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Friday, July 6, 2018

"The Homeland: In the footprints of the early Indo-Europeans" time map


Click HERE to view the interactive time map, and give it some time to load if you're on a slow connection. Use the slider tool to explore different time periods from 6385 BC to 1 BC. It's still a work in progress, so feel free to let the author, Mikkel Nørtoft, know if anything should be added, tweaked and/or generally improved.

Below is a screen cap of the map with the slider moved to 3618 BC. Note the sheep in the North Pontic steppe and the wheels just west of it. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge...


See also...

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

109 comments:

Ric Hern said...

@ Mikkel Nørtoft

http://www.pnas.org/content/113/2/368

Mikkel said...

@Ric Hern. Cassidy data is there already :)
Btw, if you're on a Chrome or Safari browser the timeilne should go back to 8200 BCE (not sure why it doesn't on other browsers, I didn't design/program the timeline plugin).
And remember to check out the legend and the Comments section for how to interpret the map.

And thanks for posting it, @Davidski! :)

dsjm1 said...

Davidski,
Thanks a mill for this link - it is a work of art. I have posted the link to my S1194 project and plan to do screen grabs and an analysis of key topics for us that occur mostly between 3000BC and 2000BC

I see many gaps and will seek to discuss these here and with the originator. It is great when people put in this kind of effort. Juat what we need.

Doug M

Mikkel said...

Thanks for the kind words @dsjm :)
If you can send specific scientific literature (links are also fine) for gaps it would make it faster. Things such as distribution maps and chronology/dating would be most useful :)

Bob Floy said...

@Mikkel Nørtoft
Fantastic work, looking forward to watching it evolve as new data comes in. One thing I'm not caught up on...the earliest confirmed wheel is now in Funnelbeaker territory? Is that correct?

Ric Hern said...

@ Mikkel Nørtoft

Thanks.

Mikkel said...

@Bob Floy.
"One thing I'm not caught up on...the earliest confirmed wheel is now in Funnelbeaker territory? Is that correct?"

The color was difficult to decide on that one. The Bronocice find is not actual preserved wheels, but iconography that resembles a wagon with wheels soclearly that I know of no one who argues against it, and it also resembles later wheel and wagon iconography very clearly.

But I am still trying to decide if it should be a transparent icon since it is of course in the category "secondary evidence" :)

pnuadha said...

Thanks a bunch Kikkel. It helps a lot to get geographically accurate visuals! I didnt realize that CHG and EHG/steppe actually moved past one another on the very southern steppe. It adds to the possibility of CHG and EHG mixing in places like Ukraine rather than just the very southern edge of the steppe. Im sure most of the mixing still took place between the black and caspian seas but maybe some was further north.

Anyways, instead of labeling all samples with just one color can you use a pie chart for samples that are a mix, if that mix is significant. You should still ignore coloring trace components and simply mention it in a comment.

pnuadha said...

btw, I would be really happy if you added more ancient samples.

pnuadha said...

Im finding a few surprises. Is it really true that sample I4666 / M from serbia is fully EHG?

Bob Floy said...

@Mikkel
So that did refer to the Bronocice pot, gotcha.
But those are true wheels in the Repin culture?

Davidski said...

@Bob Floy

If you click on each icon you'll get a pop up window with all of the relevant info.

a said...

Fantastic work-what a great idea[original].
Maybe in future addition could include-different cultures/styles-pottery c14-dated- for example+Volga Samara region
Pottery from the Volga area in the Samara and South Urals
region from Eneolithic to Early Bronze Age
Nina L. Morgunova

Bob Floy said...

@Davidski
Ahh, just saw that, thanks.

Mikkel said...

@Colin Welling.
"btw, I would be really happy if you added more ancient samples."

I have added all the ancient genomewide samples (before Common Era) that I know of.
If you know of genomewide data that is missing, I will be happy to if you have a link :)

"Anyways, instead of labeling all samples with just one color can you use a pie chart for samples that are a mix, if that mix is significant. You should still ignore coloring trace components and simply mention it in a comment."


I thought a lot about showing pie charts, but I think that might be outside my programming skills (and I'm not sure all articles show them anyways), as well as it would take a lot of research to go through all 1768 samples, and the estimates for ancestral proportions in the individuals change all the time when new ancestral sources are discovered, so I would constantly be revising it (and I am only one person doing this part time). And of course if pie charts for individuals are published, you can access them there :)

Furthermore, I think it would make the map less understandable for people, not into the whole aDNA world. I have tried to write it in some of the popup comments (i think more than 500 of them have individual comments), but otherwise I would refer you to the cited publications for each sample to go into more detail.


"Im finding a few surprises. Is it really true that sample I4666 / M from serbia is fully EHG?"

I am at another job right now so I will have to get back to you on that one when I have my computer, but as I have written in the description of the map, all samples are a mix of ancestry, so none of them are fully anything, but the map definitely may contain some errors (although I have tried to correct as many as possible) :)

What I normally do to check a specific individual is look into the supplementary data and the main article and search for the individual ID or if it is not described specifically I search for the population label of the individual, and read the details :)

Folker said...

@Mikkel Nørtoft
Nice work. Some remarks

You put Z2103 on the lake Uma aroung 5800 BC. Probably the Hajji Firuz sample? But as you may know, its datation is not confirmed (C14 failed), and it's very likely a BA intrusion given its autosomal results.

You can add wheels in Bulgaria (Yamnaya kurgan of Plachidol, two wooden wheels found, around 3000BC):
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285673711_Pit_graves_in_Bulgaria_and_the_Yamnaya_Culture?_sg=VYpuMzaar9_iQnsyVdFn8J-FGND1_DeRpr1ErknRYVbGvNbsmH_IFAXSTvzuT1uaRGQE8V7jsA

Davidski said...

Yeah, the Hajji Firuz Z2103 is probably a Bronze Age sample.

A female from that site that was successfully C14 dated to the Bronze Age is about 50% Yamnaya.

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/04/likely-yamnaya-incursions-into.html

Mikkel said...

@a (Nina Morgunova)
"Maybe in future addition could include-different cultures/styles-pottery c14-dated- for example+Volga Samara region
Pottery from the Volga area in the Samara and South Urals
region from Eneolithic to Early Bronze Age"

If I understand you correctly you want me to put images of the pottery on the map with C14 dates?

