R1b-L51 in Yamnaya: Lazaridis 2024

[R.Rocca]

It's frustrating how the ancient DNA research has gone. In some ways, it has been good. In 2017, the Olalde et al Beaker preprint appeared, which was the death knell for the old "We're all Basques" idea, but then it took four more years for the Papac et al paper to appear, "Dynamic changes in genomic and social structures in third millennium BCE central Europe", which essentially proved that Beaker was derived from Corded Ware. 

Now, at long last, proof has arrived of L51 in Yamnaya. IMHO, Yamnaya fathered Corded Ware via the Dniester Valley, Małopolska, and the CWC-X Horizon.

Just imagine how things would have gone had Papac et al arrived a few years earlier or if the Lazaridis et al preprint, "The Genetic Origins of the Indo-Europeans" had arrived a few years earlier.

Papac paper was just a case of poor analysis. Y-DNA is important but when everything else from linguistics, to archeology, to autosomal genetics, to IBD pointed to Yamnaya -> CWC, then you can't just throw it away.

These nomadic pastoralists were so low in number and patriarchal, that in a few generations you can see great overturn in Y-DNA. Obviously this can't happen that easily nowadays with 8 billion on this planet, but back then all it could take was 1 conflict for the dominant tribes to be overthrown.

What exact part of the Papac paper was “poor analysis”?

[targaryen]

It's frustrating how the ancient DNA research has gone. In some ways, it has been good. In 2017, the Olalde et al Beaker preprint appeared, which was the death knell for the old "We're all Basques" idea, but then it took four more years for the Papac et al paper to appear, "Dynamic changes in genomic and social structures in third millennium BCE central Europe", which essentially proved that Beaker was derived from Corded Ware. 

Now, at long last, proof has arrived of L51 in Yamnaya. IMHO, Yamnaya fathered Corded Ware via the Dniester Valley, Małopolska, and the CWC-X Horizon.

Just imagine how things would have gone had Papac et al arrived a few years earlier or if the Lazaridis et al preprint, "The Genetic Origins of the Indo-Europeans" had arrived a few years earlier.

Papac paper was just a case of poor analysis. Y-DNA is important but when everything else from linguistics, to archeology, to autosomal genetics, to IBD pointed to Yamnaya -> CWC, then you can't just throw it away.

These nomadic pastoralists were so low in number and patriarchal, that in a few generations you can see great overturn in Y-DNA. Obviously this can't happen that easily nowadays with 8 billion on this planet, but back then all it could take was 1 conflict for the dominant tribes to be overthrown.

What exact part of the Papac paper was “poor analysis”?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We had the same issue with CWC. At a certain point all CWC samples were R1a. Then a few years later we had R1b-L51 showing up by the boatloads. Not only do we have R1b-L51 in kurgans now, but also a subsection of Yamnaya in the Don dominated entirely by I2, and even a J2B2-L283 with a Yamnaya profile buried along with R1bs.

The steppe was so badly sampled, we only had like 70 samples. Obviously this was not enough to draw any conclusion like Yamnaya =/= CWC.

[R.Rocca]

Papac paper was just a case of poor analysis. Y-DNA is important but when everything else from linguistics, to archeology, to autosomal genetics, to IBD pointed to Yamnaya -> CWC, then you can't just throw it away.

These nomadic pastoralists were so low in number and patriarchal, that in a few generations you can see great overturn in Y-DNA. Obviously this can't happen that easily nowadays with 8 billion on this planet, but back then all it could take was 1 conflict for the dominant tribes to be overthrown.

What exact part of the Papac paper was “poor analysis”?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We had the same issue with CWC. At a certain point all CWC samples were R1a. Then a few years later we had R1b-L51 showing up by the boatloads. Not only do we have R1b-L51 in kurgans now, but also a subsection of Yamnaya in the Don dominated entirely by I2, and even a J2B2-L283 with a Yamnaya profile buried along with R1bs.

The steppe was so badly sampled, we only had like 70 samples. Obviously this was not enough to draw any conclusion like Yamnaya =/= CWC.

Please quote a line from the actual paper that shows “poor analysis”.

