Saturday, October 10, 2015

Did The Yamnaya Die Or Run?

Razib Khan has tweeted the biggest story of the ASHG 2015 Conference (key points in bold):
@iosif_lazaridis revision of paper @mathiesoniain with more ancestry stuff on biorxiv soon
@iosif_lazaridis [Neolithic Anatolian] mtDNA look familiar to EEF. Y mostly G2a2. also J2 H and I at low frequency. C1 too
@iosif_lazaridis anatolian neolithic close to EEF on pca. but EEF shifted toward WHG #ASHG15
@iosif_lazaridis anatolian neolithic different from modern anatolian and se europe populations.
@iosif_lazaridis eurasian steppe, population transect done. 5,500 to 1,200 BC. author told me some R1a1a possibile stuff here yesterday
@iosif_lazaridis indo-european steppe = EHG + near eastern. new data eneolithic samara. 75% EHG ancestry. 25% "armenian" 5,200 to 4,000 BCE
@iosif_lazaridis poltavka people 3000 to 2200 BC basically like yamnaya. 50% EHG and 50% armenian-like. then srubnaya different.
@iosif_lazaridis srubnaya 2/3 yamnaya 1/3 middle neolithic european
@iosif_lazaridis yamnaya/poltavka went from R1b to R1a in the srubnaya period. z93 group found on bronze age steppe samara (s asian R1a)
@iosif_lazaridis there was back migration of EEF to the steppe after the initial yamnaya migration.
Via Eurogenes.

This is a huge new set of facts with potentially profound implications for how we understand European history.

In the span of a few centuries, starting around 2200 BC, a Y-DNA R1b dominated population, the Yamnaya and their descendants the Poltavka, were replaced in the southern part of the European steppe (or at least the men were) by a Y-DNA R1a dominated population with strongly overlapping autosomal genetic profiles, the Srubnaya.

One possibility is that the Yamnaya men were slaughtered by the Srubnaya men who may have assimilated some of the Yamnaya women, in a scenario mirroring that of the battles described in the Biblical Book of Numbers.

But, something remarkable happens in Western Europe right around the time that Y-DNA R1b men disappear from the southern part of the European steppe.  All of the sudden, Y-DNA R1b that was virtually absent from Western Europe rapidly becomes the predominant Y-DNA haplogroup of Western Europe and there are substantial shifts in the mtDNA mix of Western Europe.

The distribution of Y-DNA R1b sub-haplogroups in Europe and their phylogenetic relationship, suggests a route from East to West of Y-DNA R1b carriers from the European steppe to central France and from their spoke-like migrations in all directions.

The insight in today's talk provides a push factor - the Srubnaya (whom Davidski at Eurogenes describes as more militaristic and technologically advanced than the Yamnaya).  A collapse of Western European first wave Neolithic farming societies as a consequence of the 4.2 kiloyear event, meanwhile, may have left their societies in turmoil and collapse (including population collapse) leaving a political vacuum and slack in food production capacity once the event's harsh climate abated, into which the Yamnaya people, participating in a folk migration much like that of the "migration period" travels of Germanic tribes like the Goths, Visigoths, and Vandals in the Dark Ages, into Western Europe.

The Yamnaya were basically steppe pastoralists, which is to say, herders.  Faced with a potentially deadly military adversary, farmers stand their ground upon which they rely to survive, even if the consequences are dire.  But, herders in a culture that exults cattle and bulls rather than corn and wheat, don't have to suffer the consequences of standing and fighting against opponents who may be superior to them militarily, or just more determined.  They can run, as an entire community, taking the cattle and horses that provide the source of their wealth with them, at a lower cost that does not have to be paid in blood.

And, wouldn't it stand to reason that people in a cattle herding society would be more likely to have LP genes that allow them to drink cow's milk as adults which was gradually selected for over thousands of years, which they would bring with them in their genes to their new homeland, than a society of farmers would be to suddenly develop this gene through explosive and rapid natural selection?

And, given that these people could have been ancestral to Europe's Basque (who have high frequencies of Y-DNA R1b, has traditions that place an emphasis on cattle, who arrives in their current relict homeland in my view from France, have high levels of the LP genes, and speak a language that is distinct in being ergative, just like the language of the Georgians with whom the Yamnaya's non-Eastern Hunter-Gatherer autosomal genetic component shows strong affinity), it is highly plausible that their language (and hence Basque and other Vasconic languages) was an offshoot of the Kartvelian language family, possibly after creolization with Eastern Hunter-Gatherer languages that also contributed strongly to the Proto-Indo-European language, and with substrate influences from whatever first farmer Neolithic language was spoken in Western Europe before they arrived.

