Is West Asian a European component?

[Unpopular]

Georgians and Iranians score 90% west asian, South Italians score 50% and Germanic/Slavic core groups score 20%. The gap is obvious.

South Italians are 50% West Asian?
It's a lot for an "European" country.

[Sikeliot]

South Italians are 50% West Asian?
It's a lot for an "European" country.

Yes, but so do Greek islands, Malta etc.

[Prince Carlo]

South Italians are 50% West Asian?
It's a lot for an "European" country.

A campanian would still score 50% European on EUtest V2. Mainland Greeks score 60%. West Asians score 10-20%.

A half mailand Greek half Polish person would cluster with Serbs.
A half Campania half Polish person would cluster with Romanians.

[Pure ja]

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2013/1...est-three.html

[So what could be the cause of this relatively recent Siberian gene flow into Northeastern Europe? The best bet is the Uralic expansion and, for the Chuvash and Mordovians, perhaps also the Turkic expansion. Based on latest linguistic research, the pre-proto-Uralics appear to have expanded at some point from Siberia into the Volga-Ural region, in far eastern Europe. During the Bronze Age the Uralics proper then expanded from the Volga-Ural both back to the east and also west, as far as the Baltic (see here).]

I see problems with that.

Based on K=9 ADMIXTURE analysis results (with Mal'ta components)
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/2810/hhx4.png
estonians have very little light yellow and orange. So, either those components arrived to karelians and finns and saamis (I am assuming that other baltic finnics have more of light yellow when compared to estonians and livonians, based on maris and chuvash) after the arrival of finnic languages, or the switch to finnic languages had to be almost without immigration (at least not from the Karelian direction). On the other hand, there is the spread of N1c, which also had to precede the spread of the light yellow component.

One problem I see is that while saami is supposed to be the least changed of the (baltic-)finnic languages, livonian and seto and estonian are supposed to be the most changed among baltic-finnic languages - and they were supposed to split first from the "proto-baltic-finnic". If one dates the arrival of finnic languages to the Baltic Sea coast at the bronze age (3000 years ago), then that means that higher density sedentary half-agricultural people in Estonia and Livonia for some reason took over a language which mostly left behind stone-age vocabulary - with just a tricle of migrants.

I don't see how proto-saamis could bring finnic language to Estonia or Livonia - not in metal ages and maybe never. There are other issues as well - toponyms, folk tales, etc. - which in my non-professional opinion are in conflict with a late arrival of finnic languages to the Baltics.

The suggestion that this relatively new "siberian" admix came from the southern steppes instead (via mordvins) has another problem since that direction was supposed to be blocked by balts or baltoslavs already during the bronze age. The more north-easterly route would face the same problem as that of Karelian route - it would have had to be through "proto-saamis" whose population density was way lower and lifestyle more archaic than that of estonians, setos and livonians (and adsele finnics in eastern latvia).

And the largest problem I see is the use of a linguistic tree-model approach, instead of a network-model. Based on the tree-model approach, they a priori exclude the 'unknown' language in the contemporary baltic-finnic area prior to the "arrival of the finnic languages". With a network model, it could be tried and tested as part of the uralic languages, one which later took over something from the more eastern uralic languages.

One early wave of siberian-like genetic influence arrived to Karelia around 7000-8000 years ago.

[Aila]

One early wave of siberian-like genetic influence arrived to Karelia around 7000-8000 years ago.

You are talking about the aUZ = Mesolithic Yuzhnyy Oleni Ostrov here I assume -what else.

Language aside, but I don't see why later contacts similar to the aBOO = Bronze Age Bol'shoy Oleni Ostrov would not have brought some genetic influence as well, especially to the ancestors of Karelians and Kargopol Russians.
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/...l.pgen.1003296


Ancient waterways:

[Pure ja]

Aila, those influences that came from the north-east (from the samoyed- sürja-komi direction) were from peoples who fed on reindeer and smaller game. There was no reindeer in Estonia since epipaleolithic. Also, I haven't seen any genetical evidence (besides N1c) that any of those mesolithic or neolithic or metal age "asian" influences arrived to Estonia. At least not yet. There is very little orange / dark yellow of the "han" component among estonians. There is also very little light yellow.

