search this blog

Saturday, March 31, 2018

Andronovo pastoralists brought steppe ancestry to South Asia (Narasimhan et al. 2018 preprint)


Over at bioRxiv at this LINK. Note that the Andronovo samples that are shown to be the best fit for the steppe ancestry in South Asians are labeled Steppe_MLBA_East (ie. Middle to Late Bronze Age eastern steppe). Below is the abstract and a couple of key quotes from the paper and its supp info PDF. Emphasis is mine:

The genetic formation of Central and South Asian populations has been unclear because of an absence of ancient DNA. To address this gap, we generated genome-wide data from 362 ancient individuals, including the first from eastern Iran, Turan (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan), Bronze Age Kazakhstan, and South Asia. Our data reveal a complex set of genetic sources that ultimately combined to form the ancestry of South Asians today. We document a southward spread of genetic ancestry from the Eurasian Steppe, correlating with the archaeologically known expansion of pastoralist sites from the Steppe to Turan in the Middle Bronze Age (2300-1500 BCE). These Steppe communities mixed genetically with peoples of the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) whom they encountered in Turan (primarily descendants of earlier agriculturalists of Iran), but there is no evidence that the main BMAC population contributed genetically to later South Asians. Instead, Steppe communities integrated farther south throughout the 2nd millennium BCE, and we show that they mixed with a more southern population that we document at multiple sites as outlier individuals exhibiting a distinctive mixture of ancestry related to Iranian agriculturalists and South Asian hunter-gathers. We call this group Indus Periphery because they were found at sites in cultural contact with the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) and along its northern fringe, and also because they were genetically similar to post-IVC groups in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. By co-analyzing ancient DNA and genomic data from diverse present-day South Asians, we show that Indus Periphery-related people are the single most important source of ancestry in South Asia — consistent with the idea that the Indus Periphery individuals are providing us with the first direct look at the ancestry of peoples of the IVC — and we develop a model for the formation of present-day South Asians in terms of the temporally and geographically proximate sources of Indus Periphery-related, Steppe, and local South Asian hunter-gatherer-related ancestry. Our results show how ancestry from the Steppe genetically linked Europe and South Asia in the Bronze Age, and identifies the populations that almost certainly were responsible for spreading Indo-European languages across much of Eurasia.

...

Third, between 3100-2200 BCE we observe an outlier at the BMAC site of Gonur, as well as two outliers from the eastern Iranian site of Shahr-i-Sokhta, all with an ancestry profile similar to 41 ancient individuals from northern Pakistan who lived approximately a millennium later in the isolated Swat region of the northern Indus Valley (1200-800 BCE). These individuals had between 14-42% of their ancestry related to the AASI and the rest related to early Iranian agriculturalists and West_Siberian_HG. Like contemporary and earlier samples from Iran/Turan we find no evidence of Steppe-pastoralist-related ancestry in these samples. In contrast to all other Iran/Turan samples, we find that these individuals also had negligible Anatolian agriculturalist-related admixture, suggesting that they might be migrants from a population further east along the cline of decreasing Anatolian agriculturalist ancestry. While we do not have access to any DNA directly sampled from the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), based on (a) archaeological evidence of material culture exchange between the IVC and both BMAC to its north and Shahr-i-Sokhta to its east (27), (b) the similarity of these outlier individuals to post-IVC Swat Valley individuals described in the next section (27), (c) the presence of substantial AASI admixture in these samples suggesting that they are migrants from South Asia, and (d) the fact that these individuals fit as ancestral populations for present-day Indian groups in qpAdm modeling, we hypothesize that these outliers were recent migrants from the IVC. Without ancient DNA from individuals buried in IVC cultural contexts, we cannot rule out the possibility that the group represented by these outlier individuals, which we call Indus_Periphery, was limited to the northern fringe and not representative of the ancestry of the entire Indus Valley Civilization population. In fact, it was certainly the case that the peoples of the Indus Valley were genetically heterogeneous as we observe one of the Indus_Periphery individuals having ~42% AASI ancestry and the other two individuals having ~14-18% AASI ancestry (but always mixes of the same two proximal sources of AASI and Iranian agriculturalist-related ancestry). Nevertheless, these results show that Indus_Periphery were part of an important ancestry cline in the wider Indus region in the 3 rd millennium and early 2 nd millennium BCE. As we show in what follows, peoples related to this group had a pivotal role in the formation of subsequent populations in South Asia.

