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Sunday, February 17, 2019

On Maykop ancestry in Yamnaya


What Maykop ancestry in Yamnaya? There is none, or at least not enough worth discussing, except in one highly unusual female outlier from a burial in what is now eastern Ukraine. But apparently this is still up for debate? Well it shouldn't be.


To anyone with even a passing interest in the Yamnaya culture, it should be rather obvious that it formed during the tail end of the Eneolithic on the Pontic-Caspian steppe, as basically a direct offshoot of the earlier Repin culture, but perhaps also with significant influences from the earlier still Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog cultures. So why should its population history be much different from this?

It isn't, and this is fairly easy to demonstrate now despite the still rather poor sampling of Eneolithic remains from the Pontic-Caspian steppe.

Below is a series of qpAdm analyses in which I modeled several Yamnaya groups, as well as the closely related Afanasievo and Poltavka populations, exclusively and successfully as two- and three-way mixtures of a few Eneolithic singletons from various parts of the Pontic-Caspian steppe (obviously, I'd love to use homogeneous population sets instead, but, as per my point above, that's not possible yet). The models are sorted by their statistical fits, best to worst. Also note the large number and wide range of right pops or outgroups. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing anything.

Yamnaya_Samara
Dereivka_I_I4110 0.324±0.035
Progress_Eneolithic_PG2004 0.676±0.035
chisq 6.797
tail prob 0.976979
Full output

Afanasievo
Progress_Eneolithic_PG2004 0.638±0.038
Sredny_Stog_II_I6561 0.362±0.038
chisq 10.855
tail prob 0.818366
Full output

Yamnaya_Ukraine
Progress_Eneolithic_PG2001 0.655±0.073
Sredny_Stog_II_I6561 0.345±0.073
chisq 12.676
tail prob 0.696277
Full output

Poltavka
Dereivka_I_I4110 0.324±0.038
Progress_Eneolithic_PG2004 0.676±0.038
chisq 12.895
tail prob 0.680437
Full output

Yamnaya_Caucasus
Khvalynsk_Eneolithic_I0122 0.086±0.054
Sredny_Stog_II_I6561 0.221±0.070
Vonyuchka_Eneolithic_VJ1001 0.693±0.101
chisq 13.113
tail prob 0.593562
Full output

So, you might ask, is there any way to add Maykop to these models? Nope, it's pointless, because it doesn't improve the stats (for instance, see here, here and here). In other words, the situation is this: I already have awesome models, and I can't readily fit Maykop into my framework, so why do it? But if anyone out there wants to try, then by all means, and feel free to share the results with us in the comments.

Of course, the fact that most of these Yamnaya and Yamnaya-related populations are best modeled with somewhat different Eneolithic steppe singletons doesn't mean that they have radically different origins. In fact, they're all very closely related and they're basically like one Bronze Age steppe family. They just harbor somewhat different ratios of the same ancient ancestral components.

For the sake of being thorough, as per scientific literature, I pooled all of the above Afanasievo, Poltavka and Yamnaya samples into a Steppe_EMBA set and analyzed it with several genetically and geographically matching pairs of the Eneolithic singletons. This was one of the best fitting models, which I think is interesting, because the region roughly between the burial sites of these pairs of Eneolithic individuals was the home of the Repin culture.

Steppe_EMBA
North_Pontic_Eneolithic_I4110-I656 0.313±0.027
Progress_Eneolithic_PG2001-PG2004 0.687±0.027
chisq 15.378
tail prob 0.497157
Full output

Again, adding Maykop to this model makes no sense (see here, here and here). Clearly, I'd have to come up with a very different framework to successfully model Steppe_EMBA with a Maykop population. However, it's unlikely that such a model would make much sense in the context of various other types of genetic analyses and archeological data.

See also...

Yamnaya: home-grown

Big deal of 2018: Yamnaya not related to Maykop

Yamnaya isn't from Iran just like R1a isn't from India

256 comments:

1 – 200 of 256   Newer›   Newest»
Andrzejewski said...

In the video that Shishlina posted at the Vienna conference she said that the findings rule out any evidence of large scale migration from Maykop to the Steppe. The Steppe groups also had a more varied diet than the Caucasus one had. She even outlined that there was a small migration of Maykop groups to the Steppe but they were not adapted to the climate and geography and therefore headed back.

a said...


Sabine Reinhold and Shishlina contributions to Yamnaya and Maikop difference.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321300884_Contextualising_Innovation_Cattle_Owners_and_Wagon_Drivers_in_the_North_Caucasus_and_Beyond

Contextualising Innovation: Cattle Owners and Wagon Drivers in the North Caucasus and Beyond
Chapter (PDF Available) · November 2017 with 533 Reads
In book: Appropriating Innovations: Entangled Knowledge in Eurasia, 5000-150 BCE, Publisher: Oxbow Books, Editors: Joseph Maran, Philipp Stockhammer, pp.78-97



......The mere existence of burial mounds in steppe environments has long been considered an argument in favour of the mobility of these groups. More recently, new evidence like the seasons of the burial events or isotope analyses disclosing dietary habits have shored up this hypothesis (Shishlina 2008)......


......Giving the dead a wagon in the steppe zone was the equivalent of bestowing enormous wealth on them. While the piedmont and piedmont steppe zone inhabited by Maikop or North Caucasian Culture communities had the abundance of high-quality timber needed to build wooden wagons, steppe environments provide very little of the raw materials required to make functional vehicles.....


......The transport of infrastructure such as tents, containers and food supplies may have been the prime mover for steppe people to adopt carts and wagon. Providing a deceased individual with a wagon enabled him or her, in the afterlife, to participate in the mobile lifestyle of the community. Mobility is the pertinent narrative, not the subjugation of nature. ......

Andrzejewski said...

At least Shishlina ruled out any Maykop migration to the Steppe. As for the CHG component found there I believe that it was due to post-LGM expansion of Kotias-like groups to the Piedmont after 10,000BC and that they differed culturally from CHG in the Caucasus. I still believe that the Steppe Kurgan ancestry arose after 7000YBP (=5000BC) as the earliest PIE speakers descended south and west into territory inhabited by CHG foragers and the ensuing homogenization created the so-called "Steppe ancestry".

All in all, PIE was created wholly on the Steppe (although I still wonder who the ORIGINAL speaker of the language was, when and where).

a said...

Metal composition/shape 3000+/-BC elite kurgan burial.
Yamnaya-SVP58/I0444 (central grave 1, kurgan 4, 3335-2881 calBCE
pure copper
" buried with the largest metal object found in a Yamnaya grave
anywhere26. The object was a blunt mace 48 cm long, 767 g in weight, cast/annealed and
made of pure copper, like most Yamnaya metal objects."

Late Maykop 3348-3035 calBCE MK5001.A0101.TF1+ B0101.TF1

"... bronze weapons and a ceramic vessel.... "

Samuel Andrews said...

Whether, people like it or not, the Proto-Indo European speaking Kurgan culture deserves an entire chapter in human history.
Whether, people like it or not, their genetic legacy is an important reason.
Whether, people like it or not, the driving force which created the genetics of Kurgan people & Kurgan culture didn't originate in the Near East.

Samuel Andrews said...

"a", thanks for the links. It's hard to find articles on the topic you want.

A said...

@ a

`The earliest evidence of wheeled vehicles is from Cucuteni-Trypillia (which mixed with Sredny Stog), not Maykop.

Vara said...

No such thing found in CT. What was found in CT is animal figurines on wheels and a cup on wheels, not even a depiction of a wagon. The oldest depiction of a wagon is the Bronocice pot which dates around the same time as Novokorsunskaya.

Drago said...

The earliest Wagon in steppe burial is from Zhivotilovo-Volchansk horizon; immediately pre-Yamnaya
Ozera outlier fits the profile .

Davidski said...

@Dragos

Ozera outlier fits the profile.

A female with no grave inventory?

Davidski said...

@All

Sorry about the stub of a blog post, the full post is coming later today and I promise you'll love it.

Not only will it demolish the notion that there's any Maykop ancestry in Yamnaya, but it will also have some interesting output in regards to Afanasievo.

A said...

@Vara

there are various 'stylised wagon models' from Cucuteni-Trypillia (what you described as a cup). Then later there's evidence of wheeled vehicles in Poland (Bronocice and Germany (Flintbeck), followed by north of the Caucasus.

"Maran (2004) suggests the Late Tripolye culture [Ukraine] as the most likely place of origin for wheeled vehicles. Late Tripolye is the only culture to show evidence of wagons predating 3500 BCE (Burmeister 2004), in the form of drinking cups provided with rotating model wheels and with ox foreparts protruding from the front of the cup. In addition to these wagon-shaped drinking cups, there are numerous Late Tripolye drinking cups in the shape of an ox-pulled sledge, which is thought to be the immediate predecessor of the ox-pulled wagon."

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DagXCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT82&pg=PT78#v=onepage&q&f=false

Drago said...

@ Davidski

''A female with no grave inventory?''
Not her specifically; but I suspect her genomic profile might be part of the spectrum introduced during the said horizon; which a relatively brief, numerically small but culturally interesting phenomenom.

Davidski said...

@All

I updated the post. Check out the models.

Yamnaya was practically derived entirely from several Eneolithic populations that preceded it on the Pontic-Caspian steppe.

Ric Hern said...

So did everybody come together near the Middle Don ?

a said...

Ric Hern said...
So did everybody come together near the Middle Don ?

I wonder?
By parsing the mixture data defining Yamnaya and Maikop -by accident reveal the connection region/s connecting all steppe groups. [Corded Ware -CW Bell Beaker- Afansievo- Yamnaya -Sintashta etc.....

Samuel Andrews said...

@Davidski,
"A female with no grave inventory?"

Sexist.

Matt said...

Good post. Using UkraineEn as I4110 and I6561, and PG2004, there should be minimal additional admix from Maykop.

Graphically, using the same G25 meta PCA from my post in the other thread, if you draw a line from the midpoint between I4110 and I6561 to PG2004, it basically intersects Yamnaya perfectly, not leaving any room for Maykop admix: https://imgur.com/a/IZqbs7s

Varying inputs from PG2004 to PG2001/VJ1001 should allow models to encompass all the Steppe EMBA variation without extra Caucasus related ancestry (even if, like for Yamnaya Caucasus, it is somewhat plausible for there to be some).

So I guess it's not surprising that the model would end up with that composition, with a little room for Khvalysnk (very small amounts!) for extra EHG relatedness.

(Chad's models don't do this of course because he is using this earlier Ukraine samples which are richer in HG components and there is more "room" for Maykop like components).

The only model that works with Steppe_Maykop then, out of the output, is the model specified by the line output:

fixed pat -- wt -- dof -- chisq -- tail prob -- (proportions)
0100 -- 1 -- 15 -- 15.303 -- 0.429813 -- 0.614 0.000 0.328 0.058


That is: Ciscaucasia_Eneolithic_PG2004-VJ1001 61.4%, Khvalynsk 0%, NorthPontic_Eneo-I4110-I6561 32.8%, Steppe_Maykop 5.8%. (So Khvalysnk or Steppe_Maykop, but not both!).

Basically because Khvalysnk and Steppe_Maykop are close enough in this regard to providing a little extra ANE related ancestry. But of course the model fit with Khvalysnk works slightly better at 0.585945, and is geographically more plausible.

All this of course raises the question of what I4110 and I6561 are as well! If they model as Trypillia+PG2001/VJ1001+UkraineN, then it will be further more persuasive that Maykop input is totally extraneous (because these Ukraine Eneolithic themselves can be totally understood in north of caucasus post-eneolithic terms).

Be interested to see Chad's response.

George said...

A bit off topic.

Florian Klimscha:
Transforming Technical Know-how in Time and Space. Using the Digital Atlas of Innovations to Understand the Innovation Process of Animal Traction and the Wheel.

https://refubium.fuberlin.de/bitstream/handle/fub188/22043/Klimscha_0404.pdf?sequence=1

"The Digital Atlas of Innovations is a new research tool that can map repartitions of artifact types, styles, and techniques. The Atlas also includes a research program where the results of scientific discussions are turned into interactive and interoperable maps, which in themselves are a tool to ask new questions.3 The maps not only allow for an enhanced visualization of scientific problems, but also offer a novel heuristic approach that enables researchers to reconceptualize these problems and work on new solutions. This paper will demonstrate the use of the Digital Atlas of Innovations by studying the development of wheeled vehicles in the 4th and 3rd millennium BC."

There are many figures in the paper, see Fig 27, 28, 38, and 43.

Also: http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-homeland-in-footprints-of-early.html


Andrzejewski said...

@JuanRivera " The cause of Steppe Maykop affinity in Khvalynsk most plausibly is because of a mixed Piedmont-West_Siberia_N/Botai population in the North Caspian semidesert that was ancestral to Steppe Maykop and contributed to Khvalynsk."

That's new to me! Steppe Maykop did NOT contribute to Khvalynsk. That's the whole underlying theme of what the authors said.

Staying on topic, who do you think is responsible for the transformation from Samara archeological culture/settlement into Khvalynsk?

Andrzejewski said...

Do you attribute the creation of PIE language to the intrusion of Piedmont groups or was it more of a mixed language of EHG and CHG? Or was it a completely brand new language isolate, unrelated to either Piedmont groups nor to ANE/EHG Samara groups preceding it?

Andrzejewski said...

There are two things that grabbed my attention here:

I. Sredny Stog I were an indigenous population somewhat similar to Yamnaya but with different components. I remember @Dadidski writing that this particular population was displaced or replaced by incoming Yamnaya-like population from Repin or Khvalynsk. So maybe Sredny Stog I did not contribute to the evolution or creation of Yamnaya and it may be that a more NorthEasernly wave of migrants from Samara/Khvalyns/Repin only spoke PIE? Or para-PIE? etc.

II. There seemed to be a sudden upturning of cultures from Samara which seemed more sedentary and forgarer-like to Khvalynsk, which was more hierarchical, nomadic, pastoralist and with an increased CHG ratio from 0 to 30%. Would you attribute this sudden cultural change/metamorphosis to CHG Piedmont groups perhaps being the aristocracy ruling elite (="Arya"?) or was it more of a local development?

Who do you think "invented" the pre-PIE phylum?

EastPole said...

@JuanRivera
“Piedmont groups, who also contributed to Sredny Stog.”

How did Piedmont groups contribute to Sredny Stog? By mixing with whom?

About a year ago when Wang’s preprint was published I was speculating about possible model for IE Yamnaya’s origin:

1. Pre-PIE Khvalynsk + not-IE Trioplye = PIE Sredny Stog II (red arrows)
2. PIE Sredny Stog II + not-IE Eneolithic Caucasus Steppe = IE Yamanya (blue arrows)

https://s15.postimg.cc/i75j6vayz/screenshot_396.png

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/05/whats-maykop-or-iran-got-to-do-with-it-2.html?showComment=1527779480522#c8727679008227566092

David Anthony in his recently quoted opinion (in the article to which David removed the link because it was crap) stated that” Indo-European precursor languages originated among steppe herders”. IE precursor languages i.e. pre-PIE languages originated on the steppe but PIE most likely originated when steppe herders interacted with EEF, it happened probably at the eastern border of Tripolye i.e. Sredny Stog II.