That would be a very nice addition indeed, but I would probably need a lot of time (=money) to be able to carry that out. Also I am neither geneticist, nor arcaheologist, but only a humble comparative linguist, so I'm probably not the right person to do that ;)
Another issue with that would be that I guess I would need images of all this pottery, and that would probably get me into a lot of copyright issues.
For now, I think I have more than enough work on trying to keep up with the many DNA papers coming out, and mapping archaeological culture areas (which are of course often defined by their pottery anyways) :)

Mikkel said...

@Folker

Oh, I thought I had already removed that. Thanks for the heads up! :)

Mikkel said...

@Folker

and thanks for the Bulgaria article! I'll try and look into it :)

dsjm1 said...

Mikkel

Tak


To others, all the symbols are clickable even the labels. A pop-up window holds the notes. So as any symbol appears click it.

Also the map can be dragged around (I.e. if the slider bar is in the way). And of course the + and - to grow shrink if you
Are trying to look at an area with a lot of symbols.

This is a wonderful tool. A landmark. We are discussing it over in Anthrogenica. See thread Oldest Steppe Bell Beakers: Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

Doug Marker

Mikkel said...

Thank you, Doug!
Mouse scroll should also zoom in and out, and arrow keys left and right for back and forth on the timeline, or you can just press the space bar to start playback (sometimes you have to activate it with a click) if you want to watch "migration TV" :)

Mikkel said...

Thank you for your corrections and additions.
I have now tried to accomodate them.

@Colin Welling: you were right about the Serbian hunter-gatherer, which is now yellow (for Anatolian farmer influx).

@Folker: I added the Yamnaya wheels in Plachidol (but didn't find a direct date on it?)

@Folker and Davidski: The Hajji Firuz Z2103 was noted on the actual sample (which just had a transparent icon) and with a reference to your post, but now I have removed the highlighted haplogroup for this individual in the "R1 lineages" layer.

I'll be in the forests of Seden the next four days, without a computer, so more corrections will have to wait a bit. Have a great weekend! :)

old europe said...

@all

it seems that ( from a direct source) that R1b P-312 found in samara region is true.

dsjm1 said...

old Europe,

But that direct source then backed away from his 1st email 'What he said was true' comment.

Last qtr of 5th millenium BC for P312 in that region and find, still raises serious doubts until really accurate data is published.

If the Alexei Butin 'claim' holds up it tips our knowledge on its head in many respects and makes a mockery of our current methods for estimating the ages of SNPs.

D

Santosh said...

@Mikkel Nortorp

This is fantastic. Thank You!

Mikkel said...

Dear all.
Unfortunately the service where I draw the background map (satellite) from couldn't handle the activity (50.000+ visitors), so the map will be down for a few days. Sorry about that.

dsjm1 said...

Mikkel,

I am not at all surprised. The interest in this map and what it shows will get far greater.

It may need to be hosted on multiple servers. Do you have any stats for the traffic volumes ? - the compute power can usually be dealt with as long as the bandwidth for data out can be managed.

What sort of server hosts it ? (am guessing it is on Linux - Ubuntu ?). Is the server a 'cloud based' virtual server ?

Doug

Folker said...

@Mikkel Nørtoft

From Anthony (The horse, the wheel, the language): 2880/2670 BCE
https://erenow.com/ancient/the-horse-the-wheel-and-language/the-horse-the-wheel-and-language.files/image112.jpg

But it is making a reference to A. Sharrett 1986, who is dating the burial to 3000 BC (Oxford Journal of Archaeology, p 245, "an approximate date of c. 2400 bc, corresponding to a calendar date of 3000 bc by tree ring calibration, would thus be appropriate for the Plachidol cemetery")

So, since we have 2 datations for Plachidol (from 2 different burials), the older is indeed dated from 3000 BC, but the wagon burial is a bit younger, from 2880/2670 BC.

Santosh said...

Just put it on amazon. Load will be taken care of.
https://aws.amazon.com/

Samuel Andrews said...

Tiny prediction: Yamnaya R1b Z2103+ has more CHG than the Steppe ancestors of Corded Ware & Bell Beaker.

One thing is for sure Bell Beaker, Corded Ware, Sintashta are not a two way MN farmer (currently published) & Yamnaya mix. They have more HG ancestry than that model can create. I'm thinking, possibly, their Steppe ancestors had more EHG or UkraineHg than Yamnaya R1b Z2103. Either that or their farmer ancestors had lots more WHG than any farmers sampled.

Davidski said...

@Samuel Andrews

Good prediction, but you're about three years too late with it, because it was in the Haak et al. 2015 paper.

Arza said...

Backing the Wrong Wild Horse: New Studies Demolish Equine Domestication Theory
Widespread beliefs about how Indo-European languages spread have also ridden into the sunset


https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/MAGAZINE-backing-the-wrong-wild-horse-1.6196288

Davidski said...

@Arza

Backing the Wrong Wild Horse: New Studies Demolish Equine Domestication Theory
Widespread beliefs about how Indo-European languages spread have also ridden into the sunset

https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/MAGAZINE-backing-the-wrong-wild-horse-1.6196288


That's actually not a bad article. The stuff about Yamnaya warring with Botai is interesting. There might be something in that.

But the most interesting and relevant story in regards to horse domestication is yet to be revealed in detail, it seems, as I pointed out recently here...

Of horses and men

gj said...

The map is down for a few days due to overload of visitors. We are trying to fix the problem as soon as possible.

Palacista said...

"We suspect proto-Indo-European emerged at the interface between the Caucasus and the eastern European steppe, perhaps through a ‘Caucasification’ of a Uralic language,”

The "we" in the quote must be the idiots of idiots.

Dmytro said...

@ Arza

By and large the article is adequate. But is it just an accident that in her list of Slavic Indo-European languages, Schuster omits both Belarusian and Ukrainian?

mzp1 said...

"Until recently, descendants of goat and sheep herders who formed the Yamnaya culture in the steppes of today’s Ukraine and western Russia about 5,000 years ago were thought to have domesticated the horse. "

Cows are the most central of IE animals, more than horses, and Goats/Sheep not really that important in the literature.

Not sure if writer made an error or Yamna really was more goat/sheep heavy.

Arza said...

@ Dmytro

Do you mean this tree? It's a total mess, just look at Italic and Germanic. Not worth mentioning IMHO. I've posted this article mainly for the "Damgaard says" parts.

Davidski said...

@mzp1

Horses are by far the most important animals in Indo-European religion. Sheep were obviously important for the early Indo-Europeans because they seemed to have talked a lot about wool.

Not sure why you think cows are all important for Indo-Europeans. Probably only in South Asia.

