R1b-PF6323 and Subclades (including V88)

[Kale]

It would be really interesting to know how and when V88 got to Cameroon and thereabouts in Sub-Saharan Africa. I understand ancient remains don't hold up well in hot, wet, equatorial places like that, so we may never know. Chad, to the northeast of Cameroon, has a lot of desert territory, so there is a better chance of finding ancient V88 there, if there is any to be found.

All African V88 (on FTDna at least) seems to be FGC21027
https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna...21027/tree
With estimated TMRCA of 5,564BC. We have 2 Neolithic Europeans on that branch slightly predating 5,000BC, one from Spain and one from Italy. 
We know farmers crossed from Spain to Morocco in that timeframe (our earliest is KTG005 dating to 5490-5350BC). Did any cross from Italy?

[rmstevens2]

It would be really interesting to know how and when V88 got to Cameroon and thereabouts in Sub-Saharan Africa. I understand ancient remains don't hold up well in hot, wet, equatorial places like that, so we may never know. Chad, to the northeast of Cameroon, has a lot of desert territory, so there is a better chance of finding ancient V88 there, if there is any to be found.

All African V88 (on FTDna at least) seems to be FGC21027
https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna...21027/tree
With estimated TMRCA of 5,564BC. We have 2 Neolithic Europeans on that branch slightly predating 5,000BC, one from Spain and one from Italy. 
We know farmers crossed from Spain to Morocco in that timeframe (our earliest is KTG005 dating to 5490-5350BC). Did any cross from Italy?

Crossing from Iberia to Morocco and then working their way along the coast around to what is now Nigeria and Cameroon makes a certain amount of sense, although, I've got to admit, it seems really weird to me.

I remember reading some years ago that there are Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups like U5 among people in Cameroon, as well as the mostly European lactase persistence variant 13910 T. 

FTDNA Discover's "Country Frequency" shows R-FGC21027 at 20% in Chad, just northeast of Cameroon. That's pretty high.

[rmstevens2]

It's curious that R-PF6323 today, including its subclades, despite its early move into peninsular Europe, is very infrequent there and is most frequent in Chad, where it is reported in FTDNA Discover's Country Frequency as 22%. It's at 3% in Sudan and Cameroon, 2% in Benin, 2% in Algeria, 2% in Egypt, and 1% in Morocco, Tunisia and Libya. 

Interestingly, PF6323 is 2% in Cyprus, 1% in Syria, and 1% in Saudi Arabia. 

It's 1% in Ukraine and 1% in Italy. It is apparently less than 1% everywhere else in Europe.

I might have missed something. If you're curious enough, you can check at the link below.

R-PF6323 Country Frequency

[rmstevens2]

It's curious that R-PF6323 today, including its subclades, despite its early move into peninsular Europe, is very infrequent there and is most frequent in Chad, where it is reported in FTDNA Discover's Country Frequency as 22%. It's at 3% in Sudan and Cameroon, 2% in Benin, 2% in Algeria, 2% in Egypt, and 1% in Morocco, Tunisia and Libya. 

Interestingly, PF6323 is 2% in Cyprus, 1% in Syria, and 1% in Saudi Arabia. 

It's 1% in Ukraine and 1% in Italy. It is apparently less than 1% everywhere else in Europe.

I might have missed something. If you're curious enough, you can check at the link below.

R-PF6323 Country Frequency

What an odd thing for an R1b clade (no offense intended). What happened to R-PF6323, especially V88, in Europe? 

It can now, in terms of modern frequency, be said to be an African haplogroup. 

It might be interesting to try to track the European decline (or eradication) of PF6323 in the record of ancient samples.

[rmstevens2]

I didn't try to make an exhaustive study or create any kinds of lists or spreadsheets or anything like that, but in just surveying FTDNA Discover's Time Tree it looks like PF6323 really fades in the ancient European record after 2,000 BC, except on the island of Sardinia, where it appears to have lingered into the Late Bronze Age.