Davidski said...

@George

Thanks for that article. The link wasn't working for me though, so here's a new link...

Transforming Technical Know-how in Time and Space. Using the Digital Atlas of Innovations to Understand the Innovation Process of Animal Traction and the Wheel

I'll blog about this after I read it a couple of times, and I'll try to weave the data from Wang et al. into the blog post, because a couple of the Steppe Maykop samples actually come from a very early wagon burial.

EastPole said...

@JuanRivera
“When refering about Piedmont, I was refering to Vonyuchka and Progress, who admixed with Ukraine_N and EEF to form Sredny Stog II”

Isn’t Sredny Stog II older than Eneolithic Piedmont?

Davidski said...

@EastPole

Isn’t Sredny Stog II older than Eneolithic Piedmont?

The samples we have are all from around 4,000 BC, but the trio from the Piedmont steppe are probably a couple hundred years older than Sredny Stog II I6561.

However, this doesn't mean that there was a migration from the Piedmont steppe that resulted in the CHG ancestry in people like Sredny Stog II I6561.

A more likely explanation is that the Sredny Stog II and Piedmont steppe populations shared ancestry from a group living somewhere between eastern Ukraine and the North Caucasus, because those Piedmont steppe samples are thought to be the descendants of migrants to that Piedmont region from the north.

Drago said...


@ Davidski
I posted that Klimscha weeks few weeks ago., George must have been inspired

essentially Klimscha suggests components of an idea are transmitted and locally incorporated
A breakdown of metallurgical transmissions would also be interesting, and how they link with certain individuals or groups

andrew said...

Not disputing the genetics.

It would seem to follow, therefore, that all of the steppe IE cultural and technology borrowing into steppe culture for things like Neolithic packages, metallurgy, and shifts in religious practice that arise at the same time, probably have to arrive via the Balkans. Correct?

The larger narrative would be that these Eastern Hunter gather culture + Balkan borrowing + local domestication of the horse and invention of the wheel, gives rise to a vital rapidly expanding IE culture that can be dominant when the other cultures of Europe and Central Asia, South Asia and West Asia are on the ropes due to unfavorable climate events.

Drago said...

The interesting thing is that there doesn’t seem to be a huge metal production south of the Caucasus; where Majkop arrived from; until Kura-Arax (which is after Majkop).
On the other hand, Majkop chiefs accumulated a lot of metal weapons as display, but there is not much evidence as to where they actually produced it

Davidski said...

@All

I swapped the Steppe_EMBA three-way model with a two-way model.

The simpler the better.

Davidski said...

@Dragos

The interesting thing is that there doesn’t seem to be a huge metal production south of the Caucasus; where Majkop arrived from; until Kura-Arax (which is after Majkop).

True, but with at least one major exception: Leyla Tepe, which had more advanced metal production know-how and higher quality metal than Kura-Araxes.

It seems that Maykop got its metal and/or metal production technology from Leyla Tepe.

But when Leyla Tepe and Maykop disappeared, so did their high quality metal. Kura-Araxes and Yamnaya had lower quality metal, but that didn't seem to bother them. As some 20th century dictator once said: Quantity has a quality all its own.

Matt said...

@Dragos, in terms of the materials, the suggestion by Anthony is that Maykop produced metals essentially from "The upper Kuban River is a metal-rich zone. The Elbrusskyi mine on the headwaters of the Kuban, 35 km northwest of Elbruz Mountain (the highest peak in the North Caucasus) produces copper, silver, and lead. The Urup copper mine, on the upper Urup River, a Kuban tributary, had ancient workings that were visible in the early twentieth century. Granitic gold ores came from the upper Chegem River near Nalchik." Not excavations on the mountain.

("All the richest graves and hoards of the early period were in the Kuban River region")

Essentially along the lines that Maykop extension into the Kuban Steppe was to feed demands for metals. This is the part of the Maykop horizon beyond the mountain flank, in the steppe, in the west, where they would be interacting with Repin, where we have no samples.

Since he sees it as a pretty long distance phenomenon, there's no necessary reason that the know-how had to have come from the same exact place as most of the Maikop culture (could have come from further afield).

He then states that "But the supply of new valuables dried up when the Late Uruk long-distance exchange system collapsed about 3100 BCE. Mesopotamian cities began to struggle with internal problems that we can perceive only dimly, their foreign agents retreated, and in the mountains the people of the ETC (Early Trans-Caucasian Culture) attacked and burned Arslantepe and Hacinebi on the upper Euphrates. Se Girdan stood abandoned. This was also the end of the Maikop culture". That is, Maykop not viable as subsistence, only through exploiting mineral wealth and when that become not viable, so did the Maykop presence on the steppes.

He repeatedly emphasises this contact with Maykop as a phase of shaping change and contact for Repin, though he emphatically does not see this as a source of language shift.

For more I've stuck the relevant excerpts on a pastebin:

The First Cities and Their Connection to the Steppes - https://pastebin.com/g6mwMBjy (for info on Maykop)

The Five Cultures of the Final Eneolithic in the Steppes - https://pastebin.com/mfjZjE5N (for information on the steppe picture; contains the interesting suggestion that "Perhaps Repin specialized in raising horses for export to North Caucasian traders (?).")

Michalis Moriopoulos said...

"As some 20th century dictator once said: Quantity has a quality all its own."

^ And appropriately enough, it was a Caucasian who supposedly said it. :)

Samuel Andrews said...

Thanks for sharing those links Matt!

Andrzejewski said...

@Andrew "The larger narrative would be that these Eastern Hunter gather culture + Balkan borrowing + local domestication of the horse and invention of the wheel, gives rise to a vital rapidly expanding IE culture that can be dominant when the other cultures of Europe and Central Asia, South Asia and West Asia are on the ropes due to unfavorable climate events."

You forgot the CHG in the mix. EEF was about 15% of Yamnaya, and it did seem to have arrived via Balkans.

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

You forgot the CHG in the mix. EEF was about 15% of Yamnaya, and it did seem to have arrived via Balkans.

CHG is part of the Eastern forager package.

There was a cline in CHG ancestry in steppe foragers, with lots of it in the southern foragers from near the Caucasus, and much less in those from up north.

Andrzejewski said...

@Dragos No way! Kura-Araxes was before Maykop. Modern identification is for KA to be the putative Proto-Hurrian-Urartu founding culture, which has been absorbed subsequently by Armenians and Kurds, while Maykop is regarded to be ancestral to NW Caucasus language family. The "Europoid" admixture I had referred to in past posts might be due to Steppe population incursion from up North.

Speaking of Hurrains (Kura-Araxes?), they remain a mystery. According to a recent posting here on this blog they were found out to be 55% Anatolia_N with most of the rest CHG. It's interesting that the legendary figure named "Abraham" came from Harran, a Hurrian (not Semitic!) city/center, and many Hebrew biblical customs in described in the book of Genesis turned out to be Hurrian rather than Semitic. Even the word "Hebrew" (="Happiru") meant "wanderer" in Hurrian. Does it allude to a large scale Iran_Chl/Anatolia_N into the Levant, whereby Natufians (Levant_N) admixed with CHG, Iran_Chl and Anatolia_N (EEF) to form the current extant Middle Eastern population? Hard to tell.

There was a recent study published by Dr. Lazaridis pointing out that a cave in Northern Israel (Peki'in) was a focal point indicating a population turnover circa 6500YBP, where the cemetery was 57% Levant_N, 29% Anatolia_N and the rest was either Iran_Chl or CHG. Same study found out a prevalence of blue eyes in that population, with Lazaridis indicating that Copper Age Israel had more blue eyes percentage within the population than Russian Steppe (Yamnaya, Khvalynsk?) at the same time. Did the blue eyed population came with the Anatolian Farmers?

Andrzejewski said...

@All It would be interesting if they could isolate the Sumerian samples and single them out, analyzing them in the process. Sumerian is thought to be a language isolate, but some linguists link them with the Tibeto-Burman macro-family. There was also a discernible Euphratean/Ubaidian substratum in Sumerian. I wonder if the Uruk expansion into the Caucasus and Anatolia had anything to do with Sumerians, Ubaidian or a mixed population, and how much actually current modern populations derive their ancestry from them, if at all. The Wikipedia entry about Nakh-Dagestani points out that they may stem (according to Dr. Joanna Nichols) from an ancient population of Northern Mesopotamia, and researchers found out not too long ago that mtDNA turnover in the Caucasus was almost non existent in the last 8000 years. I kinda tend to attribute it to a Neolithic Anatolian Farmer population rather than an Iran_N one.

Drago said...

@ Andre

''No way! Kura-Araxes was before Maykop. ''

How's that ? Majkop dates from 3800 BC, Kura-Arax to 3500 - at the earliest.
Early Majkop aligns with the Leila-Tepe horizon south of the Caucasus, and features Uruk-type ceramics. On the other hand, late Majkop shares similar ceramic repertoire with K-A.
In fact, K-A can be modelled as descending from (genetically) Late Majkop quite well, but not entirely so.

Drago said...

@ Matt. / Davidski

Yes I agree. Majkop might have brought its industry with it from the south , althugh some post-Balkan influences might have worked there also.
As per Adnre above, Majkop is just the northern extension of a larger horizon-: Leila-Tepe, Chaff-Ware, post-Ubeid Late Chalcolithic.
But my remark was highlighting that it is only in Majkop that such wealth seems to accumulate, and not in any of its related groups further south. As per Chernykh
''One very paradoxical situation was close connected with
Proto-CMP. In practice all mining, metallurgical and metalworking
focuses were located in the southern zone of province
occupied by settle farming communities: the Late Uruk
and its synchronous cultures and sites in Anatolia, Kura-
Arax and some others cultures in the Southern Caucasus
(Fig. 4, map). But in addition to that we must note that the
lion share of different metals artifacts was concentrated in
the famous and rich elite’ graves of the northern pastoral
culture kurgan cemeteries – so called Maykop kurgan community
(Fig. 4).''

''Kura-Araxes and Yamnaya had lower quality metal, ''

Not necessarily - there was no longer the monopolization seen in Majkop.
Yamnaya metal is heterogenoeus. At Kargaly it was still pure copper of local ores, however, in western Yamnaya, & Balkans, the Arsenic alloy is seen; and also in Catacomb culture (perhaps using / taking over Caucasian ores).

The other aspect is that, south of the Caucasus, the metal industry begins to flourish after the demise of Majkop. Again per Chernykh- ''However the picture of distribution of the mass of the major metals – Cu (bronzes), Au and Ag – between South and North of CMP assumed s. c. “normal” aspect. In CMP’ system the lion share of copper and bronzes concentrated in the CMP’ southern area. And at the same time the gold and silver ornaments were found in complexes of the northern stock-breeding zone extremely rare.''

lastly, the missing data-points for Balkans (4000-3000 BC) will be intersting (w.r.t earlier dabates on ''waves''), in light of new modelling possibilities. These might be answered soon.

Andrzejewski said...

@Dragos You would love to read this research paper below:

https://web.archive.org/web/20131007054232/http://www.science.org.ge/moambe/6-2/153-161%20Pitskhelauri.pdf

Discusses the role large scale Uruk expansion immigration played in the development of Maykop, KA cultures.

Andrzejewski said...

"Initially, it was considered that this wave of Mesopotamian migrants were representatives of the Ubeid
culture [40], and for quite some time this was an accepted view among scholars. Today, they are determined, and rightly so, as belonging to a later, Uruk
period [21; 26; 27] when the Mesopotamian culture
spread wider in the western and north-eastern direction. The data obtained in the Caucasus area confirm
movement of migrants in large masses and rather intensively to the north as well."

So it was in all likelihood Sumerian-speakers rather than Euphratean/Ubaidian-speakers who colonized the Caucasus. If only we could find any extant Caucasian language similar to Sumerian. But what if Kartvelian is actually a branch of Ubaidian, a pre-Sumerian substrate?

Drago said...

They could be “Uruk migrants”, or Urukized locals from east Anatolia, South Caucasus etc
We’d need preceding genomes (Shuvaleri etc) to detect such a proposed migration
My hunch is that LeilaTepe-Majkop are in fact mostly local, trans-cultural phenomena

Aram said...

Andrezeweski

Hurrian do show connection with Sumerian. And not only in basic vocabulary. This doesn't necessarily means that Hurrian is a language of Uruk migrants. But it almost certainly means that Hurro Urartian is a farming language who had a successfull expansion in EBA.


https://www.academia.edu/1950133/Lexical_isoglosses_between_Sumerian_and_Hurro-Urartian_possible_historical_scenarios._DRAFT

Aram said...

Those so called Uruk migrants are in reality migrants from North Mesopotamia and NW Iran at best. They introduced haplogroups like L, T, E into Caucasus. Did they have a long lasting linguistic impact? Hard to say. But most of founder effects that Caucasian nations have are in haplogroup G, and J.
I suspect that there is a E-M84 starcluster in Kura Araxes. But this offcourse wouldn't mean that Kura Araxes was speaking an Uruk language.

Davidski said...

@All

I'd really like to underline that, apart from the fact that it's not parsimonious to try to model Yamnaya/Steppe_EMBA as Maykop + Ukraine_N, it generally also isn't useful from a purely statistical point of view.

The stats don't improve, they all worsen, often dramatically, and Maykop and Ukraine_N usually barely score anything as mixture sources. For example...

Yamnaya_Samara as Maykop_Late + Dereivka_I_I4110 + Progress_Eneolithic_PG2004 + Ukraine_N > 0.654068 (full output)

Yamnaya_Samara as Maykop_Novosvobodnaya + Dereivka_I_I4110 + Progress_Eneolithic_PG2004 + Ukraine_N > infeasible (full output)

vs

Yamnaya_Samara as just Dereivka_I_I4110 + Progress_Eneolithic_PG2004 > 0.976979 (full output)

...

Steppe_EMBA as Maykop_Late + North_Pontic_Eneolithic_I4110-I656 + Progress_Eneolithic_PG2001-PG2004 + Ukraine_N > 0.0401225 (full output)

Steppe_EMBA as Maykop_Novosvobodnaya + North_Pontic_Eneolithic_I4110-I656 + Progress_Eneolithic_PG2001-PG2004 + Ukraine_N > 0.273707 (full output)

vs

Steppe_EMBA as just North_Pontic_Eneolithic_I4110-I656 + Progress_Eneolithic_PG2001-PG2004 > 0.497157 (full output)

Sariputta said...

Who cares? There's a reason Yamnaya could never conquer the Caucasus because Caucasians dominate MMA/UFC..... if you want to see a how a Yamnna vs. Maykop showdown would go about in real life, go watch re-runs of Khabib vs. McGregor to get some idea of the poundage.

Davidski said...

Well done, comment of the year, and it's only February.

Arza said...

@ Davidski
What happened here?