Strandloper said...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00334-018-0678-7

"Cannabis is indigenous to Europe and cultivation began during the Copper or Bronze age: a probabilistic synthesis of fossil pollen studies"


Abstract
Conventional wisdom states Cannabis sativa originated in Asia and its dispersal to Europe depended upon human transport. Various Neolithic or Bronze age groups have been named as pioneer cultivators. These theses were tested by examining fossil pollen studies (FPSs), obtained from the European Pollen Database. Many FPSs report Cannabis or Humulus (C/H) with collective names (e.g. Cannabis/Humulus or Cannabaceae). To dissect these aggregate data, we used ecological proxies to differentiate C/H pollen, as follows: unknown C/H pollen that appeared in a pollen assemblage suggestive of steppe (Poaceae, Artemisia, Chenopodiaceae) we interpreted as wild-type Cannabis. C/H pollen in a mesophytic forest assemblage (Alnus, Salix, Populus) we interpreted as Humulus. C/H pollen curves that upsurged and appeared de novo alongside crop pollen grains we interpreted as cultivated hemp. FPSs were mapped and compared to the territories of archaeological cultures. We analysed 479 FPSs from the Holocene/Late Glacial, plus 36 FPSs from older strata. The results showed C/H pollen consistent with wild-type C. sativa in steppe and dry tundra landscapes throughout Europe during the early Holocene, Late Glacial, and previous glaciations. During the warm and wet Holocene Climactic Optimum, forests replaced steppe, and Humulus dominated. Cannabis retreated to steppe refugia. C/H pollen consistent with cultivated hemp first appeared in the Pontic-Caspian steppe refugium. GIS mapping linked cultivation with the Copper age Varna/Gumelniţa culture, and the Bronze age Yamnaya and Terramara cultures. An Iron age steppe culture, the Scythians, likely introduced hemp cultivation to Celtic and Proto-Slavic cultures."

mzp1 said...

I disagree, I think Cows are more important. Obviously no herd animals and you have no need for horses.

"A reconstructed creation myth involving the two is given by David W. Anthony, attributed in part to Bruce Lincoln:[50] Manu and Yemo traverse the cosmos, accompanied by the primordial cow, and finally decide to create the world."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion

"According to Evander, Hercules stopped to pasture the cattle he had stolen from Geryon near Cacus' lair. As Hercules slept, the monster took a liking to the cattle and slyly stole eight of them.."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacus

"The Cattle Raid of Cooley..It tells of a war against Ulster by Connacht queen Medb and her husband Ailill,[1] who intend to steal the stud bull Donn Cuailnge and are opposed only by teenage Ulster hero Cú Chulainn.[2]"

Both stories are similar to those relating to Kamadhenu in Hinduism.

Mithra and the sacrificed bull. There are loads of Cow related myths scattered across the IE branches.

Cows are also the main object in the famous Indra-Vrtra encounter, along with the Rivers, Sun and Soma.

One of your Steppe-homeland supporters made this video about Cows in various IE Myths.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS4D95ejpl0

He hasnt made one about Horses.

Cows are more important than Horses in IE literature as far as I'm concerned. Cows seem to have a more primeordial significance.

Horses obviously were only used because of the herding economy. No herding no need for horses. And that seems to be based on cattle according to IE literature, with comparatively little mention of Sheep and Goats.

You're right about Vedic though - extremely cow-centric. Literally wealth equals cows, cows mentioned way more than horses.

Vara said...

@Davidski

Cows play an important role in the reconstructed PIE and actual IE myths, eg. Donn Cuailnge, Cretan Bull, Auðumbla, Barmaya, Gaw I Edad (Gavaevodata)...etc.

https://books.google.com/books?id=0FDqf415wqgC&q=primordial#v=snippet&q=primordial&f=false

Davidski said...

@Vara

The claim made by mzp1 was that cows were the "most central of IE animal". Not compared to horses they're not.

He also didn't understand the fuss about sheep in this context. But wooly sheep are very important for the study of early Indo-Europeans for linguistic reasons.

mzp1 said...

@Davidski

This is what you posted on the post titled Of Horses and Men

"..especially if we consider the fact that horses are the most important animal in the Indo-European pantheon."

I just dont see Horse>Cows, if anything the opposite.

Any literature or data to back it up?

Davidski said...

@mzp1

The horse cult is peculiar to the Indo-Europeans and there's plenty of literature on it. For instance...

Aśvamedha - A Vedic horse sacrifice

The problem with your focus on cows is that they were important to non-Indo-European cultures which the Indo-Europeans dominated, while this isn't so in regards to horses. Like I said, the horse cult is peculiar to the Indo-Europeans (and the Turks copied it from them).

Moreover, cows were probably domesticated before the Indo-Europeans existed, while horse domestication seems to have happened during the Eneolithic, and it's likely that all modern domesticated horses derive from the horses domesticated by the earliest Indo-Europeans living in the western steppes.

Hence my focus on horses as opposed to cows.

Queequeg said...

Any ideas what this is about?:

"The Copper Age settlements in the area of Botai in Northern Kazakhstan (3500-2700 BC) represent the hitherto oldest known sites of horse domestication (Brown & Anthony 1998, Outram 2009), one of the key events that lead to the rapid emergence of successful steppe pastoralist societies. This in turn had profound consequences on the spread of human populations, cultures and languages during the Bronze Age (Allentoft et al. 2015, Haak et al. 2015). This data set aims to include a mixture of deep (~20x) and moderate (~6x) coverage whole genome sequences from ancient samples to address the genetic relationships between the Botai population, the contemporary Bronze Age Yamnaya population, the Saami, and the previously sequenced Upper Paleolithic Mal'ta individual (Raghavan et al. 2014). This data is part of a pre-publication release. For information on the proper use of pre-publication data shared by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (including details of any publication moratoria), please see http://www.sanger.ac.uk/datasharing/"

Davidski said...

@Huck Finn

I haven't seen that before, but as we recently found out western steppe horses aren't related to Botai horses, and Yamnaya isn't related to Botai. So if that's an upcoming study, then it's already out of date and a bit pointless.

Queequeg said...

@ Davidski Yes but what's the reason for Saami being this much in focus? Maybe something related to this kind of stuff:

http://www.elisanet.fi/mauri_my/pca18l.pdf

EastPole said...

@mzp1
“You're right about Vedic though - extremely cow-centric. Literally wealth equals cows, cows mentioned way more than horses.”