Razib recently hypothesized that Proto-Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic were hunter-gatherer substrate languages that were adopted by Early European farmers who admixed with them.

But, I don't think that scenario is plausible.  When hunter-gatherers and farmers collide, usually, the farmer's language prevails (see, e.g., Japan, where the rice farming Yayoi's language became the backbone of the Japanese language, but almost no words from the hunter-gather Jomon who spoke a language in the same language family as the Ainu made it into Japanese, despite the fact that something like 40% of the genetic ancestry of the Japanese is Jomon including a large share of the male Y-DNA), although sometimes there are some substrate influences that shape the superstrate language dialect that comes to be spoken in the blended community.

The alternative, which usually happens when the superstrate population is greatly outnumbered by a substrate population and the two populations have no linguistic common ground, is the development of a creole language, which Indo-European shows some elements of (or at a minimum simplification of the language driven by a large community of second language learners in the society), and which has been suggested on archaeological grounds by the mixed ethnicity communities that existed around the time and place that PIE came into being, long before ancient DNA tools were available.

The lexical similarities that Maju recently discovered between both Proto-Indo-European and Nilotic Nubian languages may very well be real, but he may have misapprehended the direction of the connection.  Perhaps, the lexical similarities in Nilotic Nubian may be the result of Neolithic migrants to Africa who arrive via the Sinai and the Nile bringing the words of their language, related to Kartvelian, with them, where the existing residents adopted them, rather than the other way around.

The Yamnaya folk migration hypothesis which I have just sketched out, which is strongly motivated by powerful ancient DNA evidence, has the potential to pull together myriad puzzle pieces of European prehistory in a single stroke.

It doesn't answer all of the questions.

What connection did the Bell Beaker culture have to the Yamnaya?

Is there any archaeological evidence to support this hypothesis?  And, if there was such evidence, what would we expect it to look like?  Is the lack of evidence of an apocalyptic war that destroyed the vast majority of Yamnaya men itself evidence favoring this hypothesis?  Before dismissing this conjecture for a lack of archaeological evidence, at a minimum, the archaeological evidence should be reviewed with fresh eyes informed by this hypothesis.

Did other members of a Yamnaya diaspora make their way to Western Anatolia (perhaps Troy I?) or Crete?

Finally, when did the migration(s) start?

Perhaps the Poltavka people are the Yamnaya who held out on the southern European steppe longer, but the transition from the Yamnaya culture to the Poltavka culture was a product of the disruption caused by the folk migration of the rest of the Yamnaya to Western Anatolia, Crete and Western Europe.  A 3000 BCE start date for these migrations is a better fit to the archaeological culture that could potentially reflect their arrival in their putative destinations.

This also illustrates the fact that dying and running are not necessarily mutually exclusive possibilities.  Perhaps some of the Yamnaya ran in various directions, giving rise to the various European cultures in which Y-DNA R1b is common, while other Yamnaya stood their ground, becoming the Poltavka, and ultimately died at the hands of Y-DNA R1a dominated peoples from the northern European steppe who slaughtered the Poltavka and took their land.

Fortunately, it is likely, given the stunning improvements that have been made in ancient DNA extraction, that these are questions to which the answer probably isn't, "we may never know." Instead, stay tuned.  More answers seem to lurk around every corner.

34 comments:

Davidski said...

You may have seen this already, but anyway it talks about a battle during the early Middle Bronze Age near the southern Urals.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=fEK-BkqXfJAC&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&dq=Abashevo+mass+grave&source=bl&ots=ugX3Mate5A&sig=8gopt3p-Q0DHh2GNP0aoBkm7ie8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAWoVChMIhv_B2MC3yAIVhqSUCh3JeQ-F#v=onepage&q=Abashevo%20mass%20grave&f=false

Srubnaya was closely related to or derived from Abashevo and Sintashta.

andrew said...

I have the book but hadn't read that far. Thanks for the tip.

Maju said...

"R1b" is not any valid category and using it is what causes most problems. Yamna's R1b is completely unrelated to Western European R1b: it can't be its ancestor, it's just a remote "cousin" line.

Krefter said...

R1b-Z2103 is decently popular in non-Slavic people of Russia. I doubt Yamnaya's descendants ran or died out. Also, most R1a in non-Slavic Russians is R1a-Z93 like Sintashta and Andronovo. Those people are a complex mix of differnt people who went into Russia over the last 5,000 years which makes them very differnt from other East Europeans.

