The Origin of R1b-L21

[rmstevens2]

GBVPK isn't in FTDNA Discover, even as R-DF27, which might be an indication that the sample doesn't have great coverage.

GBVPK has good coverage. It has at about 23805 Y-DNA SNPs reported, 28 results for R-M269 equivalents which is only slightly less than PNL001 and more than Aesch25.

GBVPK also has a derived read for L51, P310, L151, S1159, and Z195 and an ancestral read DF13.

DF27 is an SNP that has to be tested with nested primers in order to be tested correctly. The raw data reported a negative read but that isn't surprising since it wasn't tested with nested primers.

YFull has it as Z195 https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-Z195/

YFull won't look at specimens if the coverage is too low.

I haven't heard any more about it from FTDNA, and I don't see any sign of it in FTDNA Discover. Do you find it there?

Maybe they haven't looked at it, but I brought it up back in March, although I did not write a formal message to FTDNA about it.

[ArmandoR1b]

GBVPK isn't in FTDNA Discover, even as R-DF27, which might be an indication that the sample doesn't have great coverage.

GBVPK has good coverage. It has at about 23805 Y-DNA SNPs reported, 28 results for R-M269 equivalents which is only slightly less than PNL001 and more than Aesch25.

GBVPK also has a derived read for L51, P310, L151, S1159, and Z195 and an ancestral read DF13.

DF27 is an SNP that has to be tested with nested primers in order to be tested correctly. The raw data reported a negative read but that isn't surprising since it wasn't tested with nested primers.

YFull has it as Z195 https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-Z195/

YFull won't look at specimens if the coverage is too low.

I haven't heard any more about it from FTDNA, and I don't see any sign of it in FTDNA Discover. Do you find it there?

Maybe they haven't looked at it, but I brought it up back in March, although I did not write a formal message to FTDNA about it.

I haven't found it at FTDNA Discover but there is no doubt that if they were to look at it they would see it is derived for R-Z195.

In 2021 I also had Yseq look at it. They found that it is also derived for Z196 apart from Z195.

[rmstevens2]

If you read back a ways about GBVPK in this thread, you'll see I'm not the one who brought it up, and I never claimed it was L21. I simply reacted to the report that it was, and then, when Webb cast doubt on it, I said something to the effect that I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't L21. 

I asked about it over at FTDNA's Big Y Facebook page back in March, but since then I haven't heard anything more about it. I have sent so many queries to FTDNA Discover over the past few months that I think I should give doing that a break for now, unless, of course, I come across something I think is really important.

Maybe one or two DF27 guys should ask FTDNA to look into GBVPK.

[ArmandoR1b]

If you read back a ways about GBVPK in this thread, you'll see I'm not the one who brought it up, and I never claimed it was L21. I simply reacted to the report that it was, and then, when Webb cast doubt on it, I said something to the effect that I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't L21. 

I asked about it over at FTDNA's Big Y Facebook page back in March, but since then I haven't heard anything more about it. I have sent so many queries to FTDNA Discover over the past few months that I think I should give doing that a break for now, unless, of course, I come across something I think is really important.

Maybe one or two DF27 guys should ask FTDNA to look into GBVPK.

I see now that it was reported in McColl et al. 2024 SM. It was an obvious error by them. Anyone that knows how to look at the raw data can see the results I mentioned. It really isn't rocket science to look at the calls. Plus YFull and Yseq coming to the same conclusion cements GBVPK as Z195+ especially with it also being Z196+ . FTDNA Discover isn't necessary to know that it really is Z195. FTDNA won't even provide the negative results, no-calls, and phylogenetic equivalents of the specimens even when requested.

[rmstevens2]

If you read back a ways about GBVPK in this thread, you'll see I'm not the one who brought it up, and I never claimed it was L21. I simply reacted to the report that it was, and then, when Webb cast doubt on it, I said something to the effect that I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't L21. 

I asked about it over at FTDNA's Big Y Facebook page back in March, but since then I haven't heard anything more about it. I have sent so many queries to FTDNA Discover over the past few months that I think I should give doing that a break for now, unless, of course, I come across something I think is really important.

Maybe one or two DF27 guys should ask FTDNA to look into GBVPK.

I see now that it was reported in McColl et al. 2024 SM. It was an obvious error by them. Anyone that knows how to look at the raw data can see the results I mentioned. It really isn't rocket science to look at the calls. Plus YFull and Yseq coming to the same conclusion cements GBVPK as Z195+ especially with it also being Z196+ . FTDNA Discover isn't necessary to know that it really is Z195. FTDNA won't even provide the negative results, no-calls, and phylogenetic equivalents of the specimens even when requested.

The nice thing about FTDNA Discover is that its team looks at the Y-DNA of ancient samples thoroughly and painstakingly and so far, as far as I can tell, has pretty exacting standards. That means one can be pretty sure of the samples included in FTDNA Discover's Ancient Connections. I'm not criticizing anyone else, but over the years there have been some questionable calls made by individuals looking at the raw data on their own. I have one in particular in mind, but I'll leave his name (which is only a screen name anyway) out of this. 

