The general thread on this is too much of a mix of all sorts of stuff and angles and needs broken up. Can anyone provide a summary of the final conclusions on the R1b findings - preferably in laymans terms as a lot of the lest often quoted SNPs are obscure to the non-specialist.
There isn't one yet, only a few have the knowledge to process BAM files and only one of them (that I know of) is providing the full results, none of which are R1b. So at the moment we are getting dribs and drabs which is akin to hear say.Originally Posted by alan
rms2 (06-12-2015)
Someone posted this link to a y-dna spreadsheet over on that other thread that at least provides some idea of the y-dna breakdown.
It's a let down to me because no one is testing Yamnaya along its route into the West, and we need some y-dna testing of the very earliest Iberian Beaker to see what it was.
I'm also wondering when we will get some Beaker y-dna from the British Isles and Ireland.
Possible L51xL11 in early CW (predating beaker in that area by 200 years) may be a clue about that step west. It hard not to wonder if BB is some kind of oddball offshoot of CW with a founder effect because CW covered almost all of temperate Europe from Ukraine to the east boundary of France in the period when beaker came into existence in the west.
Looks like Remedello is ruled out and that was the only other culture other than CW which I thought could be a missing link.
Think we are left with two possibilities
1. A low visibility intrusion of CW or closely related people into Iberia c. 2750BC to form the beaker culture.
2. BB originally not R1b and instead P312 only joining BB around 2600-2500BC in west central Europe.
What I would like to know is what is the oldest individual/individualised beaker burial in Iberia? Is that as old as the pottery? I say that because I now believe the change to this form of burials is more significant than the actual pots.
Last edited by alan; 06-13-2015 at 12:13 AM.
I haven't looked at the Corded Ware Y-DNA closely, but this figure shows R1, R1a and R1b.
The R1 is probably just R1a and R1b, although R1 can't be ruled out.
At least a substantial part of Bell Beaker R1b might well be from Corded Ware, or Bell Beaker itself might be a Corded Ware group modified by mixture, both cultural and genetic, in Germany and Bohemia (?).
Until variance files are posted that can be referenced and inspected by all we are in danger of missing potently important information !!
BTW Have you any idea of the rough dates for the BB samples ?
rms2 (06-13-2015)
Another alternative is that "the earliest Beaker" was in a culture (the male component of which was) predominantly R1b, but was not Iberian at all... yet. rms2 cited this recent argument (about March 20), and I mentioned it on that rambling Allentoft et al thread, but couldn't readily find the citation. I've just recovered it: C. Jeunesse, The dogma of the Iberian origin of the Bell Beaker: attempting its deconstruction. Journal of Neolithic Archaeology 16, 2014, 158–166 [doi10.12766/jna.2014.5].
Seems eminently sensible, to me. Is there some compelling reason to preserve this dogma -- at base, just the forcefully argued (but by now, long held) opinion of some highly respected archaeologists -- contra any other evidence (in this case, aDNA) that may be independent of such essentially dogmatic considerations? Note that the part that is faith-based has to do with the chronological sequence of artistically simpler Maritime pottery, and more complex forms (of rather similar antiquity and cultural associations) found much further east. It does not require any denial of the Tagus valley pots, but questions whether they are demonstrably the ancestors of all the other beaker-associated phenomena, before and after death, throughout the rest of Eurasia.
Our earlier (brief) discussion of the Jeunesse paper was here: http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthre...ll=1#post75237
They seem undated when I skimmed the supplementary information. Generally though once dodgy samples are removed, beaker appears to commence not long before 2500BC in central and northern Europe. That is calibrated. The early Csepel dates are dodgy ones considered unsafe. Funny enough the earliest safe looking central European date I have seen is Kromsdorf which is centred on 2550BC. Unetice was already suceeding beaker in some areas by 2300BC. If I had to guess an date for the samples I would place them at 2400BC plus or minus 100 years.
