Pages

Friday, May 8, 2020

23andMe On My Y-DNA With Conjectures Regarding Indo-European Linguistics

Overview

I learned a bit about my Y-DNA from the 23andMe summary. But, I read their sources and researched more. This gave rise to some insights and conjectures.

* My Y-DNA haplogroup E-V13 spread across Europe as part of the Indo-European expansion in the Bronze Age, not as part of the Neolithic expansion of farmers from Anatolia (or at some other time).

* E-V13 is found at low frequencies everywhere that multiple distinct waves of Indo-European expansion reached. It is found in European Corded Ware derived populations where the expansion was dominated by Corded Ware haplogroups of Y-DNA R1a-M458. It is found in similar percentages in European Bell Beaker derived populations where the expansion was dominated by Bell Beaker haplogroups of Y-DNA R1b-L51. It is found at quite high percentages among the Greeks. It is found among Indo-European language speakers in the Caucuses. It is found in similar percentages in Indo-Iranian (like Iranians and the Kurds) peoples dominated by R1a-Z93 and R1b-Z2103. E-V13 has been found as far away as central Siberia, near the Altai, a region also known to have been settled by Bronze Age Indo-Europeans, which could have sources from either Indo-Iranians or Tocharians. But, it is not found among linguistically Indo-Aryan populations, even though these languages are often considered a sub-family of Indo-Iranian languages with otherwise similar Y-DNA profiles - a fact that can, in theory, shed light on the paternal ancestry diversity, and likely size within wide error bars, of the male founding population of Indo-Aryans in absolute terms and relative to the entire Indo-Iranian population.

* The two of the defining mutations of E-V13 date to ca. 3500 BCE and 2100 BCE (the date for TMRCA) and those mutations are shared by all living members of E-V13 in all of these places. The expansions that E-V13 was a part of probably took place from 2100 BCE to 1800 BCE. This means that E-V13 men must have assimilated into each of these expanding Indo-European populations (to an extent greater than other Indo-European populations did with each other), rather than just one of them. 

* E-V13 differentiated from E-M78 its parent haplogroup ,which was common in the pre-Neolithic and Neolithic Levant, no earlier than the beginning of the Holocene era (8000 BCE), and probably quite a bit later.

* The distribution of E-V13 in Anatolia and the vicinity, interpreted in light of the larger historical context, can help us evaluate and compare different proposals regarding the timing and character of the Anatolian language family's origins and its relationship to the larger Indo-European language family. E-V13 is found at much higher frequencies in Western Anatolia than in Central Anatolia. But, it is found among Kurds, in the Caucasus region, and in Iran. 

* Critically, if Anatolia has some form of Y-DNA R that is associated with Indo-European demic migration, but not E-V13, this suggests that Anatolian languages could have broken off pre-3500 BCE, could have been excluded due to founder effects in a manner similar to that of the Indo-Aryans, or could (especially if Y-DNA R is rare) signal that the Anatolian languages were a product of elite dominance with only slight demic impacts. 

* The analysis is complicated by the fact that we have limited information about the presence of Anatolian languages (or Indo-Europeans more generally based upon archaeology without written language evidence) in Anatolia prior to 1800 BCE. Also, after the Hittite Empire fell, Anatolia spend long periods of time in which it was ruled by Greeks (and to a lesser extent, some other Indo-Europeans), especially in Western Anatolia. Even modern Turkish history, like the Armenian genocide and the expulsion and killing of many Greek speaking Anatolians in the 20th century, complicate trying to make inferences about the prehistory and ancient history from the genetic character of modern Turkish people. Our knowledge of the history of the linguistically Armenian people, whose language doesn't fit neatly into categories for classifying Indo-Europeans languages, which adjacent to the historical area where Anatolian languages were spoken, is even more patchy. It is also complicated by the fact that many of the Turkic people who caused the country of Turkey to speak Turkish also have Indo-Iranian admixture.

The Y-DNA mix in Turkey as a whole is as follows:


  • R1b=15.9%
  • R1a=6.9%
  • E-M35=10.7% (E-M78 and E-M123 accounted for all E representatives in the sample, except a single E-M81 individual). E-V13 is a sub-haplogroup of E-M78.
  • G=10.9%
  • J2=24% - J2 (M172)
  • J1=9%
  • I=5.3%
  • K=4.5%
  • L=4.2%
  • N=3.8%
  • T=2.5%
  • Q=1.9%
  • C=1.3%
  • R2=0.96% 
Others markers than occurs in less than 1% are H, A, E3a , O , R1*.