If GBVPK is Z195+, and I don't doubt that it is, someone should write FTDNA Discover and ask them to take a look at it and consider including it. Strange that it's not in FTDNA Discover already.

[rmstevens2]

Oh, btw, for a few days, FTDNA Discover had the MRCA of L21 bumped back down to ~2600 BC, but as of this morning it's back to ~2650 BC. 

I keep waiting for a Single Grave Corded Ware R1b-L21 or even Z290 to appear (heck, even a P312 would be nice), but results from Single Grave aren't exactly thick on the ground, thanks in part to the lousy acid soil of the Netherlands. 

Oh, well. I am grateful to God for what we do have, especially, lately, for those five R1b-L51 Yamnayans from the Lazaridis et al preprint. Can't complain too much.

[alanarchae]

Oh, btw, for a few days, FTDNA Discover had the MRCA of L21 bumped back down to ~2600 BC, but as of this morning it's back to ~2650 BC. 

I keep waiting for a Single Grave Corded Ware R1b-L21 or even Z290 to appear (heck, even a P312 would be nice), but results from Single Grave aren't exactly thick on the ground, thanks in part to the lousy acid soil of the Netherlands. 

Oh, well. I am grateful to God for what we do have, especially, lately, for those five R1b-L51 Yamnayans from the Lazaridis et al preprint. Can't complain too much.

despite no jackpot of Dutch beaker L21, I think between the autosomal dna resemblance and the archaeological indicators leaves no doubt that British beaker came from Lower Rhine. There is no other coastal beaker area that ticks both those boxes. I think traditional archaeology is right on this one. Some may have come up from the mid Rhine too or passed to northern France en route to Britain but imo it’s all Rhenish routed. The fact L21 appears on both sides of the big north/south division in beaker in Britain suggests L21 had a very dominant hold of the continental channel crossing. As well as the avid soils issue, it is possible L21 was literally on the coastal shoreline and traces might have been destroyed by the sea. 

I’ve seen beaker era  maps (likely above on this thread) that shows a cluster or 2 of beaker remains right on the coast where small rivers leading from inland lakes lmeet the sea. That’s where I think they sailed from. One was near Amstell and I imagine another was the old Rhine mouth. The messy history of the Rhine and coast in the area could have buried a lot of archaeology under riverine and maritime deposits. These coastal groups have been shown  to have fished and that included offshore fish that had to be caught in boats. They had an advantage in terms of crossing to Britain. I absolutely believe only a coastal adapted single grave/beaker group could do that. The north sea is a rough sea and deadly to anyone foolish enough to try to sail it without experience and a seaworthy boat.

[Webb]

Anything new or noteworthy with Norwegian L21? I still think it likely that the some of the Norwegian L21 predates the Viking era. Maybe some Dutch Bell Beaker or at the very least Nordic Bronze Age. I remember Evon posting on Anthrogenica roughly through the middle of the pandemic, but no posts here yet. I hope he is alright.

[alanarchae]

Anything new or noteworthy with Norwegian L21?  I still think it likely that the some of the Norwegian L21 predates the Viking era.  Maybe some Dutch Bell Beaker or at the very least Nordic Bronze Age.  I remember Evon posting on Anthrogenica roughly through the middle of the pandemic, but no posts here yet.  I hope he is alright.

I do agree it unlikely that no L21 existed in prehistoric Denmark and Norway. It seems v likely L21was preseny in the Netherlands prior to the big turnover in the early cebturies AD. Likely since beaker times. That area was connected to Denmatk in the beaker era and connections continued thereafter. It’s hard to imagine this didn’t involve a trickle of genes moving. And of course that recent paper showed that a beaker descended group continued in that Holland and adjacent area for 2000 years undisturbed. I believe a trickle of L21 likely did get to scandinavia in prehistory but they might have been in too low numbers to spot in the small samples tested. It’s also often overlooked that recoverable burial seems to have been a minority privilege in many areas in much of prehistory by the looks of it. I’ve long suspected that a lot of bodies or ashes were put in rivers as rivers, lakes, bogs  etc (maybe the sea too) were clearly sacred places to them. While you might recover the occasional body from bogs or lakes, rivers might just wash them out to sea. If it’s ashes then they’d be dispersed quickly in a river or sea.

[rmstevens2]

There were Beaker settlements in western Norway. There are some papers available at academia.edu on that. Of course, there's no guarantee any of those Beaker men were L21, but some of them might have been.

[Dewsloth]

There were Beaker settlements in western Norway. There are some papers available at academia.edu on that. Of course, there's no guarantee any of those Beaker men were L21, but some of them might have been.