0000 0 14 7.370 0.919522 0.333 0.016 0.669 -0.018 infeasible
0001 1 15 37.616 0.00102804 0.281 0.047 0.664 0.008
0010 1 15 38.678 0.000715894 -13.019 6.449 -0.266 7.836 infeasible

Shouldn't these values be 0?

Andrzejewski said...

@Aram "Those so called Uruk migrants are in reality migrants from North Mesopotamia and NW Iran at best. They introduced haplogroups like L, T, E into Caucasus. Did they have a long lasting linguistic impact? Hard to say. But most of founder effects that Caucasian nations have are in haplogroup G, and J.
I suspect that there is a E-M84 starcluster in Kura Araxes. But this offcourse wouldn't mean that Kura Araxes was speaking an Uruk language."

I agree that Haplogroup L may have originated in Iran_N or even Epipaleolithic. On the other hand all the other Haplogroups you described are more associated with Anataolia_N (EEF) Neolithic revolution: T, E. According to Dr. Lazaridis, Israel 6500 YBP has turned up an enormous amount of until-then-missing Haplogroup T and he connects it with an influx of Anatolia Farmers, in tandem with a marked increase in blue eyed individuals.

He is the place to state that from the variety of Haplogroups, both male and female associated with Neolithic expansion both in Europe and in the Near East - Haplogroup E, T, J1, J2, G and others, so they most probably were not an homogenous group, and it seems that Anatolia_N were an admixed group of Natufians (Levant_N) with UHP from the Balkans and some Ancient North Eurasian thrown in later.

Ric Hern said...

@ DL P

Fortunately for some, most Yamnaya UFC etc. Fighters plays Rugby...Heheheeh...

George said...


E.N. Chernykh
Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences

FORMATION OF THE EURASIAN “STEPPE BELT”
OF STOCKBREEDING CULTURES:
VIEWED THROUGH THE PRISM OF ARCHAEOMETALLURGY
AND RADIOCARBON DATING

Figures 3,5,6, and 10 provide radiocarbon date ranges for "steppe" cultures.

"The integration of a large series of statistically processed calibrated radiocarbon dates prompts us to revise not only the absolute, but also the relative chronological interpretation of numerous Eurasian cultures and communities. It has become possible to challenge many archaeological postulates concerning the basic aspects of relative chronological scales. Clearly, the discussion of these complex problems cannot be limited
to brief comments and requires new multidisciplinary research to be undertaken."

The link to the article from Google Scholar
https://bit.ly/2SKWde5



Davidski said...

@Arza

Not sure what you're asking me? If it's a technical question then you'll have to send off an e-mail to Broad MIT.

But from experience, qpAdm often returns negative coefficients when the models are too complex, because, for instance, there are too many reference pops and some of them are too similar to each other, or they're just wrong.

It's best to keep things simple, and test different scenarios separately. But this sort of output is still useful when exploring possibilities. For instance, the possibility that Yamnaya is a complex mixture of various Eneolithic steppe groups, as well as Maykop and late Ukrainain foragers, doesn't look very sound there.


Gabriel said...

Khabib winning a boxing match against someone who is only 50% Yamnaya-like is absolutely comparable to the presence of steppe ancestry in the prehistoric and modern Caucasus and the fact IE languages are almost everywhere, covering half of Eurasia.

People can’t get over their biases against the steppe. It’s like they hate these “European barbarians” even though they weren’t all that backwards, and that’s not counting whether or not they were European or their roots in Europe.

Andrzejewski said...

@Them meee

Exactly! Steppe people were 100% Eastern Europeans, and even the CHG component is native to the Southern Steppes.

It's actually the Neolithic Farmers who have roots in Anatolia and the Levant, and WHG (Villabruna cluster) who also came from the Middle East 15,000 years ago.

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

It's actually the Neolithic Farmers who have roots in Anatolia and the Levant, and WHG (Villabruna cluster) who also came from the Middle East 15,000 years ago.

It's unlikely that the Villabruna cluster came to Europe 15,000 years ago from the Middle East. More likely it originated in the Balkans and spread into Central Europe and the Middle East.

See here...

Early Anatolian farmers were overwhelmingly of local hunter-gatherer origin (Feldman et al. 2018 preprint)

Villabruna cluster =/= Near Eastern migrants

Samuel Andrews said...

@Andre,

WHG did not originate in the Middle East. This is a mere speculation which Reich presents as fact to the press.

EEF (Anatolia), CHG (Caucasus), IranNeo, Natufian (Levant, Arabia) were all fully formed in the Epipaleolithic Middle East 13,000+. There's no room for WHG in there.

WHG ancestry existed in admixed form in ElMiron in Spain 20,000 years ago. WHG-specific mtDNA is detected in Italy 19,000 years ago. It probably has its roots somewhere in Paleolithic Europe.

A said...

"PIE most likely originated when steppe herders interacted with EEF, it happened probably at the eastern border of Tripolye i.e. Sredny Stog II."

Most of the symbols associated with Indo-Europeans also seem to come out of the Tripolye/Sredny Stog nexus, or from the earlier hunter-gatherers of Ukraine.

Gabriel said...

@Samuel Andrews

Middle Easterners, including EEF and CHG, have WHG-like ancestry, which probably arrived there from Europe (though I’m not sure how recently), so, close but no dice. Regardless that means that WHG isn’t from the Middle East unlike what Andrzejewski said.

What I wonder is where Palaeolithic Europeans originated from... Siberia?

Andrzejewski said...

@Them meee "Middle Easterners, including EEF and CHG, have WHG-like ancestry, which probably arrived there from Europe"

Although in spite of the WHG ancestry in Neolithic Farmers, the two groups were separated and distinct by languages, lifestyle, appearance and genetics. There was a period of almost a millennium of co-existence before the two groups started intermarrying extensively.

Andrzejewski said...

The prevailing theory was that CHG split from WHG about 45,000 years ago, and from Neolithic farmers 25,000 years ago. Nevertheless, I've heard about the famous IJ split taking place 35,000 years ago, so who knows...

Gaska said...


Exactly! Steppe people were 100% Eastern Europeans, and even the CHG component is native to the Southern Steppes.

Do you really believe what you are saying?

What I wonder is where Palaeolithic Europeans originated from... Siberia?

Can you explain it to us please?

Davidski said...

@Diego

Do you really believe what you are saying?

Eastern European hunter-gatherers show signals of CHG, including Y-hg J, and the Eneolithic samples from the southern steppes are mostly of CHG origin.

The CHG-rich ancestors of the Eneolithic steppe samples were probably hunter-gatherers who lived in the area, because that part of Eastern Europe was still in a Mesolithic phase in terms of food production.

So CHG didn't arrive from the Caucasus on the steppe during the Eneolithic or Bronze Age, it was there since the Mesolithic.

That means CHG was native to Eastern Europe, or at least parts of it.

AWood said...

"What I wonder is where Palaeolithic Europeans originated from... Siberia?"

Actually...possibly yes. There are at minimum, two very distinct groups of European hunter gatherers. One carrying YDNA I which spread from the Middle East to Europe, and a second group from Eurasia carrying YDNA R1. The latter weathered in Ukraine or the Balkans during the last Ice Age where they encountered the WHG population carrying YDNA I.

Gabriel said...

But what about Basal Eurasians? Couldn’t they have existed unadmixed in the Near East for a while until a Siberian-derived population from which Palaeolithic Europeans sprung from arrived and mixed with them?

Gaska said...

@Davidski-"Eastern European hunter-gatherers show signals of CHG, including Y-hg J, and the Eneolithic samples from the southern steppes are mostly of CHG origin"

1-EHG have an important part of WHG, in fact they share some mitochondrial haplogroups. I do not know how you have quantified that contribution of CHG, but be careful, because if it exists in EHG it could also exist in WHG, and therefore CHG could be spread throughout Europe long before the supposed steppe invasions.

"The CHG-rich ancestors of the Eneolithic steppe samples were probably hunter-gatherers who lived in the area, because that part of Eastern Europe was still in a Mesolithic phase in terms of food production. So CHG didn't arrive from the Caucasus on the steppe during the Eneolithic or Bronze Age, it was there since the Mesolithic"

2-Ok, that means that from the Mesolithic there is an evident genetic influence of the Caucasus in the steppes, even before Sredni Stog, to confirm it you need to check the uniparental markers between the two regions.

3-CHG is named after the samples found in the Caucasus, right? If they had been found in the steppes or Iran, the geneticists would undoubtedly have called that autosomal marker in another way.

4-Someone could speculate that the PIE is Mesolithic, that originated in the Caucasus and that entered the steppes with the CHG. After all, do not they say the same about the extension of the PIE/IE in Western Europe?

"Steppe people were 100% Eastern Europeans"-

¡¡ Mamma Mia ¡¡ The Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures of the steppes are a cultural and genetic mix with many other cultures of the region (WHG/EHG/CHG/EEF/Iran--GAC, Cucuteni, Balkans...). Their uniparental markers, both male and female, are the perfect demonstration of what I am saying.

I believe that the obsession of many people to avoid western Europe as a genetic origin of current Europeans will only bring more problems in the future. Now you have to exclude the Caucasus, Anatolia, Iran, Mesopotamia, India or the Middle East as our genetic origin, because it is becoming increasingly evident that the steppes were not exactly an example of genetic uniformity. The political correctness in the West (Europe and the United States) will end up being imposed even in the genetic discoveries, and in the end we will all be Indians.

Fortunately, we Basques speak a non-Indo-European language and we do not have to justify their origin in the steppes. We will always be Western Europeans, we do not have haplogroups R1a, nor Q, nor anything that can come from the steppes.

Davidski said...

@Diego

I do not know how you have quantified that contribution of CHG, but be careful, because if it exists in EHG it could also exist in WHG, and therefore CHG could be spread throughout Europe long before the supposed steppe invasions.

It doesn't matter whether there was some CHG in WHG. It's the quantity that counts, and the first major spread of CHG into Western Europe was obviously with the Corded Ware people from the steppe.

There's no way around this. No one who understands the data will argue with it now.

Gaska said...

@Aaron- "What I wonder is where Palaeolithic Europeans originated from... Siberia?""

"Actually...possibly yes. There are at minimum, two very distinct groups of European hunter gatherers. One carrying YDNA I which spread from the Middle East to Europe, and a second group from Eurasia carrying YDNA R1. The latter weathered in Ukraine or the Balkans during the last Ice Age where they encountered the WHG population carrying YDNA I"

You never cease to amaze me, I recommend you read Fu et al's paper on the history of Ice Age Europe. In any case, not only I and R1b are markers of European hunter-gatherers, but also and very importantly K2a/CT/C1b/C1a2. I hope you know that humans entered Europe 40,000 years BC and that they had to take refuge in southern Europe during the last great glaciation. It seems to me that Siberia is not exactly the right place to survive when it was very cold

Physical phenotypes of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers

+ Palaeolithic European hunter-gatherers- PEHG-The Hirisplex eye and hair color prediction for the Paleoltihic European hunter gatherers El Miron, Goyet-Q116-1, Vestonice16, Kostenki14 (dated from 18,000 to 36,000 ya), displayed high probabilities of being brown-eye color (> 0.99), and high probabilities of exhibiting a dark hair pigmentation (0.60- 0.99). All four individuals presented only dark-skin alleles at rs16891982. The GoyetQ116-1 and Vestonice16 individuals missed information at the rs1426654, while El Miron carried only dark-skin alleles at that position, and Kostenki14 had four dark-skin alleles and one light-pigmentation allele.

+ Caucasus hunter-gatherers -CHG- Both Kotias and Satsurblia CHGs were predicted by Hirisplex to have brown eyes (>0.96) and a dark hair shade (>0.92). Looking at skin-pigmentation sites, both individuals carried the dark-skin allele at rs16891982 and the light-pigmentation allele at rs1426654. Similar to the Hum2 and Motala12 individuals, Kotias showed exclusively haplotype-associated alleles at the C11-defining positions (with at least 5 reads of such alleles per site), suggesting it carried the C11 haplotype.

+ Eastern Hunter-Gatherers- EHG- The EHGs had high frequencies of the light-skin variants and intermediate frequencies of the blue-eye variants.The Karelian and Samaran Russian Mesolithic hunter gatherers are currently the best representatives of a group of EHGs that migrated and admixed with WHGs to form SHGs. The Karelian-EHG presents high probabilities of being brown-eyed (0.99), and having a dark hair (0.96).

+ Western Hunter-Gatherers-WHG- The dark skin and blue eyes phenotype combination was likely very common among WHGs and it has been inferred for four out of five Mesolithic and Upper Paleolithic individuals in western and central Europe. The Mesolithic La Braña, Loschbour WHGs, the Upper Palaeolithic Villabruna individual, and the Neolithic KO1 individual, which has a genetic makeup of a WHGs, had dark skin and blue eyes based on their allelic states at the rs1426654, rs16891982 and rs12913832 SNPs;

We know therefore that Europeans inherit the blue eyes of the WHG and the white skin of the Neolithic farmers of the Caucasus. What happened in the steppes meanwhile?

Gaska said...

@Davidski-"It doesn't matter whether there was some CHG in WHG. It's the quantity that counts, and the first major spread of CHG into Western Europe was obviously with the Corded Ware people from the steppe. There's no way around this. No one who understands the data will argue with it now"

I suppose you will know the percentages of CHG in the BBs of Iberia, Italy and in isolated cases of other regions of Europe right? They are minimal and in some cases testimonials.

I agree with you that the CWC extended this autosomal marker for a large part of Europe, but not in South France, Spain and Italy. If you admit that there was CHG in the WHG, that means that the BBs in Spain could have inherited their small percentage of CHG from their hunter-gatherer ancestors (and even from the Neolithic farmers if we want to speculate). And we already entered into the debate about the origin of R1b-M269, because obviously according to Reich this marker is linked to the propagation of steppe ancestry. I think that does not make much sense.

Davidski said...

@Diego

If you admit that there was CHG in the WHG, that means that the BBs in Spain could have inherited their small percentage of CHG from their hunter-gatherer ancestors (and even from the Neolithic farmers if we want to speculate).

Obviously they didn't, and there's no need to speculate otherwise, because there's way too much CHG, or rather, to be more precise, steppe ancestry in Iberia from the Bronze Age onward to be able to explain it with just WHG or Neolithic farmers.

In other words, it's impossible to model the ancestry of most Iberians from the Bell Beaker period onward with just WHG and Neolithic samples. You need samples from the steppe.

You can't get around this no matter what.

Francisco said...

@AWood

What is the evidence for Y-hg I entering Europe from the south?

Gaska said...


@ Them meee- But what about Basal Eurasians? Couldn’t they have existed unadmixed in the Near East for a while until a Siberian-derived population from which Palaeolithic Europeans sprung from arrived and mixed with them?