[targaryen]

What exact part of the Papac paper was “poor analysis”?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We had the same issue with CWC. At a certain point all CWC samples were R1a. Then a few years later we had R1b-L51 showing up by the boatloads. Not only do we have R1b-L51 in kurgans now, but also a subsection of Yamnaya in the Don dominated entirely by I2, and even a J2B2-L283 with a Yamnaya profile buried along with R1bs.

The steppe was so badly sampled, we only had like 70 samples. Obviously this was not enough to draw any conclusion like Yamnaya =/= CWC.

Please quote a line from the actual paper that shows “poor analysis”.

This nonsense in particular that has been debunked by Reich, Anthony and Lazaridis. All three have strongly come out against a "parallel population".

[ArmandoR1b]

This nonsense in particular that has been debunked by Reich, Anthony and Lazaridis. All three have strongly come out against a "parallel population".

What did he suggest the sources were for Corded Ware and for Yamnaya?

[R.Rocca]

This nonsense in particular that has been debunked by Reich, Anthony and Lazaridis. All three have strongly come out against a "parallel population".

What did he suggest the sources were for Corded Ware and for Yamnaya?

Scientists like Papac need to take a scientific approach, so while acknowledging Yamnaya-like ancestry, remained cautious about Corded Ware's origin... "...it is currently not possible to directly link Yamnaya, CW, and BB groups". Of course, the L51 Yamnaya samples were not out yet and they did not have IBD data, so knocking Papac is easy as hindsight is 20/20.

[Kaltmeister]

ArmandoR1b wrote:

What did he [Papac] suggest the sources were for Corded Ware and for Yamnaya?

As for Corded Ware, he suggested that its origin lies in the north or northeast. Papac on the compatibility of male lines:

"Unresolved questions concern the genetic and geographic origins of CW and Bell Beaker (BB) individuals, their relationship to one another and to Yamnaya individuals, as well as the origin of Early Bronze Age (EBA) Únětice individuals. Although it has been proposed that CW formed from a male-biased westward migration of genetically Yamnaya-like people, no overlap in Y-chromosomal lineages (with the exception of a few nondiagnostic I2) has been found between the predominantly R1a-carrying CW and mainly R1b-Z2103–carrying Yamnaya males. Steppe ancestry is also present in BB individuals; however, they predominantly carry R1b-P312, a Y-lineage not yet found among CW or Yamnaya males. Therefore, despite their sharing of steppe ancestry and substantial chronological overlap, it is currently not possible to directly link Yamnaya, CW, and BB groups as paternal genealogical sources for one another, particularly noteworthy in light of steppe ancestry’s suggested male-driven spread and the proposed patrilocal/patriarchal social kinship systems of these three societies."

On Corded Ware admixture/origin [editet]:

"To explore the formation of the Bohemian CW gene pool, we grouped CW individuals with steppe ancestry and mean age > 2600 BCE (n = 27) into a Bohemia_CW_Early group and the rest (n = 21) into Bohemia_CW_Late (table S4). We found poor statistical support (P < 0.005) for modeling Bohemia_CW_Early as a two-way mixture of any known Yamnaya source and any local Bohemian or nonlocal pre-CW source from Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, or Germany (table S15). When using distal sources as proxies for the Neolithic ancestry (Anatolia_Neolithic and a range of HG sources), we found no strong support (P < 0.05) for all but one of the three-way distal models (table S16). However, this one statistically supported model results in a previously unobserved ratio of Neolithic ancestry in Europe (i.e., a Neolithic population of ~1:1 ratio of Anatolia_Neolithic:Sweden_Motala_HG). In addition, when modeling early CW individually as “standard” three-way mixtures of Anatolia_Neolithic, WHG, and Yamnaya_Samara, we find that in 37% (10 of 27) of cases, the model lacks strong support (P < 0.05 or infeasible; fig. S6 and table S9). "

Why do 2-way models with Jamnaja not work?