One of the "oldest" subclades of DF88 only has known members in Norway and Poland.  
These could either [most likely] be from some later migration, or, if truly ancient, stem from a SG/Beaker common area that hasn't been found yet where autosomally close L21 could also be hiding.  I hope they get some Beaker DNA from Norway some day.

https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/R-Z43235/story
The man who is the most recent common ancestor of this line is estimated to have been born around 1100 BCE.
Statistic* Years Before Present Calendar Date
99% CI 5,572 - 1,516 3548 BCE - 508 CE
95% CI 4,647 - 1,990 2623 BCE - 34 CE

[rmstevens2]

Naturally, the assumption among many is that any L21 in Scandinavia must come from thralls (slaves) taken from Britain and Ireland by the Vikings. Meanwhile, the assumption is also that any R1b-U106 or just about anything else in Scandinavia is native. Did the Vikings come armed with Y-DNA test kits and only grab L21 guys as thralls? They skipped over all the Anglo-Saxon U106s, U152s, I-M253s, etc.? 

I don't doubt that some of the L21 in Scandinavia represents the descendants of British and Irish thralls, but if it does, so could any other clade also found in Britain and Ireland at the time of the Viking depredations. It is well to recall, too, that Scandinavia never had a plantation economy, in which large numbers of slaves would have been profitable.

[Manofthehour]

Naturally, the assumption among many is that any L21 in Scandinavia must come from thralls (slaves) taken from Britain and Ireland by the Vikings. Meanwhile, the assumption is also that any R1b-U106 or just about anything else in Scandinavia is native. Did the Vikings come armed with Y-DNA test kits and only grab L21 guys as thralls? They skipped over all the Anglo-Saxon U106s, U152s, I-M253s, etc.? 

I don't doubt that some of the L21 in Scandinavia represents the descendants of British and Irish thralls, but if it does, so could any other clade also found in Britain and Ireland at the time of the Viking depredations. It is well to recall, too, that Scandinavia never had a plantation economy, in which large numbers of slaves would have been profitable.

From what I recall, there are a bit more than a handful of U152s (mostly L2 and a few Z36s) among viking samples. 
I'd wager that at least some of these were present in a Norse/Germanic context well before the viking age, to your point about L21 as well, though I wouldn't be surprised if some L21 lineages were in Scandinavia since Beaker times, like some have already speculated here.

[rmstevens2]

Naturally, the assumption among many is that any L21 in Scandinavia must come from thralls (slaves) taken from Britain and Ireland by the Vikings. Meanwhile, the assumption is also that any R1b-U106 or just about anything else in Scandinavia is native. Did the Vikings come armed with Y-DNA test kits and only grab L21 guys as thralls? They skipped over all the Anglo-Saxon U106s, U152s, I-M253s, etc.? 

I don't doubt that some of the L21 in Scandinavia represents the descendants of British and Irish thralls, but if it does, so could any other clade also found in Britain and Ireland at the time of the Viking depredations. It is well to recall, too, that Scandinavia never had a plantation economy, in which large numbers of slaves would have been profitable.

From what I recall, there are a bit more than a handful of U152s (mostly L2 and a few Z36s) among viking samples. 
I'd wager that at least some of these were present in a Norse/Germanic context well before the viking age, to your point about L21 as well, though I wouldn't be surprised if some L21 lineages were in Scandinavia since Beaker times, like some have already speculated here.

I wasn't trying call into question any of the U152 among Scandinavians. I was merely trying to point out that they are as likely to be the descendants of British thralls as any Scandinavian L21.

[alanarchae]

I don't know if I have mentioned this before or not, but Low Hauxley 70, the oldest L21 (DF13 really) British Beaker man thus far known (2464 - 2209 calBC), was buried facing north. That's unusual, because the standard pose for Beaker men was facing east, with the head to the north. The standard male Corded Ware pose was facing south with the head to the west. Of course, there were exceptions, in which Beaker men were buried CW style and CW men were buried Beaker style, but facing north is still exceptional. 

The paper in which Low Hauxley 70 (as sample KD070) appeared is Dulias et al, "Ancient DNA at the edge of the world: Continental immigration and the persistence of Neolithic male lineages in Bronze Age Orkney" (2022). It doesn't say much about the placement of Low Hauxley 70 except that he was facing north. This is from page 4 of the paper's Supplementary Information:

We sampled a single individual from Burial 1 from Cairn 1. The individual was a young, possibly male (confirmed by the DNA analysis) adult, aged between 12 and 16, crouched and facing towards the north. He was radiocarbon dated to the early part of the Beaker period (3874 ± 32; SUERC-49872; approximately 2464–2209 cal. BC) and appeared to have been accorded particular significance as a primary or founding burial. In CW the males head would be at the west with the body on the right side looking south. The females would be head to the east on the left side looking south too. 

I noticed it’s odd orientation too. However I did read that there are quite a number of Dutch bell beaker burials that have an east-west orientation. It implied they used the CW east-west axis but at the same time used beaker choice of which side you were forced on i.e. males left, females right. It’s almost like a beaker-CW hybrid or transitional thing.