I need some help interpreting these linear models of ancient and present-day South Asian populations. Overall, the Iron Age groups from the Swat Valley, or SPGT, look like rather obvious outliers. The relevant datasheet is available
here.
The reason for this might be significant bidirectional gene flow and/or continuity between Central Asia and the northern parts of South Asia before Sintashta-related steppe herders showed up in the region, and even before the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) got going. Note that Dzharkutan1_BA is an BMAC sub-population from near South Asia, but it doesn't quite have the same effect on those Swat Valley samples as the pre-BMAC Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1 from the present-day Iranian/Afghan border.
If true, it probably means that most of the Iron Age peoples of the Swat Valley shouldn't be modeled as simply a mixture of Indus_Periphery and Steppe_MLBA. That's because they appear to be in part of the same or similar type of ancestry as Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1. And indeed, qpAdm also suggests that they are.
SPGT
Indus_Periphery 0.692±0.042
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1 0.104±0.045
Sintashta_MLBA 0.204±0.015
taildiff: 0.659609
Full output
I'm trying to incorporate this new information into my Admixture graph models of the SPGT groups (see
here). If I manage to come up with something useful I'll update this post with the results.
Update 08/05/2018: see
here.
332 comments:
1 – 200 of 332 Newer› Newest»@Davidski
From your genetic analysis, how would you describe them? I think they are an IA population, but not the main ones. Perhaps something in the way of a para-Vedic population reflective of a highland population that no longer exists?
This is actually quite interesting. The BMAC region and what happened there was so extraordinary. Three different cultures melding into one pot, each bringing a critical component to create what would eventually become the vedic people & culture.
I don't agree with a lot of what you say, but this is great work. Thank you.
Not sure, but for what we know, the amount of Steppe_MLBA in the region around the Swat Valley has about doubled in the last 2000 years. So maybe the most simple explanation is just higher affinity to Sintashta in modern populations compared to ancient ones? (In relation to their amount of West Eurasian ancestry). I'll take a look with Global 25 tomorrow to see if I can reproduce this pattern.
@Alberto
Not sure, but for what we know, the amount of Steppe_MLBA in the region around the Swat Valley has about doubled in the last 2000 years.
That is because the great majority of modern-day inhabitants of the Swat Valley are Iranic-speaking Pashtuns with relatively recent origins from Central Asia rather than the Indo-Aryan-speaking predecessors living in the region before its Pashtunization.
@ Thorin
“Three different cultures melding into one pot, each bringing a critical component to create what would eventually become the vedic people & culture. “
That’s a good way of putting it
I don’t agree with the simple steppe invasion model, however I think the breakdown of BMAC — IVC systems & incoming steppe people catalysed differentiation of different In-Ir groups.
What the plot seems to be saying is that, compared to present-day S Asians, the ANI or West Eurasian part of the SPGT is BMAC-rich (though it could just be EEF-rich).
(Do wonder if EEF alone could be causing this because the SPGT are pulled upwards even more than Sindhi and Balochi, i.e. the "BMAC" effect in SPGT seems extremely strong and outweighs even the EEF presence increasing similarity to BMAC in Indus pops.)
David, it would be interesting to see if BMAC appears consistently in present-day S Asians using exactly the same setup.
May be useful going ahead:
Human Scraping of Data from PCAs
@rk
Here's a model of the SPGT using BMAC. Looks good.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hazBb0PeBarjvLtfH8FRRm8u88_kl0Vt/view?usp=sharing
Some present-day northern South Asians like Pathans can be modeled in this way, but just barely.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hEl6UMxoTF6Fe7k8RORJscxJid1-IB5O/view?usp=sharing
But far as I can see, I can't model any present-day Indians in this way. I'll give you an example of what happens when I try it using Brahmins from northern India.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WYYhlQnbhYIXGCLfQUgwi-Rm3jcYRsiQ/view?usp=sharing
I'd have to re-design the model in a big way to get something passable.
RK,
Oddly enough, most South Asians prefer Seh_Gabi_Chl/Hajji_Firuz_Chl, rather than any of the BMAC populations, with both Global_25 and a PCoA based on the Fst matrix which David recently posted.
By contrast, Iranian and Indo-Aryan Central Asians (Tajiks, Pashtuns, Kho, Kalasha, etc) do show a strong preference towards BMAC, in addition to the West Asian ancestry.
Global_25:
Brahmin_UP
58.8% Shahr_Sokhta_BA3 + 8.7% Paniya
21.8% Sintashta_MLBA_o2
10.7% Hajji_Firuz_Chl
distance=1.6264
Fst-based PCoA:
Brahmin_UP
41.8% Indus_Perhiphery + 27.6% Bonda
24.3% Sintashta_MLBA_o2
6.3% Seh_Gabi_Chl
distance=4.9146
I would have dismissed this sort of result, if it wasn't reproduced across two very different setups (with very different input data, and different reference populations).
Sein,
I was wondering. Can the setup work with Seh Gabi or Haji Firuz replaced with a more proximate source such as Geoksiur or Tepe Anau ?
Jaydeepsinh,
A priori, I would imagine that those proximate sources perform better.
That being said, I have yet to try them, so I'll make sure to give that a spin.
All,
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1 isn't quite like any of the BMAC populations.
It seems to be around 60% IVC-related West Eurasian (essentially, 60% IVC-like ancestry, but with much less than the 14% to 40% AASI in INP samples).
This IVC-related West Eurasian element is very faint/weak in the BMAC subpopulations. I think I've mentioned this before.
Anyway, we should probably keep this West Eurasian IVC-related affinity in mind, when using Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1 to model the Swat valley samples.
Onur,
"That is because the great majority of modern-day inhabitants of the Swat Valley are Iranic-speaking Pashtuns with relatively recent origins from Central Asia rather than the Indo-Aryan-speaking predecessors living in the region before its Pashtunization."
Exactly.
In fact, the Pashtun conquest of the Swat valley is a rather recent event.
According to most historical sources, the Yusufzai Pashtun invasion occurred in the 16th century.
@Aniasi
From your genetic analysis, how would you describe them? I think they are an IA population, but not the main ones. Perhaps something in the way of a para-Vedic population reflective of a highland population that no longer exists?
I think you're right. I think they're a ghost population. The mountainous parts of northern South Asia may have been dotted with these sorts of relatively unusual groups until the Medieval period.
@Ryukendo
Responding to you from the previous thread---
Yes, exotic, indeed, but something tells me such West_Asian+East_Asian_agriculturalist hybrid populations might have been possible in Xinjiang and perhaps even Gansu/Hexi corridor areas at one time. In other words, the "mudbrick/flat-bread package", to put it lightheartedly, goes rather far back in that zone.
Admittedly, I'm not the most well-read person when it comes to early Turkic ethnogenesis and their staging ground for subsequent medieval expansions, but the said regions were very much in the spotlight during the Xiongnu period.
These are a couple of slightly overfitted models where I chose Iron Age steppics with both heavy Steppe_MLBA and Tungustic ancestry. As you can see, it takes care of a good chunk of latter but is inadequate when it comes to the East_Asian_farmer and West_Asian.
Kazakh(Iron age proxy)
DA28_scaled 34.9%
Scythian_AldyBel 25.5%
DA45_scaled 18.1%
Gonur1_BA 12.2%
Zevakinskiy_LBA 9.2%
Kazakh(steppe MLBA)
DA28_scaled 44.4%
Sintashta_MLBA 24.3%
DA45_scaled 18.3%
Gonur1_BA 13%
Uygur
DA45_scaled 27.1%
Sarmatian_Pokrovka 22.3%
Gonur1_BA 20%
DA28_scaled 16.9%
Scythian_AldyBel 9.5%
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1 4.1%
(Refer to Uyghur modeling with Steppe_MLBA in my previous post.)
If the Swat valley samples only represent non-Vedic aryans, this still makes little sense because the Butkara_IA that is well within the historic period share in this aberration. Surely it cannot be that the reduction in BMAC ancestry in Swat only happened in common era. Or that there was a BMAC-rich population hiding in Swat that only disappeared in the common era, while other genotypes were spreading elsewhere, and we so happened to sample them only.
???
This is very weird.
@ Sein
Very interesting this result. Do you remember the oldest D-stats and PCA based runs where the second largest stream of ancestry in South Asians, other than Iran_N, Onge and Sintashta, was Armenia MLBA?
The Hajji Firuz result may be mirroring that.
@ Anthro
The excess East Asian ancestry of the Mongola/"East Asian proper" type and excess West Asian ancestry in Turkics seem very much like recent introgressions into something that was quite Pazyryk-Scythian+Qarluk-Turk like, the combination which seems to displace Aldybel Scythians, Huns, and really all other sources of ancestry for Central Asians in Global25.
That said, we do have the ZevakinoChilikta Scythian (from very early on) and the Hunnic Tien Shan which are characterised by very "East Asian proper" plus quite West Asian ancestry ratios, the percentage for Hunnic Tien Shan:
"Oroqen" 18.95
"Karasuk_o" 10
in what is otherwise a very European genome, which you would expect to see a lot of Siberian with instead of East Asian proper.
I.e. something with high W Asian + Euro, or high Euro + Siberian, or high Siberian + East Asian is expected, but high West Asian + East Asian (like Scythian ZevakinoChilikta) is pretty unexpected to me.
A mix of Iran_N + East Asian proper hiding somewhere would indeed explain stuff for Zevakinochilikta and Hunnic Tien Shan, wonder where it would be hiding though (C Asia almost completely Siberia_N judging by Sarazm_Eneolithic).
For mass pattern analysis in these 8 Stats, doing the obvious PCA with PAST and the 8 stats: https://imgur.com/a/F4xPaaG
PC1: + = + on all stats
PC2: + = + on stats involving MLBA north and - on stats involving BA south central Asia
PC3: + = + West Siberia_N and - on Sintashta (other populations intermediate)
So: PC1 reflects affinity to all the column populations (e.g. Sintashta, Bustan, etc), PC2 is the residual south central BA / BMAC vs northern MLBA that is the main topic of Davidski's post here.
Then PC3 looks to me to reflect a specific further with West_Siberia_N that somewhat orthogonal to the south / north BA split.
Cross plots using the West_Siberia_N stat: https://imgur.com/a/F4xPaaG
I think it is noteworthy that many of the Iron Age Swat samples are very comparable on the West_Siberia_N stat to the range of Tajik->Kalash->Pathan, despite the northern MLBA stats looking relatively diminished.
(Contra Balochi/Brahui who are otherwise moved towards them on the northern MLBA/southern BA split).
Possibly a stat with AG3, a stat with EHG and a stat with Onge/Juang would be a useful look at this to pick apart influence of West_Siberia_N vs EHG a bit more?
It seems to me a bit of both things: some high BMAC in SPGT combined with low Steppe_MLBA, as compared to moderns.
I ran a model for the populations in the plot and then normalized to their amount of West Eurasian ancestry (calculated in Sheet2 in the link below). The only modern populations that are in the same range of Steppe_MLBA ancestry as SPGT are Velamas and Piramalai, but they have a lot more ENA, which probably increases affinity in D-stats to Steppe_MLBA vs. BMAC (because of higher basal Eurasian in BMAC):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wjvoZOoHYv9OcGM12a1F286GKJtEo7n-lYPMa-otmTk/edit?usp=sharing
@Onur
Yes, but I was thinking more about Indo-Aryan speakers from the area, like Kalash. Though the genetic difference is small with Pashtuns anyway.
@Ryukendo
Yeah, I also very much doubt Central Asia proper was the hiding place of this kind of ancestry. Again, Xinjiang and/or Gansu might be a better bet. Early Turkic entities are supposed to have overlapped intimately with these regions.
A higher ratio of East_Asian farmer to Tungustic in contemporary Central Asians might signify a turnover of Turkic groups(by no means homogeneous) there over the centuries.
As a quick proxy for D(Mbuti,EHG/AG3;Indus_Periphery,X) stats, some Fst(Mbuti,X)-Fst(EHG/AG3,X) stats, which have some correlation (and from memory correlate well with similar outgroup f3 statistic): https://imgur.com/a/goeSVUZ
Using these: https://imgur.com/a/PuxaSQQ
AG3 highly correlated with West_Siberia_N; EHG quite a bit less correlated. Some populations "further" from West_Siberia_N "closer" to EHG.
Swat_IA look relatively far from West_Siberia_N relative to EHG. Running D-stats D(X,Indus_Periphery)(EHG,West_Siberia_N/AG3) may show some stuff for the same set of X in this post. Or specifically use Shahr-i-Sokhta_BA3 to lens AASI or a recent maximally AASI population to leverage the "West Eurasian" part to the maximum.
(With my last post, it may also be worth note that the North Indian Chamars are somewhat "above the line" / + on PC3s relating specifically to links with West_Siberia_N / AG3?).
New set of fits for Central Asian post-Sintashta groups with introgression from Karasuk_Outlier and West_Siberia_N.
The Scythian_Pazyryk, Karluk Turk and Altai_IA form a very coherent group and clearly split from all other C Asian aDNA under fitting with the Sintashta_East as sources.
@ Matt
Thanks for the plots, v illuminating.
That increased West_Siberia_N + increased EEF may seem to work tgt to push Steppe figures down, probably need Davidski running qpAdm to confirm.
This is getting interesting. If we have *some* kind of introgression into cemetery H/Swat culture, but not actually Steppic, may explain the lack of YHap signal and the absent material culture all at once. Or if dribs and drabs of mixed extra-Subcontinental ancestry with minor Steppic contribution preceded an actual "Vedic Aryan proper" movement later on.
@ Davidski
Where uploaded the data for Tianyuan in a format EIGENSTAT(geno) that are you using?
Cheers. Re; whether steppic or not, I'd be very surprised if we could do without the steppe ancestry entirely! And then its hard to call on a threshold of when a group can be considered steppic or not...
But yeah, looks to me like there is a role of West_Siberia_N richer groups from east of BMAC zone confounding Steppe_MLBA signal? Or West_Siberia_N ancestry into Steppe_MLBA_East. And agree seems reasonably probable that these Swat groups (who plausibly formed from migration along Inner Asian Mountain Corridor?) formed by a different social process than some other groups who may have been richer in Steppe_MLBA and poorer in West_Siberia_N, and probably underwent a founder effect/expansion for R1a.
Also will be interesting whether, if these are not the "real" groups (putatively and probably Indo-Aryans) introducing steppe ancestry and post-BA expanding R1a to India, whether that group was richer / less rich in AASI, as these samples have about the level of AASI that the maximum theoretical ANI ought to have.
