Distribution and origins of M73

[alan]

This paper http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...02929711005490
notes:

As with the mtDNA data set, we also observed differences in NRY haplogroup composition among northern Altaian populations, where each ethnic group shared haplogroups with the other two, yet had distinct haplogroup profiles. Overall, Kumandins had the most disparate haplogroup frequencies of the northern Altaians, exhibiting similar number of N-P43 chromosomes as the Chelkans, which were quite similar to those found in Khanty and Mansi populations in northwestern Siberia.68 and 100 In addition, a large proportion of Kumandin Y chromosomes belonged to R-M73. This haplogroup is largely restricted to Central Asia101 but has also been found in Altai Kazakhs and other southern Siberians.64 and 102 In fact, Myres et al.101 noted two distinct clusters of R-M73 STR haplotypes, with one of them containing Y chromosomes bearing a 19 repeat allele for DYS390, which appears to be unique to R-M73. Interestingly, the majority of Kumandin R-M73 haplotypes fell into this category, although haplotypes from both clusters are found in southern Siberia.102

It is interesting that the paper discusses the big difference between the Mongolian linked south Altains and north Altains like the Kumandin who are more liked with northern Ugric type groups.

[alan]

N.Aristov linked Kumandy and their clan Chelkandy with the descendants of the ancient Turks, "who in the 6th-8th cc. CE created in the Central Asia a powerful nomadic state, which received in history a name Turkic Kaganate".[4][5]


Wiki seems to imply that they were a Turkic group who migrated deep into western Siberia before retreating back to Altai when the Russians conquered the area.

The "Kumans belonged to the Kuman-Kipchak confederation (Polevetses of the Rus annals, Comans of Byzantine sources, Folban of German annals) during the period from the end of the 800s to 1230s CE spread their political influence in the broad steppes from Altai to Crimea and Danube. Irtysh with its adjoining steppes (at least below the lake Zaisan) was in the sphere of that confederation. Members of the confederation undoubtedly also were the ancestors of the present Kumandy and Teleuts, which is evidenced by their language that like the language of the Tobol-Irtysh and Baraba Tatars belongs to the Kypchak group." [13]

The name of the seok Ton is explained as an ethnonym that reflects their economic specialization, as a word meaning "deer" and "reindeer breeder". The remote ancestors of this Kumandy seok Ton were reindeer breeders, reflected in Kumandy hunting legends and fairy tales, for example about milking deer (which is attributed to the Kumandy's mountain spirits). The memory about breeding and milking reindeer belongs to some remote historical ancestors of a part of Kumandy; they can be explained by participation in the Kumandy ethnogenesis of the southern Nenets tribes, who cultivated riding deer, typically used not only for transport but also for food and dress.[14]

The Mongoloid admixture in their Caucasoid phenotype is much less pronounced than in the Southern Altaians. The Northern Altaians anthropologically belong to the Uralic type.[15] Ethnologically, the Kumandy seoks have their own origination myths, from which L. Potapov concluded that they are an amalgamation of people with different backgrounds: pastoral steppe nomads (Kumans), taiga foor hunters (Chabash/Chabat), deer pastoralists (Nenetses), and a fishing tribe (Tastars).[16]

:

In Siberia, the Siberian Khanate was established in the 1490s by fleeing Tatar aristocrats of the disintegrating Golden Horde who established Islam as the official religion in western Siberia over the partly Islamized native Siberian Tatars and indigenous Uralic peoples. It was the northern-most Islamic state in recorded history and it survived up until 1598 when it was conquered by Russia


In the 17th century, before migrating to Altai, Kumandy lived along the river Charysh, near its confluence with the river Ob. Their relocation was driven by their unwillingness to pay yasak tribute to the Russian sovereign


Now that is very interesting as they are the only high M73 group in Altai a I wonder if this group absorbed M73 from west Siberians and moved it around the Turkic possessions of their various empires before heading back to Altai

[alan]

Another thing that comes out in this paper if I understand its confusing tables correctly is that there is nothing in Altai upstream of M73. So, this fits the idea that its eastern extension could partly relate to the retreat of Turks back south-eastwards after absorbing it. Certainly it doesnt look like Altai is any sort of candidate for an early R1b area in the sense of the palaeolithic etc.

[alan]

This is probably worth returning to in the light of us now knowing the south-central Siberian origins of R and a potential link with ANE. I dont know what the latest SNP counting ideas will make M73 in terms of age but at a guess I reckon it could end up originating around 8000BC judging by calculations for other clades. That would potentially tie M73 in with the sort of period where a spread of ANE into Europe and adjacent areas on its fringes seems likely to have happened. So, based on all the latest evidence M73 may have originated on the terminal Palaeolithic trail from south-central Siberia westwards.