And why didn't those influences from north-east spread further west to Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania?
Because the Baltic shore peoples were sedentary and had higher population density when compared to north-east.

And if we consider the south-eastern route through Mordovia, than that route would have had to come from Sarapol through Moscow towards Pskov and Tartu. Moscow area was at the border of finnic and baltic tribes. Anything west to Moscow was supposed to be baltic already by the start of the bronze age. So whatever came to Estonia and Latvia could not have come via south-west of Moscow, but it also couldn't have come much further north-eastern route because there you do not have as advanced agriculture any more. I don't see how one can postulate the spread of finnic to Estonia and Latvia without explaining how it outcompeted baltic dialects and the supposedly unknown prior language. One could argue that the south-estonian dialect could be the result of such a wave from south-east, but that does not explain why that bronze age wave stopped at the very geographic border of Allerod shorelines in Estonia 13000 years ago.

[Pure ja]

Aila, those influences that came from the north-east (from the samoyed- sürja-komi direction) were from peoples who fed on reindeer and smaller game. There was no reindeer in Estonia since epipaleolithic. Also, I haven't seen any genetical evidence (besides N1c) that any of those mesolithic or neolithic or metal age "asian" influences arrived to Estonia. At least not yet. There is very little orange / dark yellow of the "han" component among estonians. There is also very little light yellow.

And why didn't those influences from north-east spread further west to Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania?
Because the Baltic shore peoples were sedentary and had higher population density when compared to north-east.

And if we consider the south-eastern route through Mordovia, than that route would have had to come from Sarapol through Moscow towards Pskov and Tartu. Moscow area was at the border of finnic and baltic tribes. Anything west to Moscow was supposed to be baltic already by the start of the bronze age. So whatever came to Estonia and Latvia could not have come via south-west of Moscow, but it also couldn't have come much further north-eastern route because there you do not have as advanced agriculture any more. I don't see how one can postulate the spread of finnic to Estonia and Latvia without explaining how it outcompeted baltic dialects and the supposedly unknown prior language. One could argue that the south-estonian dialect could be the result of such a wave from south-east, but that does not explain why that bronze age wave stopped at the very geographic border of Allerod shorelines in Estonia 13000 years ago.

Perhaps I should also add that the samoyed languages seem more influenced by finno-ugric than finno-ugric by samoyed. If that is true, then tundra peoples were more influenced by forest zone peoples than vice versa. So that makes it less likely that samoyed could initiate a change and a spread of finno-ugric, at least outside of the saami area.

[Argang]

The Kargopol Russians and Mordovians have more recent (recent meaning 1300-2100 years) eastern admixture compared to Finns, and presumably Estonians who weren't tested, but don't really show the orange Han component in the K9 Mal'ta study either, so whoever they mixed with didn't carry it.

those components arrived to karelians and finns and saamis (I am assuming that other baltic finnics have more of light yellow when compared to estonians and livonians, based on maris and chuvash) after the arrival of finnic languages

The siberian component is very likely older than Finnic languages in the Baltic region. In the bronze age it might even have extended further than the uralic speakers ever did, as the bronze age Danish sample on the global PCA below shows as much eastern affinity as the most eastern Finns. The northern Baltic area probably just wasn't so densely populated in the Bronze Age that a language switch would have been impossible. I don't think bronze age remains from Finland or Estonia would look much different to the Danish sample on a PCA. Someone would need to do tests on Finns and Estonians to see whether their siberian has a different date, if Finnish is not more recent the lower level of Estonians most likely is explained by greater mixing with balto-slavs over time.

[Atlantic Islander]

Voted no.

[ZephyrousMandaru]

It's a Middle Eastern component that mostly likely arose in Mesopotamia, archaeological and genetic evidence indicates that the Caucasus was populated by migrants during the Uruk period during the 5th to 4th Millennium BCE. It is most certainly not a European component, and just because it's found in large quantities in Southern European groups doesn't imply that it is a European component. The only indigenous European components are North_European and Baltic, and other related ancestral components. I couldn't care less how long it's been in Europe.