The first Neolithic farmer populations of Anatolia (at least in Western Anatolia but probably more broadly) were dominated by Y-DNA G. Y-DNA R1b, R1a and E-M78 were almost surely all intrusive to Anatolia in the post-Neolithic era, and are associated with Indo-Europeans.

My Y-DNA

The ancestry narratives at 23 and Me evolve over time, in part due to new research and in part due to more effort on the company's part.  Generally speaking, the information provided by the company is accurate, albeit simplified. 

Their article also clarifies an issue I had pondered and had not clarified for myself in the literature, which is whether Y-DNA E-V13 spread from the Balkans to the rest of Europe with the first farmers (apparently, it mostly did not) or around the time of the demographic transition that took place around the time of the Indo-European expansion in the Eneolithic Age (i.e. Copper Age) and early to Middle Bronze Age (apparently, it mostly did), or at some later time such as the Iron Age (apparently, it mostly did not). 

This conclusion not too surprising given that my paternal ancestors as of the 1700s to 1847 were from central Germany (near the former West German and East German border and not too far to the North or South along that former border). 

This is an area which experienced in the Bronze Age significant, although not complete, population replacement from the original Linear Pottery Culture derived first farmers of most Anatolian origins who in turn largely replaced the European hunter-gathers that preceded them in the Mesolithic era as Europe was repopulated after the Last Glacial Maximum, while admixing somewhat with them. 

The defining Y-DNA haplogroups of those mass migration and replacement episodes that followed in this area through the Bronze Age were clades within Y-DNA R1a and Y-DNA R1b, but Y-DNA E-V13 was apparently a minor component of that mix that came along for the ride in that wave of migration.

Here is what mine says right now (in part, to provide a baseline and in part, out of general interest, my commentary is in italics and brackets):

Haplogroup A 275,000 Years Ago 

The stories of all of our paternal lines can be traced back over 275,000 years to just one man: the common ancestor of haplogroup A. Current evidence suggests he was one of thousands of men who lived in eastern Africa at the time. However, while his male-line descendants passed down their Y chromosomes generation after generation, the lineages from the other men died out. Over time his lineage alone gave rise to all other haplogroups that exist today.
[Ed. The narrative omits, for simplicity's sake, the emergence of Y-DNA haplogroup B from Y-DNA haplogroup A, and of Y-DNA haplogroup DE from Y-DNA haplogroup B, which gives rise to Y-DNA haplogroup DE (and also to Y-DNA haplogroup CF). It also dodges the issue of the precise location of the B to CF and DE split, and the DE split into Y-DNA haplogroup D, found mostly in the Andaman Islands, Tibet, North Asia, at low frequencies in South Asia, and Japan, and Y-DNA haplogroup E, found mostly in Africa with probably later migrations mostly to Europe via both Western and Eastern and central maritime migrations takes place, and the related controversy of the minority position that Y-DNA haplogroup E back migrated from the Middle East (or beyond) to Africa. 
The map used to illustrate the article suggests, without definitively saying so or being very specific, that the B to DE split took place in the vicinity of Ethiopia and that the DE to E split took place in the vicinity of South Sudan. The map also suggests that the first modern human man emerged in East Africa and that the A to B split also took place in that vicinity.

leads to [Ed. I use the words "leads to" in lieu of the line running from top to bottom in the margin of the original.

Haplogroup DE-M145 76,000 Years Ago 

leads to 

Haplogroup E-M96 73,000 Years Ago 



leads to 

Haplogroup E-M78 23,000 Years Ago.  

Origin and Migrations of Haplogroup E-M78 

Your paternal line stems from the common ancestor of haplogroup E-M78, a branch of E that dates back approximately 24,000 years. The earliest carriers of the E-M78 lineage likely lived in a population that moved from eastern Africa into northeastern Africa about 14,000 years ago, during the final days of the Ice Age. From northeastern Africa, their descendants expanded to the west between the Sahara and the Mediterranean coastline, and to the east out of Africa into the Middle East, where E-M78 men remain common. 

