Talk:Haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA)

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Much of the information on subclades in this article is unsubstantiated and mere speculation. It also seems to be an advertising endorsement for the dna testing company Ethnoancestry, which is in poor taste and very unprofessional.

Contents

[edit] BANDITISM

Someone retire Northen Portugal´s data in Right Sub-Titule:

People of Atlantic Europe (Welsh 89%, Basque 88%, Irish 81%, Northern Portuguese 81% Catalan 79%, Scottish 77%, Dutch 70%, etc.)

This part was targett of banditism

Also bellow:

"Recognizable instances of a modal haplotype have been noted within the R1b haplogroup.

One of the best-characterized of these haplotypes is the Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH). This haplotype reaches the highest frequencies in the Iberian Peninsula and in the British Isles. In the Iberian Peninsula it reaches 33% in Portugal (in some areas of northern Portugal it is greater than 96%). This has additionally been referenced in literature as Haplotype 15."

"(in some areas of northern Portugal it is greater than 96%)". This part was a targett of banditism. I kown because I research for genetic data few days ago in this article.

Thank You. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.22.235.32 (talk) 01:18, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A General Mess

This article is a mess and is in desperate need of revision by someone who knows what he or she is doing. There is a lot of unsubstantiated and unsupported info here and what looks like private theory or possibly some form of original research (despite Wikipedia's "NOR" policy).

The subclades portion of the article also reads like an advert for Ethnoancestry, a dna testing company. Stevo343 (talk) 00:08, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

What part? Could you be specific?
I have a serious problem with R1b1c10, that is still a "private" haplogroup by all standards (i.e. it has not been located in enough people to make up a solid haplogroup worth mentioning. The same can be the case with the subclades of R1b1c9, that have been located in very few unrelated individuals.
With all these I'd rather delete all mention of put them in a single prargraph together with the other private haplogroups: R1b1c1, R1b1c2, R1b1c3, R1b1c5 and R1b1c8.
I'd also like to expand the section on R1b1b and R1b1a, but the information available, at least to the public, is limited.
Now, R1b1c7 and R1b1c9 are well attested haplogroups. But they have been attested solely by commercial testing companies (Ethnoancestry?) and not by peer reviewed studies, like R1b1c6 and R1b1c4. This actually causes a great ascertaining bias because it seems most people having their DNA tested are British, Irish or otherwise of Northern European ancestry, while R1b and R1b1c is widely distributed in all Western Europe and as far East as Turkey in significative apportion.
How to deal with this problem. The only solution I can see is mentioning it.
Obviously the fact that you have inaugurated this talk page says a lot of the way this article has been created and modified. --Sugaar (talk) 18:20, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem(s) I see is that so far investigations did not really bother or were unaware of making any subdivision to R1b or R1b1c. The available publications of subclades are too specialistic to be generally accessible and even the naming convention varies considerably. This does not mean that available assessments are wrong by definition. It would be wise to leave speculation out as much as possible, albeit without removing information on distribution patterns that could be valuable, and in the meanwhile await forthcoming publications. Rokus01 (talk) 18:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Sugaar - I agree with what you wrote. The subclades section needs serious revision and really probably should just be deleted and replaced with a single paragraph. I think we would be best served in an encyclopedia article on a y-haplogroup such as R1b by sticking with peer-reviewed scientific studies and dispensing with speculation and/or what amounts to original (and questionable) research. One of the problems with this article now is that of "too many cooks". Another is "dueling edits," where one person deletes something and its original author just comes back and reinstalls it. Some of the subclades stuff reads like self-promotion, that is, it was put there by a member of that subclade to push a claim about his own ancestors (i.e., as "vikings", etc.).Stevo343 (talk) 20:24, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


