Swedish study: Scandinavian wolves are genetically pure

 Research (link)  shows that Scandinavian wolves are racially pure and have not mixed with dogs. According to the study, canine hydridism is a problem elsewhere in Europe. A Swedish study states that the Scandinavian wolves are of eastern origin and that the origin of the migration was Finland and Karelia in Russia. Wolves clearly more eastern than this belong to a different stock and the Chinese wolf turns out to be a hybrid. Pure wolf populations can also be found in North America.

The research is methodologically convincing. The selection of material for individual tests has been successful, considering the small size of wolf populations in Fennoscandinavia. Among other things, efforts have been made to eliminate the influence of close relatives on the results.  The effect of small populations is still clear in the PCA plots,  it would have been impossible to avoid totally.  It would have been good to eliminate relatives also in research when searching for the origin of Finnish Homo Sapiens. Of course, the scientific objective attitude is probably easier to follow in the case of wolves than in the case of linguistic and state institutions.

New Russian study about the Finnish ancestry in Russia

 Research (link) shows that Finnish heritage (IBD based) is common among Russians. Unfortunately other Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples, such as Komi and Volga Uralics, have not been included in the study. By adding these, we would get a better picture of the origin of this gene. Now the gradient indicates a Finnish origin, which is unlikely. It is also noteworthy that the IBD distribution shows that Finns have more West and Central European heritage than Russians.

The second figure describes the population bottleneck effect (effective population as a function of time). These tests are, in my experience, very unreliable, as are all tests of drift in supposed historical populations. Based on the current population structure, it is not possible to say what the population structures were like in prehistoric times. The drifts and their areas of influence have been different in different times.  This way, there could have been several regional subpopulations, bottlenecks and expansion times  at different times. This method is not suitable for historical research. Now only averages and evaluations are obtained in the test.  I was hoping for a larger number of populations in this case as well. 

Finnish genetic diseases

The research I linked in my previous post brought to mind the question of Finns' excellent genetics. Now that even Wikipedia tells about the Finns' 4000-year-old genetic bottleneck and disease inheritance, I will link here texts about the birth history of this inheritance. When talking about the  history of genetic diseases for typical Finns, we talk about about 40 diseases, which are more common in Finns than in the rest of the world.

The texts  (link) and (link) describe that the origin of these 40 diseases dates back to the time of King Gustav Vasa of Sweden (link).  A small local population in southeastern Finland (a few hundred families, a link, text in Finnish), attracted by the free land promised by Vasa, dispersed over a wide area, establishing small village communities.  You can find more similar descriptions about this topic, but unfortunately only in Finnish.  Readers in Finland can use them.  Unfortunately the text behind the first link, despite of telling right about the age of Finnish disease inheritance, falls into a storytelling mode when describing the older Finnish ethnic history, leading to a contradiction whether the genetic bottle neck causing genetic diseases existed during the first or the latter occurrence.   This underlines how observant reader has to be when noticing incoherences in texts.  The latter text, written by a pioneer of the Finnish genetic research is more informative (remembering Reijo Norio's visionary work).

This southeastern Finnish population was formed during Sweden's third crusade (link) towards Finland, when Sweden and Novgorod divided the lands of the Karelians at the end of the 13th century. In the 16th century, in these new village communities of Gustav Vasa's time, certain alleles leading to disease inheritance were enriched. Although this description of one population of Southeast Finland in the 13th century does not quite tell the whole truth about the events, it describes well enough the course of events on a general level as the population rushed to the north, west and east in the hope of free farmland.

Finns have not lived here for 4000 years, hardly even 2000 years (link).  This is the idea you get today from archaelogists and linguists.  During the last twenty years there has been improvement in the research, yet it is difficult to find sources in English.  On the other hand stories offered on the internet tell about a handful of Finns who lived in Finland 4000 years ago (population size being 3000) is complete bullshit, which is served to an international readership in order to improve the story.  By a google search you can find  hundreds texts descripting the population age of Finns from the Ice Age.  Nothing beats a good story.  

Archaeological finds don't tell about spoken language, but most studies suggest that the migration representing most likely modern Finns came to the Southwestern Finland during the late Roman Iron Age.  This match well with the recent linguist evaluations of the Finnish and Estonian linguists (link).

In the text I linked first you find descriptions of "early settlements" and "late settlements". Late Settlements roughly describes this new settlement area from the time of Gustav Vasa, early settlements is an area that was mainly settled from 200AD to 1200AD by the southwestern Finnish root population. Although Finns have significantly mixed with each other during the 20th century due to economic changes, this phase of settlement history is still very clearly visible in all genetic test results, such as FST, IBD and PCA tests.

More about the topic, Link

More reading, in Finnish, link

Edit Mon 16. Sept. 10 pm.

Two pictures from Reijo Norio's book "Suomi neidon geenit".

In the first picture, CNF-disease carrier distribution over ages. Finnish type (CNF or NPHS1), is an autosomal recessive disease. The disease is most common in Finland, but many patients have been identified in other populations (although the mutation can be different).  I would see it as a genuine mutation that occurred in the Finnish root population. It is not clear if it was born in Finland or did it appear in the population before it arrived in Finland.

The second picture shows the main distribution of genetic diseases in Finland, with the east-west division assumed by the author. How the diseases were chosen for the picture is not clear to me, but I would assume that the distribution reflects the Iron Age, the black dots representing alleles distributed by Sámis and red ones by Finns.

