Sex bias in the prehistory of Homo sapiens?

There is a somewhat interesting new paper that finds some gender bias irregularities in the prehistory of our species:

Emery et al., Estimators of the Human Effective Sex Ratio Detect Sex Biases on Different Timescales, The American Journal of Human Genetics (2010), doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2010.10.021

Fig. 3

They argue that there is a "female bias" (greater female transmitted diversity) in Africans and a "male bias" in non-Africans (Eurasians hereafter).

I broadly agree. But I think it needs a qualification: Africans in particular must be always studied with their whole structure, so any study that ignores the branches best represented by Khoisan and Pygmies is itself biased (it applies to many other papers, not just this one).

Similarly Eurasians are studied only in the two standard HapMap samples, whose representativeness for all non-Africans is more than questionable (South Asian and Negrito/Papuan/Australian Aboriginal, as well as Native American samples are also needed).

I'll explain here the bias in my own terms (all the necessary simplifications should be taken with the  lassitude they deserve):

First bifurcation:

• Southern branch (Khoisan-plus): no bias
• Y-DNA A
• mtDNA L0
• Main branch (all others): no bias (yet)
• Y-DNA B'CDEF, aka Y(xA)
• mtDNA L1"6

Second bifurcation (main group):

• Western branch (Pygmy-plus): no bias
• Y-DNA B
• mtDNA L1
• Main branch (all others):no bias (yet)
• Y-DNA CDEF, aka Y(xA,B)
• mtDNA L2"6

Third bifurcation (main group):

• Major African branch: female bias
• Y-DNA DE (E)
• mtDNA L2"6 (again, all sublineages in Africa)
• Eurasian branch: no clear bias (possible male bias)
• Y-DNA CF and DE (D)
• mtDNA M and N (< L3 < L3'4 < L3'4'6 < L2'3'4'6 < L2"6)

I understand that what is apparent in this third bifurcation, where there is a concentration of a particular male lineage, E (this is called female bias). In parallel there is a possible (but rather unclear, also rather mild a signal in the paper, see fig. 4).

It is very intriguing but hard to explain how this extinction of all male branch lineages between CDEF and DE (or rather E) in Africa happened, because there are nothing less than 16 coding region mutations between L2"6 and L3, what implies a lengthy period (but see PS below), and four clear successive branches in the line to L3 (L5, L2, L6 and L4).

We can maybe discard L5, L6 and L4 because they are small but L2 is not small at all, so there must have been some structure already in Central/East Africa in this period within the L2"6 population. 

Even if we totally ignore the Eurasian branches, there is something odd with that African male-only bottleneck.

The authors explain this by polygyny, while Dienekes rejects this and offers in turn the same explanation by another name: 

... an alternative explanation is that the higher female/male ratio in Africans is due to the fact that they are descended from a relatively small number of males who overwhelmed the pre-existing African gene pool. 

Hmmm, how is that different from polygyny?

I'm not really sure, sincerely, but what about the L2"6 population coalescing in a relatively small area (roughly Chad-Sudan-Ethiopia in my reconstruction) and this allowing for a case of male-biased drift that did probably have some component of that polygyny/overwhelming macho element in it, along with drift/founder effects?


PS - While there are 16 mutations between L2"6 and L3, most of them are upstream of the L2'3'4'6 node (i.e. after tiny lineage L5 branched out). Between L2'3'4'6 and L3 there are "only" 7 coding region mutational steps, less than half, the 16 mentioned above, and therefore also less than half the time. The branch leading to L5 can surely be safely ignored for this purpose, it is L2, L4 and the internal diversity of L3 which really cause the contradiction: the female gender bias.

Ancient lake revealed in Upper Egypt

An ancient major lake that would have appeared some 250,000 years ago and vanished definitively some 80,000 years ago has been discovered just North of the Egypt-Sudan border, just West of modern Aswan Reservoir, in the region known as Tushka.

Lake Tushka (deep blue) at two different prehistorical sizes

This lake probably played some role, yet to be understood, in the early period of Humankind. It was not the only one of its kind, other large lakes existed in what is now the Sahara, the most famous maybe being Lake Chad, which in the past was at least a thousand times larger than it is now, a true inland sea.

Today there are a few smaller lakes but were caused by human intervention, pumping excess water  from Lake Nasser.

Full story at Science News (found via Wash Park Prophet).

Some new events in relation with Iruña-Veleia and Basque linguistic "popes"

De Lacalle fired

L. Lpz. de Lacalle

First and foremost, for its huge potential, is the cessation of the Deputy of Culture of Araba, Lorena López de Lacalle (EA), one of the ringleaders and the most visible political actor of the inquisitorial process brought against the extraordinary findings at this site (2006-07). 

It is a hopeful development that allows to place some serious manager on top of the archaeology of this Basque region. However it is an event that has not been caused by exposure to the Iruña-Veleia scandal: but by partisan politics on matters unrelated and of purely political nature. At least apparently, this case of cultural nepotism and shameless manipulation has not been denounced by any politician but the former third coalition partner Aralar, and that only because some of its members seem just too honest to do otherwise.

Now the Deputy General (provincial "prime minister"), Xabier Agirre (EAJ-PNV) has the chance of appointing someone who is not motivated by the, sadly too usual, corrupt second motives but by genuine interest in clarifying the matter with truth as the only parameter. After all, Agirre, as the direct boss of de Lacalle, shares some responsibility and now has the occasion to clear his name in this murky matter. 

I have many doubts on what direction will take the Culture department after the remodeling that will happen next week. But let us hope that Agirre has learned something from all this scandal and takes the opportunity to clear his own name by appointing a serious and honest new Deputy.

In the worst case, he can appoint a "clone" of de Lacalle. But, if he does, so, I and many others will hold him and his party directly responsible. So I believe it would not be a smart move because throwing one's political fortune along with the dishonest bunch that have organized this inquisitorial scandal for no reason at all sounds totally stupid. 

I have seen many stupid things done in Basque politics but this would be one of the most idiotic ones, I believe. So I do keep some hope, the same that I stubbornly keep some hope on Humankind. 

(Ref. Gara[es])

Lakarra's bad linguistics fierily denounced in anonymous linguistic paper-pamphlet

J. Lakarra

The other development, that I do welcome, is the denunciation made by some Basque-language philologist against the ignorant lingistics of Basque Language Academy member Joseba Lakarra, the main ringleader against the

While in general academic publications are signed and peer-reviewed, in this case there are many reasons to remain anonymous: Lakarra's power in the Basque linguistic establishment is immense and of mafioso style, and that has been confirmed to me often in private communications, and counts with the interested support of the most reactionary schools of Spanish pseudo-historic and pseudo-linguistic scholarship, not less affected by cronyism and lack of scientific method in many cases. 