"Most of the Dzudzuana population’s ancestry was deeply related to the post-glacial western European hunter-gatherers of the ‘Villabruna cluster’ but it also had ancestry from a lineage that had separated from the great majority of non-African populations before they separated from each other, proving that such ‘Basal Eurasians’ were present in West Eurasia twice as early as previously recorded

"we can model Karelia_HG as deriving 34±2.8% of its ancestry from a Villabruna-related source, with the remainder mainly from ANE represented by the AfontovaGora3 (AG3) sample from Lake Baikal3 ~17kya"

"We can model CHG and samples from Neolithic Iran (Iran_N) as deriving their ancestry
largely (~58-64% using qpAdm and ~45-62% using qpGraph) from a Dzudzuana-like
population, but with ancestry from both ‘Deep’ and ANE sources, thus proving that ANE ancestry had reached Western Eurasia long before the Bronze Age Eurasian steppe migrations that carried further westward into mainland Europe "

Davidski said...

@All

I re-wrote the first bold paragraph. It was too badly worded for such a key part of the post. Here's the new version...

To anyone with even a passing interest in the Yamnaya culture, it should be rather obvious that it formed during the tail end of the Eneolithic on the Pontic-Caspian steppe, as basically a direct offshoot of the earlier Repin culture, but perhaps also with significant influences from the earlier still Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog cultures. So why should its population history be much different from this?

Gaska said...

@ Davidski "or rather to be more precise, steppe ancestry in Iberia from the Bronze Age onward to be able to explain it with just WHG or Neolithic farmers"

1- What do you mean by "steppe ancestry"? Everyone thinks that what really distinguishes the steppe autosomal component of the typical Western European autosomal component is precisely CHG, which apparently did not exist in Western Europe before the arrival of CWC and/or Yamnaya. It seems that the other autosomal components of the steppes (EHG-WHG-ANE-EEF) were shared by the rest of European populations.

2-On the other hand, Lazaridis has already shown that this component was in Greece and the Balkans during the Neolithic, before any steppe invasion. Why could not spread throughout Europe with Neolithic farmer migrations?

3- “Basal Eurasians"- Is a population that split off from other non-Africans before they split off from each other. Basal Eurasians are consistent with having no Neandertal ancestry at all and may have split from other non-Africans ~101-67kya. Whatever their origins, both Anatolian farmers and Caucasus hunter-gatherers had ancestry from this population, and through them so do later Europeans via both the Anatolian→Europe and Caucasus→steppe routes.

That means that EEF and CHG are genetically related with which the famous steppe signal is increasingly weak and incongruous. Our understanding of the spread of steppe ancestry into mainland Europe is becoming increasingly crisp. Samples from the Bell Beaker complex are heterogeneous, with those from Iberia lacking steppe ancestry that was omnipresent in those from Central Europe.

Steppe ancestry did arrive into Iberia during the Bronze Age, but to a much lesser degree. A limited effect of steppe ancestry in Iberia is also shown by the study of mtDNA, which shows no detectible change during the Chalcolithic/Early Bronze age, in contrast to Central Europe

When you say Bronze Age, we can have a misunderstanding, because we call Bronze Age to the period between 2,000-1,000 BC, and the Copper Age or Chalcolithic (at least in Western Europe- 3.200-2.000 BC). I suppose you refer to the chalcolithic.


Gaska said...

Nina Morgunova, 2.016

The data of paleopedological, paleoanthropological, technical and technological analyses of ceramics and metallography not only made a more detailed and precise description of every stage, but also provided evidence that the Pit-Grave culture was an ethnic multicomponent culture in the Volga–Ural region and it had relations with numerous contemporary cultures on the territory of Europe and Asia.

If someone tries to discuss these issues impartially, he will have to recognize that it will be very difficult to think that a multi-ethnic society such as the Yamnaya culture could be the origin of European culture and genetics.

Andrzejewski said...

http://archaeologie.pro/en/archive/3/46/

"Based on the analysis of ceramics and anthropological materials of the S’yezzhee burial ground, the author concludes that the Samara culture had been formed as a result of a western cultural and racial impulse from the Mariupol cultural community, being subsequently influenced by the Khvalynsk culture bearers."

So who are the "western immigrants" Arkady Korolev is referring to? Ukrain_Eneolithic?

It was found out that Samara Culture had archaeologically in common with Dnieper-Donets.

And who may "Khvalynsk Culture Bearers" be? Caucasus Hunter Gatherer- rich population?

Andrzejewski said...

Also,

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-khvalynsk-men-2_16.html

"Keep in mind that 10434 is the individual that appears to have been whacked over the head a few times and simply thrown into a ditch. Perhaps this suggests that the genetic shift in the Samara region from the Eneolithic to the Bronze Age, which saw the dilution of Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) ancestry by Anatolian- and Caucasus-related gene flows, was not always a peaceful and migrant-friendly process.
@Davidski "

So, was a shift from Samara to Khvalynsk facilitated by EHG native populations being "whacked over the head" by incoming CHG populations, the ones Dr. Korolev may be referring to as "Khvalynsk Culture Bearers"?

a said...

Diego Arroyo de Lagasca Encinas said...
Nina Morgunova, 2.016

"The data of paleopedological, paleoanthropological, technical and technological analyses of ceramics and metallography not only made a more detailed and precise description of every stage, but also provided evidence that the Pit-Grave culture was an ethnic multicomponent culture in the Volga–Ural region and it had relations with numerous contemporary cultures on the territory of Europe and Asia.

If someone tries to discuss these issues impartially, he will have to recognize that it will be very difficult to think that a multi-ethnic society such as the Yamnaya culture could be the origin of European culture and genetics."

A view points in bullet form- you might have overlooked.

1-Almost all Yamnaya so far are R1b-Z2103[perhaps as much as 95%?]even though their funerary rites differed they still derive from R1b-Z2103 brother clade to L51 in Western Europe.

2-Yamnaya-R1b Z2103 would have needed a language for their unique elite funerary rites. Just like elite Khvalynsk R-V1636 burial was found with copper jewellery and Yamnaya IO444[Kutuluk cemetery I, kurgan 4, grave 1, middle Volga region] copper cludgel {perhaps an Indo-Iranian symbol of power?}http://www.academia.edu/3836804/An_Indo-Iranian_Symbol_of_Power_in_the_Earliest_Steppe_Kurgans

3-R1b-Z2103 are are turning up in stratified burials from different time periods with different funerary rites[language needed for difference ]
For example even though we do not have the results of the Yamnaya-Catacombe horse burials mentioned by Anthony we know that R1b-Z2103 has already been found to have made a major contribution to Yamnaya/Afanasievo, and found in Catacombe burials.
[David Anthony:
Yamnaya herders watched over their herds on horseback. At Repin on the Don, 55% of the animal bones were horse bones. A horse skull was placed in a Yamnaya grave in a kurgan cemetery overlooking the Caspian Depression near Tsa-Tsa, south of the Volga, in kurgan 7, grave 12. Forty horses were sacrificed in a Catacomb-period grave in the same cemetery in kurgan 1, grave 5.]

4-How lucky can one get when Eurogenes has done a blog that turned out correct in the case of the R1b-Z2103 Sarmatian connecting R1b-Z2103+ burial -2867-2581 BcE-BU2001.A0101 Beliy Ugol 2 4674.0 North Caucasus ? y-R1b1a2a2[id:YF03134] Iron age Sarmation whos ancestor turns up in a stratified elite burial, with bronze weapon under-[3 internments were Catacombe graves from same site]- and later stratified Late \iron age Sarmatian burials from same site.
https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-Y20993/
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2017/03/genetic-origins-and-legacy-of-scythians.html

5-How the above samples connect with Basque you may ask.

A said...

@ Diego

"We know therefore that Europeans inherit the blue eyes of the WHG and the white skin of the Neolithic farmers of the Caucasus."


"Mal’ta 1 had two copies of the ancestral allele of rs1426654, but Afontova Gora 2 had two copies of the derived allele. This SNP is located in the gene SLC24A5, and its derived allele is one of the two major Caucasoid depigmentation mutations. The other major Caucasoid depigmentation mutation is the derived allele of rs16891982, in the gene SLC45A2.

So we now know that Stora Förvar 11, who lived 7,500 years ago in Sweden, had the SLC45A2 mutation, and that Motala 12, who lived 8,000 years ago in Sweden, and Afontova Gora 2, who lived 17,000 years ago in Siberia, had the SLC24A5 mutation."

https://genetiker.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/pigmentation-snp-genotypes-for-malta-1-and-afontova-gora-2/


If the above is correct, it seems that the light-skin rs1426654 allele originated in ANE hunter-gatherers.

And the light-skin rs16891982 allele might have originated in EHG or SHG (?)


"Everyone thinks that what really distinguishes the steppe autosomal component of the typical Western European autosomal component is precisely CHG, which apparently did not exist in Western Europe before the arrival of CWC and/or Yamnaya. It seems that the other autosomal components of the steppes (EHG-WHG-ANE-EEF) were shared by the rest of European populations."

What's the evidence that WHG had ANE?

Gaska said...

@ Philippe

M225927-El Mirón (17.000 BC) - ANE (7,11%), ASE (5,83%), WHG-UHG (77,09%), East-Eurasian (5,28%), West-African (1,48%), East African (3,21%).

M236020-Villabruna- (12.105 BC) - ANE (7,16%), ASE (0,52%), WHG-UHG (89,88%), East-Eurasian (0,97%), West-African (0,36%), East African (1,12%)

It seems obvious that the hunter gatherers of the Magdalenian (Spain and France) and the Epigravetian (Italy) had good percentages of ANE.

Everyone should understand that we are talking about very small populations (hundreds or maybe thousands of individuals) that shared ancestors since leaving Africa and are therefore intimately connected genetically. To pretend that we are talking about genetically compact Paleolithic populations is absurd. More cases will appear throughout Europe that will clarify percentages of ancestry and even new lineages and autosomal components will appear. We are just starting.

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

So, was a shift from Samara to Khvalynsk facilitated by EHG native populations being "whacked over the head" by incoming CHG populations, the ones Dr. Korolev may be referring to as "Khvalynsk Culture Bearers"?

Perhaps, but in this instance it was the CHG-rich potential "Culture Bearer" who got whacked over the head. You can see that in the blog post you cited. Maybe he was too cultured to defend himself?

@Diego

What do you mean by "steppe ancestry"?

It's very difficult to have a serious discussion with you when you say things like this and totally disregard reality.

Try and be more objective. Dig deep to do so, for your own sake.

Gaska said...

@a

The unusually large cemetery at Khvalyinsk contained southern Europoid and northern Europeoid cranio-facial types, consistent with the possibility that people from the northern and southern steppes mingled and were buried here. So this is consistent with the idea that there perhaps was not a long term "Khvalynsk" population well represented by the average of all samples which makes sense as a possible ancestor population for Yamnaya. Instead there may have been some different populations some more similar to the typical pool of the northern steppes, and others to those of the southern steppes and who would make more viable as being ancestors of Yamnaya 1.000 years later.

1- Do not forget that I2a2a/2b-L699, typical of European hunter-gatherers has also been found in the Yamnaya culture

2-No one has ever denied that Yamnaya has had some kind of genetic influence in Eastern Europe. In fact, there are a few mitochondrial haplogroups that coincide, and it is also true that Z2013 has been found in Hungary and Poland and even I2a2a in the CWC (DM Fernandes, 2.018)

3- R1b-L51, has nothing to do with the steppes (the fact that he is a brother of Z2013 does not mean anything) otherwise geneticists would have found both him and his descendants, and at the moment they are only in western Europe. Then for the moment and until you have proof the contrary, to affirm that L51 comes from the steppes is a mere speculation.

4- The steppes do not connect with the Basques (nor with most of the rest of Spaniards) in any way neither in culture nor in uniparental markers nor in language, nor in anthropology.

5- It seems to me very well that the Anglo-Saxons have sought an explanation that they consider coherent and satisfactory to explain their genetic ancestry. It is clear that they prefer to think that their cultural and genetic origin is in Eastern Europe, and may even be right.

6-To explain our genetics, we have to look for alternative explanations that match the knowledge we have of our prehistory, culture and genetics, and the steppe conclusion seems absolutely incoherent and anti-scientific.

7-I only say that this explanation that you have sought implicitly assumes that everything comes from the steppes (horses, wheels, metals, genetics ...) and that does not make any sense because the European calcolithic cultures were much more advanced than the nomads of the steppes.

Davidski said...

@Diego

Obviously, as per my blog post and everything else on the topic, Yamnaya is a very homogeneous population.

Draft Dozen said...

@Diego

Farmers hadn't white skin, rather swarthy. The first girl on pic and last one have white skin, the farmer's skin were like the second girl to the right.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PpR8fnQcaOM/S_gbLV68BDI/AAAAAAAACYs/xyUMz87ZAaY/s1600/Girl-with-pale-skin_MG_0726.jpg

Gaska said...

@Davidski

I have only quoted Lazaridis as a prestigious geneticist who has publicly expressed his doubts about the famous steppe ancestry and its chronology for entering mainland Europe.If the most prestigious geneticists and archaeologists have doubts about it, the normal thing is that the rest of the mortals also have them.

Caucasian Admixture (CHG) is literally what defines Yamnaya with respect to Europe, and the Basques are totally devoid of it, thus they are not steppe descended.

Unsupervised Admixture data is absolutely clear-Zero IE/Steppe admixture in Bronze Age Iberians, on the other hand, Central BB do show consistent steppe ancestry (as expected considering the CWC-BB-Unetice continuity in Bohemia),


a said...

Diego Arroyo de Lagasca Encinas said...

So what sets the Basque apart, other than having L51+ brother clade of R1b-Z2103+ ?


"Is there a Basque Blood Type?
Here is what Mark Kurlansky writes on the matter:

[Excerpt from The Basque History of the World]

Basques have the highest concentration of type O in the world — more than 50 percent of the population — with an even higher percentage in remote areas where the language is best preserved, such as Soule. Most of the rest are type A. Type B is extremely rare among Basques. With the finding that Irish, Scots, Corsicans, and Cretans also have an unusually high incidence of type O, speculation ran wild that these peoples were somehow related to Basques. But then, in 1937, came the discovery of the rhesus factor, more commonly known...... "

https://www.hellabasque.org/basque-blood-type/

Yamnaya had to contend with climate-change, plague-causing bacterium Yersinia pestis, and incompatible blood type pregnant-disease.

So what markers beside R1b-Z2103+ set the steppe group apart and make them compatible with Basque?

We have to reference Iain Mathieson
.....chr1:25592642-25661222,......
Ancient DNA
"I looked at these alleles in ancient samples dating to the past 12,000 years, all from West Eurasia. I divided them into four groups:

Hunter-gatherers (HG); Mesolithic and neolithic individuals with ancestry that is like that of Mesolithic Europeans.
Early Farmers (EF); Neolithic individuals from NW Anatolia, and European Neolithic individuals with similar ancestry, plus small (~0-20%) amounts of hunter-gatherer ancestry.
Steppe (ST); Bronze Age individuals with “Yamnaya-like” ancestry
Bronze Age (BA); Individuals from Bronze Age Europe that have a mixture of the three other types of ancient ancestry."


http://mathii.github.io/2017/09/21/blood-groups-in-ancient-europe

Gaska said...