Fst test is a special case

 The genetic history of Finns is surprisingly poorly known. Words are used in a general sense and generalizing. It has become a habit to enhance one's own knowledge with expert vocabulary in different contexts without real context. For example, the genetic disease inheritance of Finns is used to describe the homogeneity of Finns and the old bottleneck of the Finnish population. However, this inheritance is regional, peripheral, and not even old. Regional genetic drifts are generalized to cover the homogeneity of the entire population. This is not the case, but different regions of Finland have also their own admixture, a very young Sámi mixture in the north, Swedish mixture in the west and south. Older admixtures include the Iron Age Estonian and Sami admixture of the entire population and the even older Germanic admixture.

Incorrect assumptions lead to incorrect conclusions and results. The fst results of the Estonian study, link, are right, yet could be more informative. It comes out by dividing the Finnish samples into decile groups based distances to the Estonian data. There are 10 samples in each decile and the result reflects the diversity of Finns in fst tests. The final result depends on the testing method, for example admixture tests would give a different result, but the error sources should be taken into account according to the method. I also tested with the same deciles against the British, although the decile division made on the basis of Estonian data does not give a correct picture of the Britts in relation to the Finns. 

Due to the nature of the fst test, the result based on the entire population does not give sensible fst distances of the Finns. In principle, we can take any set of samples and assume the meaning we want, but it would be better to analyze first, because every method tends to have own pitfalls.

The material has been downloaded from the 1000 genomes Project and Reichlab's Human Origin data.

Making sense of the I1-CTS2208 clade

 

The I1-CTS2208 clade is mostly a Scandinavian I1 clan and can be assumed to have originated in southern Sweden (?). Its root to the present is 2900-3900 years old (source Yfull, formed 3900 ybp, TMRCA 2900 ybp). From Sweden, it expanded its territory radially to nearby areas. It has been particularly successful in Finland, where its share of the male population is around 30%.

The test material was downloaded from Familytreedna's I1 project and all samples cover 67 str markers.  Due to the significant Finnish emigration to nearby areas, I removed from the material all samples of the Finnish clan found in Sweden, Norway and Russia (in Russia, most of these are ancestors from Karelia, which was handed over to Russia in the war). In practice, all of these Finnish samples represent a young migration movement, and most of them can easily find a Finnish root in the Finnish church records. In addition, I removed similarities that indicate close kinship from the large Finnish material.

The results clearly show an old overlap in the Finnish and Swedish samples, with the Swedish samples placed at the root in time (Yfull).  It would be interesting to look at the TMRCA of those overlapping samples.   The timings of the I1 tree can be examined in YFull. It should be noted that the neighbor diagram does not represent the age structure, but the distance of the samples and the tree structure arise from the genetic distances of the sample set, regardless of TMRCA's between samples or sample groups. In contrast to similar posts I did earlier, where the results were based on TMRCA data, now the results are based on str data.  Germany, Ireland, Poland and Denmark consist of one sample  each.

Men's testosterone levels declining

 The number of ancient genome samples from the vicinity of Finland has grown commendably in recent years. In my last writings, I have dealt with the genetic history of Finland's neighboring regions. For Finland, the situation is difficult; our acidic soil destroys the material effectively, and material over 1000 years old can only be found in exceptional cases, when the burial site is located in a place more favorable to the environment. According to rumors, some samples older than this would have been successfully sequenced, e.g. From southwestern Finland and northern Ostrobothnia. However, I cannot confirm this. While waiting for the publication of new Finnish ancient genetic studies, I try to keep my blog active with other considerations.

According to statistics, testosterone levels in men have decreased by 15% in the last 20 years. If it is tue, I think this is alarming. Undoubtedly, this could have adverse effects for the human species. Simultaneously with the decrease in testosterone level, sperm production in men has also decreased. An obvious connection, but what do the researchers say? Three reasons have been proposed for the phenomenon: - environmental toxins, plant protection agents and microplastics - unhealthy food that lacks many important trace elements, such as zinc and magnesium - feminization of society. Feminization would affect the way of life practiced by men and decrease the amount of testosterone level through lack of physical exercise and mental change, or in the longer term through pairing. It would be interesting to know if the decrease in testosterone is reflected in our genes. Are we poisoned by environmental chemistry and our food, or is the change also reflected in our inheritance? How should this decrease in testosterone be treated? Does it have negative or even positive effects on the future of our life? Environmental toxins are without a doubt something to be avoided, but it is difficult for an individual to avoid their intake. In the case of unhealthy food, the responsibility lies more with the individual himself, but the influence of society is also big. The feminization of society (which you can either recognize or not) would be seen, for example, in the changed upbringing of children, or its effects would be seen with a delay through mate selection in posterity. As living conditions improve and security increases, women might give priority to less masculine men. The change that took place through this would be visible in the inheritance of offspring, and it may be possible to ascertain it through research. All in all, the decline in men's testosterone is related to complex phenomena and finding out the reasons would be a challenging task, but it would be good to find out why and the effects https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKIM169763/

Estonian study from 2020 deepens the Estonian genetic geography

 The Estonian study Vasili Pankratov et al.  (link) shows the genetic structure of Estonians and the relationship of each province to the geographical environment. The research does not really bring anything new, but it does confirm a lot of what is already known with the help of extensive genetic material. In sum, the population of the northern parts of Estonia is more mixed than the south and wider in diversity (shares smaller IBD episodes) and has a wider population base (Ne reading). All of a sudden, this destroys the notion of Estonians' heterogeneous Balticness and leaves the Finnish and Russian demographic influence in Estonia still open.  

Comments

- figure 1 (b) describes the relationship of other populations with Estonians more than the relationship of Estonians with other populations, especially for the reason that no reference groups have been presented for Northern Russians.

- finestructure is not capable of historical context and easily gives misleading results about the origin of populations. Waiting for an analysis capable of historical context...