Haplogroup R1 was spread by African Kushites into Europe. There was no Back Migration from Europe to Africa

Eugenia D’Atanasio†, Beniamino Trombetta†, Maria Bonito, Andrea Finocchio, Genny Di Vito, Mara Seghizzi, Rita Romano, Gianluca Russo, Giacomo Maria Paganotti, Elizabeth Watson, Alfredo Coppa, Paolo Anagnostou, Jean-Michel Dugoujon, Pedro Moral, Daniele Sellitto, Andrea Novelletto and Fulvio Cruciani. (2018).The peopling of the last Green Sahara revealed by high-coverage resequencing of trans-Saharan patrilineages. Genome Biology 201819:20 . https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-018-1393-5

Eugenia D’Atanasio et al, claim that Y-Chromosome R1 is of Eurasian origin. They argue that “our data suggest a European origin of R-V88 about 12.3 kya, considering both the presence of two Sardinian R-V88 basal clades (R-M18 and R-V35) and that the V88 marker arose in the R-M343 background, which in turn includes Near-Eastern/European lineages”. This contention is more conjecture than, reality because it lacks any collateral evidence from archaeology to support their claim. They believe that V88 returned to Africa via a back migration.

The major problem with this proposition is that the Bell Beaker, Yamnaya and Caucasus hunter-gatherer populations who are believed to have introduced agro-pastoral traditions into Europe, and carriers of R1b and R1a were ḫЗšt, or Kushites. If the Bell Beaker , Corded Ware and early Europeans farmers came from the levant and Anatolia they probably had acquired these genes in Africa, before they migrated to Europe.

Beginning as early as 5000 years ago Kushites the ḫЗšt, lived from the Nile Valley below Egypt, all the way to the Levant and Anatolia. The Kushites belonged to the C-Group culture of Nubia. The Kushites spoke Niger-Congo and Dravidian languages (1) . The Niger-Congo (NC) Superfamily of languages is the largest family of languages spoken in Africa. Researchers have assumed that the NC speakers originated in West Africa in the Inland Niger Delta. The research indicates that the NC speakers originated in the Saharan Highlands 12kya and belonged to the Ounanian culture (1).

The Ounanian culture is associated with sites in central Egypt, Algeria, Mali, Mauretania and Niger (1). The Ounanian tradition is associated with the Niger-Congo phyla (1). This would explain the close relationship between the Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages.

In the Eastern Sahara many individual types of tanged and shouldered arrowheads occur on early Holocene prehistoric sites along with Green Saharan/Wavy-line pottery (2-3) . 'Saharo-Sudanese Neolithic' wavy-line, dotted wavy line and walking-comb pottery was used from Lake Turkana to Nabta Playa, in Tibestim , Mauritania, on into in the Hoggar, in Niger. This pottery evolved into the Beaker Bell ceramics of Europe.

The Kushites were called ḫЗšt in Africa and the Levant. Kushites had early settled in the Levant since Narmer times. We find  Narmer's name  on jars and  serekhs from excavations in Israel and Palestine , for example Tel Erani, Arad, 'En Besor, Halif Terrace/Nahal Tillah and more(4). A bulla dating to this period makes it clear that this part of the Negev was called ḫЗts.t ("Kush") or ḫ3s.tj ("Kushite").

The tangled Ounanian points are also found at Foum Arguin . These points were used from Oued Draa, in southern Morocco, to the Banc d’Arguin and from the Atlantic shore to the lowlands of northwestern Sahara in Mauritania . We now have DNA from Ounanian sites in Morocco.
The Kushites from the Levant and Anatolia took cattle domestication and millet cultivation to Europe. There is no archaeological evidence of the herding of Cattle and millet cultivation older than the Nabta Playa material (4).

At Nabta Playa the people herded cattle and cultivated crops. The Kushites cultivated pennisetum millet at Nabta Playa (c. 7950 BC ) and probably herded cattle (5-7).

