Haplogroups in Ancient Chinese Caucasians

[Longbowman]

Not China China, that Muslim part in the Northwest they refuse to give independence to, but still, Tarim basin and presumably related cultures.

These cultures have left behind a lot of Caucasian mummies, or rather described as Caucasian, I personally think they look Mongoloid-admixed.

Anyhow they did DNA analyses on them.

The YDNA was exclusively R1a1, and thus 100% West Eurasian. The MTDNA was K, H, and East Eurasian C, so half or so West Eurasian, making them an Udmurt-like population, I suppose.

Of 20 people, 14 (70%) were C, most of whom were of a subclade not known to exist today, so I suppose the Tarim Basin people died out. The researchers established it was most likely to have a South Siberian origin. A couple of their clades were found in modern people, and some others weren't. The H they had matched most commonly with contemporary Englishmen. Three of them didn't even have a specified subclade of R*, because their lineages were so unique. The K they carried was also unique. All seven males were R1a1, obviously Western.

K is described as 'peaking in Western Europe' but it actually peaks amongst Ashkenazi Jews and is stronk in the Middle East, too. It branched off U8b 12,000 years ago or more. Regardless due to the other evidence the researchers concluded the European component, which looks to be 65% of the total, is Western European.

The Tarim Basin remains are 4,000 years old.

Thoughts?

Full paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2838831/

Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaohe_Tomb_complex

[Black Wolf]

I think that there is a good chance that they are a far eastern extension of Indo-European speakers.

[Longbowman]

I think that there is a good chance that they are a far eastern extension of Indo-European speakers.

Doubtless but what is interesting is their connection to specifically Western Europeans.

They were probably Tocharian speakers, a language also closer to Western IE.

[Black Wolf]

Doubtless but what is interesting is their connection to specifically Western Europeans.

They were probably Tocharian speakers, a language also closer to Western IE.

Specifically to Western Europeans? Via mtDNA you mean?

[Longbowman]

Specifically to Western Europeans? Via mtDNA you mean?

Yes. Linguistically too.

However I think it's overstated (the genetic link the the West).

[Black Wolf]

Yes. Linguistically too.

However I think it's overstated (the genetic link the the West).

I will admit that I do not know a whole lot about the structure of the IE languages but when it comes to the mtDNA of these mummies their West Eurasian lineages look quite Neolithic. So the only relation that they may actually have with West Europeans via their direct maternal lines is some common ancestry stemming from the early Neolithic farmers of the Near East.

[Longbowman]

I will admit that I do not know a whole lot about the structure of the IE languages but when it comes to the mtDNA of these mummies their West Eurasian lineages look quite Neolithic. So the only relation that they may actually have with West Europeans via their direct maternal lines is some common ancestry stemming from the early Neolithic farmers of the Near East.

H+K, sure. 100% R1a1a, though.


It is generally agreed that the origin of modern populations in Xinjiang and Central Asia is the result of the admixture of people from the West and the East [19,25,40]. When and where this admixture first occurred has long been of interest to geneticists and archaeologists [41-44]. The year 132 BC is often considered to be the beginning of contact between the East and the West along the Great Silk Road, since the Chinese explorer Zhang Qian went westward into Central Asia at that time. However, Mair has suggested that the date should be even earlier, based on the fact that silk appeared in Europe at 1000 BC [1]. In this study, the East and West Eurasian lineages are seen to coexist in the Xiaohe people, implying that the East had contacted the West during the early Bronze Age. It is noteworthy that the maternal lineage of five male individuals (106, 111, 115, 136 and 139) originated from East Eurasian, whereas their paternal lineage originated from the West Eurasian, implying that the Xiaohe population had been an admixture of people from both the West and the East. Given the unique genetic haplotypes and the particular archaeological culture, the time of this admixture could be much earlier than the time at which the Xiaohe people were living at the site. This means that the time of their mingling was at least a 1000 years earlier than previously proposed.

However, the mtDNA haplogroups H, K and C all are very ancient lineages, over 10,000 years old in vast north Eurasia, whereas the civilization of the Tarim Basin, according to the archaeological materials, arose very late. The admixture therefore probably occurred elsewhere, before immigration into the Tarim Basin. The Xiaohe people might well have been an admixture at the time of their arrival. Where did the initial admixture occur?

[Black Wolf]

H+K, sure. 100% R1a1a, though.

Right yes R1a1a does exist in Western Europe but it is far more frequent in the east of the continent. I tend to associate R1a1a more with Eastern Europeans compared to Western Europeans who are R1b1 dominant as you know.

[Longbowman]

If you're interested, their ages ranged from 14 to 55+.

Of those for whom hair colour was known:

Females

Superior Black 2
Black-brown 3
Nut-brown 4
Brown 2
Light brown 2
Flaxen (blonde) 1

Male

Brown-black 1
Brown 2
Nut brown 2

Unknown

Black brown 1

Total:

10% Superior Black (2)
25% Black-brown (5)
20% Brown (4)
30% Nut-brown (6)
10% Light brown (2)
5% Flaxen (blonde) (1)

[Longbowman]

Right yes R1a1a does exist in Western Europe but it is far more frequent in the east of the continent. I tend to associate R1a1a more with Eastern Europeans compared to Western Europeans who are R1b1 dominant as you know.

Were they 5,000 years ago, though?

[Black Wolf]

Were they 5,000 years ago, though?

Probably not likely but I thought that you were talking about the genetic relation of these mummies to present day West Europeans?

[Longbowman]

Probably not likely but I thought that you were talking about the genetic relation of these mummies to present day West Europeans?

They only had similarities to a handful of individuals; 'survivors' perhaps.

[Prisoner Of Ice]

Mongols didn't really come out of mongolia until a couple thousand years ago. Before that they were filled with people similar to modern polish people. Some on the fringes mixed with asians.

The old mummies look like conan the barbarian, but at about 1000 BC or so they start to get more and more mongie until the last ones are fully mongol.

[Longbowman]

Mongols didn't really come out of mongolia until a couple thousand years ago. Before that they were filled with people similar to modern polish people. Some on the fringes mixed with asians.

The old mummies look like conan the barbarian, but at about 1000 BC or so they start to get more and more mongie until the last ones are fully mongol.

Yes and no, even these guys were ~35% Mongol as demonstrated by hap. C, plus considering the mongol was only along the maternal line it makes sense they were there first then the Europeans displaced them. Plus no evidence of Caucasian settlement in Eastern Siberia, only Western up until the Tarim Basin and Mongolia.

The researchers proposed this guys as the outpost of a trade network that brought silk to Europe. Either they got bred out or - my takeaway - wiped out/died out.

[TheoTheGreat]

If anything genetically the tocharians are closer to Eastern Europeans and not western as R1a1 is a Eastern European marker, but linguistically you could say they relate to the celts.