Ancient central European mtDNA across time (Brandt, Haak et al. and Bollongino et al.)

[Black Wolf]

Well well well looky what we have here! :D

http://dienekes.blogspot.ca/2013/10/ancient-central-european-mtdna-across.html

[SobieskisavedEurope]

I think this part is when Indo-Europeans with North-European DNA spread in the Kurgan expansion the dates even fit as it was about 5,000 years ago when the Kurgan expansion started!


" Then, between the Middle to Late Neolithic, around five thousand year ago, the hunter-gatherers make their re-appearance before their lineages converge to their modern (minority) frequency. "

[SobieskisavedEurope]

What is interesting about Neolithic (Med) farmers.

Is it seems they just immigrated to Europe & didn't even conquer Europe.

I mean, were they part of a Indo-European empire!?

Much like we saw with Jews & Muslims today!?

[Black Wolf]

What is interesting about Neolithic (Med) farmers.

Is it seems they just immigrated to Europe & didn't even conquer Europe.

I mean, were they part of a Indo-European empire!?

Much like we saw with Jews & Muslims today!?

Well a lot of modern European mtDNA comes from those early Neolithic farmers probably originating in the Near East. mtDNA haplogroups K, J and T for example.

[SobieskisavedEurope]

Well a lot of modern European mtDNA comes from those early Neolithic farmers probably originating in the Near East. mtDNA haplogroups K, J and T for example.

So, according to this Saami with high U haplogroup would probably be the most Hunter Gatherer.

[Black Wolf]

So, according to this Saami with high U haplogroup would probably be the most Hunter Gatherer.

Well they are lol...The fact that they were hunter-gatherers until at least the Middle Ages pretty much proves that.

[Hweinlant]

Another new paper is online:
Ancient DNA Reveals Key Stages in the Formation of Central European Mitochondrial Genetic Diversity

in other words: Making of Central Europeans. Paper is behind the pay-wall but there is very extensive supplementary online:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2013/10/10/342.6155.257.DC1/Brandt.SM.pdf

[Hweinlant]

^That paper is pure gold.

http://i40.tinypic.com/2afd25j.png

Polish fantasy of pure Polish Corded Ware Culture goes to trashbin.. Eat your shorts Polako.

http://i40.tinypic.com/2h6y0zm.png

It looks like there was pretty strong LBK substrata in CWC. Once again Professor Coon was spot on:



This Corded skeletal type is familiar also in Poland, where it is found in the graves of its associated culture; but that country also contains the more usual Danubian type, associated with a Neolithic agricultural economy, and a certain number of brachycephalic and other crania, which have northern affiliations, and which will therefore be dealt with later.

In southern and western Germany remains of the Corded people are again found, and in comparative abundance. In Saxony and Thuringia they flourished especially, and apparently were more stable here than farther east. Out of ten crania which belong to the Saxo-Thuringian Corded culture,52 four of the seven which can be measured are mesocephalic, and only three dolichocephalic. In the eastern Corded group, the highest index was 75. The three dolichocephals seem to have belonged to the usual type.

The statures of two of them were both 168 cm. The rest of the crania, as far as one can tell, are normal Neolithic Mediterranean examples, which might have had either a Danubian or a North African derivation, or both. The Corded people in the west and south of Germany had settled down, and had combined with Neolithic farmers.

Before we leave this section, let us move still farther west to Baden, to the Early Neolithic cemetery of Altenburg.53 Here, in the center of one of the most brachycephalic regions of Europe today, were buried four male skeletons, the crania of which ranged from 65 to 71 in cranial indices, and two female skulls of 77. The long bones are small, the statures short; the skulls are delicate in appearance and purely Mediterraneran - but remarkable for the narrow vault form of the males. Six other Neolithic male crania, from Wörms, are similar. This evidence, while not complete, at least shows that the Corded people, in southern and southwestern Germany, were preceded by an agricultural population of the smaller Mediterranean variety, upon which they superimposed themselves.


Does anyone have any info about middle neolithic Bernburg culture ?
http://i40.tinypic.com/2mouv13.png

I have to admit my ignorance on the topic, never even heard of Bernburg culture before. It seems to have strong affinities with Finns and Swedes.