@ Draft Dozen

+ Light eye pigmentation variants were present at high frequencies in WHG, SHG, EHG and EEF (not present in PEHG), while the blue-eye color founder haplotype h-1 was found in the La Braña, Loschbour, Villabruna WHGs, SF12, Motala1 and Motala12 SHGs and at least one early farmer. Such results suggest that the blue eye-color allele is rather old. Using an ABC modeling approach Nakagome et al, predicted that the light-pigmentation allele at rs12913832 emerged around 42,000 years ago or earlier; a date close in time to the initial peopling of Europe. A plausible scenario of the origin of the blue-eye mutation that reconciles our results with findings from other studies is one where this variant appeared in an ancestral population before the ancestors of the WHG migrated from Near East into West and Central Europe.

+The large effect light-skin alleles at rs16891982 and rs1426654 were present in SHG, EHG, CHG and EEF but absent in WHG and PEHG. Similarly, the C11 haplotype is present in hunter-gatherers (SHG, EHG and CHG but not WHG and PEHG) throughout Europe, as well as in at least two early farmers. This pattern is consistent with reports that the rs1426654 derived allele arose ~22,000-28,000 years ago, and that the light-pigmentation allele at rs16891982 arose only once in Eurasians. A possible geographical origin for these two major light-skin alleles is West Asia or the Near East.

Later migrations across the Caucasus (CHG) and Eastern Europe would have brought it to Scandinavia, while EEF migrations introduced both alleles into central Europe.

Davidski said...

@Diego

You're confused. These ancestral components are just a simplification of reality.

The fact is that there was a massive migration of people from the steppe during the Bronze Age that reached Iberia.

This is easily demonstrated via multiple lines of evidence and there's now a consensus among experts from different disciplines that it happened. You can e-mail Iosif Lazaridis and ask him whether it happened and if there's a consensus that it did, and he'll say yes on both counts.

You can't do anything about that. No one who understands the data will listen to you when you claim that this is all a sham, not here or anywhere else.

Like I said, find it in yourself to be more objective.

Kristiina said...

As for the routes of arrival of CHG to Europe, I think that I am not the only one who is waiting with excitement the upcoming paper on ancient Italian DNA. We already have received some information, including a comment that during the Neolithic in Central Italy people carried mostly EEF, some WHG but also some Iran N (which can be the same as CHG), quite a significant quantity, as much as WHG.

Some would be flamboyant if R1b-L51 were found. However, this is not to be taken as a prediction from my part. Maybe it is yDNA J that turns up.

Matt said...

@Kristiina, I've considered the same possibility, that if there is a neolithic divergence of Italy it could allow for R1b-L51.... but then immediately discounted it, as the divergence time from Yamnaya R1b-Z2103 just seems like it would make it sheerly implausible.

Still, put the y aside, if there is a neolithic divergence of Italy it will be quite interesting to think about how this occurred.

The only way I can think of is that Europe saw an island hopping expansion from southwest Anatolia represented by Peloponnese Neolithic and an overland one from northwest Anatolia directly represented by Koros_N in Romania.

Then Italy is more isolated from other dynamics by inability of Neolithic people to cross the Alps in any significant number. Similarly Neolithic Spain does not see much Peloponnese type neolithic because of difficulty in cross the seas to Spain (except overland via NW Africa?), while overland neolithic can get past the Pyrennees (consistently with Chad's model of Iberian Neolithic founded by French Neolithic?). Two impulses then admix extensively in Greece as well. Lot of ifs though.

(Of course, divergence may not exist at all; Ryukendo only saw ADMIXTURE plots and compressed PCA, so we have to see if f and D-stats show the same.)

Gaska said...


@Davidski

I try to be as objective as possible but I do not see the massive migration (except possibly in Hungary, Baltic countries and Poland). The only thing I see are small migrations of people related to the Bb culture. I have spoken with Spanish and Portuguese experts, some see migrations (especially geneticists) and others do not (especially archaeologists). My doubts about the steppe ancestry in Spain are more than justified.

Mouthful said...

@Diego

There's a clear evidence of new type of ancestry showing in all over Europe though in different proportions in Bronze age along with new Y-DNA parental markers, if not trough migration where do you suppose it came from? Landed from outer space?

Samuel Andrews said...

@Diego, responding to a.
"I only say that this explanation that you have sought implicitly assumes that everything comes from the steppes (horses, wheels, metals, genetics ...) and that does not make any sense because the European calcolithic cultures were much more advanced than the nomads of the steppes."

Most posters here don't say that. I don't know what a says. Metals, wheel, domesticated animals all came to the Steppe from outside the Steppe. As far as I know, they mostly came from southeast European farmers. Without this foreign influence they would have remained hunter gatherers.

Draft Dozen said...

@Diego

Alleles that you've mentioned, give light skin, yes...but, not like girl's white skin from my picture. Otherwise, everyone in the Caucasus and in southern Europe would be with such skin. You're just confuse the terms.

Gaska said...

@Kristina

If there was CHG in Greece and in the Balkans during the Neolithic, why there was not going to be CHG in Italy and even in Spain? . The Iberian cardial culture came directly from Liguria.

The earliest impressed ware sites, dating to 6400-6200 BC, are in Epirus and Corfu. Settlements then appear in Albania and Dalmatia on the eastern Adriatic coast dating to between 6100 and 5900 BC. The earliest date in Italy comes from Coppa Nevigata on the Adriatic coast of southern Italy, perhaps as early as 6000 cal B.C. Also during Su Carroppu culture in Sardinia, already in its early stages (low strata into Su Coloru cave, c. 6000 BC) early examples of cardial pottery appear. Northward and westward all secure radiocarbon dates are identical to those for Iberia c. 5500 cal BC, which indicates a rapid spread of Cardial and related cultures: 2,000 km from the gulf of Genoa to the estuary of the Mondego in probably no more than 100–200 years. This suggests a seafaring expansion by planting colonies along the coast

@ Matt "sheerly implausible"

You should not rule out anything regarding L51/L11 /P312 and of course you should not discard the Italian Neolithic. What is sheerly implausible is that Z2013 will be transformed into P312 in Western Europe. Both in Italy and Spain, and to a lesser extent France, there are literally thousands of Neolithic and Chalcolithic skeletons to be analyzed.

"Then Italy is more isolated from other dynamics by inability of Neolithic people to cross the Alps in any significant number." "Similarly Neolithic Spain does not see much Peloponnese type neolithic because of difficulty in cross the seas to Spain (except overland via NW Africa?), while overland neolithic can get past the Pyrennees (consistently with Chad's model of Iberian Neolithic founded by French Neolithic?)".

You really think that Neolithic farmers could not cross the Alps, or the Pyrenees alone or in small family groups?

You know that the European megalithic culture extended by sea routes from Brittany. Catalonia and the south of France, for all the Spanish coasts, Sardinia, Sicily, Italy and the British Islands, right? And according to the dates of C14 recently published everything started about 4,800 BC. We are talking about excellent navigators.

How they were going to have problems in crossing the Mediterranean, which is a much calmer sea than the Cantabrian Ocean. Navigating seas and rivers is a much faster and less tiring method than walking through mountains, jungles and forests.

Regarding the relationship between the Neolithic cultures of France and Spain that you mention (Chad), I totally agree. However, if you compare the antiquity of mitochondrial haplogroups, you will notice that the population movements occurred in the two slopes of the Pyrenees, and with respect to its antiquity, some haplogroups are clearly French and others clearly Spanish.

Multi-scale ancient DNA analyses confirm the western origin of Michelsberg farmers and document probable practices of human sacrifice- Alice Beau, Maïte Rivollat (2.017)- "The Neolithic diffusion towards Western Europe occurred through two major expansion waves: the continental wave following the Danube in Central Europe and the Mediterranean wave progressing along Mediterranean coastlines"

When the Waves of European Neolithization Met: First Paleogenetic Evidence from Early Farmers in the Southern Paris Basin- Maité Rivollat (2.015)- Interestingly, the archaeological record from this region highlighted a clear cultural influence from the Danubian cultural sphere but also notes exchanges with the Mediterranean cultural area.



a said...

Blogger a said...
Samuel Andrews said...
@Diego, responding to a.
"I only say that this explanation that you have sought implicitly assumes that everything comes from the steppes (horses, wheels, metals, genetics ...) and that does not make any sense because the European calcolithic cultures were much more advanced than the nomads of the steppes."

Most posters here don't say that. I don't know what a says. Metals, wheel, domesticated animals all came to the Steppe from outside the Steppe. As far as I know, they mostly came from southeast European farmers. Without this foreign influence they would have remained hunter gatherers.

Ever noticed how people are starting to sue fake news?
I'm also guilty of in group/out bias-favoritism so take my posts with a grain of salt.
Taylor, Donald M.; Doria, Janet R. (April 1981). "Self-serving and group-serving bias in attribution".
However, I take in facts/details a little differently. Why not take a few minutes to fact check?
So for example, when this video @46:50 shows a picture of Yamnaya IO444[Kutuluk cemetery I, kurgan 4, grave 1, middle Volga region]with a copper cludgel- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=990052wQywM
and points to head being bashed in violence, I'll take a few minutes to check
http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/10/10/016477
if it really happened. I'll let you do your own research to come to your own conclusion.

Or if someone points out the use of wagons/chariots/wheels in ancient middle eastern regions like Egypt compared to Sintashta [good luck for we know after the results were officially released, they were built by ydna R1a]for example. I'll take some time to track them down, see how they were made and with what wood type materials[local or import]-like the case of King Tut.
Now the curious thing about king Tut is that his genetic material was already being worked on since
Article | Published: 25 October 1969

Kinship of Smenkhkare and Tutankhamen affirmed by Serological Micromethod: Kinship of Smenkhkare and Tutankhamen demonstrated Serologically

https://www.nature.com/articles/224325b0

And again in 2010 showing everything but his ydna lineage- Bad luck I guess!

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/100216-king-tut-malaria-bones-inbred-tutankhamun/

These are just a few examples.

Gaska said...

@Samuel Andrews

I know you do not think so, but many people see the steppes as the Spanish conquerors saw "El Dorado".

@Mouthful said..."There's a clear evidence of new type of ancestry showing in all over Europe though in different proportions in Bronze age along with new Y-DNA parental markers, if not trough migration where do you suppose it came from? Landed from outer space?

You know what a founder effect is?

You know that all of Europe is full of R1b from the Epigravetian?

Why do not you try to think less about the migrations of Gimbutas and open your eyes to other possibilities?

@ Draft Dozen "Alleles that you've mentioned, give light skin, yes...but, not like girl's white skin from my picture. Otherwise, everyone in the Caucasus and in southern Europe would be with such skin. You're just confuse the terms"

I do not understand what you mean, 99% of Europeans are carriers of the alleles responsible for clear skin and some geneticists have already mentioned that adaptation to the environment also influenced to fix that genetic characteristic in Europe. All the early farmers analyzed phenotypically in Europe were light skinned. In any case also here we have much to learn because the clear skin of Europeans can be explained genetically, however the Japanese and many Orientals also have clear skin and do not have those mutations. Climate adaptation also influenced pigmentation.

Andrzejewski said...

@Draft Dozen "Farmers hadn't white skin, rather swarthy. The first girl on pic and last one have white skin, the farmer's skin were like the second girl to the right.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PpR8fnQcaOM/S_gbLV68BDI/AAAAAAAACYs/xyUMz87ZAaY/s1600/Girl-with-pale-skin_MG_0726.jpg"

They came from the Middle East so of course they would be swarthy. Modern descendants of Neolithic Farmers reside nowadays in Greece, the Balkan, Romania, Italy, Spain, so you could decipher by the complexion of their modern descendants that they weren't Nordic looking.

And also, Neolithic Farmers side by side with Iran_Chl, Levant_N/Natufians and CHG contributed to the creation of the modern "Middle Eastern" look.

Bear in mind also, that Anatolia_N was NOT a homogeneous population, modern Greeks/Balkan had the Semitic/Levant E1b1b ratios in excess of 25% and most Greeks and a considerable amount of Italians (especially in the South) carry the CHG Hap J (or the Semitic J1/J2), probably mostly due to a CHG-rich second wave of Anatolian Farmers. Farmers did not just turn out to be overwhelmingly G Hap but also T, E1b1b, J1, J2, H, K and F.

Gaska said...

@Juan Rivera "Y-DNA R1b only rarely shows out of the steppe before that"

Before what?

Andrzejewski said...

@Diego I have posted before and I shall post again (re-post) right now:

BASQUES HAVE 25%-30% STEPPE ANCESTRY. WHICH PERHAPS EXPLAINS THE >90% RATIO OF UNI-PARENTAL R1B. CALL IF A FOUNDER EFFECT IF YOU WILL...

Mem said...

What is the PEHG,I never heard that.

Matt said...

@Diego, L51 is predicted to have a common ancestor with Z2105 at 1000 years before Yamnaya. I don't see how it is possible for them to have no autosomal ancestry in common, there to be no trace of other closely related para-lineages at any point between them, which seems to like it would have to be the case for L51 in Italy. "Sheerly implausible". Possibly you can find it plausible by ignoring the dates of haplogroup divergence and ignoring and misunderstanding the autosomal data.

You really think that Neolithic farmers could not cross the Alps, or the Pyrenees alone or in small family groups?

Not especially. I don't know what was easy or hard for them in great depth. I'm just trying to spitball reasons about why Italy might be isolated in having a CHG / IranN component.

It should be pretty clear I'm also talking about the *earliest* Neolithic, since the same report was clear that there was WHG component increasing migration to Italy subsequently. (MN and so on). So not sure why you launched into a long reference to MN migration dynamics.

What's your theory about why there would be a barrier to migration? Which there obviously was if the reports are correct and taking from the autosomal data as correct (Italy Early Neolithic, CHG; outside Italy Early and Middle Neolithic, no CHG).

Kristiina said...

@ Matt “I've considered the same possibility, that if there is a neolithic divergence of Italy it could allow for R1b-L51.... but then immediately discounted it, as the divergence time from Yamnaya R1b-Z2103 just seems like it would make it sheerly implausible.”

This is the current yfull data:
R-L23 formed 6400 ybp, TMRCA 6100 ybp
R-Z2103 formed 6100 ybp, TMRCA 5500 ybp
R-L51 formed 6100 ybp, TMRCA 5700 ybp

The oldest R1b-L23* is the mysterious Hajji Firuz LN Zagros Iran I2327, dated 5900-5500 BCE. Maybe it turns out not to be L23 because it is too old to be even R-M269. So, the oldest certain L23 is from Yamnaya Samara and Kalmykia, and to my knowledge, Yamnaya Samara is considered archaeologically slightly older than Yamnaya Kalmykia. If L51 were found in Neolithic Italy, that would cause a sensation and would mean that the whole L23 has arisen somewhere in Southeast-Central Europe and would certainly be related to the high level of metallurgy in the area. Not impossible. We will see. I am prepared for everything.

Gaska said...


@Andrzejewski- "They came from the Middle East so of course they would be swarthy. Modern descendants of Neolithic Farmers reside nowadays in Greece, the Balkan, Romania, Italy, Spain, so you could decipher by the complexion of their modern descendants that they weren't Nordic looking"

For a long time I did not read such stupidity. I think you should travel more and forget some prejudices. Now I understand the obsession that many people have with the steppes, I suppose they thought they were white/Aryan/blond/blue eyes and that is why they try to get away from southern Europe.

