The Proto-Indo-Europeans and Y-Haplogroup R

[lgmayka]

McEwan's disclaimer is worth noting:
...
In terms of Neolithic influences, I do not believe there is any research that shows levels in excess of 20%. If you do have such research, please provide the links.

1) McEwan's disclaimer simply allows for the possibility that R1b, or any other haplogroup, narrowed down to a single patrilineal line and then rebirthed itself. This is indeed theoretically possible but is certainly not the most 'parsimonious' (a la Occam's Razor) explanation.

2) The issue was not of a time frame or cultural change ('Neolithic') but of a geographical genetic source--namely, the Balkans and Middle East. Since Spencer Wells' new book has now been officially released I can now feel free to quote the jaw-dropping statement in chapter 4 of the version I have (that was precirculated to publishers):
---
At the moment it appears that most mtDNA diversity in Europe came from the Middle East, while the large R1a and R1b clans on the male side have an ultimate origin in Central Asia. Reconciling these stories is one of the goals of the Genographic Project.
---

In the precirculated version, this was on page 102, in the section titled Deeper Still. I cannot purchase the final version since I put in on my Christmas list.

[lgmayka]

Did R1b arrive in Europe around the time of LGM or slightly after, which made it easier to replace the existing yDNA haplogroups in Europe (probably originating from the Near East and Balkans or possibly north Africa), since the population in Europe would have been small at that time? Or did R1b arrive in Europe significantly after the Ice Age had ended, which would be more in line with McEwan's estimates for the haplogroup ages?

Since McEwan's estimates must be scaled according to a fundamental mutation rate which is still under debate, their relative values have greater weight than their absolute values. So for example, it is quite possible that all of his numbers need to be multiplied by 1.5. This does not, of course, change the fact that R1b is much younger than E3b, J2, or K2.

Thus, I agree with you that a first wave of R1b may have swept across Europe shortly after the LGM, overwhelming earlier Europeans or preempting their emergence from refugia. But note that only a later wave from the east could have brought the Indo-European languages. Note also that due to the random spread of haplotypes over time, the most identifiable clusters of R1b are also likely to be the youngest--i.e., the latecomers, not the first wave.

[lgmayka]

In terms of Neolithic influences, I do not believe there is any research that shows levels in excess of 20%. If you do have such research, please provide the links.

Many research papers show strong evidence of DNA diffusion from the Balkans and Middle East into Europe. The only caveat is that most such papers, without evidence, assume that such diffusion must have occurred during the spread of farming technology, rather than earlier. Here are a few examples:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v351/n6322/abs/351143a0.html

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/17/11008

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0147(198201)119%3A1%3C1%3ASAOHFI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/110485467/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

All you need to do is go to http://www.scholar.google.com and search for

demic diffusion

Once again, I do not subscribe to the view that this spread of DNA from the Balkans and Middle East into Europe must have taken place during the Neoilithic Revolution. Most of the 'demic diffusion' advocates simply assume this point with no evidence whatsoever. Rather, I myself suggest that this migration of DNA into Europe from the eastern Mediterranean took place much earlier--indeed, as early as the original Paleolithic colonization of Europe.

[Johnserrat]

Igmayka: I have no difficulty with the origins of mtDNA and Y-DNA european diversity. The time frame is crucial to the issue of whether or not R1b ancestors from Central Asia spread IE languages by means of invasion or whether R1bs adopted IE languages after having already lived in Europe for tens of thousands of years. I believe that is what this thread was meant to address and I may have simply misunderstood your previous post.

If R1b came to Europe in multiple waves, and one of those waves spread IE languages, would we not see archeological evidence for such an event? There is extensive archeological evidence of settlement all over Europe relatively quickly after the LGM. It would have taken a very large army to conquer and replace an indigenous population over such a vast and diverse territory, much of which was heavily forested at the time.

I too look forward to reading Wells' new book, although I have heard that he does not provide detailed data from the GP as hoped. Wish I had access to publishers' pre-circulated copies of books!

John

[Bracari]

There's not sufficient evidence to prove a invasion or onslaught theory. It could be many others elements and factors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Indo-European

Nevertheless, the Kurgan hypothesis recently fell out of favor with some archaeologists who, beginning with Colin Renfrew (1987), pointed out that there just is not a Europe-wide archaeological horizon that corresponds to this putative cultural change. If the cultural imprint was strong enough to replace languages, then they claim it should have left some trace on material culture as well - although the actual correspondence between linguistic change and material culture is disputed. Peter Bellwood (2001, 2004) has developed a general hypothesis that major language phyla are likely to be associated with the Neolithic Revolution. His reasoning is first, that the spread of the Neolithic toolkit is more likely to occur through demic diffusion than through cultural diffusion, and second, that a sedentary population relying on domesticated plants and animals will grow much faster than a nomadic, foraging population. Thus, the populations located in the original hearth areas will grow and expand, carrying their language with them. Bellwood (2004) therefore maintains that the Indo-European languages were brought to Europe during the Neolithic, and not the Bronze Age. This theory is disputed by linguistic evidence however, for example the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European words for the wheel and metal working, technological developments that arose much later than the Neolithic.