Today, men bearing this haplogroup are also common in southern Europe, including in the Balkans, Iberia, and Italy. In Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania, between 15% and 30% of men bear haplogroup E-M78. Their ancestors were likely relatively late arrivals to the region. While some branches of haplogroup E were carried into Europe nearly 8,000 years ago, recent research suggests that the major spread of E-M78 occurred in the last 5,000 years or so during the Bronze Age. Bronze Age cultures learned to smelt tin and copper to create beautiful and complex bronze items like hardier tools and weapons. They journeyed along river waterways in the Balkans and spread into east-central Europe. Today, men from Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia all carry E-M78 at levels of nearly 10%. 

While the majority of E-M78 European males trace their recent ancestry to Turkey and the Middle East, some men carrying E-M78 from Spain, Italy and Greece trace their ancestry directly from North African populations, probably within the last 4,000 years. The ancestors of these men must have sailed across the Mediterranean Sea and settled in communities along the European coast. 
leads to 
Haplogroup E-V13 11,000 Years Ago 
Your paternal haplogroup, E-V13, traces back to a man who lived approximately 11,000 years ago. 
[Ed. The 11,000 years ago date is shortly before the advent of the Holocene era which is usually considered to begin with the Fertile Crescent Neolithic Revolution about 10,000 years ago.
That's nearly 440.0 generations ago! E-V13 is relatively common among 23andMe customers. Today, you share your haplogroup with all the men who are paternal-line descendants of the common ancestor of E-V13, including other 23andMe customers. 1 in 43 23andMe customers share your haplogroup assignment. 
[Ed. The 23 and Me logo for E-V13 below, is a picture of a small castle on an island in a lake in Slovenia, which is in the Balkans within Southeast Europe.]

References
Your haplogroup migrated in large numbers from the Balkans into Europe about 4,500 years ago, triggered by the beginning of the Balkan Bronze Age. During this migration, members of your haplogroup mainly followed rivers connecting the southern Balkans to northern-central Europe. Technological leaps often cause lineages to grow dramatically in numbers and in geographic range. The development of Bronze technology may have given men in your lineage a competitive advantage over other men, causing your lineage to proliferate and become widespread.
[Ed. This implies that my patrilineal ancestors were Southeastern European hunter-gathers in smallish semi-nomadic tribes and bands for about 2,000 to 3,000 years. But, Trobetta (2015) which it cites, favors a date that would start the E-V13 split at 8.1 kya which would be at the start of the Balkan Neolithic without a period as Southeastern European hunter-gathers that an 11 kya data would imply, which I am inclined to favor as a better motivated narrative. The key sentence of Trobetta (2015) states that: "The TMRCA of E-V13 chromosomes (8.1 ka; 95% CI: 5.6–10.8 ka) is consistent with a previous hypothesis about a post-Neolithic expansion of this haplogroup in Europe (Cruciani et al. 2004, 2007)." Then, they would have been Neolithic farmers or herders somewhere in the Balkans using the Fertile Crescent Neolithic package of crops, probably linked to the Cardial Pottery Neolithic wave or to earlier culture diffusion of food production technology from Anatolia and the Levant, while living in smallish villages for about 3,500 to 4,500 years. Then 4,500 years ago, they would have joined to Bronze Age wave of migration to the rest of Europe led by Indo-Europeans with ancestry derived from the Pontic-Caspian steppe. This is based mostly on Cruciani (2007) which, making inferences from 517 modern Y-DNA samples states in the abstract that: "A single clade within E-M78 (E-V13) highlights a range expansion in the Bronze Age of southeastern Europe, which is also detected by haplogroup J-M12. Phylogeography pattern of molecular radiation and coalescence estimates for both haplogroups are similar and reveal that the genetic landscape of this region is, to a large extent, the consequence of a recent population growth in situ rather than the result of a mere flow of western Asian migrants in the early Neolithic. Our results not only provide a refinement of previous evolutionary hypotheses but also well-defined time frames for past human movements both in northern/eastern Africa and western Eurasia." Eventually, they would have ended up in what is now central Germany sometime after that. The localization of my French-German ancestry in another part of the 23andMe ancestry report suggests that those ancestors may have started out in Switzerland or nearby in what is now Southern Germany and then made their way north to the point were our family's genealogy records begin in Central Germany, probably sometime in the last 800 years or so, with the more recent 300 years or so of that time frame being favored. For example, they might have been Swiss Protestants who migrated to Protestant Germany for economic opportunity or to flee some uncomfortable scandal in Switzerland. Poznik (2016) adds almost nothing to the analysis.]
References

The 23 and Me materials and the references that they cite don't discuss ancient Y-DNA E-V13 but there are some examples of it.

