Request: Y-DNA haplogroup results from Allentoft 2015

[nuadha]

We have zero Y-DNA from Afanasievo so you can not already exclude any connection between Xiaohe and Afanasievo based on R1a among Xiaohe.It is too early to make any conclusions and even when they were absolutely identical to Yamnaya this tells us not that much about their Y-DNA. But most here and also I also are quite sure that Afanasievo will turn out to be also dominated by R1b but it is still more logical to link Xiaohe with Afanasievo than with Corded Ware based on the age of the Xiaohe mummies and archaeology (but I am also very skeptical about any connection between both) .Historical Tocharians were likely dominated by R1b based on the fact that R1b is today much higher in the tarim basin than in other Central Asian regions and the lack of R1a-Z93- there is also a good evidence for a connection between R1b and Tocharians. Just R1b there can associated with Tocharian speakers. But many are still skeptical about the Afanasievo-Tocharian connection and even if Afanasievo are the direct ancestors of historical Tocharians this does not mean that Afanasievo has to be 100% R1b. Founder effects and genetic bottlenecks in pre-historical times caused the extinction of many minor paternal lineages

Im just predicting based on what I find most likely. It is possible that only .1% of yamnaya had r1b and we just happened to be really lucky when collecting our samples. More realistically it is also possible that Afanasievo was r1b dominant but a founder effect 'chose' the very few r1a individuals among the afanasievo from which they greatly expanded and moved south to become Xiaohe. Its just a far worse, or less likely, explanation.

even when they were absolutely identical to Yamnaya this tells us not that much about their Y-DNA

but i think the afanasievo were autosomal replicas to the yamnaya because they are the result of a very recent migration from the pc steppe rather than just having shared more distant (autosomal) ancestry as i suspect is the case for the yamnaya and CW closeness. So the afanasievo, imo, either descend from early yamnaya or share an extremely recent ancestor with the yamnaya that was also r1b dominant.

[Tomenable]

and the lack of R1a-Z93- there is also a good evidence for a connection between R1b and Tocharians

11 out of 12 samples of male Xiaohe mummies from the Tarim basin were R1a, one was K*.

There is quite a lot of R1a (but mostly Z93 ?) in the Tarim Basin, among the Tajiks of Xinjiang:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajiks_of_Xinjiang

A video showing these people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAQpdNEWpng

As for R1a-Z93-, if there is really lack of it in the Tarim Basin, it may be due to small population size of Tocharians (link):

Richard Littauer, "On Tocharian Exceptionality to the centum/satem Isogloss":

http://www.slideshare.net/RichLitt/o...satem-isogloss

He states that by the time of first texts in Tocharian (so called Tocharian A), it was already a decaying or even a dead language, only used in liturgical texts like Latin in the Middle Ages, or Hebrew in Ashkenazi Jewish communities of Medieval Europe. Littauer also writes (quoting Atkinson 2011) that the "original" Tocharian population was never large, which may explain shortages of Non-Z93 R1a in the area today.

We can't rule out such an option, that Tocharians got extinct or emigrated, so that their descendants do not live in the region today. Ürümchi mummies had R1a - but supposedly not Z93 - and if their lineages don't exist in the region today, then it does not necessarily mean that those mummies were not Tocharians. It can also mean, that Tocharian Y-DNA legacy simply did not survive (at least not in this region).

As for the link between Afanasievo and Tocharians - many consider it to be likely (including Mallory & Mair):



I think the main reason why some people no longer believe that the mummies were Tocharians, is because they turned out to be R1a.

Tocharian was Kentum - and Kentum is supposed to have correlated with R1b, at least according to some people.

However, we should not link specific DNA to Satem or Kentum, because Satemization took place several times, and it was a very simple sound change. Besides, there is no absolute correlation between R1a and Satem and R1b and Kentum, since the Tocharians were Kentum but could be R1a (11 out of 12 samples of Caucasoid Mummies from the Tarim basin were R1a, one was K*) and Armenians are Satem but mostly R1b. Also Luvian branch of Anatolian languages was Satem, but everything indicates that the Luvians were perhaps mostly R1b rather than R1a.

About Satemization (posted by a person knowledgeable in linguistics on another forum):

"Satemization happened at least twice independently from each other, and maybe more times. The division of Proto-Anatolian languages into Kentum Hittite plus Palaic languages, and Satem Luvian and its descendant languages, had to be independent from the rest of IE. The whole process of Satemization is trivial, by the way, there are many examples for evolution of soft k/g towards s/z. All three Slavic palatalizations, Kashubian pronounciation, for example -szczi instead of -ski, Romance evolution of soft k into cz and c (this is how Latin kentum resulted in French sę), examples in Germanic (English, Swedish), etc. This linguistic mechanism is common, it could take place repeatedly in multiple times & places."

