4000BP Iberian farmer clusters with Tuscans, not Basque or Early European farmers

[Fire Haired]

Daskalaki, E. 2014 was published yesterday, and among other things sampled autosomal and mitochondrial DNA from a 4,000 year old Late Neolithic farmer from the site of El Portalón in northern Spain. This individual belonging to likely Mesolithic central-west European descended mtDNA haplogroup U5b1b. He(I don't know what gender Portalon is) was compared to modern west Eurasian populations and ancient European farmers and hunter gatherers in a PCA.

Portalon not surprisingly is most related to modern southern Europeans like all other Neolithic European farmers sampled so far. It is surprising though that Portalon clusters with Tuscans, unlike Swedish Neolithic farmer Gokhem who clusters with Basque and Chaloithic farmer Otzi(born near Feldthurns, Italy) who clusters with Sardinians. The placing of samples in this PCA in my opinion is based mainly on their percentage of WHG, near eastern, and ANE ancestry(see here if you don't understand those terms). It is very similar to Davidski's(see PCAs I am referring to here) and Lazaridi's PCAs.

In PC2 Portalon is much farther to the right(towards where MA1 would be) than Gokhem, Otzi, Sardinians, and Basque which suggests he has some ANE ancestry. In PC1 Portalon is farther down than Basque and Gohkem which means he has less European hunter gatherer aka WHG ancestry.

Portalon is in a very similar position as i think modern Spanish and Portuguese would fit if they were put into this PCA. In PCAs featuring MA1, La Brana-1, and modern west Eurasians, Spainish and Portugese are in between Basque and Tuscans, some cluster more closely with Tuscans(see here).

Portalon is evidence that R1b Df27 had reached Iberia by the end of the Neolithic age and begging of the copper age, because he obviously has ancestry other Neolithic European farmers lack(probably ANE ancestry), and is very similar to modern Spanish and Portuguese. Sadly though no Y DNA was sampled.

 

[bicicleur 2]

maybe you should put it the other way : Tuscans cluster with Portalon
a hint for some common ancestry, but that common ancestry may well have come from the east

 

[bicicleur 2]

Portalon is evidence that R1b Df27 had reached Iberia by the end of the Neolithic age and begging of the copper age, because he obviously has ancestry other Neolithic European farmers lack(probably ANE ancestry), and is very similar to modern Spanish and Portuguese. Sadly though no Y DNA was sampled.

I agree with that. Only Y DNA defines clearly to what tribe a person belonged , 4000 years ago people still belonged to tribes.
autosomal DNA only provides a view through a lot of fog.
Even mitochondrial doesn't provide a clear view as young women married outside of the tribe.

 

[LeBrok]

maybe you should put it the other way : Tuscans cluster with Portalon
a hint for some common ancestry, but that common ancestry may well have come from the east

Interesting point.

 

[Sommo Angiolieri]

A signal from the East and from the North, considering that Tuscans are more genetically more North Euro than Oetzi like farmers.

 

[Knovas]

Davidski says: He's actually closest to modern Tuscans from Italy. This might be an artefact of the low resolution of the data (only 66,476,944 bp of DNA sequences)

Too bad they didn't use any Spanish samples, since they would fall very close to where the N. Italians and Tuscans are according to the observed pattern. Actually as suggested above, this does not indicate at all that the sample was Tuscan-like, but rather very similar to modern average Spaniards. Anyway, I wouldn't be so sure that this individual didn't cluster with Basques, hope that future improvements give as a much more reliable picture.

By the way, ¿is there any problem to test Y-DNA from this period? I just can't understand.

 

[Nobody1]

Too bad they didn't use any Spanish samples, since they would fall very close to where the N. Italians and Tuscans are according to the observed pattern.