So any linguist, or in general scholar, throwing these truths around better does from the vintage point of anonymity, at risk of losing income and job. Additionally, anonymity allows the author to be more blunt, direct and even often sarcastic. In this particular case at least, I believe it is totally justified. 

The paper/pamphlet (in Spanish language) is titled: La Filología Vasca pese a Joseba Lakarra Andrinua (Basque Philology in spite of Joseba Lakarra Andrinua) and can be found HERE (downloadable PDF manuscript).

I think it is a must-read for anyone interested in Basque philology. It should be also a must-read for anyone with a honest interest in clarifying what has happened in relation to the Iruña-Veleia graffiti, because this Joseba Lakarra academic guy is the boss of all ringleaders in the cultural genocide and pseudo-scientific inquisition exerted in the case of the Western Vasco-Roman city.

However it has the handicap for international readers that it is only available in Spanish (this should not be a problem for most linguists anyhow). So I am advancing here some translated excerpts:

One can be a horrible philologist in two ways: one à la Gorrochategui, namely: being a professor of Indoeuropean, not to be any epigrapher, and get into trying to interpret an inscription in a non-Indoeuropean language. This way of being a philologist carries the risks usual of all imprudences: to read DESCARTES in an inscription of the 3rd century.

It is a way of doing philology that is laughable and entertaining, specially for those among us who are indeed philologists. It is also a way of exerting the discipline that is luckily harmless, for as much as the clumsiness committed are so obvious that all possible damage to philology is effectively aborted by putting an end to the credibility of whoever this day exerts our discipline. 

The other way of being a horrible philologist is à La Lakarra, that is: to know two or three things, but not knowing when to close your mouth. This is in itself the more harmful way, specially when our big-mouthed philologist manages to become editor of some pseudo-academic publication, moment when every attempt to make him shut up becomes hopeless. And this is the way in which our character, Joseba Koldobika Lakarra Andrinua, wants to exert the philological discipline. 

That our character is person of bad faith was already pondered by Luis Núñez Astrain when, in his work, El euskara arcaico: extensiones y relativos, page 122, wrote of the somewhat Olympian tone of that this professor styles usually. The Olympian tone expression is nothing but an euphemism that means insulting...

The paper-pamphlet is too long and erudite for me to make an extensive criticism but what it unveils is very important to understand how Basque native linguistic science has been kidnapped by a petty academic mafia in which this individual of mediocre knowledge, excessive egomania and power-mongering instinct has played a central role.

It is specially important to understand why he and his pseudo-scientific and academically-entrenched minions have attacked with such might against the extraordinary findings of Iruña-Veleia, with the help of some irresponsible politicians such as the aforementioned former Deputy of Culture, Lorena López de Lacalle.

After quoting a 2006 paragraph from Lakarra, the "masked philologist" writes:

Take note of the expression falsifying reality. And take note of it because it is precisely in the year 2006 when Reality throws its first kick right to the mouth of our bellowing Lakarra: the discovery of the Iruñea-Veleia graffiti, dated in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. (...)

After all, when the unsuspecting archaeologists unearthed thousands of pieces with texts in Basque language, what they were doing in fact was nothing less than burying all the Lakarra project (...)

... what do the Iruña-Veleia graffiti say against the philological rantings of Lakarra, that so much panic and anxiety cause? Why that obsession for burying what archaeologists dug up?

It is enough to read the replies by Juan Martín Elexpuru (2009), Héctor Iglesias (2009) and Luis Silgo (2010), along with the Lakarrian program to get the exact idea of why for Lakarra the graffiti of Iruña-Veleia should have never existed. The story that such graffiti tell could support or deny, or not at all affect the Lakarrian program of copy-paste that Lakarra wants to make out for the Basque language out of the ideas of von der Gabelentz, Skalicka, Lehmann, Donegan, Stampe, Gil  and Plank. But prevention is best, and better to ignore the facts, essential evil of philology, and prevent others from contrasting them. For those who emit theories without the previous step of formulating hypothesis, facts are nothing but a nuisance, as every messiah knows. 

The Lakarrian, so boringly repeated in each and all of his tiresome essays, rests on the following premises:

1. That glottochronology and comparative genetic reconstruction are a devilish instrument destined for the idlers.
2. That Ruhlen, Greenberg and Venemman are the Devilish Trinity.
3. That only the internal reconstruction method of Michelena is valid, not just for Basque but for whatever other language one wishes to study, and this one rests on the criterion of canonical form as typical of the reconstruction at the deepest level.

 (...)

This new reconstructing paradigm is not exempt of some fascist stench and, notice, that everyone who does not embrace the new faith will be excommunicated and hold as lazy and idler or even worse: as etymologist, Nostraticist, glottochronologist, practicer of lexicostatistics or god knows which other abominable appellative.

(...)

What is left of the pompous Lakarrian plan that he has been using to torture us for more than a decade? Only the opportunist Lakarra, the one who learned a couple of things from here and there, the Lakarra that has not been able to learn in these ten years to stop insulting others, to be less demeaning with those he likes to call "my enemies". (...) No excuses! What one has to do is to work more and better, and, if one cannot for whatever reason, at least to work in silence. He had just outside his home's yard excellent material to begin working: the Iruña-Veleia shards. 

(...)

General background resources:

For further extensive information on the Iruña-Veleia scandal you can read (mostly in Spanish) at SOS Iruña-Veleia. They include a large collection of images of the controversial graffiti, kept so far hidden from view and scientific analysis by the provincial government of Araba.

You can also read several articles in English at this blog and at my old blog Leherensuge. I would particularly recommend this extensive post I wrote in October, which deals also with Lakarra and de Lacalle, as well as the demolition archaeology of Julio Núñez, and discusses the whole matter in some depth.


Update (Nov 28): if you are fluent in Spanish, maybe you'd like to go back to the not so distant past, the year 2007, and listen to this interview with Carlos Crespo, the third archaeologist of Lurmen, when the exceptional findings of Iruña-Veleia were still considered real by all... except the rumoring camarilla around Lakarra. Courtesy of Hala Bedi Irratia, found via Ostraka Euskalduna.

Linguistics: more on the shared IE-Basque word for bear (*h₂ŕ̥tḱos and hartz)

I was speculating the other day on the possibility that certain Indoeuropean terms meaning bear could have a Vascoid substrate as they resemble a lot the Basque word for bear: hartz. However I was soon corrected by a reader, Waggg, who indicated that there is strong evidence for a proto-Indoeuropean root *h₂ŕ̥tḱos and that variants of this word are widespread in Indoeuropean languages from both Europe and Asia.