The situation with Greece is again illustrative
Mycenaean (avg)
Anatolia_BA 45 %
Balkans_ChL 36.6 %
Greece_Peloponnese_N:I3709 11.3 %
Yamnaya_Samara:I0370 6.9 %
Globular_Amphora 0.2 %
Greek
Anatolia_BA 29.5 %
Balkans_ChL 25.7 %
Yamnaya_Samara:I0370 24.2 %
Greece_Peloponnese_N:I3709 15 %
Narva_Lithuania 5.6 %
Bugger all steppe, then triples in modern mainland Greeks. Possible constant trickling in, but massive founder effect in Medieval period (Slavs). All quite predictable.
@Davidski
Could we see if we could discover more about the ghost population, much as you did several years ago with the "teal people"?
They may have descendants amongst some isolated tribes, but SA is massively undersamples in relation to its population size and unique structure.
Mycenaean average is not representative for the Greek speaking tribes. My guess is that even in the classic Greek period the social and regional differences will be significant with a strong impact of the later Dorian migration.
@Rob
These "Mycenaeans" were not Achaeans. They were slaves of the Achaeans and in one case a representative before the Mycenaean dynasty of kings.
Herodotus described what is in its time still in Greece living ancient Pelasgians who do not speak Greek.
According to some archeologists there was no iron age in the swat valley. They jumped from early bronze age into the common era. Makes sense now.
"Iron age Swat" is a misnomer. Should be EBA Swat.
@Santosh What exactly is the line that separates Iron Age and post-Iron Age?
@Rob: We all know that the Greeks met large communities of non-IE people and that the original "tribal Greeks" coming in were a minority. There was a huge regional and social differentiation, that was to be expected.
So any average after the establishment of the Mycenaean culture says little about the people coming in originally.
The Dorian communities are closer to the original Greek speaking people and seem to have been "more on their own" in the early times. So such graves would be informative.
I never questioned later influences, especially from Albanians, Romanians and of course Slavs, no issue with that.
But a "Mycenaean average" is hardly the best information to get about the earlist Greek speaking people coming into the Peleponnes. Actually the most IE/steppe influenced individuals would be most informative if dealing with such a material alone. Because that they mixed with the majority population after the influx is a given.
@Zardos
Albanians and Greeks rate comparably on both overall steppe ancestry and Slavic ancestry. So, barring any total replacement scenarios, Albanian presence(while real) can't be culprit for elecated steppe.
Moreover, Mycenaeans aren't the only post 2000 BC Balkan sample available to us. Look at the Iron Age Balkan sample from Bulgaria. Comparably low steppe and high trans-Aegean in that one as well. Judging by genomes from Croatian Dalmatia(contemps to Mycrnaeans) and models of modern Montenegrins though, central and north Dinaric zones had significant steppe and wasn't as rich in trans-Aegean.
So, perhaps the original Dorian migrants had higher steppe, but I'd be very suprised to see a resulting Greek population exceed 15%.
RK,
I think this does probably explain the Armenia_EBA percentages.
RK and Matt,
I think you guys have focused in on a very interesting angle.
If my memory serves me right, the strongest f3 stat for SPGT involves Botai. Now, I've been told that the Botai samples are mostly West_Siberian_N. Considering that the preprint doesn't include AG3/MA1, they might actually have a combination of both (like Sarazm_Eneolithic), with some moderate Iranian plateau admixture.
For what it's worth, I think that a West_Siberian_N-rich stream of ancestry is quite noticeable in the southeastern corner of Central Asia (northeastern Afghan highlands and northern Pakistani highlands), with a peak in the Burusho.
Rather unfortunate that they didn't showcase the Botai samples.
For another paper?
On a different note, I feel that the preprint does away with the original notion some had concerning a heavily male-mediated Indo-Aryan migration.
Populations with the highest levels of steppe ancestry (40% among the Tajikistanis, 30%-25% among Kho/Kalash/Nuristanis) don't actually have tons of R1a, but do have some serious amounts of steppe-related mtDNA. Pashtuns do range from nearly 40% (in the Karlani belt) to 20% (in the eastern Sarbani belt), and do show 50%-80% R1a (depending on tribe), but considering the much lower levels of R1a among neighboring populations with equal amounts of autosomal steppe-related admixture, this is definitely a founder effect in the case of Pashtuns (no surprise, considering the socio-anthropology at play; traditional Pashtun society is patrilineal and tribal).
In South Asia though, there is a lack of steppe-related mtDNA, but 40%-50% R1a (in Punjab, Sindh, and among the northern Brahmins).
But this could be chalked up to natural selection on the mtDNA, and founder effects with R1a (again, no surprise, considering the socio-anthropology at play; traditional Indo-Pakistani culture is very far from tribal, but the genetic dynamics of caste, in conjunction with patrilineal organization, will lead to the same genetic effects).
I guess the Indo-Aryan influx involved steady folk migration into northern South Asia, and "Aryanization" entailed the spread of a religoius rite and socio-cultural package.
In fact, per the Vedas, being "Aryan" essentially involved the adoption of specific rituals and practices.
Basically, like RK said in another thread, there were no "operatic" wars and "invasions". The IVC was long gone.
Seinundzeit (& RK?) do not represent the culture of the Aryans and this invasion of its character. Apparently, they think of it as Napoleon's campaign. Naturally, the character of this invasion is known and it does not coincide with what they imagined.
Santosh wrote it is unclear that.
@ Supernord
“These "Mycenaeans" were not Achaeans. They were slaves of the Achaeans and in one case a representative before the Mycenaean dynasty of kings. ”
Lol . You’re the best story teller
@Rob
LOL, you are a bad reader. You did not even bother to read the definition of archaeologists. Testing is certainly not the Achaeans was apparently intentional.
@ Zardos
"@Rob: We all know that the Greeks met large communities of non-IE people and that the original "tribal Greeks" coming in were a minority. There was a huge regional and social differentiation, that was to be expected.
So any average after the establishment of the Mycenaean culture says little about the people coming in originally.
The Dorian communities are closer to the original Greek speaking people and seem to have been "more on their own" in the early times. So such graves would be informative. "
We actually don't know the exact dynamics of the conquest / invasion, nor even when it occurred.
So yes, Myceneans would be variable. If 10% is a mere raw steppe figure, the overall turnover could be significantly more, but there was one mycenean with virually zero steppe and the highest was ~ 15% (female I9033.
People keep mentioning the Dorians as if they'll deliver the special steppe ancestry you all thirst for. But do you realise the Dorians were just a rough-n-ready Greek caste from within Greece, not from Ireland and Russia, coming to power after the BA collapse. The legends about them were made much later, in the pre-Hellenistic period when Greek identity was being formed in the wake of Persian advances. For all we know, it could be non-steppe ancestry increased during the Iron Age.
It's rather obvious the increase in steppe ancestry in modern Greeks c.f Myceneneans is due to Slavs & other Middle Age migrants. But feel free to believe what you want.
Sein is spot on with his defn of Arya.
Supernord is still stuck with his nazi era german RV translations. Only fools would disregard knowledge of yogis who have pondered upon Vedas for thousands of years.
@ Kulkarni
By when should the Vedic IAs have been in northern / Indus region
Mr. Kulkarni said...
" Supernord is still stuck with his nazi era german RV translations. Only fools would disregard knowledge of yogis who have pondered upon Vedas for thousands of years."
You write errors always without knowing anything, that is, knowing absolutely nothing. I don't use nazi translations as you are cheating. I use the normal accurate translations, you use your imagination and nationalism. Shame.
@ Sein
Yep Hajji Firuz is virtually identical as Armenia_MLBA, as already pointed out by others.
As for the social process, I dunno, there is still the position of present-day South Asians to explain, as they do not resemble SPGT, and require quite a bit of ancestry from Sintashta.
The migration later would still have been very significant, representing an increase of Sintashta MLBA + IVC periphery or Mala-type ancestry, and much reduced BMAC and Siberia N.
So I fully expect to see a turnover later on with Sintastha-rich populations high in the South Asian version of R1a, pushing the SPGT types off to the edge in some way, probably just a short while later.
@ Davidski
A suggestion:
To test the hypothesis that SPGT have high West Siberia N, BMAC and low Sintashta MLBA, one thing we could to is try to fit modern South Asians with Indus Periphery, Sintashta, SPGT, Siberia N and BMAC. If SPGT are indeed too Siberia N and BMAC compared to modern S Asians then either them or Siberia N+BMAC may turn out negative in the resulting fit.
Yes, I think the dynamics of this migration are very different from what some imagined. From the data we have (still insufficient, though quite telling) it looks like a slow and continuous flow, rather than anything sudden and disruptive.
But considering the samples from Swat Valley, where even almost all of the samples with significant steppe are from a late date (and even in late dates there are samples without steppe admixture), and this area being kind of an entrance with low population density, I'm not sure it's possible to imagine that by 1700-1500 BCE in regions like the Punjab or Haryana there will be any steppe admixture. Seems way to early (not only because of the Swat samples, but because of the post-BMAC samples too, that show hardly any steppe ancestry by those same dates), and even if a few did arrive it's unlikely that they even went noticed in those more populous places.
We'll have to wait for that data to come to be sure, but finding lots of steppe admixture in those places and time would be quite surprising.
Some other facts to bring to bear:
The R1a star-shaped expansions in Z93 occur too early to account for demographic phenomena in India, the various South Asian subclades with stars in their phylogeny more plausibly coincide with the explosive expansion of Andronovo-Sintastha ancestry in Central Asia (sorta like the BB in Europe, the horizon was very flat and spread pretty quickly). The representation of multiple terminal branches of the star-shaped clades in S Asia after this looks much more like a usual demic expansion from Steppe-admixed groups than star-shaped effects in S Asia itself.
(Not saying star-shaped effects did not take place in S Asia, but because of endogamy and so on these phenomena were probably impeded.)
This whole thing is extremely weird.... 1000BC is late enough that we should expect the population to resemble moderns at least for the autosome. Then we have the Butkara from ~0AD which has a lot more Sintastha but still does not resemble moderns....
Late migrations from sites like Kashikarchi_BA could explain this, but that would be quite an extended migration, and also the cultural introgression is not associated with later changes away from Cemetery H and Swat culture, but rather with the appearance of Cemetery H and Swat itself (i.e. with cultures similar to the SPGT sample's contexts).
Before anyone gets too excited the 'we have indigenous EHG and Iran_N in South Asia!' theory definitely does not explain this, but the usual chronology proposed by AMT doesn't either. Only a very late change across the whole of S Asia driving down the previous Siberia_N and BMAC seen in Swat and Butkara_IA can explain this, but its very, very late.
I think what we really need is dense sampling from an array of Vedic-contemporary sites, such as cemetery H, black and red ware, ochre colored pottery culture, copper hoard, painted grey ware, jhukar etc etc. It may be that the situation resembled Central Asia or Siberia where you have multiple combinations of the contributing populations living side by side (e.g. 75% Siberia_N Dali EBA close to 100% Sintashta groups and 25% Karasuk_Outlier 75% Sintashta Krasnoyarsk and Taldysay-Dzhaylau all in the Inner Asian Mountain Corridoor, or the Pazyryk Scythian next to the Hunnic Tien Shan.) and the combination that was especially important only came to dominate later, except in some outliers like Burusho or Chamar that preserve some other substrates.
@ those with knowledge of S Asian archaeology
Are there any other pronounced shifts in material culture in the direction of Central Asian practices in the later transitions post-Swat? I.e. from Cemetery H to Painted Grey Ware, & etc.
RK,
True; the Swat valley folk might not be the best group to examine, if one is looking for a reference point of relevance to contemporary South Asians, since the Swat valley has always been a transitional region, with simultaneous ties to the Iranian plateau, Central Asia, and what is now the Greater Punjab.
Anyway, the Vedic heartland was the contemporary Punjab, and the full blooming of Indo-Aryan culture took place much later in the Gangetic plain (after which even the Punjab became a peripheral area, and the people of places like Swat were downgraded to the status of "unclean foreigners", "mleccha").
Long story short, I suppose we shouldn't be looking at South Central Asia and parts of South Asia with intimate ties to South Central Asia (like Swat), but rather in Northern South Asia proper (the Greater Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, etc), if we want to fully understand the social processes underlying the gene-flow.
Regardless, contemporary South Central Asia is a stronghold for Iranian languages, so the modern inhabitants of the region are peripheral to the question of "Aryanization".
Alberto,
"But considering the samples from Swat Valley, where even almost all of the samples with significant steppe are from a late date (and even in late dates there are samples without steppe admixture), and this area being kind of an entrance with low population density, I'm not sure it's possible to imagine that by 1700-1500 BCE in regions like the Punjab or Haryana there will be any steppe admixture. Seems way to early (not only because of the Swat samples, but because of the post-BMAC samples too, that show hardly any steppe ancestry by those same dates), and even if a few did arrive it's unlikely that they even went noticed in those more populous places.
We'll have to wait for that data to come to be sure, but finding lots of steppe admixture in those places and time would be quite surprising."
Bearing in mind what RK noted, I do find your points to be very compelling.
Essentially, the picture we had was wrong, with respect to a great many things.
Obviosly, the Indo-Aryans were intrusive. But, the data seems to be suggesting something far more complex and interesting than the "explosive" scenario we had prior to the Central Asian aDNA.
@ Alberto
It is interesting, if G25 is correct, and using only the current ancient set, then Swat legacy is palpable in Dardic groups but not marked in Indian IAs (apart from Sindhi) (which prefer as if a late steppe group arriving straight in).
Brahmin
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA3 66.7 %
Krasnoyarsk_MLBA 20.95 %
Udegram_IA 8.05 %
Levant_BA 3.05 %
Gujarati
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA3 86.6 %
Krasnoyarsk_MLBA 11.05 %
Hajji_Firuz_ChL 1.9 %
Kho_Singanali
Udegram_IA 61.6 %
Hajji_Firuz_ChL 11.75 %
Dali_EBA 10.5 %
Krasnoyarsk_MLBA 9.75 %
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA3 3.9 %
Kalash
Udegram_IA 35.75 %
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2 18.3 %
Krasnoyarsk_MLBA 17.45 %
Gonur1_BA 9.65 % / Gonur1_BA_o 9.55 %/ Gonur2_BA 6.45 %
(all fits < 0.015)
So we're probably just looking at a series of regionally different post-IVC movements assimilating into local systems.
