats show minimal amounts of this component. To sum up, I am not so convinced that there has been a migration of Hezhen to Buryatia.

The source of Hezhen N1b may be the Evenks because, according to Duggan et al, "as becomes apparent from the network of STR haplotypes belonging to haplogroup N1b (Figure 9), the 13 Evens carry only one haplotype, which is shared with Stony Tunguska Evenks; it is also found in one Yakut and one Tuvan. There is somewhat more diversity in the Evenks, with four different haplotypes, of which three are found in the Stony Tunguska Evenks, and two are found in the Taimyr Evenks; only one haplotype is shared between the two Evenk subgroups. The haplotypes found in the Turkic-speaking Tuvans from southern Siberia are distinct from those found in the Tungusic-speaking Evenks and Evens, with the exception of one individual who carries the haplotype also found in Evenks and Evens".

Kristiina said...

I did some further research on Hezhen STR types, and found out that 5 haplotypes out of 7 present the same mutations, and the haplotype looks like the most frequent Khakassian/Shors N1b-A1 haplotype. The diversity of N1b is very high in Khakassians, as they have 10 different N1b haplotypes. The second Hezhen haplotype, that is found in 2 out of 7 N1b-bearing Hezhens, looks like a N1b - 01 Ugric Branch P43+ haplotype. The remaining Hezhen haplotype is unique with DYS392 at 13 and DYS393 at 14. I could not find such values anywhere and I wonder if these values have changed place.

terryt said...

"Logically I think it must have happened whenever some little group developed a competitive advantage for some period of time".

Agreed. And similar processes probably go back to at least when H. erectus first left Africa. It is by no means confined to just the post modern human period.

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