[blogen]

What is interesting about Neolithic (Med) farmers.
Is it seems they just immigrated to Europe & didn't even conquer Europe.
I mean, were they part of a Indo-European empire!?
Much like we saw with Jews & Muslims today!?

There were huge IE cultures in Europe (linear pottery for example), and the Indoeuropeans were not immingrants in this cultures, this was their cultures!

[d3cimat3d]

http://i40.tinypic.com/2h6y0zm.png


I am surprised Belarus doesn't show much affinity to CWC. I always thought Belarusians were the epitome of all things corded-ware. Also something does not look right here with the Transcaucasus showing affinity to PWC but then this is only based on mtDNA so we are not getting the entire picture.


I think this part is when Indo-Europeans with North-European DNA spread in the Kurgan expansion the dates even fit as it was about 5,000 years ago when the Kurgan expansion started!

But were these really the Indo-Europeans, or just local people force-fed the I-E language from the Ukrainian steppe? Because that's what the consensus agreement is on the Corded-ware which was a forward base for Indo-European language spread into Europe as far as I know.

Anyway it's interesting that in the 3rd map, exactly where the two arrows meet in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern part of Germany was the sight of a clash 3,500 years ago. It somewhat meets the time-frame but perhaps it's just my wishful thinking.


At the the beginning of the Neolithic, we have finds like Talheim in Germany, where we have evidence of violence, but it doesn't look like this situation in the Tollense Valley where we have many humans there in the riverbed

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13469861

[Prisoner Of Ice]

When you look at mtdna I don't think you can argue for a bunch of very recent migrations being source of all europe dna. Still digesting all this but it seems to say basically farmers moved in and expanded numbers faster than HG people and didn't mix too much with them.

[Hweinlant]

I am surprised Belarus doesn't show much affinity to CWC. I always thought Belarusians were the epitome of all things corded-ware.


It actually goes even further. The Central Baltoslavic zone (Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Northern Ukraine) are avoid of all things Corded Ware.



Also something does not look right here with the Transcaucasus showing affinity to PWC but then this is only based on mtDNA so we are not getting the entire picture.


I interpreted that Transcaucasus affinity as the LBK-farmer substrata in the CWC. If you look at the supplementary, there are several PCAs of different ancient samples and how they interact with modern samples. CWC sample has affinity to modern Turks and Ossetians. LBK/Linear Pottery culture is very Ossetian like (there btw also exists paternal haplogroup G connection here..). So I think there are two layers of information here, the Ossetian-like substrata-LBK and the actual Corded Warians from eastern Europe (who were more mesolithic like).

[Hweinlant]

When you look at mtdna I don't think you can argue for a bunch of very recent migrations being source of all europe dna. Still digesting all this but it seems to say basically farmers moved in and expanded numbers faster than HG people and didn't mix too much with them.

Thats not what they say. The Picture is far more complex and includes several population expansions here and there.

[SobieskisavedEurope]

^That paper is pure gold.
Polish fantasy of pure Polish Corded Ware Culture goes to trashbin.. Eat your shorts Polako.


1. I am not Polako (Just to make that clear)

2 Didn't Polako say they were impure here!?

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2012/09/they-had-blond-hair-and-light-eyes-and.html

They had blond hair and light eyes, and came from the north…but they were racially impure

[Black Wolf]

When you look at mtdna I don't think you can argue for a bunch of very recent migrations being source of all europe dna. Still digesting all this but it seems to say basically farmers moved in and expanded numbers faster than HG people and didn't mix too much with them.

Yup pretty much this is what it says on the whole. For quite some time in at least Central Europe it seems that hunter-gatherers and farmers did not mix. I actually find the second study here more interesting. Here is the abstract.

2000 Years of Parallel Societies in Stone Age Central Europe

Ruth Bollongino et al.

