"East Asian" mtDNA in Neolithic Hungary?

I don't have access to the paper at the moment. According to Jean M:
The details have been added to Ancient Western Eurasian DNA. The team actually tested remains from:
  • Earliest Neolithic in Hungary, the Körös (N9a, C5, H? and a novel haplogroup 16235G, 16261T, 16291T, 16293G, 16304C)
  • Alföld (N1a, N9a, D1/G1a1, H?. The reported M/R24 is a partial result)
  • Final Neolithic Lengyel culture (H?)
  • 9th-century AD Zalavár (H?)
  • 16th-century AD Dobóruszka (U3)
  • 19th-century mummies from Vác Dominician Church (H?, H12, N9a. Another mummy was tested, but produced different results for teeth and bone, presumably from contamination. I have not reported these results therefore)
Definitely interesting, but as John Hawks notes: "we need not maintain that the haplogroups presently common in East Asia have necessarily been there all that long."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

MtDNA haplogroup 'C' is found among American-Indians and in trace amounts in East-Asia.

According to the "Ancient Western Eurasian DNA" link you provide, this is the first and only Neolithic mtDNA of that grouping yet found in Europe. It is probably just a curisoity, like the remains of an African found in early medieval Denmark a year or two ago.

Also interesting:
"In 2010, Icelandic researchers discovered a C1 lineage in their home country, estimating an introduction date of 1700 or earlier. A Native American origin for this C1e lineage is likely, but the researchers note that a European or Asian one cannot be ruled out." -wiki

Anonymous said...

"Modern Hungarian-speaking populations seem to be specifically European. Our findings demonstrate that significant genetic differences exist between the ancient and recent Hungarian-speaking populations, and no genetic continuity is seen." source

A warrior-class (Magyars) invaded, impressed their language on the people, then slowly disappeared.

Nothing to do with the possible lone mtDNA-'C'-carrier thousands of years ago, but on the same theme.

Anonymous said...

n/a

What do you think of this post http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2011/09/caucasus-revisited-yunusbayev-et-al.html

And the idea that it supports the model of a more dominant gene flow to Europe from the middle east and a more minor gene flow from the caucasus area?

Personally it looks to me as though it could just as well support significant gene flow from the caucasus area since Europe curves to the right, even without the chuvashs.

Near eastern migration does not account for the curving to the right. But without have any continuity what type of population do you think would have caused Europe to curve to the right?

Lastly, what would it look like if there was no influx into Europe from the east/steps. Would Europeans make a straight line instead of a curved one? How would the paleo Europeans affect the European trend?

n/a said...

Anonymous,

Didn't mean to ignore you. I'll reply eventually in a separate post, but I'd like to think about the general topic some more first.