African Y in South Tyrol

[cacio]

I was browsing a paper on the Y chromosome of the Alpine valleys of Sud Tyrol (Pichler et al. Genetic structure in South Tyrolean isolated populations). Nothing too special about the haplogroup distribution, except that they find 3 African Y out of 194 people, 2 E3a (same haplotype) and 1 A (no less!).

Of course mistakes and mix-ups happen. However, it seems really a high number, plus, up there in the Alps! (But then, they found also 2 of my own somewhat rare Y-haplogroup L)

The haplotypes given are (the order is 19, 388, 390, 391, 392, 393, 426, 389I, 389-II. Note: I am not sure of the reporting system, whether something needs to be added or not).
E3a: 15 12 21 11 11 13 09 13 32
A: 16 15 25 11 11 12 09 11 27

cacio

[lgmayka]

Yes, a couple of the Tyrol E3a men are on Ysearch:

http://www.ysearch.org/research_comparative.asp?uid=748W7&vallist=8H9RY%2C+Y3EZZ

[cacio]

lgmayka:

thanks for the info! Indeed, they match (save for 426, but it may be a matter of different reporting schemes). So they're clearly there, and presumably it's due to a founder effect. Though a founder with a lot of reproductive success, apart from these two ysearchers (who I suspect come from the Austrian Tyrol) the paper finds 2 more in the southern part, and in two different valleys, with no known recent common ancestor.

One wonders how the person got there. The ysearch person suggests that the name could means "from Gabini", Gabini being a latin something (a place, a soldier?), but it seems hard to think of a family name that survived from antiquity.

Now, if we could find the (even more interesting ) Tyrolean A... (Btw, the iceman Otzi is also from S Tyrol. Though it's hard to think of him as an A/E3b...)

cacio

[rainbow]

lgmayka:

thanks for the info! Indeed, they match (save for 426, but it may be a matter of different reporting schemes). So they're clearly there, and presumably it's due to a founder effect. Though a founder with a lot of reproductive success, apart from these two ysearchers (who I suspect come from the Austrian Tyrol) the paper finds 2 more in the southern part, and in two different valleys, with no known recent common ancestor.

One wonders how the person got there. The ysearch person suggests that the name could means "from Gabini", Gabini being a latin something (a place, a soldier?), but it seems hard to think of a family name that survived from antiquity.

Now, if we could find the (even more interesting ) Tyrolean A... (Btw, the iceman Otzi is also from S Tyrol. Though it's hard to think of him as an A/E3b...)

cacio

Maybe the name is a place name that means " comes from "Gabon" "?

In my top 20 DNATRIBES I match Austria & Mozambique. Is their Y-DNA found in Mozambique too? Maybe I'm somehow related to these guys in South Tyrol

Top 20 also has Switzerland and Piemonte, Italy. That's a lotta Alps!

I had read somewhere that the Roman army had soldiers from Africa, and were sent to Southern Germany. I've also read they were in England, etc. My guess is there is African Y-DNA in Germany too, not just South Tyrol. Just a matter of testing the people who have it.

[cacio]

rainbow:

I had read somewhere that the Roman army had soldiers from Africa, and were sent to Southern Germany.

This sounds a logical explanation for the presence of African haplogroups in Italy, either soldiers or slaves from Africa. However, note that African Y are extremely rare in Europe, so an E3a is indeed surprising. The vast majority of slaves and soldiers were not from sub-saharan africa, but from other regions in the Mediterranean, the middle east, and what were then barbaric populations of Europe (germans, dacians, etc).

There is a little bit more African mtdna in southern Europe, may be 1% of the population, (though again there's almost none in northern europe), both because subsaharan mtdna is present at good percentages in northern africa (10-15%) and because female lineages are more likely to survive than male ones. Southern Spain and Portugal have even more, but this may be due to more recent events (eg portuguese colonies etc).

cacio

[rainbow]

Southern Spain and Portugal have even more, but this may be due to more recent events (eg portuguese colonies etc).

cacio

And Moorish Spain probably had people there from Muslim Mozambique, and Zanzibar.
This is all interesting to me, mostly because "Andalusia, Spain" is one of my top 20 DNATRIBES matches too. It used to be Moorish. And I have a top 20 match with Syria.

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

Assyrians traded within the area of Zanzibar.
Traders from the Persian Gulf intermarried with Africans.

[hdw]

. I had read somewhere that the Roman army had soldiers from Africa, and were sent to Southern Germany. I've also read they were in England, etc.

Towards the end of "Blood of the Isles", Bryan Sykes writes: "Lastly, I have found a tiny number of very unusual clans in the southern part of England. Two of these are from sub-Saharan Africa, three from Syria or Jordan. These exotic sequences are found only in England, with one exception, and among people with no knowledge of, or family connections with, those distant parts of the world. I think they might be the descendants of Roman slaves, whose lines have kept going through unbroken generations of women. If this was the genetic legacy of the Romans, they have left only the slightest traces on the female side. I have not found any in Wales, nor in Ireland and only one in Scotland. This is an African sequence from Stornoway in the Western Isles, for which I have absolutely no explanation."

Harry

[rainbow]

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/romans.htm

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/moors.htm

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/settlers.htm

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/blanke.htm

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/adventurers.htm

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/elizabeth.htm

There were black moors in Scotland, and a famous one in York, England, and much more. No pun intended.
Check out the above links.

