The Zhou Dynasty is an ancient Chinese dynasty from the period, when writing in Old Chinese already existed, so one should not assume that the Zhou Dynasty was connected to Indo-European populations. Consequently, it is only a somewhat later Xiguan Cemetery of the Western Zhou that yielded yDNA N-M128 branch, which accounts for 0,56% of males in China and used to account for 4 out of ca. 100 Japanese male representatives on the yfull site.
However, the location of yDNA N-M128 in the Xiguan cemetery should not be considered the oldest one in East Asia. In the newest article “Ancient genomes revealed the complex human interactions of the ancient western Tibetans”, the mtDNA B5b2 specimen (whose lineage’s time depth includes ca. 19000-year-old “relatives”, who had also gathered in ancient Shandong according to the report of “Maternal genetic structure in ancient Shandong between 9500 and 1800 years ago”) clustered in a meaningful Shandong Han group, but this specimen was also very close to the Jiangsu Province’s specimen and participated in the cline, which first proceded to the second, more southern, Jiangsu Province’s specimen, later proceded to the Henan Province’s specimen with a slightly more southern autosomal makeup, and only later proceded to the Gansu Province’s specimen of a rather southern autosomal makeup as compared to other Gansu Provinces’s specimen, and the “geography” of the described cline’s specimens bears resemblance to the distribution of yDNA N-M128 in China.
In Myanmar (Burma), which is close to the gate to the Indian subcontinent as viewed from East Asia, there is a word [sáʔ] ‘son’ in the Myazedi Pyu inscription, and this Myazedi Pyu [sáʔ] ‘son’ is more similar to the Burushaski word *´-s ‘human child’, Caucasian *-as ‘son, daughter’, Basque *śe/śa/śo ‘son/daughter/uncle’, Proto-Sino-Tibetan *śuu ‘grandchild’, Proto-Indo-European element *suh- in the word ‘son’, which derived from the stem *seuh “to give birth”. At least some African Afroasiatic languages and the Kartvelian Georgian language also have rather remote words, deriving from such a stem *seuh “to give birth”. For the Burushaski-Indo-European similarity, it was suggested that “there may be some kind of very deep-level relationship between Burushaski and Indo-European”. In the newest article “Ancient genomes revealed the complex human interactions of the ancient western Tibetans”, such a very deep level “Burushaski-Indo-European” connection revealed itself on the genetic grounds. In Jager, 2017 (
http://www.sfs.uni-tuebingen.de/~gja...slidesHITS.pdf), the Burushaski language joined the linguistic macrocluster, where the Japanese language was also located. For example, in both Burushaski and Japanese, the second person singular pronoun contains a phoneme/sound [m] (Japanese /omae/ ‘thou’, Burushaski /ma/ ‘thou’ as opposed to Onge /ni/ ‘thou’ and Proto-Ainu *e ‘thou’).
However, the described very deep level “Burushaski-Indo-European” connection should be very different from the Kartvelian-Burushaski connection, which was presented by the western linguist Jan H. Holst in 2017. Holst elaborated upon the Kartvelian-Burushaski connection, additionally pointing to the similarities between Burushaski languages and Nihali languages of India, which Holst considered to be a “Burushaski-Nihali language group” in the group of Kartvelian-“ Burushaski-Nihali” languages, that is, in the common Kartvelian-“ Burushaski-Nihali” higher-level unit, which Holst proposed. This Kartvelian-Burushaski connection, highlighted by Holst, involves such notions as "ergative-absolutive" agreement (which was widely distributed in the Near East (the Sumerian language in Mesopotamia, various Caucasian languages, ancient Elamite of Southwestern Iran, ancient Hattic of Asia Minor), but not in nominative-accusative East Asian proto-languages) and the vigesimal numeral system. Holst supposed that the Nihali languages shared much more similarities to the Burushaski languages than to the Kartvelian languages. Indeed, the Nihali languages are not characterized by "ergative-absolutive" agreement, and the Nihali languages are not characterized by the vigesimal numeral system. Consequently, there might have been some ancient substratum population's component, which probably became separately included in the Burusho population and indirectly in the Nihali population, but this component contributed to ancestors of “hypothetically Burusho-related” Indo-European and Kartvelian populations to a much smaller degree.
