R1b-L51 in Yamnaya: Lazaridis 2024

[Jack Johnson]

What do you think of the R-Z2118 found in the Cetina Culture? It's surrounded by J2B2-L283s which are clearly accompanied by Yamnaya RZ2103s.

Some thought it was an Italic migrant going back, but that seems unlikely to me. It could be BB or maybe a Yamnaya remnant.

The problem with the Cetina culture is that it's too late to use to draw conclusions about early Indo-Europeans. 

Hard to say what to make of it. As I understand it, Cetina autosomal DNA was mostly EEF (~60%) but with about 33% WSH. 

Thus far, no J-M283 has turned up in Yamnaya, Corded Ware, or Bell Beaker, but maybe it will eventually. I honestly don't know what the ultimate source of the J-M283 in the Bronze Age Balkans is. 

That Z2118 (PF7589) probably represents a Y-chromosome descendant of the men who provided the WSH element in Cetina.

Not getting your point. We have a kurgan site with this mixture R1b/J2B2-L283. These are clearly together from Yamnaya.

But yeah, I'm thinking RZ2118 might just be the "southern L51".

Which samples and which site? A proto-Yamnaya type group with both would be very interesting.

[rmstevens2]

I for one don't get the pride many take in a particular language group from an individual line perspective.

A simple raid from a neighboring group at anytime over the last 5000 years, could kidnap a ydna line and raise it to speak a totally different language.

True, and here we are typing in English.

My own Y-chromosome ancestors spoke Welsh, and before that something ancestral to it, and before that - what? 

However, it is only natural to take pride in one's own Y-DNA ancestors and to get a little miffed when someone slights them in a thread and in a subforum reserved for discussion of them.

[rmstevens2]

The problem with the Cetina culture is that it's too late to use to draw conclusions about early Indo-Europeans. 

Hard to say what to make of it. As I understand it, Cetina autosomal DNA was mostly EEF (~60%) but with about 33% WSH. 

Thus far, no J-M283 has turned up in Yamnaya, Corded Ware, or Bell Beaker, but maybe it will eventually. I honestly don't know what the ultimate source of the J-M283 in the Bronze Age Balkans is. 

That Z2118 (PF7589) probably represents a Y-chromosome descendant of the men who provided the WSH element in Cetina.

Not getting your point. We have a kurgan site with this mixture R1b/J2B2-L283. These are clearly together from Yamnaya.

But yeah, I'm thinking RZ2118 might just be the "southern L51".

Which samples and which site? A proto-Yamnaya type group with both would be very interesting.

He was talking about the Cetina culture in Croatia, which is post Yamnaya and about 60% EEF autosomally. It started ~2000 BC - too late to offer a lot of help to anyone trying to decipher IE origins.

Look at the samples from Cetina, Croatia, in the 2022 Lazaridis et al "Southern Arc" paper.

[R.Rocca]

We are here debating about the origins of Yamnaya and Yamanya steppe's formation where CHG-IRAN and J1 were present and in my position J haplogroup was extremely decisive since the Mesolithic.

I agree with you that the authors (Lazaridis, Anthony, Recich) are not interested in explaining why J1 was found in the steppe in all major movements and populations
They do cite a J1 reference here in the Supplementary Information showing their ignorance because J1 does not fit their agenda :

  No mothers or daughters, and only one sister of the Khvalynsk II males were present, supporting its interpretation as a multi-generational burial plot for a male sodality, drawn from a limited set of families mostly affiliated with the R1b-V1636 Y-haplogroup, but including individuals with R1aM459 (like later Corded Ware), Q1a-L472 (like Murzikha to the north), 12a-L699 (a widespread Serednii Stih haplogroup), and J1-CTS1026 (unrelated to anyone).

So, the question about J1's Indo-European origins in the steppe is still open and new surprises may come with new samples from the South and Caspian Sea. I have been investigating J1 clades from Armenia, Iran and the Caspian Sea and I know they had a relatively large population from an Ancient Iranian population because they still have ancient phylogenetic nodes related to the Neolithic, Eneolithic and Bronze Age in the region 

Yes, you've mentioned that already, but this thread is about L51, Yamnaya and Lazaridis. They found and call out a clear association between Indo-Anatolia and the CLV genetic component which they in turn associate with R1b-V1636. Then they call out Yamnaya and R-L23 for the spread of Indo-European languages, R1a for Indo-Iranian etc.. Not a single mention of J1 in a paper titled "The Genetic Origin of the Indo-Europeans".

And here are the daggers to the theory of J1 dominance that you've kept repeating for years:

"We identify the Yamnaya population as Proto-IE for several reasons."

"...no major pan-European archaeological or migratory phenomena that are tied to the postulated South Caucasus IA homeland ~6000 BCE can be discerned."

"DNA has traced back the ancestors of both Anatolian and IE speakers to the part of the CLV Cline that was NORTH of the Caucasus mountains."

When they are stating that J1-CTS1026 is "unrelated to anyone" it is obviously within the context of the same paragraph where they are looking for 3rd degree relatives within Khvalynsk II cemetery. Using that out of context to accuse them of bias is shameful.

While we can never rule out “surprises”, this study shows that the likelihood of a CLV group in the South Caucasus approaching anywhere near the fit scores of the ones already found North of the Caucasus is very, very low. There are a lot of data points that they gathered, including Y-DNA data, that have led them to conclude that, and I repeat: “DNA has traced back the ancestors of both Anatolian and IE speakers to the part of the CLV Cline that was NORTH of the Caucasus mountains.”

