Ancient North Eurasian

Ancient North Eurasian is an ancestral component now somewhat common in population genetics... It was originally discovered through the genome of a Siberian boy who died over 20,000 years ago referred to as either Mal'ta boy or MA-1 and was backed up as being a real entity in pre-historic Eurasia through other ancient genomes like that of Afontova Gora-2. [1]

It's discovery really shook up a lot of things like our understanding of the origins of Europeans, Native Americans and even groups such as Central Asians, South Asians and various West Asians who seem to carry either Ancient North Eurasian or Ancient North Eurasian-related ancestry.

Lazaridis et al. 2013-2014 seemed to suggest that Europeans were basally a three-way mixture between Ancient North Eurasians / MA-1 related peoples, what they dubbed Western European Hunter-Gatherers based on the ancient genomes of various Mesolithic Hunter-Gatherers from Europe like Loschbour and then finally Early European Farmers who began entering Europe around the Neolithic from West Asia. 

Since then that model's become rather obsolete and has been replaced by one where all of the supposed Ancient North Eurasian ancestry in Europe is owed to the spread of the Indo-European languages by pastoralist peoples from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. 

These pastoralists were carrying with them a foray of different ancestries from what looks to be Caucasian-like ancestry rich in what looks to be Ancient North Eurasian-related & West Asian ancestry and what is for now referred to by chaps like Wolfgang Haak of Haak et al. 2015 as "Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers (EHGs)". [2] 

EHGs almost fit as a mixture between Ancient North Eurasians & Western European Hunter-Gatherers but instead don't entirely look to be the result of such a mixture. Though as David Wesolowski who runs the Eurogenes genome blog and ancestry project once remarked in the quote below- :

"It depends how you define EHG, ANE and WHG, and the concept of pure components.
They can all be distinct pops, or EHG can be a mix of ANE and WHG, or even WHG can be a mix of EHG and something as yet unsampled."

-it's honestly rather iffy and tricky modeling these pre-historic groups with wildly different time stamps on them (Mesolithic for WHGs and EHGs and Paleolithic for ANEs) as mixtures of one another.

But David seems to assume groups like EHGs and WHGs are likely a mixture between groups that preceded them perhaps like Ancient North Eurasians and some other groups as yet unsampled. The cold hard truth of the matter is that we require more samples of pre-historic Hunter-Gatherer groups across West Eurasia to really understand what EHG and WHG are and how exactly they're connected to ANE because the current models seem inadequate.

 It could just be that Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers are somehow extra related to Ancient North Eurasians or somehow partially descended from them and something Western European Hunter-Gatherer related. We'd need more ancient genomes across time and space in Europe and other parts of Eurasia to truly grasp this with any kind of conclusive detail.

Early Neolithic = Early European Farmer

Although one thing is resolved for now... A group of "pure" Ancient North Eurasians didn't come and contribute Ancient North Eurasian ancestry to the ancestors of modern Europeans; this Ancient North Eurasian-related ancestry is ultimately owed to expansions from the Steppe. Whether EHGs are "WHG + ANE" or related to MA-1 in some other way or not.

Though it is worth-noting that the non-EHG and "Caucasian-like" ancestry in Pontic Caspian Steppe pastoralists like the Yamnaya did also carry Ancient North Eurasian-related ancestry and in this case; not seemingly owed to Eastern European Hunter-Gatherer ancestry. 

The redder a place or its "outline" is; the richer in ANE-related ancestry it is

In the end though what looks to be Ancient North Eurasian ancestry or Ancient North Eurasian-related like EHG ancestry is found all over Eurasia from Siberia to South Asia or Western Europe to Central Asia. In a modern context it tends to peak in Siberian groups like Kets [3] or various modern South Asians and in West Eurasia peaks in the Caucasus region.

It also really helped redefine our understanding of the origins of Native Americans who like many populations on this planet are now understood not to be some "pure" separate branch of the Homo Sapien Sapien family tree but a mixture of sorts like Europeans. In their case the mixture seems to be between Ancient North Eurasians and East Asian-related ancestry. [4]

If I had to quickly dive into where the component stands in Eurasia; it's essentially closest to Eastern & Western European Hunter-Gatherer and seems to share as geneticists suggest; a sort of earlier root with these components like it does with Western European Hunter-Gatherer in that Lazaridis et al. 2013 diagram I shared.

Though as I said; we really need more samples from across Eurasia (West Eurasia, Siberia, Central Asia, South Asia etc.) from various time periods to really understand the true nature of groups like Ancient North Eurasians, Western European Hunter-Gatherers and Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers because as it stands; things stand on somewhat unsure and confused ground.

For all we know; what looks to be non-Steppe derived "ANE" ancestry in groups like South Asians, Central Asians and West Asians may not be owed to some sort of "pure" Ancient North Eurasian group like we once thought was the case for Europeans...