...

These results—leveraging our rich data from ancient samples closer in time to the Bronze Age—show that the group(s) that contributed Iranian agriculturalist-related ancestry to South Asia shared more genetic drift with the Iranian agriculturalist-related groups in our dataset that are temporally and geographically closest, compared to Caucasus HGs (CHG) or early Zagros related agriculturalists previously shown to be related to source populations for South Asians (11, 81). We are not only able to exclude these early farming and hunter-gathering groups, but also Copper and Bronze Age groups in western Iran (Seh_Gabi_C and Hajji_Firuz_C), and even in eastern Iran and Turan (Tepe_Hissar_C, Gioksiur_EN, and BMAC). Our detailed analyses in Text S3 indicate that what is driving the failure of these models is an excess of Anatolian agriculturalist-related ancestry in all of these groups, suggesting that the Iranian agriculturalist-related population that mixed into South Asia had less Anatolian agriculturalist-related ancestry than all of these. However, we find that mixtures using the Indus_Periphery sample (a pool of three outlier individuals from the BMAC site of Gonur and from Shahr-i-Sokhta), provides an excellent source population for the Iranian agriculturalist-related ancestry in South Asia when combined with any individuals in the Steppe_MLBA cluster (Srubnaya, Sintashta_MLBA, Steppe_MLBA_West or Steppe_MLBA_East).


Narasimhan et al, The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia, Posted March 31, 2018, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/292581

Update 12/04/2018: The dataset from the prerprint has been made available early at the Reich Lab website here. I've already started analyzing it. You can see the results in several new threads, for instance here, here and here.

See also...

Late PIE ground zero now obvious; location of PIE homeland still uncertain, but...

Central Asia as the PIE urheimat? Forget it

Ancient herders from the Pontic-Caspian steppe crashed into India: no ifs or buts

868 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   801 – 868 of 868
old europe said...

Schrijvers in

"Language contact and the origin of the germanic languages" explains the birth of germanic languages . According to him protogermanic emerged when a group of balto-finnic population started to speak indoeuropean altering it according to some balto -finnic pronunciation laws. Since protogermanic is a mix centum -satem it could be that satem languages are just a more pronounced switch from ugrofinnic to indoeuropean.

old europe said...

I meant that protogermanic could be less satem because it was born more in contact with original centum speakers ( GAC and Funnel beaker)) while on the steppe indoeuropean was learnt in a more indirect way.

old europe said...


Dave,

According to Schrijvers ( and his study is quite impressive) satemization is strongly linked to ugrofinnic switching to indoeuropean that was

partial in protogermanic
very pronounced in balto-slavic
complete in indoaryan

It's up to you to explain and reconcile it with the "full steppe theory" ( because you know I agree with the steppe entrance in South Central Asia)

Maybe we have no ugrofinnic in the steppe because they were nomads and place names before the IEzation are lost.

Davidski said...

What "impressive" study are you talking about?

old europe said...


Dave,
Impressive because he demonstrates that if a balto-finnic tried to speak a centum indoeuropean language according to some of his native basic pronunciation laws that perfectly fit......the birth of protogermanic!!
That is not difficult to understand. When I hear a stranger speaking italian there are pattern in pronunciation that clearly enables me to detect if he he's french or german or english. And the same is valid for every language. Schrijvers try to demonstrate ( to me successfully) that protogermanic is indoeuropean in the mouth of ugrofinnic.

To the ones interested in the formation of the High Geman consonant shift Schrijvers explains it with romance speakers switching to west germanic.

Davidski said...

@old europe

I've got that book. You're misrepresenting Schrijver's arguments and taking them to the level of absurdity.

old europe said...