I suspect from the Altai study that the M73 SNP occurred on the journey west rather than around the origin point. I previously worked out from the Altai study that its presence there is extremely limited and appears to have only arrived there when one Turkic tribe who had settled in Siberia and even as far west as Crimea had then returned to Altai a few centuries ago under Russian pressure. That suggests to me that M73 was originally picked up by the Turks in the Medieval period as they expanded into western Siberia and beyond.

M73 is still common in west Siberian populations. So, the Occam's Razor expanation for me is that M73 probably occurred first c. 8000BC or a little earlier perhaps somewhere near the south Urals near enough to the central Asian steppes to be partly caught up in the historic conveyor belt and moved around east and west. I suspect M73 probably is identifiable with one of the microblade using Mesolithic groups in that sort of area. I dont want to speculate about its identity in later times such as the Neolithic and copper age because we really dont have enough data to do that. However, some of M73 has clearly remained in traditional Siberian hunting peoples so I would tend to look in that direction. Some R1b clearly did make the step of abandoning that lifestyle but my impression is that some of M73 never did and remained an element in hunters in western Siberia while others got caught into the world of the Eurasian steppe belt. I think the presence of M73 in both native Siberian groups and Turkic groups is suggestive of an original position at somewhere in the western end of Siberia close to the interface with the steppe belt - again the south Urals and adjacent seem likely to me.

Exactly when is hard to determine but I have a suspicion that M73 remained just off-steppe in west Siberian hunter groups until at some point between 3500BC and the Medieval period they were part encorporated into the steppe belt world nearby. As to why that encorporation would have happened, there are far too many possibilities to go through and only a couple of early options need be touched on here. Perhaps the discovery of copper in the south Urals was in some way significant. Also perhaps their knowledge of the world east of the Urals may have been of some importance in the copper age. At face value we can be pretty sure that M73 was present among Uralic groups before some of it was absorbed by Turks. I think the part absorbtion of M73 by Turks and the complex movements of the latter has somewhat distracted us. Its clear M73 was not originally in the Altaic homeland area. That can be seen in the studies. What we really should be more interested IMO is the non-Turkic or only late Turkicised Siberian groups with M73. They are much more likely to represent a more reliable geographical indicator of part of the older pre-Turkish distribition of M73 than the elements that got absorbed into highly mobile Turkic steppe nomads.

Clearly somewhere in the spread of P297* (an SNP that is surely going to be re-dated by SNP counting to the upper palaeolithic c. 12000BC or so) the branches that later featured the M73 and M269 SNPs diverged in terms of their environmental-subsistence approach. As I posted just above, I think the evidence is that M73 lived somewhere in western Siberia or the south Urals close to but just off the steppe belt and probably for some reason remained in a deep ancestral way of life. At some point in the period of say 12000-6000BC one of the P297* lines either moved into or found itself in a different environmental-subsistence zone and came to diverge from the ancient hunter-gathering way of life of that lineage. I think we may be able to glimpse back in time to a period when R1 was reaching Europe from Siberia c. 12000-6000BC in terms of the microblade cultures that appear across a broad front from the Baltic to the Black Sea around that period. Clearly originally they were all hunters of some sort given the timeframe and geography and many of them lived in that period through dynamic changes of environment. At some point during these changes of environment hard decisions must have had to be made by some of the lineage. Some may have followed their preferred flora/fauna as it moved and others may have stayed and adapted. Others still may have taken advantage of the gaps created when others chose to move with their game permanently as the environmental bands shifted.

One thing I think is reasonably clear is that M269 were a group who by the copper age if not earlier had made a leap into a new environmental-subsistence world while a case can be made that M73 may have remained more conservative. Exactly when the M269 part of P297 left M73 behind is hard to say but I think it is clear it happened from modern distributions. M73 seems to have remained a conservative probably hunting type group until modest encorporation by steppe groups. M269 appears to have become a different fish and somehow made a leap that M73 didnt.

What are the origins of this contrast? I am not sure but it is possible they could date to the Mesolithic. At that time there must have developed some sort of distinction between groups who occupied the forest steppe and forest areas further north (which had replaced the old mammoth steppe) and the groups who occupied what was then the dry southern steppe near the Black Sea shore (this had actually been just south of the mammoth steppe). As far as I understand, the latter was best suited to horse hunting. In archaeological terms I am suspicious that the Greneniki and Kukrek cultures around the area from Moldova to the Crimea to the Dnieper etc somehow are related to the movement of R1 into this dry steppe horse hunting area. I personally suspect that M269 or its immediate ancestor was involved in this as its very much at the westernmost end of the western steppe area -a areas that also came under far stronger western farming influence in the period 6000-4500BC. On the other hand there is some sort of sequence from Kukrek to Bug-Dniester to Tripolye which could have R1a links IMO. The way that the collapse of Cuc-Tyrp and the rise of Usatovo etc seems to have had some links to Corded Ware does make me wonder if that area around the forrest steppe part of the middle Bug and Dniester may have had deeper R1a links.