I did accept the correction but my doubts remained: why of all animals only the word for bear appears to be an Indoeuropean loanword into Basque? Not even the name of the horse (the animal most characteristically associated with IEs) is such a borrowing (it is zaldi in Basque). Could it be that the word was introduced into proto-Indoeuropean before this linguistic family experienced expansion? 

Another unclear issue is why the Basque word hartz has the /h/ at the beginning if it was a borrowing from Celtic arth? This initial h, which is silent in southern dialects but aspired in the North, is generally accepted to be a residue from an original /k/ (or /g/), which seems attested in ancient Aquitanian epigraphy. It would just make no sense whatsoever to have it added to this suspicious borrowing.

So I asked linguist Roslyn M. Frank (University of Iowa), who speaks Basque more fluently than I do, and she just replied attaching some notes with permission to publish. I reproduce them here in their totality (just boldfacing the last paragraph, which is maybe the most relevant one):

[Notice: minor corrections added in Nov. 28 by suggestion of author]

Unquestionably, the reverent attitude of these two bear keepers underlines the fact that the bear was deeply respected among the Basques. He was treated with similar reverence across both America and Eurasia in times past, as is evidenced in the case of rites for the dead bear celebrated until recently in Lapland, Alaska, British Columbia and Quebec. "All across North America, Indians have honored bears. When northern hunting tribes killed one, they spoke to its spirit, asking for its forgiveness. They treated the carcass reverently; among these tribes the ritual for a slain bear was more elaborate than that for any other food animal (Rockwell 1991:2)." As Shepard (Shepard and Sanders 1992: 80) has observed, there is evidence of a wide and ancient distribution of bear ritual. It is present in virtually every country of Western and Eastern Europe, in Asia south to Iran, and among many of the Indian nations of the United States, even into Central and South America. For example, the Asiatic Eskimos held that during the festival of the slain bear, the bear's shadow-soul could hear and understand the speech of humans and men, no matter where they were (Shepard and Sanders 1991: 86), while the Tlingit said, "People must always speak carefully of bear people since bears [no matter how far away] have the power to hear human speech. Even though a person murmurs a few careless words, the bear will take revenge" (Rockwell 1991: 64). The Basque bear keepers' words echo a similar belief in the bear's ability to understand human speech. And, far from describing him as a cuddly pet, the Basques' comments, represent the bear as a familiar yet awesome being, in a fashion comparable to that of northern peoples for whom he is "un animal intelligent, habile, humain, familier et redouté” (Mathieu 1984: 12).

Among Finno-Ugric peoples and Native American groups, the bear is viewed as omnipotent and omnipresent. He has the power to hear all that is said. For this reason hunters would avoid mentioning the bear's real name, choosing rather to address him with euphemisms. That these were the qualities attributed to the European Celestial Bear and his earthly representatives, can be demonstrated in social practice by the semantic taboo existing among Slavic and Germanic peoples which led them to avoid mentioning the bear's real name, an avoidance pattern which, in all likelihood, stemmed from a profound adherence to the tenets of this shamanic cosmovision. The substitute term utilized in Slavic languages was "honey-eater," while Germanic tribes preferred to call him the "brown one," an expression that gave rise eventually to the English word "bear," linked etymologically to the words "brown" and "bruin" (Praneuf 1989: 28–32).[1]

In contrast, it would appear that other European peoples kept the original etymon for "bear", although they may well have avoided using it when they were in the presence of the animal or when they were hunting him. For example, there is the example of the name of the main character found in the Basque cycle of oral tales, Hartzkume. The word is a compound formed by (h)artz "bear" and -kume "offspring, baby." The set of Indo-European cognates for bear includes words such as ours (French), art (Irish), arth (Welsh), arz/ourz (Breton), arsa (Avestan) and rksa (Sanscrit) as well as arktos (Greek) (Buck 1988: 186). As is well known, from the Greek etynom arktos comes our word Arctic, the region lying towards the two Sky Bears (cf. Krupp 1991: 232).

Because of the phonological nature of the Basque word for bear, (h)artz (pronounced more or less like the second element in the English expression "fine arts"), linguists such as Holmer have argued that the word must be identified with the set of cognates found in languages classified as Indo-European. But in Basque, according to Holmer, the etymon is "conserved in a more archaic form than in any other Indo-European language (Holmer 1950: 403). In summary, the semantic relationship holding between the Basque word for bear and those found in the Indo-European languages cited above suggests that, in the case of this item, we are dealing with a wide spread archaic semantic artifact embedded still today in many IE languages. The IE etymon, because of its phonological similarity to the Basque item, could be traced back to a much older European linguistic substratum, one dating back to 4000 B.C., that is, to a period contemporary with bear ceremonialism and the point in time when the projection of the Bear Son stories skywards began to take place. Similarly, this chronology would situate the semantic artifact in Europe prior to the emergence of modern Indo-European languages, as a pre-Indo-European phenomenon that coincided with the rise of megalithic peoples and their fascination with the heavens.[2]

Original footnotes:

[1] Specifically the IE etynom is bher-, "bright, brown," gave rise to the Old English form bera, and eventually to the Modern English word bear. The word "bruin" is a cognate of this group, often used in English to refer not to the color "brown" but to bears themselves (Cf. Watkins 1969: 1509).

[2] Praneuf (1989:28) cites the following western variants of the same etynom: Hindi rich, Gypsy rich, Persan khers, Kurd hirç, Sariqoli of Pamir yurkh, Pactau of Afganistan yaz, as well as two eastern European representatives that are remarkably similar phonologically to the Basque item (h)artz, namely, the Armenian arch or ardch and the form ars found in Caucasian, although the Caucasian form refers to a "bear cub" rather than to a "bear." Thus, further evidence for Holmer's hypothesis concerning the archaic nature of the Basque word is found in the similarity holding between the reflexes of the etynom in the eastern and western extremes of the geographical zone, e.g., in Armenian and Caucasian and in Basque. I would like to thank Ryan McGonigle who first brought the Armenian item to my attention several years ago. As an aside, it would appear that the Basque word began with an aspirated /h/. This sound has been lost in the southern dialects of the language.

Also she explained:

As for the 4000 BC time frame, that was simply a rough date, but one that IE linguists often assign to PIE.

Perforated ostrich egg vessels from Upper Paleolithic China

I was totally unaware until now that there had been ostriches in Asia, much less as recently as the last Ice Age.

It seems they did exist and that modern humans used their eggs as either vessels or ornaments (or both) some 20,000 years ago.

