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A working model on the peopling of Eurasia

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This post will deal with the peopling of Eurasia by modern humans and their subsequent Paleolithic movements and divergence patterns. – Part I of our "in development" series on the question to ' who we are and where we came from ': Paleolithic to Epipaleolithic period. Overview Modern humans have a "recent African" origin, having evolved within the African continent, and diversified there; one of those branches became isolated in Northeast Africa and would subsequently became ancestral to all modern living 'non-African populations': Eurasians . This branch would carry out the "Out of Africa" migration, – but they were not the first humans to leave Africa; they were preceded by earlier extinct waves of modern humans, possibly distantly related to those of the later main OoA wave – as well as deeper archaic groups which would have become ancestral to the Neanderthals or Denisovans. During or shortly after the Out of Africa migration of modern...
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Working model on East Eurasian lineages

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This short post will summarize the archaeogenetic data on ancient and modern East Eurasian populations and their origins. – A compact overview on the 'East Eurasian' branch of humanity, also occasionally known as "eastern non-Africans" (ENA). Overview After the Out of Africa exit (c. 60kya), Proto-Eurasians settled in northern Mesopotamia and on the Persian plateau, which acted as 'population Hub'. – It was in this region where they received archaic Neanderthal input at c. 55–50kya. (Archaic introgression continued until around 45kya for regional groups, and in the case of Denisovan contact in the Asia-Pacific region, well to 40kya). – An earlier diverged branch may have remained on the Arab peninsula and or Northeast Africa: "Basal Eurasians" who did not have received any significant archaic admixture. [1] [2] [3] The major split within Eurasians happened around 50kya within the 'population Hub', resulting in the formation of the ancient Wes...
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On deep roots of Iranian hunter-gatherers, and possible scenarios on their formation

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The Iranian hunter-gatherers are among the more enigmatic lineages, with unclarified deeper roots. They fall broadly within the West Eurasian cluster, but are placed in an "extreme" position, displaying no strong genetic affilation with nearby Anatolian or Levant groups, pointing to deep divergence and or partial distinct ancestries. Their genetic makeup and formation remains unclear, but it has been agreed that they can broadly be modeled via either a three- or four-way admixture, including a newly proposed deep local Paleolithic component (WEC2)*, next to a Caucasus_UP component as well as Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) and Basal Eurasian admixture (Vallini et al. 2024, Lazaridis 2018 etc.). The inferred Basal Eurasian lineage is assumed to have split from other Eurasians after the OoA exit, but before the archaic introgression event and the divergence between West and East Eurasians, having been largely isolated in the Arab peninsula.  *The WEC2 lineage is hypothetical, but...
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