"To explore why two-way proximal models between any Yamnaya and a European Neolithic source are insufficient in explaining Bohemia_CW_Early genetic diversity, we tried adding a third source to obtain better model fits. We find that when either one of Latvia_MN, Ukraine_Neolithic, or PittedWare is added as a source, almost all (280 of 285) model fits (P values) improve and most of them by several orders of magnitude (table S17). While all (n = 95) two-way proximal models lack strong support (P < 0.05; table S17), the addition of either Latvia_MN (57 of 95 supported models), Ukraine_Neolithic (53 of 95 supported models), or PittedWare (32 of 95 supported models) to the sources drastically increases the number of supported models (table S17). These results show the presence of excess Latvia_MN/Ukraine_Neolithic/PittedWare-like ancestry in Bohemia_CW_Early relative to all known Yamnaya and central European Neolithic groups. Our models suggest that this ancestry accounts for ~5 to 15% of the Bohemia_CW_Early gene pool (table S17). Increases in model fits with either of these third sources are also observed when modeling Bohemia_CW_Late and Germany_Corded_Ware, suggesting this ancestry to be present also in later central European CW (tables S18 and S19) and is consistent with allele sharing f4 statistics, which show that CW groups share more alleles with ancient northeast European groups than do Yamnaya (tables S20 and S21)."

On Bell Beaker. The origin of their R1b-lines is assumed to lie in the west in the area of the Rhine river, where they split from the British L21-line:

"We observe a closer phylogenetic relationship between the Y chromosome lineages found in early CW and BB than in either late CW or Yamnaya and BB. R1b-L151 is the most common Y-lineage among early CW males (6 of 11, 55%) and one branch ancestral to R1b-P312 (Fig. 4A), the dominant Y-lineage in BB. Although it is not possible to determine whether the P312 mutation(s) occurred in one of the early CW R1b-L151 males from Bohemia, we note that most Bohemian BB males are further derived at R1b-L2/S116 (R1b1a1a2b1), in contrast to BB males from England, several of whom are derived at R1b-L21(R1b1a1a2c1), showing that English and Bohemian BB males cannot be descendants of one another, but rather diversified in parallel. A scenario of R1b-P312 originating somewhere between Bohemia and England, possibly in the vicinity of the Rhine, followed by an expansion northwest and east is compatible with our current understanding of the phylogeography of ancient R1b-L151–derived lineages."

On the Aunjetitz admixture:

""We reject mixture models involving Bohemia_BB_Late and Yamnaya [...]"
"All model fits improve when Latvia_BA is included in the sources, resulting in two additional supported models (table S33)." [...]
"Although the geographic origin of this new ancestry cannot be precisely located, three observations offer clues. First, the Latvia_BA ancestry that improves all model fits (table S33) suggests an ultimate northeastern origin. Second, Y-haplogroup R1a-Z645 appears in Bohemia (and wider central Europe) for the first time at the beginning of the EBA, a lineage previously fixed in Baltic and common in Scandinavian CW males (23, 24), supporting a north/northeastern genetic contribution. Third, an Únětice genetic outlier (VLI051, male, Y-haplogroup R1a-Z645; table S34) resembles individuals from Bronze Age Latvia (Fig. 2D) (68), providing direct evidence for migrants from the northeast."

And finally, where did the new genetic component, moving into the area, come from?

"Although the geographic origin of this new ancestry cannot be precisely located, three observations offer clues. First, the Latvia_BA ancestry that improves all model fits (table S33) suggests an ultimate northeastern origin. Second, Y-haplogroup R1a-Z645 appears in Bohemia (and wider central Europe) for the first time at the beginning of the EBA, a lineage previously fixed in Baltic and common in Scandinavian CW males, supporting a north/northeastern genetic contribution. Third, an Únětice genetic outlier (VLI051, male, Y-haplogroup R1a-Z645; table S34) resembles individuals from Bronze Age Latvia (Fig. 2D), providing direct evidence for migrants from the northeast."

[alanarchae]

it’s interesting how direct evidence shows L51 appearing in Yamnaya, Afanasiebo, early CW etc all around 3000BC plus or minus a century. It’s like L51 as a whole suddenly appears regardless of exact cultural guise. And it has to be said the only common denominator ever suggested by archaeologists which links Yamnaya, Afanasievo and CW is Yamnaya itself. L51 AFAIK has never been spotted in the pre Yamnaya steppe groups who headed west c. 4500-3900BC. If I had tto guess i’d suggest L51 was fairly new to areas west of the Don around 3000BC and more likely came with Yamnaya into Ukraine only shortly before 3000BC. As CW is basically Yamnaya if you remove the post-3000BCGAC admixture, then I don’t think the ancestors of CW L51 could possibly have been mixing with Ukraine farmers or you’d end up more with something like Usatovo.