@Maju,

Modern R1a-Z93 variation suggests it is from West Asia but ancient DNA has proven it originated in around Ukraine or Russia no more than 5,000 years ago. The same could be true for Western R1b-L151. I expect R1b from Ukraine to be R1b-Z2103 not R1b-L151. I am open to idea R1b-L151 is from Near East because we have early forms of R1b there and R1b1a2 from Neolithic Spain. I'm just as open to a Steppe-origin and I think you need to realize it is totally possible considering what has been discovered about R1a-Z93.

bellbeakerblogger said...

Andrew,

I disagree with some of the direction here. Strict pastoralists in a semi-arid grassland (steppe) have no choice but to move because their presence is destructive, sometimes irreparably, to the vegetation and soil. I think of it as a battery that can't be recharged.

So while I can't say this as a fact, I'd bet that the nature of the expansion of Yamna is ring-like, not empire-like and the geographical expansion of Yamna is consistent with destructive grazing.

I'd guess that the Western edge of Yamna dead ends in Croatia/Bosnia/Serbia. But who knows, ready to eat my hat. Things are moving quickly!

bellbeakerblogger said...

And to clarify, this Western reach is super close the archaeological zone, although I don't expect a neatly overlay modern distributions

Maju said...

@Krefter: "ancient DNA has proven [that R1a-Z93] originated in around Ukraine or Russia no more than 5,000 years ago".

I wasn't talking about R1a, but R1b. Anyhow what you sell as "proven", I refute as mere wishful thinking. Stick to the facts, please, at least when you claim "proof". Else you appear as a dogmatic with fixated ideas with whom it is not worth debating.

"The same could be true for Western R1b-L151".

Or whatever fits your preconceptions, right? Proof that does not exist, could that is almost certainly couldn't...

Really, I beg seriousness.

Krefter said...

@Maju,

R1a-Z93 was found in Samra dating 2500 BC. 100% of Sintashta, Andronovo, and Srubnaya is R1a-unclassified or Z93. You can't explain that without Z93 originating around Russia and Ukraine.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12G2cfjG0wHWarsl5bB99ridFmvUWzqlZfZ6_e_R6oIA/edit#gid=479090567

Maju said...

We have discussed that matter in David's blog more than once: I say and insist that all data points to R1a-Z93 originating near Iran or Afghanistan and that in the Volga are we can only find terminal branches. Please digest that first.

Krefter said...

@Maju,

As of far a typical Indian-subclade fo R1a-Z93 has not been found on the Steppe but I'm sure it will. That alone doesn't take away overwhelming ancient DNA evidence for an Indo European spread of R1a-M417.

You can't get angry every-time someone dis agrees with you. You don't like ancient DNA research's focus on Steppe and everything Steppe related. You intentionally ignore the evidence of the Steppe being the second genetic shift(after migration from Anatolia) and its association with Y DNA R1. You're clearly in denial.

Onur Dincer said...

You don't like ancient DNA research's focus on Steppe and everything Steppe related. You intentionally ignore the evidence of the Steppe being the second genetic shift(after migration from Anatolia) and its association with Y DNA R1. You're clearly in denial.

The Mathieson et al. paper conclusively demonstrates that even Basques have non-negligible steppe ancestry. If not for their high R1b frequency, I could attribute all of their steppe ancestry to admixture with their IE neighbors. But since Basques have a high R1b frequency, I think Basques themselves came from the steppe too, probably being pushed by Indo-Europeans. Probably, Basques arrived in their current location during the Bronze Age and highly mixed with local women but not so much with local men, thus forming the modern Basque genetic profile more or less.

Maju said...

@Krefter I get "angry" (not really, just frustratingly disappointed that you seem to persist on stubborn prejudiced denial) because we have gone over the matter many times. There is no evidence, at the very least no strong evidence of any sort, supporting your stand. Z-93 is by all the evidence we have an Iran-originated haplogroup that expanded eastwards to India and northwards to Central Asia (probably in the Neolithic), with only terminal branches being found in the farthest margins of Europe (Samara). Its precursors look either unmistakably West Asian or ambiguously West Asian/European in the case of transitional nodes only. So parsimony (Occam's Razor) strongly suggest a West Asian origin and not a European one. I can tell this many times and in many ways, with more or less detail but it's pointless if you persist on not wanting to understand it.

