Long-term hunter-gatherer continuity in the Rhine-Meuse region was disrupted by local

[Strider99]

Long-term hunter-gatherer continuity in the Rhine-Meuse region was disrupted by local formation of expansive Bell Beaker groups



Many thanks to @JMcB for sharing the link to this pre-print. I know it's one that some people on this forum have been looking forward to, and it's been discussed quite a bit over in the R1b-L21 thread. 

The first phase of the ancient DNA revolution painted a broad-brush picture of European Holocene prehistory, whereby 6500-4000 BCE, farmers descending from western Anatolians mixed with local hunter-gatherers resulting in 70-100% ancestry turnover, then 3000-2500 BCE people associated with the Corded Ware complex spread steppe ancestry into north-central Europe. We document an exception to this pattern in the wider Rhine-Meuse area in communities in the wetlands, riverine areas, and coastal areas of the western and central Netherlands, Belgium and western Germany, where we assembled genome-wide data for 109 people 8500-1700 BCE. Here, a distinctive population with high hunter-gatherer ancestry (~50%) persisted up to three thousand years later than in continental European regions, reflecting limited incorporation of females of Early European Farmer ancestry into local communities. In the western Netherlands, the arrival of the Corded Ware complex was also exceptional: lowland individuals from settlements adopting Corded Ware pottery had hardly any steppe ancestry, despite a characteristic early Corded Ware Y-chromosome. The limited influx may reflect the unique ecology of the region's river-dominated landscapes, which were not amenable to wholesale adoption of the early Neolithic type of farming introduced by Linearbandkeramik, making it possible for previously established groups to thrive, and creating a persistent but permeable boundary that allowed transfer of ideas and low-level gene flow. This changed with the formation-through-mixture of Bell Beaker using populations ~2500 BCE by fusion of local Rhine-Meuse people (9-17%) and Corded Ware associated migrants of both sexes. Their expansion from the Rhine-Meuse region then had a disruptive impact across a much wider part of northwest Europe, including Britain where its arrival was the main source of a 90-100% replacement of local Neolithic peoples.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/...4.644985v1

Edit: something odd happened to the title of the thread. Perhaps a moderator is able to correct it.

[Dewsloth]

Of course this arrives now: I have to spend the next several hours driving and can’t read it all yet. Doh

[Strider99]

About the uniparentals: 

We find that the EEF ancestry proportions in Rhine-Meuse area Neolithic people were significantly higher on chromosome X than the autosomes (normally distributed Z-score between 2 and 3) (Supplementary Table 4), indicating a higher ancestral contribution from women with EEF ancestry. Independent confirmation is provided by analysis of the two uniparentally inherited parts of the genome (Supplementary Table 6).

All Neolithic men (n=42 excluding close relatives) belong to Y-chromosome lineages common in Mesolithic hunter-gatherers (haplogroups I2a, R1b-V88 and C1a). In contrast, the maternally transmitted mitochondrial lineages are predominantly of Neolithic farmer origin (50 out of 71, based on their absence in sampled European Mesolithic individuals. For example, the  earliest individual with EEF ancestry, a Swifterbant female dated to ~4342-4171 cal BCE (I17968, Nieuwegein) at the start of the transition to farming in the region, harbors only 30% EEF ancestry in her autosomes but farmer-associated mitochondrial haplogroup H+152.

[Kale]

About the uniparentals: 
All Neolithic men (n=42 excluding close relatives) belong to Y-chromosome lineages common in Mesolithic hunter-gatherers (haplogroups I2a, R1b-V88 and C1a).

C1a is NOT a Mesolithic lineage!

[Strider99]

About the uniparentals: 
All Neolithic men (n=42 excluding close relatives) belong to Y-chromosome lineages common in Mesolithic hunter-gatherers (haplogroups I2a, R1b-V88 and C1a).

C1a is NOT a Mesolithic lineage!

I wonder if these Neolithic samples will have something like Anatolian-derived C-V3163, in which case their conclusion about HG-mediated paternal lines would of course be wrong. Fortunately, there's still time for them to correct that if that's the case, since it's only a pre-print.

[Kale]

I'd be hugely surprised if they didn't. In post-LGM, pre-Neolithic Europe, we have hundreds of samples, and y-hg C has only appeared in 1 or 2 Magdelanians, and LaBrana (who has a lot of Magdelanian ancestry).

[Orentil]

Once again the R1b-U106 samples seem to have rather corded ware background. Again no indication of a bell beaker U106 group...

[Rozenfeld]

Question from a noob: does this paper has implications for an idea of Nordwestblock?

