A Proposal for a New Lexicon for Ancient DNA "Components" Like WHG, EHG, EEF, ANE, and CHG

Some of us a few years back started to decry the ever-ongoing ISOGG renaming process, which coupled with the discovery of new subclades, meant that one year, someone might be deemed R1b1b1a2bab2ba11babd12ba2b1c, and the next year R1b1b2bab2f1faf1fafaf1f1f1a. 

People started saying that it would probably be better to say the first couple letters and the major terminal SNP. For example, R1b-U106 or I2-M26. This was logical and good.  Unlike the terminology, the SNPs never change. And they're shorter to write.
  
Here I humbly propose a new terminology for ancient autosomal samples. I think picking terms like, "WHG" was a mistake, and now that I read about EHG and CHG, I really think so. For the uninitiated, these acronyms stand for "Western Hunter Gatherer," "Caucasus Hunter Gatherer," etc.

People compare their modern genomes, or the genomes of modern populations or ethnic groups, to these ancient samples. And then they use the shorthand, like, "Scottish average 19% CHG." This is highly misleading.
 
Let me give the reasons why I think it is deficient, and tell me if you disagree.
 
1. As we get more samples over time, it will be hard to keep renaming the different samples, if they form a different component. We just saw this with the recent CHG finds. Imagine if we find a detectable signal of ancient genes from Iberia. What will we call that component? "Really Western Hunter Gatherer?"
 
2. The shorthand is deeply misleading (i.e., "Scottish are 19% CHG.") This to me is the most important point. Most people reading this are experts. But I see on so many other boards people who seem to think that some scientist somewhere took a survey of a bunch of ancient samples, "averaged" it, and that we are comparing populations to populations.

We're not. We are not comparing Scots to Western Hunter Gatherers. We are comparing Scots (or any other modern individual or group) to ONE SAMPLE. For WHG, it's Loschbour. For EEF, it's Stuttgart. For ANE, it's Mal'ta. Etc.

3. We don't know that that one sample will turn out to be representative of "Western Hunter Gatherers" any more than we know that taking Danny Devito or the harlequin model Fabio is a representative of a modern Italian. Indeed, as the number of samples we get grows, we know the situation is infinitely more complex.

We all remember, for example, when the first farmers sampled had very unique mtDNA. For a while, people tried to read too much into it. "OMG, what if all farmers bore this odd mtDNA?" was the refrain. But it turned out to be a one-off. This can and will happen again and again as we get more samples over time.

4. The acronyms will get repetitive real fast. We are talking about aDNA, remember? Before farming, the whole world were hunter gatherers. So, many (most) aDNA samples will eventually have -HG after them, if we follow the current convention.

I imagine a world where we have found 26 slightly different hunter gatherer samples, and thus we have one different -HG for every letter in the alphabet! That'd be just silly.
 
For these reasons, but primarily numbers 2 and 3, I think the current practice is misleading and doomed to failure. Europe is a very complicated place. We will find ancient samples with very unique genomes, which are detectable in modern populations. They will all be slightly different from one another, because one sample is, well, one sample... It is highly misleading to say that "John Smith..." or "Estonians are more Western Hunter Gatherer than..." because we have not sampled all, most, or even many Western Hunter Gatherers. (I don't mean to pick on WHG. This applies equally, indeed MORE, with EEF and ANE!)

So, what is the solution?

I think if we purport to be scientific, we need to speak with scientific precision.

If an individual or a modern population bears resemblance to an ancient genome, we should state that it has a percentage similarity to that one sample. And not try to make it more than it is, like the very official and extensive term like, "Eastern Hunter Gatherers."

As for the sample, we should also include the year discovered, the situs of the discovery, and the years Before Present (BP). 

Remember, many of these sites are caves where there have been and will be more discoveries. In other words, I expect there will be many more Loschbours, more Stuttgarts, etc., and it will get quite confusing unless we speak with specificity about when something was discovered and when in time it came from.
 
Let's avoid a situation like we had with terms like R1b1b1b1a2a1b2bc3d, which lose meaning. Let's refer to things with scientific precision.

Examples:

Instead of, "Scots are 19% Ancient North Eurasian."

SAY: "On average 19% of the genes of the modern Scottish population match 2013Mal'ta-24,000BP."

Instead of, "Southern European populations have a lot more CHG blood than I expected."

SAY: "Southern European populations bear many genes matching 2015Kotias-10,000BP."

Instead of, "Sardinians are 45% WHG."

SAY: "Approximately 45% of the genes in the modern Sardinian population resemble 2013Loschbour-6000BP."


This convention is much more accurate.

The Top Ten Myths of Genetic Genealogy, Archaeogenetics, and DNA Testing (10 through 7)

Any scientist visiting the websites or online forums of Eupedia, Anthrogenica, or Apricity (to name a few) is mortified.  The amount of shorthand claims, pseudo-science, pop-anthropology, and myths perpetuated there are truly astonishing, and quite sad.  Below we list the Top Ten myths of this world.  We will update the post over time to link to specific offenders, so you can share the laughs we shared.

Don't be an idiot.  Learn these myths, and for the love of all things holy, don't propagate them!