Difficult to say, because often Vedic cow is actually not an animal that you know and it gives not an ordinary milk that you know. Cows are sometimes equaled with Waters and can be compared to Greek Muses.

Here you can read about some metaphors of Rigveda:

https://goo.gl/DApfAi

Cattle, horses, heroes, chariots, gold, refreshments etc are desirable wealth, but cows are not animals and give the milk of poetry and inspiration, heroes are poetic virtues, winged horses which pull golden chariots of poetry are not your ordinary horses, refreshments feed your soul, not body etc. It is all poetry and one cannot make conclusions about PIE religion from it because we don’t know if it has anything to do with PIE. It is HYPERBOREAN, i.e. Indo-Slavonic-Hellenic, much later than PIE, if such thing like PIE existed at all.

Examples of wealth in RV:

8.5. 10. Convey here to us, o Aśvins, wealth in cattle, in good heroes and good chariots, and refreshments along with horses.

5.57. 7. Rich in cows, in horses, in chariots, in good heroes, in gold—(such) largesse you have given to us, Maruts.
Make good our eulogy, Rudras. Might I have a share in your divine help.

zardos said...

The most reliable marker of early Indo-Europeans is the horse and its central importance in their culture. Because it was absent in other European ethnic groups of the time. Cows were widespread and culturally important long before Indo-Europeans existed. Thats old knowledge, but still true.

EastPole said...

Dairy pastoralism of Western livestock had been adopted on the Eastern steppe by the Late Bronze Age in the absence of significant genetic exchange with Western steppe herders:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DhzbYjMUEAAYr5O.jpg:large

Dmytro said...

The "horse word" in IE languages.

I don't have a comprehensive list, but if "Equus" (Centum) and "Asva" (Satem") are the central words, which families of the current IE speeches are they still present in? Latin has it of course (still a major speech if only ritualistic /Vatican/). And Sanskrit. Tocharian. But where else? I stand to be corrected, but I don't see it in Germanic or Baltic, or Slavic. Don't know about Celtic. Of course there are also other "horse words" in IE. The pan-Slavic "kobila" (mare) is clearly akin to Latin "caballus" (whence eventually French cheval), which is not gender-specific. Does the absence of the aforementioned central generic words in some IE speeches indicate important historical "mixture events"? Like Greek "Hippos"? Slavic "Komon'" (I see there s a "Camnet" in extinct Old Prussian.) Etc.. Etc. ??

Ric Hern said...

I think regarding Bulls we see two different kinds of traditions.

We see Man vs. Bull and Bull vs. Bull. Men fighting Bulls are mostly found in Southwestern Europe and Greek Myths and Minoan Art plus we see it with Mithras....

Bull fighting Bull we see in Portugal, the Balkans and in Irish Myths. Cow vs. Cow we see in the Alps.

Horse vs. Horse we see in Austria and Norway...

Anyway I think we should not throw all the Bull and Cow legends into the same bin and think there are always a direct connection between them...

Onur Dincer said...

@Dmytro

The "horse word" in IE languages.

I don't have a comprehensive list, but if "Equus" (Centum) and "Asva" (Satem") are the central words, which families of the current IE speeches are they still present in? Latin has it of course (still a major speech if only ritualistic /Vatican/). And Sanskrit. Tocharian. But where else? I stand to be corrected, but I don't see it in Germanic or Baltic, or Slavic. Don't know about Celtic. Of course there are also other "horse words" in IE. The pan-Slavic "kobila" (mare) is clearly akin to Latin "caballus" (whence eventually French cheval), which is not gender-specific. Does the absence of the aforementioned central generic words in some IE speeches indicate important historical "mixture events"? Like Greek "Hippos"? Slavic "Komon'" (I see there s a "Camnet" in extinct Old Prussian.) Etc.. Etc. ??


You must be kidding. All the major branches of the Indo-European family except Slavic and Albanian have a word descending from PIE "*éḱwos" (means "horse" in PIE) for horse or a similar animal.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h%E2%82%81%C3%A9%E1%B8%B1wos

"Equus", "hippos" ("*íkkʷos" in Proto-Hellenic) and "asva" all descend from "*éḱwos" through regular sound changes.

"Caballus" replaced "equus" later in Latin.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caballus#Latin

"*hrussą" (the ancestor of the word "horse") replaced "*ehwaz" (the Proto-Germanic descendant of "*éḱwos") later in Proto-Germanic, but descendants of "*ehwaz" still remained in the Germanic languages in the poetic forms for horse.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/ehwaz

Onur Dincer said...

@Ric Hern

Bull fighting Bull we see in Portugal, the Balkans and in Irish Myths. Cow vs. Cow we see in the Alps.

Also in Anatolia since ancient times.

Dmytro said...

@ Onur Dincer

Thanks for the Wiktionary analyses.
Certainly indicates widespread presence of the word.

But some particularities remain interesting:

"caballus" did not replace "equus" in Latin, but coexisted with it. Acc. to the Oxford Latin Dictionary it is first attested in the work of the satirist C. Lucilius (interestingly he was of the "equestrian" class (:=)

In Baltic the old ekwos/asva becomes identified with "mare". I don't know the term for the male horse.

Slavic seems to have no reflexes or uses of this ancient IE term. It's term for the male horse is "komon' (the current kon'/kin') Vasmer relates this to the root *kobn- which he does not define. The mare word (kobyla) differs from the Baltic, and seems similar to the Latin "caballus". The classical Slavs of ancient history emerge in the 6th c. as not yet particularly interested in cavalry (for their military expeditions) Wonder if that reflects the constitutive importance of the non_IE substrate?


Germanic also largely abandons the original term, substituting "hrussa" and the German current word (pferd) is a very late mediaeval adoption

One interesting point is the name of one of the constituent units of Herodotus' Scythia: "traspies" which sounds like it means "three horses"

Onur Dincer said...

@Dmytro

"caballus" did not replace "equus" in Latin, but coexisted with it. Acc. to the Oxford Latin Dictionary it is first attested in the work of the satirist C. Lucilius (interestingly he was of the "equestrian" class (:=)

But "caballus" is generally thought to be a loanword to Latin while "equus" is original Latin descending from PIE "*éḱwos" by way of Latin's direct ancestor Proto-Italic (it is "*ekwos" in Proto-Italic). Also, "equus" is used far more than "caballus" in the early Latin records.

By the way, Albanian was first put into writing during the 15th century AD, too late, and "kalë", the Albanian word for horse, comes from Latin "caballus", so we do not know the original word for horse in Albanian.