Debate on the ancestry of Europeans centers on the interplay between Mesolithic foragers and Neolithic farmers. Foragers are generally believed to have disappeared shortly after the arrival of agriculture. To investigate the relation between foragers and farmers, we examined Mesolithic and Neolithic samples from the Blätterhöhle site. Mesolithic mitochondrial DNA sequences were typical of European foragers, whereas the Neolithic sample included additional lineages that are associated with early farmers. However, isotope analyses separate the Neolithic sample into two groups: one with an agriculturalist diet and one with a forager and freshwater fish diet, the latter carrying mitochondrial DNA sequences typical of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. This indicates that the descendants of Mesolithic people maintained a foraging lifestyle in Central Europe for more than 2000 years after the arrival of farming societies.


The late hunter-gatherer samples here were only represented by mtDNA haplogroup U5 types. Same with the other early Mesolithic. H and J show up in the Neolithic farmer remains though.

[SobieskisavedEurope]

The late hunter-gatherer samples here were only represented by mtDNA haplogroup U5 types. Same with the other early Mesolithic. H and J show up in the Neolithic farmer remains though.

Yes, this is what the article states.

However, weren't there some H haplogroup remains found in Upper Paleolithic in Europe though!?

I recall seeing H haplogroups found in the Upper Paleolithic period.

[Black Wolf]

Yes, this is what the article states.

However, weren't there some H haplogroup remains found in Upper Paleolithic in Europe though!?

I recall seeing H haplogroups found in the Upper Paleolithic period.

There was an apparent H6 sample found in Cantabria from the Upper Paleolithic but apparently the sample was not actually dated to this time. It was just found in a cultural context. All of the other so called H samples form Portugal over to Sunghir in Russia came from very early poorly done studies and contamination apparently is a big possibility. There was an H sample found in Mesolithic Karelia though some think it may have got there by admixture with Neolithic farming groups further south maybe because it is only one single sample and the rest are either U types or C there. At thsi point it seems we really do not know. Quite a few people seem to be quite skeptical of the presence of H in pre-Neolithic Europe.

[SobieskisavedEurope]

There was an apparent H6 sample found in Cantabria from the Upper Paleolithic but apparently the sample was not actually dated to this time. It was just found in a cultural context. All of the other so called H samples form Portugal over to Sunghir in Russia came from very early poorly done studies and contamination apparently is a big possibility. There was an H sample found in Mesolithic Karelia though some think it may have got there by admixture with Neolithic farming groups further south maybe because it is only one single sample and the rest are either U types or C there. At thsi point it seems we really do not know. Quite a few people seem to be quite skeptical of the presence of H in pre-Neolithic Europe.

Interesting.

There certainly seems to be a large increase in Haplogroup H during the Neolithic that much is obvious.

I got to wonder why both Dienekes & Polako got such high North-European DNA for Lithuanians when Lithuanians are mostly H haplogroup rather than U5.

I mean if U haplogroups are the original haplogroups of Europe then wouldn't Saami be the most North-European by DNA!?

Well, I have seen that one DNA study showing ancient European DNA showing Saami way at the North of Europe.

[Black Wolf]

Interesting.

There certainly seems to be a large increase in Haplogroup H during the Neolithic that much is obvious.

I got to wonder why both Dienekes & Polako got such high North-European DNA for Lithuanians when Lithuanians are mostly H haplogroup rather than U5.

I mean if U haplogroups are the original haplogroups of Europe then wouldn't Saami be the most North-European by DNA!?

Well, I have seen that one DNA study showing ancient European DNA showing Saami way at the North of Europe.

Yes H increased massively during the late Neolithic and a lot expanded from Portugal it seems. Well as we know the North European autosomal component is actually a mixed component when sen in modern Europeans. It is majority Mesolithic but carries a significant Neolithic component within it. Also uni-parental markers such as mtDNA do not always need to correlate exactly with autosomal DNA. The picture can be very complex.

[SobieskisavedEurope]

^That paper is pure gold.
Polish fantasy of pure Polish Corded Ware Culture goes to trashbin.. Eat your shorts Polako.


Remember that is only the Maternal DNA.

Today Poland has the most Paternal R1a - M458 haplogroup associated with Corded Ware Culture.

http://gentis.ru/img/y/M458.gif

[Black Wolf]

Yes we have to remember that these studies mentioned here are only focusing on mtDNA.