So imo any attempt to place L51 in the Ukraine eneolithic is v likely wrong. L51 ancestors of CW look like pre 3000BC (prior to GAC admixing) were unadmixed Yamnaya or Yamnaya clones. So it looks a lot to me like the L51 ancestors of CW were from east of the Don and likely only first entered the area further west of the Don in the Yamnaya wave 3300-3000BC. Imo they look like their story is very similar to the Z2103 Yamnaya one. And of course P310 men were found in Afansievo, another Yamnaya clone group who headed east. That is a pretty good indicator too that L51 (and also specifically the P310 immediate ancestor of L151) was east of the Don as late as 3300BC and maybe even for a century or two more.

FTDNA discover date P310’s TMRCA to 3300BC which is v close to the date of the Afanasievo migration east. So P310 was extremely young at that time and must have been only a small clan which would likely have been still localised to wherever the Afansievo migrants starting point was c.3300BC.So imo it’s extremely likely the P310 ancestor of L151 CW was somewhere between the Don and Volga around 3300BC and perhaps for a century or two after that. You could even argue that it could have expanded in the wake of Z2203 migrating west and that might suggest L51 was beyond Z2103 (maybe slightly upstream or east of it). Again that would agree with P310 in Afanasievo.

[targaryen]

This nonsense in particular that has been debunked by Reich, Anthony and Lazaridis. All three have strongly come out against a "parallel population".

What did he suggest the sources were for Corded Ware and for Yamnaya?

Scientists like Papac need to take a scientific approach, so while acknowledging Yamnaya-like ancestry, remained cautious about Corded Ware's origin... "...it is currently not possible to directly link Yamnaya, CW, and BB groups". Of course, the L51 Yamnaya samples were not out yet and they did not have IBD data, so knocking Papac is easy as hindsight is 20/20.

Like I mentioned, he already saw this with CW. It was all R1a, until it wasn't.

[rmstevens2]

I dearly love the Papac et al Bohemian CW paper because it was an L151 and early CW breakthrough (not to mention a real breakthrough for U106), but there are a  couple of places where it missed the boat, IMHO, or where people reading it miss the boat in interpreting it.

Notice that the Latvia_MN (57 of 95) and Ukraine_Neolithic (53 of 95) models are virtually the same. In other words, the Baltic element in Bohemian CW is not a slam dunk. Ukraine_Neolithic is statistically really very nearly just as good a fit. 

Another mistake Papac et al make is their interpretation of what happened to L151 relative to R1a-M417. First off, they speak of the Y-DNA of early Corded Ware in Bohemia as "diverse". It really wasn't, unless by "diverse" they mean it wasn't 100% one single thing. Anyway, it was by far mostly R1b-L151. Then Papac et al conclude that R1a-M417 basically muscled out everybody else and replaced them "possibly due to increased conflict between male-mediated patrilines" (p.6). What they miss is that R1b-L151 continued moving west and became involved in the change from Single Grave CW to Bell Beaker. Thus it disappears after a time as something archaeologists would recognize as a CW patriline and so looks like it has been replaced. But it wasn't replaced at all. It was still there in Central Europe but under a new name: Bell Beaker. 

Papac et al were also laboring under the mistaken idea that the patrilines of Yamnaya, Corded Ware and Bell Beaker are hopelessly mutually exclusive. As we have seen with the advent of the 2024 Lazaridis et al paper, "The Genetic Origin of the Indo-Europeans", that is not the case. The same kind of thing was said of Corded Ware and Bell Beaker back in the bad old days when everyone thought Corded Ware was exclusively R1a.