Among the major IE branches, only Slavic seems to lack a word for horse or a similar animal descending from PIE "*éḱwos" from early on in its evolution. But since the Baltic languages have "*éḱwos"-descended words, Proto-Balto-Slavic must have had too.

Samuel Andrews said...

Basal Eurasian was more or less seen as a signal of early Near Eastern farmers. It was based largely on mtDNA that I dis agreed with this. The non-U5 mtDNA in European farmers had distant not recent relatives in the MIddle Easts which doesn't work the idea of a single basal-rich early farmer population.

Because of the Neolithic-Mesolithic discontinuation in Europe I think people underestimated how connected modern people are to Mesolithic HGs.

The primary pieces of our junk DNA, the kind used for determining ancestry, might have been around in the Mesolithic. How much of modern West Eurasian's junk DNA is a mix up of multiple Mesolithic pops vs genetic drift that happened after the Mesolithic?

I understand Drift can make important changes in a short period of time. Is, ratio of ancestry from WHG, ANE, CHG, Natufian, EEF, etc. more significant to genetic diversity in West Eurasia than drift aquired after the Mesolithic? Is there a way to objectivly test this?

This opens the possibilities that in some place of the world there is genetic continuation going back 10,000+ years. David Reich is right to emphasize how much discontinuation there was in ancient times but new data might make him change his stance to "it depends."

Mikkel said...

Dear all.
I'm back from Sweden and homeland.ku.dk is now back up and running :)

Tesmos said...

Mikkel Nørtoft,

Nice map, but why is Southwest Scania not considered as CWC but still TRB compared to the other Scandinavian regions? There are graves in Scania that have a strong association with the Corded Ware Culture.

Dmytro said...

@ Onur Dincer

I really don't disagree with any of your comments. There is no doubt that the original (pre-dispersion) IE dialects all had *ekwos and brought it along as they spread.

What I was trying to understand is the extent to which this dispersion and subsequent fusion with other groups historically influenced the maintenance, significance, and weight of this word. I don't think it's out of line to conclude that subsequent "mixes" had a tremendous influence on all aspects of the development of practically all IE populations to a lesser or greater degree, and that the contribution of integrating groups (linguistic, genetic, cultural) should also be recognized and studied. I don't think you're opposed to this notion (:=))

Mikkel said...

@Tesmos:
"Nice map, but why is Southwest Scania not considered as CWC but still TRB compared to the other Scandinavian regions? There are graves in Scania that have a strong association with the Corded Ware Culture."

Good eye! Should be corrected now :)

@Folker
Thanks for that! Updated the date now :)

Ric Hern said...

@ Dmytro

So Cob in English originated from Latin ? If I remember correctly Irish use both Capal and Ech. It seems as if Gaelic is a Shorthand version of Proto-Indo-European. Heheheeeh. Almost like Danish which shortens the North Germanic words....

PF said...

@Dmytro

The German 'pferd' still traces all the way back to PIE. Didn't realize this but apparently related to the modern English word 'ride'.

Etymology, per wiktionary: German pferd <-- Latin paraveredus <-- Proto-Celtic uɸorēdos <-- PIE (H)reydʰ

My great-grandfather's surname was Ferdman. His ancestor was probably a horse trader at the time surnames were adopted, hehe.

Joe said...

How come I4331 (Y-DNA J2b-L283) from Veliki Vanik, Bronze Age Croatia is not listed, but his female counterpart is? (https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25778)

Onur Dincer said...

@Dmytro

What I was trying to understand is the extent to which this dispersion and subsequent fusion with other groups historically influenced the maintenance, significance, and weight of this word. I don't think it's out of line to conclude that subsequent "mixes" had a tremendous influence on all aspects of the development of practically all IE populations to a lesser or greater degree, and that the contribution of integrating groups (linguistic, genetic, cultural) should also be recognized and studied. I don't think you're opposed to this notion (:=))

Could be true for "caballus" and "*kobyla", they might indeed be coming from non-IE source(s), but that is disputed. But, for instance, "*hrussą" and "pferd" certainly descend from PIE roots. So as you see, not all non-"*éḱwos"-descended words for horse in IE languages are non-IE-descended. After all, PIE was rich in its horse-related vocabulary.

FrankN said...

@Dmytro, Dincer:
The Baltic evidence of PIE *hekwos is quite sparse. Lith ašvà „mare“ is commonly cited, but the term seems obsolete, and cannot be found in modern (online) dictionaries. If it ever existed, it might well have been a borrowing from Iranic (Scythian).

The sparse Germanic reflexes of PIE *hekwos are irregular. None of them shows the "w" that would be expected from the reconstructed PGerm *ehwaz. Instead, forms like OEngl. eoh, OSax. ehu seem to be borrowings, either from Q-Celtic (e.g. OIr ech), or from Venetic eku (the latter would obviously have been borrowed before the PGerm "k"->"h" sound change [Grimm's law]).

PHellenic *íkkʷos (OGrk hippos) is also irregular - "e" instead of "i" would be expected. For that reason, a Russian linguist (need to look up the name/ paper) has argued for a Hellenic borrowing from PNCauc *hičwi [c.f. Kabardian шы (šə), Abkhaz аҽы (āčə), Avar чу (ču), Karata ичва (ičʷa, “mare”), Lezgi шив (šiv, “horse”), plus Hurr. ešša]. The latter is also suspected to be the source of Luwian ásù (as of Sum. sisi).

Armenian էշ (ēš, “donkey”) is rather related to, and borrowed from Sum. ANSE “ass, donkey”), than PIE *hekwos.

All in all, PIE *hekwos is only sufficiently well attested, and regularly formed, in IIR, Tocharian, Italic and Celtic.

The connection between PIE *hekwos and PNCauc *hičwi (Hurr. ešša) has puzzled many linguists. Both roots are obviously related, but don’t have any other “Nostratic” parallels, so one family should have borrowed from the other. But what was the direction?

A PNC->PIE borrowing would be phonetically straight-forward: PIE didn’t have the “č” sound, and, acc. to Starostin, regularly replaced PNC “č” with PIE “k”.
OTOH, PNC possessed the “k”-sound, and thus would not have needed to replace it with “č”. .As such, if the direction of borrowing was IE->PNC, the “č” in the PNC root requires borrowing from an already satemized source, i.e. PIA. However, this is chronologically problematic. Archeologically, Hurrian presence in N. Mesopotamia (Urkesh), and their possession of domesticated horses, is attested since (at least) the early 3rd mBC, i.e. contemporary with Corded Ware. If Hurrians stemmed from Kura-Araxes, as commonly believed, and received their ešša from PIE *hekwos, a satemised dialect (PIA) must already have been spoken around the N. Caucasus in the late 4th mBC.

dsjm1 said...



