My European credentials

Since I got into a debate over race and genetics with "Aparition42" on Disqus, I thought I would post my genetic testing results, along with admixture and haplogroups..

Paternal haplogroup I2a2b (Celtic-Germanic) - likely origin: Rhineland

Haplogroup I2a2b (L38/S154)

I2a2b (formerly I2b2) has a distribution mostly limited to Alpine Italy (esp. Piedmont), Switzerland, the German Rhineland, the Harz mountains, the Low Countries, eastern France, and the British Isles (with the exception of Cornwall, Wales, Cumbria and the Scottish Highlands).

Four out of the six samples from the 3000-year old Lichtenstein Cave in central Germany belonged to L38+. The cave was part of the Bronze Age Urnfield Culture. Based on the STR dating, it is believed that this lineage spread from Germany to England via Belgium in the Late Iron Age with the Celtic people of the La Tène Culture. I2a2b is therefore essentially a Alpine Celtic haplogroup.

The distribution of I2-L38 matches fairly well that of haplogroup R1b-U152 north of the Alps. Both haplogroups are also found at low frequency in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and central Turkey, probably reflecting the migration of La Tène Celts in the third century BCE (see map). R1b-U152 is associated with both the Central European Celts (Unetice, Urnfield, Hallstatt, La Tène) and the Italic people. I2-L38 being limited to the Alpine region in Italy, mostly the north-west where Gaulish tribes settled, it is likely that I2-L38 was brought to Italy by Celtic migrations many centuries after the arrival of Italic tribes from the Alpine Danube region. I2-L38 people would therefore have been autochthonous to the region between the Alps, Central Germany and the Low Countries and were assimilated into the Celtic society during the Hallstatt or La Tène period.

Maternal haplogroup U5a2b (Nordic-Baltic) - likely origin: Sweden

Carriers of haplogroup U5 might have entered Europe during the Aurignacian (45,000 to 35,000 years ago) or during the Gravettian period (32,000 to 22,000 years ago). It is unlikely to have arrived later. During the Last Glacial Maximum(LGM, 26,000 to 19,000 years ago), U5 people would have retreated into refugia in southern Europe, from which they would have re-expanded during the Late Glacial and postglacial periods.

It is likely that U5a and U5b lineages already existed prior to the LGM and they were geographically scattered to some extent around Europe before the growing ice sheet forced people into the refugia. Nonetheless, founder effects among the populations of each LGM refugium would have amplified the regional division between U5b and U5a. U5b would have been found at a much higher frequency in the Franco-Cantabrian region. We can deduce this from the fact that modern Western Europeans have considerably more U5b than U5a, but also because the modern Basques and Cantabrians possess almost exclusively U5b lineages. What's more, all the Mesolithic U5 samples from Iberia whose subclade could be identified belonged to U5b.

Conversely, only U5a lineages have been found so far in Mesolithic Russia (U5a1) and Sweden (U5a1 and U5a2), which points at an eastern origin of this subclade. Mesolithic samples from Poland, Germany and Italy yielded both U5a and U5b subclades. German samples included U5a2a, U5a2c3, U5b2 and U5b2a2.

The same observations are valid for the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods too, with U5a1 being found in Russia and Ukraine, U5b in France (Cardium Pottery and Megalithic), U5b2 in Portugal. Once again, both U5a and U5b were found in Germany, although with a much higher proportion of U5b this time - especially U5b2a, which was found both among farmers and fisher-gatherers. What's interesting is the appearance of isolated U5a1 samples in Catalonia and Portugal, both circa 3000 BCE.

Mesolithic Europeans would have belonged essentially to Y-haplogroup I, with R1a being present mostly in eastern Europe. The rare Y-haplogroup C was also found, and haplogroup F could also have been there. Five Mesolithic U5 samples, all dating from c. 8,000 years ago, were tested for both mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal DNA. An individual from leon in northern Spain belonged to mtDNA U5b2c1 and Y-DNA C1a2 (Olalde et al. 2014). Another one from Loschbour in Luxembourg belonged to mtDNA U5b1a and Y-DNA I2. Three men from Motala in southern Sweden belonged respectively to U5a1 and U5a2 and to Y-haplogroups I2 and I*, possibly pre-I1 (Lazaridis et al. 2013).

Autosomal DNA admixture:

Red square is me

In a Principle Component Analysis, I cluster around the French and Swiss (Alpine), pretty consistent with the Rhineland hypothesis of I2a2b.

Further admixture results from GEDMatch:

Population

Amerindian 0.25%

Arabian 0.66%

Armenian 1.90%

Basque -

Central_African -

Central_Euro 6.45%

East_African -

East_Asian -

East_Balkan 2.79%

East_Central_Asian -

East_Central_Euro 14.22%

East_Med 5.41%

Eastern_Euro 9.72%

Fennoscandian 7.92%

French 5.17%

Iberian 8.18%

Indo-Chinese -

Italian 6.70%

Malayan -

Near_Eastern 4.42%

North_African -

North_Atlantic 9.09%

North_Caucasian 0.97%

North_Sea 9.44%

Northeast_African -

Oceanian -

Omotic -

Pygmy -

Siberian -

South_Asian 1.64%

South_Central_Asian 0.65%

South_Chinese -

Volga-Ural 1.29%

West_African -

West_Caucasian -

West_Med 3.12%

Populations that I come closest to are French, German, and Swede, going by Autosomes.