origin of R 1 b

[adangusftd]

Do you still hold this view?

This topic keeps rearing its ugly head, despite a complete lack of new data to support the theory that R1b has a post-LGM entry to Europe.

Further, R1bs likely repopulated Europe after the LGM from multiple refugia. This is not controversial among the primary researchers in this field. Please name one reputable researcher who postulates a haplogroup other than R1b as the earliest of our paleolithic european ancestors.

I1a is not a good candidate for the original cro-magnons because their distribution in europe is far too limited and regionalized. I1as were probably in europe as well prior to the LGM, but appear to have arrived many thousands of years after R1bs.

I should note, for the record, that R1bs are descendants of haplogroup F, just like I1as.

As is nicely summarized on wikipedia: "Until new subclade markers emerge, the most parsimonious interpretation is that R1b1c* reflects Paleolithic hunter - gatherer populations that overwintered in the Franco - Cantabrian Refugium during the last Ice Ages and, while largely remaining in the immediate area, did fan out as far a Central Europe."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b_%28Y-DNA%29

Clearly, the Genographic Project has its faults and there remain many things to be explained. Nevertheless, the scientific consensus at this time is that R1bs are western europe's indigenous population.

John

As a participant over at dna-forums.org, I frequently see folks expressing contrary opinions to the notion that R1b1c is old enough to have hunkered down in the Franco-Cantabrian Refugium; to the extent that it's taken for granted that this alternative view is accepted science. As you respond here, I can find no serious, reviewed articles that espouse the view that R1b or its sub-clades were not in these refuges at the end of the last ice age.

Am I missing something here, or is the accepted science on the side of the AMH = R1b and that R1b was in the F-C Refugium at the end of the last ice age?

[Johnserrat]

As a participant over at dna-forums.org, I frequently see folks expressing contrary opinions to the notion that R1b1c is old enough to have hunkered down in the Franco-Cantabrian Refugium; to the extent that it's taken for granted that this alternative view is accepted science. As you respond here, I can find no serious, reviewed articles that espouse the view that R1b or its sub-clades were not in these refuges at the end of the last ice age.

Am I missing something here, or is the accepted science on the side of the AMH = R1b and that R1b was in the F-C Refugium at the end of the last ice age?

As a result of Karafet et al.'s paper http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/abstract/18/5/830 and http://www.genome.org/cgi/data/gr.7172008/DC1/1, there is now support for the proposition that R1b1c is not old enough to have repopulated Europe after the LGM from the F-C Refugium. A number of people including Ken Nordtvedt, Vince V. and Dienekes http://dienekes.blogspot.com/ have recently done calculations that have merit showing far more recent ages for subclades than previously believed. The Karafet paper included Drs. Hammer and Underhill as co-authors.

I have a great deal of difficulty with the new dates because they seriously conflict with the dates from mtDNA studies. If both are correct, it would mean the cro-magnon women stayed in place while the male lines were massively replaced in the last 4,000 years or so. For reasons having to do with geography, archeology, paleobotany, etc. I'm finding that hard to believe.

Most prominent geneticists are currently remaining mute on this subject, leading me to believe there is either mass confusion or researchers are racing to publish new groundbreaking papers (I hope it's the latter!).

I believe it is fair to say that there is currently no cohesive theory explaining the repopulation of Europe following the LGM and no credible explanation for what Y haplogroups were present among Europe's cro-magnon population. Most dna sites have either altered their haplogroup descriptions slightly or are waiting for a new comprehensive theory to emerge.

John

[Stevo]

Here is a very interesting recent Rootsweb post from Irish archaeologist Alan Reilly.

I could very easily be won over to an arrival date for R-M269 centred on the Early Neolithic, carrying from 6000-4000BC depending on location within Europe. The present distribution doesn't well match the east to west or south-east to north-west spread of farming but it does fairly well agree with areas that have less evidence for subsequent post-early-Neolithic influences from the east. So, although the Neolithic originated in the south-east, its descendants could have been less diluted in the west and north-west. Such paradoxes often happen.

It has been stated by some that there is no evidence of replacement or intrusion in the Neolithic and that the Mesolithic population survived intact. That is simply not true. The jury has always been out and diametrically opposite interpretations are possible. Most believe there was a major population movement involved in Linearbandceramik, possibly avoiding areas already densely settled by hunters. Recently the old view on Cardial culture has changed due to new discoveries and it is seen as a likely population spread possibly hopping by boat and forming enclaves rather than a continuous wave. In the British Isles there is a mysterious total discontinuity between all aspects of Mesolithic material culture and the following Neolithic, with no evidence of previous contact and no evidence of residual influence and very little evidence of a period of segregated coexistence beyond a century or so. It is perfectly possible to interpret the Neolithic as a huge break with the past when it comes to Britain and Ireland. In Scandinavia there is more evidence of periods of prior contact etc and there is possibly a more complex situation with a mixture of locals taking the new ideas such as farming and incomers (see mtDNA and lactose persistence evidence for Sweden too). Again, the suddenness and uniformity of the TRB culture is striking.

