R1b in Corded Ware

[rms2]

There are now two ancient sets of remains from the Corded Ware culture that are R1b:

1. RISE1 (~2865-2578 BC) from Allentoft et al, who tested R1b1-L1345 and was recovered from the Corded Ware site at Oblaczkowo, Poland; and a new one,

2. ESP14 (~2500-2050 BC) from Mathieson et al, who tested R1b1a2-CTS11468 (on the same level as M269 thus far) and was recovered from the Corded Ware site at Esperstedt, Germany.

Corded Ware in Germany: Esperstedt (n=9) The site of Esperstedt forms part of large-scale excavations initiated in 2005 in the context of major infrastructural roadworks in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany to build motorway A38. Individuals from Esperstedt reference site 4 could be unambiguously assigned to the Corded Ware culture, both by accompanying pottery and by characteristic orientation of the burials18. Males were usually buried in a right-hand side flexed position with head to the west and facing south, while females were buried on their left-hand side with their head to the east. We added nine new individuals from this site . . .

• I1534 / ESP14 Feature 6141. This is genetically male. (Mathieson et al, Supplementary Information, page 8)

I1534 ESP14 Tooth - Y Y Central_LNBA SA CLB New 1240k data - 1 2500-2050 BCE 4815 4065 Esperstedt Germany 51.42 11.68 0.158 167,366 M Yes 2,113,805 K1a1b2a R1b1a2 CTS11468 0.054 (Mathieson et al, Supplementary Data Table 1)

[rms2]

Interesting that R1b-P297 (shorthand for it and its subclades) has shown up in the major cultures to which the spread of early Indo-European languages has been attributed, and also in that Samara EHG from over 7k years ago. I realize RISE1 could only be gotten as far as R1b1-L1345, but we have R1b-P297 from Yamnaya, Poltavka, Beaker, and Corded Ware now.

[jdean]

Hopefully they'll release the RAW data to the general public some point in the not too distant future.

[R.Rocca]

There are now two ancient sets of remains from the Corded Ware culture that are R1b:

1. RISE1 (~2865-2578 BC) from Allentoft et al, who tested R1b1-L1345 and was recovered from the Corded Ware site at Oblaczkowo, Poland; and a new one,

2. ESP14 (~2500-2050 BC) from Mathieson et al, who tested R1b1a2-CTS11468 (on the same level as M269 thus far) and was recovered from the Corded Ware site at Esperstedt, Germany.

Don't forget, there is also another, albeit from a later Corded Ware sub-culture...

3. RISE98 (~2275-2032 BC) from Allentoft et al, who is positive for five high quality SNPs below U106 from L.Beddinge, Battle Axe Culture, Sweden.

[rms2]

Don't forget, there is also another, albeit from a later Corded Ware sub-culture...

3. RISE98 (~2275-2032 BC) from Allentoft et al, who is positive for five high quality SNPs below U106 from L.Beddinge, Battle Axe Culture, Sweden.

True. I was going to venture the opinion that these two direct Corded Ware samples were probably U106, as well, but of course we don't know that.

[R.Rocca]

True. I was going to venture the opinion that these two direct Corded Ware samples were probably U106, as well, but of course we don't know that.

Yeah, based on the age, it could be that RISE1 is simply something like L11 and the other two are U106 and/or a mix of U106 and P312. We need to also keep in mind that for the Polish sample, L23(xL51) is almost as important in Poland as L51 as per Myres, so the older sample could also be Z2103. So, like you said, since we don't know, we can only take educated guesses.

[rms2]

My own theory is that the R1b in Corded Ware will turn out to be mostly R1b-U106, and that explains U106's distribution and its apparent connection to Germanic peoples.

On the other hand, IMHO, Beaker will turn out to be mostly R1b-P312, as we already seem to be seeing. I think that means the branch of L11 that gave rise to P312 was in Yamnaya and went around the Carpathians to the south and then up the Danube Valley. I think Gimbutas was right, and Beaker = Yamnaya + Vucedol. It was Beaker that emerged from the Carpathian basin and carried P312 to the west, subsequently giving rise to its various subclades. This also explains Beaker's and P312's apparent connection to Italo-Celtic peoples and P312's distribution.

Maybe that sounds a little too neat and tidy, but I think it is correct in the main. Probably there was some spillover here and there, and none of these early Indo-European peoples was all one thing or the other.

[VinceT]

^ Yup, that definitely sounds too neat and tidy. It is plausible that we may eventually see U106 confirmed in Corded Ware, but there is plenty of room for other surprises. There really is very little time between the split of P312, U106, and S1194 for that matter, to suspect that such a sharp correlation will emerge with respect to those pottery cultures. But as always, time will tell.

[rms2]

I don't think the time between the splits is relevant if the L11 line that led to P312 was in a different place than the L11 line that led to U106. Germanic and Balto-Slavic are generally attributed to Corded Ware, while Italo-Celtic is attributed to Beaker. U106 appears to be strongly connected to Germanic peoples and to lack much of a connection at all to Italo-Celtic peoples. It is also thus far missing from Beaker. P312, on the other hand, appears to be strongly connected to Italo-Celtic peoples and has been found in Beaker.

U106/Corded Ware, P312/Beaker identifications make sense of the apparent historical connections of U106 to Germanic peoples on the one hand and P312 to Italo-Celtic peoples on the other.

Otherwise, how did U106 become so strongly associated with historically Germanic speaking peoples and regions and P312 with historically Italo-Celtic speaking peoples and regions?

[alan]

we need to find R1b in CW before 2550BC and we need greater resolution too. It still impossible to totally rule out that U106 might have somehow formed a localised beaker group and not be present in CW. A distinctive distribution is not enough to rule out beaker because L21, U152 and DF27 also have very distinctive frequency clines. What seems clear enough is that U106 was long isolated from the paths west because it is not a big feature of remnant Celtic populations in west and other groups who didnt have much Germanic input. However there are some beaker groups that are so far east that they may never have penetrated the west. Indeed the beaker frontier seems to constantly be pushed east. So, IMO we cannot totally rule out that U106 wasnt present in beaker groups in the north or the Baltic or Poland etc. I think it probably wasnt but there is no way we can rule it out as yet. It is entirely possible a small beaker group carrying U106 could have ended up in one of the north-eastern beaker pockets and remained fairly isolated until they moved out with the Germanic expansions. There is no reason to think Germanic is from a CW root either. Its a confusing branch which doesnt help. Personally I think it would be more useful if U106 was in pre-beaker CW as it allows some triangulation to work out the origins of L11 but I dont think we can call this one as yet.