 

The discovery was made at Xuchang (Henan) by archaeologists of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

Source: Pileta de Prehistoria[en]

Some more linguistic musings: bear and cub

I'm reading a fascinating paper (open access at Insula magazine, issues no. 3, 4 and 5) by US linguist Roslyn M. Frank (earlier mentioned in Leherensuge in relation with the Iruña-Veleia controversy), which among other things deals with the cosmological and mythological importance of the bear, preserved in the astonishingly similar carnival performances of some Basque and Sardinian towns (see in my previous linguistic musings how I strongly suspect that the name of the Mediterranean island comes from the word sardine, which has a quite unmistakable Basque/Vascoid etymology).

Bear: ursus, arctos, hartz

While reading it I realized that I had forgotten to mention another likely Vascoid widespread European (primarily Mediterranean) group of words: those meaning bear.

Bear is said hartz (nom. hartza) in Basque, arctos in Greek and ursus in Latin (and so the brown bear is known in biology as Ursus arctos). The similitude of hartz and arctos should be strikingly obvious. I suspect that ursus is also related (and this makes me think of the attested Basque deity Urtzi, which in turn relates with the divine or supernatural importance given to the bear in pre-Christian European mythologies, preserved until recently under a Christian varnish).

Update: a reader mentions that this term seems Indoeuropean, with quite clear cognates in Eastern IE and Hittite. Asian IE is generally a good control, so I accept the correction. I was surely mislead by the fact that neither Germanic nor Slavic use this word, but their specific terms seem to have arisen as taboo avoidance, meaning "brown" and "honey eater" respectively (see this).

In this case it'd seem Basques imported the word from Celtic, whose terms (art, arth) are very close in sound. Why this borrowing? Maybe taboo avoidance as well?

Of course there's always the possibility that it's a well conserved pan-European word, which would bring me to whether IE and Basque could be distantly related. But this is too complicated for what I dare to explore with my limited means.

Update (Nov. 25): There are at least some qualified opinions that do support the Indoeuropean root *h₂ŕ̥tḱos being a cognate of Basque hartz, maybe in the context of ancient pan-European cosmologies in which this animal seems to have played a major role. See this new post for a more complete explanation.

Ram and billy-goat: aries, ahari and aker

Related to this Mediterranean spread, I must mention another striking similarity and most likely Vasco-Greek cognate which is the word for ram (male sheep). As anyone minimally acquainted with Astrology knows, the Latin word for ram is aries. Curiously enough the Basque term for ram is ahari. 

The h is silent in the peninsular dialects (/a:ri/) but aspired in the continental ones (and that's why it's written in fact). As I have mentioned it is generally believed that this /h/ sound was once a /k/ (or /g/ maybe occasionally). What happens when you deconstruct this phonetic change? Ahari becomes akari, which is strikingly similar to the Basque word for billy-goat: aker.

I used to think this ahari word was a Neolithic loanword but maybe not after all.

Cub, kume

Anyhow what really pushed me to write these musings, this note, was to realize that English word cub could also have a Vascoid etymology. Suddenly I read hartzkume, mistranslated as "little bear". But it is more accurately "bear cub" (kume: cub, whelp, related ume: child) and, thanks to that tiny translation error, I just realized how close is that word to its Basque equivalent kume (the m<>b phonetic change is relatively common, it seems, and it has even been argued for Basque that all /m/ sounds were once /b/ - though not too convincingly, as /m/ is attested in Iberian and is a too common distinct phoneme). 

Wikitionary offers two possible etymologies: Old Norse kobbi (seal) and Old Irish cuib (whelp, modernly nest). I would think that the Irish connection seems stronger and more clear, with a likely Vascoid substrate in the end related to Basque kume.

Update: However, if the Irish etymology would be wrong, and considering that the word "cub" is first registered in English in the 16th century, it could be a case of borrowing in the context of the Hundred Years' War, in which parts of the Basque Country and Gascony were joined to the English crown.

This is also hypothesized for the English expression "by Jingo" (modernly derived into "jingoism"), which would have derived from Basque Jainko (God) in that 15th century context of the Angevin empire.

First ancient mtDNA nice maps

Guess that last week's aperitif left you hungry for more and improved ancient mtDNA maps. At least that is my case. However it is hard to check all sequences, in some cases having to re-read the original papers, keep record, double-check for errors and get Open Office to do what you want it to do.

Still I am advancing, even snails do move. And finally I can offer you some of these maps, more will come soon, I believe.

I hope you like these:

Early/Middle UP - click to enlarge

Late UP - click to enlarge

Epipaleolithic/Euphrates Neolithic - click to enlarge

Enjoy.

Alexander Shulgin, 85, hospitalized with a stroke. Donations and volunteers asked to preserve his work

Ann and Alexander Shulgin

I just learned via Psychedelic Research that one of the greatest researchers in psychoactive drugs, Alexander Shulgin, 85, has been hospitalized with a stroke. He was surgically intervened two years ago to replace a defective aortic valve and, given his age, he may leave us at any moment. 

Shulgin, a Ph. D. Biochemist, has made extensive research in synthesis drugs such the widely known ecstasy, which he intended to use for the treatment of depression and other psychological disorders.

In 1994 he saw his laboratory raided by the DEA after he published PHiKAL, a chemical love story. 

The drug knowledge vault, Erowid, is now asking for volunteers (for transcriptions and image enhancement) and donations in order to help preserve his legacy. You can donate here (either to Erowid or directly to the Shulgins) and you can volunteer your services here.

Some Archaeo News from many millennia ago

A couple of snippets from the latest Archaeo News newsletter from Stone Pages:

Epipaleolithic findings in Monmouth, Wales

They show that the river Wye, at the Welsh-English border, was used for food and transport by Epipaleolithic Britons, some 6500 to 7500 years ago.

Source: BBC








Early Neolithic art form Tal al-Abar, Syrian Kurdistan

Dated to c. 10,000 years ago, they include some nice artwork on chloritis, a greenish semiprecious stone. The artwork includes several panels on this material and some smaller objects.

Source: SANA

Iruña-Veleia hearing at the Western Basque Parliament

Finally the greatest archaeological scandal of our time, at least in the Basque Country, the Iruña-Veleia graffiti controversy, has reached the Basque Parliament.

I have explained this matter earlier in great detail at For what they were... and also in several posts at my old blog Leherensuge, so I will not extend for long here. 

Just to remind here that the "expert Commission" which suddenly decided in 2008 that the graffiti were falsifications did so based only on intellectual opinions, almost all of linguistic nature, and not on any physical evidence. 

As geologist Koenraad van Driesche and philologist Juan Martin Elexpuru explained to members of Parliament yesterday, the Commission and the Provincial Government of Araba have all the time avoided dealing with the physical evidence, which quite clearly, even from mere photographs, demonstrates that the graffiti are genuine. However the physical analyses have not been performed yet because the Provincial Government is blatantly ignoring the repeated demands by Court number 1 of Vitoria-Gasteiz to turn over the archaeological materials so scientific police can perform the appropriate tests, on them, which should settle the matter. 