There is no doubt in my mind that it is as possible to interpret the Neolithic as the decisive phase of the populating of much of Europe as it is to argue for Palaeolithic. It should be noted that the palaeolithic/Mesolithic continuity idea is a recent trend and certainly was not argued for most parts of Euroipe until the 1990s. No absolutely clinching evidence was ever produced and it would be fair to say the jury is out on this. It seems that the vast majority of archaeologists feel that either the Palaeolithic or the initial Neolithic (or a bit of boith) were the phases that dictated the bedrock of the European population (although there were later internal movements within Europe). The Neoithic option never became totally eclipsed by the trend to look for hunter gatherer continuity.

It looks to me that there is no denying that interclade dates for western R1b are younger by several multiples than haplogroup I and others. Whatever the absolute dates, I has to be several multiples older so I am totally open to an early Neolithic origin for R1b. Its just dates later than this that I find very hard to reconcile with the archaeological evidence and would feel the need to invoke selective processes to explain R1b's dominance.

Alan

As John mentioned above, Karafet et al (2008) gives a state-of-the-art age estimate for R1 (M173) of 18.5k years.

Dr. Ken Nordtvedt, Vince Vizachero, and others have estimated the age of R-M269 at ~9k years.

Thus it seems likely that R-M269 entered Europe from Asia sometime during the Neolithic Period.

[GregKiroKHR1bL1]

R1a and R1b Migration Patterns???

How did R1a groups and R1b groups interact and move away from each other?

[Stevo]

How did R1a groups and R1b groups interact and move away from each other?

I don't know. The first R1b and the first R1a may not have been contemporaries.

R1b could have arisen among an R1 population and moved off before R1a ever arose among R1 or vice versa.

[DKF]

I do think that it is important to point out the these "new ideas" have only surfaced in the last few months. Until then all were content to believe what every population geneticist has been saying since 2000 - that R1b is Paleolithic, and was the first to reach the Atlantic from Anatolia 35,000 years ago with the Aurignacian culture. The archaeological and genetic evidence is entirely consistent and there is no controversy within professional circles - just among hobbiests such as ourselves.

First I should note that Alan, an archaeologist, is only saying IF these radical new dates were correct that it may be possible to make some sort of fit (Procrustean or not) to accomodate the numbers. The numbers are based on a set of assumptions which may or may not be correct (e.g., generation time; back mutation rates and on and on). The numbers were taken from sources such as my badly skewed R-U152 database which is heavily weighted in favor of the British Isles (since the majority of those who have tested have ancestral ties to this area) and so I would expect dates more recent than what is true of all U152 which is much more common in the Continent than it is in Britain.

The Karafet et al. article (2008) uses a brand new dating methodology based on SNP mutation rates (with again a whole other set of problems). I personally am very leary of their numbers since they changed the date of R1 from 30,000 years to 18,000 years between the first and final drafts of the paper.

Anyway, I am confident that as the ice retreated in the Late Paleolithic my R-U152 ancestors were east of the Massive Central along the Rhone River of France. As the Paleolithic gave way to the Mesolithic they had followed the reindeer around the margins of the Alpine glaciers and came to settle in the Swiss Lake district where to this day U152 appears as a major "hotspot" and where the highest levels of diversity are found - at this point.

When new publications emerge validating or supporting these new dates suggesting that R-M269 did not arrive in Portugal until the Neolithic, and U152 did not surface until Bronze Age times in their Alpine home - then I will sit up and take notice. However the population geneticists I have spoken to are not willing to change what is well entrenched in the literature (for good reason - because there is a lot of mtDNA and YDNA data suggesting that 80% of Western European YDNA comes from Paleolithic sources with 20% arriving during the Neolithic).

No harm in coming up with radical new hypotheses, but they will languish until they find their way into the academic literature - and until then each of us will either chose "sides" or adopt a wait and see attitude. We should probably leave it at that since there is little use in arguing the point until a proper study of R1b and subclades is published (I know of three teams working on such a project), and publications are available to analyze. I have said all I care to at this point.

[PDHOTLEN]

my 2 cents worth vsv R1b

Since I'm not a scientist, I don't require absolute proof for my speculating. It reminds me of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker problem. The scientific community won't accept reports of sightings of that spectacular bird without a freshly killed specimen or an accepted photo; even though locals in the river swamps keep on running across them in their fishing, etc. activities.

It looks to me that the origin of R1b occurred in the Trans-Caucasia, eastern Anatolia, or etc. region. It's not my original idea of course. I've also seen it on another blog, and it makes sense to me. That would also explain the occurrence of the R1b minority in the Trocharians (mostly R1a). Anthony showed the Trocharians breaking off from the eastern-most end of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

R1a1* & U5b2

[PDHOTLEN]

The Hurrians R1b?