Maju said...

@Onur: can you direct me to that Mathieson et al. study? Several others (Alentoft, some of Davidski's independent research) clearly say the opposite.

andrew said...

" "R1b" is not any valid category and using it is what causes most problems. Yamna's R1b is completely unrelated to Western European R1b: it can't be its ancestor, it's just a remote "cousin" line."

This is a fair point and one you have indeed made before, although one could imagine a patrilineage lurking within Yamna that is ancestral and did migrate. I suppose that it argues in favor of the die rather than run hypothesis.

"R1b-Z2103 is decently popular in non-Slavic people of Russia. I doubt Yamnaya's descendants ran or died out."

While it is there, the numbers are low enough that died seems almost certain to be a big part of the evidence and as Davidiski points out, there is archaeological evidence for mass slaughter of Yamnaya men in war with the incoming archaeological culture.

Onur Dincer said...

@Onur: can you direct me to that Mathieson et al. study? Several others (Alentoft, some of Davidski's independent research) clearly say the opposite.

Look at the page 43 in the Mathieson et al. paper:

http://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2015/10/10/016477.full.pdf

"The Iberian Chalcolithic population lacks steppe ancestry, but Late Neolithic central and northern Europeans have substantial such ancestry (Extended Data Fig. 3E) suggesting that the spread of ANE/steppe ancestry did not occur simultaneously across Europe. All presentday Europeans have less steppe ancestry than the Corded Ware5 , suggesting that this ancestry was diluted as the earliest descendants of the steppe migrants admixed with local populations. However, the statistic f4(Basque, Iberia_Chalcolithic; Yamnaya_Samara,Chimp)=0.00168 is significantly positive (Z=8.1), as is the statistic f4(Spanish, Iberia_Chalcolithic; Yamnaya_Samara, Chimp)= 0.00092 (Z=4.6). This indicates that steppe ancestry occurs in present-day southwestern European populations, and that even the Basques cannot be considered as mixtures of early farmers and hunter-gatherers without it4."

The Mathieson et al. paper is not the first and only study that demonstrates the existence of non-negligible Steppe ancestry in Basques, other studies (including those of David) have demonstrated it too, I just gave the Mathieson et al. paper as an example. Also, I see nothing that contradicts the existence of non-negligible Steppe ancestry in Basques in the Allentoft et al. paper or David's studies, rather the opposite.

Ebizur said...

andrew wrote,

"But, I don't think that scenario is plausible. When hunter-gatherers and farmers collide, usually, the farmer's language prevails (see, e.g., Japan, where the rice farming Yayoi's language became the backbone of the Japanese language, but almost no words from the hunter-gather Jomon who spoke a language in the same language family as the Ainu made it into Japanese, despite the fact that something like 40% of the genetic ancestry of the Japanese is Jomon including a large share of the male Y-DNA), although sometimes there are some substrate influences that shape the superstrate language dialect that comes to be spoken in the blended community."

That is no more than a chain of assumptions, one after another. Shouldn't you offer an example for which you have a solid evidential basis?

Maju said...

@Onur: I've been reading the Mathieson paper yesterday and the only thing I see re. Basques is that, for a change, the PCA shows them as intermediate between the mainline Neolithic population (best represented by Sardinians among moderns) and WHGs. Using that reference, no steppe admixture would be needed at all in the case of Basques.

However I did read what you quote. But notice that the only thing that such datum says is that Iberian Chalcolithic are missing something "steppe-like" that Basques do have, maybe extra WHG? Or is it SHG? Until the Atlantic facade of Europe is properly sampled for ancient DNA we will remain in doubt.

Maju said...

@Ebizur: every single case has implicit assumptions. Elamo-Dravidian? Assumptions. Austroasiatic? Assumptions. Bantu, Afroasiatic and Nilo-Saharan? Assumptions.

But there is a good logic in Andrew's assumption anyhow. If Paleo-Sardinian, Iberian and Basque are related (and all points to that being true), it means most likely that the Basque language is a branch of the mainline European Neolithic family or languages, and therefore that this one can be rightfully called Vasconic. All this implies that, in spite of relatively large WHG admixture in Basques (and to lesser extent also in Iberians), the farmer language overcame the hunter-gatherer ones, and that is reasonably attributed to the effective "superiority" of the Neolithic carriers' culture over that of hunter-gatherers, who adopted many cultural elements in the transition and were absorbed by the immigrant Neolithic culture (or died off in marginal places, I guess).

Krefter said...