It could instead mean that these groups owe their Ancient North Eurasian-related ancestry to Eurasian Hunter-Gatherer groups somehow related to Ancient North Eurasians or who carry ANE ancestry themselves in some way or other; more ancient DNA analysis is needed... I say this a lot and before this blog post is over will say it again because it can't be emphasized enough.

This uncertainty I highlighted above is essentially why I insist on sometimes writing "Ancient North Eurasian-related ancestry" rather than undoubtedly assuming some of these non-European populations have direct ANE ancestry.

Eurasia

Nevertheless, for the time being what we dub "Ancient North Eurasian" is highly divergent from Western European Hunter-Gatherers despite the seemingly closer relations between ANEs and European Hunter-Gatherers when compared to Eastern Non-African groups, to a point where Native Americans will often seem more similar or closer to Mal'ta boy than Europeans are like in analyses such as IBS:


MA-1 IBS


This being the case despite the fact that the East Asian-related ancestry that makes up the rest of Native Americans' ancestry is less related to Ancient North Eurasians like Mal'ta boy / MA-1 than the European Hunter-Gatherer ancestry in Europeans is, though Europeans might be shifted away a bit by the highly divergent Basal Eurasian component in their West Asian / Near Eastern-related ancestry.


Eurogenes K=8 is a good representation of the levels of Ancient North Eurasian-related ancestry found across various global populations


Nevertheless, ANE is a pretty distinct ancestral cluster of its own with what seems to be a very large spread across Eurasia of either ANE or ANE-related ancestry showing up in small amounts even in some East Asian populations as well as somewhat in Egyptians, a Northeast African population.

Reference List:

1. Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans, Lazaridis et al.

2. Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe, Haak et al.

3. Genomic study of the Ket: a Paleo-Eskimo-related ethnic group with significant ancient North Eurasian ancestry, Flegontov et al.

4. Upper Palaeolithic Siberian genome reveals dual ancestry of Native Americans, Raghavan et al.

Notes:

1. What shows up as Ancient North Eurasian in East African groups like the Gumuz or Anuaks in the K=8 admixture analysis isn't actually ANE ancestry. From what David once told me; it's essentially some sort of archaic Eurasian element these groups demonstrate that just won't fit into the runs other clusters/components. 

These East African cluster rich groups in my experience do tend to show an odd as of yet unexplained very small Eurasian / Out-of-Africa (related to Non-African populations) element in various runs especially at K=2; just don't make much of it for the time being. 

2. I've put a little time into formally explaining components like Ancient North Eurasian or the Near Eastern / West Asian ancestry (Early Neolithic Farmer) in Early European Farmers because many I've encountered who've just gotten recently interested in population genetics sometimes might need a more straightforward explanation for what these components are / what we for now understand of them without having more ancient samples to paint a better picture so here are your explanations.

3. The world map that shows various ANE levels across the globe via the colors green and red is owed to a chap David/the author Eurogenes refers to as Sergey as mentioned here. And the MA-1 IBS spreadsheet if you're wondering is owed to David.

4. This is a direct note quoted from David/ the author Eurogenes I'm sharing because it's rather interesting: [-]

ASI = Ancestral South Indian, you can learn a little about it here. It's essentially a "South Indian" centered Andamanese & perhaps also Australo-Melanesian related component though we'll need ancient DNA from South Asia to really grasp it as for now it's not even "purely" made up of such ancestry and as David notes; is "mixed" in that it carries ancestry like Ancient North Eurasian-related ancestry. That's because all the models of it we have for now are based on modern South Asians who are all mostly a mixture between West Asian-related, ANE-related, Pontic Caspian Steppe-derived & "ASI" ancestry.  The only way to get a good and unmixed edition of it would be sufficient ancient DNA from South Asia where it can be found in such a state. 

Recommended reads:

1. A decent forum discussion about Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers

Is the Eastern Non-African situation more complex?

A recent study based on cranio-metric data essentially proposed something quite preposterous once genetics is taken into account and that's the following:

"Our results support a model in which extant Australo-Melanesians are descendants of an initial dispersal out of Africa by early anatomically modern humans, while all other populations are descendants of a later migration wave. Our results have implications for understanding the complexity of modern human origins and diversity."