Dave

I 'm not misrepresenting anything.
Schrijvers says that process went like this
1) Balto-finnic started to borrow indoeuropean words
2) Than became bilingual and
3) Started to switch completely to indoeuropean. But they spoke indoeuropean according to some peculiarities of their own pronunciation rule: by doing this they created protogermanic.
But since protogermanic is partial satemization process there's no absurdity to at least suggest that balto-slavic and indoaryan could be linked to the same phenomenon ( ugrofinnc speaking indoeuropean).

Davidski said...

@old europe

So like I said, you've inferred things from Schrijver's book that weren't in the book.

But there's no evidence of any Uralic influence in Balto-Slavic, or even Indo-Aryan.

old europe said...

Dave,

a personal question
Are you russian or polish?

Rob said...

@ Old Europe

Interestingly, it is not only Schrijver that propounds a late expansion of Germanic to Scandinavia (i.e. contrary to the Scandinavia Bronze Age homeland axiom), but also Schmidt, Osten-Dahl, etc.
And Im inclined to agree.

@ Dave

T & K find evidence of Uralic substratum in all Slavic languages, Ive mentioned it before here.

Davidski said...

@old europe

Obviously, I'm Polish.

@Rob

A lot of people find a lot of different things, but the consensus is that there's not Uralic influence in Balto-Slavic.

And this is backed up by latest genetic evidence, which shows Balto-Slavic deriving from an R1a-rich population from the steppe north of the Black Sea with no Uralic admixture.

old europe said...


Wow, a polish that believes his roots comes from southern RUSSIA STEPPE !!!. That is very curious given the bitter ( and irrational to me) hatred that divides your two country. This is a credit to you.

Rob said...

@ epoch

Mbuti_DG Anatolia_Neolithic Iron_Gates_HG Kunda -0.0051 -3.948 51826 52361 1074756
> result: Mbuti_DG Anatolia_Neolithic Iron_Gates_HG Narva -0.0056 -4.441 53607 54215 1096290
> result: Mbuti_DG Anatolia_Neolithic Iron_Gates_HG KO1 0.0060 2.158 37079 36637 783807
> result: Mbuti_DG Anatolia_Neolithic Iron_Gates_HG WHG -0.0054 -2.634 30193 30518 639860
> result: Mbuti_DG Anatolia_Neolithic Iron_Gates_HG ElMiron -0.0271 -8.404 30657 32366 626740
> result: Mbuti_DG Anatolia_Neolithic ElMiron WHG 0.0228 5.957 21261 20314 425184
> result: Mbuti_DG Anatolia_Neolithic ElMiron GoyetQ116-1 -0.0221 -4.732 24892 26015 516727
> result: Mbuti_DG Anatolia_Neolithic WHG Kunda -0.0011 -0.499 30236 30302 632401
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian Iron_Gates_HG Kunda -0.0053 -3.024 23835 24087 509155
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian Iron_Gates_HG Narva -0.0038 -2.009 24355 24539 511217
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian Iron_Gates_HG KO1 0.0066 1.496 19781 19523 429978
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian Iron_Gates_HG WHG -0.0054 -1.588 15865 16038 345321
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian Iron_Gates_HG ElMiron -0.0161 -3.437 16748 17297 346108
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian ElMiron WHG 0.0107 1.797 12193 11934 253093
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian ElMiron GoyetQ116-1 -0.0121 -1.773 14450 14802 303598
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian WHG Kunda -0.0029 -0.822 16048 16141 344390
> result: Mbuti_DG Iran_N Iron_Gates_HG Kunda 0.0038 2.330 40126 39819 847461
> result: Mbuti_DG Iran_N Iron_Gates_HG Narva 0.0076 4.380 41109 40489 852472
> result: Mbuti_DG Iran_N Iron_Gates_HG KO1 0.0065 1.729 31611 31202 686614
> result: Mbuti_DG Iran_N Iron_Gates_HG WHG -0.0073 -2.455 25097 25468 547316
> result: Mbuti_DG Iran_N Iron_Gates_HG ElMiron -0.0198 -4.325 26384 27448 547833
> result: Mbuti_DG Iran_N ElMiron WHG 0.0103 1.831 18639 18258 386901
> result: Mbuti_DG Iran_N ElMiron GoyetQ116-1 -0.0060 -0.944 22493 22766 469283
> result: Mbuti_DG Iran_N WHG Kunda 0.0099 3.101 25746 25241 545340

Iron Gates have marginally but not significantly more affinity to barcin (ANF) than 'WHG' in general, but moreseo than Narva, Kunda, & earlier HGs.

