Denisova in Iceland

Here's a deeper study into that 2% of Neander stretches in European genomes; specifically, Iceland: doi 10.1038/s41586-020-2225-9. The claim is that "only" 84.5% of that 2% is true Neander; more, that it might not be all Vindija but could be part Altai. [UPDATE 4/24: still predominant Vindija.] And a 3% of the 2% is Denisovan.

Iceland, like Sardinia, hasn't changed much in the last thousand years. But also like Sardinia this snapshot is of a mixed population. Sardinia turned out about half old European Neolithic and half Punic/Berber. Iceland, although Norse-speaking, is half Irish by race.

My current thought is that the Norse population took on some introgression from Finland before hitting up Ireland and Iceland. The Finns, by Year Zero AD, were a steppe population. The Finns may have had some of their Neander input later, from Altai. And that input could have mixed with Denisova Cave.

BACKDATE 4/23

DONOVAN:

that ydna K2 entered Central Asia from Iran/Pakistan, then travelled clockwise around the Himalayas, into South Asia and then back to Central Asia. This was the only way I could make sense of the distribution and relationships of the K2 haplogroups and associate Q & R with [Ancient North Eurasia]. The problem (until now) was that it predicted a non-zero Denisovan contribution to Europeans…

As with Neander populations being split between Vindija and Altai; "Denisova" is split between that Sibir cave proper and their brethren down the Sundaland. To sort out these patterns we need to decide which archaic genome is which. And we need to look at non-Apache Native Americans. Is the ANE steppe - Mal'ta - the same urheimat as the FinnoUgrics'? The former is Q & R, like the Amerinds and me (respectively). The Finns are N3. That already implies a Pleistocene split.

Also I'd quite like more coverage of old Sardinia, the Iceland of the Mediterranean, to see if they've got the same Denisovan signal as Iceland got. They shouldn't be ANE at all.