But it those figures change if Mala is used, fits improve, but I don;t feel much better for having used moderns.
Eg: Gujarati
Mala 44.6 %
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA3 21.15 %
Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2 16.2 %
Udegram_IA 8.45 %
Krasnoyarsk_MLBA 8.4 %
d 0.010
@Rob
The IIr split has to happen before the urban phase of IVC and BMAC, because to have that kind of pervasive impact, the splitting populations have to be in smaller numbers. Massive urban civilizations, de-urbanizing due to drought, will not have the same sort of deep effect. I would say that BMAC was firmly in the Iranic zone. Steppe herders showing up on the "door to India" would have contributed minor influences while largely assimilating into the existing culture.
Now, we know that IIr were together till the very end of this saga, only the last ones to split. It could be that there was a continuum of IIr tribes between NW India & Eastern Iran from where migratory waves went further west. I have shared a literary evidence for such a migration from an Indian text but am quoting again,
“To the East went Ayus; from him descend the Kurus, Pancalas, Kasis and Videhas.
These are the peoples which originated as a consequence of Ayus's going forth. To the
West went Amavasu; from him descend the Gandharis, the Sparsus and the Arattas.
These are the peoples which originated as a consequence of Amavasu's going forth.” ~ Baudhayana Srautasutra 18.44-45
Here, Sparsus is likely Parsus*, as that's the term for Persians in all Sanskrit literarture. Gandharis are people of Gandhara, and the Arattas, well who were they? There are multiple references in Sumerian and Akkadian texts about them, generally placing them in the Armenian Highland region,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aratta
https://aratta.wordpress.com/2015/05/17/aratta-urartu-armenia/
The Sumerians repeatedly mention that they need loads of "Lapis Lazuli" from the Arattas, as apparently they are masters of trade in that material. Now, where was this Lapis Lazuli mined and which ancient civilization had a great expertise on it-> https://s7.postimg.cc/ab0g5p5iz/lapis.jpg
So, an Indo-Aryan text is talking about a people, who the Sumerians are attesting to be firmly rooted in Armenian highlands in the 28-27th century BCE. Interesting isn't it? Dug a little further, it appears another ancient Indian writer says that Arattas had one of the best breeds of horses around, so probably they were trading the good Steppe horses, and hence such horse fixation in the Steppe folks,
https://s7.postimg.cc/oiq4u4d0b/chanakyaaratta.jpg
Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23310
"However, the Mycenaeans differed from Minoans in deriving additional ancestry from an ultimate source related to the hunter–gatherers of eastern Europe and Siberia, introduced via a proximal source related to the inhabitants of either the Eurasian steppe, or Armenia."
Now, an Indus sample without AASI should be a good fit here isn't it, and perhaps also for Yamnaya? Now, this is what Gyaneshwar Choubey said some time back regarding the ancient DNA from India - "Preliminary results show that there was a Dravidian expansion towards northwest India which was so far not reported..."
https://youtu.be/KmeVR8sqSd4?t=26m49s
Assuming he meant AASI mixing into an unmixed population in the NW of India. Even in this study they have made an a priori assumption that only those samples are Indus migrants who show significant AASI. But, that is never a given, a civilization of this magnitude had to have heterogeneous groups living in it. Perhaps this is the information on which basis the Jagran article happened, talking of an IE expansion happening from India, not a Steppic-admix in IVC. Infact, no Steppe that early but a Iran_N+ANE like population in IVC gives that clinching evidence.
It was already clear that this rather late Steppe movement has nothing to do with IE in India except for some unending repetition of 200 year old colonial Indology.
Hate to say it, but if this Steppe and R1a explosion is after 200 BCE, we aren't talking about Indo-Aryans, but Indo Scythians having a pronounced impact. This then means low steppe is IA and BMAC becomes a legitimate source.
IIr then looks southern too with Scythians being to IIr what Blatterhole is to Neolithic.
Was Swat Valley the only way into India that could have been taken ?
Can a migratory group bypass certain peoples without impregnating each and every female on their route ?
There may have been an r1a explosion after 1500bc in India. But that doesn't mean r1a isn't a IE signal there.
In early ie societies massive y DNA explosions happened every several hundred years. The new explosion airways grows from the old one. The r1b l21 explosion happened like in 2500bc but that is not when r1b p313 first became popular. R1b l21 expanded in a society with 99% r1b p312.
Similarlly if r1a l657 is a "recent" expansion it is still very possible the r1a in aryans is a IE signal in India.
It doesn't really make sense to say that the expansion was post 200BC though, does it? The Butkara_IA sample was around that time and it was already more Sintastha_MLBA than any group in South Asia today (and also more AASI than SPGT), and Saidu Sharif 500BC already has R1a. The problem is more that these samples share in the high West_Siberia_N and high BMAC phenomenon found in the other SPGT and not found in modern Indians, and less that there is no evidence of further increases in Sintashta_MLBA and AASI in South Asia mediated by some suitable population in the first millenium BC. Since the increase in AASI and Sintashta did occur by comparing SPGT against Butkara and the same vector, if applied to IVC periphery samples, may produce present-day S Asians in the appropriate position.
Also there just couldn't be a late introduction of R1a and Sintashta with Indo-Scythians, Brahmanically-influenced literature appears in Tamil Nadu in the Sangam period (300 BC) and South Indian Brahmins are the same as North Indian ones, i.e. high in Sintashta, R1a approx 60% in the sample of Watkins et al, no or low BMAC, and not resembling the prior SPGT. The Scythians reach South Asia in 200BC so the chronology just doesn't work.
Whats the possibility that the BMAC people spoke early PIE and then met with steppe people who spoke late PIE?
Maybe the original Northern Iran people who spoke early PIE and went up to Yamnaya also went east towards BMAC and maybe even Indus?
Maybe Indus was a multilingual society (plausible given the scale of the civilization and the logosyllabic script) and they spoke both early PIE in the Northern regions and proto-Dravidian in Sindh/Mohenjodaro (which is an AASI language with South Indian origin)?
Hit me with everything wrong in this scenario.
@Rykendo
Yeah, I was getting the same results for Altai and Pazryk and was rather shocked at first, to say the least. It just goes to show us how complex the dynamics on the Eurasian steppe have gotten to be by that time.
In agreement with you about Scythian/post 200BC scenario being unfeasible. The way I see it, a whole (sub)continent is shrouded in a fog of war as of now, w/Swat an indicator of limited utility. What tends to happen with intrusive migrations/invasions---even if demographically inconsequential----is that old population centers lose their prominence and centers of gravity shift, often accompanied by changes in cultural habits. This was very much the case in the Europe of late antiquity/early middle ages.
I doubt that we'll ever find steppe-rich large groups in India but we shouldn't restrict ourselves to delapidated late IVC zones if we want to stumble on some R1a proto Brahmins.
"The major factor(s) in these changes remain unclear. Climate has played a role in the changes in the oases and also in parts of the steppes. Indeed, there was greater aridity in Transoxania at c. 2000 BCE. Future research should concentrate on these and related items (WITZEL, forthc. b). We have to look, however, for a range of causes, acting in concert.
It is into the cultural area of Greater Iran that the mobile pastoralist speakers of early Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan entered. The sudden decline of all cultures of the area, from Mesopotamia to the Indus and from Bactria to Bahrain and Oman, at the beginning of the second millennium is suggestive, but it cannot simply be explained by an "invasion of Aryan hordes". The situations in all areas concerned are to disparate and they also are geographically too distant (e.g. in Oman) as to allow such a simple, mono-causal explanation. MALLORY (1998: 192-194) now proposes a new scenario, in part derived from GIMBUTAS' model of an expansion of the (Indo-European) Kurgan cultures. It is used to explain the adoption of the Indo-Iranian language by the BMAC people(s). This process he calls, half-facetiously, the effect of a
Kulturkugel. This "bullet" is composed of three segments, that is a "tip" of material culture and a "charge", or body of language and social organization. In the BMAC case, a billiard-like effect started with the Andronovo Kulturkugel arriving from the north, entering the BMAC area, and immediately losing its "tip". In the BMAC, the linguistic and social residue acquires a new cultural "tip", that of the BMAC itself ands spreads south to Susa, Baluchistan and the
Indus (Mohenjo Daro). The fine details of this process need to be sorted out.
For example, was the initial "Kugel" still Indo-Iranian or already (pre-)Indo-Aryan?
MALLORY's model is, in effect, a rephrasing of what EHRET had described in 1988 in more general terms (derived from Africa): an immigrating civilization joins the local one, transforms it by taking on many of its aspects and then sets in move a recurrent, billiard-like spread of this innovative culture. In the end, no one at the start of the process may be genetically linked to anyone at the end of the process. (This is precisely what seems to have happened in the case of Aryanization of S. Asia)."
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/AryanHome.pdf
The Steppe (Aryan) Kulturkurgel took over BMAC - went onto South Asia, Iran, where ever the Mittani were etc. and didn't genetically resemble the people at the start of the steppe (aryan) invasion.
@Stefan Molyneux
The problem with that theory is it doesn't have or even require any evidence. Its purporting that A caused Z, without showing evidence through the chain.
We are to either believe that A caused Z, or not. Its a leap of faith.
@Sanuj
Now, an Indus sample without AASI should be a good fit here isn't it, and perhaps also for Yamnaya? Now, this is what Gyaneshwar Choubey said some time back regarding the ancient DNA from India - "Preliminary results show that there was a Dravidian expansion towards northwest India which was so far not reported..."
You're clearly still tripping on something from your night out.
Steppe_MLBA is the only plausible source of Indo-European language in South Asia, because it's the only unambiguous and plausible genetic link between the linguistically closely related Indo-European speakers of Europe and South Asia that isn't too distant or too recent.
There's nothing in the ancient DNA results or any archaeological and linguistics data that precludes Steppe_MLBA from being proto-Indo-Iranian. In fact, even if, on average, there's less than 10% genome-wide admixture among Indo-Aryan-speaking Indians, that is still a massive impact across a huge area and population, and obviously the Y-DNA impact was much greater, suggesting that Steppe_MLBA-derived Y-chromosome lineages largely spread across India via the expansions of elite male lines.
@Chad
Hate to say it, but if this Steppe and R1a explosion is after 200 BCE, we aren't talking about Indo-Aryans, but Indo Scythians having a pronounced impact.
There's no reason to assume that R1a exploded in South Asia only after 200 BCE, because it couldn't have. There's too much diversity and structure in South Asian R1a-Z93 for that to be an option.
And, obviously, Scythians don't explain anything in this context, unless you can find a Scythian population deep in Asia basically identical to Steppe_MLBA. But not even European Scythians fit the bill.
Also, the closest thing that we have to "Indo-Aryan" R1a-L657 in the ancient DNA record to date is the Y-DNA of Ukraine_Eneolithic I6561, not that of any Scythian.
@Thorin
Whats the possibility that the BMAC people spoke early PIE and then met with steppe people who spoke late PIE?
Impossible, as there's no BMAC admixture in ancient Europe. Just look at the uniparental markers.
I won't even bother getting into the linguistic arguments against this theory.
@Rob
It maybe looks like those pesky historical linguists were right yet again. Damn them to hell!
Sintashta, BMAC and the Indo-Iranians
So the presence of substantial BMAC-related ancestry in SPGT doesn't complicate things for the steppe hypothesis, it actually validates it.
The paucity of BMAC-related ancestry in most Indo-European-speaking South Asians also isn't a problem, because there may have been different waves of Indo-Aryans moving into South Asia, some with BMAC ancestry and others without it. Indeed, this was already predicted by some without any DNA data.
The Aryan Trail (3500 - 1500 BC)
And make sure to check out this awesome map!
Language map in 1000 BC
@thorin
Please don't bring hindootva here.
https://imgur.com/a/pPkOgZV
Andronovo style house described 100% in rig veda, also found in swat valley.
https://i.imgur.com/xKVcnyM.png
They've found Andronovo style weapon at the site the battle of ten kings (major arayan even in rig veda) took place
https://imgur.com/a/bZtLavd
very few women in the invasions. they need to genome sequence ancient dna from the archaeoligcl sites where all the wagon/chariot burials alongside horese sacrifices are
@davidski
"And make sure to check out this awesome map!
Language map in 1000 BC"
great map 100% lines up with rig veda
@Davidski
Whatever you say.
@ Davidski
Well that trail map looks wrong given the current opinions so I’m not sure why you’re bringing it up.
The other, linguistic map could equally be interpreted as the result of previous breakdown of the MAIS horizon . Anyhow, I did not suggest that the differential ancestries was a “problem”, but simply noticing that it exists, just like I pointed out the inflated steppe effect and the presence of R1a in Neolithic Siberia and called for more nuanced models. That’s what I do- I’m a prophet
So when it drops, feel free to bow your head.
@Rob
I've got a prophecy for you: R1a-Z93 doesn't come from Siberia.
Actually, to be honest, it's not much of a prophecy, just a basic fact.
Hilarious to see racists use third or fourth hand translations of Sanskrit Texts written by guys who half learnt Sanskrit from Indian Brahmins and ignoring what Indian Greats say on meaning of India Vedas and later texts.Shows in their hypersensitivity and zeal to somehow prove there were outsider Aryans.
@Anshuman
Piss off you freak.
@Stefan Molyneux
I've read through most of the books you're quoting from. At one point, I'd even gone through the Kuzmina Origins of IIr - that was a slog. Read Anthony and Mallory too. Most of that stuff is making linkages between the rigveda and andronovo sites that are just plain wrong. Very high doses of speculation from people who are reading translations of vedic texts and then cherry picking what they think fits their thesis. I'm sorry but that's the truth.
Its very similar to what you just did here when you accused me of hindutva. You're someone who has no idea what that term means and you're freely applying it to something unrelated in an unrelated context. Just like the authors of your quotes.
Good day.
For me this debate was already settled with the Ancient R1a samples found in the Ukraine accompanied by Linguistic evidence.
I can not understand why people choose to accept one part of their ancestry while totally disregarding the other. I'm certain that my Ancestors will spin in their graves if I do not acknowledge their contribution....
@Ric
For me this debate was already settled with the Ancient R1a samples found in the Ukraine accompanied by Linguistic evidence.
Absolutely.
But these desperate naysayers will keep trying to shift the goal posts until they totally run out of space.
@ Davidski
True. Is it really that bad to think that your Great Great Grandfather was a Steppe Warriors, Herder and Trader ?
@Ric Hern
"True. Is it really that bad to think that your Great Great Grandfather was a Steppe Warriors, Herder and Trader ?"
