Friday, March 12, 2021

New HG N sample found - do we have now the home land of Proto-Uralic people

Kılınç et al. 2021 brought forth a new ancient Bronze Age sample belonging to Y-DNA haplogroup N.  I have tested it and it shows an extreme Siberian ancestry. This is the second time we have a Bronze Age sample carrying haplogroup N.  The first time we saw this happening a couple years ago with Bronze Age Kola Peninsula samples.  Both samples, Kola and now the new one from Krasnojarsk Russia belong to the clade L1026/L392, but now I have an unconfirmed evidence about the latter one belonging to the downstream mutation L1022, which is known to be Estonian and Southwest Finnish in modern samples.  So far so good, but while recent Estonians and also Iron Age Estonians show a negligible amount of Siberian ancestry, whether they belong to the HG N or not, the new sample is fully Siberian.  While the new Krasnojarsk sample is 100% Siberian, Kola samples show roughly 50/50% Siberian and Baltic HG-like ancestry and Iron Age Estonians are of later Baltic ancestry with CWC admixture or of mixed Scandinavian-Baltic ancestry.  So we have still a big puzzle with the origin of the HG N in the Baltic Sea region and also with the origin of Baltic Finnic genetic home land.  If I had to choose between the Krasnojarsk and Kola samples  would prefer the Kola samples due to their large European autosomal admixture and the situation near strongest modern European N clusters.

 I made a PCA plot locating the new sample and it was placed near Koryak people, maybe Chukchis too, but I had not them in my analysis. Koryaks are one of the most distant people in all Siberian people.    I also made a qpAdm test in aim to see the best Siberian admixture population for modern Saamis to evaluate the fit with the new Krasnojarsk sample.  The Krasnojarsk sample did fit as a Siberian admixture of the Saami and present-day Nenets were a better fit. So we can say  that the Krasnojarsk sample is a poorer fit than Nenets figuring Siberian ancestry in Fennoscandinavia and we don't need the new sample to explain the origin of Baltic-Finnic people and their assumed Siberian admixture origin.  Additionally the ancient Kola sample set explains the N-L1026 in Fennoscandinavia better than any other sample so far, because the Siberian admixture in Fennoscandinavia and in the living area of Baltic Finns today shows an evident gradient from north to south diminishing to zero in Iron Age Estonia.  Whether the original Finno-Ugric speakers were genetically Koryak-like or not, I wouldn't yet bet on it.