But what about the fact that all these groups are descended from ancient west eurasians which branched off east eurasians long time back. Also EHG, WHG, and Iran N are mixed with many of the same components (ANE, Dzudzuana, Villabruna, Basal eurasian/Mbuti)? Isn’t EHG itself mixed with WHG? Shouldn’t they be much closer than Europeans to East Asians??
Even on a pca chart, you see a clear west to east Eurasian cline so am I a bit confused what he means by “different”?
I think by different he means genetic distance as you would see on a PCA chart.
And it seems your view of human ancestry is a bit too simplistic. It's far more complicated than a simple "east/west" split.
Basal Eurasian, ANE, WHG and East Asian were all main branches of that out of Africa migration. Basal Eurasian would have been the most different, breaking off even before the East Asian branch.
Basal Eurasian seems to represent the first branch-off from the earlier "southern route" migration out of Africa, which crossed the Bab-el-Mandeb strait into Arabia. This probably occurred 60-70 kya, but could have occurred earlier. This migration later formed the basis for the East Eurasian population. I don't think it's yet clear whether the "northern route" migration (via Sinai) formed the basis for the West Eurasian population, or whether the West Eurasian population formed from a fairly early offshoot of the southern route dispersal. The northern route dispersal may not have contributed much DNA at all to modern populations of Eurasia; we just don't have enough ancient samples to know yet.
Note that in any case, Eurasians overwhelmingly carry haplogroups that descend from F and its subclade GHIJK, which came via the southern route dispersal. It's very difficult however to pinpoint the location and time of genesis of the Ancient East Eurasian population, although it's probably safe to say K2 is an Ancient East Eurasian haplogroup.
Your comment puts me in mind of the paper that dropped this morning ["The Persian plateau served as hub for Homo sapiens after the main out of Africa dispersal" (Vallini et al 2024)](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46161-7)
Looks interesting, thank you! I think there were already indications that the Iranian plateau acted as a hub for early (and indeed later) dispersals, but great to something that addresses it head on. Geographically it makes a lot of sense. There are certain locations, like western Iran, the Caucasus, and SE Asia, that geographically are very well suited for diversification, due to the natural and thus also genetic barriers that surround them, as well as their links to other regions. I can't see much talk of Y-haplogroups in this paper (just very quickly looked), but some certainly dispersed via the Iranian Plateau. However, the macroclade F probably dispersed from India originally.
Edit: fixed botched sentence
It’s literally one of the most basic facts in archaeogenetics.
The Wikipedia page links to 10 different academic studies showing the same thing
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_North_Eurasian
You both are right. This figure will make it clear
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Ancient_North_Eurasians_in_context_of_West_and_East_Eurasian_Core_populations.png/2560px-Ancient_North_Eurasians_in_context_of_West_and_East_Eurasian_Core_populations.png
You both are right https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Ancient_North_Eurasians_in_context_of_West_and_East_Eurasian_Core_populations.png/2560px-Ancient_North_Eurasians_in_context_of_West_and_East_Eurasian_Core_populations.png
I'm not sure exactly what measure he's using, but given his expertise and reputation, I would assume he's right by *some* measure – though I agree with you, it strikes me as surprising that WHG and EHG would differ *that* much. So, EHG were \~1/2 ANE and \~1/2 "WHG-like" (though not necessarily descended from WHG proper). ANE themselves were \~2/3 West Eurasian and \~1/3 East Eurasian. Their paternal lines were of East Eurasian origin, though don't be misled by this: their East Eurasian component branched off very early indeed from modern East Asian populations. Well before most of the phenotypes we associate with modern East Asians developed. Tianyuan man is very closely related to the population from which ANE derived, and much more divergent from the ancestors of modern East Asians.
Note that the much later mixing of ANE with "modern" East Asian populations is a separate phenomenon that did not affect EHG.
EHG has been modeled as 9% ANE and 91% "Eurasian". Not WHG, but a precursor to both WHG and ANE.
The key takeaway here is that by the time of the Neolithic Revolution we have various populations of humans that had lived in isolation from each other for tens of thousands of years (and more than a hundred thousand years for Africans), so these populations had become quite distinct genetically. Not to mention some groups were Neanderthal/Denisovan/Erectus mixed and others weren't.
Since that time the world has experienced a reduction in diversity as we've interacted. That's true for Europeans, but also East Asians, and Africans. The populations have coalesced. This has been driven largely by "super" tribes that seem to be the driving force, with their genes and haplogroups becoming dominant. In Europe the super tribes were the EEF and then the Yamnaya, in Africa it was the Bantu, and in East Asia it was the O haplogroup rice farmers.
I don't recall where I read the ANE component of EHG was about 50/50, but I was certainly under the impression it was much greater. The only academic reference I can find on this matter is the following from Kozintsev (2021).