Lets flip it around to you -
Is it really that bad to think that your great great great grandfather was an Iranian farmer or goat-herder? That your language originates from Iran?
You may not think that's a problem, but there are many people of this site who fight this idea so profusely. Even though all the experts in the field are now pointing to this inevitable conclusion.
Me personally, I'm not an OITer. I don't care whether my ancestors were from Ukraine, Iran, West Africa... Its very apparent to me that Indians (like most people on earth) aren't racially pure.
I'm just honestly not convinced that in the case of India, R1a is related to language. And definitely not religion or culture.
@ thorin23
How else will you explain Indo-European Language spoken in Ireland ? There were many different cultures between Ireland and India with no clear transition or chronological connection between them. There is no clear Genetic route in Southern Europe, Balkans all the way to India following a Southern route.
The only thing that can connect India very clearly with the Right Bank of the Rhine is Haplogroup R1a. And we know the R1a branch in India are much younger and distantly related to those Ukraine Samples from where R1a radiated outward both to the West and East.
How do a Language Family jump from one Genetically unrelated group of people to the other without most people knowing how to read or write ? Or without a clearly similar religion and customs over a territory streching thousands of miles ?
It is not possible without a Genetic link.
@thorin23
"Is it really that bad to think that your great great great grandfather was an Iranian farmer or goat-herder? That your language originates from Iran?"
The beauty of the Steppe hypothesis is that the majority of linguists, a very vocal group of recent archaeologists, a number of pre-war archaeologists (Gordon Childe, for instance) and genetics all came to the same Urheimat, some of these independently.
"You may not think that's a problem, but there are many people of this site who fight this idea so profusely. Even though all the experts in the field are now pointing to this inevitable conclusion."
No. Not experts in the field. Geneticists aren't linguistic experts. And if you read Iosif Lazaridis first draft of his review "The evolutionary history of human populations in Europe" you'll find it hinges entirely on three bronze age Anatolian samples. Which were buried in jars, actually, a tradition not found in any known Kurgan but well known from many non-IE cultures in the Middle East.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ybnv1qqiowbtfz0/Europe_arXiv.pdf?dl=0
PS: Notice that Lazaridis does not mention Iranian samples?
@all
Even tough i'm not convinced of the steppe theory I would like to make a proposal:
Would not be better call now this theory the OEET ( OUT OF EASTERN EUROPE THEORY) to me it does'n make any sense to use "steppe". The steppe we are referring now it is not an indefinite part of the eurasian steppe but is clearly well within the border of Europe ( Samara Volga and Ukraine R1a).
What do you think?
as for me from now on my posts will be referring to OEET.
Old Europe,
That would *really* rile all the nutters out there.
Not only is 'Europe' anathema to them, 'Eastern Europe' seems to have a similar effect on nutters of a different ilk - the plastic Nazis and wannabe Hitlerites.
"Are there any other pronounced shifts in material culture in the direction of Central Asian practices in the later transitions post-Swat? I.e. from Cemetery H to Painted Grey Ware, & etc."
I think there are, but they all start earlier than the accepted dates for the actual incursion of IA speakers. That makes sense because innovations travel faster than people.
We are still speculating on the basis of a measly set of samples from northern Pakistan (far fewer than we have for the parallel time period in Europe). Sure Swat is one of the few points of entry into South Asia from the northwest, but that also makes the region exist in a constant state of flux. Stable Aryan settlements were made in the upper Gangetic doab for the first time.
PGW would have yielded what we needed, but they practiced cremation and I'm not even sure if there would be any human remains for the researchers to work with.
Just appeared :http://www.archaeologisches-museum.frankfurt.de/pdf/1st%20circular_caucasus_conference_internet.pdf
The more I read about what we are talking about in this blog and beyond the more the puzzle of IE became less and less clear....it seems like a locked-room mistey if you know what I mean.....
archeology that doesn't square with genetics
different genetics interpretation in front of same data
movement of people and genes that doesn't square with time of linguistic diffusion ( as many posts here are pointing out)
maybe we should investigate the true nature of the success of IE languages
1) It was a rapid diffusion of a new sophisticated religion ( let us call platonic thinking in the broader sense of the meaning) much like what happened with islam or just like greek in the roman empire ( the lingua franca of culture)?
2) was it like a lingua franca emanating from a strong economic and commercial hotspot ( much like the english usage of today?)
3) was it like a classical form of imperialism ( roman style?)
I'm pretty much stunned that unlike India for example we do not have in Europe much recording in the popular miths of historical time of the "invasion" of people that many think are of the origin of IE languages.
Italic people do not have this myth nor patins ( only a reference of trojan origins as you see in Eneide).
Celtic people do not have ( if I'm right irish have a legend of their origins but it claims they are from...Spain)
The only myth we find is of germanic people talking about an encounter of ASI and vanir( exactly the place where we shouldn't find since we know that in northern europe there was a deep demic diffusion we should expect this kind of narratives in southern and western europe...)
Strange because according to the steppe theory that invasion should have been a dramatic turning point for the entire continent.....
@ David
"I've got a prophecy for you: R1a-Z93 doesn't come from Siberia."
I did not suggest that Z93 came from Siberia.
C'mon, man up Dave. Pucker up
Jokes aside, it's good to see some people moving with the evidence .
In the end it was always clear to anyone knowledgeable in the field that the Corded Ware Culture was key. Because of all cultures we know of, the CWC must have been Indoeuropean and close to the origin of IE.
Any theory which ignores the CWC and how it came into existence is worthless. And now we know for sure that they were related to Yamnaya/steppe people one way or the other and have close to zero pre-IE South Asian influences. That alone disqualifies any OIT completely.
There were alternative theories in the past, some even believed CWC was regional in more Western parts of Europe too, like coming up with LBK or GAC, but as we have seen, this was refuted like OIT.
It wasn't just India which was conquered, but practically all IE regions but the very core region whereever in Eastern Europe it was. But in Eastern Europe and/or neighbouring Central Asia it was, that is a given by now.
And it is totally unlogical to assume that the main body of the language came from the South because IE were strictly patriarchal, patrilinear, even agnatic. So the male (yDNA) side is decisive. And there is no way that the main PIE lineages of R1a and R1b came up from further South than the Caucasus. Again, any idea of PIE coming from further West, South or South East being refuted long before the recent samples.
In fact it was everything neat and clean a long, long time before archaegenetics, its just some people didn't liked the idea of fighting human ethnicities going back to the origin of Homo, actually even back to the Chimps, because they fight wars too. Without the anti-migrationist and postcolonialist crap no one would have ever questioned the already known facts which pointed to Eastern Europe.
@Rob: I don't care too much about how much steppe ancestry the original Greeks had, I just don't think such a low number is parsimonious. I'm just pretty sure that your "Mycenaean average" is not representative. Anything below about 12 % is very unlikely for an average even if they came around the Balkans.
About the Dorians: Tests will make it clear.
@Rob
So what was your point about R1a in Neolithic Siberia?
You do know that something like 99% of the R1a in South Asia is R1a-Z93, right?
@ zardos
: I don't care too much about how much steppe ancestry the original Greeks had, I just don't think such a low number is parsimonious. I'm just pretty sure that your "Mycenaean average" is not representative:
Well check it yourself instead philosophizing
Ask one of your fellow steppists - AnthroS - to confirm
BTW your arguments about PIE are always circular instead of factual. Hard to take you seriously
So the cremating Vedas are also nonIE because cremation isn’t IE rite of the mighty Yamnaya
Well said...perfect
@Rob: How many samples do we have? Which can be considered early? And how can the average of population which majority was to be known for being of non-IE ancestry being representative for the original tribal groups? To point to an average in such a case is misleading, with the highest scoring individuals being with high probability closer to the original Greeks. So far we have 15 %, which is in the ok range, but I guess we will find individual samples going up.
As for my circular reasoning, CWC can hardly be interpretated as non-IE, there is reasonable way, even if its not 100 percent, it is close to it. Even Yamnaya could be more in doubt, CWC not. So the profile of this population and its explanation is key. You deny because you love to be in denial. I like your posts in general, because you are knowledgeable and point to details others miss, but you are just playing the advocatus diaboli recently.
Which has its justification too, from a scientific point of view, but becomes ridiculous if you try to re-interprete facts in a non factual way.
@rob
Time period for vedic IAs should be 4000bc to 2500bc.
Check twitter thread https://twitter.com/blog_supplement/status/983913890613530624?s=19
Yajurveda dates to between 2000&2900bce
@ Zardos
I'm not denying anything about CWC. But there's little point in grafting our impressions on it on the entire putative PIE ocumene. Have you not heeded the findings from South Asia ?
You also need to look at the post-CWC cultures - and the viscitudes of groups like the Trziniec groups and the impacts they received from the Carpathian basin. Ultimately, for all its patriarchality, the Bronze Age of central Europe (post 2200BC) was a significant transformation c.f. 2800 BC. It is from this where arguably IE societies can be traced, and they certainly do not evolve linearly from CWC or even BB. Very new symbols were employed, sometimes rejecting the past LN (CWC-BB) traditions. This cut through the very heart of central Europe through to Scandinavia. What remained was on the periphery - eg Bavaria or east of the Vistula, which later became part of the same fold as they became progressively acculturated into the new world system (Trziniec, or post-BB BA groups in Germany, Italy & France). It is at this point that arguable IE chiefs emerged, which were not necessary those same incoming patriarchal mannuerbrude of the previous centuries.
This is neither contrarian, nor definitive.
Had a go at a little experiment using the Fst scores from the last blogpost.
Took a matrix of South Asian, steppe and West Asian samples: https://pastebin.com/g9N32BeH
Generated PCoA: https://imgur.com/a/ite9ma5 (15 Dimensions: https://pastebin.com/5pDWgvdH)
Then used a calc file with only ancients except Iron Age Swat ancients to generate fits.
See here: https://pastebin.com/Ze4WVxNR
Note because the most AASI sample I'm using is Indus_Periphery, as Fst can behave oddly with modern+ancient, this may constrain models. The fits labeled 7 use 7 dimensions, others use 15.
It looks like in these fits at least, recent SA populations on the Pakistan end of the SA cline tend to prefer a relatively low level of Indus_Periphery together with relatively high levels of ancestry from Sarmatian_Pokrovka and/or Armenia_MLBA. The Swat IA samples instead prefer a lot more Indus_Periphery with a light dosage of Steppe_East_MLBA.
May be interesting, or nothing, that this Fst based PCoA for modern people continues to show these preferences for population movements linked to Bronze-Iron Age West Asia, while Swat is distinctive in preferring a low level of potent IAMC ancestry. The preference for some Armenia_MLBA / Sarmatian thing came up in the past, with other SCA Fst based PCoA. This distinction also persisted when I included Hakkipikki/Gond in the calc file as more maximally AASI samples, though I then found that combinations of Hakkipikki and Sarazm_Eneolithic were preferred to Indus_Periphery (Indus Periphery were... peripheral).
Perhaps we will find that a population movement linked to Indo-Aryan involved a more substantial influx than the Swat samples and hierarchical model using only Steppe_MLBA+Onge+Indus_Periphery suggest. Albeit that population movement was less Steppe_MLBA like?
A scythian origin for Indian r1a seems ridiculous. r1a occurs at substantial levels in the east and is an important lineage even amongst non-tribal dravidians in the south. The best explanation would be that iron age swat was inhabited by an indo-aryan ghost population displaced by later migrations from the east and west.
@Rob: No issue with what you said now. We know from Unetice that they were closer to the farmer cultures again in comparison to both CWC and BBC.
Its just that the first and most important, clearly IE culture for Northern-Central and most parts of Eastern Europe outside the steppe is the CW.
So we have to assume that anything completely missing in them, even autosomally, is very unlikely to be PIE. And it is very unlikely that populations which lack the IE patrilineages and have a too different mtDNA profile can be ancestral. That alone excludes a lot of cultures and people for PIE.
Anything in South Asia or South Central Asia is completely out of question because of that. South Central Asia could have contributed, but was not "the language giver".
As for R1a in South Asia: There could have been a later massive expansion from within India, from a regionally limited IA population with a much higher steppe element. I always think its funny how some of the ancient samples being overblown. Just because you have one dot doesn't mean you have the whole picture. IVC people were not IE, that's now obvious, but where the main body of the IA settled at the time of the now available samples is not known. We have many instances of people moving through areas which they left largely untouched for moving on to their ultimate goal in historical times. Surely that happened in the prehistoric period too. The same could be even observed for CWC and BBC in Europe.
Many people seem to overestimate the importance of swat to the genesis vedic culture. The Rig Veda mentions the suvastu (swat river) and the gauri (panjkora ) once. They are hardly mentioned in any other Vedic literature. Even in the Mahabharata bo settlement in swat is mentioned by name, and the gauri and suvastu rivers and perhaps the mountain elum are only mentioned amidst lists of sacred sites/ rivers of India. Even the North Westerner Panini whose work mentions numerous towns of the north-west makes no mentions of any towns in the swat valley. Swat only became an important cultural centre much later in the medieval era when it was an important seat of buddhist and non-buddhist tantrik worship
@ Zardos
Fair enough we will hopefully see more data points
Obviusly I agree that shaft grave samples are inporntant , I just thought you were saying my estimates were *incorrect*
Its just that the first and most important, clearly IE culture for Northern-Central and most parts of Eastern Europe outside the steppe is the CW.
So we have to assume that anything completely missing in them, even autosomally, is very unlikely to be PIE. And it is very unlikely that populations which lack the IE patrilineages and have a too different mtDNA profile can be ancestral. That alone excludes a lot of cultures and people for PIE.
This isn't emphasized often enough, and even totally ignored by some buffoons.
@old europe
Cremation is IE method of burial. It was used by Ancient Greeks, Slavs, Scandinavians, the Aryans, Hittites and etc. Huge obviously Indo-European cultures used only cremation, such as Urnfield. Cremation is very ancient, it is occasionally found in the steppe burial Neolithic time. In IE as a regular ritual it began to spread from Central(South-East) Europe in the broad sense.
@kulkumi your imaginary non-scientific date cause only a smile.
@thorin
"Most of that stuff is making linkages between the rigveda and andronovo sites that are just plain wrong."
Hilariously accurate.