Rob said...


Mbuti_DG Natufian Iron_Gates_HG Kunda -0.0053 -3.024 23835 24087 509155
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian Iron_Gates_HG Narva -0.0038 -2.009 24355 24539 511217
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian Iron_Gates_HG KO1 0.0066 1.496 19781 19523 429978
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian Iron_Gates_HG WHG -0.0054 -1.588 15865 16038 345321
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian Iron_Gates_HG ElMiron -0.0161 -3.437 16748 17297 346108
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian ElMiron WHG 0.0107 1.797 12193 11934 253093
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian ElMiron GoyetQ116-1 -0.0121 -1.773 14450 14802 303598
> result: Mbuti_DG Natufian WHG Kunda -0.0029 -0.822 16048 16141 344390

Mbuti_DG Vestonice16 Anatolia_Neolithic Natufian -0.0391 -9.056 19851 21468 391399
> result: Mbuti_DG GoyetQ116-1 Anatolia_Neolithic Natufian -0.0266 -5.597 21446 22619 412351

The Paleolithic hunter-gatherers have affinities with Anatolia Neolithic, but not Natufians

Rob said...

@ Davidski

"A lot of people find a lot of different things, but the consensus is that there's not Uralic influence in Balto-Slavic."

Source ?

Davidski said...

@Rob

Linguistically, the relationship between Indo-European and Uralic has always been asymmetrical. While hundreds of loanwords flowed into Uralic languages from Indo-European languages such as Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Iranian, and Proto-Indo-European itself, hardly any Uralic loanwords have entered the Indo-European languages (apart from a few relatively late dialectal loans into e.g. Russian and the Scandinavian languages). This strongly suggests that Uralic speakers have always been more receptive to ideas coming from Indo-European–speaking areas than the other way around.

Schrijver, 2014

Rob said...

@ Dave

That's loanwords, not typologogical substratum effect.
We all know the loan word trajectory is asymmetric

Kristiina said...

@Davidski "But there's no evidence of any Uralic influence in Balto-Slavic, or even Indo-Aryan."

There could be if you forget altogether N1c and replace it with Ukrainian R1a1 and imagine that there was this Eastern European population that did not speak PIE but an EHG language that strongly influenced IE languages such as Indo-Aryan, Balto-Slavic and Germanic, as well as Uralic languages. R1a1 frequency is very high in many Volga Uralic groups.

Davidski said...

@Rob

Schrijver is using loanwords as the main example to explain that "linguistically, the relationship between Indo-European and Uralic has always been asymmetrical". Read the whole discussion, it should be online somewhere as a PDF.

Davidski said...

@Kristiina

There could be if you forget altogether N1c and replace it with Ukrainian R1a1.

There's no need to do that.

R1a1 frequency is very high in many Volga Uralic groups.

But this is always a subset of the diversity seen in Indo-Europeans.

All of the main branches under M417 are clearly Indo-European, and they spill out into Uralic, Turkic and Dravidian groups for very good reasons.

Kristiina said...

To be more clear:
Caucasus: R1b, J2a, PIE
Ukraine: R1a1, EHG language that influences Indo-Aryan, Balto-Slavic, Germanic and Uralic languages, causes the satemization

Davidski said...

@Kristiina

So how did Armenian become satemized?

mzp1 said...

These theories are way out there and not acceptable.

Kristiina said...

According to Wikipedia: "Armenian exhibits more satemization than centumization, although it is not classified as belonging to either of these subgroups. Some linguists tentatively conclude that Armenian, Greek (Phrygian), Albanian and Indo-Iranian were dialectally close to each other; within this hypothetical dialect group, Proto-Armenian was situated between Proto-Greek (centum subgroup) and Proto-Indo-Iranian (satem subgroup)".

Satemization could be Indo-Iranian influence.