All the burials in Ifri n’Amr o’Moussa site IAM1-IAM7 , are devoid of any artifacts, except for an original funeral ritual, which consists of placing a millstone on the skull  . These burials were dated from 4,850 to 5,250 BCE, they carried U6, M1, T2, X and K (8). This suggest that Africans were already carrying this mtDNA. The spread of the Ounanians to Harif in the Levant explains the presence of these Kushite clades in the Levant and Anatolia.

The Kushites were called ḫЗšt .Ta-Seti and Tehenu by the Egyptians (1). The Egyptian Pharaoh Sahure referred to the Tehenu leader as “Hati Tehenu” . The name  Hati, correspond to the name Hatti for a Kushite tribe in Anatolia. The Hatti  people often referred to themselves as Kashkas (9).

The early hunter-gathers and farmers in Europe from the Levant herded cattle, and cultivated millet.

A center of cattle worship was the Kiseiba -Nabta region in Middle Africa. At Nabta archaeologists have found the oldest megalithic site dating to 6000-6500 BC, which served as both a temple and calendar. This site was found by J. McKim Malville of the University of Colorado at Boulder and Fred Wendorf of Southern Methodist University.

As a result, we have in the archaeological literature the name Ounan-Harif point. This name was proposed for the tanged points at Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba. Harifian is a specialized regional cultural development of the Epipalaeolithic of the Negev Desert. Harifian has close connections with the late Mesolithic cultures of Fayyum and the Eastern Deserts of Egypt, whose tool assemblage resembles that of the Harifian (9).

Y-chromosome V88 (R1b1a) has its highest frequency among Chadic speakers, while the carriers of V88 among Niger-Congo speakers (predominately Bantu people) range between 2-66% . Haplogroup V88 includes the mutations M18, V35 and V7. Cruciani et al (10) revealed that R-V88 is also carried by Eurasians including the distinctive mutations M18, V35 and V7.

Haplogroup R1b1-P25 was originally thought to be found only in Western Eurasia. Haplogroup R1b1* is found in Africa at various frequencies. Today R1b1 is called R-L278.

The first offshoot of R1b-M343 was V88. The Y-Chromosome V88 is a signature African haplogroup. Toomas Kivisild (11)   noted: "Interestingly, the earliest offshoot of extant haplogroup R1b-M343 variation, the V88 sub-clade, which is currently most common in Fulani speaking populations in Africa (11-13), has distant relatives in Early Neolithic samples from across wide geographic area from Iberia, Germany to Samara ." The relative of V88 in ancient Europe was R1b1.

In 2010, R-V88 was originally named R1b1a. Today R-V88 is named R1b1a2, and R1b1a is renamed R-L754.

The ancient Europeans and Africans share R-L278 and R-L754. The earliest carrier of R-L278  in Europe was the hunter-gatherer  Villabruna man in Italy. Villabruna man lived 14kya. We also had hunter-gatherers carrying RL278 (R1b1) in Spain and Samara. This would place Africans carrying R-L278 in Europe long before the origination of the Bell Beaker and Yamnaya cultures.

The Kushite haplogroups in Crete and West Asia varied. The Y-Chromosome among the Cretans and Anatolians were J,G, R1a1, R1b, T, K and H.

Martinez et al (14), observed that in the case of the R1 haplogroup, while frequencies of 19.2% and 21.7% are found in the Heraklion Prefecture and Lasithi Prefecture populations, respectively, more than half (56.1%) of the Lasithi Plateau individuals are R1-M306-derived.

In the case of Cretan E3b3-M123 (M34) chromosomes, they most likely signal East African or Middle-Eastern gene flow rather than European, due to the scarcity of this lineage in the latter area. Similarly, the presence of E3b-M35* individuals in the Heraklion Prefecture population could probably be attributed to an East-African or North-African contribution.

The finding that other Minoans carried haplotype T and K also indicates that the Minoans were Blacks, not whites. There are a number of shared African and Indian Y-chromosome haplotypes. These haplotypes include Y-hg T-M70 and H1.