A lengthy and well annotated analysis of Y-DNA E-V13 can be found at Eupedia (see below). The narrative portion of that entry which is better reasoned and better sourced suggests a somewhat different history of E-V13.

E-V13 And Indo-European Historical Linguistics

This narrative corroborated by ancient DNA in places, draws from the fact that E-V13 was present a minor subcomponent of at least, the Y-DNA gene pool of the Corded Ware, the Bell Beaker and the Indo-Iranian branches to Indo-European expansion, although apparently not the Indo-Aryan branch, divisions of the Indo-European expansion that each have their own dominant Y-DNA R haplogroups. 

Thus, the assimilation of E-V13 into the Indo-Europeans must have happened in or near the shared homeland of these three Indo-European cultures immediately prior to their respective and roughly contemporaneous expansions, in or near the Pontic Caspian steppe. Indeed E-V13 is good evidence of such a shared pre-expansion homeland. 

The time depth of that is well bracketed by the genetic time depth of E-V13 diversification, since "all the modern members of E-V13 . . . descend from a later common ancestor who carried the CTS5856 mutation. That ancestor would have lived about 4,100 years ago, during the Bronze Age. Almost immediately afterwards, CTS5856 split into six subclades, then branched off into even more subclades in the space of a few generations." So, you are looking at the phase of Indo-European expansion that included E-V13 taking place over a few centuries starting ca. 2100 BCE and mostly having run its course by ca. 1800 BCE.

The Eupedia states with regard to E-V13 that:

Origins & History



Assimilation of Neolithic European E-V13 by the Indo-Europeans 

For many years the vast majority of academics have assumed that E-V13 and other E1b1b lineages came to the Balkans from the southern Levant via Anatolia during the Neolithic, and that the high frequency of E-V13 was caused by a founder effect among the colonisers. This theory has it that E1b1b people were associated with the development of Neolithic lifestyle and the advent of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent and its earliest diffusion to Southeast Europe (Thessalian Neolithic) and Mediterranean Europe (Cardium Pottery culture). The testing of ancient DNA from the Natufian culture (Mesolithic Levant) and Pre-Pottery Neolithic Levant confirmed a high incidence of haplogroup E1b1b in that region. However, out of 69 Y-DNA samples tested from Neolithic Europe, only two belonged to that haplogroup: one E-M78 from the Sopot culture in Hungary (5000-4800 BCE), another E-M78 (c. 5000 BCE), possibly E-V13, from north-east Spain, and a E-L618 from Zemunica cave near Split in Croatia from 5500 BCE (Fernandes et al., 2016). Whether these E-M78 samples came with Neolithic farmers from the Near East or were already present among Mesolithic Europeans is unclear at present. But in any case E-V13 was definitely not the major Neolithic European lineage it was once alleged to be.



Nowadays E-V13 is the only Mediterranean haplogroup consistently found throughout Europe, even in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Baltic countries, which are conspicuous by the absence of other Neolithic haplogroups like G2a (bar the Indo-European G2a-Z1815), J1 and T (except in Estonia). However, since G2a is the only lineage that was consistently found in all Neolithic sites tested to date in Europe, the absence of Neolithic G2a lineages from Scandinavia and the Baltic implies that no Neolithic lineage survives there, and consequently E-V13 does not date from the Neolithic in the region.



In fact, it has been calculated that E-V13 emerged from E-M78 some 7,800 years ago, when Neolithic farmers were advancing into the Balkans and the Danubian basin. Furthermore, all the modern members of E-V13 descend from a common ancestor who lived approximately 5,500 years ago, and all of them also descend from a later common ancestor who carried the CTS5856 mutation. That ancestor would have lived about 4,100 years ago, during the Bronze Age. Almost immediately afterwards, CTS5856 split into six subclades, then branched off into even more subclades in the space of a few generations. In just a few centuries, that very minor E-V13 lineage had started an expansion process that would turn it into one of Europe's most widespread paternal lineages and reach far beyond the borders of Europe itself, also spreading to the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, the Caucasus, Kurdistan, Iran, and even Siberia.