Well, ISOGG, that is a really accepted reference, lists all the mentioned subclades plus some others. I have no question wether R1b1c9 and R1b1c7 exist, while I do have doubts about the real extent of their distribution because commercial genetic testing is heavily biased in their samples towards the British Islands (and in general people of northern European ancestry).
I strongly agree that claimin "Viking ancestry" is silly, specially on such feeble grounds. And that such claims by commercial testing companies should clearly be ignored here in Wikipedia.
I think that R1b1c4 and specially R1b1c6 are well documented by peer-reviewed studies.
I think that "private" haplogroups should be skipped or just briefly listed to explain the lack of reference for those numbers. A warning should be added to R1b1c9a,b and R1b1c10 in the sense that they are defined by very very few cases and hence (even if ISOGG disagrees) they are nearly "private" (i.e. not really a serious haplogroup).
I agree with intensely reducing the span of text dedicated to such dubious clades and to clarify for the reader which subclades are product of peer-reviewed research (R1b1c4,6)and which are part of commercial testing "research" (R1b1c7,9,10) explaining its sample bias.
See my proposal below. --Sugaar (talk) 12:47, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Rokus01 - What standard of documentation should be used for a distribution pattern? This is an encyclopedia article, after all, and encyclopedia articles are not really supposed to be "cutting edge." What sort of source, other than a peer-reviewed, scientific study, would be sufficiently reliable for establishing R1b distribution patterns? I definitely agree that speculative stuff has no place in this article.Stevo343 (talk) 20:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, this whole subject is cutting edge and should be presented as such. Agreed, the samples and publications are still few and even less studies based on the database are peer reviewed. Distribution patterns are very interesting, still rarely prone to definite conclusions yet. However, I can see another serious risk here, that the increased rate of investigation render current conclusions obsolete very rapidly, peer reviewed or not. Wikipedia should not turn either into a garbagepot of obsolete results, probably supporting obsolete theories. Still, the samples are there and though we have to be careful of the interpretation, I think numbers don't lie. Baseless claims can be recognized and removed easily. Rokus01 (talk) 12:40, 1 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Proposal for subclades

First of all, give due relevance to R1b1b. While it has not been as much studied as R1b1c, it is a clearly important subclade. (Additionally list R1b1a as "private" and apparently limited to Sardinia).

For R1b1c:

  1. Explain well that it has (like mtDNA H) a starlike structure. What means a fast expansion from a single origin, followed by relative stability (I hink I can find a source for this but refers to mtDNA H, not R1b1c - do you have one for Y-DNA?). Here we could mention the mainstream theory of post-Glacial Magdalenian origin (as it's the one we can provide sources for).
  2. Give due relevance to peer-reviewed clades R1b1c4,6.
  3. Make a subsection for commercially found clades (R1b1c7,9,10). Reduce the extension, supress popular/commercial "Viking-like" claims, clarify the sample bias and emphasize that this sample bias may affect the real distribution of the clades, mention the reduce number (quasi-private) of R1b1c10 and R1b1c9a,b (little more can be said of these but that they are rare). But do not supress them in any case: just clean up.

What do you think? --Sugaar (talk) 12:47, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Specify "Viking-like claims". To my knowledge, the gene known to have spread by Vikings to the coasts of England, is R1a1. Moreover, this claim is sourced. Rokus01 (talk) 21:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
It's doubtful the Vikings represented any one haplogroup or haplotype of haplogroups. I'd say the Nordic countries in Viking times were composed of the three main types we see today there; R1b1c9, R1a1 & I1a. Additionally, more and more researchers are beginning to make the claim that all three of these haplogroups (or which ever were "Scandinavian") could also be found in the British Isles in some amount prior to any "Viking" settlements. Nagelfar (talk) 17:56, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure, the Vikings were a mixture of different haplogroups and R1a1 was only one. This haplogroup is not even restricted to the Vikings (some investigations even suggest it might have reached the Americas through the Bering corridor), although some characteristics of this group seem to point at either a very long local development or a more recent founder effect in Scandinavia (as explained in various publications). However, this kind of characteristics to a certain populations certainly contribute to the reconstruction of migration patterns. Even though I agree the concept of a typical "viking haplogroup" is not current, the viking pattern has been detected along the British coastal areas. Funny by the way, since this kind of investigation also invalidate earlier assumptions of the alleged Scandinavian "germanization" of Northwestern Europe during the Great Migrations. Indigenous pre-Viking R1a1 is considered virtually absent in Britain. The same applies to many areas west of the Vistula, generally considered a genetic barrier, at least from east to west and to this particular gene. Thus, to me the "viking claim" for this gene is not completely void to people of English descend. That's why I am still puzzled by the argument against "viking-like claims". Rokus01 (talk) 18:22, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I've been away and now I'm not sure anymore what I meant exactly with the phrase "Viking-like claims". Surely I did not just mean Viking origin claims but also Chingis-Khan-like ones (like that U'Neill issue that seems not very clear to my critical eye. But well.
The case with popular (or rather commercial) "Viking claims" is that it's not possible to take apart what is Viking (Dane) from what is Anglo-Saxon (NW German): they have virtually the same haplotype distribution now and surely in the past.
Additionally, haplogroups can well have arrived to a specific localtion in several waves. If, R1a1 has a marked correlation with Indo-European expansion, you cannot say "it's Viking" - why not Celtic? Celts are as Indo-European as Vikings and they arrived from Central Europe, where that marker is as frequent or more than in Denmark.
We should be careful to abide to the facts and leave the populist commercial neo-myths aside. You can't really know from your haplogroup the exact origins of some unknown great-great-...-grandfather, as comercial testing companies claim. But we can get a decent idea of the ancestry of a population based in the collective "cake" of haplogroup frequencies and its correlations with neighbour and even distant peoples.
Just that: avoid as much as possible the hype and myths of commercial testing. Try to abide to peer-reviewed studies. --Sugaar (talk) 22:55, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to create a new WikiProject: Genetic History