[nuadha]

11 out of 12 samples of Caucasoid male mummies from the Tarim basin were R1a, one was K*.

There is quite a lot of R1a (but mostly Z93 ?) in the Tarim Basin, among the Tajiks of Xinjiang:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajiks_of_Xinjiang

A video showing these people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAQpdNEWpng

As for R1a-Z93-, if there is really lack of it in the Tarim Basin, it may be due to small population size of Tocharians (link):

Richard Littauer, "On Tocharian Exceptionality to the centum/satem Isogloss":

http://www.slideshare.net/RichLitt/o...satem-isogloss

He states that by the time of first texts in Tocharian (so called Tocharian A), it was already a decaying or even a dead language, only used in liturgical texts like Latin in the Middle Ages, or Hebrew in Ashkenazi Jewish communities of Medieval Europe. Littauer also writes (quoting Atkinson 2011) that the "original" Tocharian population was never large, which may explain shortages of Non-Z93 R1a in the area today.

We can't rule out such an option, that Tocharians got extinct or emigrated, so that their descendants do not live in the region today. Ürümchi mummies had R1a - but supposedly not Z93 - and if their lineages don't exist in the region today, then it does not necessarily mean that those mummies were not Tocharians. It can also mean, that Tocharian genetic legacy simply did not survive (at least not in this region).

As for the link between Afanasievo and Tocharians - many consider it to be likely (including Mallory & Mair):



I think the main reason why some people no longer believe that the mummies were Tocharians, is because they turned out to be R1a.

Tocharian was Kentum - and Kentum is supposed to have correlated with R1b, at least according to some people.

However, we should not link specific DNA to Satem or Kentum, because Satemization took place several times, and it was a very simple sound change. Besides, there is no absolute correlation between R1a and Satem and R1b and Kentum, since the Tocharians were Kentum but could be R1a (11 out of 12 samples of Caucasoid Mummies from the Tarim basin were R1a, one was K*) and Armenians are Satem but mostly R1b. Also Luvian branch of Anatolian languages was Satem, but everything indicates that the Luvians were perhaps mostly R1b rather than R1a.

About Satemization (posted by a person knowledgeable in linguistics on another forum):

"Satemization happened at least twice independently from each other, and maybe more times. The division of Proto-Anatolian languages into Kentum Hittite plus Palaic languages, and Satem Luvian and its descendant languages, had to be independent from the rest of IE. The whole process of Satemization is trivial, by the way, there are many examples for evolution of soft k/g towards s/z. All three Slavic palatalizations, Kashubian pronounciation, for example -szczi instead of -ski, Romance evolution of soft k into cz and c (this is how Latin kentum resulted in French sę), examples in Germanic (English, Swedish), etc. This linguistic mechanism is common, it could take place repeatedly in multiple times & places."

Replace Kentum with the first three language branches to break from PIE and replace Satem with the later language branches that diverged from one another after PIE, and you have a much more substantive correlation.

[Tomenable]

^ Not really, because so far nobody has proven that Tocharians were R1b, and Tocharian was perhaps the 2nd branch to break from PIE. So if in the end it turns out that Tocharians - like those Xiaohe mummies with Caucasoid traits - were R1a, there will be no correlation at all.

If Xiaohe mummies were not speakers of Tocharian, then what language did they speak?

Aren't they slightly too old for Indo-Iranians so far to the east? Did they speak some unknown branch of IE, or some Non-IE ?

Besides, the Ürümchi mummies are the only Caucasoid-looking mummies in the region. Younger ones start looking increasingly Mongoloid. And as mtDNA shows, even those early mummies were no longer "pure" West Eurasians, but were already mixed with local East Asian females.

=================

Or actually that C4 mtDNA in more than half of Tarim mummies could be Siberian, not East Asian, as Jean M suggested here:

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthre...ll=1#post82360

The foragers with whom they mixed evidently carried the Siberian mtDNA C4. This C4 input is treated as East Asian in Li 2010.

[Generalissimo]

Their mtDNA wasn't East Asian, but East Euro/Siberian, and perhaps a signal of their EHG ancestry. It was mostly C4, from memory, and C4 has been found in Ukrainian Kurgans.