It's preposterous because it's quite obvious at this point that Eastern Non-African (ENA) populations (I formerly referred to them collectively as "East Eurasians") at large share a lot of drift with West Eurasians or at least with the non-African & non-Basal Eurasian ancestry in West Eurasians like the African ancestry in Arabians or the Basal Eurasian in all West Eurasians. [1] [6]

This shared drift and closeness between Eastern Non-Africans and West Eurasians whether ancient or modern is seemingly owed to the fact that all Out-of-Africa populations are essentially descended from an extremely ancient pre-historic bottle-necked population like the following diagram from Lazaridis et al. 2013 [2] displays:

There seems to be little doubt in terms of autosomal DNA about this fact and their Haplogroups somewhat support this as well. Then there's the fact that Haak et al. [3] from what I recall proved Ust-Ishim [4] occupies a basal position to Eastern Non-African groups like the Andamanese Onge and East Asians alongside European Hunter-Gatherers groups such as Western European Hunter-Gatherers as the quote below stipulates:

"Ust’-Ishim was inferred to occupy a basal position to eastern non-African and European hunter-gatherer populations but not to modern Europeans, which was interpreted as due to admixture from a population occupying an even more basal position to Europeans"

This in a vague sense means that Ust-Ishim was in a state that Western European Hunter-Gatherers, East Asians and groups like the Onge are ultimately only "downstream" from as in they diverged from a shared state quite like Ust-Ishim regardless of whether or not he was alive around the time when the ancestors of Eastern Non-Africans, Ancient North Eurasians & Western Hunter-Gatherer-related groups diverged.

The Out-of-Africa model in terms of how it exactly happened and whether or not there were various slow dispersals rather than one is not entirely known from what I recall but one thing's for sure:

All of the ancestry in Europeans including their Basal Eurasian ancestry and all of the Homo Sapien Sapien ancestry in Eastern Non-Africans; ultimately diverged from seemingly one bottle-necked population (the original "Non-African" group in Lazaridis et al.'s diagram) and all of the Homo Sapien Sapien ancestry in Eastern Non-African groups like the Onge or even Papuans is seemingly a downstream development from the state Ust-Ishim was in.

[3]

So some idea where a distinct group of ancient Africans left the continent for Eurasia and then made it to areas like Melanesia and Australia with a second migration carrying the distinct ancestors of Europeans and East Asians is just not in line with the genetic data and that's what's ultimately most relevant in making such inferences about populations and their relations to each other; genetics.

Another big issue for this model is simple, in truth. Australo-Melanesians, Andamanese and East Asians are seemingly closer to each other than they either is to Europeans often prompting various population geneticists to lump them into a sort of "clade" with one another like "Eastern Non-African" in Lazaridis et al. 2013 or similarly in Kay Prüfer et al. 2014 [5] as I touch upon here.

Australian Aborigine man

The argument perhaps being that they share extra ancestry with each other that they don't share with Ancient North Eurasians or Western European Hunter-Gatherers, suggesting that there's another extra node in the Out-of-Africa family tree that they ultimately diverged from like you see in that Lazaridis et al. table where the East Asian-related ancestry in Native Americans like Karitianas seemingly comes from the same "ENA" node as Onges.

The question I'm merely posing here is simple; will things grow more complicated for this supposed node or part of  the Out-of-Africa family tree?

This is a possible outcome in my humble opinion especially once we get ancient DNA data from across Oceania, Southeast Asia & East Asia.

This grouping may even collapse to some extent and make it seem more like Eastern Non-Africans are partially descended from separate Out-of-Africa nodes downstream of Ust-Ishim that merely intermixed to some great extent in pre-history hence their closer affinity to each other over pre-historic West Eurasians like Western European Hunter-Gatherers; a model I've come to suspect but that could be entirely wrong. [note]

[6]

For now I'd say one thing is for sure... Papuans, Australian Aborigines, the Andamanese; these groups are closest to East Asians and Polynesians when it comes to the Human family tree but how this will make sense someday within the Out-of-Africa family tree in general like whether or not this Eastern Non-African clade will remain for the most part is what could be shifty but the greater closeness between these groups is not going to change.

Reference List:

1. Testing modern human out-of-Africa dispersal models and implications for modern human origins, Reyes-Centeno et al.

2. Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans, Lazaridis et al.

3. Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe, Haak et al.

4. Genome Sequence of 45,000-year-old modern human from western Siberia, Fu et al.

5. The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains, Kay Prüfer et al.

6. Early Back-to-Africa Migration into the Horn of Africa, Hodgson et al.

Notes:

1. The non Non-Homo-Sapien-Sapien ancestry in Eastern Non-Africans I'm referring to would be both Neanderthal & Denisovan admixture.

2. From what I can tell; Haak et al. didn't include groups like Papuans in its analysis when it made that statement about Ust-Ishim being basal European Hunter-Gatherers and Eastern Non-Africans so I contacted Iosif Lazaridis who was involved in the study and he essentially confirmed that Ust-Ishim would indeed be basal to Eastern Non-Africans like Papuans or Australian Aborigines as well though he noted that the Denisovan admixture in these groups can complicate such models.

3. Hodgson et al. (the sixth reference) is not relevant in anyway here except in showing those parties interested; direct proof that groups such as Arabians have African admixture. You can basically consult any of its admixture analyses to see that proven for you or even observe Lazaridis et al.'s K=20 admixture analysis to see the same kind of data where ancestry related to the ancestry in groups like Dinkas and Yorubas surfaces in various "Arab" populations including Peninsular Arabians.

