Pre-Trzciniec cemetery of the Late Corded Ware horizon

The oldest sample of R1a found so far comes from Southern Deer Island (Lake Onega) in Karelia, from 7500 ybp (years before present). The 2nd oldest one from the vicinity of Velizh at the Russian-Belarusian border (6000 ybp). Those were hunter-gatherers. Then we have R1a samples 4600-4500 years ago from the Corded Ware horizon near Eulau in East Germany (Saxony-Anhalt), and in the same period there is R1a near the city of Nevel in Pskov Oblast (close to the Russia-Belarus border), as well as near Velizh. 4400-4000 years ago we have more R1a samples from the Corded Ware horizon - near Esperstedt in Saxony-Anhalt and from Poland, near Rogalin in Lublin Voivodeship (close to Hrubieszow). Then there is R1a from 3100 years ago at an archaeological site of the Lusatian Culture near Halberstadt (Saxony-Anhalt). Finally a 2600 years old sample of R1a was found near Velizh again - inside of the Anashkino hillfort (it was an Iron Age site).

And the oldest sample of R1b found so far also comes from a hunter-gatherer but he lived at the Sok River near the city of Samara (north of the Caspian Sea) - 7600 years before present. The second oldest sample of ancient R1b comes from a Neolithic farmer buried in Els Trocs cave in the Pyrenees, near Bisaurri in northern Aragon (7100 ybp). After that, several younger samples of R1b were inside kurgans of the Yamna culture, in Samara Oblast (one sample was found more to the east, in Orenburg Oblast) - they are dated at between 5300 and 4600 years ago. More samples dated at 4500-4300/4200 years ago show up in Germany in the vicinity of Kromsdorf and Quedlinburg, in burials identified with people of the Bell Beaker horizon. Then near Hinxton in England, R1b from the Iron Age was found (around 2000 ybp).

So far the only site at which R1a and R1b was found at the same time, is Lichtenstein cave near Dorste in Germany from 3000 ybp - in Lower Saxony.

These are locations of ancient DNA samples of R1a and R1b haplogroups found so far, from period 8000 - 2000 years ago:

http://s29.postimg.org/7apqy9vvr/R1a_R1b.png



And modern dominant haplogroups by country for comparison - R1b is pink here (while R1a is red like in the previous map):



Source of maps:

Mezolithic-Neolithic vs. Chalcolithic-Early Iron Age Y-DNA landscape of Europe

In next few years, more samples of ancient DNA should be available from Central-Eastern Europe:

"(...) This year [April 2014] begins a major research program, the goal of which is to examine ancient DNA from several dozen archaeological sites from the area of Poland. This project is supposed to test ancient DNA of inhabitants of Poland from pre-Roman, Roman, early Medieval and Medieval times and compare it to DNA of modern inhabitants. Research is going to last at least 5 years, its authors are - among others - prof. Hanna Koćka-Krenz and prof. Janusz Piontek. (...)"