Allow me a question, where are you from, Polish?

I will also try to explain something to you, if there is one thing that the Spaniards regret is to have expelled the Jews in 1492, we were unjust and we know it. We did not have an exemplary behavior in America, we were cruel and we know it. We are vaccinated against our racist behavior of the past. In Spain, the Holy Inquisition burned you for being a descendant of Jews or Moors. Other countries and peoples would do well to recognize their mistakes and learn from the past as we have done.

Now the genetics has shown that the Basques are not so different from the rest of Europeans, but all Spain is a genetically very boring country, we do not have exotic haplogroups that we would like to have and of course we do not care that they are J, E, Q, R1a, I1, and we do not value people because of the color of their skin.

Mem said...

East Asian have a light skin allele,it is OCA

Gabriel said...

The fact R1b-M269 is not found in Western Europe and is confined to the steppe before the Bronze Age makes it impossible for L51 to have originated there.

Andrzejewski said...

@Kriistina "As for the routes of arrival of CHG to Europe, I think that I am not the only one who is waiting with excitement the upcoming paper on ancient Italian DNA. We already have received some information, including a comment that during the Neolithic in Central Italy people carried mostly EEF, some WHG but also some Iran N (which can be the same as CHG), quite a significant quantity, as much as WHG."

Yes, and that's what I have been posting a lot recently. There was a second wave of Anatolian Farmers, this time rich with both Levant_N and CHG circa 4000BCE, which completely made a population turnover from the pure Anatolia_N into a much more prevalent Hap J rich population in both Greece and Italy.

If you remember, I had also posted the postulated theory/hypothesis that Etruscan is a CHG language in lieu of the traditional view that it was rather an EEF one!

Gaska said...

@Juan Rivera "The Chalcholithic and Bronze Age. There's Iron Gates, El Trocs and Neolithic Germany (all western and R1b-V88) on one hand, but Baltic_HG, Neolithic Baltic, Samara_HG, Karelia_HG, Ukraine_HG, Progress, Khvalynsk, Sredny Stog, Yamnaya, Baikal Neolithic and Botai (all eastern, and either R1a or R1b) on another hand.

I get the impression that you are not sufficiently well informed and I said that all of Europe is full of R1b- Of course R1b-V88 in Spain, Germany and the Balkans. But also R1b L754 in Italy (Villabruna) in France (Iboussieres), R1b-M269 in Spain (ATP3, although not everyone accepts it)

As far as I know the Baltic countries are not the steppes, and it is full of hunter gatherers R1b-P297 from the mesolithic to the chalcolithic (between 7,000-4,000 BC), and you know one thing? they are 70% WHG, that is, they have nothing to do with the steppes, and probably the EHG descend from them, as indicated by some Ukrainian mitochondrial haplogroups.

What is left? Samara_HG, Karelia_HG, Ukraine_HG, Progress, Khvalynsk, Sredny Stog, Yamnaya, Baikal Neolithic and Botai (all eastern, and either R1a or R1b)-

How many of them are R1b? Could you tell me ?.
When people talk about R1b in the steppes they can only talk about Z2013, the rest is pure fantasy
The rest is R1a, Q, I2a2a etc ...

If there were massive migrations as you can explain that there is no R1a and Q2 in Western Europe. Is that the Police asked for their passport when they left the steppes and only let R1bZ2013 leave?

a said...

Diego Arroyo de Lagasca Encinas said...

"
I will also try to explain something to you, if there is one thing that the Spaniards regret is to have expelled the Jews in 1492, we were unjust and we know it. We did not have an exemplary behavior in America, we were cruel and we know it. We are vaccinated against our racist behavior of the past. In Spain, the Holy Inquisition burned you for being a descendant of Jews or Moors. Other countries and peoples would do well to recognize their mistakes and learn from the past as we have done.

Now the genetics has shown that the Basques are not so different from the rest of Europeans, but all Spain is a genetically very boring country, we do not have exotic haplogroups that we would like to have and of course we do not care that they are J, E, Q, R1a, I1, and we do not value people because of the color of their skin."


Can you please explain your idea of Spain being boring?
I can imagine Basque and Catalonia even though they are high in R1b want to preserve a unique culture/heritage/food like any other European country[Poland, Hungary,Czech, Russia, etc....]for tourists to see authentic traditional people. What is the harm in giving freedom to people[create their own cultural food and heritage, tax/regulations], just like steppe people had?

Gaska said...

@Matt "L51 is predicted to have a common ancestor with Z2105 at 1000 years before Yamnaya. I don't see how it is possible for them to have no autosomal ancestry in common, there to be no trace of other closely related para-lineages at any point between them, which seems to like it would have to be the case for L51 in Italy. "Sheerly implausible". Possibly you can find it plausible by ignoring the dates of haplogroup divergence and ignoring and misunderstanding the autosomal data"

1-It all depends on when CHG entered the steppes and Europe. If L51 appears in Italy and there is also CHG there you could relate both markers. Those autosomal markers can be lost in a few generations you only need to mix with women or men who absolutely lack that autosomal component.

2-Remember that there are also R1bV88 in the steppes and it seems that while the Ukrainians had steppe ancestry their brothers from the Balkans of Germany and Spain did not have it, could you explain this?

3.- According to your reasoning as L51 and Z2013 are brothers and sons of L23 the two have to have origin in the steppes. Then as Df27, L21 and U152 are brothers (or cousins ​​if you prefer), everyone must have been born in the same place. Soon you will have to explain to the Irish that since Df27 is typically Iberian, L21 is also Iberian.

4-I get the impression that the one who ignores the haplogroup divergences is you, and also erroneously interprets the autosomal markers.

5-Italy was never isolated from the rest of Europe, neither in autosomal markers nor in uniparental. You do not have to look for strange explanations to isolate italy because migrations and trade routes are very well documented by European archaeologists since the beginning of the Neolithic. In other words, if there is CHG in the Italian Neolithic, there will also be CHG in France and Spain, and the theory of steppe migrations will be definitively debunked.

6- You know that in the early Neolithic of Spain or France there was no CHG ?. Before I said that there are thousands of skeletons to analyze and that there may be surprising discoveries.

Gaska said...

@a-Can you please explain your idea of Spain being boring? I can imagine Basque and Catalonia even though they are high in R1b want to preserve a unique culture/heritage/food like any other European country[Poland, Hungary,Czech, Russia, etc....]for tourists to see authentic traditional people. What is the harm in giving freedom to people[create their own cultural food and heritage, tax/regulations], just like steppe people had?

Spain is genetically boring, You can compare with Italy, Greece, Albania or the Balkans.

Even the last papers that I have seen about Granada (the last Muslim kingdom in Spain) the results are boring- both in male and female haplogroups just 2-3% of African origin. Of course the Inquisition and the expulsions did their job well. I would particularly prefer to have an exotic haplogroup (American or Asian) and be able to trace my origins all over the world. However, as 90% of the Basques I am df27 and I find it boring.

Andrzejewski said...

So, if both EHG and CHG have ANE and WHG, and if EHG in itself intrinsically has CHG, how can we distinguish between the EHG and the CHG constituent components in the Steep e ancestry?

More importantly, did @Davidski admit/acknowledge in earlier Eurogenes blog posts not too long ago that it was the influx of the CHG cultural elite who transformed Samara into Khvalynsk (and potentially Repin) to turn pure EHG into a "Steppe admixture"?

Were these CHG (native to Steppes or not) responsible for introduction of the early (or pre-)PIE or were they the EHG whose language was strongly influenced by the ruling elite but retained its lexome?

Bear in mind that the now-discredited and obsolete "Indo-Uralic" theory has been cast into the trash bin of history, given that there are basically ZERO mutual cognates between PIE and Proto-Uralic, let alone any generic ones.

(I still at a loss why so many commentators here still refer to Uralic speakers as "EHG" where both linguistics and genetics show they have ZERO ANE nor anything remotely similar to EHGs).

Another curious topic of mine is: if indeed the Ukraine_HG represented by Bug-Dnieper, Dnieper-Donets and Sredny Stog I (not SS II!) were replaced, displaced or wiped out by the incoming Khvalynsk-Repin migrants, then wasn't it the last nail in the coffin that PIE originated more towards the Don-CASPIAN eastern part of the PC Steppes with Khvalynsk et al., and that they migrated westbound, displacing the Sredny Stog I, Bug-Dniester, Dnieper-Donets etc. (be they Ukraine_HG or others), so PIE was profoundly rooted by the Caspian Sea, and not all over the Western Eurasian Steppe, as @JuanRivera had erroneously stated?

Andrzejewski said...

@JuanRivera "Ukraine_HG were not totally displaced, as Sredny Stog II and Yamnaya have a significant fraction of Ukraine_HG"

Not according to what @Davidski posted about 2 months ago on another thread/blog post.

Even if it wasn't, then the culture/language was utterly and totally Khvalynsk-Repin derived, even if the Ukraine_HG has continuity in the genes.

To me, as much as I'd like to see PIE stemming from some obscure ANE Eurasian language preceding it, all signs post to a CHG elite or general population causing upheaval and imposing their PIE language, whether they were "indigenous" to the Steppes or latecomers newcomers to the Steppe.

Gaska said...

@Juan Rivera
"Samara_HG, Khvalynsk, Sredny Stog and Yamnaya all have R1b"

1- Also Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Latvia, Serbia and Romania have Prehistoric R1b. If you only use the term R1b that leads many people to get confused, because what you should say is what subclades have been found in each culture. The truth is that never has L51 or P312 ever been found in the steppes. You need to prove that these clades have their origin in the steppes and that is currently, materially impossible. Everything else is fantasy of archaeologists

2-You even have R1b-M343 in the German Neolithic (it could even be L51)-Grave8-Male-21/26 years- (2.678-2.547 cal BCE)-R1b-M343-Mit- I1

"Baltic_HG has EHG admixture, which is enough to transmit R1a, R1b, Q1a and EHG mtDNA to them. But Baltic_HG never made impact outside the Baltic and Corded Ware"

Really? I get the impression that you do not know the mesolithic and the Neolithic in the Baltic Countries r1b-P297 was there for 3,000 years uninterruptedly (7,000-4,000 BC)and its markers are much older than the Ukrainians, ergo not only there were no steppe migrations in that period of time but it probably happened backwards. You should check the mitochondrial haplogroups and the antiquity of the Latvian hunter-gatherers and you would see that it does not make any sense what you are saying.

"Also, there's clearly R1a and Q1a (which you mistook for Q2) in Western Europe, in fact, there's a number of exclusively Western European R1a clades"

Have you found R1a or Q1a in the Neolithic or Chalcolithic of Western Europe? There is only R1a in the CWC that is not a Western culture but Central and Eastern.In any case nobody has denied that these haplogroups come from the steppes, because they have been found in the two sites, however L51 has not been found anywhere, and P312 only in western Europe. It seems obvious what is its origin, right?

Gabriel said...

@Andrzejewski

To me, as much as I'd like to see PIE stemming from some obscure ANE Eurasian language preceding it, all signs post to a CHG elite or general population causing upheaval and imposing their PIE language, whether they were "indigenous" to the Steppes or latecomers newcomers to the Steppe.

The population would be CHG admixed, not pure CHG.

@Diego

It’s obvious you have a strong ideological motive behind your constant denial of any steppe ancestry in Iberians or attempts to minimize it in the rest of Europe. Please calm it down.

Gaska said...

@a

In Spain, parent1, parent2 is also used recently, it seems funny, politicians do not know what to invent.

It seems good to me to identify with different cultures, but since I am a little tired of hearing about Yamnaya, I prefer the Pyrenees or the Caribbean. I do not understand the Ukrainians, and with the Cubans I can speak in Spanish

Samuel Andrews said...

@Diego,

There's nothing wrong with being upset about this blog's obsession with Indo EUropean. This blog is called Eurogenes but its focus topic is Indo European. Don't expect it to do anything else but focus on the Indo European discussion.

Also, at this current time a lot of geneticists are also very interested in Steppe DNA. That will change in 5-10 years. In this era, lots is being learned about it. Two studies from Spain & India will be published soon. Both show Steppe migration. So don't expect it to change anytime soon.

Gaska said...

@Juan rivera "Have you heard the term that absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence?"

Can you imagine that you had to convince a judge to give you the reason with that argument?

Well the same happens in Iberia and Italy, we have not yet found L51 but it does not mean that it did not exist. We do not dare to say that L51 originated in Iberia, however many people say that L51 originated in the steppes without having proof to do so.

Balanovski (2.017)-R1b variation in Eastern Europe- The resulting phylogenetic tree demonstrates that haplogroup R-L23 splits into two main branches, R-L51 and R-GG400. The former includes West Europeans, while the latter comprises exclusively representatives of East European populations. Both branches are of similar age: around 6 thousand years. Note that members of this eastern branch R-GG400 came mainly from the steppe area of East Europe.


Gaska said...

@Samuel Andrews said..."There's nothing wrong with being upset about this blog's obsession with Indo EUropean. This blog is called Eurogenes but its focus topic is Indo European. Don't expect it to do anything else but focus on the Indo European discussion"

I may not have expressed myself well, I am happy to talk about this topic because I would like to know my origins, so obviously I have to talk about the Indo-Europeans.

We'll see what happens, I'm looking forward to seeing the deposits analyzed by Olalde.

Gaska said...


@Juan Rivera-"So, they split around 6kya, which is well in the Neolithic, which means that WHG most plausibly wasn't carrying it. It most closely fits the steppe hypothesis"

4.000 BC-is the Neolithic in Western Europe, the Chalcolithic in the Balkans, Mesolithic in the Baltic countries and Scandinavia and Neolithic in the steppes.

How can you say that this is better for the steppe theory when there are WHG that could be perfectly ancestors of L51 and Z2103?

I4630- Letonia, Zvejnieki (7.271 BC)- HapY- R1b1a/1a-P297- Mit-U5a2/c

U5a2/c- Germany, Falkensteiner Höhle, Mesolithic- 8.185 BC
U5a2/c- Latvia, Zvejnieki--7.271 BC/ Zvejnieki-I4432-5.997 BC

Gaska said...

@JuanRivera

and according to your opinion when and how did this steppe ancestry enter Iberia?

Gaska said...


@Juan Rivera
Mit-Hap-U2e1-Latvia Zvejnieki, Kunda Culture-WHG- Hg2-Haplogrupo Y-R1b-P297-I4595/I4626-5.810 AC/5.738 AC)
U2e1-Sweden-Motala, Mesolíthic-I0012/I0017-5.676 BC
U2e1- Ukraine, Volniensky, Neolíthic-I3715-5.578 BC

I do not know where you see the Swedish influences in Germany, the only thing I see are migrations or population movements that, starting from the Baltic countries, go to Scandinavia and Ukraine.

Gaska said...