This data suggests that the fate of E-V13 was linked to the elite dominance of Bronze Age society. The geographic distribution of the six main branches show that E-V13 quickly spread to all parts of Europe, but was especially common in Central Europe. The only Bronze Age migration that could account for such a fast and far-reaching dispersal is that of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. At present the most consistent explanation is that E-V13 developed from E-M78 in Central or Eastern Europe during the Neolithic period, and was assimilated by the R1a and R1b Proto-Indo-Europeans around the time that they were leaving the Pontic Steppe to invade the rest of Europe.



What is surprising with E-V13 is that it is as common in R1a-dominant as in R1b-dominant countries. R1a Indo-European tribes are associated with the Corded Ware culture, which spanned across Northeast Europe, Scandinavia and the northern half of Central Europe. R1b tribes invaded the Balkans, the southern half of Central Europe, and joined up with Corded Ware people in what is now Germany, the Czech Republic and western Poland. If E-V13 was found among both groups, it would have needed to be either assimilated in the Pontic Steppe or very near from it (say, in the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, around western Ukraine, Moldova and Romania), or at the junction between the two groups in central Europe (e.g. around the Czech Republic). 

The distribution and age of E-V13 clades in central and western Europe are consistent with a dispersal by Hallstatt and La Tène Celts, Italic tribes (including a Roman redistribution) and the later influx of Germanic tribes, particularly the Goths, who may have assimilated additional Proto-Slavic E-V13 lineages in East Germany, Poland and Ukraine before entering the Roman Empire. (=> see also the discussions Was E-V13 a major lineage of Hallstatt Celts and Italics? and Ancient East, West and North Germanics had different Y-DNA lineages).



Amorim et al. (2018) tested the ancient DNA from 6th century Italy and Hungary and identified one E-V13 in Collegno (Turin) who was autosomally fully Italian (not a Lombard immigrant like many other samples tested).



The eastern advance of the Corded Ware culture eventually gave rise to the Sintashta culture in the Ural region, which is the ancestral culture of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-Europeans. E-V13's presence in this culture would explain why modern Iranians and Kurds possess E-V13, in addition to R1a-Z93 and R1b-Z2103. E-V13 has been found as far away as central Siberia, near the Altai, a region also known to have been settled by Bronze Age Indo-Europeans.



Due to the scarcity of full genomic sequences available from the Balkans, it is not yet clear when E-V13 expanded in that region. The Indo-European migrations would certainly have brought some E-V13 early on, from circa 2500 BCE. But the history of the region is so complex that there might be many separate branches of E-V13 that each came with a different invasion (e.g. Iranic tribes, La Tène Celts, Romans, Goths, Slavs). The first Indo-European migration to Greece was that of the Mycenaeans from c. 1650 BCE. The Dorians from Central Europe followed from c. 1200 BCE. Both could have brought different subclades of E-V13, and a founder effect or the phenomenon of elite dominance among the ruling invaders might have caused a fast growth of E-V13 lineage in Late Bronze Age and Iron Age Greece.



There are at least three distinct sources of E-V13 in Italy. The first would be the Bronze Age Italic tribes from Central Europe, who in all logic would have possessed at least some E-V13 lineages before they invaded the Italian peninsula. Proto-Italics would have been a predominantly R1b-U152 tribe, but also carried a minority of E-V13, G2a-L140 (L13, L1264 and Z1816 subclades) and J2a1-L70 (PF5456 and Z2177 subclades). The second would be the ancient Greeks, who heavily colonized southern Italy from the 9th century BCE until the Roman conquest in the 3rd century BCE. The third are the Goths. As a Germanic tribe they might have carried a small percentage of E-V13. But that percentage very certainly increased after spending several centuries in Central and Southeast Europe and assimilating Proto-Slavs and Balkanic people before invading Italy. The Goths settled over all the Italian peninsula. They would have brought typically Germanic lineages like I1 and R1b-U106, but also the Proto-Slavic R1a-CTS1211, which is now found uniformly in 1 to 2% of the population. Since R1a-CTS1211 is not originally Germanic, it is likely that the Goths also brought a small but noticeable percentage of assimilated lineages from the Balkans, including E-V13 and J2b1 (I2a1b-CTS10228 would have come later from the East Slavic migrations from Ukraine during the Early Middle Ages, hence its absence from Italy, apart from a few coastal areas facing the Adriatic Sea).