According to observed pattern the Spaniards would be somewhere between Basques, N Italians and French in that PCA plot i.e. nowhere near the Portalon-farmer and the Tuscans (as observed pattern); But what Davidski pointed out about that PCA plot and what the study itself wrote about the close affinities to the other Neolithic corpses - the Portalon-farmer will most def. end up closest to the Sardinians (or between North Italian and Sardinian) as did all these Neolithic corpses in Lazaridis 2013 - as was also the case with Gök4;

 

[Knovas]

According to observed pattern the Spaniards would be somewhere between Basques, N Italians and French in that PCA plot i.e. nowhere near the Portalon-farmer and the Tuscans (as observed pattern)

That's to be expected if we take most of the experiments done so far as reference. The position of those Italian samples seems very similar to what the Spanish usually get without considering other non-Basque groups. Probably you're right, but then several Spaniards would overlap Basques (see the little distance), and normally the Basque cluster appears more removed. Northeast Iberians for instance deviate substantially towards them, but they aren't that close (Davidski himself obtained these results). To summarize, that's not the best PCA plot we've seen.

But what Davidski pointed out about that PCA plot and what the study itself wrote about the close affinities to the other Neolithic corpses - the Portalon-farmer will most def. end up closest to the Sardinians (or between North Italian and Sardinian) as did all these Neolithic corpses in Lazaridis 2013 - as was also the case with Gök4;

That's a likely possibility still unconfirmed until better resolution is finally available.

 

[Sommo Angiolieri]

This 4000 years old farmer looks like a more Levantine version of modern Tuscans on the genome wide analysis. He is obviously completely different from any modern Iberian. His mtdna haplogroup U5b1b is a proof that he had some Mesolitich ancestry. Modern Tuscans score higher WHG ancestry than modern Spaniards.

 

[Angela]

I agree with that. Only Y DNA defines clearly to what tribe a person belonged , 4000 years ago people still belonged to tribes.
autosomal DNA only provides a view through a lot of fog.
Even mitochondrial doesn't provide a clear view as young women married outside of the tribe.

I'm not going to go into great detail, because it's off topic, but while I get it that some men seem to be very attached to their yDNA lineages, it's a very small part of your total genomic composition, and, in fact, might be totally unrepresentative, in certain cases, of the "tribe" to which most of someone's ancestors belonged. In addition, by the time we get to, say, the first millennium B.C., I think it's unlikely that the "tribes" were still, if they were ever, monolithically of one yDNA lineage.

 

[bicicleur 2]

I'm not going to go into great detail, because it's off topic, but while I get it that some men seem to be very attached to their yDNA lineages, it's a very small part of your total genomic composition, and, in fact, might be totally unrepresentative, in certain cases, of the "tribe" to which most of someone's ancestors belonged. In addition, by the time we get to, say, the first millennium B.C., I think it's unlikely that the "tribes" were still, if they were ever, monolithically of one yDNA lineage.

I'm not talking about my own Y DNA , I even don't know my own Y DNA because I don't think it would learn me much.
But in this case, if we knew the Portalon and the Etruscan Y DNA we'd know a lot more than some foggy information from autosomal comparison.

 

[Fire Haired]

This 4000 years old farmer looks like a more Levantine version of modern Tuscans on the genome wide analysis. He is obviously completely different from any modern Iberian. His mtdna haplogroup U5b1b is a proof that he had some Mesolitich ancestry. Modern Tuscans score higher WHG ancestry than modern Spaniards.

Lots of people have mtDNA U5(like me) that doesn't mean they have more Mesolithic European ancestry than someone in the same population with mtDNA T or some other near eastern haplogroup.

 

[Alan]

4000 BP is Bronze Age already. Obviously to that date and likely slightly earlier during late Neolithic the Farmers, H&G and earlyIndo Europeans had mixed significantly. Which explains why Portalon appears more shifted towards East (IE) and North(H&G) than the Iceman.

 

[Sommo Angiolieri]

4000 BP is Bronze Age already. Obviously to that date and likely slightly earlier during late Neolithic the Farmers, H&G and earlyIndo Europeans had mixed significantly. Which explains why Portalon appears more shifted towards East (IE) and North(H&G) than the Iceman.