I have put up a suggestion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals to create a new WikiProject, WikiProject: Genetic History.

To quote from what I've written there:

Description
A wikiproject for articles on DNA research into genetic genealogy and genealogical DNA tests; the history and spread of human populations as revealed by eg human Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups; and similar. Many such articles can be found in Category:Genetic genealogy and its subcategories, notably the subcategories on human haplogroups.
Rationale
  • My direct motivation for seeking this Wikiproject was a recent run-in at Y-chromosomal Aaron, where I desperately missed the lack of a relevant WikiProject talk page to go to, to attract the input, advice and views of knowledgeable editors in this area.
There's a lot of general public interest in the proposed subject area -- eg the Y-chromosomal Aaron page is apparently getting well over 100 hits a day, and over the last 18 months or so there's been a lot of material added, by a fair number of different editors, mostly editing different pages which are particularly relevant to them. IMO, a central wikiproject would be useful, and also a good place to be able to bring WP:OR, WP:V, and WP:general cluelessness issues for wider informed input.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology and Wikipedia:WikiProject Evolutionary biology do already exist, but their focus is much much broader. With regard to those project's charters, I believe the subject would be seen as a rather specialist niche topic area, rather out of the mainstream of those project's normal focus. On the other hand, I believe that there are a number of wikipedia editors (and readers) who are specifically interested in the subject, who would find advantage if there were a specific wikiproject for it. Jheald (talk) 12:56, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

If people think this would be a good idea, it's a target for WikiProjects to have at least five "interested" signatures to show there's some support, before they get going.

Alternatively, if people think it would be a bad idea, please leave a comment in the comments section.

Either way, please show what you think, at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Genetic_History

Thanks, Jheald (talk) 13:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New phylogenetic tree

After April 2nd[1], a new phylogenetic tree of human Y-Chromosome haplogroups has been published, and along with the insertion of new polymorphisms into the tree, some major changes compared to the previous trees have taken place, especially when it comes to TMRCA of the haplogroups ancestor to R1b. While our article estimates R1b originated some 30,000 ago, according to the new data Haplogroup R1 originated only 18,500 BP[2]. That means R1b cannot be linked to the Cro-Magnon or to European Upper Paleolithic anymore, since R1b probably originated not much longer than 10,000 ago. This article is going to need some serious rewriting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.70.132.63 (talk) 02:37, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Stop re-adding the section about the Paleolithic origins of R1b. It is not supported by current data anymore. The section reports R1b originated 30,000 years ago even though the latest study on the phylogenetic tree of human paternal lineages indicates R1* originated only 18,500 years BP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.70.122.96 (talk) 12:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC) Someone should alert National geographic and IBM. Brecause their web site still states R1B is Paleolithic. Plus it makes sense it is oldest and most prevalent haplotype in Europe. What is your theory? A recent mass invasion how stupid. All the bog bodies in northern europe are exclusivly R1B and nothing else. Give me a break. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.187.245.242 (talk) 11:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "R" Y-DNA more fertile with mtDNA "H" haplogroup...?