The Commission, made up mostly by linguists, also decided not to perform any scientific physical tests, without doubt because these would have debunked their working hypothesis, their preconception, that the graffiti are falsifications, hypothesis based only on very questionable linguistic speculations. 

All the documents explaining why civic association SOS Iruña-Veleia thinks that the graffiti are most probably genuine are available at this association's website: van Driesche's link and Elexpuru's link (both in Spanish, though Elexpuru's exposition is also available in Basque). They contain many photos of the graffiti and experimental comparisons with modern day graffiti as well,  all of which clearly shows why these most valuable evidence of ancient Basque and Vulgar Latin, as well as (often Christian) iconography, are not likely to be  falsifications but rather genuine ancient material. 

Elexpuru's exposition also includes links to all reports available on this matter, both against and in favor of the shards' authenticity (all them in Spanish language, except one which is in French).

The current situation, in which a Machiavellian academic-political camarilla has attained control of the rich archaeological site in order to destroy all evidence is simply unacceptable. There should be heads rolling all around, first of all that of Lorena López de Lacalle, provincial Deputy of Culture and main political actress in this matter. But the complex political situation and the massive propaganda campaign promoted by the institutions have made this natural evolution of things quite difficult to achieve. 

Still I do believe that eventually truth shall prevail. As the motto adopted by SOS Iruña-Veleia reads: Scientia vincere tenebras (science defeats darkness) but  for now the battle between the two forces is still ongoing.

Sources[eu]: Ostraka Euskalduna, Iruña-Veleia Gezurra ala Egia?

Neanderthal teeth show faster development than H. sapiens

Another little piece of information indicating that there are substantial differences between the two big-headed Homo species.

Tanya M. Smit et al., Dental evidence for ontogenetic differences between modern humans and Neanderthals. PNAS 2010. Open access. 

Armed with state-of-the-art tomographic scanners, this paleontological team was determined to settle what previous research had only found inconclusive: whether Neanderthal development was faster paced or similar to that of Homo sapiens.

The results seem quite clear:

Fig. 3 (Predicted ages are derived from human radiographic
calcification standards).

Neanderthals, but not ancient H. sapiens, clearly deviate from the developmental pattern of our species, with teeth (and hence most likely all them) developing faster than among us.

It seems from this data that a 12 y.o. Neanderthal would be as developed as a 16 y.o. modern human. One can easily infer that they should reach puberty some 2-3 years earlier than we do, though this is not directly in the teeth and also shows some notable variability among modern humans.

Interview with E. Aznar: Basque was spoken in La Rioja before the Romans arrived

La Rioja, Errioxa in Basque, is modernly a province and autonomous community of Spain and has been held by Castile since the 12th century, excepting minor parts still belonging to Araba. However it was earlier an important part of the Kingdom of Pamplona (later Navarre), which even moved its capital to Nájera (Basque Naiara), where many Pamplonese monarchs are buried. 

Previously it was maybe part of the Visigothic marche against Basques known as Duchy of Cantabria, which has left the toponym Sierra de Cantabria and the legend of the destroyed City of Cantabria, maybe Iruña-Veleia in nearby Araba and earlier part of the Roman province of Tarraconensis (earlier Hispania Citerior), a region sometimes known as Ager Vasconicum (the fields of the Basques or Vascones). From this period we know that three tribes inhabited it: Vascones at the East, Berones (believed Celtic) at the center and Autrigones at the West. In the Iron Age it was penetrated indeed by late Urnfield culture offshoots and evidence of violent struggles has been found, most notably maybe in the once prosperous town of La Hoya, whose upper layer is full of bodies slain on the spot, probably by Celtic invaders.

Follows direct translation (my work) from original interview in Basque language at Berria newspaper this Saturday (found via Ostraka Euskalduna):

According to some scholars, Basque language arrived to La Rioja in the 10th century, together with the Kingdom of Pamplona. However, there are also researchers who argue that Basque or proto-Basque was spoken there before Romans arrived. One of them is historian Eduardo Aznar (Barcelona 1977).

What have you gathered in the book "El euskara en La Rioja. Primeros testimonios" (Basque language in La Rioja. Earliest evidence)?

This book is the first part of a work explaining that Basque language had a presence in La Rioja. In these books, I research the oldest Basque indications, and later, the second part, which deals with Middle Ages and modern toponimy, will also be published.

Which are the first evidences that Basque language left in La Rioja?

In the first book, I work with some onomastic materials from funerary slabs that were uncovered in the 1980s. These slabs appeared at the district of Tierras Altas, in modern Soria province (Castile-León, Spain) but they fit in the geography of La Rioja. Of these slabs, so far 11 appear to be indigenous proto-Basque. We believe that they were indigenous people who lived under Roman rule: they look Basque by the nicknames. The most clear example is Sesenco[1], the slab with that nickname also carries an image of a bull at the base. In the book, besides funerary slabs, I work with ancient toponymy and data from the period, looking for Basque traces.

Nevertheless, some experts defend that Basque language only arrived to La Rioja with the repopulations organized by the kings of Pamplona.

In my opinion, evidence like these slabs do confirm that Basque language was in La Rioja before the kings of Pamplona and before the Romans arrived. After researching these slabs and the toponymy, to say that Basque language arrived only with repopulations is to play with preconceptions.

Some researchers say that at Roman arrival, Calahorra was the main city of the Vascones. 

Yes, of course. All classic authors say that Calahorra was a Vasco[2] city. Today a lot of experts try to claim that Kalagorri[3] was Celtiberian but there is no evidence to support that. Another thing would be whether the local language was only proto-Basque or more languages were also spoken. For instance, it has shown up that local coins with the legend Kalagorrikos. To Basque-origin Kalagorri, Celtiberian suffix -kos was added. We may think that, maybe, in spite the Vasco origins of Kalagorri it seems that there was a Celtic elite[4].

However, if you go to the Roman Museum of Calahorra the word Vasco(-nes) does not show up anywhere. Why?

In my opinion, it is something within the intent of the authors. Sadly, there are a lot preconceptions in this aspect, and all the evidence is against what some researchers claim about Vascones only holding at the Pyrenees. Seemingly, in all this matter scientists do not combine the ideas that actually exist.

In the past, were you defending the early Basque-ness of La Rioja?