Mikkel Nørtoft - once again, thanks for your excellent work and your willingness to respond to requests here to adjust/update the data.

What stands out about this work is that it is so authoritative and comprehensive. It is very well explained. For me it has been a wonderful tool for illustrating the finds of early R+, R1a & R1a+, R1b & R1b+ and the influence of admixture in the various burial finds.

It is also great for showing the movements of the various HG groups and the EEF arrival. It also helps us in gaining insights as to how the Steppes nomads impacted central and western Europe because we can visually see the coming and going of the various associated cultures over time. It has always been tricky trying to remember what old cultures came before what others and also where they were actually located.

I am in no doubt that a lot more ancient burials will add even more to the story this map tells us so effectively. I also believe this interactive map is going to help researchers significantly in conceptualizing 8000 years of our movements in a way they may not have before. It has for me.

This is a 'watershed' work. Thanks !.

Doug Marker
Australia

Dmytro said...

@FrankN
"All in all, PIE *hekwos is only sufficiently well attested, and regularly formed, in IIR, Tocharian, Italic and Celtic."


Interesting indeed. Thank you .I suppose one could easily write a thick book about all the implications involved.


@Onur Dincer
"PIE was rich in its horse-related vocabulary."


No doubt at all. One wonders if some of these may already have been the "prime" horse-words in some IE-speaking groups from very early times. I am still looking for a good IE root for the Old Slavic "komon" (modern kon,kin) for "male horse".


Another interesting process is how a switch in meaning occurred in French away from the Latin mother language. In Latin the "noble horse" (male and female) was of course "equus, equa", and the later borrowing (probable) "caballus" was a lesser kind of horse (a pack horse, nag, or hack). As was the "jumentum". French adopted "jumentum" for the female horse designation ("jument"). It kept some reflexes of "equus", but the Latin "caballus" turned into "cheval" meaning just plain "horse" but also with noble reflexes a plenty esp. "chevalier" (and similar meanings in other late IE tongues.





Mikkel said...

@dsjm1
Thank you for your kind words. :)

@Joe
"How come I4331 (Y-DNA J2b-L283) from Veliki Vanik, Bronze Age Croatia is not listed, but his female counterpart is? (https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25778)"

I see a male I4331 in Veliki Vanik, Croatia from 1631 BC on the map. Don't you?

Generally, some individuals might not be visible if they are hidden behind another individuals with the same icon (i.e. same colour/ancestry grouping) on the map.
Therefore, if you have someone specific you look for, and you see another individual of the same ancestry grouping on that time and location spot it is probably because they are hidden below them, so it might make more sense to find them in the cited literature (or the supplementary data of the literature).

This is after all only a visualization of data and not a lookup of ancient individuals.

If you see errors in the data on the map according to the literature, I am of course happy to know about them so they can be corrected :)

I have thought about implementing a clustering plugin to make similar individuals stand out from each other, but the solutions I have seen so far, would not work as I want them to for this map, so for now I have opted out on that part. Also because lookup is not the purpose of the map, but rather disseminating prehistoric migrations through data :)

A said...

This time map shows the arrival of Indo-Europeans in Italy but nothing about Greece. Did the Greeks originally come from Corded Ware, Bell Beaker, or directly from Yamnaya?

Mikkel said...

@Philippe
"This time map shows the arrival of Indo-Europeans in Italy but nothing about Greece. Did the Greeks originally come from Corded Ware, Bell Beaker, or directly from Yamnaya?"

The arrival of Indo-Europeans in Greece is a bit of an open question.
It seems that the four Mycenaeans sampled to date might have some ancestry from the steppes, but when it arrived is still unknown.

Actually the arrival of Italic is also unknown since there seem to have been several arrivals of Steppe-related peoples in Italy from the 3rd millennium BCE onwards. :)

A said...

Thanks for the reply.

FrankN said...

Mikkel Nørtoft: Good work! A few comments:

1. Alikemek-Kültepe is dominated by Dalma pottery, and seems to be an offshoot of that culture. Dalma extended through much of Western Iran, from the Kangavar valley and Seh Gabi / Godin Tepe to the South into the Urmia Lake basin (Haji Firuz) and beyond (see https://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_1987_num_13_2_4427 for further details on the distribution). The Dalma period has recently been re-dated to ca. 5,000 - 4,500 BC (https://www.academia.edu/19848008/Fifth_and_Fourth_Millennium_BC_in_North-Western_Iran_Dalma_and_Pisdeli_Revisited ).
You might want to amend your map accordingly, especially as Dalma provides a possible channel for the transmission of wool sheep from the Central Zagros (Sarab) into the Caucasus, and ultimately beyond.

2. Wheels: Note oaji.net/pdf.html?n=2017/4586-1512998526.pdf on the “Starokorsunskaya” wheel (Novosvobodnaya culture) – it is a publication error, the find actually comes from Novokorsunskaya, 80 km further north..This, btw, also implies that you might want to redraw the borders of the Novosvobodnaya culture accordingly.
The Bronocice wheel is just a depiction, not a solid wheel find, and should as such be marked transparent, not with solid white fill.
In general, I find it irritating that you order the presumed wheel finds by their earliest possible date, instead of using the average of the upper and lower chronological bound. This leads to only vaguely and/or stratigraphically dated finds, e.g. the a/m “Starokorsunskaya” wheel (3,500 – 2,200 BC) appearing earlier than precisely dated finds like the Flintbek wheel traces (3420-3390 BC).

3. As concerns mapping of cultures, you might find the following distribution maps (“Verbreitungskarten”) useful:
https://st.museum-digital.de/index.php?style=liste&startwert=0&t=listen&tag_id=14830

They have been prepared by the Saxony Anhalt Archeological Service, the former home base of W. Haak. The maps are a few years old, and require some amendment (a/o w/r to recent finds in Saxony/ Thuringia), but in general much more precise than the maps found on Wikipedia.
Considering that a) NW Bell Beakers apparently arose from the Single Grave Culture, and BB were somewhat antagonistic to Corded Ware, b) Single Grave continues many Bernburg culture traditions, and c) so far we lack Single Grave aDNA to judge the extent to which it was genetically “steppiicised”, it could make sense to differentiate between CWC and Single Grave. Note in this context also Iversen/ Kroonen 2017 “Talking Neolithic ..” arguing for Pre-Germanic originating in the Single Grave Culture.