In a recent posting in the Y-haplogroup "I" discussion group Ken Nordtvedt says a Dienekes paper has suggested that haplogroup R1b might be so widespread in Europe because it is more fertile with mtHaplogroup H than other kinds of Y-DNA:

"Now there's a mechanism to explain how S28 and S21 ydna, having such a recent MRCA as I found in initial examination, could so quickly sweep western Europe as some say it has done. Dienekes has a paper saying R ydna combined with H CRS female mtdna is more fertile than I ydna combined with H CRS female mtdna. At least that's how I read his abstract.
This could explain the relative decline of all that early S23+/M223- I in north west Europe as suggested by the Lichtenstein cave data.
I hope someone will read the paper and give the list a down-to-earth summary of its conclusions on this."[3]

Very interesting, we'll have to keep up on this. 67.5.156.78 (talk) 08:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC) Mtdna is meaningless as most women were traded as slaves as in the case in iceland. Most countries in europe and amongst akenazis the women are identical basically a mish mosh of differnt haplotypes. The difference is the men and that has always been. Jews have highest european levels of their women more so than the british isles and scandanavia with ireland having very high female middle eastern dna. European Jewish women having no middle eastern dna. Irish can be boosted jews already boosted as far as you can go. Key word women. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.187.245.242 (talk) 11:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] On R1b's age...

No one can pretend it is possible to link R1b to any known ancient culture or people simply because we don't know as of now when did it originate. And you can't say that R1b is safely linked to the Paleolithic European cultures because (1) 18,500 BP is R1's, not R1b's, age and as far as we can say, it is not at all unlikely anymore that R1b is 9,000 years old or less (since there are 18 mutations separating R1b from R1, I would say that is is actually the most probable hypothesis); the question on when did the population from which descends a heavy part of the western European migrate from an unknown lost homeland to Europe in now unknown, since the link o the Cro-Magnon and the Aurignacian and the Gravettian cultures (both older than 20,000 years ago) has been destroyed; (2) if we consider that R1b originated somewhere outside of Europe, say Central Asia, as it is assumed nowadays, and its parent haplogroup R1 is in fact 18.5k old, it can't be linked to cultures which originated around the same time in Europe, since some thousands of years would have passed since R1bs would feel compelled to leave its place of origin and reach its current main "homeland", western Europe.

18,500 ago: the R1 mutation takes place God knows where, and becomes predominant amongst a given population (God knows which);
x<18,500 years ago: Some thousands of years go by as slowly, one by one, the 18 mutations which distinguish R1 from R1b originated and give rise to this new haplogroup in a Central Asian population.
y<x<18,500 years ago: Some unknown amount of time later, for whatever reasons, a part of such Central Asian population starts to move west and, God knows when, and which or how many paths were chosen, they finally reach the current main homeland of R1b, western Europe.

Behold that we don't know when R1 gave rise to R1b, and then when did R1b leave Central Asia for Europe and became predominant amongst western Europeans. For such reasons the "link" between R1b and Paleolithic Europe should now be considered weak and hypothetical at best. To say that R1's current estimated age somehow "still confirms" such "link" is to give evidence of poor grasp of the not actually complicated few evidence we have on this respect thus far.189.70.208.92 (talk) 08:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

18.500 BP is about the date R1b originated from R1. What references do you have to claim otherwise? Read this [4] (publication accepted 21 November 2006): "Previous studies of Y-chromosome polymorphisms in Eurasian populations have suggested a Paleolithic origin for the Y-haplogroup R1. The origin of the haplogroup R1-M173 is believed to predate the Last Glacial Maximum. This haplogroup dispersed from east to west, possibly 30 kya, along with the spread of the Aurignacian culture. Different demographic processes have been proposed to account for the current distributions of subclades R1a and R1b in European populations." Rokus01 (talk) 18:27, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I think it is very funny you quote a pay-publication of Karafet et al that does not focus on the R1 group at all. Nobody quotes this paper to contradict a Paleolithic origin of R1b and I suspect some WP:OR creeping in here on this subject. M173 is still clearly paleolithic to me, thus R1b derives from a paleolithic population. Please come up with a clear reference that R1b is younger than 10.000 BP (Paleolithic) before you reinstate this new theory. Rokus01 (talk) 19:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)