@Maju,

Indian versions of R1a-Z93 will be found eventually on in East Europe or Central Asia dating to the Bronze age. Their language split early on from other Indo Iranians, we might not be sampling the linguistic ancestors of Indians.

I don't have the bias you do. In your mind everything comes from Iberia and West Asia, despite the fact the most important migrations came out of Russia and Ukraine in the Bronze age. You can't bare anything related to Indo Europeans in Basque. So, you cling to the idea all Steppe R1b was Z2103 and P312 was hiding in a forest in France and waited to expand in 2600 BC(because even in 2800 BC, all we see is G2, H2, I2 in Spain, there's only one R1b1a2 from circa 3300 BC). You try to find any non-Steppe source for ANE you can. And you get angry when ever someone challenges your bias theories. I'm fed up with your bias and sour attitude.

Maju said...

@Krefter: you'll forgive me for not trusting your prophetic abilities ("will be"). I'd rather trust the data we do have.

Anonymous said...

P312 was hiding on Heligoland before they expand in 2600 BC

Maju said...

@Eske: LOL, good one! XD

Onur Dincer said...

Maju:

@Onur: I've been reading the Mathieson paper yesterday and the only thing I see re. Basques is that, for a change, the PCA shows them as intermediate between the mainline Neolithic population (best represented by Sardinians among moderns) and WHGs. Using that reference, no steppe admixture would be needed at all in the case of Basques.

However I did read what you quote. But notice that the only thing that such datum says is that Iberian Chalcolithic are missing something "steppe-like" that Basques do have, maybe extra WHG? Or is it SHG? Until the Atlantic facade of Europe is properly sampled for ancient DNA we will remain in doubt.


In the PCA of the Mathieson et al. paper the ancient samples were projected into the modern samples, so it is misleading. Instead of it, I suggest you to look at Davidski's recent PCA, in which there is no sample projection:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9o3EYTdM8lQM2FqQ1k2MUJCNDg/view

As you see, the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Iberian samples are not pulled towards the Steppe but the Basque samples and the one Bronze Age Iberian sample are clearly pulled towards the Steppe.

Nirjhar007 said...

Indian versions of R1a-Z93 will be found eventually on in East Europe or Central Asia dating to the Bronze age. Their language split early on from other Indo Iranians, we might not be sampling the linguistic ancestors of Indians.
Z-93 is perhaps older than suggested, It perhaps by a 1000 YO than the ~3000 BC one of today....
Maju,
Yes, but pathetic is the lack of aDNA from SC Asia-Iran etc....

Maju said...

Yes, Onur, we cannot be sure based only on PCAs and I have looked not just at David's alternative projection but also at Matt's crossed f4 data, which I find even more interesting. These do suggest increased EHG and Ma1 in modern Basques relative to "ancestor proxies" such as Spain_EN but also increased WHG and no change in the EHG/WHG ratio nor any SHG input either. We have also to consider the lack of Caucasus component in Basques. Hence I rather tend to think that the change was produced by a mixed WHG+EHG extra input without any direct relation to Yamna or other Kurgan populations. This may also be the case in Northern Europeans, although some extra EHG and Yamna can also be implicated in their case.

What is clear is that Yamna and Corded Ware are not sufficient to explain the drift of modern Atlantic and Baltic populations.

I was about to comment in the proper thread yesterday but finally decided against it because I already have way too many ongoing conversations.

Onur Dincer said...

Maju,

You should not neglect the fact that Basques carry the Gedrosia component in higher levels than both Iberians and the French. I think Basques have a Steppe source that is different from the Steppe source of IE peoples and Basques are also more heavily mixed with Middle Neolithic type peoples than IE peoples in general are.

Maju said...

@Onur: Sources?! No Caucasus or Siberian ancestry found in Basques in Aletoft 2015, only individual tiny bits in Günther & Valdiosera 2015, Basques systematically occupy the opposite polarity to Caucasus in PCAs, more clearly in Europe-only ones.

I feel like repeating myself but it was probably in a parallel discussion.

Onur Dincer said...