Since R1b is (still) found in the Anatolian & Caucasus region, maybe we could guess at possible historical ties to peoples & empires, etc. There is an interesting article in "Archaeology" magazine (July/Aug'08) titled: "Who Were the Hurrians." They are barely within historical times, and ideas about their origins are changing. They coexisted with the Akkadian Empire, but were not Semitic. They eventually were conquered by the Hittites (Indo-European). Their language was unique, but little is known about it. And their deities seem like a precourser to later peoples, including Indic. Hmm. Maybe they were R1b at their core?

[T E Peterman]

If I were to hazard a guess, I would suggest that the Hurrians spoke a Caucasian language & contained a core population in haplogroup G.

Timothy Peterman

[Stevo]

The report
Prehistoric population history: from the Late Glacial to the Late Neolithic in Central and Northern Europe has this to say:

That the appearance of the LBK marked a major population
increase in the areas where it is found is well established.
What the data make clear is the extremely low levels of Me-
solithic population prior to this arrival; the implication being
that existing hunter-gatherer populations only made a signifi-
cant contribution demographically, genetically and culturally
to the extent that they were incorporated into the advancing
LBK demographic wave.
However, the most significant result, we would argue, is the
demonstration of the drastic demographic decline at the end of
the LBK and the long subsequent period of relatively low pop-
ulation levels. Explaining the reasons for this now becomes
a major issue. The decline suggested here on the basis of the
radiocarbon evidence also fits in with an increasing number
of indications from other sources that far from being the foun-
dation of the subsequent Neolithic across large parts of central,
northern and northwestern Europe, in some respects at least it
actually left little trace. Thus, the recent ancient DNA study of
LBK samples (Haak et al., 2005) suggested that the most fre-
quent mtDNA variant was one which is extremely rare in the
region in modern populations. Archaeobotanical studies are
also making it increasingly apparent that the LBK crop exploi-
tation system was an unusual one which did not have any de-
scendants (Coward et al., unpublished paper; Bakels, in press).

Not only was there population discontinuity between the Mesolithic (hunter-gatherers) and the Neolithic (Linear Band Keramik - LBK), there was also population discontinuity between the Neolithic LBK period and the later Neolithic and early Bronze Age.

[Deirwha]

Term

LBK? I could not get into the article itself only the abstract. I would love to know what the article said and what the term, LBK, means.

On a prior post. Hurrians. It is an important question I think what the Hurrians were.

The worker lists of Egypt during the El Marna period name the "Haibru" (alt spellings for this) who worked on projects. There is of course the traditional explanation of Hebrew as those who speak the language of Eber. But among anthropologists and historians there is a fair number who think that Haibru evolved into "Hebrew" and the language was their language. If this latter theory is correct, the identity of the Hurrians is important to people interested in the development of the Jewish identity, because fully a third of the listed Haibru, Haibiru, Aibru, had Kazzite names. Kazzites have been identified as a Hurrian tribe who ruled over much of the Levant from around 1650 BCE or so through 1300 BCE or so. Both in custom and myth the first couple chapters of the Old Testament suggest a Kazzite influence. Hence it is entirely possible that Hurrian Kazzites contributed to the genetic pool of those who became known to history as the Jews and identified as Semites. The Kazzites, of course, were not.

So, it is potentially an important historical and anthropological question what the Hurrians were. If it is correct they were G, then those who believe the Hurrians were Iranian tribesmen may well be incorrect and visa versa. It is also possible they were a mix of R1a and R1b, mostly the former. The Hurrians have also been linked by some with the Kurds and the Sarmatians.

There are a lot of ifs to this, including the if the Hebrews were the Haibiru, if the gene pool of the Hebrews reflected the distribution of origins among the Haibiru even were it true the Hebrews were Haibiru, etc.

One day maybe we will have enough testing data, including of strata, to have a solid answer. That would be cool. Until then the Hurrians could be Y-R1a, R1b, G, a mix, mtDNA T, J, JT, etc. I would love to know.

[Deirwha]

oops

I just saw the definition of LBK earlier up.

[GregKiroKHR1bL1]

M173C Migration Patterns?

M173C - Hg R1 - Central Europe, Europe to Western Europe?

Maybe, some R-M173C people migrated differently into a region and not in a direction?

[Stevo]

M173C - Hg R1 - Central Europe, Europe to Western Europe?

Maybe, some R-M173C people migrated differently into a region and not in a direction?

I don't think there is any sign that R1 migrated into Europe. The only places all the offshoots of R1 seem to be found together are Central Asia and perhaps Northern Iran.

[GregKiroKHR1bL1]

Oh, I changed that to Central Asia, Europe to Western Europe . . . I just wondered about the R1 who disappeared . . . I was thinking north of Greece as Central Europe but it is Central Asia. Same area on the map though . . . The difference is with R1a and R1b . . .

I don't think there is any sign that R1 migrated into Europe. The only places all the offshoots of R1 seem to be found together are Central Asia and perhaps Northern Iran.