And only horses can't defeat tribes in florests and mountains. How would be Central Europe at that time ? Only in the steppes or grasslands horses can be decisive, but and as we have seen in the Americas, in the Pampas, or in the Guaicuru Tribe and in the North American Prairies the natives have always learned to take horses from the invaders.

Steppe people like the Huns and Mongols were always limited in historical times to a rapid outburst without linguistic or deep cultural consequences.

Because of the restriction of the method and data, we can’t draw a final conclusion on the questions mentioned about the Proto-Indo-Europeans and Y- Haplogroup R.

[lgmayka]

Wish I had access to publishers' pre-circulated copies of books!

I don't either, ordinarily. In this particular case, a publishing employee put the precirculation copy onto a used-books sales site, and I snapped it up, partly just to see what a precirculation copy looks like.

[lgmayka]

Steppe people like the Huns and Mongols were always limited in historical times to a rapid outburst without linguistic or deep cultural consequences.

This is not true. When steppe invaders decide to stay around (rather than collecting their pillage and returning home), they have done so successfully. In recent times, the Magyars took over Hungary from the Slavs and imposed Magyar, and the Turks took over Turkey from the native Anatolians and imposed Turkish. In these two cases, Indo-European actually lost ground to Uralic and Altaic.

And of course, the Balts imposed their Indo-European language family on the earlier Finnic peoples of the Baltic coast. Only a few Livonians survive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livonian_language

[Downer101]

Without an earlier time of of entrance by Proto-Indo-Europeans, it would be impossible for the cultures after Aurignacian and Gravettian to exist. We would have to skip the Mesolithic and Neolithic, which would be totally biased. When one looks at these things, one must consider all options..

[nas]

Prehistoric Options.

Without an earlier time of of entrance by Proto-Indo-Europeans, it would be impossible for the cultures after Aurignacian and Gravettian to exist. We would have to skip the Mesolithic and Neolithic, which would be totally biased. When one looks at these things, one must consider all options..

Hello,
Prehistoric people came to Sicily by a landbridge.
So,it was possible to come to Italy and Spain from the South.
I think???
Nas.

[Downer101]

Not from the south, I meant from the middle East in compared to the Central Asian Gravettian culture in the north/(South Siberia).. Maybe instead of the Gravettian culture, I am beginning to think the I's, F's, E's, J's, etc. brang the Aurignacian culture.. I believe this because the Cro-Magnons were YDNA haplogroup F and mtDNA haplogroup N..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cro-magnon

Also, take a gander at the Gravettian culture. It was more snowy. There is also evidence that it was in Eastern Europe. I believe Genographic mixed it all up, but they had the basic idea. These are the same mammoth bone tents that were found in Ukraine, in the Eastern European Gravettian culture.


Here is a happy Cro-Magnon from the Aurignacian culture..

[J Man]

Not from the south, I meant from the middle East in compared to the Central Asian Gravettian culture in the north/(South Siberia).. Maybe instead of the Gravettian culture, I am beginning to think the I's, F's, E's, J's, etc. brang the Aurignacian culture.. I believe this because the Cro-Magnons were YDNA haplogroup F and mtDNA haplogroup N..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cro-magnon

Also, take a gander at the Gravettian culture. It was more snowy. There is also evidence that it was in Eastern Europe. I believe Genographic mixed it all up, but they had the basic idea. These are the same mammoth bone tents that were found in Ukraine, in the Eastern European Gravettian culture.


Here is a happy Cro-Magnon from the Aurignacian culture..

Interesting thoughts and cool pictures Downer

I remember reading in Stephen Oppenheimer's The Real Eve that he had a hypothesis that the original male Aurignacian haplogroup was J which he calls Jahangir. He pairs J up with mtDNA haplogroup U5 which is very old and is considered by some to represent the earliest haplogroup in Europe. J has a very high frequency and diversity in the Zagros mountains which some cinsider to be the homeland of the Aurignacian culture. According to Oppenheimer Y-DNA haplogroup Js Mediterranean distribution mirrors the spread of mtDNA haplogroups U5 and U6 50,000 years ago. Now I know the vast majority of dates are younger but some methods gave an age for J of around 37,000 years ago in Europe, 55,000 years ago in Iran and 62,000 years ago in India. This could all very easily also be false as most dates give J a much younger age. Who really knows?