The relationship, involving the Nihali languages of India, are even more complicated. In Jager, 2017, the Nihali languages clustered as an outgroup to all non-African Western Eurasian languages. Additionally, a few striking similarities, involving the Nihali languages and the Ainu languages, were suggested by John D. Bengtson. For example, John D. Bengtson reconstructed the prototype *-apoy for the word ‘fire’, to which Ainu *apOy ‘fire, hearth’ and Nihali āpo ‘fire’ might have been related. This reconstruction is not at all similar to the Proto-Japanese root *pi ‘sun’, though the Japan ese root might be related to the language of another substratal population, slightly more distantly related to some common ancestors of Ainu and Nihali speakers, of whose languages the reconstructed prototype *-apoy for the word ‘fire’ might have been characteristic. Interestingly, the newest article “Ancient genomes revealed the complex human interactions of the ancient western Tibetans” selected the sample, carrying the mutation T4216C of the very basal mtDNA haplogroup R2’JT, and this sample appears to be very close geographically to the homeland of the Ainu; additionally, one of branches of mtDNA M2, is also characterized by this T4216C mutation, while mtDNA M2 is the most common mtDNA lineage in the Nihali population. Consequently, the Proto-Japanese root *pi ‘sun’ might have been characteristic of the language of a similarly ancient population, as the one, which was characterized by the presence of T4216C mutation in their mtDNA lineages, but this “more Japanese-related” ancient population should have been located closer to ancient East Asians, than ancestors of mtDNA R2’JT and mtDNA M2 were located. Interestingly, mtDNA R23-related members, having relatives closer to Papuan and Australian lands, did not cluster too close to East Asian populations in “Ancient genomes revealed the complex human interactions of the ancient western Tibetans”, which implies that the remains of this “more Japanese-related” extremely ancient Paleolithic population might have mostly survived in later ancient substratum populations, belonging to other lineages.
Consequently, some striking similarities between the Japanese language and the Nihali language (for example, Japanese /nan/ ‘what’ – Nihali /nān/ ‘what’; Japanese /nan-ka/ ‘something’, Nihali /nan-ka/ ‘something’ ), to which the materials of the Ainu language and some other languages from Southeast Asia, collected by John D. Bengtson, look much more remote, might be explained by the "younger" influence onto the Nihali language in India from a language, deriving from East Asia (where this East Asian language had a linguistic substratum, caused by the existence of the above-mentioned ancient substratum population (which was likely distantly (with the Initial Upper Paleolithic time depth) related to the one, contributing to the Burusho), which in its turn had the “more Japanese-related” extremely ancient Paleolithic population as a substratum).
In the newest article “Ancient genomes revealed the complex human interactions of the ancient western Tibetans”, the Naxi people of Yunnan of Southwestern China clustered to the south of Tibet along with other East Asians, but was slightly more shifted in the direction of Myanmar, which is the gate to India. As we know today from Rootsi et al, some much more distant, early yDNA N relatives of the Naxi people can be found in Cambodia and Japan. Nonetheless, the role of the Naxi-related populations should have been considerable as well, since some “sinicized” Naxi individuals form a cline on the PCA of “Ancient genomes revealed the complex human interactions of the ancient western Tibetans”, which leads from the “Naxi type” of the Yunnan ancestry to Shandong, which is one of essential places for the formation of mainland China’s population, related to the ancestors of some local Han Chinese, and also contributing to the Japanese people. Interestingly, one of the Naxi individuals from the described cline leading to Shandong, when bypassing Jiangsu, has the mutation T16311C!, which was abundant in the yDNA N Avar elite individuals in “Genetic insights into the social organisation of the Avar period elite in the 7th century AD Carpathian Basin”.