[Hweinlant]

Today Poland has the most Paternal R1a - M458 haplogroup associated with Corded Ware Culture.


There is nothing concrete associating M458 with CWC. The R1a found from CWC Elau-burial was not tested beyond basal R1a*-level. M458 imo is rather Slavic expansion marker (~1500 years ago). It's possible that it was already present during CWC times but there is 0 concrete evidence for it.

[Black Wolf]

But still it is interesting to note that when it comes to autosomal DNA Lithuanians do seem to be closest overall to Mesolithic Europeans and Lithuanians today have a lot of mtDNA haplogroup H. The North European autosomal component does seem to be largely of Mesolithic European origins. We will just have to keep waiting and see the results of more testing I suppose.

[Prince Carlo]

So the Bell Beaker culture was spread by females, wasn't it? OMG the poles on ABF are jizzing in their pants.

[Black Wolf]

Lithuanian mtDNA and yDNA frequencies might be affected by population founder effect.
http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?97086-Population-founder-effect-and-breast-cancer

That is certainly a possibility.

[d3cimat3d]

Remember that is only the Maternal DNA.

Today Poland has the most Paternal R1a - M458 haplogroup associated with Corded Ware Culture.

http://gentis.ru/img/y/M458.gif

But the R1a in Elau Germany was just 1 sample, there was 2 other CWC remains tested and they both were some undetermined G, J or I which probably hints at LBK substrate as Hweinlant pointed out earlier....or maybe even Trypillians being pushed north of the Carpathians.


Determining polymorphisms of SNP type from chromosome Y resulted in categorizing skeleton from grave no. 1 with very high probability into haplogroup G, whereas skeleton from grave no. 2 with very high probability into one of three haplogroups J, I or E*.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313000459

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2013/02/y-chromosomes-of-corded-ware-at-wroclaw.html

[Kazimiera]

So nice to see that mtdna I is mentioned! It's so rarely mentioned! :)

[Black Wolf]

So nice to see that mtdna I is mentioned! It's so rarely mentioned! :)

Are you talking about the I mentioned in the post just above yours?

[Kazimiera]

Are you talking about the I mentioned in the post just above yours?

No. From the article on Dieneke's blog which you gave the link to.

[Black Wolf]

No. From the article on Dieneke's blog which you gave the link to.

Ahhh okay lass.

[Graham]

Ancient DNA Unravels Europe's Genetic Diversity (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131010142650.htm)Oct. 10, 2013 — Ancient DNA recovered from a time series of skeletons in Germany spanning 4,000 years of prehistory has been used to reconstruct the first detailed genetic history of modern-day Europeans

The study, published today in Science, reveals dramatic population changes with waves of prehistoric migration, not only from the accepted path via the Near East, but also from Western and Eastern Europe.

The research was a collaboration between the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD), at the University of Adelaide, researchers from the University of Mainz, the State Heritage Museum in Halle (Germany), and National Geographic Society's Genographic Project. The teams used mitochondrial DNA (maternally inherited DNA) extracted from bone and teeth samples from 364 prehistoric human skeletons ‒ ten times more than previous ancient DNA studies.

"This is the largest and most detailed genetic time series of Europe yet created, allowing us to establish a complete genetic chronology," says joint-lead author Dr Wolfgang Haak of ACAD. "Focussing on this small but highly important geographic region meant we could generate a gapless record, and directly observe genetic changes in 'real-time' from 7,500 to 3,500 years ago, from the earliest farmers to the early Bronze Age."

"Our study shows that a simple mix of indigenous hunter-gatherers and the incoming Near Eastern farmers cannot explain the modern-day diversity alone," says joint-lead author Guido Brandt, PhD candidate at the University of Mainz. "The genetic results are much more complex than that. Instead, we found that two particular cultures at the brink of the Bronze Age 4,200 years ago had a marked role in the formation of Central Europe's genetic makeup."

Professor Kurt Alt (University of Mainz) says: "What is intriguing is that the genetic signals can be directly compared with the changes in material culture seen in the archaeological record. It is fascinating to see genetic changes when certain cultures expanded vastly, clearly revealing interactions across very large distances." These included migrations from both Western and Eastern Europe towards the end of the Stone Age, through expanding cultures such as the Bell Beaker and the Corded Ware (named after their pots).

