Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Iron Age Finns in Southwestern Finland belonged to N-haplogroup

A new article taking place before the study tells that at least four of around twenty samples in a southwestern Iron Age cemetery (Luistari) belonged to the male haplogroup N and no other haplogroups existed.  If we assume an even distribution between females and males, we can say that at least four of ten males carried haplogroup N.  The probability for all ten being N is very high and suggests about quite a dense local population.  The article doesn't give information about detailed haplotypes, so we can't figure the origin or populational connections.   Ten of twenty samples got maternal haplogroups, some showed eastern and some western kinship.  A bit mysteriously the article suggests that maternal haplogroups have more similarity with modern eastern and northern Finns than with modern western or southwestern Finns.  Does this mean that present-day western Finns migrated later?  Or does this mean that Iron Age Finns married women from eastern and northern parts of the country?   Researchers were able to specify some phenotypic details of four men and one woman. They all were blond.   Three of N samples showed mutations linked to the disease Dupuytren's contracture, also called in Scandinavia as "Viking disease".  This is a huge amount, even if we suggest N=20.  Did the Vikings belong to the haplogroup N?

Article 

Luistari is a large Iron Age cemetery in Finland with a lot material artifacts like jewellery and weapons and significant even in an European scale including over 1300 burials.

Luistari



  

14 comments:

  1. Was there any PCA? Did any of the samples stand out from others? Talking about males with N haplogroup. As far as I've read there was a conference so maybe you or someone else in Finnish genetic community got into and has some more info?

    Thanks.

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    Replies
    1. I was not there, maybe someone can help? If PCA shows any substantial difference between samples it probably would be minor Siberian admixture. Anyway, I'll be back after the study release.

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    2. Apparently there's some more info on Muinainen Suomi forum in News and Research section, but I'm not a Finnish speaker, so I'm going by Google translate. Apparently there was a PCA, but other than that I don't really understand what's being said there.

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    3. So we are waiting for it and will see it soon or later, if we have any.

      One interesting possibility is that those N-men were actually Saami.

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    4. I see, excited for results. Was there any mention of dates for when publication is expected for that study or some other conferences are gonna be held in that media article?

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    5. For now I have nothing more. Will update my blog when something new appears.

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  2. On PCA Luistari appeared more WHG-like compared to other archaeological sites within Finland. I haven't heard info if there were differences within Luistari samples themselves.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you. Actually we are talking about 1000-1500 years old burials, not ones being thousands years old and we should see comparisons to contemporaneous samples, which we definitely already have.

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  3. "A bit mysteriously the article suggests that maternal haplogroups have more similarity with modern eastern and northern Finns than with modern western or southwestern Finns. Does this mean that present-day western Finns migrated later?"

    mtDNA is uninformative. I doubt, with so few samples they can specify which modern Finns they have the closest relation to.

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  4. Looks, like Finns & Saami both descend from a handful of "recent" populations who went on to be the only settlers in Fennoscandia. Ancient DNA, from Finland/Karelia shows Saami are mixture between a "Siberian" & European people who arrived in Fennoscandia roughly 4,000 years ago. By 3,000-2,000 years ago, they were probably the sole people in Fennoscandia.

    Finns, for most part probably descend from a new group who arrived from mainland Europe at a point between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago. The Siberian admix in Finns is mostly from Saami admixture.

    This part is the mystery. There's lots of possibilities.

    The the broad European context, the story of Uralics, Finns & Saami is fascinating. In last 4,000 years, mainland Europe has been similar & interconnected. All shared a common Corded Ware/Bell beaker origin, all Indo European-speaking, all kept in close contact. Finns, descend from a close relatives in the outskirts who didn't speak Indo European, didn't have Y DNA R1a/b, and settled huge frozen piece of land in northeast.

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  5. @ Samuel

    This reminds me of stories about Americans who wonder if there are polar bears walking around in Finland. :)

    It is funny that everybody wants to discard the only sure Saami genome that we currently have: Chalmny Varre Murmansk Kola Peninsula CHV002/CHV38 mtDNA V7a1, yDNA I2a1

    I2a1 is Mesolithic in Scandinavia.

    In any case, it would be very helpful if we had ancient DNA. At the moment, there is a huge gap in the Uralic area: https://reichdata.hms.harvard.edu/pub/datasets/amh_repo_V37.2/

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  6. I apologize, Finland is not a tundra.

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  7. Finns do have lowest EF-farmer in Europe.

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LPWAEC3dbAEDu8aBAAcxIOa5CQjuflt0f0cvhCpZ_ME/edit#gid=1497568895

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  8. Hey, the link to the article has expired since it was through a facebook hyperlink and not the actual source URL. Do you happen to remember on which platform was this article released on? I have been trying to google with related search words f.e. Luistari N-haplogroup, Luistari blonde / vaalea, Luistari Dupuytren etc to no luck, so I am not sure if it exists at all.

    But at this point even pointing me to the correct site could help. I thought this article could be it: https://dynamic.hs.fi/2018/dna/

    But no it did not contain the mentioned information.

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