Two notable exceptions to the general Sardinian trend are the following relatively recent samples:

Vojarna 26735, 150-50 BC, a La Tene Celt from Vojarna, Osijek, Croatia (sample I26735 from Patterson et al, 2021), and

Sagrera 1810, 1652 AD, a Spanish soldier from Sagrera, Barcelona, Spain.

Two more recent "ancient" samples are one from the Republic of the Congo (1636-1800 AD) and another from St. Martin in the Caribbean (1660-1688 AD) classed by FTDNA as "Afro-Caribbean".

Recall that, overall, Italy is 1% R-PF6323 today. I wonder if Sardinia has a higher frequency of R-PF6323 than the rest of Italy. My guess is that is probably the case.

[rmstevens2]

There is an interesting 2018 paper by D'Atanasio et al entitled, The peopling of the last Green Sahara revealed by high-coverage resequencing of trans-Saharan patrilineages, that posits the hypothesis that R1b-V88 went from Southern Europe to North Africa and thence across the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. This crossing occurred during the last African Humid Period, when there was a "Green Sahara", i.e., when the desert part of the Sahara was much smaller than it is today and the area was mostly grassland and Savannah, with lakes, rivers, and trees. 

This is from page 1 of the paper:

The most recent Green Sahara period occurred in the Holocene, in a time frame from about 12 thousand of years ago (kya) to about 5 kya. This phase has been denominated the “Holocene climatic optimum” and is the most well-documented past climatic change [2, 6]. Human settlement across the Sahara in this period is testified by archaeological evidence, such as rock engravings, lithic and bone tools and pottery [7].

This is from page 2:

R-V88 has been observed at high frequencies in the central Sahel (northern Cameroon, northern Nigeria, Chad and Niger) and it has also been reported at low frequencies in northwestern Africa [37]. Outside the African continent, two rare R-V88 sub-lineages (R-M18 and R-V35) have been observed in Near East and southern Europe (particularly in Sardinia) [30, 37–39]. Because of its ethno-geographic distribution in the central Sahel, R-V88 has been linked to the spread of the Chadic branch of the Afroasiatic linguistic family [37, 40].

I put the part about the Chadic language family in the quote above in bold.

From page 3:

The peculiar topology of the R-V88 sequenced samples suggests that the diffusion of this haplogroup was quite rapid and possibly triggered by the Saharan favourable climate (Fig. 2b).

Page 7:

The genotyping of R-V88 internal markers disclosed the phylogenetic relationships of two rare European sub-clades (R-M18 and R-V35) with respect to African-specific clades (Additional file 2: Figure S6). The presence of two nested R-V88 basal European clades can be related to the high frequencies of R-V88 internal lineages in the central Sahel assuming a movement from Europe toward the central Sahel across northern Africa. In turn, considering the trans-Saharan distribution and the “star-like” topology of the sub-clade R-V1589 (branch 233), it is likely that this lineage rapidly expanded in the lake Chad area between 5.73 and 5.25 kya and moved backward to northeastern Africa across the Saharan region (Fig. 3b; Additional file 2: Figure S6). The large majority of R-V1589 internal lineages harbours both northern and central Sahelian subjects, with the exception of R-V4759 and R-V5781, which are  mainly restricted to northern Africa and central Sahel, respectively (Additional file 1: Table S5). The presence of a precisely dated and geographically restricted clade (R-V4759 in northern Africa; Additional file 1: Table S5 and Additional file 2: Figure S6) allowed us to define its coalescence age (4.69 kya) as the lower limit for the backward R-V88 trans-Saharan movement.

The conclusions of this paper are based on modern sampling, so it does not feature ancient R1b-V88 from Africa or from Europe. What is apparent, however, is that today V88 is rare outside Africa and fairly common among Chadic speakers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Needless to say, this is highly unusual and, quite frankly, amazing. 