4. There's also the fact that Eastern Non-African groups haven't been as focused on in population genetics as West Eurasians so a good amount of their lack of strong differentiation might be due to this...

Early Neolithic Farmer: The West Asian ancestry in Early European Farmers

 I've often shared results from the Eurogenes K=8 admixture run where the "Early Neolithic Farmer / Near Eastern"component turns up or perhaps referred to pre-historic "West Asian" ancestry and I'd like to take this opportunity to quickly explain what this component is.

It's simply as Iosif Lazaridis of Harvard Med ultimately says in that email reply to me above. It's what you would get if you account for the Western European Hunter-Gatherer-related ancestry in Early European Farmers or what looks to be the non-African ancestry in the Bedouin B samples often tossed around between various studies who are Bedouins from Negev.

Israel's South District, roughly coterminous with the Negev

Long story short; Farmers from West Asia migrated to Europe during the Neolithic and intermixed with the Hunter-Gatherer groups present there like what Lazaridis et al. 2013-2014 [1] dubs "Western European Hunter-Gatherers". 

These farmers as we've recently learned through observing some low coverage data on a Neolithic Anatolian Farmer; might have been carrying some Western European Hunter-Gatherer-related ancestry before entering Europe and then acquired more of such ancestry within Europe itself.

The rest of their ancestry was what Iosif Lazaridis refers to as "Near Eastern" or David Wesolowski who runs the Eurogenes genome blog and ancestry project refers to as either "Near Eastern" or "Early Neolithic Farmer". 

(Above are groups this component tends to peak in)

For the time being it's a shaky model for what certain parts of West Asia among other neighboring regions might have predominantly looked like in terms of Non-African ancestry. 

It's shaky because it's ultimately based around the non-African ancestry in Bedouin Bs who seem to lack Ancient North Eurasian / Mal'ta boy-related ancestry or the kind of Western European Hunter-Gatherer-related ancestry that appears in Early European Farmers. [note]

The component seems to carry an excess of the illusive Basal Eurasian component along with what in my humble opinion is probably ancestry related to groups like Western European Hunter-Gatherers but honestly; we'll need ancient DNA data from West Asia, North Africa & perhaps even East Africa to fully grasp "Early Neolithic Farmer" or "Near Eastern" as well as Basal Eurasian.

West Eurasia

For now any parties curious about this component should just understand it for being what is described above and as being a "West Eurasian" component seemingly native to West Asia that's been found in pre-historic groups like Early European Farmers and Pontic-Caspian Steppe pastoralists such as the Yamnaya. [2]

Its current modern spread is far and wide where it can be found in various distinct populations all over the world from Fulanis in the African Sahel to Tamils in the Indian subcontinent; signifying shared pre-historic ancestry presumably from West Asia or the general "Middle East" region between these numerous distinct Homo Sapien Sapien populations.

We'll know more someday and have a much keener understanding of pre-historic West Asia and neighboring regions once we have adequate ancient DNA samples from the region and other regions adjacent to it but for now; that's mostly all that needs grasping in respect to this component and what it is.

Reference List:

1. Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans, Lazaridis et al.

2. Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe, Haak et al.

Somali mtDNA frequencies

While like I've said; I don't touch upon Uniparental data (Y-DNA & mtDNA) too much, I still thought sharing this data would be rather interesting especially when you consider that I've gathered the mtDNA markers of about 75 ethnic Somalis who are on 23andme alongside the data from Mikkelsen et al. with a sample size of 190 Somalis.

And what's ultimately intriguing and why I've taken the time to quickly share these frequencies is how much the study & the 23andme set correlate.

I've essentially colored things based on the larger mtDNA lineage each subclade belongs to. All L2 lineages are colored blue, M lineages are colored crimson etc etc. 

The only meaningful differences would be for example that in Mikkelsen et al's non-L lineages (M & N) are slightly more common at roughly 37-39% whilst this goes down to 31-32% in that 23andme set (granted, the sample size is lower, I suppose). 

Otherwise the noticeable correlation is quite neat, I must say. The fact that L3 is the most prevalent non-M & N lineage. The fact that L2a is very common in all two sets and the general overlap in markers (the same markers appearing again). 

At any rate; I suppose I figured this was interesting data and worth plunging into one little place like this blog post for some to view. I'm not going to go into much detail at all here like the history of this or that Haplogroup. Sharing these frequencies should be enough because as I said; Uniparentals are not my forte; some blunders on my part pointed out by the helpful Zam in the comment section which led to a remodelling of this post are testament to that...

This is essentially the mtDNA data of about 265 Somalis most of whom are unrelated [check notes] and from differing regions across Greater Somalia in various cases, from three different sources and they correlate which in my humble opinion speaks rather strongly to how "representative" they are so enjoy this interesting data.

