# Population Genetics > Paleogenetics > Paleolithic & Mesolithic >  LBK mtDNA match with Mesolithic Greece

## Fire Haired14

*The First mtDNA from Mesolithic Greece is K1**

Some of you may know Hofmanova et al. 2016 labelled two Mesolithic Greeks as K1c. K1* or just K1 are more accurate labels. Also I found three HVR1 matches with one of the Mesolithic Greeks in Neolithic Germany(LBK culture). The HVR1 mutation they share is rare and therefore these LBK individuals probably belonged to the same K lineage as these Mesolithic Greeks did. 

_This is the first ancient DNA evidence that Europe's first farmers had ancestry from Mesolithic hunter gatherers of the Aegean._

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## Maciamo

K1 alone doesn't mean anything. K1c is probably Mesolithic Balkans to Pontic Steppe, while K1a is Near Eastern.

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## Fire Haired14

> K1c is probably Mesolithic Balkans to Pontic Steppe, while K1a is Near Eastern.


Be that as it may K1 alone connects them to the Near East and separates them from the rest of Europe.

EDIT: Maybe Greece and the Near East formed a cluster in the Mesolithic like how the Caucasus and Iran did.

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## bicicleur

> *The First mtDNA from Mesolithic Greece is K1**
> 
> Some of you may know Hofmanova et al. 2016 labelled two Mesolithic Greeks as K1c. K1* or just K1 are more accurate labels. Also I found three HVR1 matches with one of the Mesolithic Greeks in Neolithic Germany(LBK culture). The HVR1 mutation they share is rare and therefore these LBK individuals probably belonged to the same K lineage as these Mesolithic Greeks did. 
> 
> _This is the first ancient DNA evidence that Europe's first farmers had ancestry from Mesolithic hunter gatherers of the Aegean._


13 ka obsidian from the island Melos arrived in Franchchti cave on the peleponesos along with pulses seeds and pistacchio from Anatolia
these HG came from Anatolia, the Boncuklu and Tepecik area from whom we have DNA
these people were G2a2

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## Angela

> 13 ka obsidian from the island Melos arrived in Franchchti cave on the peleponesos along with pulses seeds and pistacchio from Anatolia
> these HG came from Anatolia, the Boncuklu and Tepecik area from whom we have DNA
> these people were G2a2





> Fire-Haired: Maybe Greece and the Near East formed a cluster in the Mesolithic like how the Caucasus and Iran did.


Either or both of the above.

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## Maciamo

> Be that as it may K1 alone connects them to the Near East and separates them from the rest of Europe.
> 
> EDIT: Maybe Greece and the Near East formed a cluster in the Mesolithic like how the Caucasus and Iran did.


By that logic, K1 descends from U8b (it is the same as U8b2a), and haplogroup U8 has been found in several Palaeolithic European cultures (Gravettian, Magdalenian). Does that mean that haplogroup K descend from Palaeolithic Europeans? If so, then it is less surprising to find that several K subclades (K1b, K1c and K2b) probably originated in Europe, as they are very rare elsewhere (bar northern Central Asia).

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## Fire Haired14

> By that logic, K1 descends from U8b (it is the same as U8b2a), and haplogroup U8 has been found in several Palaeolithic European cultures (Gravettian, Magdalenian). Does that mean that haplogroup K descend from Palaeolithic Europeans? If so, then it is less surprising to find that several K subclades (K1b, K1c and K2b) probably originated in Europe, as they are very rare elsewhere (bar northern Central Asia).


Paleo Europeans and Near Easterners shared U8 because they were related. K though has not been found in pre Neolithic Europe. We have about 100 samples from pre Neo Europe. In contrast K was popular in our data set from pre Neo and Neo Middle East. 

K1 in Mesolithic Greece links them to the Meso/Neo Middle East more than Europe. Ancient mtDNA speaks loudly on this subject. We can argue all day about theories of where K1 was or K1c was but so far data only shows it in West Asia before the Neolithic.

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## bicicleur

K1 was not found in paleolithic Europe, but it has been found in Boncuklu and Tepecik

this is not proof, but another indication, just like the obsidian, the pulses seeds and the pistachios

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## Maciamo

> Paleo Europeans and Near Easterners shared U8 because they were related. K though has not been found in pre Neolithic Europe. We have about 100 samples from pre Neo Europe. In contrast K was popular in our data set from pre Neo and Neo Middle East. 
> 
> K1 in Mesolithic Greece links them to the Meso/Neo Middle East more than Europe. Ancient mtDNA speaks loudly on this subject. We can argue all day about theories of where K1 was or K1c was but so far data only shows it in West Asia before the Neolithic.