R1b-V88 appears first among Mesolithic hunter-gatherers at the Iron Gates on the Danube border of Romania and Serbia and in Vasilevka in Ukraine. Later it becomes part of groups of Neolithic farmers here and there in Europe, but fades after 2,000 BC, lingering on in Sardinia until the Late Bronze Age. 

Today it is rare even in Sardinia and rarer elsewhere in Europe. V88 is only common in Chad and among Chadic speakers in the surrounding area.

Since Chadic is a branch of the Afroasiatic language family, it makes me wonder if at least some of the languages spoken by Anatolian-descended Neolithic farmers in Europe were also Afroasiatic. V88 hunter-gatherers, as they became assimilated into Neolithic farmer culture, adopted the languages of the farmers. Apparently the V88 men who crossed into Africa and then crossed the Green Sahara had picked up the branch of Afroasiatic that became Chadic.

[rmstevens2]

So, when do D'Atanasio et al think V88 arrived in the Sahara?

This is from page 8:

It is worth noting that the arrival of R-V88 in the Sahara seems to have occurred between 8.67 and 7.85 kya (considering as an upper limit the time estimates of the last node including a European-specific lineage, while the lower limit is the coalescence age of all the African-specific lineages), refining the time frame of the trans-Saharan migration proposed in previous studies [37, 56]. The route of R-V88 toward the lake Chad basin probably passed through northeastern Africa rather than Arabia, considering the absence of R-V88 in the Horn of Africa. Interestingly, both A3- M13 and R-V88 European sub-clades coalesced in ancient times (> 7.62 kya for A3-M13/V2742 and between 12.34 and 8.67 kya for R-V88/M18 and R-V88/V35) (Additional file 2: Figures S2 and S5). So it is possible that both clades were widespread in southern Europe, where they have been replaced by the Y haplogroups brought by the following recurrent migration waves from Asia [57].

[rmstevens2]

Here is a map of the modern distribution of the Chadic languages.

[rmstevens2]

So, when do D'Atanasio et al think V88 arrived in the Sahara?

This is from page 8:

It is worth noting that the arrival of R-V88 in the Sahara seems to have occurred between 8.67 and 7.85 kya (considering as an upper limit the time estimates of the last node including a European-specific lineage, while the lower limit is the coalescence age of all the African-specific lineages), refining the time frame of the trans-Saharan migration proposed in previous studies [37, 56]. The route of R-V88 toward the lake Chad basin probably passed through northeastern Africa rather than Arabia, considering the absence of R-V88 in the Horn of Africa. Interestingly, both A3- M13 and R-V88 European sub-clades coalesced in ancient times (> 7.62 kya for A3-M13/V2742 and between 12.34 and 8.67 kya for R-V88/M18 and R-V88/V35) (Additional file 2: Figures S2 and S5). So it is possible that both clades were widespread in southern Europe, where they have been replaced by the Y haplogroups brought by the following recurrent migration waves from Asia [57].

That estimate of the time V88 arrived in the Sahara seems early to me, since it either predates the Neolithization of V88 or maybe barely encompasses it, and it seems to me that the V88s who crossed over to North Africa and then entered the Green Sahara were already Neolithic farmers, although I guess they could have been hunter-gatherers.

According to D'Atanasio et al, all of the African V88 in their study belongs to what they call Branch 233, which is R-V1589. FTDNA Discover estimates its TMRCA at 3550 BC, with a 95% confidence interval of 4537-2698 BC. Just upstream of V1589 is FGC21009. FTDNA estimates the TMRCA of FGC21009 at 5,100 BC, with a 95% confidence interval of 6253-4103 BC.

However, while most of African V88 belongs to V1589, there is some that belongs to FGC21039, which is V1589's brother clade under FGC21009. FTDNA Discover estimates FGC21039's TMRCA at about 4,800 BC, with a 95% confidence interval of 5957-3786 BC. 