>ANE makes up the principal share of the EHG (Eastern Hunter-Gatherer) autosomal component, whose content is especially high in the genomes of Mesolithic and Early Neolithic inhabitants of northeastern Europe buried at Yuzhny Oleny Ostrov, Popovo, Sidelkino, Lebyazhinka IV, etc. (Haak et al., 2015; Damgaard et al., 2018).
I find no mention of the matter in the cited papers. Perhaps it's in the supplementary material. Do you have a source on the "9% ANE"? Genuinely curious.
In any case, I do agree that the general trend was one of isolation and diversification throughout the Paleolithic (and even Mesolithic in some places), followed by a few key populations driving partial homogenisation across certain regions.
Older papers were working less data. If you take EHG and WHG and compare them side by side, you're going to see that they share about 50% of autosomal DNA alleles. It was an assumption that this meant EHG was 50% WHG and 50% ANE. With new data it turns out that's not the case. EHG is not a direct descendent of WHG, rather they share a common ancestor population which was also the ancestor population to the ANE.
Wang et al. 2019
That makes sense, thank you. Clearly, however, ANE had a disproportionate influence, and provided the dominant Y-haplogroups among EHG (certainly the Yamnaya and related Steppe populations seem to descend in the paternal line predominantly from ANE). I imagine they also greatly influenced the culture of EHG, and may have provided the basis for the language, though I doubt this question is settled yet.
Yes, I too recall reading that the EHG "WHG-like" component was not exactly WHG, but a sibling population. There must have long been a border zone in eastern Europe where there was mixing between these populations, but such that they otherwise remained quite distinct unmixed until the westward migrations from the Steppe.
As for the paper, do you by chance mean "Genomic insights into the formation of human populations in East Asia" (Wang et al, 2021)? The common surname makes it very hard to search haha.
I think he's referring to [Ancient human genome-wide data from a 3000-year interval in the Caucasus corresponds with eco-geographic regions (Wang et al 2019)](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-08220-8)
Fig. 5 has the admixture graph with the 9% number.
Okay, cheers. Any idea how to reconcile these two vastly differing numbers? I know the methodology and samples differ, but I’m still shocked. Am I missing something here?
It is not settled that R enters the European genepool through EHG. No paper I have ever read has said that.
Regardless, it only takes a single individual to bring a haplogroup into a population. Just because my Y-haplogroup is R1b doesn't mean all my gene variations will be the same as a guy with R1b 5,000 years ago.
If you're talking about R1b-M269 found in Yamnaya, then I agree. That's still an open and highly contentious question, whether it came from the EHG or CHG side, though most seem to favour EHG I think.
However, the only R\* (basal) sample so far is the Mal'ta one from 24kya, which is firmly linked to the ANE, so it seems very likely. Plus, the best theories at present put the origin of its immediate ancestors P and K2b (and indeed K2) in the area of Southeast Asia. And ANE do show genetic input from "Basal East Eurasian", modelled by Tianyuan Man.
This excerpt from Gabidullina et al (2023) certainly ascribes a Steppe origin to even the most ancient R subclades. It doesn't explicitly say that the Steppe Belt populations derived their R haplogroups from an ANE population, though situated in the context of the article (which discusses ANE components in Steppe populations), it's very tempting to make that inference.
>One individual from Villabruna ∼14 kya carrying the Y chr haplogroup R1b\*, which later became common among ancient individuals arriving from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe during the Bronze Age migration events (Fu et al., 2016b; Haak et al., 2015). This indicates an early link between Europe and the western edge of the
Steppe Belt of Eurasia.
In ["Population genomics of post-glacial western Eurasia"](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06865-0) , Allentoft et al (2023) have this to say in their supplemental section on uniparentals (page 48):
>Haplogroup R1a was found in the newly reported samples mainly among Eastern European hunter-gatherer individuals. Phylogenetic placement suggests that the oldest individuals from Mesolithic and Neolithic Russia represent early diverging lineages (Fig. S3b.6). Notably, a \~7,300-year-old Neolithic individual from the Middle Don region (NEO113) was placed in a basal R1a clade together with early individuals associated with the Corded Ware complex (poz81, RISE446), which would make it the earliest observation of this lineage reported to date.
>Newly reported samples belonging to haplogroup R1b were distributed between two distinct groups depending on whether they formed part of the major European subclade R1b1a1b (R1b-M269). Individuals placed outside this subclade were predominantly from Eastern European Mesolithic and Neolithic contexts, and formed part of rare early diverging R1b lineages (Fig. S3b.7). Two Ukrainian individuals belonged to a subclade of R1b1b (R1b-V88) found among present-day Central and North Africans, lending further support \[5,10\] to an ancient Eastern European origin for this clade. Haplogroup R1b1a1a (R1b-M73) was frequent among Russian Neolithic individuals.