Davidski said...

@Kristiina

You seem to be grabbing anything you can find to come up with a theory.

That's not a good sign. It usually means that the theory isn't worth much.

Like I said, there's no evidence of any relationship between the North Pontic steppe and Uralic languages, and all of the main branches of R1a are Indo-European, and mostly spill out into non-Indo-European groups via contacts from the Sintashta period and onwards.

Rob said...

@ Kristiina

Apparently Albanian shows some satem features. Could be similarly effects of contact (i.e. Slavic) (Stipcevic)

@ Matt

I’ll get back to your question , although I have little direct knowledge IA

mzp1 said...

Why is Tocharian Centum and IA very Satem? They are similarly downstream geographically from Finno-Ugric.

Davidski said...

@mzp1

Basically because the Centum/Satem division isn't worth much.

So this is basically a bullshit discussion, but I still found it revealing in that it showed how desperate some people are to push the Corded Ware and R1a = Uralic nonsense.

old europe said...

Dave

I would be more prudent to call a linguistic division that goes from the gulf of Gdansk to....the gulf of Bengala and that quite perfectly overlap the R1b/R1a divisions "bullshit and "not worth much".....
I think that anyone interested in PIE or IE overall should search for an explanation....

mzp1 said...

It is bullshit.

The word for 100 both start with H in English and in many IA and Iranian dialects.

S > H/K happens in many regional/northwestern IA dialects. My own family speak Gujarati but we are more Northern genetically and often replace S with H.

mzp1 said...

Centum/Satem is the reason why PIE is reconstucted so far from Vedic Sanskrit.

Davidski said...

I've got the ancient South/Central Asian data from the preprint. Hold on to your hats and toupees!

Archaelog said...

@Kristina I think some scholars have proposed the idea of satemization due to Corded Ware substrate influence.
But why do you say that Tocharian was spoken by Andronovo? Maybe the eastern end of Andronovo mixed with earlier Afanasievo derived groups, but Proto Tocharian is itself too old to have originated with the Sintashta /Andronovo cultures

André de Vasconcelos said...

Good, are we getting a new post then?
Nearly 900 replies on this one makes it increasingly difficult to find pretty much anything that has been written

Davidski said...

@André de Vasconcelos

Working on a new post now.

Arza said...

@ Davidski

Can you share in the comments G25 coordinates also for the low coverage West_Siberia_HG sample? Depending on the outcome it may be extremely helpful for the creation of fairly reliable ANE and South_Asian_HG ghosts.

Ariel said...

Considering that the caucasus is a relatively small region and considering the incredible diveristy in language families that you find there (including isolates) it's hard to imagine that at some point there was a mass migration from the region and all that diversity did transform into an unitarian language block like PIE, leaving no traces on those other languages and taking nothing from those other languages. On the other hand, if you consider the case of the Indo-Uralic node, it makes much more sense, in which there is tangible connection between languages that did form in the same region from similar populations. Anf if you consider the case of the "in between" IE languages like Armenian, Greek and Albanian, that shows you how there is no relevant IE structure outside the ones driven by external factors like the satem/centum phenomena. That's why the anatolian hypothesis was (before adna) a far more compelling hypothesis for most linguists, beacuse at least we don't really know what was spoken by farmers, and the region harbour the biggest IE outliers in the anatolian IE/Hittite languages.

Davidski said...

@All

I'm pretty sure Hajji_Firuz_C I2327 has Yamnaya ancestry. Data coming very soon.

elliv said...

"I'm pretty sure Hajji_Firuz_C I2327 has Yamnaya ancestry. Data coming very soon."

Hehe the comment section will continue to blow up.

Olympus Mons said...

"Hajji_Firuz_C I2327 has Yamnaya ancestry"

.... has Yamnaya ancestry, 3000 years earlier than Yamnaya itself. Ok.

old europe said...

OM:

In the beginning God created..... YAMNAYA, the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the STEPPE.

Arza said...

Mbuti.DG West_Siberia_N Sintashta_MLBA Steppe_Eneolithic 0.0686 21.040 623558

Some HyperEHG-Steppe_EN-Steppe_MLBA-EEF cline?

