Koszyce I2a-L801

Andrii Lundiak archeology, genetics, , , , , , , ,

I was there in Koszyce in Sep-2023, but I didn’t find an actual grave or archeological site. Even local Museum director was not sure where the mass grave is actually. But she directed me a few km from Koszyce center to Witów village, where from its part Dałanów near Vistula river there are archeological remains. And as of 2023 it’s forbidden to do anything there on the hill nearby Vistula. Only observe from recently installed tower (Google map).

But besides that there were many other excavations, So it’s NOT clear where exactly that mass-grave is. Anyway I’m preparing an article on my blog with results

 

 

 

Schroder et al 2019, source (“Unraveling ancestry, kinship, and violence in a Late Neolithic mass grave”, May-2019):

 

“…sequenced the genomes of 15 skeletons from a 5,000-y-old mass grave in Poland associated with the Globular Amphora culture. All individuals had been brutally killed by blows to the head, but buried with great care. Genome-wide analyses demonstrate that this was a large extended family and that the people who buried them knew them well: mothers are buried with their children, and siblings next to each other. From a population genetic viewpoint, the individuals are clearly distinct from neighboring Corded Ware groups because of their lack of steppe-related ancestry. Although the reason for the massacre is unknown, it is possible that it was connected with the expansion of Corded Ware groups, which may have resulted in violent conflict.”

“The third millennium BCE was a period of major cultural and demographic changes in Europe that signaled the beginning of the Bronze Age. People from the Pontic steppe expanded westward, leading to the formation of the Corded Ware complex and transforming the genetic landscape of Europe. At the time, the Globular Amphora culture (3300–2700 BCE) existed over large parts of Central and Eastern Europe, but little is known about their interaction with neighboring Corded Ware groups and steppe societies. Here we present a detailed study of a Late Neolithic mass grave from southern Poland belonging to the Globular Amphora culture and containing the remains of 15 men, women, and children, all killed by blows to the head. We sequenced their genomes to between 1.1- and 3.9-fold coverage and performed kinship analyses that demonstrate that the individuals belonged to a large extended family. The bodies had been carefully laid out according to kin relationships by someone who evidently knew the deceased. From a population genetic viewpoint, the people from Koszyce are clearly distinct from neighboring Corded Ware groups because of their lack of steppe-related ancestry. Although the reason for the massacre is unknown, it is possible that it was connected with the expansion of Corded Ware groups, which may have resulted in competition for resources and violent conflict. Together with the archaeological evidence, these analyses provide an unprecedented level of insight into the kinship structure and social behavior of a Late Neolithic community.”

 

Source (wiki “Koszyce (województwo małopolskie)“)

W maju 2011 w czasie prac przy budowie wodociągu w Koszycach odkryto zbiorowy grób z okresu neolitu z prawie 3 tysięcy lat p.n.e. Pozostawili go przedstawiciele ludu należącego do kultury amfor kulistych. W grobie znaleziono 15 osób zamordowanych kamiennymi siekierami, należących prawdopodobnie do jednej rodziny; wiek kości ustalono na 4830–4726 lat.

 

Source (“Unraveling ancestry, kinship, and violence in a Late Neolithic mass grave”, May-2019):

“Kinship and Consanguinity. Analyses of ancient genomes can provide detailed information on the kinship structures and social organization of past communities (8–10). At Koszyce, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis revealed the presence of six different maternal lineages, whereas analysis of the non-recombining region of the Y chromosome showed that all males carried the same Y chromosome haplotype: I2a-L801.

We then estimated genomic runs of homozygosity (ROH) and found that the Koszyce individuals were not particularly inbred.

Although a slightly larger section of the Koszyce genomes is contained within ROH compared with typical modern European populations”

 

 

Source (“Unraveling ancestry, kinship, and violence in a Late Neolithic mass grave”, May-2019):

“Although it is impossible to identify the culprits of the massacre that took place at Koszyce around 2880–2776 BCE, it is interesting to note that it occurred right around the time when the Corded Ware complex started to spread rapidly across large parts of Central Europe, and it seems plausible that the group from Koszyce fell victim to some violent intergroup conflict related to the territorial expansion of Corded Ware groups or another competing group in the area. If the general interaction between Globular Amphora people and neighboring, steppe-related cultures (including early Corded Ware) was primarily hostile, it would explain why Globular Amphora individuals carry no steppe ancestry and, in part, why Europe experienced such a dramatic reduction in Neolithic genomic ancestry at this time”

 

Wikipedia about “Globular_Amphora_culture“:

Mathieson et al. (2018) included a genetic analysis of eight males of the Globular Amphora culture. Three of them carried haplogroup I2a2a1b and a subclade of it; two carried I2a2; one carried I2; one carried BT and one carried CT. According to admixture analysis they also had approximately 70% EEF ancestry and 30% WHG ancestry, some of them with negligible Eastern Hunter-Gatherer and Yamnaya traces.

Schroeder et al. (2019) examined 15 skeletons from the Koszyce mass grave in southern Poland, which is ascribed to the Globular Amphora culture. The individuals were all shown to be members of an extended family, and to have been buried with great care by someone who knew them very well. Most of them were female and children. All had been executed by a violent blow to the head, perhaps by invading Corded Ware groups. The older males of the family are missing from the grave, suggesting that they were away or had fled. Of the eight samples of Y-DNA extracted, all were found to belong to I2a-L801. The fifteen samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to various subclades of T, H, J, K, HV. The skeletons were determined to have about 70% EEF ancestry and 30% WHG ancestry, meaning they had no Indo-European WSH-ancestry. The archaeological and genetic evidence collected from the grave indicated that the Globular Amphora culture was patriarchal and kinship-oriented, which appears to have been the norm for Late Neolithic communities in Central Europe.