Reference List:

1. Forensic and phylogeographic characterisation of mtDNA lineages from Somalia, Mikkelsen et al.

Notes:

1. Methodology behind how the 23andme samples were gathered is gone into here.

Not everything Cushitic south of the Horn is South Cushitic

Not all of what seems to be Cushitic genetic influences South of the Horn of Africa should be perceived as South Cushitic admixture which is something I've hoped to mention for a while now for various reasons.

Map of languages spoken in Kenya

Some are overt & obvious and likely known to anyone at all familiar with a country like Kenya which is that there's a strong "East Cushitic" presence (Lowland East to be exact) via the presence of Oromos, Rendilles & Somalis all over Northern Kenya with Somalis even being the predominant ethnic group in Northeastern Kenya for one.

The Azanians: A Cushitic speaking people

Other examples go more deep than that though with anthropologists like Daniel Stiles explicitly stating that the Azanians of antiquity seemed to be culturally more East Cushitic (as in more similar to Lowland East, Sidamic and Dullay speakers). [1]

Mainland Southeast Africa

Azanians were essentially a rather advanced culture in antiquity (going back to the 1st Century CE or earlier) which traded with outside groups like Greeks, Romans & South Arabians and are thought to have been found perhaps as far south as the Rufiji river in Tanzania. [2] It says something that upon examining sites associated with these "Azanians" in Northern Kenya; Daniel Stiles figured they looked more like an East Cushitic culture than a South Cushitic one.

"The solution that Mous proposes is that the Mbugu people originally spoke a form of (Old Kenyan) Cushitic but, probably some time after arriving in the Pare mountains (49), there was a rapid shift to a completely Bantu (Pare) grammar (83)
The IMb lexicon has various sources, including Nilotic (Maasai), Southern Cushitic (Gorwaa and related languages), Eastern Cushitic (represented nowadays by Boraana Oromo and Dahalo, but possibly closer to Yaaku (Heine 1975)), and Bantu (notably Shambaa and phonologically adapted NMb).  

Mous argues convincingly that the Eastern Cushitic contributions are from an Old Kenyan Cushitic source and constitute the oldest lexical elements in IMb. This hypothesis is consistent with the most likely migratory route of the Mbugu and, if we assume that the Mbugu have always had a cattle culture, it is supported by the fact that much of the most detailed cattle terminology in IMb is from this source (43). 

Mous addresses the possibility that some of the Eastern Cushitic words in IMb could have come from Taita (Sagala, Davida) which although Bantu has undergone significant Cushitic influence (see Ehret & Nurse 1981). Of the IMb words shared with Taita that Mous lists on p.36 none that I am aware of have cognates in Mijikenda, despite the fact that there has been a significant Mijikenda influence on Taita (Sagala). This suggests either that “the Taita words in Inner Mbugu are remnants of an Old Kenyan Cushitic presence” (36) or that they are later borrowings from Taita which were either taken before the Mijikenda influx or were selectively borrowed in order to ‘screen out’ obviously Bantu words. The first scenario seems the more likely."

Above are excerpts from a paper on the Mbugu language a mixed Bantu language from Tanzania with strong Cushitic elements some of which are not entirely South Cushitic but instead East/Eastern Cushitic in nature from a rather old source. [3]  And this linguist isn't alone in finding this influence since Roland Kießling found substantial East Cushitic influences in Mbugu as well. [4]

There's also the presence of lineages like E-V32 and E-V22 among groups like the Turkana in Kenya and even some Maasais like in a recent paper.

E-V32 is very common in East Cushites like Somalis & Oromos [3] and even "North Cushites" like Bejas [5] while E-V22 via this new paper (Trombetta et al. 2015) seems to possibly extremely common among Sahos who are Lowland East Cushitic speakers like Somalis & Oromos. [6] 

However E-V32 and E-V22 while common in various Nilo-Saharan speakers although those speakers of Nilo-Saharan are mostly from Western Sudan [8] as a friend notes below:

"Turkana are Northwest Kenyans and Maasai migrated from there recently, so it seems plausible that they have some East Cushitic admixture, which could explain the V32. Or it could be from their Nilo-Saharan ancestry, although V32 is mostly found in Western Sudan."

So these lineages could seriously be owed to East Cushitic input or perhaps not and I'm just speculating too much here. But it is a fact that there has been intermingling between Nilo-Saharans and East Cushites; a fact Rendilles are a living testament to with the substantial Nilotic influences in their culture that nearly everyone that's every studied them in one way or the other has noted.

I wouldn't at all put it beyond these Turkanas and certain Maasais to honestly have some East Cushitic admixture.

One thing I and some others have noticed that could be an autosomal distinction between South and East Cushites could be what turns up at the higher Ks of various ADMIXTURE analyses whether its in studies or those made by independent more genome bloggers running ancestry projects.