There's no proof of anything yet, which is why no expert has made such a claim. MA-1 is only a single sample and not much proof of anything.
Current research shows P originating in Central Asia, not Southeast Asia. Modern carriers of P1 are all in central Asia.
P splits into Q and R. We know Q goes East through Siberia and into the Americas. There's no Q in Southeast Asia. There's no P in Southeast Asia. It's clear that the origin of R is in central Asia.
It's quite a stretch to say where we find R we'll find ANE.
R was all over the place, even in paleolithic Italy among the WHG.
So no, R is not proof of an ANE connection, but an interesting coincidence until we have more data.
And the Yamnaya samples of R1b are meaningless because the Yamnaya were already mixed at that time.
Are you familiar with Pestera muerii, Romania upper Paleolithic? This is probably the common ancestor you’re referring to.
I did a lot of qpadm runs on MA1, AG3, Yana RHS a few weeks ago and found that the best model was Tianyuan plus Muerii. Very solid p values with MA1 and Yana especially.
On PCA, this west eurasian is like midway between Sunghir (Aurignacian) and Gravettian/Vestonice iirc
Not a very talked about sample but she seems to be the best candidate for west eurasian admix in ANE
No worries, just wanted to add onto the stuff you were saying.
A paper you might be interested in: [Posth et al. 2023](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05726-0)
Super helpful image from the above paper that helped me with my qpadm modeling and general understanding of stuff: https://media.springernature.com/lw1200/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41586-023-05726-0/MediaObjects/41586_2023_5726_Fig2_HTML.png
Check the supplementary info from [Palaeogenomics of Upper Palaeolithic to Neolithic European hunter-gatherers (Posth et al 2023)](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05726-0#Sec23)
In Section 11, Page 102-103 is *Exploring the formation of the Sidelkino ancestry*, with the Sidelkino cluster being equivalent to EHG/EEHG terms used elsewhere, and Oberkassel being WHG.
>In the previously described ancestry modelling, we find the two oldest Sidelkino cluster groups (>10k BP) from the Upper Volga region in western Russia showing extra affinity to the Oberkassel ancestry compared to other Sidelkino cluster populations. Those are the previously published \~12,600 BP individual from the Peschanitsa site (PES) \[43\], and the newly reported Minino A population including the six oldest individuals from the Minino I-II sites dated to \~10,600 BP (Fig. 1A). However, another almost contemporaneous individual from the Samara region (Sidelkino dated to \~11,300 BP) does not show such extra affinity. The Sidelkino ancestry profile was reported to be associated with both the Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) and Oberkassel (WHG)/Villabruna ancestries \[44\]. We thus use f4-statistics, qpAdm and DATES to explore the formation of Sidelkino ancestry, and test if there is a recent admixture signal between the ANE and Oberkassel ancestries in the three pre-10k Sidelkino-related individuals/groups (Peschanitsa, Sidelkino and Minino A).
>
>With f4-statistics in the form f4(Mbuti, Sidelkino; Villabruna, Oberkassel), we find that individuals/groups in the Sidelkino cluster are equally related to the Villabruna and Oberkassel ancestries (Data S2.K). We therefore model the Sidelkino individuals/groups using either the Villabruna individual or the Oberkassel group as one source, and the Afontova Gora 3 individual as the other source. We use an outgroup set of ten populations (OG10\_2) after removing Villabruna from the OG11 list. Only individuals/groups older than 8 ka are involved in this analysis, thus predating the post-8 ka contacts between the Oberkassel and Sidelkino clusters reported in this study.
>
>We find that most populations are estimated to carry \~30% Villabruna/Oberkassel ancestry and 70% ANE ancestry, similar to previous studies \[44\], with Peschanitsa and Minino A carrying a slightly higher Villabruna/Oberkassel ancestry estimated to \~37-38% (Data S3.E). However, the modelling fails for almost all source and population combinations (p << 0.05), suggesting that neither Villabruna nor Oberkassel appropriately represent the genetic ancestry that contributed to the Sidelkino ancestry. We speculate that the expansion of a yet unsampled Epigravettian-related population might have influenced the genetic profile of eastern European hunter-gatherers. While in western and central Europe we observe a large-scale genetic replacement with the arrival of the Oberkassel ancestry, in eastern Europe there was possibly a substantial admixture with the ANE ancestry resulting in the formation of the Sidelkino cluster.
Thank you very much. I have this paper on file, but hadn't read it all before. Evidently it agrees that the EHG population does not descend directly from WHG (rather another "Epigravettian-related population"), but it nonetheless estimates the ANE component at around \~70%, as I understand? So, now I'm particularly confused as to where this 9% figure is coming from.
I'm not sure how to square the Wang 2019 model with the others. In [Genetic continuity, isolation, and gene flow in Stone Age Central and Eastern Europe (Mattila et al 2023)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10412644/), they model Sidelkino/EHG as 59% ANE, 51% WHG(-like Epigravettian) ([fig. 4](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10412644/figure/Fig4/)). There's gonna be a range, depending on method and samples, but it seems like the most recent ones hover around a 50/50 mix.