"This transect through time has produced a wealth of information about the genetic history of modern Europeans," says ACAD Director Professor Alan Cooper. "There was a period of stasis after farming became established and suitable areas were settled, and then sudden turnovers during less stable times or when economic factors changed, such as the increasing importance of metal ores and secondary farming products. While the genetic signal of the first farming populations becomes increasingly diluted over time, we see the original hunter-gatherers make a surprising comeback."

Dr Haak says: "None of the dynamic changes we observed could have been inferred from modern-day genetic data alone, highlighting the potential power of combining ancient DNA studies with archaeology to reconstruct human evolutionary history." The international team has been working closely on the genetic prehistory of Europeans for the past 7-8 years and is currently applying powerful new technologies to generate genomic data from the specimens.

[Vesuvian Sky]

"...we see the original hunter-gatherers make a surprising comeback."

Something I expected for quite a while. Complete Neolithic replacement Europe I always thought questionable as well as complete autochtonus development from the Paleo-Meso population. It was probably very naunced the pattern with various ebb and flows of genetic patterns.

[Black Wolf]

Are they just claiming that mtDNA haplogroups U2, U4 and U5 are the ''original hunter-gatherers?'' That is what I got from reading the study.

[Vesuvian Sky]

You may find this interesting.
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/modern-european-admixture-components.html

Funny, Polako is almost sounding like Dienekes these days. The difference a year or two makes.

[Vesuvian Sky]

This part of the articel I found quite riveting:



Event B describes a bidirectional interaction along a north-south axis during the Early and Middle Neolithic, which saw the introduction of the Neolithic package to southern Scandinavia by Central European cultures (B1 ~4100 cal BCE), followed by a reflux of hunter-gatherer lineages to Central Europe (B2 ~3100 cal BCE) (movie S1). The Neolithic transition of southern Scandinavia was closely linked to the FBC, which replaced local foragers that had retained the Mesolithic lifestyle for ~1500 years after farming arrived in Central Europe (1–3). FBC individuals from Scandinavia (10, 15, 16) have yielded high frequencies of hunter-gatherer haplogroups (30%) alongside a large amount of Neolithic package haplogroups (60%) (table S9), leading to an intermediate position between hunter-gatherers and the Early/Middle Neolithic Mittelelbe-Saale cultures in the PCA (Fig. 1C). This suggests that pioneer groups from Central Europe had interacted with local hunter-gatherers who adopted farming (movie S1) (1–4), a view also supported by ancient genomic data (16). Subsequently, around a millennium later in Mittelelbe-Saale, a genetic shift associated with the BEC (Fig. 1, A to D, and table S7), a late representative of the FBC in Central Europe (4), saw an increase in hunter-gatherer lineages (29.4%) and a decrease in farmer lineages (47.1%) (Fig. 3), resulting in a haplogroup composition similar to that of the Scandinavian FBC (Fig. 1C) (10, 15). Although previous populations show affinities to the Near East, the BEC marks a clear shift toward those in present-day North Europe (movie S1 and figs. S4F to S7F).

In the Late Neolithic, we identify two independent events (C and D), each associated with major contemporary Pan-European phenomena. Event C (~2800 cal BCE) is marked by the emergence of the CWC (movie S1), whose subgroups were widespread across Central and Eastern Europe (fig. S2) (2–4). The CWC is characterized by haplogroups I and U2 (4.6%), which are new maternal elements in Mittelelbe-Saale (Fig. 1C and fig. S3) and appear alongside other Late Neolithic/EBA lineages such as T1 (6.8%) and hunter-gatherer haplogroups U4 and U5 (20.5%), whereas Early/Middle Neolithic haplogroups further decrease (45.5%) (Fig. 3). The binomial probability that we missed I and U2 in 211 individuals of preceding cultures is very low (P = 0.00). Haplogroup U2 has been reported exclusively from Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Bronze Age samples from Russia (17–19), and PCA and cluster analyses reveal similarities of the CWC to two ancient Kurgan groups of South Siberia (19) and Kazakhstan (20) (Fig. 1, C and D), in which haplogroups I, U2, and T1 are frequent (18.2 to 37.5%) (table S9). Intriguingly, the Y chromosomal haplogroup R1a1a, frequent in ancient Siberian populations (19), has previously been detected in our CWC data set (21), suggesting additional paternal genetic links to Kurgan cultures. Together with the affinities of the CWC to present-day populations of Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and the Caucasus (figs. S4G to S7G), this suggests a genetic influx into Central Europe from the East, likely influenced by Kurgan cultures (movie S1) (2, 3).