ADMIXTURE analysis from Hodgson et al. 2014 [7]

.

And that's that like at K=5 (look at the numbers to the left on the ADMIXTURE analysis from Hodgson et al.) where Somalis and other Horn populations like Oromos and Habeshas alongside Wolaytas show more "Northern West Asian" like influences by showing "European" at this K alongside "Arabian".

And in various ADMIXTURE runs like HarappaWorld, Eurogenes K13 and Dodecad Globe13 where Somalis will consistently show "Mediterranean" to sometimes also "Caucasian" like influences while Maasais and some other seemingly mostly South Cushitic admixed will be utterly bereft of such influences in the same analyses (granted, the Maasai show some "East Med" in K13 but no "West Med").

Myself and others think this may be indicative of West Eurasian ancestry carrying gene flow into populations like Agaws & Somalis that perhaps never managed to hit South Cushites.

But the thing is while I haven't managed to confirm this as most of these runs tend to add all of Pagani et al.'s Oromos together for these kinds of analyses which skews things given their heterogeneity; I've been told by some reliable individuals that Borana Oromos may also lack such "Mediterranean" to "Caucasian" like influences.

You can also easily see that Ari Culivators who are Horn residing Omotic speakers with non-negligible Cushitic admixture like the Maasai don't show such influences and while I can't of course confirm this; I think it's more plausible that the admixture in them might be East Cushitic rather than Southern but we'll need more data and perhaps ancient genomes to really be sure.

So the point is; this may not entirely be indicative of a true "East-South genetic divide" among Cushitic speakers but it's the closest thing we've got on an autosomal level that at least I and those I tend to discuss East African population genetics with have noticed. It could turn out to not be much or anything...

But this could still prove relevant in that if a Southeast African population via various ADMIXTURE analyses demonstrates more "Mediterranean" to "Caucasian" like influences this could be indicative of more recent gene flow from East Cushites like how Datogs/Datoogas show tiny hints of the pink "Early European Farmer" component (essentially an equivalent "Mediterranean" in this run) at K=20 in Lazaridis et al. 2013's ADMIXTURE analysis [8]:

Some of the Somalis used in this study in some cases may not be entirely "representative" and the "Afars" aren't actually Afars

But this is merely educated speculation on my part. We clearly need more study into this but nevertheless; the point behind this entire post is quite simple--- not everything Cushitic in Southeast Africa or South of the Horn of Africa, Sudan and South Sudan or Northern Kenya should be assumed to be entirely South Cushitic. There are noticeable influences from East Cushites via archaeology, linguistics and at the very least; genetic hints.

Reference List:

1. The Azanian Civilization Revisited, by Daniel Stiles

2. The Lost Kingdoms of Africa, by Gus Casely-Hayford

3. Review of The making of a mixed language: The case of Ma'a/Mbugu, by Maarten Mous, reviewed by Steve Nicole

4. South Cushitic links to East Cushitic, by Roland Kießling

5. Phylogeographic Analysis of Haplogroup E3b (E-M215) Y Chromosomes Reveals Multiple Migratory Events Within and Out Of Africa, Cruciani et al. 

6. Y-Chromosome Variation Among Sudanese: Restricted Gene Flow, Concordance With Language, Geography, and History, Hassan et al.

7. Early Back-to-Africa Migration into the Horn of Africa, Hodgson et al.

8. Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans, Lazaridis et al.

Notes:

1. In Cruciani et al. E-V32 is listed E-M78γ ("The Gamma cluster", basically).

2. Although it's been brought to my attention via the massive Hirbo thesis that Iraqw do show E-V22 so it's rather E-V32 showing up in some of these Southeast African Cushitic admixed groups that perhaps has more of a dubious origin.

Meager comments on new Haplogroup E paper

This new paper which goes quite a bit in Haplogroup E3b / E1b1b / E-M215 has a lot one could touch upon and frankly; Uniparental (Y-DNA & mtDNA) data isn't my forte. [1] My knowledge of them is quite basic or at least not comparable to how much I know when it comes to autosomal DNA based data. 

But some meager comments on my layman part wouldn't hurt; specifically pertaining to some of the data we now have on the E-M215 lineages carried by various Cushitic speaking populations (or those with substantial Cushitic ancestry) in this paper. 

The above chart is basically a duplication of the one Ethio-Helix' author made over at his blog when he touched upon this paper.

Many interesting things were discussed in the comment section of his blog and while I'm not necessarily recommending this forum as while it has some great and stellar to nice members, it is also overrun with a lot of troll-ish, bigoted to unstable types; there was some great back and forth about this paper on it here.

Many things are quite interesting here like the fact that E-M293* essentially seems to be tied to and likely spread by South Cushites as it and E-V32 & E-V22 are the only E-M215 lineages found in this paper's Southeast African populations all of whom are known to have substantial Cushitic ancestry mostly to entirely via what seemed to be South Cushitic speakers.