@Juan rivera-"Steppe ancestry entered Iberia during the Bronze Age, via Corded Ware groups hitching a ride on the Bell Beaker network, progressively mixing with the farmers as they went south"

I hope I have not misunderstood- Groups of men (R1b-P312) and women of the CWC abandoned their culture and began to travel using the commercial network of the BBC, crossed the Pyrenees and mingled with the Iberian chalcolithic farmers.

Do you have any idea of ​​the mitochondrial haplogroups of the CWC or Yamnaya that entered Iberia?

Only men traveled?

They conquered us, and then they mixed with the women of the farmers or did the occupation occur peacefully?

What language did they speak at the CWC?

They continued to speak that language or adopted the language of the defeated/occupied

Did they bring any technological, technical, commercial or cultural innovation?

They came riding on horseback?

Do you know what kind of metallurgy they used?

They invented the typical BB styles of the Iberian chalcolithic? Ciempozuelos, Puntillado-Geométrico, Maritime?

or simply that explanation is the first thing that has crossed your mind?

One thing is to use algorithms to calculate percentages of autosomal ancestry, mix them and have a good time, and another thing is to look for satisfactory explanations to complex problems. We must all be very cautious in affirming certain things because even the most prestigious geneticists have to see how their work is quickly outdated. Not only is it necessary to have knowledge of autosomal components, you also have to have good databases of male and female haplogroups, know well the European chalcolithic, and have knowledge of linguistics and archeology to elaborate a convincing theory about what really happened.




Gabriel said...

@JuanRivera
@All

Does that suggest that Spain experienced significant Visigothic admixture, or could it be from another source? What are these Ostrogothic samples like, aren’t they the ones with exotic, eastern and southern affinities?

Alex said...

@Diego

There are a large-scale genomic study of Bronze Age Iberia of Reich to be published coming soon. Part of the article's findings is “dramatically” described in this report:
https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/spanish-men-were-completely-wiped-out-by-the-arrival-of-a-new-tribe-4000-years-ago/

Some recent papers also point out to the genetic impact of the Yamnaya-like population in Iberia:
Valdiosera et al. (2018) – “Four millennia of Iberian biomolecular prehistory illustrate the impact of prehistoric migrations at the far end of Eurasia”
See Fig. 2 is very elucidative.

Pg 3431: "Notably, both male Bronze Age Iberian individuals in this study as well as all three Iberian Bronze Age males in ref. 24 carried R1b-M269 Y chromosomes (SI Appendix, Table S4.1) also found with high frequency in individuals associated with the Yamnaya culture, the source population of steppe ancestry (4, 6), indicating a continuing male-driven migration from central Europe into southwestern Europe (8, 24, 53).

Martiniano et al. (2017): “The population genomics of archaeological transition in west Iberia: Investigation of ancient substructure using imputation and haplotype-based methods”

"Bronze Age Y-Chromosome discontinuity.
Previous studies have demonstrated a substantial turnover in Y-chromosome lineages during the Northern European Late Neolithic and Bronze Age, with R1b haplogroup sweeping to high frequencies. This has been linked to third millennium population migrations into Northern Europe from the Steppe, hypothesised to have introduced Indo-european languages to the continent [4] and with a strong male migration bias [26]. Strikingly, the array of Y-chromosome haplotypes in ancient Iberia shifts from those typical of Neolithic populations to haplogroup R1b-M269 in each of the three BA males, of which two carry the derived allele at marker R1b-P312. Interestingly, modern Basque populations have the M269 variant at high frequency (87.1%) [12]."

Gabriel said...

@JuanRivera

We are about to get Roman samples, but they are very southern (Sicilian/ME-like), so I don’t know what will they do. Maybe later or earlier samples may change things, but I’m not sure about that either. We may still be in the dark about post-Beaker non-Moorish admixture into Spain.

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

All signs post to a CHG elite or general population causing upheaval and imposing their PIE language, whether they were "indigenous" to the Steppes or latecomers newcomers to the Steppe.

And what sorts of Y-haplogroups did they bring to the steppes, because so far there are no CHG/Caucasian/Near Eastern Y-haplogroups in Dereivka, Sredny Stog, Khvalynsk, Piedmont steppe, Yamnaya, Poltavka, Corded Ware, Sintashta, Srubnaya, eastern Bell Beakers, etc.


Davidski said...

@Kristiina

The oldest R1b-L23* is the mysterious Hajji Firuz LN Zagros Iran I2327, dated 5900-5500 BCE. Maybe it turns out not to be L23 because it is too old to be even R-M269.

Not the oldest and not so mysterious.

The Hajji Firuz fiasco

Gaska said...

@Juan Rivera-"Both men and women came, with the men carrying R1a, R1b, Q1a, I2a as well as some farmer haplogroups, such as G2a and women carrying U2, U4, U5, H6a, H2a2, D2, C1, C4, C5, A10..., as well as farmer haplogroups, such as U3, U5, H2a1, V, N1b, K... . Their language is most likely IE. They didn't originate Iberian beaker styles (which are earlier than the steppe intrusion), but still were decent navigators. They bought horses, wheels, millet and copper artifacts with them"

I am going to give you some examples so that everyone understands what we are talking about.

1-Haplogroup G2a- Avellaner Cave, Catalonia, Neolithic, 5.000 BC. There are documented 14 other cases of different types of G2a in the Pre-BB iberian chalcolithic

2- Haplogroup I2a- Els Trocs Cave, Bisaurri, Huesca- Troc 5- (5.302-5.074 BC).
There are documented 42 other cases of different types of I2a in the pre-BB Iberian chalcolithic

3-Haplogroup R1b- 4 samples (3 R1b-V88 and 1 possibly R1b-m269)

4-R1a and Q has never been found in Spain or in the Neolithic or the Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age or the Iron Age.

5- Mit-Hap-U2-U2e- (Iberia-Dolmen de la Mina, Sedano, Burgos, Neolithic-3.750 BC

6-Mit-Hap U4- Portugal, Estuario del rio Sado, Mesolíthic-8.500 BC/Alto del Reinoso, Burgos, Chalcolithic-3.670 BC/Perdigoes, /Camí de Can Grau, Granollers-3.500 BC/Camino del Molino-2.900 BC/Valencina de la Concepción, Chalcolithic Pre-BB-2.800 BC/Cova del Cantal, Alicante, BB Culture- 2.540 BC

7-Mit-Hap U5-Iberia-Erralla Cave, Cestona, Guipúzcoa, Magdalenian-15.970 BC/Can Sadurni-5.390 BC/Cova Avellaner, Barcelona-5.000 BC/Cingle del Mas Nou, Alto Maestrazgo, Castellón-5.000 BC/Los Cascajos, Neolithic-4.038 BC.

8-Mit-Hap-H6a- Never found in Iberia. H6-Iberia-Cueva de la Chora, San Pantaleón de Aras, Cantabria, Mesolíthic- 6.360 BC/Can Gambús, Cardial Culture, Neolíthic-5.000 BC

9-Mit-Hap-H2a2/a- Iberia-Los Areneros de las Zumaqueras, Segovia, Chalcolithic Pre-BB-2.500 BC/ Terrazas de Manzanares, Rivas Vaciamadrid, Madrid, BB culture-2.114 BC.

10- Mit Hap-D2, C1, C4, C5, A10- Never found in Iberia

11- Farmer Mit-Hap U3a-Iberia-Els Trocs, Neolithic-Troc6-5.188 BC/ dolmen de la Mina, Neolithic-3.750 BC/Barranc d’en Rifá, Chalcolithic-2.750 BC.
Mit.Hap-V-Iberia-Els Trocs, Bisaurri, Aragón-I0413-5.188 BC/ Portugal, Neolíthic-5.125 BC/Alto de la Huesera, Alava, chalcolithic Pre BB-I3276-3.046 BC
Mit-Hap- N1b-Iberia, Portugal, Estuario del Sado, Mesolíthic-8.500 BC
Mit-Hap-K - Iberia-more than 50 cases from the Neolithic
Mit-Hap H2a1- Never found in Iberia

12. Their language is most likely IE- I suppose you will know that at the time of the Romans 3 non-Indo-European languages ​​were spoken in the entire western half of the Iberian peninsula and the south of France.

13- Copper artifacts were known in Iberia 1,000 years before the appearance of BBc and the CWC

I think you're going to have to look for other arguments because nothing you've said makes sense.

Andrzejewski said...

@Davidski "And what sorts of Y-haplogroups did they bring to the steppes, because so far there are no CHG/Caucasian/Near Eastern Y-haplogroups in Dereivka, Sredny Stog, Khvalynsk, Piedmont steppe, Yamnaya, Poltavka, Corded Ware, Sintashta, Srubnaya, eastern Bell Beakers, etc."

I am wondering the same thing but Dr. Korolev mentioned "Khvalynsk Cultural Bearers" merging with Samara archeological culture which apparently was similar to Don-Donets. And then you yourself mentioned in your 2017 about a dilution of pure EHG in Samara into Khvalynsk.

I am all in favor of PIE turning out to be a development of some ANE language but the jury's still out on what's actually happened. It also seems quite strange that other CHG-rich founding uniparental haps like the Jews ("Hapiru") had a tripartite class division similar to ancient India (hierarchy), pastoralism and similar CHG cultural traits also show up in Mycenaean Greeks onward.

Gaska said...

@ Alex

When geneticists talk about the Bronze Age in Western Europe they refer to the period between 2,000-1,000 BC. Olalde, Martiniano, Valdiosera, Szecseny...agree that in that period of time Iberia was absolutely R1b-P312, in fact we have the only five samples of that time and all of them are P312 (1 Df27).

So, we are not discussing that, because everyone accepts the evidence. What we discuss is the time and the way of entry of the steppe ancestry in Spain and also in Italy and the fact that it must be necessarily linked to R1b-M269 as some geneticists say.

Martiniano-"CHG component in Admixture is present in modern-day Spaniards and to a lesser extent in the Basque population, suggesting further genetic influx has occurred into the peninsula subsequent to the Middle Bronze Age, potentially with less infiltration into the western Pyrenees"

Anna Szécsényi-Nagy- "Interestingly, we also do not find evidence for influx in the East to West direction, as none of the investigated Chalcolithic individuals show ‘steppe ancestry’, which seen in contemporaneous Central European Corded Ware and Bell Beaker groups"

C. Valdiosera- "The estimates for Bronze Age Iberians are close to the 15% steppe ancestry estimated for the modern Spanish population"."the arrival of most of the Yamnaya-related ancestry in Iberia postdates the onset of Bell Beaker pottery in Iberia, suggesting that the Bell Beaker culture spread culturally, while steppe ancestry was brought into Iberia through later migrations"

T. Gunther- "Furthermore, all modern-day Iberian groups except the Basques display distinct admixture with Caucasus/Central Asian groups, possibly related to historical migration events” Basque scoring low to No Caucasus in Aixture- This is a good evidence they lack steppe ancestry, because that’s exactly the main steppe marker"

Morten Allentoft- "Shows that Basques at all K-levels (and Sardinians at all K-levels but K-19) lack the blue or teal components that are systematically present at high values in all the Indoeuropean/Kurgan cultures"

And now we have to reconcile these opinions with the fact of 92% of P312 in the Basques and 70% in the rest of Spaniards and also think how it is possible that mostly NOT Indo-European languages ​​are spoken. Without a doubt it is a puzzle, maybe Olalde will help us solve it.

Andrzejewski said...

@Juan @Diego The BB incomers to BA Spain may have spoken a Lusitanian-like language. The latter used to be considered "Celtic" for some reason but Celts only showed up on the stage much later, about 1,000 later, with the onset of the Hallstatt Culture.

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

It doesn't matter what you're in favor of, the point I was making was that you often get carried away, get the basics wrong, and go off on some tangent that doesn't lead anywhere.

You claimed above that it looked like an EHG guy got whacked over the head by CHG "culture bearers", when, in fact, the Khvalynsk individual that was apparently killed and thrown into a ditch was the one with most CHG.

And then you talk about possible migrations of PIE speaking CHG people into and around the steppes during the Eneolithic, but it's extremely unlikely that there were any CHG people left alive anywhere at that time.

The people you're talking about just had a relatively higher ratio of CHG-related ancestry, which was only distantly related to the CHG of Upper Paleolithic Georgia, and can't be culturally linked, even indirectly, to anything in the Near East.

Also, I'n not sure why you're talking about linking PIE to ANE? PIE is no older, or not much older, than the Eneolithic and it comes from West Eurasia, so it certainly can't be thought of as an ANE language no matter what.

Cy Tolliver said...

@Davidski, regarding this statement:

"The people you're talking about just had a relatively higher ratio of CHG-related ancestry, which was only distantly related to the CHG of Upper Paleolithic Georgia, and can't be culturally linked, even indirectly, to anything in the Near East."

How exactly are you able to quantify the degree of divergence between these different CHG populations? Also, is it fair to say that as a whole, CHG is essentially Dzudzuana + ANE?

Andrzejewski said...

@Cy Tolliver ""The people you're talking about just had a relatively higher ratio of CHG-related ancestry, which was only distantly related to the CHG of Upper Paleolithic Georgia, and can't be culturally linked, even indirectly, to anything in the Near East."

How exactly are you able to quantify the degree of divergence between these different CHG populations? Also, is it fair to say that as a whole, CHG is essentially Dzudzuana + ANE?"

You know, you are asking an interesting question here. I would love to see a facial reconstruction of the KK1 (Kotias Klde 1) and Satsublia done like they did on Oetzi the Ice Man and various WHG individuals such as Cheddar Man, La Brana, Loschbour and so on. There are after all several Yamnaya busts, both male and female, (to me they mostly look almost identical to Roman sculptures). Now, given that Yamnaya sits in the middle of the PCA between CHG and EHG, it would be interesting to see what "pure" CHG v. "pure" EHG faces look like.

On another note and key, I am also wondering why Dr. Haak and Lazaridis made the assertion that Yamnaya were relatively swarthy. I delve a lot into Physical Anthropology mostly because I acknowledge that genes determine physical appearance and by attempting to link or associate history, culture, linguistic affiliation and "looks" it makes me easier to understand the admixture events in prehistory resulting in creation of Eneolithic cultures as the Yamnaya and closer populations.

Andrzejewski said...

@All Is that true that Yamnaya, although highly homogenous, was consisted of 3 different physical types? 1. Dolichocephalic. 2. Brachycephalic and 3. Gracile due to EEF influence from the West?

Leron said...

Cy Tolliver: From what I understood he pairs southern (Caucasus) originating CHG with Anatolian farmer signal and the northern line with lack of it in samples. I don't think he has an actual way of separating CHG through direct means.

Samuel Andrews said...

Cy Tolliver: Adding to what leron said. It is unknown how CHG formed or how many relatives it had. The only relative of CHG who survived is "IranN." If CHG had other relatives they died out. The CHG in all modern pops is from the same or closely related ancestor who lived in the Paleolithic Caucasus.

Cy Tolliver said...

Samuel Andrews and Leron, thanks. In a previous thread I asked about the difference between CHG and Iran_Neo, and I believe someone responded that Iran_Neo appears to essentially be CHG + a little extra ANE or Eastern Non-African. What do you guys think?