There were other authors. But this research is the deepest and most developed so far. Following the books order, first resarch was done by Fray Mateo de Anguiano a Riojan erudite who published in 1704. Already by the end of the 17th century, Anguiano knew that there were many Basque toponyms in La Rioja. However, the one to get deepest in the matter was Basque academic Juan Bautista Merino Urrutia, who researched in the middle 20th century. He was the one to make know, for example, his native Ojacastro town's fazaña or sentence. In those documents from between 1234 and 1239 it is shown how the Supreme Judge of Castile jailed the Mayor of Ojacastro for allowing to make declarations before tribunals in Basque language. Luckily for him, he was later freed, as his stand was allowed by the local old law.

Appendix: Fernando Fernández Palacios, Actualización en onomástica Vasco-Aquitana. Acta Paleohispánica 2009 (PDF).  

The introduction is in Spanish but it is essentially an incoplete collection of onomastic and theonymy from the Southern Basque Country and neighbouring areas in Spain, and, curiously enough, a German and a Sardinian site. It includes some of the Riojan slab names. Thanks to Heraus.
____________________________________________________

Translator's notes:

[1] Sesenco: must be little bull < zezen (bull) + -(s)ko (diminutive in Aquitanian epigraphy, now -txo or -txu)

[2] Vascones, singular Vasco per Wikipedia (properly sourced). From which modern Spanish and others Vasco (Basque). Typically in Spanish vascon (derived modern Basque baskoi) is used but this does not seem to be correct in Latin, only making sense via Romances, where plural is often made by the addition of -es or -s. However Vascon might have been correct in Vulgar Latin I guess, but still I'm sticking to classical Latin grammar while using English.

[3] See my brief discussion with Heraus on related Aquitanian (Gascon) toponym Calagorris Convenarum at his blog Discover Gascony!

[4] Definitively the advance of Iron Age Urnfields (influenced by Hallstatt) to the Iberian Plateau was through the Upper Ebro: La Rioja mostly and to some extent also Araba and the lowlands of Navarre. This was a crucial step in the eventual Celtization of the Iberian Plateau and Western lands (Lusitania, Gallaecia).

Ancient mtDNA advance maps

As I said yesterday I am these days working on updating and re-drawing my ancient mtDNA maps series. But I do not want to be a mere parroting of what authors reported on their papers, often long ago or with questionable criteria, as I did in the past, so I am dedicating a lot of time to double-checking each sequence with the help of PhyloTree. It'd be a lot easier to merely replicate their assumptions but I would feel uneasy about that. 

By the moment I have double-checked all Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic ("Mesolithic") sequences, with the line drawn at the arrival of farmers to Central Europe c. 7500 years ago (exception will be made to accommodate older Euphrates Neolithic data into the Neolithic map rather than in the Late UP/Epipaleolithic one, where it'd be odd). However I have not yet been able to draw aesthetically decent pie charts, so by the moment here you have totally ugly draft maps with mere text indicators (what has one advantage: I can more detailedly name each haplogroup, when known).

Early and Middle Upper Paleolithic (30-17,000 BP):

click to expand

Most noticeable is, as I advanced yesterday, that mtDNA H appears to be confirmed already some 25,000 years in Sunghir, Russia. Say whatever you want but H17'27 is the only extant haplogroup that fits with that sequence.

Caution with the Paviland (Wales) site because the DNA was not cloned, what makes it pretty much unreliable.

CRS sequences are still likely to be H or HV but this cannot be confirmed, specially as some aDNA with CRS HVS-I sequences happened to be U* in fact after checking the Coding Region transitions. Technically CRS may mean a wide range of haplogroups downstream of R but most are exotic in relation to Europe and in practical terms it tends to indicate H or HV clades, at least for the vast majority of modern sequences.

A similar case are those labeled R*, which means R* (non-CRS), the mutations detected do not seem to point to any modern haplogroup. 

L3* is usually said to be N* but this cannot be correct in the Paglicci case because of the transition at 10873C, so it must be L3(xN). It may still be M but this is uncertain.

Another interesting detail is the finding of the first known U5 and JT (JT*) in Solutrean Iberia.

Late Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic (16-8,000 BP):

click to expand

This map has a lot of interesting stuff. Most noticeable maybe is the geographic restriction of R* plus H to the SW parts of Europe and North Morocco, indicating maybe a pruning of everything non-U in the Eastern parts of Europe where the effect of the Last Glacial Maximum was most noticeable (please, read this post). 

As I said before we cannot be sure that R* (with or without CRS HVS-I sequence) is H or HV but there is some high likelihood, specially as unmistakable H1b shows up in Portugal (if the case of Sunghir did not persuade you already). Importantly in this sense is that there are no migrations into Europe between Gravettian (Sunghir) and Epipaleolithic (Portugal), unless one wants to argue for a North African origin of mtDNA H, which seems quite hard.

While L3* can be N (or M), there is one Portuguese sequence, originally identified as N*, that quite clearly says L3d2, a haplogroup found (as far as I know) only in Burkina Fasso, however relative L3d1"5* is found in Syria, among other places (Chad, Kenya), so maybe it has a West Asian origin (ref. post), however a North African origin is more likely in my opinion. 

Another interesting finding is that U4 was not, it seems, restricted to NE Europe in this period but shows up also in Iberia and Morocco. However the Portuguese case's identification is not 100% sure, as one of three HVS-I transitions is not found in modern sequences (yet the other two define U4a3, otherwise dump it in the R* category).

All sources and full sequences can be found at Building History's ancient DNA page (thanks to Jean again for her excellent job). Please feel free to point out any error I may have committed, thanks in advance.

Sunghir ancient mtDNA: is it H17'27?

I am these days trying to update my already obsolete map series on European and Mediterranean ancient mtDNA, as I did in the past I'm using Jean Manco's site as reference. 

However many clades seem poorly described (maybe because the haplogroup knowledge has varied since the papers were published) and I'm taking my time trying to identify the confusing haplogroups when possible. 

One of the strangest cases is the two individuals from Sunghir, in Central Russia, from Gravettian times (25,000 BP). Their well preserved mtDNA has only one mutation from the Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS), which is H2a2a, in the HVS-1 (source). 

While the "raw CRS" in the HVS-1 region is relatively common (specially within mtDNA H but occasionally in U* and R0 and HV as well), haplogroups with the 16129A mutation (and only that one) are not. 

In fact, after studying the matter with the help of PhyloTree, I realized that only one modern haplogroup carries that mutation: H17'27 (expanded from an original H17 finding by Roostalu in 2007, now known as H17a). I've been searching for further information and there is not much but at least the haplogroup was detected at a frequency of 0.5% in a pooled sample of Central Europe,  the Balkans and Dubai by A. Brandstätter in 2008.

Another finding was to realize that someone else had noticed this fact before I did: someone by the name of Maciamo posted his surprise at that same finding (he calls it pre-H17 but it's the same thing) at the forum of Eupedia almost a year ago.