[ArmandoR1b]

it’s interesting how direct evidence shows L51 appearing in Yamnaya, Afanasiebo, early CW etc all around 3000BC plus or minus a century. It’s like L51 as a whole suddenly appears regardless of  exact cultural guise. And it has to be said the only common denominator ever suggested by archaeologists which  links Yamnaya, Afanasievo  and CW is Yamnaya itself. L51 AFAIK has never been spotted in the pre Yamnaya steppe groups who headed west c. 4500-3900BC. If I had tto guess i’d suggest L51 was fairly new to areas west of the Don  around 3000BC and more likely came with Yamnaya into Ukraine only shortly before 3000BC. As CW is basically Yamnaya if you remove the post-3000BCGAC admixture, then I don’t think the ancestors of CW L51 could possibly have been mixing with Ukraine farmers or you’d end up more with something like Usatovo.

So imo any attempt to place L51 in the Ukraine eneolithic is v likely wrong. L51 ancestors of CW look like pre 3000BC (prior to GAC admixing) were unadmixed Yamnaya or Yamnaya clones. So  it looks a lot to me like the L51 ancestors of CW were from east of the Don and likely only first entered the area further west of the Don in the Yamnaya wave 3300-3000BC. Imo they look like their story is very similar to the Z2103 Yamnaya one. And of course P310 men were found in Afansievo, another Yamnaya clone group who headed east. That is a pretty good indicator too that L51 (and also specifically the P310 immediate ancestor of L151) was east of the Don as late as 3300BC and maybe even for a century or two more.

FTDNA discover date P310’s TMRCA to 3300BC which is v close to the date of the Afanasievo migration east. So P310 was extremely young at that time and must have been only a small clan which would likely have been still localised to wherever the Afansievo migrants starting point was c.3300BC.So imo it’s extremely likely the P310 ancestor of L151 CW was somewhere between the Don and Volga around 3300BC and perhaps for a century or two after that. You could even argue that it could have expanded in the wake of Z2203 migrating west and that might suggest L51 was beyond Z2103 (maybe slightly upstream or east of it). Again that would agree with P310 in Afanasievo.

Where do you think R-L23 lived around 4300 BC?

[alanarchae]

it’s interesting how direct evidence shows L51 appearing in Yamnaya, Afanasiebo, early CW etc all around 3000BC plus or minus a century. It’s like L51 as a whole suddenly appears regardless of  exact cultural guise. And it has to be said the only common denominator ever suggested by archaeologists which  links Yamnaya, Afanasievo  and CW is Yamnaya itself. L51 AFAIK has never been spotted in the pre Yamnaya steppe groups who headed west c. 4500-3900BC. If I had tto guess i’d suggest L51 was fairly new to areas west of the Don  around 3000BC and more likely came with Yamnaya into Ukraine only shortly before 3000BC. As CW is basically Yamnaya if you remove the post-3000BCGAC admixture, then I don’t think the ancestors of CW L51 could possibly have been mixing with Ukraine farmers or you’d end up more with something like Usatovo.

So imo any attempt to place L51 in the Ukraine eneolithic is v likely wrong. L51 ancestors of CW look like pre 3000BC (prior to GAC admixing) were unadmixed Yamnaya or Yamnaya clones. So  it looks a lot to me like the L51 ancestors of CW were from east of the Don and likely only first entered the area further west of the Don in the Yamnaya wave 3300-3000BC. Imo they look like their story is very similar to the Z2103 Yamnaya one. And of course P310 men were found in Afansievo, another Yamnaya clone group who headed east. That is a pretty good indicator too that L51 (and also specifically the P310 immediate ancestor of L151) was east of the Don as late as 3300BC and maybe even for a century or two more.

FTDNA discover date P310’s TMRCA to 3300BC which is v close to the date of the Afanasievo migration east. So P310 was extremely young at that time and must have been only a small clan which would likely have been still localised to wherever the Afansievo migrants starting point was c.3300BC.So imo it’s extremely likely the P310 ancestor of L151 CW was somewhere between the Don and Volga around 3300BC and perhaps for a century or two after that. You could even argue that it could have expanded in the wake of Z2203 migrating west and that might suggest L51 was beyond Z2103 (maybe slightly upstream or east of it). Again that would agree with P310 in Afanasievo.

Where do you think R-L23 lived around 4300 BC?