Olympus Mons said...

@old europe
goes to show you: Smart enough does not prevent you from being wrong altogether.

Folker said...

@Dave

Thx. I'm very impatient to read your post. Very exiting news.

@OM
I2327 has not undergoone any direct datation. It could be intrusive in the archeological context (very common when people used the same site for thousands of years). When it will be dated by C14, we'll know for sure.

old europe said...

OM
"In the end, there can be only one."....... quote from the movie highlander (1986).

Davidski said...

Here's a sneak preview of what I mean.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HS3Qxj65JGGB8T_AzqtMkpHR_X2lvhhe/view?usp=sharing

elliv said...

"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HS3Qxj65JGGB8T_AzqtMkpHR_X2lvhhe/view?usp=sharing"

Wow this is no "early iranian farmer" lol. Hopefully they will date this one.

Archaelog said...

@Ellis 4500-4000 BC would be a perfect fit for early Anatolian speakers separating from the steppe.

Olympus Mons said...

@Elliv J

"Wow this is no "early iranian farmer"

No he is not. Hajji Firuz is the second oldest place with wine production (5500bc). The First is Gadrachilli gora, in Georgia (5800BC). I2327 descend from those people up there in neolithic Georgia, called the Shulaveri-Shomu.

I don't know how hybrid I2327 already was. Not shulaveri Mother maybe? - so far we just know that the Shulaveri tested had Mtdna I1, H15a1a and H2a...


mzp1 said...

Perhaps a Siberian type individual migrating to Iran and mixing with the Iranian farmer?

pnuadha said...

OM .... has Yamnaya ancestry, 3000 years earlier than Yamnaya itself. Ok.

Davidski is probably saying that the dating for this guy is wrong.

Arza said...

Mbuti.DG Ukraine_Eneo_I5884 Hajji_Firuz_C Hajji_Firuz_C_I2327 0.0133 2.554 337495
Mbuti.DG Ukraine_Eneo_I5884 Iran_ChL Hajji_Firuz_C_I2327 0.0145 2.722 332570
Mbuti.DG Ukraine_Meso Hajji_Firuz_C Hajji_Firuz_C_I2327 0.0104 2.638 457435
Mbuti.DG Ukraine_Meso Iran_ChL Hajji_Firuz_C_I2327 0.0186 4.929 449651
Mbuti.DG Ukraine_Neo Hajji_Firuz_C Hajji_Firuz_C_I2327 0.0069 1.963 462305
Mbuti.DG Ukraine_Neo Iran_ChL Hajji_Firuz_C_I2327 0.0159 4.528 454440
Mbuti.DG Yamnaya_Samara Hajji_Firuz_C Hajji_Firuz_C_I2327 0.0087 2.458 465917
Mbuti.DG Yamnaya_Samara Iran_ChL Hajji_Firuz_C_I2327 0.0104 3.037 458375

Anonymous said...

@Rob

That's strange. These shouldn't differ all that much:

Mbuti_DG Anatolia_Neolithic Iron_Gates_HG WHG -0.0054 -2.634 30193 30518 639860
Mbuti Barcin_N WHG Iron_Gates_HG 0.0092 5.171 1140577

Olympus Mons said...

@Colin Welling
The dating is not wrong. Not by much. I bet it will turn out 5300BC-4900bc. What about you, what is your bet?

K33 said...

David: Here's a sneak preview of what I mean.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HS3Qxj65JGGB8T_AzqtMkpHR_X2lvhhe/view?usp=sharing

Interesting. He looks shifted toward Eneolithic Steppe but also shifted toward CHG, relative to the Iran_Chl cluster.

What was the date on this guy? Could his shift represent Maykop-related admixture??

Ric Hern said...

@ Davidski

Makes me think about that 2 different Horse Types found at Alikemek-Tepesi dated to +- the 4th Mil BC...Could this be an early Steppe Migration ?

Davidski said...

Haha!

Hajji_Firuz_ChL_outlier:I2327

Hajji_Firuz_ChL,46.8
Seh Gabi_ChL,37.2
Yamnaya_Samara,13.2
West_Siberia_N,2.8

[1] "distance%=2.9719"

Olympus Mons said...