South Cushitic Admixture in Southeast Africa

It's also in the past been tied to the spread of pastoralism across Southeast Africa & Southern [2], pastoralism being something South Cushites seemingly had a great part in spreading across the region.

However it's not entirely likely that E-V32 and E-V22 could be owed to South Cushites for reasons a friend noted to me just recently when I asked if they could be:

"Possible, but doubtful considering the South Cushites from Tanzania sampled by Hirbo (and the Datog, who are mostly of South Cushitic ancestry) lack E-V32 completely. Iraqw have some V12* though. These Tanzanians don't seem bottlenecked since they have the highest M293 diversity, so if proto-South Cushites had some V32, you would expect it to be preserved in the Tanzanians. 

Turkana are Northwest Kenyans and Maasai migrated from there recently, so it seems plausible that they have some East Cushitic admixture, which could explain the V32. Or it could be from their Nilo-Saharan ancestry, although V32 is mostly found in Western Sudan."

Now, given the uniparental data of groups like Iraqw who are actual modern South Cushitic speakers; it seems that South Cushites were paternally E-M215 (E1b1b / E3b) & T? [3] [4]

The current lack of J1 or J2 or even J* in all these South Cushitic admixed populations including South Cushitic speakers like the Iraqw is interesting to say the least. In the Horn J lineages can be found in Omotic speakers, Ethiopian Semitic speakers and Cushitic speakers alike. From Afars to Amharas to Gedeos or even Somalis to some extent. [4] 

The current lack of this Haplogroup among substantially South Cushitic admixed groups and even groups like Iraqws who currently speak a South Cushitic language is puzzling to me to say the least...

Other interesting things to note would be that despite their incredibly close linguistic ties; Sahos & Afars seem quite distinct in terms of Y-DNA lineages. For one in both this new paper and Plaster et al. the predominant E-M215 lineage among Afars seems to be E-V6 whilst E-V22 is the predominant E-M215 among Sahos.

It's also remarkable that all 94 of this paper's Saho samples are pretty much E-M215 carriers and could be 2% J1 or A-M13 or T or what have you when Afars actually tend to show a notable amount of J1, A-M13 and T:
More study will need to be conducted but for now it seems rather evident that despite their very close linguistic ties where Saho & Afar are often classified under one rather close "Saho-Afar" subbranch of Lowland East Cushitic; there's a pretty stark difference in terms of Y-DNA lineages between these two groups so far.

Other than that I find the amount of non-E-M215 in those Djiboutian Somalis quite interesting as this in my humble opinion means they're most likely predominantly Haplogroup T carriers.

An old mapping of Haplogroup T's spread

Somalis from Djibouti are mostly of the Dir clan (of the Issa sub-clan to be exact) and so far in Ethiopia and such; Dir clan Somalis tend to be mostly T carriers and something like 20-30% E-V32 [5] while the percentages are often the inverse for other Somalis like various Darods who tend to be 70-80% E-V32 and 20-30% (or less) T [5] with a small minority of J1 and A-M13 carriers.

Otherwise, I don't have too many other things to note that I possibly didn't note in this forum thread. I recommend going over to Ethio-Helix' blog post about this study and engaging in discussions about it there.

The thing is; I don't tend to touch upon Haplogroups in great detail because 1) I'm not that knowledgeable when it comes to them and 2) Ethio-Helix does enough when it comes to Uniparental data that me doing so would just translate into me just re-hashing everything he's already posted and adding some speculation here and there.

Nevertheless, I thought some of these things I and some others noticed would be interesting to mention here so enjoy and of course; do read the actual study if you're truly interested in all this.

Reference List:

1. Phylogeographic refinement and large scale genotyping of human Y chromosome haplogroup E provide new insights into the dispersal of early pastoralists in the African continent, Trombetta et al. 

2. Y-chromosomal evidence of a pastoralist migration through Tanzania to southern Africa, Henn et al.

3. Contrasting patterns of Y chromosome and mtDNA variation in Africa: evidence for sex-biased demographic processes, Wood et al.

4. Complex Genetic History of East African Human Populations, Jibril B. Hirbo and Sarah A. Tishkoff

5. Variation in Y chromosome, mitochondrial DNA and labels of identity on Ethiopia, Plaster et al.

Notes:

1. The Youtube videos are recordings of the Afar & Saho languages respectively that I've uploaded onto my Youtube channel. I've uploaded recordings of various Cushitic languages onto these from South Cushitic languages to Central Cushitic languages to various East Cushitic (Sidamic & Lowland East) ones and in time; I'll add more. You can go into the description section of any given video I've uploaded to know where they come from.