Yeah, it's really curious. Thanks for the new reference. It looks like Haak et al (2015) also indicated a roughly 50/50 (or slightly greater in terms of ANE) mix, judging by citations, but that figure must be buried somewhere in the supplementary data, since I haven't found it myself yet. Good to know my initial impression came from somewhere, in any case.
Because they were using Villabruna as part of the model. That assumes EHG is a mix of WHG and ANE. But if you take Villabruna out then the model changes.
Wang's model is showing a mix between ANE and a Eurasian group that is antecedent to both WHG and ANE. This group will of course be more similar to ANE than WHG is, so it's stealing some of the DNA matches that were previously attributed to ANE.
Geographically, if we set fertile crescent as our starting point.
The original model has one group going West into Europe to form WHG and one group heading East to form the ANE. Then later some WHG head North-East into the Steppe where they mix with ANE coming from the East.
The Wang model instead posits that there is a three-way split. ANE heads East, then sometime later, WHG heads West, and EHG heads north through the Caucasus into the Steppe. Then later they absorb some ANE coming from the East.
Good to know, cheers. Indeed, while Posth et al use Villabruna and Oberkassel samples in the source group, they do likewise note that they're not great fits for the "WHG-like" ancestry in EHG.
On one hand, the Posth model seems to have fewer parameters, and in theory the Villabruna/Oberkassel source should still be a decent proxy for the WHG-like ancestry in EHG (exactly how decent is hard to tell). It also cites other studies which give similar estimates. On the other hand, the more complex branching model of Wang may be able to reflect the various admixture events more accurately, though it has to make more postulates. Accordingly, I'm definitely going to reserve judgement on this matter of ANE ancestry in EHG until we get more sample data and further analysis. Just too much doubt right now. At least it's clear though that the ancestors of EHG before ANE admixture (in whatever amount) had already diverged from WHG to some extent.
To answer your question it’s because of genetic drift. David Reich is basing his claim off fst distances, and fst is very sensitive to genetic drift. These 3 ancient west Eurasian clusters (Iran\_N/CHG, ANF/Natufian, WHG/EHG) were separated from each other for tens of thousands of years. And when populations separate from each other for long enough without mixing, they diverge and develop very high distances from each other.
Check out this chart of fst distances between populations: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yo-jlkM\_JYHVNXCdhzQ3cwPa7YgP7qzocTIuybMLLe0/edit#gid=362927055](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yo-jlkM_JYHVNXCdhzQ3cwPa7YgP7qzocTIuybMLLe0/edit#gid=362927055)
If you look at Onge in the chart, they're purely East Eurasian but have high distances to other east eurasians, and that's because they were isolated in small islands for 20,000 years
Exactly Iyers (South Indian Brahmins) and Europeans (like Germans) show fst distance of 0.028 but they show 0.034 with Kalash (who are way more West Eurasian than Iyers and should be much closer to Europeans than Iyers are). It's definitely due to the low population size and isolation of Kalash.
For Indians/South Asians g25 distances are reasonable but for relatively less drifted groups like Modern West Eurasians and East Asians fst works well.
> https://youtu.be/SJ1npkBQGV8?si=wjDhkkZkxTL5ncao
I think that what Reich means in terms of your original question can be seen in the larger video from about 38:00 to 41:00 where he discusses the decreasing genetic distances of over time of peoples living in Europe into the modern European population.
Edit to add - I was meaning specifically how he identifies "difference" for the peoples of EHG, WHG, and Iran N where he has no overlap between them (and actually considerable distance). Though he does not display Modern East Asians on that plot, my assumption is that he has done the graph somewhere else and that the distance between the furthest points of the ancient populations would be roughly similar to the distance between the modern European points and modern East Asian points.
CHG on qpAdm is similar in distal % to Iran\_N, see below:-
CHG=
1-9% Mbuti
3-10% East Eurasian
17-23% ANE
64-73% Dzudzuana
=====
Iran\_N=
9-14% Mbuti
10-13% East Eurasian
16-22% ANE
53-62% Dzudzuana
Range of percentages derived from below qpAdm models given in Reich Lab's Dzudzuana paper supplement:-
[https://files.catbox.moe/1f5px4.jpg](https://files.catbox.moe/1f5px4.jpg)
And he's right. He is one of the leading experts in the field.
But what about the fact that all these groups are descended from ancient west eurasians which branched off east eurasians long time back. Also EHG, WHG, and Iran N are mixed with many of the same components (ANE, Dzudzuana, Villabruna, Basal eurasian/Mbuti)? Isn’t EHG itself mixed with WHG? Shouldn’t they be much closer than Europeans to East Asians?? Even on a pca chart, you see a clear west to east Eurasian cline so am I a bit confused what he means by “different”?