[Agamemnon]

I think all the talk about the Centum-Satem isogloss is quite unwarranted, first of all we're dealing with an IE isogloss which is of little use when addressing classification, furthermore we cannot expect a 1:1 correlation between languages and genes (which is why the Centum-Satem isogloss is out of place in this discussion).

[DMXX]

At present, I'm finding it quite hard to believe that Afanasievo and Xiaohe are not linked with early speakers of Tocharian. Afanasievo is the right archaeological culture at the right time, the right place, has been confirmed via autosomal profiles to essentially be a direct Yamnaya eastward colony and has the material items to boot.

The only linguistic issue I am aware of that's preventing the likes of Anthony from definitively linking Tocharian with Afanasievo is the apparent mismatch between agricultural terminology in Tocharian A and B(?) with archaeological data retrieved from Afanasievo. As I understand it, proto-Tocharian has words for wheat, barley and certain agricultural implements, but these aren't found in Afanasievo.
My personal speculation has been that some sort of autochthonous population derived from the BMAC established an exploratory/trading colony in the outskirts of the Tarim and these items were acquired by early Tocharians. Craniometric analyses pointed to evidence of some skulls occupying their own position on a clustering chart, distinct from Yamnaya and Afanasievo (described as "proto-Europoid"). There's, as far as I know however, no data confirming this (as ever though, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence).

One point regarding Xiaohe R1a-Z93- and mtDNA C4 which should be considered is that it might represent a founder effect from Afanasievo's own Y-DNA micro-diversity. No Afanasievo Y-DNA or mtDNA C4 was detected in Allentoft et al., so further samples are needed to present a clearer picture. I am still fairly confident the chances are good we'll find both Y-DNA R1b(-M73 as alan and Michal have championed?) and R1a-Z93- in Afanasievo.

[Ashina]

Their mtDNA wasn't East Asian, but East Euro/Siberian, and perhaps a signal of their EHG ancestry. It was mostly C4, from memory, and C4 has been found in Ukrainian Kurgans.

Eastern European? So now that J2 was found in the Altays, we can consider J2 Siberian too I guess?

C4 is Siberian/Eastern Asian pretty much.

[DMXX]

Eastern European? So now that J2 was found in the Altays, we can consider J2 Siberian too I guess?

Actually, recall Y-DNA J2 has (so far) only been detected in a Bronze Age Central European and an Iron Age Russian... By that deductive reasoning, I suppose Y-DNA J2 is East European as well.

C4 is Siberian/Eastern Asian pretty much.

The root of mtDNA C4's phylogeny is certainly fixed in East Eurasia. However, several mtDNA C4 samples were found in Neolithic Ukraine. A Eurasian corridor existed on the steppes linking Eastern Europe with East Eurasia. It's been proposed that hunter-gatherer bands pursuing mammoths and other large fauna were responsible for some of this bidirectional gene flow (IIRC some mtDNA U4+5 were found in Siberia dating before any likely steppe pastoralists arrived there).

Given Afanasievo is near-completely West Eurasian in terms of autosomal profile and mtDNA, combined with the congruence with Yamnaya, plus the archaeological evidence linking Xiaohe with Afanasievo, it does raise the possibility that the Xiaohe mtDNA C4 is derived from the Eastern European steppe. That a large proportion of the Xiaohe mtDNA was C4 suggests a founder effect took place, likely from Afanasievo in my opinion. You could characterise this as a much later "back-migration" mediated across the opposite direction.

[Edit]: I seem to recall mtDNA Z, which appeared to have been widespread across East-Central Asia at the time, was the other prominent showing among the Xiaohe. If we were to assert the Xiaohe mtDNA C4 was also East-Central Asian in origin, that would mean the near-entirety of Xiaohe maternal lines were locally derived. This simply isn't the picture provided to us about the modus operandi of Afanasievo and other early steppe populations to date (e.g. persistent presence of mtDNA U4 and U5, introduction of mtDNA T via Andronovo).

 

Don't worry, nobody's questioning the Turkicness of your mtDNA; for the record, my own (likely) Turkic maternal ancestors seem to have also flirted with the Indo-European world

[Ashina]

DMXX,

An Eastern European/back-migration story might be possible for the Xiaohe - I wasn't disputing that, however, that still doesn't change the fact that the distribution of mtDNA C4 and it's origin is pretty much Siberian/Eastern Asian. This is no different than naming J2 and - like you pointed out - mtDNA U4/U5 Siberian/Eastern Asian.

Oh and I didn't feel threatened because of my own mtDNA or anything. You can be sure of that. But calling mtDNA C4 Eastern European seems just far-fetched and Eurocentric to me.