Davidski can extract Steppe admix percentages from a neanderthal.

K33 said...

Hmmm... is Yamnaya Samara dated 5,000 BC and pure EHG, prior to the pulse of CHG/Iran_N admixture north of the Caucuses? Should be Eneolithic_Samara right?

So maybe Samara was the site of Pre-PIE
- One branch goes south very early, bringing Anatolian languages to East Anatolia/West Iran
- Other steppe cultures stay north of the Caucuses, take in pulse of female-mediated CHG admix in EBA to develop "Nuclear PIE"

Dmytro said...

"In the beginning God created..... YAMNAYA, the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the STEPPE."

I don't think there was a "Yamna" culture before ca. 3,000 BCE. It arose as a result of the near total cultural fusion of "Repin" and "Post Stog". And Yamna proper almost immediately started to morph into further cultures as various clans associated with it began to move and mix with other populations... The reason why some arcnaeologists (esp. Russian) see Yamna as somewhat older than 3,000 BCE is that they understand that their "Repin" was very similar to Yamna, forgetting that the Post-Stog area also had such similarities. Without getting into a host of details and trying to disentangle the unresolved archaeological discussions, I prefer to use the term "steppe cultures" w.r. to the pre-Yamna conglomerates in the steppe area (as a unifying label). I am ready to associate LPIE with Yamna, but cannot see why any single pre-Yamna steppe culture should be viewed as some sort of privileged pre-PIE entity. Never mind the equally doubtful R1a vs. R1b debate...

K33 said...

@ David:

What if the CHG admixture mediated to the Steppe in EBA was in fact part-EHG?

Meaning, instead of an EBA pulse of 50% admixture from CHG females-only, it was instead a 60% pulse of 80/20 CHG/EHG (ie, an EHG "back-migration" to the steppe after hanging around & mixing with native females in the Zagros/South Caucuses?), that did involve males who despite their autosomal profile were still dominated by R1a/R1b y-dna?

This hypothesis would be undetected by ADMIXTURE/PCA I think, it could only be tested by formal stats, shared drift etc. Perhaps Reich has already taken these steps, hence his coming out for the "steppe reflux" hypothesis??

Davidski said...

@Lenny

This sample is part Yamnaya, that's why it belongs to a relatively young R1b-Z2103 lineage that wasn't around during the Chalcolithic.

It seems you're missing an important point here that this sample doesn't have a C14 date, and it's obviously from a secondary burial dating to the Bronze Age, which probably just collapsed into the Chalcolithic bin ossuary.

Anthony Hanken said...

It has been suggested that the reason Uralic has so many loanwords is due to it being spread by traders.

There is any reason to assume Uralic was originally R1a or CW unless we find no N1c in Volga-Kama BA burials.

BOO was interesting but I don't think it shakes up the N1c-PU link considering IA samples that are actually likely to be related to Uralic expansion turned out N1c and more are on the way.

Archaelog said...

@Anthony Haken Spread by the Seima Turbino traders would be a good explanation. Parpola's latest paper makes a case for how this could have happened. But whether the Seima people were the original speakers of Uralic is a different matter

Matt said...

Davidski: By the way, it seems to me that the trees based on lexicon root meaning traits (like Garrett+Chang's) are still very experimental, and not exactly mainstream within historical linguistics.

Maybe, but the wider point is how to explain the divergent structure, whether we agree one is historical and the other is not, etc.

Nirjhar007 said...

Dr. Rai infoms ,to not take the Open Magazine interview seriously, as the interviewer unfortunately didn't understand many crucial points of what was said to him ..

Davidski said...

The very latest from Rai...hehe.

Indus Valley people did not have genetic contribution from the steppes: Head of Ancient DNA Lab testing Rakhigarhi samples

RobertN said...

I just ran a calculator on Vahaduo that told me I have a 5.6% Iranic genetic component from Gonur3_BA. I can't find anything on this sample searching the web. Can anybody direct me to an article somewhere that elaborates on this please?

«Oldest ‹Older   801 – 868 of 868   Newer› Newest»