@Rob
"By when should the Vedic IAs have been in northern / Indus region"
Around 2300 BCE there seems to be intrusive material from both BMAC and Mundigak in some IVC sites. It was from that time that cremation start to appear in the IVC and Lamberg-Karlovsky consider this the first arrival of Indo-Iranians. Others claim it is with the start of the Cemetery H culture 1900-1700BCE.
Rigveda wise, the earliest books describe the Helmand rather than the Indus. However, book 6 of the Rigveda, which is still part of the "Old Rigveda", describes the Indus very clearly and its a pure Bronze Age book. On the other hand we have the first mention of spoked wheeled chariots and the word for Iron in Books 1 and 10, which are latest books. Apparently iron smelting began around 1800 BCE in India so make of that what you wish.
Either way the actual Indo-Aryans made it to Indus way before the Kashkarchi people did.
Vara
rV doesn't mention iron at all.
@Mr. Kukarni
Indeed. I've made a mistake, iron (shyama–ayas) first shows up in the Atharva Veda and there is no proof the ayas of books 1 and 10 is iron at all as all weapons in the RV are golden colored.
"Apparently iron smelting began around 1800 BCE"
No, not yet. From meteorite iron all occasionally produced in all places, but it is not iron mining.
I think widespread use of iron begins between 1200 - 1050 BCE
To both of you fellows read this first
http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/iron-ore
Mr Kulkarni's posts are actually very irritating right now. Please stop posting the "mystical magical" stuff now. Western scholars did not see our texts as revelation, and therefore were more likely to apply critical theory to them, much as they did with their own ancient texts, and even religious ones. This allows one to look for the original secular or historical basis to a story before layers of mythological accoutrements build up over time.
I will take a westerner with such an approach over some half-baked "we are mystical and magical people with flying chariots and god powers" nonsense that you are posting. As an example, that astronomical dating you posted is entirely bunkum.
@Chetan & @Jijnasu
Agree with you both. I think we will find PGW burials, but those are more likely to be for children. Nonetheless, I think there needs to be a higher sampling emphasis on South India as well.
@vara
indeed. that is correct.
@aniasi
please do read the twitter thread. vagheesh highly respects the authors opinions (and hes a geneticist as well, who despises OITists).
I have no respect for your opinions as well. so the feelings are mutual.
old europe
"Celtic people do not have (if I'm right irish have a legend of their origins but it claims they are from...Spain)"
Irish book of invasions : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebor_Gab%C3%A1la_%C3%89renn
#
"The only myth we find is of germanic people talking about an encounter of ASI and vanir( exactly the place where we shouldn't find since we know that in northern europe there was a deep demic diffusion...)"
iirc they mention the Aesir coming upon the Vanir and being surprised they look the same so maybe an echo of that "deep demic diffusion" having more than one wave with a gap in between?
#
"...we should expect this kind of narratives in southern and western europe...)"
i think Vulcan/Velchanos being married to the fertility goddess while being a deformed and somewhet degraded figure is probably an echo of him originally being the chief god of the conquered people - also Sabine women.
@Vara
I actually agreed with that timeline previously. My idea was for an early steppe/IA arrival in the Indus Valley region, but in the hinterlands away from major cities. Think mobile encampments away from large agricultural settlements, where cattle are raise before being driven to markets or cities to be traded.
The family books of the Old Rig Veda being a mixture of Afghan, Kashmiri/Pamiri/Khyber and Sapta Sindhu geography made me think of a wide open range, like the American Cowboy era, where cattle were a big part of a pastoral-culture economy. As Teddy Roosevelt pointed out, these men were much tougher and better adapted to life outside arable lands and cities, and I was inclined to see their post-IVC rise as facilitated by their natural toughness in a time of violence and decline. They were economically better adapted to survival, and made better warriors. Some may have been recruited by city-states, or maybe they carved out chiefdoms of their own, but they had more or less usurped the positions of leadership by 1500 bc.
However, this new paper does put a spanner in the works, since it points out that the origin population of Indo-Aryans in South Asia was Middle-Late Bronze age, not early bronze age, which makes it difficult for them to be in close proximity to the IVC between 2500 bc and 2000 bc. I have largely been forced to abandon my old chronology, and must accept an arrival some time during the Cemetary H period.
Unless there is a new study, it seems that a later arrival of the IAs looks most probable on the basis of genetic evidence, since this is what fits best in a combination of ancient DNA and modern descendant populations.
@supernord,
you wrote denying iron smelting began around 1800 BCE by writing:
"No, not yet. From meteorite iron all occasionally produced in all places, but it is not iron mining".
Please take a look at:
Tewari, Rakesh, 2003. "The origins of iron working in India: new evidence from the Central Ganga Plain and the Eastern Vindhyas" in Antiquity, Volume 77, Issue 297
September 2003 , pp. 536-544.
"...Recent excavations in Uttar Pradesh have turned up iron artefacts, furnaces, tuyeres and slag in layers radiocarbon dated between 1800 and 1000 BC. This raises again the question of whether iron working was brought to India during supposed immigrations in the second millennium BC, or developed independently..." (Tewari 2003).
If you read the full paper, you will see these findings are not from meteorite iron.
Stefan Molyneux
"The sudden decline of all cultures of the area, from Mesopotamia to the Indus and from Bactria to Bahrain and Oman, at the beginning of the second millennium is suggestive, but it cannot simply be explained by an "invasion of Aryan hordes"."
Although it may have happened that way in some places it seems plausible to me that if early farming was only viable in certain regions then there could have been a lot of infiltration-immigration as herders pushed onto land still held by hunter gatherers and conflict between herder and farmer could have happened more at the end of this process than at the beginning (with lots of local variation on eventual outcome).
@aniasi
"However, this new paper does put a spanner in the works, since it points out that the origin population of Indo-Aryans in South Asia was Middle-Late Bronze age,"
How come? It points to nothing except that steppe ancestry made it 1200 BCE which is too late. I know I keep repeating this but nobody has given me a proper model as the steppe scenario fails to explain the Indo-Iranian influence in the Near East amongst the Gutians, Kassites and Mittani. Parpola explains the Mittani coming from Teppe Hissar (2000BCE) and Witzel explains the II names in the Zagros from Early BMAC (2300BCE) both of which have nothing to do with the steppes or Andronovo.
Your old chronology was simply better.
"it seems that a later arrival of the IAs looks most probable on the basis of genetic evidence"
The 0% steppe in some samples?
@aniasi The new study has not used samples from southern Andronovo groups like Tazabagyab and Alekseyevka which are known to have existed from 1700 BCE at least. Basically, early offshoots of the Andronovo tradition who traveled south through the IAMC.
The origins of Proto Indo-Aryans lie in one of these cultures, most probably. That is looking more and more likely.
I agree with your description of how early Rigvedic Aryan societies in the Punjab and NFWP would have looked like. In this case, I think it's fair to draw a comparison to Germanic tribes living on the outskirts of Roman settlements. Segregated from the local population, but still interacting with them economically and socially, sometimes peacefully and sometimes violently.
Basically, this unstable life itself would have been what prompted them to move eastwards along with local population (from declining Harappan settlements). Once there, like you said, their "tougher" lifestyles helped them to gain dominance and finally ended with the codification of Vedic ritual c.1000 BC. And the rest is history.
@santosh.
you wrote:
"According to some archeologists there was no iron age in the Swat valley. They jumped from early bronze age into the common era. Makes sense now", and that "Iron age Swat is a misnomer. Should be EBA Swat".
Even though Swat valley bears very low amounts of iron, a recent paper, Vidale & Micheli (2017) published in Antiquity journal, reports that in grave 19 at Udegram (Swat valley) they found three iron pins attached to a skull as a hair ornament, radiocarbon-dated to 928-802 BC. They also comment that "the earliest well-dated iron artefacts and slag were discovered at Bala Hisar, Charsadda, dated to 1200-900 cal BC" (Vidale & Micheli 2017: 402).
Of course they agree that "Iron is not, however, frequently found in graves in Swat and Dir, with only 7 percent containing iron objects" (Vidale & Micheli 2017: 402).
@kulkarni
How much can the astronomical dates be lowered accounting for the maximum possible observational error? Culturally speaking the polities of post Rig-Vedic texts largely persist into the early historical period, as attested by early buddhist literature and the older parts of the epics and archaeologically would be best represented by the older layers of the PGW. This discrepency will need a proper explanation
I think an important question now would be whether the people from iron age swat have an relationship with nuristanis or the speakers of local speakers dardic dialects. While samples from further east would be great, even samples from nearby sites known to have been important indo-aryan townz in the early historical period such as charsadda might be very helpful in sorting out a lot of these issues
@Vara and @Chetan
So it is still possible, in terms of the genetic evidence, to establish that a proto or para Andronovo population had moved into the IVC and Bactrian region in the earlier timeframe?
@all
Even though it has been admitted that no Hittite samples have been tested. I think an important piece of the puzzle might be how Maykop fits in the equation. Does anyone think that Maykop results will be tested and or peer reviewed within the decade?
@Jijnasu
I agree, but am inclined to the Swat samples we have as indicative of a group that doesn't really exist anymore. I think they may have been a Para-IA group that migrated from the Northwest, while the Vedic IA people may have moved through the Pamir knot and Kashmir and bypassed the BMAC.
The Swat peoples, as I see them, are a dead end. I would like to see if we can determine more about their culture, but I suspect, like the Indo-Greeks, their strict adherence to Buddhism led to their population becoming heavily monastic, and therefore non-reproducing.
Irish book of invasions : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebor_Gab%C3%A1la_%C3%89renn
thank you for the information, however there are stories pretty much about everywhere ( tough it is quite striking the caspian sea tales). many of them seem structured around biblical and christian materials.
i think Vulcan/Velchanos being married to the fertility goddess while being a deformed and somewhet degraded figure is probably an echo of him originally being the chief god of the conquered people - also Sabine women.
Fertility goddess being the conquered people symbol is based on the false presumption that everything connected to fertility and agricolture must be non-indoeuropean ( the total hoax narrative of old european farmers being not war like ) a perfect example of circular reasoning. In fact fertility goddess are connected to the tripartite division of indoeuropean culture as for Dumezil research. ( priests warriors and..farmers) So they're inside the IE mindset. Well as for sabine woman this story is connected to the fusion after many conflicts between two IE peoples the latins (ramnes or romans ) and the Tities ( the sabine element) that laid the base for the consolidation of the roman state and the platform for the future conquests. The third component was that of the Luceres ( probably the etruscans).
@aniasi Around 1500 BCE seems like the most probable date to me. But maybe infiltrations started earlier?
supernord
I'm the person most strongly committed to the importance of the link cremation and IE .
for the relation of pre 2500 BC europe and cremation :
1)Burned house horizon (south east europe centered on cucuteni) 4800-3200
1)Neolithic Ireland ( passage grave in Newgrange et other places) timing 4000-3000
3)As for copper age northern italy ( 3400-2500) look this
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiS5ML-menaAhVCmlkKHZl5AxEQFggrMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.academia.edu%2F35887254%2F3rd_millennium_BC_ritual_and_burial_practices_in_Lombardy&usg=AOvVaw0YEM3Il7wgojKjvxMxsOet.
4)Cremation is found also in baden culture and GAC.
5)Cremation appears also in BB cemeteries ( even if it is not predominant)
I think we can define cremation as a well established "old european thing" ( completely pre-kurgan).
This practice and connected religion was taken by the mixed population (EEF+ steppe R1a ) and brought to SC asia . There as we all know is a strong cultural trait till nowadays).
@aniasia
"Mr Kulkarni's posts are actually very irritating right now. Please stop posting the "mystical magical" stuff now. Western scholars did not see our texts as revelation, and therefore were more likely to apply critical theory to them, much as they did with their own ancient texts, and even religious ones. This allows one to look for the original secular or historical basis to a story before layers of mythological accoutrements build up over time.
I will take a westerner with such an approach over some half-baked "we are mystical and magical people with flying chariots and god powers" nonsense that you are posting. As an example, that astronomical dating you posted is entirely bunkum."
Very true goood point to make.
I think we should also include in this arguments that it has long been held that the indus valley civilization itself came as a complete package by sea from sumeria/elam: https://imgur.com/a/YLZSZux
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/the-prehistoric-background-of-indian-culture-by-gordoncolonel-d-h-bombay-n-m-tripathi-1958-sponsored-by-bhulabjai-memorial-institute-199-illustrated-index-600/431F313CD0BD567D3826E4EEAB28C41D
the andronvo peopel comeing south and imposing their civilization woudln't be the first time the aborginal farmer population was conqueried. To them it wouldn't have been anything new since the time the sumerians/elamites conquered them via sea invasion. infact the sintashtha chariot/panzer divisions that invaded the indus valley wouldn't have been very differnet from the sumerian/elamite battleships that invaded 1027 years elarier.
@Rob
"Apart from Iran Neol/ CHG. "
David Anthony has already ruled this out:
https://i.imgur.com/OgmLV42.png
You have to realizet that PIE is a linguistic question first and foremost. PIE has shown strong links wtih Urialic languages and no other language. People try to claim that PIE has links with semitic languages but David Anthony proves that the only 2 Sumerian loan words in PIE were brought about by trade:
https://i.imgur.com/rvw8P4P.png
Finally, even sumerian itself has shown to be an uralic language that was brought from the north by Simo Parpola: https://i.imgur.com/LOlYvug.png
http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/42TurkicAndSumer/SimoParpola_Altaic-UralicAndSumerEn.htm
So any links between sumerian and PIE can easily be explained by the fact that sumerians came from the pontic caspian steppe.
Here is a nice picture of Simo Parpola: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Parpola#/media/File:Simo-Parpola-1993.jpg
just looks like your regular dude
old europe
"Fertility goddess being the conquered people symbol is based on the false presumption that everything connected to fertility and agricolture must be non-indoeuropean"
i'm not assuming that, i'm coming at it from the pov that it's odd a seemingly degraded god is married to the top fertility goddess and thinking one possible explanation for the imbalance might be he used to be the top god until dethroned in a male dominated elite conquest (while the previous chief female deity continued as before).
#
"as for sabine woman this story is connected to the fusion after many conflicts between two IE peoples"
then maybe similar to the Vanir and Aesir - a second, later invasion from the same root stock?
maybe multiple invasions from the same root stock has a different impact on invasion myths than when it's two very distinct peoples?
@aniasi
I agree that the population of iron-age swat valley probably went extinct (I don't think buddhist monasticism would be the best explanation though). However some settlements outside the swat valley with a simillar archaeological culture in the iron age, developed into major cities in the historic period such as charsadda (pushkalavati) and takshashila. The language of this region did manage to survive manage to survive forming the basis of classical sanskrit and the dardic languages of that region via the NW prakrits. This makes me curious as to whether the 'swat' culture was genetically heterogenous.