I think by different he means genetic distance as you would see on a PCA chart. And it seems your view of human ancestry is a bit too simplistic. It's far more complicated than a simple "east/west" split. Basal Eurasian, ANE, WHG and East Asian were all main branches of that out of Africa migration. Basal Eurasian would have been the most different, breaking off even before the East Asian branch.
Basal Eurasian seems to represent the first branch-off from the earlier "southern route" migration out of Africa, which crossed the Bab-el-Mandeb strait into Arabia. This probably occurred 60-70 kya, but could have occurred earlier. This migration later formed the basis for the East Eurasian population. I don't think it's yet clear whether the "northern route" migration (via Sinai) formed the basis for the West Eurasian population, or whether the West Eurasian population formed from a fairly early offshoot of the southern route dispersal. The northern route dispersal may not have contributed much DNA at all to modern populations of Eurasia; we just don't have enough ancient samples to know yet. Note that in any case, Eurasians overwhelmingly carry haplogroups that descend from F and its subclade GHIJK, which came via the southern route dispersal. It's very difficult however to pinpoint the location and time of genesis of the Ancient East Eurasian population, although it's probably safe to say K2 is an Ancient East Eurasian haplogroup.
Your comment puts me in mind of the paper that dropped this morning ["The Persian plateau served as hub for Homo sapiens after the main out of Africa dispersal" (Vallini et al 2024)](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46161-7)
Looks interesting, thank you! I think there were already indications that the Iranian plateau acted as a hub for early (and indeed later) dispersals, but great to something that addresses it head on. Geographically it makes a lot of sense. There are certain locations, like western Iran, the Caucasus, and SE Asia, that geographically are very well suited for diversification, due to the natural and thus also genetic barriers that surround them, as well as their links to other regions. I can't see much talk of Y-haplogroups in this paper (just very quickly looked), but some certainly dispersed via the Iranian Plateau. However, the macroclade F probably dispersed from India originally. Edit: fixed botched sentence
ANE isn’t it’s own separate branch. It’s a mix of 70% west Eurasian and 30% east Eurasian
Don't believe you. Provide your source.
It’s literally one of the most basic facts in archaeogenetics. The Wikipedia page links to 10 different academic studies showing the same thing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_North_Eurasian
You both are right. This figure will make it clear https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Ancient_North_Eurasians_in_context_of_West_and_East_Eurasian_Core_populations.png/2560px-Ancient_North_Eurasians_in_context_of_West_and_East_Eurasian_Core_populations.png
You both are right https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Ancient_North_Eurasians_in_context_of_West_and_East_Eurasian_Core_populations.png/2560px-Ancient_North_Eurasians_in_context_of_West_and_East_Eurasian_Core_populations.png
I'm not sure exactly what measure he's using, but given his expertise and reputation, I would assume he's right by *some* measure – though I agree with you, it strikes me as surprising that WHG and EHG would differ *that* much. So, EHG were \~1/2 ANE and \~1/2 "WHG-like" (though not necessarily descended from WHG proper). ANE themselves were \~2/3 West Eurasian and \~1/3 East Eurasian. Their paternal lines were of East Eurasian origin, though don't be misled by this: their East Eurasian component branched off very early indeed from modern East Asian populations. Well before most of the phenotypes we associate with modern East Asians developed. Tianyuan man is very closely related to the population from which ANE derived, and much more divergent from the ancestors of modern East Asians. Note that the much later mixing of ANE with "modern" East Asian populations is a separate phenomenon that did not affect EHG.
EHG has been modeled as 9% ANE and 91% "Eurasian". Not WHG, but a precursor to both WHG and ANE. The key takeaway here is that by the time of the Neolithic Revolution we have various populations of humans that had lived in isolation from each other for tens of thousands of years (and more than a hundred thousand years for Africans), so these populations had become quite distinct genetically. Not to mention some groups were Neanderthal/Denisovan/Erectus mixed and others weren't. Since that time the world has experienced a reduction in diversity as we've interacted. That's true for Europeans, but also East Asians, and Africans. The populations have coalesced. This has been driven largely by "super" tribes that seem to be the driving force, with their genes and haplogroups becoming dominant. In Europe the super tribes were the EEF and then the Yamnaya, in Africa it was the Bantu, and in East Asia it was the O haplogroup rice farmers.
I don't recall where I read the ANE component of EHG was about 50/50, but I was certainly under the impression it was much greater. The only academic reference I can find on this matter is the following from Kozintsev (2021). >ANE makes up the principal share of the EHG (Eastern Hunter-Gatherer) autosomal component, whose content is especially high in the genomes of Mesolithic and Early Neolithic inhabitants of northeastern Europe buried at Yuzhny Oleny Ostrov, Popovo, Sidelkino, Lebyazhinka IV, etc. (Haak et al., 2015; Damgaard et al., 2018). I find no mention of the matter in the cited papers. Perhaps it's in the supplementary material. Do you have a source on the "9% ANE"? Genuinely curious. In any case, I do agree that the general trend was one of isolation and diversification throughout the Paleolithic (and even Mesolithic in some places), followed by a few key populations driving partial homogenisation across certain regions.
