fastIBD analysis of Central/Eastern Europe

Please refer to the previous analysis on the Balkans/West Asia for more information about the interpretation of this type of analysis.

Clusters Galore


The Clusters Galore can be found in the spreadsheet. After inspection of the 23 clusters inferred with 21 dimensions, they could be described as:

1. Mordvin
2. East Slavic
3. Polish-Ukrainian
4. East Balkan
5. Vologda Russians
6. Lithuanian
7. Central European (combining many groups with small sample sizes)
8. A couple of related (?) individuals
9. Anatolian
10. Greek
11. Chuvash
12. Ossetian
13. A couple of related individuals
14. A couple of related individuals
15. Balkar
16. A couple of related individuals
17. Chechen
18. Kumyk
19. A couple of related individuals
20. Adygei
21. Lezgin #1 (main)
22. Lezgin #2
23. Lezgin #3

If you belong to a population with few other participants, you might end up latching onto a cluster dominated by a bigger group. This does not mean that your population is not distinctive, only that there are not enough samples to reveal its distinctiveness if it exists.

Inter-Population IBD

Results for Dodecad Participants

Results can be found in the spreadsheet.

If you have joined the Project, please consider leaving a comment in the Information about Project samples thread. That will help others make better sense of their results, e.g., if you find that you belong in the same cluster with some other individual, you might want to know something about their origins.

UPDATE: I have added the IBD sharing matrix.See here on how to use it.

Analysis of Germanic, Slavic, Finnic, and Baltic Europeans

I have taken 25 HapMap-3 White Americans, 5 Dodecad Project Finns, 25 HGDP-CEPH Russians from Vologda, 12 Dodecad Project continental Germanics (Scandinavians and Germans), 10 Behar et al. (2010) Lithuanians, and 9 Behar et al. (2010) Belorussians and 3 Dodecad Project Northern Slavs, in order to study genetic structure in Northern Europe.

The MDS plot has the following color coding: CEU=blue; Finns=red; HGDP Russians=grey; Dodecad Germanics="green"; Belorussians and Dodecad North Slavs="black"; Lithuanians="magenta".

The grouping of samples by populations is apparent: Germanic speakers (blue+green), Balto-Slavs (magenta+black), Finns (red), with North Russians occupying an intermediate position between Finns and the other Slavs.

ADMIXTURE analysis with K=3 confirms this observation: dark blue corresponds to the Germanic cluster; green to the Finnish one, and light blue to the Balto-Slavic one.

Below are population averages:

CEU are of the Germanic component, with a little Balto-Slavic.

Finns are of the Finnic component, with a little Germanic. Note, however, that this does not mean that they do not share substantial ancestry with Balto-Slavs! The Finnic component itself is composite, comprising of both East and West Eurasian elements, the latter of which could very well represent a common element between Finns and Balto-Slavs.

Vologda Russians seem to be primarily Finnic in origin, but with some distinct Balto-Slavic component.

The Germanic group is primarily in the Germanic component, with some Finnic; without revealing any information, I'll just say that this is contributed primarily by 3 Dodecad Project members who deviate towards Finns and whose ADMIXTURE analysis shows a higher than expected Northeast Asian component. Their outlier status is also visible in the MDS plot.

The Balto-Slavic component reaches its maximum in Lithuanians, while my Slavic sample is primarily Balto-Slavic, but shows both Finnic and Germanic admixture.

The study of structure in northern Europe is important not only for the region itself, but also for the world at large. The northern European component occurs at a lower frequency outside North/Central Europe and knowledge about its structure in its homeland may elucidate its origins in other regions.