[rmstevens2]

One thing I have noticed over the years as the data have accumulated is that the entire L389 clade of R1b is pretty obviously of eastern origin. By "eastern" I mean east of peninsular Europe. Excuse me for pointing to my own thread on this subject:

R1b-L389: Eastern Branch of R1b-L761?

[rmstevens2]

One thing I have noticed over the years as the data have accumulated is that the entire L389 clade of R1b is pretty obviously of eastern origin. By "eastern" I mean east of peninsular Europe. Excuse me for pointing to my own thread on this subject:

R1b-L389: Eastern Branch of R1b-L761?

I should add that I believe all of R1b is eastern in the sense I defined above. It's just most obvious with L389.

[R.Rocca]

Remontnoye CLV people made up 4/5 of the genetic component that would become Serednii Stih, which later gave rise to Yamnaya. Interestingly, the Remontnoye made seasonal camps on the Don, an area that has high quality Yamnaya samples that seem to be basal L23 and separately basal L51 as per this new paper. This may be as good a clue as we've gotten on the possible origin of both L23 and L51:

[ArmandoR1b]

Remontnoye CLV people made up 4/5 of the genetic component that would become Serednii Stih, which later gave rise to Yamnaya. Interestingly, the Remontnoye made seasonal camps on the Don, an area that has high quality Yamnaya samples that seem to be basal L23 and separately basal L51 as per this new paper. This may be as good a clue as we've gotten on the possible origin of both L23 and L51:

Good point. Although about 1300 years after the MRCA of R-L23 at least they don't contradict the hypothesis that Yamnaya originated in Serednii Stih territory. Something to consider though, I0443 showed 995838 SNPs on autosomes. So I10627, I10628 and I6884, which all have less than I0443, might be basal due to no-calls like I0443 is. We really need R-L23 specimens that are directly 14C dated as close to 4250 BC as possible. Fortunately Lazaridis et al. 2024 acknowledged that they need to keep looking in the area with the last paragraph in the SM.

"In the future it is important to study the Pontic-Caspian steppe in even finer spatio-temporal detail to identify the pre-Yamnaya population in the Eneolithic mix of Don-Volga with Serednii Stih populations out of which we think that the Yamnaya emerged"

[alanarchae]

My geographical knowledge of the suggested homeland area is poor so i’ve been zooming in on google maps. So the nearest city is Rostov on Don slightly to the west. Bit too close for comfort to the war zone for a visit at the moment! Plus even without the conflict I find Russia a lot more unnerving than east-cebtral Europe which is in the EU and really doesn’t feel much different to western Europe these days. The eastern boundary of the EU has shifted the ‘us and them’ boundary well to the east of the cold war one. But I still wouldn’t feel safe beyond the EU’s eastern boundary.

[R.Rocca]

Remontnoye CLV people made up 4/5 of the genetic component that would become Serednii Stih, which later gave rise to Yamnaya. Interestingly, the Remontnoye made seasonal camps on the Don, an area that has high quality Yamnaya samples that seem to be basal L23 and separately basal L51 as per this new paper. This may be as good a clue as we've gotten on the possible origin of both L23 and L51:

Good point. Although about 1300 years after the MRCA of R-L23 at least they don't contradict the hypothesis that Yamnaya originated in Serednii Stih territory. Something to consider though, I0443 showed 995838 SNPs on autosomes. So I10627, I10628 and I6884, which all have less than I0443, might be basal due to no-calls like I0443 is. We really need R-L23 specimens that are directly 14C dated as close to 4250 BC as possible. Fortunately Lazaridis et al. 2024 acknowledged that they need to keep looking in the area with the last paragraph in the SM.

"In the future it is important to study the Pontic-Caspian steppe in even finer spatio-temporal detail to identify the pre-Yamnaya population in the Eneolithic mix of Don-Volga with Serednii Stih populations out of which we think that the Yamnaya emerged"

Correct, these samples are too young, but could point to an area of focus for earlier findings, especially "if" they lack positive downstream calls. There is also a descent enough coverage sample marked as R-M269 in the area:

[jdean]

Great, Alwin Kloekhorst's Proto-Indo-Anatolian, the “Anatolian split” and the “Anatolian trek” is now available online !!!!!!!

BTW, got a sneaky feeling the Anatolian trek might have been an R1a thing

[old europe]

Great, Alwin Kloekhorst's Proto-Indo-Anatolian, the “Anatolian split” and the “Anatolian trek” is now available online !!!!!!!

BTW, got a sneaky feeling the Anatolian trek might have been an R1a thing

based on what?

[jdean]

Great, Alwin Kloekhorst's Proto-Indo-Anatolian, the “Anatolian split” and the “Anatolian trek” is now available online !!!!!!!

BTW, got a sneaky feeling the Anatolian trek might have been an R1a thing

based on what?

Well it's a 'sneaky feeling' so being pedantic it doesn't really need to be based on anything : )

However it comes from some throw away comments by David over on Eurogenes where he was hinting at titbits he'd been tossed from somwhere or other and the Pre Yamnaya R1a results that have turned up on the west coast of the Black Sea.

[old europe]

That is a very good news indeed. I can’t wait for Eurogenes to weigh in on the recent harward paper. When this will happen Lazaridis and Reich flee or take shelter

[jdean]

I think this also very intriguing, love to see some aDNA from this lot : )))