In this round of notes, I’m going to look at Iain McDonald’s draft paper again, with subclade information that happily includes R-DF95 https://www.jb.man.ac.uk/~mcdonald/genetics/phylogeography.pdf
Background
The draft paper is well worth a read. Regarding R-Z18, Iain laments the lack of information about the large swath of ancient R-Z18 results released recently. The raw data from these last few studies does not appear to be publicly available to be analyzed for subclades of R-Z18 like R-CTS12023, so there is no knowing where those samples fall and what they might reveal.
I am again borrowing his homeland and expansion map for reference. R-DF95 is one of the clades (among several) under R-Z18.
According to Iain, R-Z18 appears in Denmark and Sweden early in its history circa 2200 BC and continues there into the Iron Age (Of course, it continues there right now, too, but we’re talking about ancient DNA). R-Z18 is overrepresented in Nordic countries in modern testers compared to the rest of R-U106.
CTS12023/R-DF95
Iain’s analysis of the current state of CTS12023 (on page 35) is that it is also over-represented in Scandinavia, particularly in Norway. Scandinavians seem to line up in the basal clades (the early divisions) of CTS12023. The dominant clade, R-ZP85, doesn’t share that over-representation. Although we have testers from Scandinavia in R-ZP85 in the early divisions, there is not an unexpected number of testers from those areas.
Iain relates in a narrative that CTS12023 is relatively unique in how widely spread it is over northern continental Europe. Its early history is unclear. Ancient DNA shows a long history in the Jutland peninsula and points farther north, but the timing of our appearance in ancient DNA is hard to pin on a single culture.
A quote from Iain: “Speculatively, R-CTS12023 appears too late and too far south for the major Nordic Bronze Age groups, and too late and too far north for the major Urnfield culture. However, it is probably too early for the Jastorf culture.”
R-ZP85
R-ZP85 has its own section. The early branches of R-ZP85 show themselves in Denmark and Norway. When it comes to the bulk of the British ZP85, Iain suggests that the peak of continental input was 500 AD and there is currently no evidence for continental input after 800 AD. Ancient DNA for R-ZP121 under R-ZP85 is found in an Anglian sample and a medieval Danish sample. This leads Iain to the conclusion that British R-ZP85 is most likely the result of Angles, Saxons and Jutes migrating to Britain after the fall of Rome.
I found this interesting video on Jutes and Franks in Kent, which contains some speculation about the relationship between Kent and the Franks. The video proposes that Jutish Kent was a lot more cosmopolitan than Bede gives it credit for. I think that assessment has been backed up by DNA analysis.
I know this section of the draft paper is under R-ZP85, but it’s good to note here that at least one of those Scandinavian basal clades, R-PH116, appears among the CTS12023 Jutes in Kent. ZP85 has a lot of testers, but it’s not the only game in town in Germanic Britain.
Turning back to continental Europe again, Iain says, “R-ZP85 remains fairly neutrally distributed around continental Europe, although 13 continental testers is not enough to determine an accurate distribution. It shows components from countries influenced by all north, east and west Germanic populations”.
I take that to mean that while Britain seems spoken for without more evidence, R-ZP85 (and by extension R-CTS12023) appears to have taken part in a number of Germanic migrations around the continent
That’s important. R-CTS12023 is tucked away in various migrations, riding along the waves of Germanic people wherever and whenever they went. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since CTS12023 appeared on the scene. We’ve been on the move since before the fall of Rome. There are a lot of interesting individual journeys in our small clade. I don’t take this draft paper as a way to negate any one journey but as an aggregation of the existing evidence that adds supporting documentation for that journey. Existing evidence is the key concept there. New evidence brings the possibility of new analysis.
A Plea for Public Data
Public access to the raw data is important to a lot of us DNA nerds. Having an enormous study that contains neolithic R-Z18 is great, but since R-Z18 is not the focus of the study, public data would allow others to carry the analysis of the DNA further into the clades. We might find the earliest evidence of many of the subclades under R-Z18, including CTS12023, and be able to put a pin in a place and time with less conjecture.
Those pins in time are nice for Y DNA nerds and genetic genealogists, but they’re also meaningful to history.
I recall that the Anglian migration from Jutland to Britain was disputed not that long ago. There are a lot of perfectly good documentaries that claim it never happened based on the evidence they had at the time. They saw a cultural shift without a shift in people. More granular Y DNA analysis helps to make the case for the Anglian migration as a real undertaking. We don’t have to rely solely on Bede for historical movements.
Y DNA analysis is part of the body of evidence that puts down the pin on a person in a place at a time and can match them with a person in a different place and a different time. Y DNA analysis helps validate the arguments for and against large-scale migrations over time by giving a linear narrative for people within a soup of autosomal admixture.