An Indo-European dispersal of V13 subclades would not only explain why E-V13 is present in places like Finland, northwest Russia or Siberia, where Neolithic farmers had a negligible impact, but also why E-V13 is so conspicuously lacking from the Basque country and (central) Sardinia, the two regions of Europe with the highest Neolithic ancestry. Sardinia is also the only part of Europe where Bronze Age Steppe ancestry is virtually absent. The low percentage of E-V13 is coastal Sardinia would be better explained by more recent settlements on the island by the Romans, or even the Goths, who also settled in Sardinia.


The small presence of E-V13 in the Near East could be better explained by the extremely long Greek presence in the eastern Mediterranean from the time of Alexander the Great until the end of the Byzantine domination over the region during the Middle Ages. It would be unthinkable that over 1,500 years of Hellenisation and Byzantine rule in Anatolia and the Levant didn't leave any genetic trace. In Anatolia, E-V13 is found mostly in the western third of the country, the region that used to belong to ancient Greece. The absence of E-V13 from Central Anatolia does not concord with a diffusion linked to Neolithic agriculture. There is clearly a radiation from the Greece (where E-V13 makes up approximately 30% of the paternal lineages) to the East Mediterranean (where the frequency drops to under 5%).

E-V13 and the Anatolian Languages.

The distribution of E-V13 also potentially provides some insight into the Anatolian language controversy, although it does not resolve it. This is because according to Eupedia as quoted at greater length above: 
In Anatolia, E-V13 is found mostly in the western third of the country, the region that used to belong to ancient Greece. The absence of E-V13 from Central Anatolia does not concord with a diffusion linked to Neolithic agriculture. 
While this doesn't correspond with Neolithic agriculture (for this and for other reasons), it could be linked to Indo-European Anatolian language speakers, in addition to the Greek that follows. 

Also, the claimed distribution of E-V13 also seems somewhat self-contradictory because the paper also states that Y-DNA E-V13 is found in "the Caucasus, Kurdistan, Iran," with Kurdistan including much of Southern Anatolia and the Northern Mesopotamian basin, that were previously part of the Hittite Empire or adjacent to it.

Kurdish populations are found, in particular, in parts of Anatolia that correspond geographically relatively closely with the range of the historical Luwian language in the Anatolian language family, and with a significant subsection of the Hittite empire, both of which are shown below (although there is some question regarding whether the modern Kurds may have been migrants to the places where they currently reside from someone else in the highlands of West Asia). So, while there might be a deficit of E-V13 in Central Anatolia, if the Kurds have E-V13 (who might be under sampled for political reasons), the case for attributing E-V13 in Anatolia almost entirely to the Greeks is greatly undermined.


Kurdish inhabited areas as of 1992 (from here).

The Anatolian branch of the Indo-European languages include the Hittite language, a group of Indo-Europeans who established a Bronze Age empire that controlled all of Anatolia and adjacent parts of modern Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, part of the Caucuses, and a small part of the far Northeast portion of modern Iran. 



The Hittite Empire at its greatest extent under Suppiluliuma I 

(c. 1350–1322 BC) and Mursili II (c. 1321–1295 BC)


The only other Anatolian languages attested prior to the waning days of the Hittite Empire immediately before or after Bronze Age collapse (when the Hittite Empire fell) were Luwian, spoken in mostly in Southeastern Anatolia, and Paliac spoken in North Central Anatolia.



Area where the 2nd millennium BC Luwian language was spoken.


After the Hittite Empire fell, many Anatolian languages are attested, all in Western Anatolia. These these may have had a relationship to the Hittite language similar to that of the Romance languages to Latin, and the Indo-Aryan languages to Sanskrit. But, they could also have been separate Anatolian languages from an earlier time period.



Anatolian languages attested in the mid-1st millennium BC.


