Origins & History of this Rb1 Y-DNA Branch:
Haplogroup R* originated in North Asia just before the Last Glacial Maximum (~25k-20k years ago). This Haplogroup has been identified in the remains of a 24,000 year old boy from the Altai region, in south-central Siberia. This boy belonged to a tribe of mammoth hunters that roamed across Siberia and parts of Europe during the Paleolighic. R1b is most common in Western Europe in modern day.
The oldest forms of R1b are found in low frequencies from Western Europe to India, an area roamed by the nomadic hunter-gatherers during the Ice Age. It has been hypothetsized that R1b people were the first to domesticate cattle in northern Mesopotamia some 12,000-15,000 years ago. While the R1b cattle herders maintained a nomadic or semi-nomadic life herding bisons and aurochs after the mammoths went extinct, other people in the Fertile Crescent, parts of Haplogroups E, G, and T, settled down to cultivate the land.
R1b1a seems to have originated around the Caucasus, eastern Anatolia, or northern Mesopotamia.
When R1b split into at least three branches, the third branch crossed the Caucasus into the vast Pontic-Caspian Steepe, which provided ideal grazing grounds for cattle, ~5000 BCE. They split into two factions, the second, R1b1a2 (M269), at first remained in the North Caucasus and the Pontic Steppe between the Dnieper and Volga.
SOURCE: http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml
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