The Kushites spread cultivation of Pennisetum millet and cattle herding into Anatolia, South Asia and Europe. As cattle herding Kushites frequently moved from place to place millet was an ideal domesticate.

Millet was an especially favorite crop for the mobile Kushites because the grains are 1) a high yield per plant; 2) millet is drought tolerant and can be grown in various terrains; 3) millet has a short growing season so pastoralists  could grow and harvest their crops in time to move their camp(s); and 4) the panicum millet has shallow roots so Kushite farmers could cultivate the crop with a hoe (7).

Ounanians crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and settled Iberia. Here they met Iberian hunter-gatherers.

Between 3200-2900 BC, African culture and people began to migrate into Iberia  and introduced megaliths and the Bell Beaker culture (15). Spanish researchers accepted the reality that the Iberia Peninsula owed the major parts of Neolithic Iberia to African immigrants (15-17).

 MacWhite (16) and Olalde et al (18), claims there was a close relationship between Iberia and Britain.  These researchers admit that Portugal and Brittany were settled by Megalithic Africans who founded respectively the Mugem and Teviec sepultures ( 16).

Iñigo Olalde et al (18) discuss the spread of Bell Beaker culture across Europe 2.7 kya. These researchers found  limited genetic affinity between individuals from Iberia and central Europeans.  Iñigo Olalde et al (18)  concludes that migration probably played an insignificant mechanism in the spread of R1 within the two areas. 

The African Sahara  and Morocco was a major source for the Bell Beaker and Corded Ware cultural complex. The Proto-Beaker pottery dates back to 4500 BC in the Sahara (17) .

 Daugas et al (19) provides a number of radio carbon dates for the Bell Beaker complex in North Africa. We  find Beaker Bell ware dating to 3700 BC in Morocco. By 2700 BC we see the expansion of Beaker complex into Iberia (19). The Iberian Bell Beaker complex is associated with the “Maritime tradition” (20-22).

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There are numerous Bell Beaker sites in the Sahara and Morocco. A center of the Moroccan Beaker complex ceramics and arrowheads come from Hassi Ouenzga and in the cave of Ifri Ouberrid  . Artifacts  found at these sites are similar to Iberian Beaker complex forms ( 23). The interesting fact about the discovery of these artifacts is that they were widespread across the Middle Atlas mountains at sites such as El-Kiffen, Skhirat – de Rouazi,  Kehf, That el Gher and Ifri Ouberrid (23-25). This finding matches Turek (22); which explains the spread of typically beaker style stamped decoration Bell Beaker culture pottery from Morocco into Iberia, and thence the rest of Europe.

Toomas Kivisild (11)  and Mathieson et al (21) , provides a detailed discussion of R1 in prehistoric Europe. One of the most interesting finding was the presence of V88 in ancient Europe (11,18,21). It is also interesting to note that the European Agro-Pastoral populations  associated with Bell Beaker and Yamnaya carry the genomes associated with Africans recorded in 2010 (17) .

This makes it clear that the V88 sub-clades R-L278 and R-L754. , had relatives in Early Neolithic samples from across a wide geographic area from Iberia, Germany to Samara (11,17-18). This would place carriers of relatives of V88 among the Yamnaya and Bell Beaker people. Given the wide distribution of M269 in Africa, the carriers of this haplogroup in Neolithic Europe were probably also Africans since the Bell Beaker people/culture originated in Morocco as noted by Turek (22).

In summary,  the research makes it clear that the European Neolithic was began by Yamnaya and Bell Beaker people who were Kushites that had migrated to Europe from the Levant and Anatolia. The early European farmers cultivated millet and herded cattle. It is clear these Neolithic "Europeans" from the Levant and Anatolia, were Africans who took the Nabta Playa cultural traditions into the Levant and Anatolia, and thence to Europe by the Bell Beaker and Yamnaya populations. This is supported by the settlement of Kushites from Nabta Playa who took the R1 haplogroup,  Ounan-Harifian cultural traditions, millet and cattle domestication into the Levant; and from there into Europe.

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