 

Source (“Imputation of ancient human genomes”, Jun-2023):

“Genotype imputation can improve genotyping accuracy for low-coverage genomes. However, it is unknown how accurate ancient DNA imputation is and whether imputation introduces bias to downstream analyses. Here we re-sequence an ancient trio (mother, father, son) [Andrii: from Koszyce] and downsample and impute a total of 43 ancient genomes, including 42 high-coverage (above 10x) genomes. We assess imputation accuracy across ancestries, time, depth of coverage, and sequencing technology. We find that ancient and modern DNA imputation accuracies are comparable.”

“The Koszyce ancient trio (mother, father and son) was originally sequenced in Schroeder et al 2019 and re-sequenced to higher coverage in the context of this study. The DNA was extracted from petrous bone excavated from a Late Neolithic mass grave in Koszyce, in what is today Poland. Using the same DNA extracts as Schroeder et al 2019, two additional double-stranded libraries per sample were constructed based on Meyer et al 2010.”

 

Video source:

 

Source (Facebook YFULL private group) referring to https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/view/PRJEB28451 :

  • RISE1160: I2a2a1b-CTS10057 – body#2 (SNP CTS10057 is under I-P222 but FTDNA seems to be changed terminal SNP for this sample now to L801)
  • RISE1162: I2a2a1b2a-L801 – body #4
  • RISE1163: I2a2a1b2a-L801 – body #5
  • RISE1165: I2a2a1b2-Z161 – body #7
  • RISE1168: I2a2a1b2a-L801 – body #10
  • RISE1169: I2a2a1b2a-L801 – body #11
  • RISE1171: I2a2a1b2a-L801 – body 13
  • RISE1173: I2a2a1b2a-L801 – body #15
  • RISE1241: I2a2a1b2a-L801 – no data on FTDNA
  • RISE1250: I2a2a-L59 – no data on FTDNA (checked I-P222 and child branches)
  • RISE1252: I2a2a1-CTS616 – no data on FTDNA (checked I-P222 and child branches)
  • RISE1254: I2a2a1b2a-L801 – no data on FTDNA

 

FTDNA Discover Ancient connections

  • Koszyce DNA samples are associated with the Copper Age Poland cultural group.
  • Study reference is Schroeder et al. 2019
  • In FTDNA system there are a few Koszyce DNA samples (bodies) with haplogroup I2a-L801 with terminal SNP I-FT384000 from site 3 (massgrave):
    • #2 (RISE1160), #4 (RISE1162), #5 (RISE1163), #7 (RISE1165), #10 (RISE1168), #11 (RISE1169), #13 (RISE1171), #15 (RISE1173)
https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/I-FT384000/tree

 

 

  • Koszyce 3-13 (RISE1171) was a 5-6 year old boy who lived between 2928 – 2707 BCE.
  • mtDNA J1c3f.

 

 

 

  • Koszyce 3-4 (RISE1162) was a 16-17 year old teenage boy who lived between 2912 – 2681 BCE.
  • mtDNA K1a1b1e.

  • Koszyce 3-11 (RISE1169) was an older man who lived between 2904 – 2678 BCE
  • mtDNA haplogroup HV0a.

 

 

  • Koszyce 3-5 (RISE1163) was a 20-25 year old man who lived between 2891 – 2679 BCE.
  • mtDNA haplogroup HV0a.

 

 

  • Koszyce 3-2 (RISE1160) was a 1-2 year old baby boy who lived between 2891 – 2637 BCE 
  • mtDNA haplogroup T2b.

 

 

  • Koszyce 3-10 (RISE1168) was an 18-20 year old man who lived between 2871 – 2608 BCE
  • mtDNA haplogroup HV0a.

 

 

FTDNA – Globetrekker

I-L801 is huge area, and in particular SNP I-Z178 spread is also huge and contains sub branches areas:

  • Z165 (the widest),
  • FT384000 (Koszyce, Poland) and
  • Y167771 (Ilyatka, Ukraine).

FT384000 area is very specific o so far is rather with small DNA samples, and it designates the area itself:

 

SNP Tracker

Data is based on FTDNA, SNP I-FT384000:

Note that ILK001 and ILK002 are DNA samples from Ukraine, Ilyatka and are referenced from Mathieson et al. 2018 study.

We can say that “Y-DNA men like me” who lived on lands of modern south-eastern Poland and western Ukraine somewhere near 2800 BCE were “cousins”.

 

YFULL

Under I-L801 there is sub branch I-FT384000:

 

Age estimation is ~4713 ybp

 

My visit to Koszyce Sep-2023

Source:

“The mass grave at Koszyce is located on the edge of the Szreniawa river valley (Andrii: potentially this) in the southern part of the Nida river basin (18). Excavated in 2011, the grave pit, which measured 245 x 135 cm, contained the skeletal remains of 15 individuals including men, women, and children (Fig. S1). The individuals had, apparently, all been killed by blows to the head (Fig. S2) but had subsequently been buried in general accordance with funerary customs of the Globular Amphora culture, i.e. accompanied by ceramic amphorae, flint tools, amber and bone ornaments as well as wild boar tusks and various animal bones…”

Actually I couldn’t find any river w name Nida. I found Szreniawa river but it’s VERY far from Koszyce. And nearby Witow-Dalanow hill is a Vistula river and its huge and curvy part.

Map:

 

 

Photos on Facebook, Sep-2023:

 

Resources

 

 

 

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