Y-DNA: J2a*

[Downer101]

J actually comes from F, which makes alot of sense for Aurignacian. F is from the Middle East, and it is the father of haplogroup P as well. Check this Y-haplogroup family tree.

[J Man]

J actually comes from F, which makes alot of sense for Aurignacian. F is from the Middle East, and it is the father of haplogroup P as well. Check this Y-haplogroup family tree.

Yup I know thanks for the chart. Haplogroups I and J are fairly closely related. Both I and J come from IJ which is the S22 SNP which is in turn derived from F. Some S22 probably migrated into Europe and became I while those that stayed in the Middle East became J and came later.



Y-DNA: J2a*

[Bracari]

This is not true. When steppe invaders decide to stay around (rather than collecting their pillage and returning home), they have done so successfully. In recent times, the Magyars took over Hungary from the Slavs and imposed Magyar, and the Turks took over Turkey from the native Anatolians and imposed Turkish. In these two cases, Indo-European actually lost ground to Uralic and Altaic.

And of course, the Balts imposed their Indo-European language family on the earlier Finnic peoples of the Baltic coast. Only a few Livonians survive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livonian_language

Turks and Magyars were a group of mixed haplogroups. Where were the Turks and Magyars ancestors during the hypothetical R invasion of Europe. Scattered. I wouldn't feel confident to associate any specific haplogroup with a specific language or ethnic group in Europe. The haplogroups are the substratum of languages and ethnic groups but today as yesterday, they were extremely mixed in Europe. I don't know who was the first haplogroup (from the modern existing ones) to arrive in Iberia and with what language. The same could be said to the Balkans, Central Europe, Scandinavia. Human movements and immigrations also can be peaceful and without historical registers we can't definitely guess what happened in that remote past with the fragments that we have nowadays. We don't know the exactly phenotype or the language from the first known Haplogroup Mutant (male-Y or female-mt) Founders and where exactly they were born.

[Bracari]

In historical times Civilizations and Empires had sometimes preferences for types of habitats and ecological patterns. The Mediterranean range of action was many times a self-centered and self-contained world. Types of wheat, grapes, vegetables, animals and olive trees had ecological limits and they wouldn't frequently go, survive or desire the North, cold, wet places. The historical registers show this. In Iberia the Moors couldn't build a civilization in the "green" areas of Northern Iberia because their "mode of production" wasn't centered in that lands, climate and vegetation found there. The Christians had a safe reservoir of people in the North to carry on the Reconquista. The Moors were in Al-Andalus and not in the old Roman Gallaecia or Asturias.

Somehow R1b found a way to settle and survive in the Western Atlantic Façade of Europe, probably in areas not strategically interesting to the others old colonizers of Europe. They found an ecological niche where the others weren't so interested or couldn't settle, but they mixed and created new populations there. The same happened in many others places and situations like in the Americas, the Portuguese and Spanish weren't interested in North America in the 16th Century because they were in the South and Central America.

The same happened with others haplogroups in others ecological areas, like the N. The N haplogroup specialized in the Boreal habitat, mixed with others haplogroups and concentrated there. They weren't "invaders", actually they moved from the west to the East, from Europe to Siberia.
"The first myth about haplogroup N I want to burst right away, most of it in Europe did not come in recorded history from the Huns and the Mongols! (The Hungarians have N at less than 1%). It might as well have been an expansion from Europe eastwards towards Siberia because the diversity of the subclade N3 is higher in Europe than in Siberia. I quote Rootsi at University of Tartu, Estonia who is leading the research on hg N".
http://www.familytreedna.com/(yhsbu1ih1ja2zf55j0i1ci45)/public/N%20Y-DNA%20Project/index.aspx

And there's a possibility that the phenotype of the first Rs were similar to the Central Asian populations, similar to the O, P and Q pattern, with Mongoloid features before they arrived in Central-Eastern Europe.
"One important observation that has been made about the frequently occurring subgroup R1a1 is that it appears to be very recently introduced in both the western and eastern extremes of its distribution: all the Haplogroup R1a1 Y-chromosomes found among the Czechs of Central Europe and the Khoton people of Mongolia coalesce to a common patrilineal ancestor who should have lived well within the bounds of the Neolithic, and possibly even within the bounds of historical time" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R_(Y-DNA)

So perhaps the Y haplogroup R could not have had any original relation to the modern European phenotype and there's no guarantee about their original language to had had also any relation to the Proto Indo-European language before they arrived in the eastern parts of Central Europe too.
We just don't know what exactly happened.

RCO