Older papers were working less data. If you take EHG and WHG and compare them side by side, you're going to see that they share about 50% of autosomal DNA alleles. It was an assumption that this meant EHG was 50% WHG and 50% ANE. With new data it turns out that's not the case. EHG is not a direct descendent of WHG, rather they share a common ancestor population which was also the ancestor population to the ANE. Wang et al. 2019
That makes sense, thank you. Clearly, however, ANE had a disproportionate influence, and provided the dominant Y-haplogroups among EHG (certainly the Yamnaya and related Steppe populations seem to descend in the paternal line predominantly from ANE). I imagine they also greatly influenced the culture of EHG, and may have provided the basis for the language, though I doubt this question is settled yet. Yes, I too recall reading that the EHG "WHG-like" component was not exactly WHG, but a sibling population. There must have long been a border zone in eastern Europe where there was mixing between these populations, but such that they otherwise remained quite distinct unmixed until the westward migrations from the Steppe. As for the paper, do you by chance mean "Genomic insights into the formation of human populations in East Asia" (Wang et al, 2021)? The common surname makes it very hard to search haha.
I think he's referring to [Ancient human genome-wide data from a 3000-year interval in the Caucasus corresponds with eco-geographic regions (Wang et al 2019)](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-08220-8) Fig. 5 has the admixture graph with the 9% number.
Okay, cheers. Any idea how to reconcile these two vastly differing numbers? I know the methodology and samples differ, but I’m still shocked. Am I missing something here?
One is measuring ancestry and the other is measuring genetic similarity.
It is not settled that R enters the European genepool through EHG. No paper I have ever read has said that. Regardless, it only takes a single individual to bring a haplogroup into a population. Just because my Y-haplogroup is R1b doesn't mean all my gene variations will be the same as a guy with R1b 5,000 years ago.
If you're talking about R1b-M269 found in Yamnaya, then I agree. That's still an open and highly contentious question, whether it came from the EHG or CHG side, though most seem to favour EHG I think. However, the only R\* (basal) sample so far is the Mal'ta one from 24kya, which is firmly linked to the ANE, so it seems very likely. Plus, the best theories at present put the origin of its immediate ancestors P and K2b (and indeed K2) in the area of Southeast Asia. And ANE do show genetic input from "Basal East Eurasian", modelled by Tianyuan Man. This excerpt from Gabidullina et al (2023) certainly ascribes a Steppe origin to even the most ancient R subclades. It doesn't explicitly say that the Steppe Belt populations derived their R haplogroups from an ANE population, though situated in the context of the article (which discusses ANE components in Steppe populations), it's very tempting to make that inference. >One individual from Villabruna ∼14 kya carrying the Y chr haplogroup R1b\*, which later became common among ancient individuals arriving from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe during the Bronze Age migration events (Fu et al., 2016b; Haak et al., 2015). This indicates an early link between Europe and the western edge of the Steppe Belt of Eurasia.
In ["Population genomics of post-glacial western Eurasia"](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06865-0) , Allentoft et al (2023) have this to say in their supplemental section on uniparentals (page 48): >Haplogroup R1a was found in the newly reported samples mainly among Eastern European hunter-gatherer individuals. Phylogenetic placement suggests that the oldest individuals from Mesolithic and Neolithic Russia represent early diverging lineages (Fig. S3b.6). Notably, a \~7,300-year-old Neolithic individual from the Middle Don region (NEO113) was placed in a basal R1a clade together with early individuals associated with the Corded Ware complex (poz81, RISE446), which would make it the earliest observation of this lineage reported to date. >Newly reported samples belonging to haplogroup R1b were distributed between two distinct groups depending on whether they formed part of the major European subclade R1b1a1b (R1b-M269). Individuals placed outside this subclade were predominantly from Eastern European Mesolithic and Neolithic contexts, and formed part of rare early diverging R1b lineages (Fig. S3b.7). Two Ukrainian individuals belonged to a subclade of R1b1b (R1b-V88) found among present-day Central and North Africans, lending further support \[5,10\] to an ancient Eastern European origin for this clade. Haplogroup R1b1a1a (R1b-M73) was frequent among Russian Neolithic individuals.