2. Although it's been brought to my attention via the massive Hirbo thesis that Iraqw do show E-V22 so it's rather E-V32 showing up in some of these Southeast African Cushitic admixed groups that perhaps has more of a dubious origin.

Anthromadness News and things to come

In light of what could be considered a bit of slump these last weeks in terms of my activity; I've decided to hopefully start working on this blog a good degree more. I've also decided to open up a new sub-blog of sorts.

Anthromadness News

Anthromadness News will operate a good degree like how Dienekes' Blog often does nowadays; I'll mostly just share a new and interesting study/paper on population genetics, history, linguistics or archaeology on there with often nothing more than its abstract or an excerpt along with a possible image from the study/paper and perhaps some short notes on my part as to what the paper could entail (I'll likely only ever do this rarely):

Optimal Ancient DNA Yields from the Inner Ear Part of the Human Petrous Bone

New Paper about the Phylogeny of Haplogroup E

Genetic evidence for two founding populations of the Americas

Like with the above three examples it'll be a good chance for me to spread around some studies/papers I have almost no intention of commenting on over at this blog (in detail, at least) or at times; said paper may just be "pay-walled" and it would be somewhat of a breach of copyright for me to share too much on some of its details until the pay-wall is lifted. Though I could easily create my usual sort of blog post on a study/paper's data a while after I share it on Anthromadness News.

As for this blog; I have decided to edit it up a bit if you haven't noticed. The old Leonardo Da Vinci sketch background is gone as is the old template and while this particular template is very sleek and simplistic which is to my liking; it does indeed feel as though I'm somewhat "imitating" David over at Eurogenes or Dienekes's blog.

While I do like the simplicity of this current theme; I will try and work on giving this blog back a bit of its own flavor/identity perhaps with a custom made banner and a logo or even a new background and paid for theme at some point. I'll see. 

You'll also notice new features like the new "followers"/ members feature (go ahead and follow... I have noticed that I do have a consistent following via page views) and the blogroll where I'm recommending a handful of genome blogs I really approve of. Granted, this doesn't mean I agree with the authors of those blogs on everything (f.e. I don't at all agree with Dienekes' belief that Anatolia is where the Indo-European languages originated) but they've done stellar work in many regards and this is me expressing some respect.

I also highly recommend Anthrogenica which is about the only anthro/genome forum I've come across not teaming with mentally unstable people, bigots and trolls; it's a very good place to discuss population genetics, anthropology and linguistics without having to come across any unsightly characters. Many of the members there are also immensely knowledgeable with a few even having studied (or are studying) things like Medical Genetics or Linguistics so you can learn quite a bit.

As for actual posting well... I've got many things cooking up. For those of you who were intrigued by the whole Dobon et al. debacle well... I'm actually still working on getting ADMIXTURE results and even more PCAs for those Sudanese samples. It'll take quite a bit of time to get all this done on my own but if you're truly still interested in those samples; stay tuned. 

On the other hand; I've also got my hands on the GEDmatch kit no. of a Sudanese Arab bloke and am working on getting the raw genotype data of a Nubian woman (both are not involved with Dobon et al.). I've found through the Sudanese Arab so far that much of his results seem to somewhat back up what we've learned via Dobon et al.'s samples and once I'll touch on both his various ADMIXTURE results and the Nubian woman's results in due time. [note]

A bit of a tease of the results to come. The Tigrinya is an Eritrean friend of mine and somewhat of an old "mentor" of sorts to me, I'm Awale/ a rather typical ethnic Somali and that's of course the Sudanese Arab I'm in contact with. 

The above ADMXITURE results were acquired via GEDmatch (Eurogenes K36 calculator) and are in some cases a bit prone to the infamous Calculator Effect like with how we all show "East African" (in this run that's a component that peaks in Maasais) so the above results are not at all 100% accurate but I'll touch upon what these results and various others (including those of the Nubian woman) mean in due time, this is again; just a tease. 

As for other posts; some may have noticed that my very first ever blog post about "Race" is also gone (I haven't deleted it and it's archived elsewhere as well) and well... I'm essentially going to come out with a much more comprehensive, accurate and perhaps even more hulking post to replace it with and once that's out I'll consider still making a link to the old post available.

A good Anthrogenica post I'll be sharing in my re-modelling of my first ever blog post

I'll also be coming out with various other posts with completely different subject matters from the ones that'll be on Horner & Sudanese genetics or the re-modelling of my very first blog post so stay tuned. I've been a little inactive lately and just wanted to briefly touch upon somethings to come and some of this blog's new features.

Notes:

1. For those curious; the Haplogroups of the three Northeast Africans would be Y-DNA E-V32 & mtDNA N1a for me/Awale, Y-DNA E-V32 & mtDNA T for my Tigrinya compatriot and Y-DNA J1e & mtDNA L2c for the Sudanese Arab chap. Our Haplogroup results and raw genotype data were made available to us via 23andme.