@aniasi
I do not think so. It is best to look for a non steppe origin that can explain the influence in the Near East and Indo-Iranian religion in Jiroft-Helmand before even the formation of Andronovo. My old steppe model was EBA Yamnaya-related Indo-Iranian groups crossing the Caucasus and making their way across the Kura-Araxes network to the Helmand and splitting there, but I've moved away from that to PIE and Greco-Aryans from South of the Caucasus. BTW, what happened to your Indo-Aryan substratum in West Iranic? Did you move away from that after convincing me?
The main problem has been the over-reliance on the Vedas. If the British never colonized India I bet we would all be seeing the RV as a Sanskrit Iliad or Aeneid. But the Brits cooked up a sort of contrivance to somehow legitimize their rule that unfortunately filtered into academia. Those who are outside this worldview had a painful time pulling out a lot of that tainted reasoning away from the evidence. Finally, the murkiness is starting to clear up just a little.
@Carlos Aramayo
From meteorite (nugget) iron produced everywhere and since ancient times, long before the iron age. And India was no different from any other territory. Metal is metal, made of any metal available in nuggets. But this is not the industry of smelting iron as such. I
In the Indian article does not specifically address the question of the origin of iron, where and how is iron extracted, because it's an uncomfortable question.
@old europe
Cremation is not a sign of non-Indo-Europeans. All the rituals are complex and go beyond one nation. See present.
Finally, anyone trying to show links between the Sumerian religion and PIE religion such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_(cosmogony)#Chaoskampf
need to keep in mind the cutting edge research from Michael Witzel (a linguist by training but now also a comparitive religion expert):
"In typical Laurasian mythology, the act of initial creation is followed by the first gender-based beings, usually Father Heaven and Mother Earth, who give rise to subsequent deities. Once heaven and Earth are separated from a primordial "darkness" or "chaos", Earth can be prepared for the arrival of the first humans, often by the slaying of a dragon or serpent – a recurring theme in northern Laurasian mythology, whether it is the Nordic stories of Beowulf, the Navajo folklore of the American south-west, the Egyptian god Seth who fights the reptilian Apophis, the Mesopotamian Marduk triumphing over Apsu, the Indian Lord of Thunder Indra killing the serpent Ahi, or the Japanese Shinto god of the sea, Susanowo, who rids men of the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi – not forgetting the Chinese goddess Nuwa and the black dragon, and of course our own dragon slayer, St. George."
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/how-did-our-legends-really-begin-9634148.html
Witzel has shown beyond a doubt that these links are over 300k years old and therefore can't be used to date/locate PIE.
The Vedas are very different fron the iliad, they aren't epics but collections hymn's and associated works on ritual Clearly you have no idea what you are talking about
@ Rob
How sure are you that Northern Bell Beaker People who migrated from the Netherlands to Britain and Ireland were not Indo-European Speakers ? They displaced over 90% of the Neolithic Population. The Bell Beakers may not have been Celtic but what Evidence do You have that they were not Indo-European Speakers ?
@Vara
I still believe in the Indo-Aryan substratum in "plateau" Iranic languages. I just tended to see an early expansion of the IIR from North of the Caspian, with those 'left-behind' forming Sintashta and Andronovo. Wave one expands over the Iranian Plateau, hit the IVC in the east and Mitanni in the west, which would be the IA peoples. Part two was made up of Sintashta/Andronovo peoples steadily mixing with agriculturalists across the BMAC and Iranian plateau, giving birth to the Medes, Persians, and Avestan peoples. Part III was a back expansion from Central Asia towards eastern europe and siberia, forming the Scythians, Saramatians, and Neo-Steppe Iranians.
@Stefan
Witzel is anything but a religion expert. The dragonslayer myth of IE is not related to creation it is related to concept of Kingship.
"the Egyptian god Seth who fights the reptilian Apophis"
This one has mixed origins. The myth of Set and Ra fighting the Serpent first appears during the New Kingdom basically contemporaries of the Mittani. However, It is not related to the IE concept of Kingship rather than the battle between Sun and Day.
"the Mesopotamian Marduk triumphing over Apsu"
Apsu is not a dragon. Mesopotamian gods became dragonslayers only during the Iron age.
"Yamata no Orochi"
This may or may not have it's root in Buddhism. It's etymology is argued to be IE.
"Chinese goddess Nuwa and the black dragon"
Appears around 200BCE. Possibly from Scythians.
The dragonslaying myth is accepted to have it's origins in PIE religion. It is not 300k years old based on the dragonslayer's smith helpers and has nothing to do with creation.
The dragonslaying in most IE religions is related to gaining kingship or keeping it, Thor and Indra not included. Eg. Thraetona in Iranian mythology and Nikita in Slavic mythology kill the dragon, who is a usurper himself, and gain kingship, while Zeus and Teshub kill the usurping dragon in order to keep it. There seems to be a lesser dragonslayer prince on quest myth unique to IE as well with Sigurd, Perseus, Hercules, Trita, Spentodata...etc.
@aniasi
So what's your new theory on the Mittani and Kassites?
The Mittani would be the same, but this means that the IA element arrived closer to 1400 bc. I'm never really sure about the kassites.
@Aniasi Do you think Mitanni were formed from arriving IA? They most likely spawned from Hurrians conquering a related group who were partially Aryanized, borrowing some words and technology that suited them. As with the late Hittite Empire, ethnic Hurrians assumed the leading position in power. Ther birth names were completely Hurrian, but took on Hittite throne names.
@Vara
Witzel is the pre-eminient schoalr on linguistics and comparitive relgiion. His studys have brought him to a unique position of being able to identify commen myths that have survived 500k years.
"he Mesopotamian Marduk triumphing over Apsu"
Apsu is not a dragon. Mesopotamian gods became dragonslayers only during the Iron age."
he probably meant Marduk triumphing over Tiamat. Witzel has got to be over 90 years old now so you can excuse him for his demtnia/alzheemers - that siad, his scholarly work is unquestionable.
The relationship between PIE and Sumerian religion is over 300K years old. PIE has unquestionalbe, strong, deep, powerful, intense, deep and rich links with Uralic according to any linguist.
While there have been a few meager loan words from Sumerian in PIE:
https://www.ling.helsinki.fi/~asahala/asahala_sumerian_and_pie.pdf
http://www.academia.edu/1869616/The_Case_for_Euphratic
These tenuous links are barely there and can easily explained by understanding Sumerian is also a Uralic language from the Pontic Caspian Steppe:
http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/42TurkicAndSumer/SimoParpola_Altaic-UralicAndSumerEn.htm
How sure are you that Northern Bell Beaker People who migrated from the Netherlands to Britain and Ireland were not Indo-European Speakers ? They displaced over 90% of the Neolithic Population. The Bell Beakers may not have been Celtic but what Evidence do You have that they were not Indo-European Speakers ?
@ric
a need a clarification :
1) what is this figure 90 per cent replacement?
2) How much time took to make this replacement?
3) Which is the relation with the fact that modern english are IIRC nearly 50 per cent farmers and WHG? What happened in between?
Looks like the kurgans after riding thousand of km. turned in few generations in builders of an invasion fleet that rivals that of 17 18th century England ( KURGAN RULE THE WAVES!!)
supernord
cremation is a strong signal of IE ( especially back then LNEBA eurasian region)
nowadays I'm well aware is practiced by many non IE peoples.
@stefan molyneux
300kya? lol ok then
@Stefan
Witzel is a linguist. I would take most things he says about religion and archaeology with a grain of salt. Tiamat was not a dragon originally. This is one of the argument against an IE origin for Sumerians actually.
@Aniasi
But how did they get there? There are no Andronovo artifacts in the Iranian plateau, hence why every proponent of the steppe hypothesis goes with the special pleading argument of an early BMAC group making their way to the Zagros. In the term of archaeology the late BMAC hypothesis does not work for Indo-Aryan and Iranian. West Iranians cannot be traced to Late BMAC.
old europe
"what is this figure 90 per cent replacement? "
https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/prehistoric-pop-culture-deciphering-the-dna-of-the-bell-beaker-complex.htm
"particularly that of Britain, which seems to have undergone an almost complete genetic turnover in just a few centuries"
Kurganists' last stand!
Problem is, your theory isnt taking the discussion anywhere.
Meanwhile, we actually know who the Yamna people are and can name them.
@ Vara
"Around 2300 BCE there seems to be intrusive material from both BMAC and Mundigak in some IVC sites. It was from that time that cremation start to appear in the IVC and Lamberg-Karlovsky consider this the first arrival of Indo-Iranians. Others claim it is with the start of the Cemetery H culture 1900-1700BCE.
Rigveda wise, the earliest books describe the Helmand rather than the Indus. However, book 6 of the Rigveda, which is still part of the "Old Rigveda", describes the Indus very clearly and its a pure Bronze Age book. On the other hand we have the first mention of spoked wheeled chariots and the word for Iron in Books 1 and 10, which are latest books. Apparently iron smelting began around 1800 BCE in India so make of that what you wish.
Either way the actual Indo-Aryans made it to Indus way before the Kashkarchi people did."
If that is correct, then indeed that is problematic for the steppe scenario.
A later movement from steppe to India - whether we call them Scythians or pre-Scythians - is interesting in itself, but not decisive.
Our analysis must not be 2-dimensional, as many people are simply tempted ('but genetics says Andronovo-> India") but ignore all the other evidence, including all the preceding genetic events.
@ old europe
Actually evidence of cremation can be traced back at least 20 000 years so it is not a pure Indo-European custom.
There were many European Neolithic Cultures who practiced both Cremation and Inhumation, some at the same time.
So do you want to tell me that all those Cultures were Indo-European ? Or do you think that the Unetice Culture or Urnfield were the main distributor of Indo-European Languages ?
And also historical accounts by clearly Indo-European people show us that it was not as clearcut as you think.
@ Ric
@ Rob
“How sure are you that Northern Bell Beaker People who migrated from the Netherlands to Britain and Ireland were not Indo-European Speakers ? They displaced over 90% of the Neolithic Population. The Bell Beakers may not have been Celtic but what Evidence do You have that they were not Indo-European Speakers ?”
I’m not saying they weren’t , nor do I think that IE in Western Europe derives from the 90% replaces farmers
Rather I think IE was introduced / took hold centuries later (mid M2) . This fits linguistics and chain of culture- historical events.
But let’s flip the question - of celtic is an LBA/IA language, what language branch do we have to invent to accomodate for B.B.? Or were they simply speaking PIE for 1000 years ?
@Matt
Possibly a stat with AG3, a stat with EHG and a stat with Onge/Juang would be a useful look at this to pick apart influence of West_Siberia_N vs EHG a bit more?
Swat_IA look relatively far from West_Siberia_N relative to EHG. Running D-stats D(X,Indus_Periphery)(EHG,West_Siberia_N/AG3) may show some stuff for the same set of X in this post.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KX9g1FKscvQvjxg14lX_fgwrmGBLUAvK/view?usp=sharing
By the way, about the main topic on this post, what the plots are showing is the same phenomenon as we can see in Figure S4.2 in the pre-print. Basically that the amount of steppe is below the expected regarding the amount of West Eurasian ancestry.
Looking at this, another thing that should be better explored is the relationship between steppe admixture and caste. It has been said for a long time that higher castes have more steppe ancestry compared to their lower castes neighbours. However, I'm not really seeing that pattern.
It seems to be much more related to geography than to caste. What does relate to caste is the amount of ASI, where lower castes have more admixture from ASI-rich populations, while higher castes have less. But the ratio of steppe ancestry seems more related to geography.
From the plots above, the qpAdm models in the supplementary table DataS3 and my own tests with Global 25, it seems that the populations from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have a higher Steppe_MLBA/West_Eurasian ratio regardless of their caste. Actually the population labelled as simply Uttar_Pradesh in G25 has slightly higher Steppe ratio than Brahmin (presumably from Uttar_Pradesh too?), while Dharkar has about the same and Chamar quite close.
Something worth a closer look to check if there's some truth to the belief or it's just another myth.
Actually evidence of cremation can be traced back at least 20 000 years so it is not a pure Indo-European custom.
Yes of course...I'm talking about the crucial period 4000 /1500 ( very long indeed!) in the eurasian region. I mean the cremation rite is a thing that helps us to make a bridge between India and Europe. All the IE more or less starting from 2000 practice cremation in a persistent way from scandinavia to italy from britain to Romania and above all to india. This practice can obviously starts among an elite inside the IE tribes but than spreads and become generalized. To me this practice is connected to a deep trait of the IE weltanschaung. of course we can have a mixed burial custom inside the historical IE populations. But it would be superficial not to take note that cremation is a key factor to monitor IE movement of people ( for example from Andronovo to india ) and cultural influences ( in this case from neolithic europe to steppe peoples) .
I think I'm stating the obvious....
@Rob
There's no problem there. They put noodles on your ears and you believe them.
1. It is not described Indus in 6 mandala.
2. Family mandalas have been created for several centuries from generation to generation, for that they are family. The authors were the ṛṣis, the members of these families that were read for the new-year holidays. Therefore, there is the old parts and more newer.
3. 1 and 10 mandalas composed already author-codifier of the Rig Veda roughly in the 8th century BC according to his plan, therefore, to be included as part of the ancient so new, that appeared the first oldest Upanishads.
I find it funny that just a few weeks ago people some people here were speculating that "Indo-European" Gutians brought down the Akkadian Empire. The honor of the first IE group to take down Semites goes to the Hittites. Perhaps, not the "right" IE group for them. Considering that the Hittites have very little steppe ancestry compared to even Bronze Age Greeks. There's a reason they are STEPPE people, after all. They were no good at crossing over thick forests and mountains stretching all horizons. It will take more centuries before a real genetic impact from the steppes becomes noticeable in the greater expanse of Asia.
@ Rob
What prevents that Cultural and Historical events from only being a Linguistic leveling out effect of already present Indo-European dialects ?
No new invention is needed. We already see the Similarities between Celtic, Italic and Germanic even on a Proto-Level.
When you look at different dialects especially at the Borders between Languages it becomes hard to classify them as belonging more to the one than the other....so you could have had a dialect continuum without any clearcut language Family borders.
@ Leron
Can you provide us with a link to that Hittite Samples that apparently had less Steppe Ancestry than Greeks ?