[cacio]

rainbow:

interesting links. Though at least early on they seem to refer too Moor as North-African or Middle Eastern rather than Subsaharan African, and as said, the two groups are quite different in terms of genetic composition.

hdw:
does the statement refer to mtdna (female line)? it seems so. in southern europe african mtdna is not frequent but not too rare either. African Y is another matter.

cacio

[rainbow]

I still match Zulu???

My newest DNA Tribes update, with the Penta markers, removed the Mozambique from my top 20. It was my second highest match.

But, in my newest extended report, I still have a few low matches:

Guinea-Bissau 1.59
Zulu (South Africa)1.32
Guinea-Bissau 1.25
Tswana (South Africa)1.15

I have a feeling the Zulu, etc., that I match may have had a Boer great-grandparent, and that is why there is a match, because of the 'blend'.
The Maori that I matched before gave the impression I matched pure Maori. the new report says the Maori is mixed. I would match anyone that has Dutch or British ancestry. Ditto for my old Javanese match.

The Mozambique, which was my second highest match, has dropped to 0.29

I have no East Asian matches, but I'll go take a look to see what my easternmost matches are. I remember matching Uyghur II in the first extended report.

[hdw]

Maybe the name is a place name that means " comes from "Gabon" "?

In my top 20 DNATRIBES I match Austria & Mozambique. Is their Y-DNA found in Mozambique too? Maybe I'm somehow related to these guys in South Tyrol

Top 20 also has Switzerland and Piemonte, Italy. That's a lotta Alps!

I had read somewhere that the Roman army had soldiers from Africa, and were sent to Southern Germany. I've also read they were in England, etc. My guess is there is African Y-DNA in Germany too, not just South Tyrol. Just a matter of testing the people who have it.

Remember the Carthaginians (from present-day Libya) under Hannibal crossing the Alps into Italy with their elephants to take on the Romans? There must have been some fraternisation along the way with the local Alpine ladies, maybe leaving a legacy of some boy babies to carry on the North African Y DNA in the Alpine valleys.

Harry

[argiedude]

Indeed, they match (save for 426, but it may be a matter of different reporting schemes). So they're clearly there, and presumably it's due to a founder effect. Though a founder with a lot of reproductive success, apart from these two ysearchers (who I suspect come from the Austrian Tyrol) the paper finds 2 more in the southern part, and in two different valleys, with no known recent common ancestor.

Ysearch returns a genetic distance of 0 between the 3 E3a samples from South Tyrol and Lorraine, France. I looked at 426 and it was the same in all 3:

http://www.ysearch.org/research_comparative.asp?uid=8H9RY&vallist=8H9RY%2C+92PDC%2C+Y3EZZ

I thought it was 2 E3a from South Tyrol and 1 from France, plus the A group. What do you mean when you say: "apart from these two ysearchers the paper finds 2 more in the southern part"? Wouldn't that be 4 E3a?



PS: Did they find the other 2 E3a by seeking out people with the same last name as the first E3a they found and testing them, or did they all come up in the original sample of 194? The E3a from Lorraine, France must have been located in the manner I described; was his sample discussed in the original study on South Tyrol DNA, or is it something that appeared later in another study?

[cacio]

argiedude:

I think the 3 E3a samples are the same family, Gabennesch. I don't know if it is the same person, or a couple of relatives. The name Gabennesch (or similar ones) doesn't seem to exist in Tyrol. I have talked to one of them, who lives in the US. They had lived in Lorraine at least for 4 centuries. But he said that family tradition was that they came from Tyrol, and that's why ysearch has Tyrol as a place of origin. Of course E3a is peculiarly un-Alpine, so that was a puzzle.

The scientific study was done independently, I don't know how they chose the sample, but usually scientists deliberately chose people with different surnames or without known relation, to increase variability. The two samples in the paper are listed as coming from different valleys.

So we have one family in Lorraine (but originally from Tyrol) - and these are the entries in ysearch. And then we have two observations in the scientific paper on Tyrol. Presumably, they are all distantly related, several centuries ago (but nothing too recent, since, as explained, the Gabennesch were in Lorraine already in 1600 or so).

cacio

[argiedude]

The haplotypes given are (the order is 19, 388, 390, 391, 392, 393, 426, 389I, 389-II. Note: I am not sure of the reporting system, whether something needs to be added or not).
E3a: 15 12 21 11 11 13 09 13 32
A: 16 15 25 11 11 12 09 11 27

I think your doubts on the reporting system are well founded, isn't DYS426 = 9 unheard of? It only goes down to 10, and that's a very rare value. Amongst the main 12 markers, the only ones that can reach a value of 9 or less are DYS19 and DYS391 (or so I believe...).

PS: Very interesting observation about scientists purposefully picking people with different last names for y-dna studies. That's great for finding different haplogroups but it's not too great statistically for determining a reliable percentage of each in the population studied.

[cacio]

argiedude:

you are right that the usual objective of scientific papers is not to give accurate percentages of the distribution in a country. Usually, the samples overrepresent certain regions of interest - say, Sicily or Sardinia versus the rest of Italy.

Choosing different surnames sounds innocuous to me, though, especially in a country like Italy. There is a huge variety in surnames, and even the most frequent surnames do not reach any significant fraction of the population. I guess the situation is different - say - in Korea or China, and there presumably they have to choose people with the same surname.

cacio