Rather too many of the earliest west Iberian RC dates are from settlement sites rather than burials for my taste. There are always a lot of problems with RC dating with each material having its own issues. I have been disappointed that, in a situation when interpretation of the origin of a culture depends on it, a really systematic look at all the samples and contexts of pre-2600BC bell beaker dates has not been done looking at the material, isotopic indicators of diet - which can effect human bone dates, and contexts. I have read the João Luís Cardoso paper from last year but it falls way short of the really detailed descriptions of the context, materials and potential distortion factors of each date leaving a lot to trust.
My own feeling is beaker use arose probably not long before 2700BC and IMO its inspiration is most likely from CW. My hunch is that around this time some CW offshoot from the head of the Rhone-Rhine area started to form a network of contact down the river, along the south France shoreline to Iberia. I dont think it was initially direct to west Iberia. By 2600BC there clearly was contact operating between the south of France and west Iberia and this penetrated into the western Alps and up the Rhone almost like a return leg to origin. However, I think this is complex. Once a route like that is established a two-way flow is likely to commence, perhaps not very visible in the record at first but slowly increasing. Pottery of course is a generally female craft so I suspect the original model for beaker came from CW women marrying into Iberians and then we see beaker pottery with Iberian links spreading into southern France by 2600BC. The pottery IMO is not as important an indicator of movement INTO Iberia as the sudden totally unexpected arrival of single or individualised burial traditions albeit often re-using old collective burial megaliths. A couple of recent papers have emphasised the way this tradition seems to owe a lot to CW type traditions, albeit with unique twists.
rms2 (06-13-2015)
Interesting read - I totally missed that conversation. The problem I have of coming to a really solid view on Iberian beaker is the piecemeal way and often non-English format of much of the new publications on it. I also find the general approach to presenting crucial radiocarbon evidence for the earliest dates really unsatisfactory as it is rarely if ever done in such a way where a reader can really make their own judgement. Crucially I still dont know one vital thing. What is the earliest RC date from an articulated beaker single burial in Iberia? The shift in burial is much more profound than a change in pottery IMO. I get that, normal radiocarbon caveats aside, there seems to be evidence of beaker pottery in use in Iberia by 2700BC. However, using beaker pot IMO is not a safe indicator of a male lineage migration given it is a female craft. Single burial - even if inserted into old collective tombs- suggests however a profound change in beliefs, ideology, religion etc. So to me it is important to know the earliest Iberian date for this. Also of crucial importance is that the bones are also subject to isotope analysis to check for potential distorting factors like fish in the diet etc which can make dates younger.
IMO its possible there could be a couple of phases to the genesis of beaker in Iberia. Initial contact could have been trade with wives going in opposite directions. I have noted before that most aspects of the proto- beaker package in Iberia could be seen as female crafts or female objects. A phase like that could have lasted a generation or two. Then in time honoured tradition some groups further east could have decided to follow the chain of goodies back to source and tried to cut out the middle men and slowly have encroached along the route into Iberia. Because a two way flow may have been established this could have been confusing in terms of archaeological remains because influences, wives etc could have been going two-ways along this chain even before a male intrusion into Iberia to take control of the entire network. So IMO there may have been stages in the process of how this all worked. At some point a crucial male intrusion clearly happened in Iberia, clearly coming from the east. I am sure this is marked by the single burial tradition. This has only ever to my knowledge been seen as similar but a little different from the corded ware single burial tradition - although I would not that it actually particularly has very strong parallels with the northern battle axe groups in terms of orientations etc albeit with the male and female orientations reversed. Not implying a geographically totally implausible direct link but clearly some shared ancestral traditions there.
I have never understood why the Corded Ware link has sort of been taken off the table. Clearly beaker is a complex development with a number of cultural inputs other than CW but is also got a lot in common with CW and more importantly CW basically occupied central and northern Europe from a Baltic-Ukraine line to the French border c. 2750-2500BC and even beyond after beaker appeared. With the Med. and south Alpine pre-beaker copper age culture ancient DNA samples all looking non R and non-steppic, it hard to not conclude that it would be close to impossible for R1b not to have had to pass through corded ware territory. In fact the only way they could have avoided it is if it actually was in a vanguard immediately ahead of CW as it spread west.
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