So are we before the oldest known mtDNA H ever and finally the evidence supporting my theory that this haplogroup spread at the colonization of Europe, as the huge star-like structure it has (only comparable to that of M, produced at the beginning of the Eurasian colonization)? I believe so.

Notice that it is not mtDNA H-root, which would produce an imprecise "CRS" sequence, but already a derived lineage, indicating that the spread of mtDNA H happened before this date of 25,000 years ago, that is at least as early as the Gravettian expansion.

Pleasure, not calories, reduces stress

Experimental research with rats showed that those able to access occasionally sources of pleasure, such as sweet solution treats or sexually receptive partners, have lower stress levels than those who cannot, even if the same amount of calories was fed directly to stomach.

Full story at Science Daily.

Ref. Yvonne M. Ulrich-Lai et al., Pleasurable behaviors reduce stress via brain reward pathways. PNAS 2010 (pay per view for six months).

This finding (somewhat self-evident, I'd dare say) left me wondering about why so many religious sects repress pleasure and I must conclude that the real reason is to create perpetually stressed adepts. Now, what's the advantage (for the sect) of perpetual stress among its flock? Are perpetually unsatisfied people more easily manipulable? I will presume so even if the exact mechanism eludes me.

Linguistic musings

West European linguistic stuff that seems so obviously Basque that it hurts:

Italy-centered:

• bi-, "Latin" preffix meaning "two" or "twice", very much extended to other European languages. < Basque bi (two), maybe via Ligurian or some other pre-IE Italian language. 
• sardine and related Sardinia. < sardin(-a/-e) (sardine) < sarda (fish school) + -in ('doer', 'maker', probably from verb egin: to do, to make)

General West IE:

• -er/-ero, suffix indicating profession (i.e. carpenter) < proto-Germanic *-arjoz OR Latin -arium < Basque -ari (professional suffix) < ari (auxiliar verb of action)  <> arin (quick, fast) <> aritu (to hurry)

English:

• ill and kill - oddly similar to Basque hil (pronounced like ill, to die or to kill) < proto-Vasco-Aquitanian *kil (h, silent in the South but aspired in the North, seems to derivate from lost k - or g). Mediated by old Norse illr apparently in the case of ill (but not kill, whose etymology is uncertain).
• to as particle for infinitive verbs (i.e. to do). While it might have a precedent in old Anglosaxon, it does not seem to have any other Indoeuropean cognate with this meaning of verbal particle. But in Basque it is one (and the most common) of three infinitive suffixes: -tu (pronounced exactly like to), -i and -n. 

I also considered ash (Basque auts) but this one seems to have legitimate Indoeuropean origins (Sanskrit asa and others) and could be a borrowing by Basque or whatever else (I'm not discarding remote shared origin of Basque and Indoeuropean, which would be less surprising than the unlikely Dene-Caucasian hypothesis, honestly).  

Another word I have wondered about in English is black, which looks similar to Basque beltz, same meaning (compound variant bel-/-bel as in beldur (fear) or urbel (blackwater, a river near Burgos), vide also bele: raven), which could be from a conjectural Vascoid root *belaK. However there's an alternative etymology related to blank and, via that word, to Romance blanc, blanco (white), via highly conjectural proto-Germanic *blakaz < PIE *blegh (no other known derivatives, it seems). So uncertain.

Iberian languages:

• Castilian izquierda, Catalan esquerra, Galician/Portuguese esquerda < Basque ezker (left) or Iberian iskeŕ (argued to mean left or hand), and maybe related to Basque esker(-tu), meaning to thank (also eskerrak, eskerrik mean thanks as noun, pl. - never found in singular form, same in this aspect to what happens in other languages of West Europe: gracias, thanks...). Oddly enough some linguists reject this etymology biased by the negative perception of the left hand in Indoeuropean and particularly Latin (sinestra), which does not seem to exist in Basque (see the discussion at Vasco-Caucasian blog by promising Catalan linguist Octavià Alexandre)

If you have any ideas or criticisms, please let me know. I'm mostly actively exploring so I welcome them (Indoeuropean Paleolithic Continuity freaks please abstain: that hypothesis is plain nonsense). 

More ancient mtDNA from a peripheral Danubian population

Wolfang Haak's team is again providing interested, yet unclearly representative, ancient mtDNA data from the Elbe region:

Haak W, Balanovsky O, Sanchez JJ, Koshel S, Zaporozhchenko V, et al. Ancient DNA from European Early Neolithic Farmers Reveals Their Near Eastern Affinities. PLoS Biololgy 2010. Open access.

[doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000536]

Caution foreward

Before I proceed discussing the findings, which are interesting, I must warn of two caveats:

One concerns the use by Haaks et al. of only the HVS-I fragment of the mtDNA, which in many cases is inconclusive for haplogroup identification. In this sense, Bramanti made a much better job in 2009 by checking also the control region for more clearly defining mutations which in some cases were decisive in clarifying haplogroup adscription. I had hoped this example of carefulness would set precedent, but seems not.

The other is the concentration of the new and old samples in a very small area of the Middle Elbe, which is totally unrepresentative of the wider Danubian Neolithic. This was a major issue in the previous research (2005) and is aggravated by the new data coming only from Derenburg. I would highly commend trying to get more samples from further south, specially Hungary, Austria, Moravia and the Rhine basin, where the bulk of Danubian Neolithic (LBK) existed. Alternatively I'd commend to compare the Elbe group and the other Danubians separately, in order to discern if there are more or less important differences, as there is a very serious risk of the Elbe group being not really representative for the whole Danubian Neolithic peoples.

On the positive side, I applaud publishing this new paper as open access and I rather like the comparison with modern populations they made.

The data

The new 22 Derenburg mtDNA samples, which make 27 after adding the five ones from the previous study, include three individuals each (13.64%) from each of the following haplogroups: H, HV, J, T, N1a and K. Additionally two individuals (9.09%) belong to W, while one is V and another U5a (4.55% each).

Y-DNA was successfully sequenced from three individuals, which make now the oldest Y-DNA sequences anywhere in the World. They are two F(xG,H,J,I,K) and one G2a3, very much marginal in the modern Y-DNA pools, confirming the outlier nature of these farmers and their likely low impact on modern Europeans, even in Central Europe itself.

Comparisons and analysis

Most interesting are the PCA analysis (fig. 2) and the genetic distances with modern populations, expressed on a map in fig. 3.

PCA (fig.2) annotated by me

The most obvious conclusion is that Danubians, specially the hyper-mega-super-ultra-oversampled Elbe group, are total outliers in the context of all modern populations, throwing downhill the hypothesis of Neolithic replacement even for the Central European case.

The most similar populations are Highland West Asians (Anatolia-Caucasus) by PC1 and some Central Europeans and French by PC2.

