Portugal: Regional Y-DNA variation

[Vasconcelos]

Thing is, Iberians were already more Northern Western shifted than what Italians were even before the Visigothic\Suevian invasions or even the Roman invasions. Actually, if anything, the Roman invasion in the Peninsula Iberia has only brought us more southern in PCAs in terms of genetics. It would be interesting to know how much of our Steppe is actually prior to any Germanic invasion and how much it has increased after the Suevian and Visigothic settlements, if it increased at all.

Yes, but I'd still expect to see a cline towards Germanic-speaking peoples in a PCA plot (even if just a few outliers, such as in northern Italy), and for the most part I don't. I'm obviously not saying the Suebi/Goths left no descendants here - that would be remarkable given their historical importance - but for the time being I'm not seeing their impact being very significant. Which is why I'm so eager to see studies done on Iberia, besides the boring Bronze Age stuff which we're all aware of by now..

[Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas]

Yes, but I'd still expect to see a cline towards Germanic-speaking peoples in a PCA plot (even if just a few outliers, such as in northern Italy), and for the most part I don't. I'm obviously not saying the Suebi/Goths left no descendants here - that would be remarkable given their historical importance - but for the time being I'm not seeing their impact being very significant. Which is why I'm so eager to see studies done on Iberia, besides the boring Bronze Age stuff which we're all aware of by now..

Tens algum modelo para isolar componentes Germânicas em Portugueses com o Global 25 como aquela que fizeste para os Beakers?

[Morena]

One of the biggest mysteries of the peninsula to me is how the Visigoths and Suevians left such a small genetic footprint in Iberia, having in consideration some estimations that say they were about 300,000 at their peak (Berbers were not more than 30,000 when they settled here as a term of comparison).

They weren't a bunch of rapists. When they settled in the Iberian peninsula, they took over the administration of it but did not kill off all the men and take their women like the bell beakers. When the moors came, they were either assimilated into them, killed off, or had to flee the north where many of them died in battle. There is little evidence because they were the ruling class, and the ruling classes are the ones whose heads get put on a pike during times of conquests. See the Anglo-Saxon/Norman division in GB that exists to this day (at least in the surnames).

[Vasconcelos]

Tens algum modelo para isolar componentes Germânicas em Portugueses com o Global 25 como aquela que fizeste para os Beakers?

Nop, é muito complicado porque estamos a falar de populações antigas semelhantes, daí o Celtic VS Germanic PCA do Davidski que foi feito especificamente para distinguir populações semelhantes mas possivelmente mais Germânico ou Celta (a referência para o Celta foi a Irlanda, salvo erro, o que pode não ser muito válido para a Europa Continental). É possível que o G25 não tenha definição suficiente para fazer este tipo de distinção, mas não me cites nisto que acabei de escrever. Suponho que a melhor forma de saberes esse tipo de coisa ainda seja esse PCA do Davidski, mas ele próprio admite que não foi feito para pessoas do sudoeste da Europa, portanto também não sei se valerá a pena. Eu fi-lo só um bocado na palhaçada, mas nem cheguei a fazer o da moça

[Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas]

They weren't a bunch of rapists. When they settled in the Iberian peninsula, they took over the administration of it but did not kill off all the men and take their women like the bell beakers. When the moors came, they were either assimilated into them, killed off, or had to flee the north where many of them died in battle. There is little evidence because they were the ruling class, and the ruling classes are the ones whose heads get put on a pike during times of conquests. See the Anglo-Saxon/Norman division in GB that exists to this day (at least in the surnames).

The reason why it is difficult to distinguish them from historical records is because ethnic distinction between the indigenous Hispano-Roman population and the Visigoths had largely disappeared by this time. Both were Christian converts. Both spoke some form of Vulgar Latin. The Visigoths were considered the most civilized among the "barbarians", and considered themselves "heirs of the Roman Empire", despite having sacked Rome after its decline.

[Morena]

The reason why it is difficult to distinguish them from historical records is because ethnic distinction between the indigenous Hispano-Roman population and the Visigoths had largely disappeared by this time. Both were Christian converts. Both spoke some form of Vulgar Latin. The Visigoths were considered the most civilized among the "barbarians", and considered themselves "heirs of the Roman Empire", despite having sacked Rome after its decline.

That's true too.

[Token]

You don't need a big genetic impact to pass on some residual borderline obscure things like that. Trust me, if you were familiar with the social and economical dynamics of the country, you wouldn't believe they left "ubiquitous Nordic admixture" in a fishing place like Póvoa or Vila do Conde, loads of people moved into/from that area. And "Physical Anthrology does detect Nordic traits among the fishermen" hardly sounds like proper science. Do you have any study of that?

These are not 'residual borderline obscure things' but continuous traditions with an well established Scandinavian origin and entire books dedicated on their study. Sorry but people don't merely adopt such a complex hereditary system and start building drakkars out of nowhere, there is no special advantage in navigating the Atlantic with North Sea warships instead of classic Mediterranean boats and the Siglas are endogamous by nature. In this case, demic diffusion isn't only possible but necessary. The impact might not have been big but it was enough to affect the facial structure of these people.