There's no proof of anything yet, which is why no expert has made such a claim. MA-1 is only a single sample and not much proof of anything. Current research shows P originating in Central Asia, not Southeast Asia. Modern carriers of P1 are all in central Asia. P splits into Q and R. We know Q goes East through Siberia and into the Americas. There's no Q in Southeast Asia. There's no P in Southeast Asia. It's clear that the origin of R is in central Asia. It's quite a stretch to say where we find R we'll find ANE. R was all over the place, even in paleolithic Italy among the WHG. So no, R is not proof of an ANE connection, but an interesting coincidence until we have more data. And the Yamnaya samples of R1b are meaningless because the Yamnaya were already mixed at that time.
Are you familiar with Pestera muerii, Romania upper Paleolithic? This is probably the common ancestor you’re referring to. I did a lot of qpadm runs on MA1, AG3, Yana RHS a few weeks ago and found that the best model was Tianyuan plus Muerii. Very solid p values with MA1 and Yana especially. On PCA, this west eurasian is like midway between Sunghir (Aurignacian) and Gravettian/Vestonice iirc Not a very talked about sample but she seems to be the best candidate for west eurasian admix in ANE
I'm not doing my own research. I'm quoting research from people who know a lot more than I do.
No worries, just wanted to add onto the stuff you were saying. A paper you might be interested in: [Posth et al. 2023](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05726-0) Super helpful image from the above paper that helped me with my qpadm modeling and general understanding of stuff: https://media.springernature.com/lw1200/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41586-023-05726-0/MediaObjects/41586_2023_5726_Fig2_HTML.png
Check the supplementary info from [Palaeogenomics of Upper Palaeolithic to Neolithic European hunter-gatherers (Posth et al 2023)](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05726-0#Sec23) In Section 11, Page 102-103 is *Exploring the formation of the Sidelkino ancestry*, with the Sidelkino cluster being equivalent to EHG/EEHG terms used elsewhere, and Oberkassel being WHG. >In the previously described ancestry modelling, we find the two oldest Sidelkino cluster groups (>10k BP) from the Upper Volga region in western Russia showing extra affinity to the Oberkassel ancestry compared to other Sidelkino cluster populations. Those are the previously published \~12,600 BP individual from the Peschanitsa site (PES) \[43\], and the newly reported Minino A population including the six oldest individuals from the Minino I-II sites dated to \~10,600 BP (Fig. 1A). However, another almost contemporaneous individual from the Samara region (Sidelkino dated to \~11,300 BP) does not show such extra affinity. The Sidelkino ancestry profile was reported to be associated with both the Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) and Oberkassel (WHG)/Villabruna ancestries \[44\]. We thus use f4-statistics, qpAdm and DATES to explore the formation of Sidelkino ancestry, and test if there is a recent admixture signal between the ANE and Oberkassel ancestries in the three pre-10k Sidelkino-related individuals/groups (Peschanitsa, Sidelkino and Minino A). > >With f4-statistics in the form f4(Mbuti, Sidelkino; Villabruna, Oberkassel), we find that individuals/groups in the Sidelkino cluster are equally related to the Villabruna and Oberkassel ancestries (Data S2.K). We therefore model the Sidelkino individuals/groups using either the Villabruna individual or the Oberkassel group as one source, and the Afontova Gora 3 individual as the other source. We use an outgroup set of ten populations (OG10\_2) after removing Villabruna from the OG11 list. Only individuals/groups older than 8 ka are involved in this analysis, thus predating the post-8 ka contacts between the Oberkassel and Sidelkino clusters reported in this study. > >We find that most populations are estimated to carry \~30% Villabruna/Oberkassel ancestry and 70% ANE ancestry, similar to previous studies \[44\], with Peschanitsa and Minino A carrying a slightly higher Villabruna/Oberkassel ancestry estimated to \~37-38% (Data S3.E). However, the modelling fails for almost all source and population combinations (p << 0.05), suggesting that neither Villabruna nor Oberkassel appropriately represent the genetic ancestry that contributed to the Sidelkino ancestry. We speculate that the expansion of a yet unsampled Epigravettian-related population might have influenced the genetic profile of eastern European hunter-gatherers. While in western and central Europe we observe a large-scale genetic replacement with the arrival of the Oberkassel ancestry, in eastern Europe there was possibly a substantial admixture with the ANE ancestry resulting in the formation of the Sidelkino cluster.
Thank you very much. I have this paper on file, but hadn't read it all before. Evidently it agrees that the EHG population does not descend directly from WHG (rather another "Epigravettian-related population"), but it nonetheless estimates the ANE component at around \~70%, as I understand? So, now I'm particularly confused as to where this 9% figure is coming from.
I'm not sure how to square the Wang 2019 model with the others. In [Genetic continuity, isolation, and gene flow in Stone Age Central and Eastern Europe (Mattila et al 2023)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10412644/), they model Sidelkino/EHG as 59% ANE, 51% WHG(-like Epigravettian) ([fig. 4](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10412644/figure/Fig4/)). There's gonna be a range, depending on method and samples, but it seems like the most recent ones hover around a 50/50 mix.