[alanarchae]

it’s interesting how direct evidence shows L51 appearing in Yamnaya, Afanasiebo, early CW etc all around 3000BC plus or minus a century. It’s like L51 as a whole suddenly appears regardless of  exact cultural guise. And it has to be said the only common denominator ever suggested by archaeologists which  links Yamnaya, Afanasievo  and CW is Yamnaya itself. L51 AFAIK has never been spotted in the pre Yamnaya steppe groups who headed west c. 4500-3900BC. If I had tto guess i’d suggest L51 was fairly new to areas west of the Don  around 3000BC and more likely came with Yamnaya into Ukraine only shortly before 3000BC. As CW is basically Yamnaya if you remove the post-3000BCGAC admixture, then I don’t think the ancestors of CW L51 could possibly have been mixing with Ukraine farmers or you’d end up more with something like Usatovo.

So imo any attempt to place L51 in the Ukraine eneolithic is v likely wrong. L51 ancestors of CW look like pre 3000BC (prior to GAC admixing) were unadmixed Yamnaya or Yamnaya clones. So  it looks a lot to me like the L51 ancestors of CW were from east of the Don and likely only first entered the area further west of the Don in the Yamnaya wave 3300-3000BC. Imo they look like their story is very similar to the Z2103 Yamnaya one. And of course P310 men were found in Afansievo, another Yamnaya clone group who headed east. That is a pretty good indicator too that L51 (and also specifically the P310 immediate ancestor of L151) was east of the Don as late as 3300BC and maybe even for a century or two more.

FTDNA discover date P310’s TMRCA to 3300BC which is v close to the date of the Afanasievo migration east. So P310 was extremely young at that time and must have been only a small clan which would likely have been still localised to wherever the Afansievo migrants starting point was c.3300BC.So imo it’s extremely likely the P310 ancestor of L151 CW was somewhere between the Don and Volga around 3300BC and perhaps for a century or two after that. You could even argue that it could have expanded in the wake of Z2203 migrating west and that might suggest L51 was beyond Z2103 (maybe slightly upstream or east of it). Again that would agree with P310 in Afanasievo.

Where do you think R-L23 lived around 4300 BC?

L23 was likely just a single man in an M269 derived clan that time.Likely from him to the L51 and Z2103 300 years later it was just a v small clan of mixed L23. It’d be impossible to find the very earliest L23 and probably still very unlikely for several centuries after. The late M269xL23-L23-L51/Z2103 sequence is all in the space of 4300-4000BC so a confined time range. That also falls into the ‘steppe hiatus’ era when things were much more low key on the steppe. Even after 4000BC, Z2203 did no surviving branching for about 400 years and L51 for about 700 years. So it was a quite time for L23 until the middle third of the 3000s. 

But to return to your original question, L23 was just one man or a few brothers in an M269xL23 tribe c. 4300BC. It’s unlikely we will find him but if we find his tribe of that period then the rest would still be M269xL23 and probably the latter remained the majority in his clan or tribe for some time until L23 grew big enough to split off as an independent clan. Though L23 seems to have grown v little at all until after 4000BC so I doubt they were a seperate clan even then. Even Z2103 did very little until the 3600sBC. If the growth was just not happening in L23 from 4300-3650BC it’s quite possible all L23 was still contsindv in a single clan or small tribe as late as 3600BC. So they might have been a clan with a mix of M269x L23, L23*, Z2103 and L51 as late as then. So the appearance of any of those lines in the era 4300-3600BC might well be an indirect indicator of where the rest also were. This could well be why they are hard to spot - just one modest mixed L23 clan in one area 4300-3600BC. Then soon after Z2103 grew rapidly and that likely means they would have split into their own group and also geographically would have needed to expand. 

Another indicator that L23 mostly stayed together in a single tribe or territory 4300-3600BC is the fact that Z2103 and the L51 derivatives had nearly identical autosomal DNA (if you remove later admixture from GAC etc) almost1500years later around 3000-2900BC in yamnaya, Afanasievo, early CW etc. For me this strongly suggests that L23 and it’s Z2103 and L51 derivatives spent most of 4300-3300BC among and latterly v close to each other in a fairly confined area likely between the Don and Volga. I lean slightly more towards the Volga. Perhaps the early L23 ancestor moved from the Don to Volga area around 4000BC before their Z2103 and L151 descendants underwent an expansion back west (but also east) in the 3300-3000BC era. 