@ Ric
“What prevents that Cultural and Historical events from only being a Linguistic leveling out effect of already present “
Because they were accompanied by profound ideological changes & intra-European populationshifts
So the question needs to be at least asked
"Either way the actual Indo-Aryans made it to Indus way before the Kashkarchi people did"
The Kashkarchi sample is just one among the many pastoralist settlements that would have existed there. Latest research by Frachetti et al suggests that Andronovo had reached there much earlier than thought (by 1800 BCE at least)
See this article
@Alberto
It has been said for a long time that higher castes have more steppe ancestry compared to their lower castes neighbours. However, I'm not really seeing that pattern.
Well, I'm not sure how you managed to miss it, since it's a very robust inference now.
Indian upper castes are indeed enriched with steppe ancestry, while the West Eurasian-derived ancestry in lower castes is more Iran_N-related.
By the way, did you just claim that the lower caste Chamars have about the same level of steppe ancestry as North Indian Brahmins? That's ridiculous.
The point is, if we can find some kind of continuity of L657 there (with the haplogroup data), we can be reasonably sure the Indo-Aryans originated from there
@ Stefan
“You have to realizet that PIE is a linguistic question first and foremost. PIE has shown strong links wtih Urialic languages and no other language. People try to claim that PIE has links with semitic languages but David Anthony proves that the only 2 Sumerian loan words in PIE were brought about by trade:”
That’s simply untrue
PIE has strong links to Caucasian languages (Kartvelian and NWC). These came from the south - either balkans or Caucasus
Anthony’s focus on semitic is misguided- because EEFs didn’t speak Semitic
Semitic was in the Levant and southern Mesopotamia so the lack of contact with PIE is irrelevant
@old europe
"This practice can obviously starts among an elite inside the IE tribes"
There's no indication of that. Just another rite of burial, perhaps at the Indo-Europeans associated with the idea of reincarnation and fire cult.
supernord
Yes I was just giving a possible reason....your explanation seems a better one.
@ Chetan
Funnily enough that article concludes
“The earlier chronologies for the putative eastward spread of the Andronovo are clearly challenged, although mechanisms behind the transmission of general cultural influences remain unclear. The revised chronology supports new hypotheses on the nature of cultural connections (Frachetti 2013: 292) that replace the earlier explanatory models of long distance migration supported by Kuz’mina (1986, 1994, 2007, 2008) and others (e.g. Tkacheva & Tkachev 2008). The idea of ‘waves’ of eastward movement creating new regionalised ‘cultural clusters’ has been refuted, partly through emerging radiocarbon sequences as discussed above, but also through evidence for long-term localised regional development, such as that documented by Frachetti in Semirech’ye from at least the mid third millennium cal BC “
So whilst the western type of ancestry prevailed, we don’t know what these earlier samples looked like without analysing (the area was genetically structured, as we see)
@Chetan
I do not see anything on Indo-Aryans entering the Indus early in that paper or maybe I'm too tired.
@Rob
Sorry, it's book 7 not 6 that mentions the Asikni river.
@Rob
Andronovo is practically a subset of Sintashta.
You'd have to find Andronovo sites with dates earlier than Sintashta to rival the consensus that, one way or another, Andronovo moved into Central Asia from the west.
But even then you'd have a problem, because the bulk of the early Andronovo population is genetically a subset of Sintashta.
I don’t have any problems Dave , just feeding back the study impressions. No need for tangents.
No tangents from me.
Chetan pointed out that Andronovo was present in eastern Central Asia at an earlier date than previously thought.
This is an important point, because it means that it's more difficult to argue now that Andronovo was too late to be Indo-Aryan.
Nothing really new, the article is well known to me. I posted it months ago
And we know there were Andronovo settlements in the periphery of BMAC period, anyhow, further south in places potentially relevant for IAs instead of China.
The real question is the character of their interaction and when the migrated further south.
@David (& Rob)
"Chetan pointed out that Andronovo was present in eastern Central Asia at an earlier date than previously thought.
This is an important point, because it means that it's more difficult to argue now that Andronovo was too late to be Indo-Aryan."
Apart from that is the fact that Andronovo had cremations next to typical steppe burials, sometimes in the same grave. So you can see the transition from steppe burials to typical IA cremation.
epoch
exactly.
Andronovo was present in eastern central asia at an earlier date than previously tought.
how much before?
The point of the article is the difficulty in the traditional W -> E model for andronovo because it manifests early east as in the west of its range
I though the point of the 1200 Kaskarchi samples is that the Harvard article points out the diffusion of East Asian ancestry beginning prior to that , but apparently not everywhere
Some quotes from the above article
".. a series of 40 calibrated radiocarbon dates has
revised the Bronze Age chronology for the southern Urals, with the major variants of the
Andronovo cultural complex, Petrovka, Alakul’ and Fedorovo, occurring a few hundred
years earlier than traditionally estimated (Hanks et al. 2007)." (p.624)
"Once again, it is shown that the Alakul’/Fedorovo period falls earlier than in the traditional chronology." (p.625)
"The Begash settlement (at the south-eastern edge of Kazakhstan) in particular was occupied over several chronological phases. Phase Ib is associated with the Fedorovo period, with radiocarbon dates placing it from c. 1890–1690 cal BC." (p.625)
"Twelve AMS 14C dates have been obtained from house F1 and the burials at Adunqiaolu. These show that the start of the early period at Adunqiaolu falls in the nineteenth century cal BC. In the traditional chronology, this is earlier than Petrovka, or even earlier than the late period of Sintashta. A number of radiocarbon dates are now available for sites of Andronovo type in western China, generally showing the same early ranges." (p.632)
So it seems like they are supporting early dates (like 1800 BCE) for Andronovo culture in Tien-Shan region and Xinjiang.
@Rob
@Vara : "I do not see anything on Indo-Aryans entering the Indus early in that paper or maybe I'm too tired"
There is nothing in this about Indo-Aryans per se, but the conclusions of this article explain how an MLBA rich group could have entered the Indian subcontinent from South Central Asia around 1500 BCE.
@Davidski
Well, I'm not sure how you managed to miss it, since it's a very robust inference now.
I obviously didn't miss it. I am just challenging the veracity of it.
Indian upper castes are indeed enriched with steppe ancestry, while the West Eurasian-derived ancestry in lower castes is more Iran_N-related.
It's not that clear cut. That's why I'm bringing this into attention. It looks more related to geography than to caste to me.
By the way, did you just claim that the lower caste Chamars have about the same level of steppe ancestry as North Indian Brahmins? That's ridiculous.
No, not the same total amount, but not a much lower ratio of Steppe/west_Eurasian ancestry. You would have noticed this already if you had been paying attention to either the pre-print or to Matt's tests based on the data in the pre-print.
Now I just confirmed this using G25, not just with Chamar, but with Dharkar (who are from Uttar Pradesh) and with Uttar_Pradesh itself, who I assume are non-Brahmins from the region. Also from the qpAdm models in the supplementary tables from the pre-print.
Take the time to test it with D-stats as then ones from Figure S4.2 in the supplements of the pre-print and you will see it for yourself (your plots above already show it, but it could be made clearer).
Alberto: It has been said for a long time that higher castes have more steppe ancestry compared to their lower castes neighbours. However, I'm not really seeing that pattern.
Namasimran/Patterson's comment in paper was that steppe ancestry high in specifically North Indian priestly groups. S Indian priestly groups have excess of West Eurasian but no excess of steppe ancestry.
Got about 1x North Indian priestly group (Brahmin UP) here and in G25. How do we assess that claim then? We can't. It's a statistical claim (they tend to), rather than an absolute (reflecting that these groups have a relatively complex history and that statistical power is difficult even with this wealth of samples), so we'd need larger size of priestly and non-priestly SA groups to test.
Zack Ajmal might have a database to test it, and so do the Reich group, but both have likely had to sign various waivers and such to get there (or rely on messy public sampling in Zack's case).
Davidski: By the way, did you just claim that the lower caste Chamars have about the same level of steppe ancestry as North Indian Brahmins? That's ridiculous.
I don't think Alberto's making a claim about levels but perhaps about ratios. Chamar in particular and a few heavily AASI groups actually do peak the relative ratio of steppe:Indus_Periphery ancestry in the hierarchical model from the paper, as much as NI priestly groups. It's a bit unclear as to why this is the case.
Does this reflect some real phenomenon where some groups fused between unusually steppe-like and AASI HG people? Or some other problem with model and deepah ancestry?
Re Chamars and Kols vs Velamas and Piramalai Kallars, and perhaps more tentatively Northern heavily AASI vs Southern heavily AASI, I think this has actually been a fairly obvious phenomenon even looking at differences within the ratio of West Eurasian ancestry after accounting for AASI in models like Harappa or Dodecad.
(Funnily enough to hear this from Alberto actually since we had a discussion shortly before the paper came out where he was a bit of more skeptical than I was that these ratio differences in West Eurasian ancestry among heavily AASI groups actually meant anything, and typically enough was hinting that a lack of ratio differences may refute a model of migration linked to Central Asia and the steppe ;) ).
Imho the structure of R1a L657 in India do not favour any late arrival. Quite contrary it favours early arrival. Earlier than was imagined.
@matt
Could this be related to Indo-Aryan vs Dravidian differences. Also I think it Indicates that social stratification developed only after the initial migration of IAs into the western Indus Basin, when they had moved further east where AASI rich pops lived. These castes were assimilated mainly into lower classes leading to a lower west:east eurasian ration but not affecting the ratio of Steppe to iranian farmer ancestry. Also the lower steppe:iran neolithic ratio in southern priestly groups is probably explained by admixture Iran neolithic rich south Indian upper castes
@Davidski, thanks for the stats. I think the Juang/Onge stat was mislabeled as EHG (two EHG stats in the set, one behaves like Juang/Onge ought to).
Used these for PCA again: https://imgur.com/a/nY4jmmo
The real EHG stat very much confirms the expected pattern of being heavily loaded towards Tajiks and the present day Pakistan/Punjab/North India relative to the other stats. AG3-MA1 stat is a bit more loaded similarly to EHG than I'd have thought.
Quick cross plot of the D(X;Indus_Periphery)(EHG;West_Siberia_N) and D(X;Indus_Periphery)(EHG;AG3-MA1) stats. The patterns suggest that the Swat_IA are particularly related to the West_Siberia_N relative to EHG (Kho are also tentatively particularly weakly related to West_Siberian_N relative to EHG).
The general position on the average of both stats is maybe more interesting though; Swat_IA samples certainly lack any more specific shift towards EHG vs AG3/West_Siberian_N than present day groups with much more substantial AASI.
@jijnasu, something like all that would seems fairly plausible I think (given my limited knowledge on the history and prehistory, and the specific history of this group). Though in fairness, I should probably check myself given my comment to Alberto that probably would need more samples to check out if there is a robust North/South heavily AASI pattern (the same kind of statistical thing applies here as for looking at priestly groups).
@supernord
" Cremation is very ancient, it is occasionally found in the steppe burial Neolithic time."
Do you have a link for that? I was wondering how the cremation ritual came into PIE cultures. I have a combined burial/cremation in one single barrow from a Corded Ware site and a Veluvian Beaker used for cremation remains in a Bell Beaker barrow, and occasional cremation at Unetice sites.
[1] https://assemblagejournal.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/the-structure-and-complexity-of-corded-ware-mortuary-practices-by-jan-turek.pdf
[2] https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/28126/Analecta-Praehistorica-Leidensia-I-1964_003.pdf?sequence=1
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unetice_culture#Burials
@Matt
I think the Juang/Onge stat was mislabeled as EHG (two EHG stats in the set, one behaves like Juang/Onge ought to).
Thanks for picking that up. That's actually a Gond stat, because I don't have Juang or Onge in this dataset.
But these particular Gond samples have very low levels of West Eurasian admixture. Maybe less than 25%.
@matt @alberto @davidski
Even if NI upper castes have more steppe & lower castes have less, it does not prove anything.
Already established IA speakers higher up in the dominance hierarchy would surely be better mates for the incoming steppe people.
This idea that incoming populations would evenly mix with all existing groups does not work for India, and all of you conveniently ignore this.
Only in this field have I seen correlation being equated with causation so casually.
@Kulkarni
Already established IA speakers higher up in the dominance hierarchy would surely be better mates for the incoming steppe people.
That's probably what actually happened, especially in South India. But so what?
Another thing that probably happened was downward social mobility, which might be why there's so much steppe ancestry in some lower castes and unusually high frequencies of R1a even in some tribal groups.
But generally speaking, steppe ancestry and R1a in India correlate well with Indo-Aryan speech and upper social caste.
@Matt
Yes, exactly. The idea that South Indian Dravidians could have a similar ratio of steppe admixture as North Indian Indo-Aryans made me quite sceptic about this being real steppe ancestry rather than some deeper (older) ancestry. But funnily enough, it seems that the Steppe_MLBA ratio to West_Eurasian ancestry is quite uniform across the subcontinent (with a tendency of higher in the north, obviously, but not that pronounced).
I wish that Figure S4.1 had labels or that we could check the relevant stats in some supplement. There it can be seen that while there is certain correlation between the amount of ANI and the ratio of steppe ancestry, it can also be seen that the cline is quite vertical and you can even find subclines going the other way around (bottom-left to top-right). Maybe with the final version we'll get that info somewhere.
India was much of a donor as it was a receiver of genetic contribution. Hence when we see ANI and even steppe in more or less even proportions through most of the continent we don't need convoluted explanations. We are simply seeing old shared ancestry. The picture just looks a little different because different people have continued to cross the same paths and disrupting the "eveness" we expect to see, just that some went a little further north and others further south.
Chang & Garrett have Vedic to c. 1500 BC, splitting from Iranian 2000 bC.
Steppe would work
Ganga Yamna Saraswati.
Not sure about this post 2000BC business.
@Rob
They are approaching the problem assuming the origin beforehand, so obviously the conclusions are made to fit into it. Like this:
http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~garrett/BLS1999.pdf
"Nichols’ dynamic approach to linguistic geography is original and creative, and
I have no quarrel with the general model she proposes, nor with the specific claim
that central Eurasia has represented a linguistic spread zone in several cases. For
the Indo—European case, this does conflict with the standard archaeological view of
the so—called ‘homeland’ and the dispersal of the family."