Ancient DNA Reveals Key Stages in the Formation of Central European Mitochondrial Genetic Diversity (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6155/257.full)

[Fire Haired]

I am very sick of people wording it the hunter gathers descendants did persist into the Neolithic. Or basing the genetics of an entire culture based on 50 mtDNA samples usually less. I think you should change the wording to direct materal lineages because that is what it really is. Austomal DNA of these U(U5, U4, and U2) dominted European hunter gathers from Neloithic and Mesolithic ages. Show they are actually more European than any modern ones. For example in globe13 the only group that is pretty much only in Europe is called North Euro and is over 71% in all the hunter gather samples so far. While Meditreaen is dominate in the farmer samples 59% or more and Med took up the rest of the hunter gathers austomal DNA if you don't count Native American, Oceania, and sub sharan African groups which most likely mean nothing. North Euro may have been 100% in Europeans before farming spread. I have noticed it shows very close connection with distribution of fair hair and eyes in Europe the areas of Europe were farming spread last or never did in the Neolithic have the highest North Euro and fair hair and eyes(Baltic sea and Scandinavia). I think European palness comes from the hunter gathers that is why Europeans with the most North Euro are the palest but it is probably a lot more complicated. Since pale skin dominates Europe it makes sense Europeans or at least most mainly descend from pre Neolithic Europeans not Near eastern farmers.

I have looked a lot at ancient Eurasian DNA and put it in percentages(I have no idea how they get the results though). And basicalley I see that there really is almost no difference between Neolithic-iron age European mtDNa and modern. H is around 35%+, U(mainly U5, U4, and U2) 5-20%, J, T, and K can be anywhere from 5-15%, I,W,X,and V can be from 1%<-5%. Even the subclades H1 and H3 take up the same percentages or more as they do with modern Europeans which is much more popular than in the mid east. Almost all T were they found the subclade is under T2 then T2b like modern Europeans and not like any other modern people.

Plus percentages of haplogroup subclades are different across Europe we can generalize European mtDNA. I don't really dont care if from 18 mtDNA samples from Bell Beaker culture in Germany that 11 had H that is not nearly enough to say anything about the origin of mtDNA H in Europe. If you take away LBK culture Neolithic German mtDNA out of 35 samples 17 had H. Also there is a H1e from Bell Beaker three H1e's have been found in Neolithic German(pre Bell Beaker) including one from LBK. Why would the women from bell Beaker culture reproduce and not the already farmers in Germany is there any evidence Bell Beaker culture could have had a kill of of native maternal lineages.

[Fire Haired]

There are only 25 mtDNa samples from Unetice culture, 18 from Bell Beaker, and 21 from Corded ware. We cant say anything with such little amount of samples. I think this study may have assumed mtDNA H is much more popular in Iberia it really isn't(European mtDNA (http://www.eupedia.com/europe/european_mtdna_haplogroups_frequency.shtml)) and Basque does not equal Iberia. And who knows if Bell Beaker even began in Iberia there is a lot of debate over that. If you don't count LBK out of 35 mtDNa samples from Neolithic European 17 have H that is almost 50%. Plus one had H1e7 same with a Bell Beaker H pretty much proving that lineage did not come from Iberia or the spread of Bell Beaker culture. If this study wants to say Bell Beaker is the source of 40%+ H in central Europe what about Finland and the rest of Europe except Sami and Volga Russia. I have looked at the deep subclades and the percentages are pretty much the same in all of Europe(unless you get very deep) so its source is probably not Bell Beaker.