I really doubt he had some PIE admix. PIE people were still living in Poland and the like at least according to Eupedia maps.He looks like a more Levantine/Caucasian admixed Tuscan. He would proly score 45% Caucasus+SW asian with Dodecad K12b. Which means that these autosomal components are really ancient in Europe and were already widespread 4000 years ago in Iberia.

 

[Alan]

I really doubt he had some PIE admix. PIE people were still living in Poland and the like at least according to Eupedia maps.He looks like a more Levantine/Caucasian admixed Tuscan. He would proly score 45% Caucasus+SW asian with Dodecad K12b. Which means that these autosomal components are really ancient in Europe and were already widespread 4000 years ago in Iberia.

Proto IE from Poland? Thats new to me. Eupedia maps imply a Pontic_Caspian Steppe-Caucasus origin. The only scenarios I know off are somewhere around the Pontic Caspian-Caucasian Steppes, North Mesopotamia/Iran and South_Central Asia.

Caucasus_Gedrosia, Southwest Asian, Mediterranean, North European etc. are the result of more ancient components merging. We know that from the recent findings. Caucasus_Gedrosia together with North European and additional Farmer IS the Indo European signal in Europe.

It's likely that this Portalon individual shows the first significant signal of Caucasus_Gedrosia like admixture in Europe. It could as much have come from early Indo Europeans as it could have come from Proto Caucasics (in the linguistic definition).


About the "Southwest Asian" it is not a recent signal in Europe. Southwest Asian itself is basically farmer + with an East African shift. The Southwest Asian found nowadays in Europe is mostly Neolithic and connected to proto-farmers than anything else.

 

[Sile]

another perspective

http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com.au/

 

[Sile]

Davidski says: He's actually closest to modern Tuscans from Italy. This might be an artefact of the low resolution of the data (only 66,476,944 bp of DNA sequences)

Too bad they didn't use any Spanish samples, since they would fall very close to where the N. Italians and Tuscans are according to the observed pattern. Actually as suggested above, this does not indicate at all that the sample was Tuscan-like, but rather very similar to modern average Spaniards. Anyway, I wouldn't be so sure that this individual didn't cluster with Basques, hope that future improvements give as a much more reliable picture.

By the way, ¿is there any problem to test Y-DNA from this period? I just can't understand.

IIRC , he states in the comments that tuscans + Basques created Iberians/spanish

 

[Angela]

IIRC , he states in the comments that tuscans + Basques created Iberians/spanish

I personally hope that he meant it's as if Tuscans and Basques mingled to create Iberians. Otherwise, it's such a totally nonsensical statement that I don't even know where to begin. The Tuscans and the Basques are the product of genetic processes, admixtures, if you will, that continued at least until 400 B.C. for the Tuscans, and perhaps later, if Ralph and Coop are incorrect, and until well into the period A.D., for the Basques. This is NOT a case of people virtually identical to the modern people of Siena, who happened to live thousands of years ago, marching into Spain to mingle with time traveling Basques in order to create the modern Spaniards.

 

[Sile]

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/tuscan-like-farmer-from-late-neolithic.html

 

[Aberdeen]

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/tuscan-like-farmer-from-late-neolithic.html

And if we look at that, I think his comments show that he would agree with Angela.

"Interestingly, he doesn't cluster with modern Basques, like the Swedish Neolithic farmer Gok4, nor with modern Sardinians, like Oetzi the Iceman. He's actually closest to modern Tuscans from Italy. This might be an artefact of the low resolution of the data (only 66,476,944 bp of DNA sequences), but if not, then it could be a signal of population movements to Iberia from somewhere in the east during the Copper Age."

So he's not saying that modern Iberians are a mixture of Basques and Tuscans, he's saying that the person is closer in genetic signature to modern Tuscans than to modern Basques. And the other thing he says is this:

"Needless to say, it's a shame we don't know this guy's Y-haplogroup, because it's now generally believed that haplogroup R1b made its appearance in Western Europe during the Copper Age, and that it arrived there from somewhere in the east. By the way, his mtDNA belongs to haplogroup U5b1b, which is actually a marker typical of Western and Central European hunter-gatherers."