10.  If you are of Scandinavian heritage (Denmark, Norway, Sweden), you are a "Viking."  

Example post: "my gma is half Swedish and I am very adventurous; must be the Viking LOL."  

Vikings were the marauders sailing from Scandinavia who invaded many parts of Europe during the years of approximately 600 AD - 1200 AD.   Those of Scandinavian blood are emphatically NOT "Viking."  The Vikings were the adventurous ones who left.  Scandinavians are descended of the ones who stayed home.  

While Scandinavians may share common origin with the Vikings dating back 1500 years, technically it's not correct to say they are descended from them.  And to the extent there is a gene for adventure-seeking, violence, or the so-called, "warrior" gene, it's more probable that the ones who stayed in Scandinavia (as fishermen and barley farmers) do NOT have that gene.

Many Russians, Ukrainians, English, Scots, Calabrians, Sicilians, and Northern French have a better claim to be "directly descended from Vikings."  Sorry.



9.  You can determine by a test on Eurogenes or Gedmatch the precise percentages of EEF-ANE-WHG that you are.

For the uninitiated, these acronyms stand for "Early European Farmer," "Ancient North Eurasian," and "Western [European] Hunter Gatherer."

Example post: "Username: SteppeOverlord  EEF: 21.345%, ANE: 19.876% WHG 58.779."

It's important to note that these hypothetical populations were reconstructed from...ONE SAMPLE EACH.  Thus, when you take the Eurogenes EEF ANE WHG test, you are comparing yourself to each of three skeletons: the EEF is the LBK sample found in Stuttgart, Germany.  The ANE is the Mal'ta boy found in Siberia.  The WHG is the Loschbour skeleton found in Belgium.  Citation.

These populations were themselves admixed, especially the Stuttgart sample.  It's not accurate to use one exemplar to represent an entire group, especially ones with the huge geographical ranges of the acronym populations.  It's much more accurate to say that you tested whatever percentage in common with Loschbour, Mal'ta, or Stuttgart.  

 Many of the genes inherited so many generations ago will be the result of identical by state, (more or less coincidence, or breeding back, in a way), than Identical By Descent.  Citation.  Europeans are a homogenous lot, and these tests don't therefore reveal much, if anything, and the terminology, turned to shorthand, stinks.


8.  Admixture percentages are due to a historical event.

Example post: "OMG!  I am English, Irish, German, and Polish.  But Dodecad says I have 6% Siberian; this must prove the legend in my family that my great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess!"

Or:

"I am South Italian.  But Eurogenes says I have 12% southwest Asian.  Must be the Greek blood!"

People tend to overestimate historical events (i.e., those we know about due to past events being recorded in writing), but tend to underestimate non-historical events.  This is a recent-ness bias that comes from a little knowledge about history, often expressed in shorthand, (i.e., South Italy was Greek).

It is however, almost always not true.  In the first example above: many Europeans, especially Northern Europeans, test positive for some Siberian/ANE/even Native-American-like ancestry, but this is almost certainly the result of ancient Admixture from the first Indo-Europeans from the steppe, who had substantial Asian-like ancestry.  For the second example: the people who populated Italy in prehistoric times were descended in many cases from the first farmers, who came from the southeast fringes of Europe.  Such signals in modern ancestry are way more likely to indicate ancient admixture from population sources with common ancestry to historical populations.

Sorry, but the boring is almost always more true than the interesting.



7.  People from places with many years of recorded history are more admixed than people with less history.

example post: "If you are of South Italian ancestry, you're probably part Roman, Greek, Scandinavian, Arab, and Jewish."

This one is so obvious it is painful to have to post.  But it's the corollary of number 8 above: a little historical knowledge being dangerous.

Imagine two regions: Region 1 is fairly remote, but has had extensive writing for 2600 years, and every marauder, political shift, kingdom, invasion, battle, language spoken, and petty dukedom is recorded in glorious detail.  Imagine another region, Region 2, that has had extensive writing and civilization for only about 1100 years.  There are large gaps in knowledge of what happened there, because of the lack of historians.

I just described Basilicata, Italy and Hesse, Germany.  Yet so many online "mytholographers" perpetuate the notions that people like Italians, Jews, and Greeks (i.e., those with 25+ centuries of intense recorded history) are more admixed than those without such extensive documentation (i.e., Germans, French, etc.)

You can't escape this, on any online forum, people speculating on exotic sources in Italian ancestry, and almost no one does this for Germans and French.

Just because we don't know who was invading another area during prehistory or the Dark Ages, does it mean it didn't happen?  Just because we don't know the name of the king who pillaged a territory, does it make him any less historical?  Because there is no Trojan War story for Hesse, Germany, does it mean there was no warfare, invasion, or exotic influences?

The French and Germans are so "admixed" (i.e., generic European) that 23andme cannot identify their DNA 92% of the time.  Citation.  Yet the poor Greeks have to tolerate in every discussion, excruciating detail and speculation about every single exotic strain in their blood.

Aside from the remotest, hard-to-get-to, isolated regions of Europe (Finns, Northwest Irish, Basques, and Sardinians), everyone has been invaded, repeatedly, and everyone is very very admixed.  The paradigm, of focusing only on certain peoples for this, has to change, because it's simply not accurate.

Check back soon for the rest of the Top 10 list.