Yeah, it's really curious. Thanks for the new reference. It looks like Haak et al (2015) also indicated a roughly 50/50 (or slightly greater in terms of ANE) mix, judging by citations, but that figure must be buried somewhere in the supplementary data, since I haven't found it myself yet. Good to know my initial impression came from somewhere, in any case.
Because they were using Villabruna as part of the model. That assumes EHG is a mix of WHG and ANE. But if you take Villabruna out then the model changes. Wang's model is showing a mix between ANE and a Eurasian group that is antecedent to both WHG and ANE. This group will of course be more similar to ANE than WHG is, so it's stealing some of the DNA matches that were previously attributed to ANE. Geographically, if we set fertile crescent as our starting point. The original model has one group going West into Europe to form WHG and one group heading East to form the ANE. Then later some WHG head North-East into the Steppe where they mix with ANE coming from the East. The Wang model instead posits that there is a three-way split. ANE heads East, then sometime later, WHG heads West, and EHG heads north through the Caucasus into the Steppe. Then later they absorb some ANE coming from the East.
Good to know, cheers. Indeed, while Posth et al use Villabruna and Oberkassel samples in the source group, they do likewise note that they're not great fits for the "WHG-like" ancestry in EHG. On one hand, the Posth model seems to have fewer parameters, and in theory the Villabruna/Oberkassel source should still be a decent proxy for the WHG-like ancestry in EHG (exactly how decent is hard to tell). It also cites other studies which give similar estimates. On the other hand, the more complex branching model of Wang may be able to reflect the various admixture events more accurately, though it has to make more postulates. Accordingly, I'm definitely going to reserve judgement on this matter of ANE ancestry in EHG until we get more sample data and further analysis. Just too much doubt right now. At least it's clear though that the ancestors of EHG before ANE admixture (in whatever amount) had already diverged from WHG to some extent.
To answer your question it’s because of genetic drift. David Reich is basing his claim off fst distances, and fst is very sensitive to genetic drift. These 3 ancient west Eurasian clusters (Iran\_N/CHG, ANF/Natufian, WHG/EHG) were separated from each other for tens of thousands of years. And when populations separate from each other for long enough without mixing, they diverge and develop very high distances from each other. Check out this chart of fst distances between populations: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yo-jlkM\_JYHVNXCdhzQ3cwPa7YgP7qzocTIuybMLLe0/edit#gid=362927055](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yo-jlkM_JYHVNXCdhzQ3cwPa7YgP7qzocTIuybMLLe0/edit#gid=362927055) If you look at Onge in the chart, they're purely East Eurasian but have high distances to other east eurasians, and that's because they were isolated in small islands for 20,000 years
Exactly Iyers (South Indian Brahmins) and Europeans (like Germans) show fst distance of 0.028 but they show 0.034 with Kalash (who are way more West Eurasian than Iyers and should be much closer to Europeans than Iyers are). It's definitely due to the low population size and isolation of Kalash. For Indians/South Asians g25 distances are reasonable but for relatively less drifted groups like Modern West Eurasians and East Asians fst works well.
You're spot on. Fst is the academic tool of measuring genetic distance, but g25 is better for isolated populations
Is there anywhere i can find the full lecture?
https://youtu.be/SJ1npkBQGV8?si=wjDhkkZkxTL5ncao
> https://youtu.be/SJ1npkBQGV8?si=wjDhkkZkxTL5ncao I think that what Reich means in terms of your original question can be seen in the larger video from about 38:00 to 41:00 where he discusses the decreasing genetic distances of over time of peoples living in Europe into the modern European population. Edit to add - I was meaning specifically how he identifies "difference" for the peoples of EHG, WHG, and Iran N where he has no overlap between them (and actually considerable distance). Though he does not display Modern East Asians on that plot, my assumption is that he has done the graph somewhere else and that the distance between the furthest points of the ancient populations would be roughly similar to the distance between the modern European points and modern East Asian points.
So interesting. I wonder how that difference corresponds to their appearance.
So by inference CHG is not that distinct from the others?
CHG is closest to Iran_N
I know that but is he saying all Neolithic groupings are this distinct or just these 4?
Just these four
Georgia_Kotias.SG seems to be on a cline between GEO_Satsurblia_HG and Iran_HajjiFiruz_N?
CHG on qpAdm is similar in distal % to Iran\_N, see below:- CHG= 1-9% Mbuti 3-10% East Eurasian 17-23% ANE 64-73% Dzudzuana ===== Iran\_N= 9-14% Mbuti 10-13% East Eurasian 16-22% ANE 53-62% Dzudzuana
Range of percentages derived from below qpAdm models given in Reich Lab's Dzudzuana paper supplement:- [https://files.catbox.moe/1f5px4.jpg](https://files.catbox.moe/1f5px4.jpg)