It is also notable that an also quite suspicious "hunter-gatherer" aDNA pool (mostly from the Baltic area and in many cases actually peripheral Neolithic), labeled HG and dominated by U5 and U4 haplogroups, is much closer to modern Europeans than the LBK peoples. However their best modern match are Mordvins (MOR), suggesting these may represent best the ancient NE European pre-Neolithic pool, at least mtDNA-wise.

Fig. 3 distances of all LBK samples (A) and Derenburg (B) to modern populations

Warning update (Nov13): it is not the least clear how these maps come from the raw data. I can't find any way in which Anatolia-Caucasus become closer than other regions.

Here it is interesting that the greatest affinities of Danubians are with Anatolia and Picardie, while they have low affinity with Northeasternmost Europeans (Finnic peoples) and then with Ibero-Aquitanians, Welsh-Cornish, Baltics (incl. Belarus), as well as Bosnians. They also have low affinity to the peoples of Arabia and Palestine.

The Derenburg sample looks most akin to modern Iranic peoples such as Kurds, retaining to some extent the Picardie connection as well.

This is overall strongly suggestive of a genuine founder effect in at least some Danubian farmer populations coming ultimately from the Taurus-Zagros area, rather than the Balcans or Hungary.

However their extremely low influence in modern populations still needs of a good explanation.

It is notable that the lineages that best define the position of Danubians in the PCA are N1a, X, W and K. I was already quite persuaded that X and W, as well as the rare N1a, were of Neolithic arrival in Europe, but I was unsure about K. This seems to confirm, I understand, that K, the best-surviving Danubian-specific haplogroup, is of Neolithic origin and dispersal. 

Haplogroup K has in general low frequencies nowadays (c. 6%) but is more concentrated in some scattered regions:

mtDNA K frequency, from Geneamusings

The other relative success history is T, possibly T2. T is widely distributed but T2 shows an star-like structure sign of a sudden expansion, possibly in Neolithic times. K subclades also show sign of sudden expansion, in my opinion, about the same recent period.

As for the other Danubian or Neolithic haplogroups, W is thinly distributed, being most common in Northern Pakistan, finally N1a is also very rare, with largest frequencies among Peninsular Arabians, some Croatian islands, mountain Ruthenians and Volga populations.

For N1a specifically, please notice that renowned geneticist M. Palanichamy concluded that LBK's N1a variant is a native European clade, not a West Asian one.

The other lineages found are more normal among modern populations: HV(xH,V) suggests West Asia as does X. Instead H, V and U5a are most common and probably original from Europe.


For further references in aDNA, visit Jean Manco's excellent page. See also my (not yet updated) map series on European ancient mtDNA.


Important update (Nov 11): 

Eurologist in the comments section makes what seems to be an excellent point: Haak and colleagues have, somewhat arbitrarily, divided the haplotypes in "informative", "non-informative" and "unique" (table S4), on what they found their conclusions and the map of affinities posted above (fig. 3).

The unique clades are those that have no matches, fair enough, but the non-informative ones are the ones that have lots of matches. This is problematic to say the least, because they are happily excluding 59.5% of all matching haplotypes.

So they build the affinities map only on 40.5% of all matching sequences and this is surely not acceptable. Specially when Anatolia, Zagros and Caucasus happen to achieve only a poor 19.8% match overall, while several European regions reach well above 30%.

[Note: had to modify what follows because it contained errors].

When we ignore this arbitrary distinction, the best matching region is Wales+Ireland at 39.8%, followed by:

• >35%: Scandinavia
• 30-35%: Scotland, North-Central England, Portugal, Basques/North Spain, rest of Spain, N. France, mainland Italy, Italian islands, central Germany, South Germany/Austria/Switzerland, Poland and Volga Finns. 
• 25-30%: Iceland, Shetland, other Scottish Islands, West/East England Finnland/Karelia, Low Germany, Baltic countries, South Russia Ukrainie, Belarus, Czech/Slovakia, Croatia/Slovenia, HungariyRomania and  Balkans (minus Greeks).
• 20-25%: North Russia, Volga Turks, Greece and Morocco.
• 15-20%: all West Asia and Caucasus samples. 

So is it the other way around to what Haak et al. claim? Probably the answer is complex rather than simple, as the founder LBK peoples must have been themselves. But it is clear that there are good reasons to think that aboriginal European lineages were already part of the Danubian Neolithic at its very foundations.

Best regional matches by ancient LBK lineage (red: "non-informative", green: "informative"):

• J (069-126) (n=4): Wales/Ireland (30/500)
• H (311) (n=4): Volga Finns (24/500)
• H (CRS) (n=4): Italian islands (112/500)
• H (093) (n=1): W/E England and Scottish islands (7/500 each)
• V (298) (n=2): Basques/North Spanish (32/500)
• T2 (126-294-296-304) (n=3): Baltic countries (19/500)
• T (126-294-296) (n=1): Central Germany and Caucasus (10/500 each)
• T (126-294-304) (n=1): Cezch/Slovaks (7/500)
• W (223-292) (n=1): Finland/Karelia (28/500)
• K (093-224-311) (n=2): Caucasus (10/500)
• K (224-311) (n=2): Iceland (30/500)
• K (224-249-311) (n=2): North Russia (1/500)
• W (093-223-292) (n=2): Baltic countries and Anatolia (1/500 each)
• T2 (093-126-294-296-304) (n=1): Arabs/Cypriots (2/500)
• T2 (126-147-294-296-297-304) (n=1): Scotland (3/500)
• T (126-189-294-296) (n=1): Croatia/Slovenia (4/500)
• T (126-292-294-296) (n=1): Czechs/Slovaks (3/500)
• U5a (093-256-270) (n=1): Iran (3/500)
• N1a (147-172-223-248-355) (n=1): Czech/Slovaks (1/500)
• N1a (147A-172-223-248-320-355) (n=2): Iran (2/500)
• N1a (092-129-147-154-172-223-248-320-355) (n=1): Central/North England, Scandinavia and South Russia (1/500 each)

Additionally there are other four lineages (2 N1a, 1 H and 1 U3) with no known modern matches ("unique").


Update (Nov 12):

Eurologist notices the following, comparing with Palanichamy's paper (mentioned above):

Here are some more matches or close relations when comparing to the data listed in Palanichamy:

"informative":
--------------
N1a (147A-172-223-248-320-355 (n=2): Iran (2/500): also a match each in France and US of European descent

"unique":
---------
N1a (086-147-172-223-248-320-355) - exact match with Portugal, and 1 Austria and 4 Switzerland very close

N1a (129-147-154-172-223-248-320-

355) is relatively close to
(92-129-147A-154-172-223-248-320-355) - Italy, Norway, Germany, Russia