K hasn't been found in Paleo/Meso Europe except Greece because there hasn't been any samples tested from the Balkans, Ukraine or North Caucasus. Considering that K1c was in Mesolithic Greece, K3 in Mesolithic Georgia, K1a in the Early Neolithic Near East, and U8a and U8c in Paleo Central Europe, there is a fair chance that U8b and K* came from somewhere around the Black Sea.

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## bicicleur

Haplogroup U8 is a branch on the maternal tree of human kind. Its age is between 39,400 and 46,700 years (Behar et al., 2012b).

Haplogroup U8b is a branch on the maternal tree of humanity.

Haplogroup K is a branch on the maternal tree of human kind. Its age is between 22,300 and 31,000 years (Behar et al., 2012b).

Haplogroup K1 is a branch on the maternal tree of human kind. Its age is between 18,700 and 25,400 years (Behar et al., 2012b).

http://haplogroup.org/mtdna/rsrs/l12...u/u8/u8b/k/k1/

The split of U8 is contemporary with the IJ split.
(estimated 42.9 ka : https://www.yfull.com/tree/IJ/ )
U8b may have been along with Gravettian I in Europe like U8a and U8c,
but it may as well have spread along with Y-haplo J.

Even if U8b was Gravettian (like I) then it could have arrived in Anatolia around 22 ka, which is the estimated age of K1.

http://maajournal.com/Issues/2004/Vol-1/Full1.pdf

Around 22 ka Gravettian was in Okuzini and Karain caves, some 150 km west of the Boncuklu/Tepecik areas.

afaik the oldest known K1 is K1c from mesolithic Greece and K1a from Boncuklu PPN and Tepecik PN

Furthermore I suspect the Gravettians in the Okuzini and Karain caves were the Villabruna clade I2 ancestors.

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## Fire Haired14

@Maciamo,

If other Mesolithic Europeans had K1 their European status wouldn't mean they couldn't have been related to Near Eastern farmers in a way WHG and EHG weren't. A Mesolithic European status doesn't make an ancient WHG or EHG, some may have had Middle Eastern ancestry. What I'm arguing is that K1 in Mesolithic Greece indicates they were related to Near Eastern farmers in a way published genomes/mtDNA from WHG and EHG weren't. Other Mesolithic Europeans having a relation to Near Eastern farmers that WHG and EHG wouldn't change Mesolithic Greeks unque relation to Near Eastern farmers.

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## MOESAN

Yes, Mesolithic way of life and datation is not a criterium for 100% HG
ancient anthropology and more recent metrics show Portugal meso and French meso at individual level contain people very close to "neolithic" people, and even as means pop they are closer to diverse neolithical pops than HG of Baltic or Russia. I agree on what I 've seen about measurements. "French" meso are close to "Serbian" meso and "Portuguese" meso are the less far from Neolithic people.

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## Maciamo

> Yes, Mesolithic way of life and datation is not a criterium for 100% HG
> ancient anthropology and more recent metrics show Portugal meso and French meso at individual level contain people very close to "neolithic" people, and even as means pop they are closer to diverse neolithical pops than HG of Baltic or Russia. I agree on what I 've seen about measurements. "French" meso are close to "Serbian" meso and "Portuguese" meso are the less far from Neolithic people.


I agree that there is sometimes a fine line between the Mesolithic and Neolithic classification. Many hunter-gatherers did grow plants on an occasional basis. One famous case are the Jomon people in Japan, who are officially classified as Mesolithic but there is plenty of evidence that they cultivated cereals (barley, barnyard millet, buckwheat, rice) and other plants (bean, soybean, burdock, hemp, egoma and shiso mint, mountain potato, taro potato), but it was only to complement their main hunter-gatherer diet. Conversely, Neolithic farmers kept hunting game in addition to farming. In Europe the main difference between Neolithic and Mesolithic communities was that Neolithic ones lived in permanent villages and used pottery. But even then, some Late Mesolithic people also lived in villages.

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## MOESAN

OK Maciamo. But my aim was to say these modifications of types are not only the result of diet/way of life but also that it seems there has been infltrations from E-mediterranean among pops of S-W and W Europe before the agricultural revolution; some individuals variations among same pop cannot be put on the account of way of life only.
some wave of new technics has found place in W-Europe until the Netherlands, just before (as pushed by) the farming advance from East to West and then to North-West and the sources could be or in Tunisia or in S-E Adriatic (or Mediterranean?) Europe, at the first sight; technology but people too, perhaps?
sure the frontier was not always so steep; the famous 'neolithic' people of Ukraina were far to ressemble Neolithic farmers of SE/Central Europe and their way of life was far to be very "agricultural" if I red well.

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