Despite some initial controversy, additional research seems to confirm that humans were in New Mexico by 21,000 years ago.

On the other hand, molecular studies claim that indigenous American mitochondrial lineages hint at a rapid population expansion around 16,000 years ago that would coincide with the (coastal) migration of ancestral indigenous Americans south of the ice sheets and rapid expansion across the continent(s).

What's going on here? If we trust the molecular clock estimates, were the White Sands footprints were made by a separate lineage not observed in the genetic data, and modern indigenous Americans are predominantly descended from a later migration (~16kya)? Could the White Sands steppers be related to "Population Y"?

Alternatively, could there be something wrong with the molecular methods used to arrive at the 16kya figure? Could the expansion in mitochondrial lineages actually have happened earlier 5,000 years earlier?

I am a molecular biology graduate in Turkey. I want to do a master's on archaeogenetics in Europe. My GPA is 3.04. Do you have any university or institute suggestions?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFpvB28owCw

does someone know anything about the maternal haplogroup J2b1b ?? i can’t find much information on it. mostly looking for populations and regions it’s common in

aDNA is facinating to study but I'm having difficulty with timelines when specific branches broke off and formed another type.

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Is there a good source that includes a timeline in graphic presentation of Prehistory, Ancient History branching of aDNA types?

So, as far as I know almost all countries that were once part of the Caliphates now speak Arabic, but for example modern Egyptians still share most of their genes with Ancient Egyptians, so that made me think a little bit, are there countries outside of the Arabian peninsula where the majority of the populations are ethnically Arabs?

Anthropolgy + Genetics? Would Classical studies somewhat do? Thank you

This is a free to use tool that calculates diversity of Y-DNA haplogroups from the geolocated samples of the YFull YTree.

https://phylogeographer.com/scripts/diversitymap.php

A few months back, before the diversity map version was released, I wrote this post showing relative frequency maps of various haplogroups from around the world. Note that the frequencies shown should be taken as rough approximations due to a computational limitation of the heatmap.js package.

https://phylogeographer.com/20-haplogroup-heatmaps-from-various-regions-of-the-world/

Note that there is no guarantee that the origin of a haplogroup will have been where the frequency and diversity are now the highest. The YFull tree does contain ancient samples but so far, for the diversity map I count them as modern ones. The position on the tree determines the weight of the sample used to compute diversity in a region. There is an FAQ with more details.

Diversity Heatmap FAQ – Mygrations (phylogeographer.com)

R1a-Z93 Relative Frequency

Source: "The PCA analysis also highlights the high affinity of the Minoans to the current inhabitants of the Lassithi plateau as well as Greece. Among the top 10 nearest neighbours to our Minoan population sample, four are Greek populations and two of these from Lassithi prefecture. The close relationship of the Minoans to modern Cretans is also apparent, when analysis is restricted to populations originating from Greece. Particularly in respect to the first PCA (capturing 92% of the variance of this particular subset of the data), the Minoans are extremely close to the modern Lassithi population, the populations from the islands of Chios and Euboea, as well as the populations of Argolis and Lakonia (Southern Greece). Thus, the modern inhabitants of the Lassithi plateau still carry the maternal genetic signatures of their ancient predecessors of the Minoan population."

I know that genetic similarity does not necessarily mean similar appearance, but given the knowledge that there has been high genetic continuity in Crete (or more precisely Lasithi) since at least Minoan times, would we be able to make an educated guess and say that modern-day Lasithians resemble ancient Minoans?

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Associated PCA and admixture chart

A new study by Posth et al. 2021 looking at the genetic profile of Central Italians from 1000 BCE to 1000 CE.

Main findings

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Etruscan period: 1000 BCE - 1 BCE

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• A core Etruscan cluster of 40 samples were successfully modelled as up to 25% Yamnaya-like or, alternatively, 50% Bell Beaker-like
• Individuals from both Etruscan- and Latin-speaking areas in the 1st millennium BC had the same amount of steppe ancestry, despite Etruscans being non-Indo-European speaking
• A group of three north-shifted outliers were not the product of local admixture in Tuscany, but instead groups from further north who possibly migrated multiple times into central Italy during the Iron Age
• Four individuals near the west coast of central Italy show clear north or sub-Saharan African ancestry. This may be related to the Carthaginian expansion
• One east-shifted outlier is successfully modelled as a mixture between core Etruscans and an Iranian-related ancestry, specifically LBA South Caucasus.

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Imperial period: 1 CE - 500 CE

• All Roman Empire-era samples show a significant shift towards the northern Levant and Anatolia, similar to previously published Imperial samples from Rome
• This Near Eastern contribution was lower than that seen in Rome, but still contributes to over half of the ancestry in central Italians
• Imperial individuals show an increased Y-DNA haplogroup diversity compared to earlier individuals, suggesting male-driven mobility from Near East
• Likely influenced by slaves and soldiers but also from the general context of greater mobility in the Roman Empire

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Early Medieval: 500 CE - 1000 CE

• By the Early Medieval, individuals largely overlap with present-day central Italians
• These individuals can be successfully modelled as a direct mixture between the preceding Levantine-admixed Imperial individuals, and incoming Germanic migrants
• Suggests that near-Eastern Imperial admixture in Italy was not transient, but in fact formative to ethnogenesis in Italy. Same can be said for early medieval Germanic incomers
• A set of new early medieval samples from south Italy also overlap with present-day south Italians. Suggests that modern Italian genepool was stabilised by at latest 1000 CE.