Maju, you should already be aware of Dienekes' Dodecad K12b analysis, where the Gedrosia component was found (similar components with different names were found in other analyses):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GWhNZcfTQ2hMSK9Ni1IqG7aXHB00SRE5L6ED2osPs9M/edit#gid=0

HistoryBuff39 said...

firdtly C6 was found in La Brana who by the way looks typically European. So does the Yamnaya skeleton. It has been demonstrated far from being isolated HG had cohesive networks cultural abd linguistic across Europe. Why not with the Yamnaya people? why is everything vast numbers this and vast numbers that conquering earlier folk? That seems more modern assumptions to me. Wgere is C6 descendants? if Yamnaya were R1b why is the frequencies in east europe so low? There is high numbers of I haplogroup ignored too! The hair and eyr colour patterns match ice age environments - how is that? surely it should be wiped out by 5,000 years ago. Basque speak non indo european yet are R1b for a language to survive there needs to be a high proportion if speakers. If R1b spoke non indo european and R1a did as shown in Indian populations, Iran etc. Unless R1b and R1a moved together e.g. Tocharians or maybe language has nothing to do with haplogroups? in another paper it was shown some HGs spread from Steppes and brought dna and older IE versians while only after people from the same area brought modern IE languages as well as agriculture. i personally havent come to conclusions but assumptions and modern bias doesnt help

martin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
martin said...

Le problème c'est que dans la péninsule ibérique on ne trouve rien des Basques ou de leurs ancêtres avant le huitième siècle, même dans Andalousie la présence de df27 semble lié avec reconquista.

martin said...

Je ne comprends pas pourquoi on veut loger les Basques ancien dans péninsule ibérique et pas leurs voisins et frères génétique de Vendée et de Gascogne, je ne comprends pas où la proximité entre les Vendéens et les Sardes aussi.

martin said...

La mutation C282y sur le sixième chromosome (CNRS et institut Pasteur) serait né 3000 ans en arrière dans la Belgique d'un Celte ancêtre commun pour Basques et irlandais cette découverte était dans le cadre de recherche sur maladie génétique.

Maju said...

@Martin: I'll answer in English because my French is rudimentary at best.

The evidence is limited (lack of interest on this kind of research in Spain and even worse in France) but as far as I can tell, it clearly shows that Basques are pretty much the same people, genetically speaking, since around Neolithic. In fact, attending to mtDNA, only two Early Neolithic samples in all Europe appear as modern-like, and definitely much more modern-like than any other sampled to date: one is in Navarre (Paternabidea) and the other in Burgundy (Gurgy), so we can conjecture that there may have been an area of early genetic modernity spanning between the Mediterranean facade of the Basque Country to the Upper Seine. Naturally it'd be nice if we could get more data points and also if we'd have not just mtDNA but also autosomal DNA.

Also in Northern Burgos, a region culturally and historically related to the Basque Country, we see striking mtDNA continuity at local level. This mtDNA pool is distinct from the mainline Basque one (and also from other pools) but at least half of it was already in place in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic, what is a quite impressive case of localized genetic or demographic continuity.

I agree that associating Basques specifically with the Iberian Peninsula is a bad vice and that it is quite possible that there is a strong relatedness with populations of ancient France. However nowadays Basques do not appear either as mainline French (too shifted to North-Central Europe) nor mainline Iberians (too on their own, maybe somewhat Italy-shifted) but as distinct third population of SW Europe, as equidistant from the other two as they are to each other. There is definitely a blurry area both north and south of the modern "shrunk" Basque Country, including Gascons, etc. We have only very limited studies on this matter, so no much can be said until more research is done (again).

"La mutation C282y sur le sixième chromosome (CNRS et institut Pasteur) serait né 3000 ans en arrière dans la Belgique d'un Celte ancêtre commun pour Basques et irlandais cette découverte était dans le cadre de recherche sur maladie génétique".

How do you know that? Can you point us to a more detailed source or is just an speculation? There are several elements that link Ireland to the Pyrenees for your interest, not just sharing the generic R1b lineage (their main one is actually more directly related to Brittany) but interestingly that snails (escargots) were artificially moved from the Central Pyrenees to the islands at some point in the past (arguably to be used as Epipaleolithic sort of livestock). So I would argue that the Irish Basque-like genetics, which is actually from further to the North probably, does originate in what is now France but I'd say that, from what we know, it is from further to the South: Brittany or the Aquitanies (or even Occitania proper maybe). More research in French genetics both ancient and modern is needed anyhow to clarify the matter, so far the evidence is way too limited. But one thing can be said: the Neolithic of the Irish Sea originates in the Megalithic culture of Brittany and nearby areas, that's for sure. On the other hand the Neolithic of much of England (SW excepted) originated in the area north of the Seine, with a different culture of "Danubian" elements, such as what in France are called "rondels" and in Britain "henges" (not Stonehenge, that's not a "henge").