In general, the newest article “Ancient genomes revealed the complex human interactions of the ancient western Tibetans” has the detailed locations of different groups of Japanese individuals on its PCA, which may lead to the conclusion, which groups of populations participated in their formation. For example, the Japanese mtDNA N9a2a/ yDNA C-M217>C-L1373>C-F3447>C-F1699>C-F4032>C-M8574>C-Y176542 specimen of a deeply diverged branch of northern yDNA C2-L1373 (
https://www.theytree.com/tree/C-M8574) “initiated” the cline, in which first Japanese O1b2-47z>O1b2-CTS713* individuals (but not Japanese O1b2-L682) participated, then the Chinese yDNA O1b2 Shandong individual joined (clustering extremely close to the yDNA J individual, but far from other Shandong individuals), then this cline reached as far as the most remote Miao and the most remote Taiwanese Ami, but did not intersect them. In geographic terms, it is somewhat similar to the distribution of yDNA O1b2-47z>O1b2-BY45877 in China (who likely distributed to China from the Beiqian settlement of the Jiaodong Peninsula in Shandong, dated to 5500-4600 years ago), whose representatives might have been occasionally joined by other members of yDNA O1b2-47z, and “such a geography” is somewhat similar to the distribution of some linguistic features, to which some Japanese American researchers pointed. The participation of the Japan-specific yDNA C-M217>C-L1373>C-F3447>C-F1699>C-F4032>C-M8574>C-Y176542 individual might be relevant for the appearance of such linguistic features in the yDNA O-related population. Moreover, on the PCA, the yDNA J individual, located extremely close to the Chinese yDNA O1b2 Shandong individual, aligned with an yDNA J2b2a2b2a outlier individual from the Sandalongguo site of Ngari, Western Tibet, and, according to the article, “after 2,000 years ago, an outlier individual from the Sandalongguo site was affected by genetic components related to the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilization populations”. The appearance of such an yDNA J2b2a2b2a outlier individual from the Sandalongguo site may have been inspired by contacts between East and West, starting at least since the Early Neolithic, when, in the ancient Fujian, a more than 8000-year-old Qihedong individual showed the affinity to much later GonurBA populations, but there were also additional western speculations about the possibility of the interaction of initiators of the Indus Valley Civilization and some “rice farmers” in East Asia. It is important that other individuals in China, including the Naxi-related individuals, general Tibeto-Burman and Sinitic individuals are “unrelated” to such Indus Valley Civilization-affiliated individuals. Consequently, western peculiarities, searched for by Japanese researchers in other populations to account for some features in the Japanese populations, were more likely to be mediated by a certain group within yDNA O1b2 individuals. The more "purely Korean" individual appears to represent a somewhat more indigenous local population, which did not participate in the described interactions to the degree the ancestors of the Japanese-related individuals did. The yDNA J2b2a2b2a outlier individual from the Sandalongguo site participated in a cline with a few Dravidian-speaking Brahui and “Indo-Europeanized” Balochi individuals, and one of the Balochi individuals in their turn participated in a cline with “Elamite-related” Iranian individuals, whereas “Elamite-related” Iranian individuals participated in a cline, leading to the Abkhazian-speaking individuals in “Ancient genomes revealed the complex human interactions of the ancient western Tibetans”.
One of the most interesting features is the appearance on the PCA of “Ancient genomes revealed the complex human interactions of the ancient western Tibetans” of a relatively considerable group of Japanese individuals, if not the most considerable group of Japanese individuals, which showed connections to some ancient Tibetan individuals, who were different from the much more southern Naxi. The search for the genetic Tibetan Chokhopani-Japanese connection was observed in “Ancient Jomon genome sequence analysis sheds light on migration patterns of early East Asian populations”. The Tibetan Sherpa-Japanese genetic connection was highlighted in “Ancient DNA indicates human population shifts and admixture in northern and southern China”. The dominant Y haplogroups of Tibetan-speaking populations are yDNA O-M134 (shared with Sinitic speakers) and yDNA D-M174 (but not yDNA D-M64). It is more likely that different groups of ancient individuals, characterized by differing yDNA lineages and contributing to the formation of the Japanese population, started to interact with each other only somewhat later.
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