Since most of African V88 is R-V1589, and all of it belongs to R-FGC21009 (the "father" of V1589 and FGC21039), it seems to me the dates in the preceding two paragraphs above are better estimates of when the African brand of V88 arrived in and/or crossed the Green Sahara. Using the FTDNA Discover 95% confidence interval for R-FGC21009, since all of African V88 is derived for FGC21009, we get 6,253-4,103 BC. Call that a rough guess. That would place the arrival of V88 in the Green Sahara in the Neolithic Period for Southern Europe and North Africa. 

If one starts tracing the line back beyond FGC21009, he starts to get into clades that are not exclusive to Africa. It is interesting that, working backwards from FGC21009, when one arrives at FGC21027 (FGC21027>FGC21028>FGC21009), he finds the ancient sample Troc 3, 5294-5066 BC (sample I0410 from Haak et al, 2015; Mathieson et al, 2015), from Els Trocs, Bisaurri, Huesca, Aragón, Spain. He belonged to the Neolithic Epicardial culture.

So far, we don't have any ancient V88 samples that we can use to trace its trek from North Africa across the Green Sahara to Chad and thereabouts. Too bad.

[rmstevens2]

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but I get the impression that, even though it evidently began there, R1b-V88 never had more than a tenuous toehold in Europe and was nearly completely wiped out during the 3rd millennium BC, holding on into the Nuragic Period on the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean. Everywhere in Europe today, including Sardinia, V88 is rare.

V88 experienced its greatest - and, really, its only - success in the Sahel in Sub-Saharan Africa among Chadic speaking peoples. It comprises fully 22% of the male population of Chad.

[rmstevens2]

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but I get the impression that, even though it evidently began there, R1b-V88 never had more than a tenuous toehold in Europe and was nearly completely wiped out during the 3rd millennium BC, holding on into the Nuragic Period on the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean. Everywhere in Europe today, including Sardinia, V88 is rare.

V88 experienced its greatest - and, really, its only - success in the Sahel in Sub-Saharan Africa among Chadic speaking peoples. It comprises fully 22% of the male population of Chad.

It's weird, too, because when it comes to R-PF6323, V88 is evidently it. V88 had one sibling under PF6323, and that is FT360002. As I mentioned in this thread, FT360002 was found in several Mesolithic Hunter-Gatherers at the Iron Gates on the Danube border of Romania and Serbia, but after that it disappears from the ancient record and is apparently extinct. There are currently no known modern men who are derived for FT360002. 

If you know of any, please post about them in this thread or over in the one about FT360002.

[JJOSEPH_86]

Years ago there was a guy who posted on Rootsweb about R1b-V88 all the time - his Y-DNA haplogroup. Where is that guy? We could use him here. Probably he passed away. That was 15 years or more ago.

Greetings everyone! 

I tried, since (2011), contacting all of those "guy", the most invested ones were Mr. Vincent Vizachero in (2011), Mr. Tibor Fehér in (2013), and Mr. Wim Penninx in (2016). And apparently my results (FTDNA kit#M6713) belong to the middle east branch not the African (v69-) with no specific area in the ME known so far! 

Of course the option I had is to test the big Y, but to be honest; I don't think that would be a good investment for me, especially if I end up being alone in a branch of my own!

[rmstevens2]

Years ago there was a guy who posted on Rootsweb about R1b-V88 all the time - his Y-DNA haplogroup. Where is that guy? We could use him here. Probably he passed away. That was 15 years or more ago.

Greetings everyone! 

I tried, since (2011), contacting all of those "guy", the most invested ones were Mr. Vincent Vizachero in (2011), Mr. Tibor Fehér in (2013), and Mr. Wim Penninx in (2016). And apparently my results (FTDNA kit#M6713) belong to the middle east branch not the African (v69-) with no specific area in the ME known so far! 

Of course the option I had is to test the big Y, but to be honest; I don't think that would be a good investment for me, especially if I end up being alone in a branch of my own!

Welcome! Thanks for posting in this thread!