So, first establish a homeland on flimsy grounds, and then work towards fitting your model into that assumption. Further he says this,
"The infinitive is one example: all Greek dialects have a present, an aorist, and a perfect infinitive; but from dialect to dialect these are formed so differently that the only reconstructible ancestor system is one like Vedic Sanskrit, in which various types of deverbal nouns could be used as ‘infinitives’. "
I hate to say it, but this mafia like linguistics academia *made* Johanna Nichols to retract her hypothesis.She writes:
http://www.academia.edu/18306905/The_Eurasian_spread_zone_and_the_Indo-European_dispersal
"The theory of an east Caspian center of the IE spread argued for here is untenable and with much regret I retract it. It's a beautiful theory that accounts elegantly for a great deal of the dynamic and linguistic geography of the IE spread, but it conflicts with essential archaeological and etymological facts."
They can't even let a hypothesis exist, let alone the truth. Circular arguments used by linguistics quoting archaeology, and others quoting linguists. What a joke.
Cremation rites were not part of the earlier Steppe_EMBA groups. So it must have been MLBA which brought this into IE cultures. Almost every MLBA group seems to have practised at least mixed-cremation rites. And we know Srubna (MLBA) related groups moved into Eastern Europe during the second millenium BCE. That could be a possible link for the start of cremation in both subcontinents.
@Sanuj
You highlighted the wrong part. I'll fix that for you:
"It's a beautiful theory that accounts elegantly for a great deal of the dynamic and linguistic geography of the IE spread, but it conflicts with essential archaeological and etymological facts."
Mind you, that is what the author herself said.
@Chetan
I find it highly interesting that both in the western part as well as the eastern part of the IE world cremation took over inhumation.
@Chetan
"There is nothing in this about Indo-Aryans per se, but the conclusions of this article explain how an MLBA rich group could have entered the Indian subcontinent from South Central Asia around 1500 BCE."
But how did they enter Iran and make it to the Zagros and Syria supposedly before 1500BCE?
@Rob
"Chang & Garrett have Vedic to c. 1500 BC, splitting from Iranian 2000 bC.
Steppe would work"
Steppe would not work for Mittani and even West Iranians (there is a reason the big paper ignores them). There are many proposed dates for Proto-Indo-Iranians and if I'm completely honest the dating is based on what fits with the linguist's favored homeland theory. In terms of linguistics there is hardly any consensus on anything except Anatolian splitting very early and even when Anatolian split from PIE is disputed, with it ranging from 7k to 4.2k BCE. I'm pretty sure if you look around you'll find different estimates for Vedic ranging from 3rd Mil to 2nd BCE and you'll find some linguists saying Gathic is older than Vedic and vice versa. Vedic should be dated based on the culture described in Vedas and Gathic, which is dependent on the dating of the RV, should be around the times of the earliest part of the Rigveda.
One has to give Parpola some credit, despite his simplistic scenarios and dubious models he is among the very few that does not ignore Indo-Aryans showing up in the Old Babylonian period and tries to come up with an explanation.
@epoch2013
Yea, i can see the "facts".
On cremation.
"Religious traditions and beliefs are also witnessed in the death rituals and Harappan burials also indicate localized patterns (Kennedy and Caldwell, 1984). The cemeteries are small and do not appear to represent the entire society, hence, it is possible that certain groups practiced burial while others used cremation or exposure while variation in the mode of burial and the quantity of grave goods also indicate difference of social and religious norms."
http://www.sindhulogy.org/cdn/articles/harappan-civilization-current-perspective-and-its-contribution-vasant-shinde/
So what exactly did any incoming group contributed that wasn't already there?
Someone above was talking of Sintashta Panzer divisions and Sumerian battle ships, that was amusing :-).
sanuj
evidence of cremation seems sporadic in Harappan sites not structurally connected with the overall culture.
The migrationists theory is so lame.
I still don't know if they think Andronovo was Iranian or Indo Aryan.
Seems a pretty basic question, anyone wanna help me out here?
@old europe
I am quoting an authority on Harappan civilization who has spent a life on the ground there. There is unequivocal evidence of cremation from Tarkhanwala, and equivocal evidence elsewhere. This matter should rest here.
@Chetan,
Andronovo. Iranian or Indo-Aryan?
What does all this genetics research tell us? Have you identified the differentiation between IA and I in the Steppe?
Otherwise I think all this speculation on Aryan migrations is really rather pointless.
You have to walk before you can run.
sanju
ok but pretty much a fringe practice
mzp1
AFAIK the mainstream says Andronovo is Indo Aryan.
Some time ago I came up with a paper on academia.eu that talked about a theory ( a fringe one) that puts the Indo aryan homeland in the Catacomb Culture ( together with Greek )
At the moment you are trying to push for a phantom population that invaded India with
No correct R1A clade to be found
No evidence of Invasion
No idea which population you're talking about.
The whole theory is absurd, a joke, and it belongs in the trash!
@mzp Indo-Aryan and Iranian are close sister branches. Many parts of the Gathic Avestan can be read, word by word, phrase by phrase, as Rigvedic Sanskrit . They were perhaps mutually intelligible.
So to answer your question, I think Andronovo was both Indo-Aryan and Iranian
@ Alberto
V good points, I agree that the putative elevated Steppe-West Eurasian ratio in Haryana-ganges area is very interesting. However before we go any further it bears pointing out that the paper itself using a much larger dataset finds the exact reverse, no correlation of Steppe-West Eurasian ratio with geography (latitude in their case) but a robust overrepresentation of Steppic ancestry in Brahmin groups regardless of geography, which is probably more reliable because the paper analysed ~55 populations from North India while David's dataset contains less than 10. Until we get access to their dataset we cannot confirm their results (and if we run qpAdm on their dataset we'll just end up with the same conclusions as them).
Correlations w Geography vs Caste
From the paper:
On the Indian Cline, 5 of the 11 groups with Z>2.5 are of traditionally priestly status, even though only 17 of the 140 groups are of priestly status overall (Data S4). In the north (defined as >20 degrees latitude), 5 of 9 groups with Z>2.5 are of traditionally
5098 priestly status, even though only 8 of the 74 groups are of priestly status (Data S4). (Groups of traditionally priestly status in the south show no enrichment of Steppe-related ancestry beyond the expectation from our model according to our analyses.)
This overrepresentation (10% to 50%) is of course a highly statistically significant deviation. I suspect if we include tags for OBCs, Tribals and FC categories and did not just look at the top Z>2.5 populations the signal of ancestry-status co-sorting would become even more statistically significant.
I was wondering how to square this with the previous D Stats showing Europeans highly biased towards Brahmin_UP and Chamar highly biased towards Middle Easterners, but then saw that the differences in ratios between the groups I chose specifically (Brahmin TN vs Velamas and Brahmin_UP vs Chamar) will result in the differences (I'm assuming that Brahmin_UP is more skewed from Chamar than the averaged North Indian 'Brahmin' population in this datasheet). If I had chosen differently though (e.g. Hakkipikki vs Brahmin_UP) then the pattern would have disappeared. This testifies to the fact that the pattern holds in general, but dispersions from the pattern do exist and can be quite large (e.g. Hakkipikki), which is a fact worth pointing out.
Another factor to consider is statistical robustness, e.g. in the image above associating Caste with Sintashta, you can see there are approx 6 extreme outlier populations on the upper right of the plot with very low West Eurasian ancestry and high excess of Sintashta. In fact if you look only at the right hand side the funnel gets much wider as we move up, which does make me wonder if the effect is due to statistical uncertainty widening the distribution (i.e. like funnel plots for publication bias where the smaller the populations used in the study the larger the effect sizes, which would sensibly apply in this case for populations with very low W Eurasian ancestry and thus few markers to make the comparison).
Sorry I made a mistake I meant Indo Iranian from Andronovo and the same with the paper I quoted about the Catacomb Culture
@Chetan,
"Indo-Aryan and Iranian are close sister branches. Many parts of the Gathic Avestan can be read, word by word, phrase by phrase, as Rigvedic Sanskrit . They were perhaps mutually intelligible.
So to answer your question, I think Andronovo was both Indo-Aryan and Iranian"
So Indo-Aryan and Iranian are the same language now. Well, that's one way to make the theory fit I suppose...
Are you South Indian bro?
About archaeology, I really do not know how much certitude we actually get by trying to infer migration from interpretation of material artifacts.
E.g. the BB migration to Britain replacing 90% of the autosomes across wide areas is very, very difficult to reconcile with the archaeological signal, which shows widespread continuity and e.g. reuse of the same ritual sites often in pretty much the same ways (In this case the archaeologists, and myself as well, are still flummoxed as to how to reconcile the genetic data with the social scenarios that the archaeology points to).
Or, in the opposite case where archaeology (and even the physical anthropology) has been interpreted to mean more migration than the genetics indicate, we have the migration from the EEF carriers in Balkans Chalcolithic cultures to the Steppe, which simply does not show up at any high level despite the archaeology showing pervasive cultural influence.
I would say that the case of S Asia and the Swat valley is actually pretty consistent compared to other cases, in this case we have low levels of some Steppe influence and some BMAC influence, matching the low but significant levels of cultural change seen when comparing post-Harrappan artifacts to Swat artifacts.
However it is becoming increasingly clear, after looking at Alberto's and my fits, that the level of Sintashta influence in the West Eurasian part of the SPGT and even in the Butkara_IA is really far too low and far too dissimilar to present-day South Asians (not to Sintashta! dissimilarity to Sintashta is not the point), and that further sampling is needed from contemporaneous cultures close by to look for something closer to present-day South Asians (which by necessity will be closer to Sintashta).
i.e. the issue is that present-day South Asians require much more Sintashta than SPGT, and also more of the right Y-DNA clades closely related to those in Sintashta, to get them to the right position, not that there is some attempt at shoehorning the SPGT to be the vector of change (it isn't).
RK
"the BB migration to Britain replacing 90% of the autosomes across wide areas is very, very difficult to reconcile with the archaeological signal, which shows widespread continuity and e.g. reuse of the same ritual sites often in pretty much the same ways (In this case the archaeologists, and myself as well, are still flummoxed as to how to reconcile the genetic data with the social scenarios that the archaeology points to)"
a wise and rational comment.....but in fact we have a theory that fits the bill to save both the movement of people and the archeological continuity. That those people moving west were just migrants that entered central and western europe without altering much of the cultural and hence linguistic landscape.
Maybe one possible explanation could be also a very high gap between the fertility rates of farmers and herders . What if the steppe people had a FR of 5 ( the level of today Nigeria) and the farmers maybe the half of it. That also could explain the "replacement" level without war or disease.
If you think that is a scenario we could be confronted to in Europe in future decades with the actual migration rate. Probably we will have in major cities and urban areas a majority of non europeans but without any language shift.
@mzp1 Whether you're from the south or the north, I think the best way forward is to embrace the truth about the past and move on from there. Indigenous continuity theories are being proved wrong all over the world.
@ Davidski
Erm... Not sure if this result is correct, but Hajji_Firuz BA in far NW Iran close to Azerbaijan is very early (~2300 BC, right at the start of Sintashta-Andronovo genesis) and I'm getting this result for her:
[1] "distance%=2.0235 / distance=0.020235"
Hajji_Firuz_BA
"Sintashta_MLBA" 32.5
"Armenia_EBA" 30.1
"Yamnaya_Samara" 20.8
"Hajji_Firuz_ChL" 11.15
"Yamnaya_Kalmykia" 3.5
"Sarazm_Eneolithic" 1.95
[1] "distance%=2.0235 / distance=0.020235"
Hajji_Firuz_BA
"Sintashta_MLBA" 32.15
"Armenia_EBA" 29.9
"Yamnaya_Samara" 21.05
"Hajji_Firuz_ChL" 11
"Yamnaya_Kalmykia" 3.5
"Sarazm_Eneolithic" 2
"Anatolia_ChL" 0.4
List of populations:
"Sintashta_MLBA"
"Armenia_EBA"
"Yamnaya_Samara"
"Hajji_Firuz_ChL"
"Yamnaya_Kalmykia"
"Sarazm_Eneolithic"
"Anatolia_ChL"
"AfontovaGora3"
"West_Siberia_N"
"Onge"
"Ganj_Dareh_N"
"Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA3"
"Mala"
"Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1"
"Yamnaya_Ukraine"
"Levant_BA"
"Anatolia_BA"
"Tepe_Hissar_ChL"
Might this be an extremely early IIr-IAr incursion to Mesopotamia and the Caucasus?
@ Vara
I am not sure that the Kassites, Guti etc are really such strong objections to the IAr = Sintashta issue. Most linguists do not believe that either the Kassites or Guti are IE.
If we want to explain the para-IAr or other IE influences in Mesopotamia and surrounds, we have multiple unambiguous Steppic incursions to the area (Armenia_EBA, Hajji_Firuz_Chl, Hajji_Firuz_BA) to pin the influences to.
@ Davidski
"Sintashta" ancestry in Hajji Firuz at such an early date is approaching the edge of credibility, but could you try some comparative qpAdm to see if the fit improves with Steppe MLBA pops?
@ Santosh
If you are reading this, I just wanna say thanks for the posts previously on the Dravidians, well appreciated!
Are there any "weird" linguistic substrates or historically extinct languages in the Swat area? The Butkara_IA samples are very dissimilar to present-day South Asians, resembling prior SPGT, despite being from ~0AD. These people seem to have went extinct in the historical period.
@RK
"I am not sure that the Kassites, Guti etc are really such strong objections to the IAr = Sintashta issue. Most linguists do not believe that either the Kassites or Guti are IE."
Kassites are not Indo-European but they have Indo-Aryan elite like the Mitanni. And yes they are a strong objection since we have a new foreigner warrior-elite class appearing in the 18th century BCE among the Hurrian natives that took over a few centuries after. Archaeologists trace them to IIIC Hissar which has nothing to do with the steppes.
"Only a few Kassite words seem to come from IIr., e.g. Šuriiaš "sun god", Maruttaš
"divine Marut comrades of Indra", Bugaš "god Bhaga?"; see Balkan 1954, for horse
names such as akriyaš = agriya-s "(running) in front?", timiraš "black?" -Witzel
"If we want to explain the para-IAr or other IE influences in Mesopotamia and surrounds, we have multiple unambiguous Steppic incursions to the area (Armenia_EBA, Hajji_Firuz_Chl, Hajji_Firuz_BA) to pin the influences to."
Which is it Yamnaya was Indo-Aryan or Andronovo? There has to be a single steppe source that explain Indo-Aryan languages in both the Near East and India. I'm still waiting for an explanation on how the Mitanni made their way to Syria from Andronovo.
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