On the other hand, if E-V13 really is found where there was Greek occupation, but is not found at meaningful percentages in places where Anatolian languages were spoken historically this could mean a number of things. At least, three scenarios could explain this:

* E-V13 was low enough in frequency that the same kind of Founder effects that kept it out of the Indo-Aryan founding population, even though it was in an Indo-Iranian founding population, could also have, by random chance, kept it out of the Anatolian founding population.

* The Anatolian languages were indeed, as many linguists assume (but I have argued against on mostly non-linguistic grounds), on the grounds that it is more distinct from other Indo-European languages linguistically, a branch that broke away from the Indo-European languages sooner than the Indo-European languages of Europe, West Asia and South Asia. Particularly if the Anatolian languages broke away prior to ca. 3500 BCE, the source population for E-V13 may not yet have arrived in the vicinity of the Pontic Caspian steppe to assimilate into the Indo-European community. 

There is some archaeological evidence that suggests that people who were culturally Egyptian and from the Levant, where the parent clade of haplogroup E-V13 (i.e. E-M78) was common made their way by boat to the Black Sea where they would have encountered populations ancestral to the Indo-Europeans (or the Proto-Indo-Europeans themselves) in about the right time frame. These people could have vanished by assimilating into the Proto-Indo-Europeans and could have been the source of Indo-European E-V13.

* The Indo-European people who were the source of the Anatolian languages may not have been very numerous and may have brought about language shift mostly through elite dominance (which may have been limited to members of those elites in the early stages) in a manner similar to the way that the Magyars brought language shift to Hungary. The Hattic culture that preceded the Hittite Empire was quite urban and advanced relative to that of many other areas conquered by the Indo-Europeans which were in a state of agricultural collapse and civilizational decay when the Indo-Europeans migrated into this power vacuum. In contrast, contemporaneous Akkadian and Hittite record establish that the expansion of the Hittite Empire was accomplished largely by forcefully seizing existing cities and communities of the Hattic culture, intact, and assimilating their citizens. It also also plausible, although not definitively clear, that there may have been long standing caste-like distinctions between conquered locals and the Hittites who had deeper foreign origins.

This scenario would also be consistent with a scenario in which Indo-European Hittite elites might have migrated en masse from other parts of their former empire to the Anatolian fringe neo-Hittite states of Western Anatolia where Anatolian languages were mostly spoken after the fall of the Hittite empire. This scenario is more plausible if the Anatolian languages were always the languages of a political and cultural elite that could migrate en masse more easily, than it is if language shift from the Hattic languages to the Anatolian languages was widespread even among illiterate peasants and city dwellers, regardless of their ancestry. There are historical examples of language shift following a conquest of a territory limited to elites and of language shift that penetrated more deeply into the general population.

The maps below help to disentangle other Y-DNA E-M35 haplogroups from E-V13 geographically. 

E-M81 has a Berber/Islamic empire conquest of Spain and colonial migration from Algeria to France profile.



The profile of E-M123 is harder to characterize succinctly.



And one more map for a context of the time of E-V13 expansion.


9 comments:

  1. Cool that you belong to E-V13. That is a unique and mysterious haplogroup in Europe.

    They claim yHG E is from Africa.

    It made sense a long time ago to say Y DNA E is from Africa. But, new ancient DNA shows all East African E1b1b is of Middle Eastern origin. West African E1b1a has not been proven to be of Eurasian origin. But, there is a good chance it is of Middle Eastern origin ultimately. Considering E's brother D is only found in Asia.

    Prendergast 2019
    Ancient DNA reveals a multistep spread of the first herders into sub-Saharan Africa
    http://sci-hub.tw/10.1126/science.aaw6275

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fertile Crecent Neolithic? They should say Anatolian Neolithic.

    But, only a few Neolithic farmers in Europe belong to E1b1b1-M78. So, the E1b1b1a-V13 expansion happened after the Neolithic. They should know this.

    Generally, man, 23andme isn't up to date when it comes to Y DNa and mtDNA. I've witnessed this fact in reports for me and my relatives.

    I tried to become an mtDNA person for a DNA company in Europe. It didn't work. But, seriously, DNA companies are generally ignorant of ancient DNA. They are updated up to the point of 2012.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I belong to R1b (very typical). Here are some things they say about R1b.....