[Strider99]

Once again the R1b-U106 samples seem to have rather corded ware background. Again no indication of a bell beaker U106 group...

Certainly an interesting sample, this one:

Despite a low steppe ancestry proportion in the autosomes, the male I12902 from Mienakker, who yields one of the earliest CW complex associated dates on bone in Europe outside of Bohemia and the Baltic region (2852-2574 cal BCE), carries Y haplogroup R1b-U106, also known in one early CW-associated individual from Bohemia. These results suggest that the male ancestor who brought this Y haplogroup to the Rhine-Meuse region was part of the early CW expansion.

[Pylsteen]

Finally this study!

Strider99

About the uniparentals: 
All Neolithic men (n=42 excluding close relatives) belong to Y-chromosome lineages common in Mesolithic hunter-gatherers (haplogroups I2a, R1b-V88 and C1a).

C1a is NOT a Mesolithic lineage!

I wonder if these Neolithic samples will have something like Anatolian-derived C-V3163, in which case their conclusion about HG-mediated paternal lines would of course be wrong. Fortunately, there's still time for them to correct that if that's the case, since it's only a pre-print.

I would think so too... very common among the Austrian Middle Neolithic samples and also present in German and French LBK

Rozenfeld
Question from a noob: does this paper has implications for an idea of Nordwestblock?

Not so much I think, that would be more about the continuation of the MBA/LBA/EIA population IMO.

[Strider99]

Yes, I think groups like Hilversum, Elp, Hoogkarspel etc would be more relevant to the NWblock hypothesis than early Corded Ware in NW Europe. Here's what McColl et al. has to say about the Nordwestblock hypothesis and the ENS cluster that they associate it with genetically, before and after the revised version:

Before: 

In the Netherlands, IA Southern Scandinavian ancestry become dominant in the place of a distinct Eastern North Sea population. The affiliation of this population is unknown. According to the linguistic 'Nordwestblock' hypothesis, the Netherlands may have harboured a language distinct from both Celtic and Germanic. Given that ENS is a Bell Beaker subcluster, which is associated with Celtic languages in Britain and France, our results can alternatively be brought in line with theories of Celtic speakers, perhaps including the Frisii of the Roman Period, inhabiting the Dutch North Sea coast during the Early Iron Age. Although no unadmixed ENS populations are found during the migration period, the incoming Southern Scandinavians carry small proportions of ENS ancestry, indiciating the migrations were not a complete replacement. Dutch coastal areas see a habitation hiatus around 1600 BP and subsequent appearance of a new material culture that is often referred to as Anglo-Saxon in nature, mirroring the genetics and timing of the Late Iron Age, linguistically West Germanic Frisians in this dataset. 

After:

From the Late Bronze Age onwards, irrespective of clusters, the Steppe ancestry in almost all Europeans is modelled by either Corded Ware (East) or the Bell Beaker sources (Fig. 3, Extended Data Fig.-4). Notable exceptions appear in the coastal region of the Netherlands and in Bohemia, where the two complexes overlap (Supplementary Note S5.7.2). In the Netherlands, we identify an ‘Eastern North Sea’ cluster that persists from 3700 BP to 1700 BP and is modelled with equal proportions of Corded Ware- and Bell Beaker-related ancestry (Supplementary Fig. S5.172, Supplementary Note S5.7.2). The existence of this genetic outlier has a linguistic analogue in the so-called ‘Nordwestblock’ hypothesis, which claims that the Netherlands harboured an Indo-European language distinct from both Celtic and Germanic.

Additionally, as mentioned by @Orentil in another thread recently, Gretzinger at the Max Planck Institute also seems to support the idea of a genetic Nordwestblock, which is interesting.

[Dewsloth]

Once again the R1b-U106 samples seem to have rather corded ware background. Again no indication of a bell beaker U106 group...

Is I13025 still the oldest Beaker U106?

[Mulay 'Abdullah]

Interesting

[rmstevens2]

Kind of disappointing, at least from what I can see from the tables.

[rmstevens2]

This, from page 6, is interesting:

This suggests that the observed mixture between CW culture associated groups and European farmers that formed the genetic profile of Rhine-Meuse delta BB must have occurred in the region itself. Radiocarbon dates further suggest that the Rhine-Meuse area was one of the earliest places where the BB cultural phenomenon arose61. While the earliest appearance of BB cultural material has been located in Iberia62, our results show that early formation of BB-associated groups, influenced not just culturally but also genetically by CW users, also occurred in the Rhine-Meuse area.