Originally posted by 1798
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There is a lot of R1b in Europe now. That is one of the reasons that eight or ten years ago almost everyone thought R1b was the first y haplogroup to repopulate Europe after the LGM. They also mistakenly carried on the old, erroneous, 19th-century notion that the Basques were a Paleolithic relic population; therefore, because Basques have a high frequency of R1b, R1b must likewise be a Paleolithic relic in Europe.
But R1b in Western Europe is almost 100% R-L11 of too little diversity to be that old there, and the SNP trail leads back to the east, to places like Armenia and northern Iran, where L23 and M269* prevail. The Basques are about 95% lactase persistent, not a Paleolithic trait, and their language contains words for Neolithic and metal age items, words that were not borrowed from other languages. In other words, the Basques aren't an Old Stone Age relic population. That was a 19th century fiction.
Now, add to all that the fact that NO R1b has turned up at ANY Neolithic or older sites, despite the fact that R1b is the single most frequent y haplogroup in Europe today and the fact that ancient y-dna test results from Europe are mounting.
Yes, some R1b could be recovered from a Mesolithic European site tomorrow, but that is looking less and less and less likely.
If those two R1b Beaker men were descended from other R1b men who had been in Europe for thousands of years already, one would think some older R1b would be turning up there, but it isn't. Another thing is that the Beaker Folk, especially the males, were an intrusive population. They differed from the older inhabitants not only culturally but physically, as well. In other words, they were newcomers.
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