4. I appreciate that within TRB, you distinguish between the North and the Central (aka Baalberge) Group. Your maps, however, so far miss the south- and westward expansion of TRB North after 3,500 BC that is associated with the spread of megalithic tombs out of the TRB North core (Danish Islands and East Holstein) into the North German plain, and the corresponding cultural sequence of “Tiefstichkeramik” > ”Walternienburg” > ”Bernburg”. The maps under 3) above illustrate this dynamic well for Saxony-Anhalt. For NW Germany & the Netherlands, the chronology is less well resolved. Nevertheless, the map of megalithic tombs under http://www.jna.uni-kiel.de/index.php/jna/article/view/56/58 demonstrates how far to the SW that expansion had reached by ca. 3,200 BC, when erection of megalithic tombs is believed to have ended in NC Europe.
This expansion appears to have had profound genetic effects, noteably strong resurgence of WHG ancestry. For details see my following post.

5. GAC appears to early on your maps. Central GAC is believed to have earliest arisen around 3,400 BC (Bronocice was still TRB). Around 3,200 BC, it forms the Havelland culture around Berlin, from which Western GAC emerges and expands around 3,100 BC (Woydich 2014) The south-eastern expansion took place around 2,950 BC (see https://repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/bitstream/10593/3819/1/BPS8.pdf for details, and maps).

MitchellSince1893 said...

@Mikkel Nørtoft
Great tool!

You have RISE436 as Y-DNA haplogroup R1b1.

But I see where others have him as R1a. For example in this thread.

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-puzzle-of-early-corded-ware-grave_8.html

FrankN said...

Somewhat OT, but connected to my previous post – let me draw attention to a recent publication from the MPI Jena team: Krause-Kyora e.a. “Neolithic and medieval virus genomes reveal complex evolution of Hepatitis B”, https://elifesciences.org/articles/36666 .

The main message sounds familiar: Hepatitis B viruses present in Central Europe during the EN/MN went extinct, to be replaced sometimes between the LN and the High Medieval with the strain haplogroup that is dominating Europe to date. When exactly, and how that happened requires further analysis, but I am optimistic we will get more analyses of this kind.

Somewhat hidden, and poorly discussed, the paper also provides 3 new samples of aDNA that deserve further exploration. Data has been uploaded to the European Nucleotide Archive, accession No. PRJEB24921. I am neither sure if it is the human or the virus aDNA, nor whether it is in usable format. Nevertheless, I would like to ask you, Dave, to check it and, if possible, include it into your G25 dataset for further analysis. The aDNA samples in question are:

1. LBK, Karsdorf (Saxony-Anhalt), 5056–4959 cal BC: In the PCA provided (figure supp. 4), it clusters closely with other LBK samples, so there is not much surprise to be expected from in-depth analysis.

2. Petersberg (SE Bavaria), 1020–1116 cal AD: Surprisingly, clustering amidst Unetice, and certain BB samples from Augsburg (figure supp. 8), pointing at an unexpected degree of population continuity since the EBA (OTOH, SE Bavaria holds several examples of toponymic continuity since Roman times). The closest living population, PCA-wise, seem to be modern Czechs (figure supp. 9). Yeah – Bohemia “home of the Boii”; “Bavaria “where the Boii were”.
It would be interesting to contrast this sample with the recently reported early medieval Bavarian samples that apparently represent Germanic (plus Alan) migrants. [BTW, Dave: I suggest to re-label those samples as Bavaria_EMA (early middle-age) or Bavaria_MP (migration period). We are possibly looking for many more (high/ late) medieval samples, especially from Black Death mass graves (one of which, in Lübeck, has a few years ago already been investigated for aDNA, albeit “only” mtDNA)].

3. TRB-Tiefstichkeramik, Hildesheim-Sorsum, 3335–3107 cal BC: The most interesting of all, as it closes an important geographical, chronological and cultural gap. For the 4k characters limit on individual comments, I will present and discuss it in a separate posting.

Mikkel said...

@MitchellSince1893
"You have RISE436 as Y-DNA haplogroup R1b1.

But I see where others have him as R1a. For example in this thread.

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-puzzle-of-early-corded-ware-grave_8.html"

I got that from the supplementary table of the new Wang et al. paper that incorporated older finds.
Oddly, I cannot seem to get individual Y-haplogroup calls from the Allentoft et al paper. They refer to "Extended data fig. 6" which does not present individual haplogroup calls but only by group. And in that group ("baCW" where RISE436 belongs) they show both R1a, R1b and R1.
I have a text file (which I must admit I don't remember where I got, but I haven't used it for the map) with individual haplogroup calls from Allentoft et al, and there RISE436 is only listed as "R1".
Maybe I am just blind on an early Sunday morning but can anyone tell me more specifically where in Allentoft et al. it is shown that RISE436 is R1a and not R1b or just R1?

@Davidski, where did you see the individual haplogroup call for RISE436 when you made the post about Tiefbrunn that is referred to here?

Mikkel said...

@FrankN
Thank you so much for your thorough and constructive notes (and links!). I will look into them next week :)

Onur Dincer said...

@Mikkel Nørtoft

Thanks for your work! The Iron Age Anatolian you use has minor steppe admixture like Mycenaeans do, so it seems strange to me her to be shown as "CHG" while Mycenaeans are shown as "Steppe".

Davidski said...

@Mikkel

The individual Y-haplogroup calls for the samples from Allentoft at al. are listed here...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9o3EYTdM8lQaU54RWc0eEV2WUU/view?usp=sharing

This list is from the authors. I'm sure you can confirm these results by getting in touch with them, and specifically with Morten Allentoft.

But my R1a classification for RISE436 is based on the calls from the BAM file, so perhaps controversial?

Mikkel said...

@Davidski
"https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9o3EYTdM8lQaU54RWc0eEV2WUU/view?usp=sharing

This list is from the authors. I'm sure you can confirm these results by getting in touch with them, and specifically with Morten Allentoft."

Thank you! It seems the "obscure" text file of the Y-calls I had lying around wasn't that obscure after all, then.
And there it is listed as "R1", so I think I'll just keep it as that for now (I have corrected it in my datafile but not uploaded it yet).

@Onur Dincer
"The Iron Age Anatolian you use has minor steppe admixture like Mycenaeans do, so it seems strange to me her to be shown as "CHG" while Mycenaeans are shown as "Steppe"."

