Central Asian admixture in Hallstatt Celts

One of the two Hallstatt_Bylany samples from Damgaard et al. 2018, the individual labeled DA112 (2630±48 YBP), shows a subtle but clear signal of Central Asian ancestry. As far as I know, this hasn’t yet been reported by anyone else, so I’ll happily be the first to do it here. To initially explore this issue, here are few D-stats comparing DA112 with DA111, the other Hallstatt_Bylany sample, in regards to their affinity to ancient Central Asian groups:

Thus, the two significant mixture signals (Z≥3) are produced by Dashti_Kozy_BA, from Bronze Age Tajikistan, and Botai, from Eneolithic Kazakhstan. But a few of the other populations, like Scythian_Pazyryk, are also close to a significant Z-score. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the Dashti_Kozy_BA and/or Botai peoples migrated into the Bylany region, in what is now the Czech Republic. It simply shows that DA112 is different from DA111 in a statistically significant way due to ancestry closely related to Dashti_Kozy_BA and Botai.
To further explore this issue I ran a series of mixture models using the G25/nMonte method. Below is an example of one of the models that made good sense and also returned a fairly reasonable statistical fit. Hence, it appears to me that DA112 was in some part, perhaps mostly, of Scytho-Sarmatian origin, with resulting minor admixture from Iron Age Central Asia.

Hallstatt_Bylany_DA112
Scythian_Hungary,79.2
Hallstatt_Bylany_DA111,18.2
Scythian_Pazyryk,2.6
[1] distance%=4.0302

Since it’s extremely unlikely that DA112 was the only Hallstatt Celt with this type of genetic structure, then it’s reasonable to conclude that at least some Hallstatt populations harbored Scytho-Sarmatian ancestry. Admittedly, this isn’t a very surprising conclusion considering the close contacts, as inferred from archaeological data, between the Hallstatt culture and various nomadic groups with assumed origins far to the east of Central Europe. In fact, here’s what the Damgaard et al. supplement says about the Bylany burial site:

The anthropologist J. Chochol hypothesized that cremations were of individuals of the local population, whereas the skeletal remains represented immigrant nobility.
Examples of long-distance contact are present in the form of a horse harness (probably Kimery horizon), a mounted stone characteristic of the Carpathian Basin and Black Sea region in Grave 1, and a pin in Grave 18 with bird motifs analogous to those found in the Caucasus.

Nevertheless, it’s nice to see archaeogenetics corroborate archeology on yet another issue. For those of you who would like to try running your own G25/nMonte mixture models of DA112, all of the necessary data are available at the links below. If you’re new to this, a guide to modeling with the G25/nMonte is available here.

Global 25 datasheet (scaled)
Global 25 datasheet
Global 25 pop averages (scaled)
Global 25 pop averages

See also…
First real foray into Migration Period Europe: the Gepid, Roman, Ostrogoth and others…

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