If we knew what caused Z2103 and then a few centuries later L51 to be able to expand so much, it might help point out where the L23 location was in the 500-1000 years prior. Something allowed a rather sleepy L23 clan to explode after 3600BC and the Z2203 growth started quite a number of centuries before the classic Yamnaya horizon and migration west. So whatever caused it was likely in situ towards the Volga. p

[alanarchae]

or to put it simply - L23 was barely branching between 4300 and 3650BC (just that branching into Z2203 and L51 c.4000 then tumbleweed to 3650BC). It was so moribund that they likely stayed together in a single clan through that era. So
A. L23 was likely v small for its first 1000 years.
B. It likely all stayed together in the same confined area for its first 1000 years.
C. That makes it v hard to find until it’s accidentally stumbled on.
D. Something that effected Z2103 (and a few centuries later L51) caused a big uptick on its ability to reproduce in the 3600sBC. That date gained from its TMRCA date are 300 years earlier then the the latest understanding of the dates of that culture. So Z2103 (and L51 was likely nearby) was surely in a culture that was blossoming and doing well in the 300 years prior to Yamnaya proper developing. No other lineage seemed to have whatever advantage Z2103 had in those centuries. The dates of the start of mining at Kargaly is very similar to that of the sudden expansion of Z2103. The early dates were linked to Repin material https://doaj.org/article/b5f79f9e0337476...c89047c878

Perhaps control of that mine from c. 3700BC brought great wealth to the Z2103 lineage. And that could be a clue that they were located in that area

[Mitchell-Atkins]

Where do you think R-L23 lived around 4300 BC?

L23 was likely just a single man in an M269 derived clan that time.Likely from him to the L51 and Z2103 300 years later it was just a v small clan of mixed L23. It’d be impossible to find the very earliest L23 and probably still very unlikely for several centuries after. The late M269xL23-L23-L51/Z2103 sequence is all in the space of 4300-4000BC so a confined time range. That also falls into the ‘steppe hiatus’ era when things were much more low key on the steppe. Even after 4000BC, Z2203 did no surviving branching for about 400 years and L51 for about 700 years. So it was a quite time for L23 until the middle third of the 3000s. 

But to return to your original question, L23 was just one man or a few brothers in an M269xL23 tribe c. 4300BC. It’s unlikely we will find him but if we find his tribe of that period then the rest would still be M269xL23 and probably the latter remained the majority in his clan or tribe for some time until L23 grew big enough to split off as an independent clan. Though L23 seems to have grown v little at all until after 4000BC so I doubt they were a seperate clan even then. Even Z2103 did very little until the 3600sBC. If the growth was just not happening in L23 from 4300-3650BC it’s quite possible all L23 was still contsindv in a single clan or small tribe as late as 3600BC. So they might have been a clan with a mix of M269x L23, L23*, Z2103 and L51 as late as then. So the appearance of any of those lines in the era 4300-3600BC might well be an indirect indicator of where the rest also were. This could well be why they are hard to spot - just one modest mixed L23 clan in one area 4300-3600BC. Then soon after Z2103 grew rapidly and that likely means they would have split into their own group and also geographically would have needed to expand. 

Another indicator that L23 mostly stayed together in a single tribe or territory 4300-3600BC is the fact that Z2103 and the L51 derivatives had nearly identical autosomal DNA (if you remove later admixture from GAC etc) almost1500years later around 3000-2900BC in yamnaya, Afanasievo, early CW etc. For me this strongly suggests that L23 and it’s Z2103 and L51 derivatives spent most of 4300-3300BC among and latterly v close to each other in a fairly confined area likely between the Don and Volga. I lean slightly more towards the Volga. Perhaps the early L23 ancestor moved from the Don to Volga area around 4000BC before their Z2103 and L151 descendants underwent an expansion back west (but also east) in the 3300-3000BC era. 

If we knew what caused Z2103 and then a few centuries later L51 to be able to expand so much, it might help point out where the L23 location was in the 500-1000 years prior. Something allowed a rather sleepy L23 clan to explode after 3600BC and the Z2203 growth started quite a number of centuries before the classic Yamnaya horizon and migration west. So whatever caused it was likely in situ towards the Volga. p

Nevermind...I was needlessly stirring up stuff for a laugh.