    >It originated in Fertile Crecent Neolithic
    >It spread to Eurasian Steppe from there creating Yamnaya who lived in Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
    >It spread to Western Europe with Eurasian Steppe traders who made themselves elites in society.

    Almost everything in that is false. They have this major misconception West Eurasians are all of largely fertile Crecent Neolithic origin. Which I think is the center of many of their theories on deep origins of haplogroups.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think that the overwhelming evidence supports an African origin for Y-DNA E. An alternative isn't impossible, but the phylogeny and distribution of Y-DNA E haplogroups in the world, linguistic considerations, the fact that basal Y-DNA DE* and E* have been found in Africa (basal DE* is also found in Tibet), timing and history all favor an African origin more naturally than a non-African origin of Y-DNA E.

    The Anatolian Neolithic is a subset of the Fertile Crescent Neolithic. The package of domesticated crops and animals that the Fertile Crescent Neolithic produces does not come from any one part of the Fertile Crescent. Some are native in the wild type to Mesopotamia, some to Anatolia, and some to the Levant, and the first farmers of the Caucuses, of Anatolia, and of the Levant all ended up in short order with the entire combined package. There were some small additions in Egypt (e.g. the donkey) and in the Balkans (a few minor crops) to that package. The first farmers of the Caucuses and Iran, of Anatolia, and of the Levant, derived in each case from local hunter-gatherers, were quite distinct from each other genetically (so much so that the differences would exceed those between typical members of the big U.S. census race categories), but there were all part of one combined technological movement. It so happens that the Anatolian population is the one that expanded into Europe, because it was closest. But, in terms of their technology and crop package they were the same of the other first farmers of the Fertile Crescent.

    "It originated in Fertile Crecent Neolithic" This is almost certainly wrong, the rest is not deeply wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  5. @andrew,

    The fact, early farmers in Middle East were so diverse genetically means one must not ever group them together in the same genetic category like 23andme does.

    Also, there's no evidence ANatolian farmers came from the Fertile Crescent part of Anatolia as opposed to other parts of Anatolia. So, I say there's no reason to call them Fertile Crecent farmers in any genetic sense. Maybe, in an archaeological sense. But, 23andme is about genetics.

    ReplyDelete
  6. DE's brother is CF. And CF is only found in Eurasia. Y DNA E is nested in a Eurasian tree: D and CF are both Eurasian.

    I've heard recent papers, based on autosomal DNA, saying basically all Sub Saharan Africans have some Eurasian ancestry. And ones which claim there is a small Neanderthal signal in Africans, this could only be true if they have Eurasian ancestry.

    E1b1a is the African varient of Y DNA E1b.

    E1b1b is at least 30,000 years old. Anyways, 23andme should be aware of the E1b1b in Natufians, the E1b1b1-M78 (one step below V13) in Iberomausians. E1b1b was a major haplogroup in Upper Paleolithic Southwest Asia, North Africa.

    Ancient DNA documents its movement from Middle East into East Africa 4,000 years ago. Yet 23andme claims it is of African. So, this is a key mistake by them.

    "The earliest carriers of the E-M78 lineage likely lived in a population that moved from eastern Africa into northeastern Africa about 14,000 years ago, during the final days of the Ice Age. From northeastern Africa, their descendants expanded to the west between the Sahara and the Mediterranean coastline, and to the east out of Africa into the Middle East, where E-M78 men remain common. "

    ReplyDelete
  7. Haplogroup E seems like a very good candidate for the Y-chromosome counterpart to "basal Eurasian" aDNA. Whether that originally formed in Eurasia or North or East Africa is an interesting question.

    My R1b-M222 seems boring by comparison.

    Interesting paper on Beothuk DNA came out last month if you're interested by the way:

    https://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/gen-2019-0149#.XrnK-ahKjIU

    ReplyDelete
  8. @Sanuel Andrews I'll save a detailed analysis of the geographical origins of Y-DNA E for another day in a post, rather than a comment.

    @Ryan Thanks for the tip.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The links in the Eupedia page suggest a recent origin for the Balkan concentration in migrations in the Iron Age and Middle Ages based on the TMCA dates for clades of E-V13 that are common in that region.

    ReplyDelete