Ok, I'll check him out once more in the publication :)

epoch said...

@Mikkel and David

Ha! RISE436 again. Mathieson had him assigned as R1b1. I emailed him about that and his answer was that it was based on L1349, being a C->T mutation. He stated that the sample wasn't UDG-treated and was not very high coverage so could be wrong.

Mikkel said...

Thank you for that information, @epoch!
I think I'll just leave it at R1, then :)

Folker said...

@Mikkel
I don't know if it is caused by my browser, but Kumtepe is localised in Greece/Trace instead of Anatolia (Varna is also in the Black Sea).

Garvan said...

Folker said...
@Mikkel
I don't know if it is caused by my browser, but Kumtepe is localised in Greece/Trace instead of Anatolia (Varna is also in the Black Sea).

I think this is just inaccuracies in how the graphical map is projected in the software. If you zoom in on the area of interest the location of the pins should be more accurate.

Garvan

Richard Rocca said...

There is very little doubt that RISE436 is R1a. See here:

https://anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?10749-Corded-Ware-origin-for-P312&p=240573&viewfull=1#post240573

Mikkel said...

@Folker and @Garvan.
Yes this is because I use a small fixed offset (in pixels) of the different symbols so different ancestry individuals can be distinguished although they are at the same location.

The downside to this is that this fixed offset appears bigger when the map is zoomed out, but I think it is most important to be able to see different ancestry types at the same location, when you can still get a more exact location by zooming in :)

Ric Hern said...


Within which Culture did R1b L51 originate ? Suvorovo-Novodanilovka ?

dsjm1 said...

Ric Ahern,

If anyone can answer that question today they may get a Nobel prize :) (humour intended). There are many of us really keen to track down L51 (and L11) places of origin. Also L151.

The answer to this is a major point of debate.

Cheers Doug M

Ric Hern said...

@ Doug M

Yes, I was just looking at the Map and what I see is that Suvorovo was split in two. One West and the other East of Cucuteni Tripolye with no obvious connecting route. Did the Western Suvorovo migrate straight through Cucuteni territory ?

Folker said...

@Ric
You must understand that prehistoric cultures are not geographically precisely delimited. And that a region can be home of different cultures, as space was not used the same way by each of them. It is especially true if one culture is based on pastoralism and the other one on farming.

Dmytro said...

@ Ric Hem

N.Kotova interprets the burials of "Suvorovo-Danilovka" as those of the Sredny Stog chiefs who actively participated in trade with the farming West. They were buried where they died, some in the heartland, others on the Danubian frontier.

Ric Hern said...

@ Dmytro

Yes but still that Suvorovo to the West (Left) of Cucuteni looks interesting.

Dmytro said...

@ Ric

The "western" Suvorovo-Danilovka should still be a bit to the east of CT, in the steppe close to the Danube. If it is to the wast of CT there is a glitch in the map.

Ric Hern said...

@ Mikkel Nørtoft

Can you throw some light on that Suvorovo West of Cucuteni ? Is it a glitch ?

Ric Hern said...

@ Dmytro

It looks like it is correct. Apparently a smaller group of Suvoro split from the rest and spread through the Transylvanian Plateau and down the Mureş River into Hungary....

Ric Hern said...

If there are any truth to the supposed Shared Archaisms in Celtic,Italic,Hittite and Tocharian and Proto-Hittites originated due to a migration of Suvoro people then the Suvorovo people of Decea Muresului could have contributed something to Italo-Celtic, and maybe even R1b L51 and L151....

So maybe Proto-Italic-Celtic originated due to a mixture of Middle and Late Proto-Indo-European dialects ?

Mikkel said...

@Dmytro and @Ric Hern:
The Suvorovo-Novodanilovka west of Cucuteni-Tripolye is represented in David Anthony's (2007) map (fig. 11.6 on p. 241) by the sites Csongrad and Decea Muresuliu.
The sites are also mentioned in his chapter on Suvorovo-Novodanilovka p. 249-262 :)

Dmytro said...

But we know only graves and no settlements in the Suvorovo-Danilovka sites of the west (unlike the Sredny Stog heartland). So Kotova's point is not refuted.

Mikkel said...

@Ric Hern

Anything is possible of course, but I don't see the scenario as very probable.

As far as I can understand from Anthony's book, the western Suvorovo (the ones at the two sites Csongrad and Decea Muresuliu) probably only reflect the mobility of very few individuals, so i don't think they would be a group worth of any serious consideration in terms of the language tree, and I don't know that they lived on in the area to see the Yamnaya arrive and mix with them :)

Ric Hern said...

@ Dmytro

How many Yamnaya Settlements are there in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe ?

Ric Hern said...

@ Mikkel Nørtoft

Yes maybe, but R1b L51 and L151 isn't exactly plentiful in samples of the Eastern Steppe sofar...but yes anything is possible...

Mikkel said...

@Ric Hern
"How many Yamnaya Settlements are there in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe ?"

They normally say something like "no settlements east of the Don", so I get your point on that. But there are of course many cemeteries/sites, and (to my knowledge) only two Suvorovo cemteries/sites west of Cucuteni, so I would say that is not a very strong presence :)

Mikkel said...

By the way.
I just updated the R1-haplogroup tree for the map (link in the legend below the map).

Dmytro said...

@ Ric

There is some information available about particular Yamna settlements in the P.C. steppe. Not too much unfortunately. Practically all so far discovered (about a dozen) are located between Don and Danube. The best known one, and most studied (perhaps even a kind of "center") is Mykhajlivka (upper stratum). The lower strata represent a different culture, pre-Yamna "Lower Mykhajlivka" (with strong Crimean /Kemi-Oba/and Caucasian /Majkop/ contacts. There is a problem in identifying "semi-nomad" settlements but it is accepted that such did exist. As well as "nomad" ones (seasonal occupation).

Ric Hern said...

@ Mikkel Nørtoft
@ Dmytro

Thanks. Yes you both have valid points. However people sometimes break their traditions when facing tough circumstances in order to survive...

Mikkel said...

The map now also features a layer with the first appearances of Indo-European languages :)

archlingo said...

Thansk for the wonderful interactive map. However,
1. Regarding the entries for the Bell Beaker culture, the results of Olalde et al. contradict all archaeological papers from Müller in both the spacial and the chronological aspect.
2. I cannot chack the References of the interac tive map because the link does not work in any browser. Pleas tell the user what is needed to open that link.
Thank You. lingo