Maybe the origins of the geographical distribution distinction within r1 were originally more environmental and therefore north-south rather than east-west. I have long had a suspicion on multiple accounts that R1a had some deep seated better adaption to forest steppe areas rather than the black sea shoreline dry steppe area. The latter of course has been wiped clean by later waves too many times for modern populations to be of any use at all. If R1b, especially the roots of M269 developed a distribution due to adaption to dry steppe then this may explain a couple of things including its relative absence in European forrest steppe and forrest areas compared to R1a. Also could an ability to live on the southernmost dry steppe have led to an ability to penetrate similarly dry areas in SW Asia?

[newtoboard]

Maybe the origins of the geographical distribution distinction within r1 were originally more environmental and therefore north-south rather than east-west. I have long had a suspicion on multiple accounts that R1a had some deep seated better adaption to forest steppe areas rather than the black sea shoreline dry steppe area. The latter of course has been wiped clean by later waves too many times for modern populations to be of any use at all. If R1b, especially the roots of M269 developed a distribution due to adaption to dry steppe then this may explain a couple of things including its relative absence in European forrest steppe and forrest areas compared to R1a. Also could an ability to live on the southernmost dry steppe have led to an ability to penetrate similarly dry areas in SW Asia?

I am not sure about this forest steppe-steppe division but there is nothing to suggest the presence of R1b in the dry steppe beyond the Don imo. North of the black sea maybe but not north of the Caspian. It is pretty safe to say the steppe between the Don and the Ural rivers was an R1a zone as well as the entire forest steppe. And most of the Pontic -Caspian steppe in terms of geographic area is located east of the Don. I'm not buying the idea that R1b is better adapted to the dry steppe than R1a. That nomadic pastoral lifestyle is a R1a lifestyle and R1a had no problem penetrating the dry areas of Central Asia. Even in Yamnaya the regions east of the Don were the only regions that had a true steppe adapted lifestyle. Centum speakers as well as Balto-Slavic speakers never had that lifestyle. I wouldn't say either R1b or R1a-Z283+ groups are adapted to the steppe.They were more agricultural and more adapted to the plains and forest respectively. That is more typical for R1a-Z93+ and R1b-M73+ groups.

[newtoboard]

Within Yamnaya my guess is that R1a-Z283 occupied the forest steppe and was adapted to that type of environment. R1b-M269 occupied the western portion of the western steppe and maybe the Crimea and was more agricultural. R1a-Z93 occupied the steppe between the Don and Ural rivers and had a true nomadic economy. R1b-M73 was the occupant of the Kazakh steppe. And Andronovo tribes likely pushed it out of the steppe into Siberia and Altai accounting for its Turkic distribution. I would say the South Urals were occupied by R1a and N1c to the North of that.

[newtoboard]

I guess my point is that it doesn't make sense to say R1a or R1b as a whole was adapted to a certain type of society. The history and lifestyle (and language) of R1b-M269 groups differed from that of R1b-M73 tribes. And the same applies for R1a-Z93+ and R1a-Z283+ groups.

[alan]

There are several facets to this as far as I can see. In the Mesolithic what had been the old mammoth steppe became the forrest steppe and it seems to me that the old epigravettian hunter group genes (I?) may have ended up in the western forrest steppe of Ukraine. To the south of them along the shore of the Black Sea there was an area which had actually been a thin band south of the mammoth steppe which appears was not favoured by those old epigravettian hunters. This may have produced an opportunity as the climate changed and this area - apparently most suited to horse hunting - appears to have featured these interesting new microblade groups - Grebeniki and Kukrek. I am tempted to see an eastern origin in them but I wouldnt rule out other possibility such as the Caucasus etc. Interestingly, they are rather western and seem to run from the Don to the Carpathians. I think they look like a distinct element whoever they were. Their distribution does make me think they might be candidates for R1b but its impossible to know. What I probably should have made clear is that I am not saying that there were only two groups. East of the Don and towards the Volga may have been a third entity. The situation there is somewhat different in terms of ecology etc.

I am not sure about this forest steppe-steppe division but there is nothing to suggest the presence of R1b in the dry steppe beyond the Don imo. North of the black sea maybe but not north of the Caspian. It is pretty safe to say the steppe between the Don and the Ural rivers was an R1a zone as well as the entire forest steppe. And most of the Pontic -Caspian steppe in terms of geographic area is located east of the Don. I'm not buying the idea that R1b is better adapted to the dry steppe than R1a. That nomadic pastoral lifestyle is a R1a lifestyle and R1a had no problem penetrating the dry areas of Central Asia. Even in Yamnaya the regions east of the Don were the only regions that had a true steppe adapted lifestyle. Centum speakers as well as Balto-Slavic speakers never had that lifestyle. I wouldn't say either R1b or R1a-Z283+ groups are adapted to the steppe.They were more agricultural and more adapted to the plains and forest respectively. That is more typical for R1a-Z93+ and R1b-M73+ groups.