I use 'Nordic traits' for the sake of simplicity. If you want me to put it in a more scientific way: the fishermen population of Póvoa de Varzim display craniometric affinities to Scandinavians that isn't observable in the general Portuguese populace. The source is Portugalia vol 2, of F. Cardosa, page 517 onwards. Have fun.

I'm sorry but I'm going to have to ask for sources again, I've grown to be extremelly suspicious of unsourced claims. Not that I don't believe it, but I'm yet to see proper evidence besides some people carrying haplogroups like R1b-U106. I've seen too much internet rubbish with very dubious methods to support stereotypes. In fact, this forum is one of such places.

I'm basing my assumptions purely on the comparative analysis of Bronze Age and present-day Iberian samples, and of couse mathematical logic. Maybe i'll be proven wrong in the future, but for now, it looks like Iberians got more than 10% Germanic admixture.

[Token]

Considering how long they have been in here and their numbers one would think that they actually left a big genetic footprint, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Portuguese and Galicians have roughly 8% to 10% Germanic Y-Dna (overwhelmingly Suevian rather than Visigoth) whereas other Iberians in the centre and east of the peninsula have a lot less, an average of 2% - 3% R1b-U106 and barely any I1 (if you add Germanic I2 strains those regions have ~5% average).

You don't need too much uniparentals replacement to have a reasonable genome-wide impact. Moors left behind small pockets of North African lineages in Western Iberia, probably less than Germans, but it was more than sufficient to replace almost 10% of the local genepool.

[Vasconcelos]

These are not 'residual borderline obscure things' but continuous traditions with an well established Scandinavian origin and entire books dedicated on their study. Sorry but people don't merely adopt such a complex hereditary system and start building drakkars out of nowhere, there is no special advantage in navigating the Atlantic with North Sea warships instead of classic Mediterranean boats and the Siglas are endogamous by nature. In this case, demic diffusion isn't only possible but necessary. The impact might not have been big but it was enough to affect the facial structure of these people.

I use 'Nordic traits' for the sake of simplicity. If you want me to put it in a more scientific way: the fishermen population of Póvoa de Varzim display craniometric affinities to Scandinavians that isn't observable in the general Portuguese populace. The source is Portugalia vol 2, of F. Cardosa, page 517 onwards. Have fun.

I didn't say they adopted those traditions out of thin air, don't take me for an idiot, what I said is that you don't need a noticable genetic impact in the context we're talking about, a village with a long history of fishing tradition 1000 years ago, in a country with millions of people where people didn't sit without moving. Sorry but until I see evidence supporting that claim, I won't believe people there are any different from other NW Portuguese. And while lanchas poveiras' design and/or shipbuilding technique might have been inherited from norsemen, calling them "drakkars" is a big stretch.

Also, when asked for a source, a quote or an image is what it is asked, simply saying "Portugalia vol 2, of F. Cardosa, page 517 onwards" is something I cannot check and so it's pretty useless for me. But it's okay, I don't really care about physical anthropology anyway, in this context it's kinda fringe science

[Aren]

One thing is certain regarding non-Basque Iberians. They need a more northerly admixture than just the one they got from the Beaker period Iberians. It's possible that there was a re-emergence of Steppe-rich people in Iberia during the Bronze Age that increased the Steppe admixture, but that's just speculation without having a lot of LBA Iberian samples.
The presumtion of a significant Germanic admixture in Iberia relies solely on the fact that the two so far sampled Hallstatt samples are a bad fit to model Iberians(aswell as other Western Europeans). With more sampling we might end up with Hallstatt samples close to the ones from the earlier Unetice culture and thus being Steppe-shifted enough to explain that the northern input arrived with Celtic speakers.

However this Northern Euro-like admixture is not as significant as the Roman one. If we presume that Romans during the imperial period were South Italian like(going by the words of Hannah Moots and her soon to come paper) then there's a considerable amount of Roman input all over Iberia, with the exception of Basque people.

Some nMonte runs I made

"distance%=1.2038"

Portuguese

Beaker_Iberia,47
Italian_South,25.6
Italy_Medieval_Collegno,17.4
Mozabite,10

"distance%=1.2396"

Spanish_Castilla_La_Mancha

Beaker_Iberia,55.6
Italian_South,28.2
Italy_Medieval_Collegno,11.8
Mozabite,4.4

Replacing the Medieval Germanic-Langobard samples with Unetice the fit is still very good.

"distance%=1.4729"

Portuguese

Beaker_Iberia,53
Italian_South,26.8
Unetice,11
Mozabite,9.2

"distance%=1.3964"

Spanish_Castilla_La_Mancha

Beaker_Iberia,59.6
Italian_South,29.4
Unetice,7.2
Mozabite,3.8