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Monday, December 8, 2008

Neolithic spread in Iberia, the Y-DNA perspective


What follow are my best guess on how Neolithic clades from the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa may have spread in Iberia.


I understand that E3b2 corresponds to a North African clade (sorry but cannot recall which is which after so much renaming, specially as the supplemental material on which all is based does not list the mutations), while E3b1 is probably the Balcanic clade instead. At least that's what seems apparent from their respective distribution areas.

See my previous post on this matter for further details on specific clade distribution and references.



It seems apparent that:
  1. Cardium Pottery (and whatever came after it) had an irregular array of founder effects in Eastern Iberia: J2 and G are stronger in Catalonia, E3b1 in Valencia while T is strongest in Ibiza, while the Ebro Valley appears as a hub for both J2 and T specially.
  2. SW Iberia, a major civilization hub since Chalcolithic (probable focus of Megalithism, major hub of Bell Beaker, site of several important towns/cities), may have been a major focus of "Neolithic" Y-DNA expansion, specially in what regards to NW Iberia, an area colonized only in the eve of Copper Age, along with Megalithism spread. It seems specially the main hub of Norh African Y-DNA E3b2 and may have redistributed it elsewhere in Europe in the context of Megalithism and Bell Beaker.
Additionally I made a separate map (again my best guess) for haplogroup I, which may have several separate origins. Check this older post on Pyrenean Y-DNA period as well as its Hallstattic continuity, when Celtic to see that, while a good deal of Iberian haplogroup I is clearly the Balcanic/Sardinian clade, another important fraction is not and may have arrived with the Celts in the late Bronze and early/middle Iron Age. The Ebro Valley showing up again as an important hub for haplogroup I may relate to the late Urnfields presence in Iberia was being consolidated and expanded precisely following that route upstream the Ebro river (though they were later cut off from the continent, it seems - forgotten wars of which we only have fragments).




Note please that I'm focussing here in the minority clades (yet not erratics either). I have obviated any mention to the main haplogroup R1b, that makes up the vast majority of the ancestry, though varying through regions too (the Southwest, Ebro Valley and Asturies appear as abnormally low).

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