From what it sounds like to me, based on my admittedly limited understanding, CHG sounds like a rather complex mixture of multiple divergent ancestry streams - some Basal Eurasian, a vaguely defined West-Eurasian hunter-gatherer rooted in the Near East, some ANE, and maybe some extra ENA?

Davidski said...

@Cy Tolliver

How exactly are you able to quantify the degree of divergence between these different CHG populations? Also, is it fair to say that as a whole, CHG is essentially Dzudzuana + ANE?

I'm not quantifying it. I'm just noticing that the Eneolithic Piedmont steppe individuals can't be modeled very well as mixtures of EHG and CHG per se, but rather as EHG and something more ANE-rich and basal than CHG.

So it's unlikely that this is the same population as the Upper Paleolithic CHG from Georgia, or a derived population with various admixtures. It's probably a closely related, parallel clade to CHG, Iran_Hotu, etc.

And my understanding is that CHG is Dzudzuana + ANE + extra basal. But all I know is what I read in the Dzudzuana preprint. I would need to get a hold of the samples to see what they're like.

Cy Tolliver said...

@Davidski

Thanks for clarifying. That Dzudzuana paper was interesting, hopefully the full paper gets published and the genome is made available, I'd be very interested in seeing what your analysis of it might reveal.

Samuel Andrews said...

@Davidski,

CHG has always looked like a good proxy for southern ancestry in Yamnaya. I remember Yamnaya shared CHG-specific drift in your D-stat spreadsheets. Before CHG genomes, Georgians who are 50-60% CHG were the best proxy.

"So it's unlikely that this is the same population as the Upper Paleolithic CHG from Georgia, or a derived population with various admixtures. It's probably a closely related, parallel clade to CHG, Iran_Hotu, etc. "

But, if Yamnaya shares drift with CHG it doesn't with Iran_Hotu how could this be the case? Yamnaya's southern ancestry must be related to CHG.

Samuel Andrews said...

CHG & IranNeo certainly are near perfect proxies of ancestors for Middle East & South Asia. IranNeo farmers were very successful in southcentral Asia. Caucasus population rich in CHG migrated throughout the Middle East during Chalcolithic.

Davidski said...

@Samuel Andrews

But, if Yamnaya shares drift with CHG it doesn't with Iran_Hotu how could this be the case? Yamnaya's southern ancestry must be related to CHG.

Of course it is, and it's more closely related to CHG than to Iran_Hotu. But imagine if we had a sample of a Mesolithic forager from the North Caucasus foothills.

Actually, Vonyuchka_Eneolithic is probably very close, just with some extra EHG, but I hope you get my point.

Andrzejewski said...

@Samuel Andrews When do you assume Epipaleolithic CHG populations started spreading from Georgia and populating the Southern Steppes?

Ric Hern said...

@ Andrzejewski

Have a look at the Settlements at Kammenaya Balka on the Don. There is an Archeological connection between the Imereti Region/Dzudzuana and Kammenaya Balka...

Andrzejewski said...

@Ric Hern What do you think about this article?

https://adnaera.com/2019/01/11/how-did-chg-get-into-steppe_emba-part-2-the-pottery-neolithic/

Open Genomes said...

A Global25 restricted nMonte clustering analysis showing the relationship between the Bronze Age and Eneolithic Steppe individuals, the Caucasus Eneolithic cultures, the European Neolithic, Bronze Central Asians and Siberian Neolithic peoples.

First, the latest tree:

Global25 scaled Ward's distance-squared clustering tree

These restricted nMonte analyses are not based on population average. "Populations" overlap each other, and in most cases do not form valid clusters. This analysis is based on individuals within precisely defined clusters within a
tree, so it's possible to decompose these individual components in turn by running an nMonte analysis on the listed representative individuals of the component clusters.

These analyses are restricted to the limits separately starting with the Chalcolithic and Neolithic, and sometimes the Bronze Age.
The matching individuals used for the analyses are restricted to the Steppes the Near East, the Caucasus, Iran, Central Asia, Siberia, Europe, and North Africa, to eliminate "noise". The percent limit for the second run of the restricted nMonte is 0.2%, which gives results that make sense, even for the small components. All the parameters are listed on the pages.

In the results tables, the percentage for each cluster should be read only once, even if several individuals are listed for each cluster.

Andrzejewski said...

"Interesting for the question at hand here is the 2.4% CHG admixture in the Samara HG. This doesn’t measure his total CHG share, which in distal modelling with AG3 and Villabruna as further sources lies around 8%. Instead, it represents the CHG that wasn’t already present in Sidelkino (2.9%), and didnt arrive from also CHG-enriched Mesolithic/ Neolithic Ukraine, which leaves us with either Elshan or the Lower Volga as its likely origin."

Andrzejewski said...

But then his conclusion is:

"However, the introduction of pottery only raised the CHG share in the East European Steppe from some 3% in Sidelkino and 4% in Mesolithic Ukraine to 8 and 9%, respectively. The bulk of CHG ancestry must have arrived later, i.e. with the introduction of agriculture or during the Chalcolithic. These periods will be explored in the next part of this series."

So he thinks that most of the CHG arrived fairly recently during the Chalcolithic.

Open Genomes said...

First we can start with sample I0444, Yamnaya Samara, Y R1b1a1a2a2-Z2103 mtDNA H6a1b. He was buried with a large hammered copper club, and was clearly an elite individual buried with an extremely rare and high-status item.

Pre-Bronze Age cluster-based nMonte ancestry composition of sample: I0444 Population: Yamnaya_Samara Bronze Age Steppe

He's 45.6% Progress Eneolithic, 27.4% Ukraine Eneolithic (Dereivka / Dnieper river, Sredny Stog, R1a1a1-M417), 25.8% Khvalinsk Eneolithic (Volga river, R1a1-M459(xM198)), and 1.2% BMAC (Geoksiur Eneolithic).

While we can see he has about an equal proportion of Dereivka from the Dneiper basin and Khvalynsk from the Volga basin, he has a substantial proportion of his ancestry from the Progress site Eneolithic North Caspian Steppe. He's not just a simple mix of Dereivka and Khvalinsk.

Open Genomes said...

Let's look at the Progress Eneolithic samples:

The Progress Eneolithic individuals are in Y haplogroup R-V1636, also found in an Early Bronze Age (Kura-Araxes) individual from Armenia, I1635.

Pre-Bronze Age ancestry composition of sample: PG2004 Population: Progress_Eneolithic Chalcolithic Steppe

He comes out as 58.6% Khvalynsk, but also 20.6% Sarazm Eneolithic (Proto-BMAC), an additional 15.2% CHG (Kotias), and 5.6% additional EHG.

The other Progress Eneolithic individual:
Pre-Bronze Age ancestry composition of sample: PG2001 Population: Progress_Eneolithic Chalcolithic Steppe

has almost the same proportions, 51.4% Khvalynsk Eneolithic, 21.4% Sarazm Eneolithic, an extra 20.8% CHG (Kotias) and 6.4% Ukraine Eneolithic.

Here is their ancestry from the Neolithic perspective:
Neolithic ncestry composition of sample: PG2004 Population: Progress_Eneolithic Chalcolithic Steppe

One thing to note is that the European Neolithic is rather similar to the Anatolian Neolithic, so for samples from near the Caucasus, it may be hard to distinguish these two sources.

PG2004 here has a much higher proportion of CHG, 32.8%, and also a non-trivial 7.4% contribution from the Darra-i-Kur Central Asian Neolithic, and European Neolithic 5.4%, and Iran goat-herd managing Early Neolithic Ganj Dareh 1.2%.

Neolithic ancestry composition of sample: PG2001 Population: Progress_Eneolithic Chalcolithic Steppe

The results for PG2001 are similar, but with a somewhat higher European/Anatolian Neolithic contribution. Darra-i-Kur Central Asian Neolithic and Ganj Dareh Early Iranian Neolithic are still present, there is an additional small amount of West Siberia Neolithic (the same cluster includes the Botai samples).

Clearly, the CHG ancestry in Yamnaya is coming from the south via the Progress Eneolithic Caucasus Piedmont Steppe.

The interesting thing is that these Progress Eneolithic individuals have ancestry from the Central Asian Neolithic, and smaller amounts from the Iranian and West Siberian (Botai) Neolithic. The "European" Neolithic may be coming from the south, from Anatolia, not from the west.

The connection between Yamnaya and the Caucasus then is not directly from Maykop, but from the Eneolithic Caucasus Piedmont, which brought with it ancestry from further afield both from the east and the south, as well as the expected large amount of CHG ancestry.

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

So he thinks that most of the CHG arrived fairly recently during the Chalcolithic.

That's total BS. He's just making it all up.

The Chalcolithic aka Eneolithic CHG-rich samples from the Piedmont steppe don't come from sites that had agriculture.

These were still in practice Mesolithic sites.

Davidski said...

@Open Genomes

The interesting thing is that these Progress Eneolithic individuals have ancestry from the Central Asian Neolithic, and smaller amounts from the Iranian and West Siberian (Botai) Neolithic. The "European" Neolithic may be coming from the south, from Anatolia, not from the west.

Nope. These samples aren't related to any Neolithic sites in Central Asia or Anatolia. They're basically foragers.

They don't have Central Asian ancestry, just excess ANE.

Davidski said...

The first unambiguous farmers/herders right near the steppe are Darkveti-Meshoko in the Caucasus and Trypillia in western Ukraine.

Apart from that, there are claims of farming here and there on the steppe before Darkveti-Meshoko and Trypillia, but no strong evidence.

So there weren't any migrations of Neolithic populations to the steppe from Central or West Asia.

Open Genomes said...

If we look at a Sarazm Eneolithic sample from Tajikistan in Central Asia, the origin of BMAC, we find the following Neolithic ancestry:

Neolithic ancestry composition of sample: I4910 Population: Sarazm_Eneolithic Chalcolithic Central Asia

This female has 60.8% Ganj Dareh Iranian Neolithic, 15.6% CHG, 13.0% West Siberia Neolithic / Botai, and 9.4% Central Asian Neolithic.

Darra-i-Kur clusters uniquely with present-day Balochi, Makrani, Sindhi, and Brahui.

What's interesting is that CHG-related ancestry makes it out so far east, to Tajikistan.

The clustering of the Progress Wang (2018) samples on the tree.

Progress Eneolithic clusters closely with Vonyuchka Eneolithic and a couple of Yamnaya Caucasus individuals, and also with a Steppe Maykop individual AY2001, and a BMAC outlier I1783. In the larger cluster these all cluster with the big group of Yamnaya, Afanasievo, Poltavka, Catacomb, and Kubano-Tursk individuals, along with a single Sintashta individual I7670, and a single Early Corded Ware Baltic individual I4629.

So it seems that the Progress Eneolithic has connections to the places that are not on the Steppe (the Caucasus, Iran, Central Asia, and Siberia), but that Progress / Voynuchka is key to forming the ancestry of Yamnaya and related groups, because they mixed with the Khvalynsk and Dereivka cultures of the steppe river valleys to form Yamnaya.

Was it the Eneolithic Caucasus Piedmont cultures of Progress and Voynuchka that brought horse domestication from the east (Botai) to the Pontic-Caspian steppe?

Did this very early group of R1b-L389* R1b-V1636's bring a distantly related language to Proto-Indo-European to the Caucasus region? Proto-Kartvelian has some features in common with Proto-Indo-European, for example an "m" first person singular pronoun and a "t" second person singluar pronoun. Pagel et al. (2013) clusters Proto-Kartvelian distantly with a Proto-Indo-Uralic macro-family. Perhaps this indicates that Proto-Kartvelian would not be related to the Anatolian Neolithic farming language. This is an Quentin Atkinson paper, and the Grey-Atkinson methodology is controversial. Yet, there may be some linguistic remnant around the Caucasus that played a role in the formation of Proto-Indo-European.

Davidski said...

@Open Genomes

Progress and Voynuchka Eneolithic are only very distantly related to Sarazm_Eneolthic via the forager ancestry in Sarazm_Eneolithic. We're talking links possibly dating back to the Mesolithic or Paleolithic.

Sarazm_Eneolithic is a farmer population that shows Anatolian ancestry, so it's a mixture of Central Asian foragers and West Asian farmers.

Even though you can model Progress and Voynuchka Eneolithic with G25/nMonte as part Sarazm_Eneolithic with a distance of around 3.5%, this doesn't necessarily mean that they have ancestry from Sarazm_Eneolithic. This would have to be confirmed with formal stats and it can't be.

So there's actually no strong evidence in any of the data that Progress and Voynuchka Eneolithic are mixed. They might well be a long standing, homogeneous forager population.

Open Genomes said...

@David, the Progress Eneolithic samples do have extra ANE in the form of Afontova Gora 3, but also something related to Darra-i-Kur and something Anatolian/European Neolithic-like, in addition to large dose of extra CHG. It doesn't have to be from Darra-i-Kur itself, but something related to Mesolithic Iran mixed with ANE. I think that the Anatolian-related ancestry is coming up indirectly through the Caucasus, but it doesn't seem to be related directly to either Maykop or Kura-Araxes.

Vonyuchka VJ1001 is a bit different than the Progress individuals. She has much higher Iran Early Neolithic and is lacking in Central Asian and Siberian Neolithic:

Neolithic ancestry composition of sample: VJ1001 Population: Vonyuchka_Eneolithic Chalcolithic Steppe




Can you test this relationship with F-statistics?

Open Genomes said...

@David - I'm not saying that this shared ancestry with Sarazm doesn't date to the Mesolithic, in fact, it almost certainly does, given the dates of Progress / Voynuchka and Sarazm. However, would the Mesolithic foragers just north of the Caucasus be so different from both CHG just to the south and EHG to the north?

Maybe the Caucasus Piedmont Eneolithic represents the origin of the earliest branch of Proto-Indo-European, namely Anatolian, because Tocharian seems to derive from Afanasievo, and Afransievo is just like Yamnaya and Catacomb, among others?

In F-statisics, where does it seem this extra ANE in Progress comes from?
Also, the extra Iranian Early Neolithic in the Voynuchka woman needs explaining. She doesn't share this with Progress, so it must be the result of admixture somewhere, if she's from the same Caucasus Piedmont forager population you propose is native to the region. This wasn't passed on to Yamnaya.

Andrzejewski said...

@Open Genomes " Pagel et al. (2013) clusters Proto-Kartvelian distantly with a Proto-Indo-Uralic macro-family."

What "Indo-Uralic"? Show me 10 generic cognates between PIE and Proto-Uralic.

Don't know about Kartvelian, but Georgians have 15%-20% Steppe admixture like Armenians, in addition to CHG and EEF/ANF.

Both Joanna Nichols and Colarusso postulated a proposed "Pontic" language family dating back to 12,000 BC or so but that also seems to far fetched.

Andrzejewski said...

"Tocharian seems to derive from Afanasievo..."

Again, Afanasievo mixed with the later-comer ANE-rich Botai-like maybe-Yeniseian-speaking
Okunevo and later on with incoming Andronovo. Somehow there was a population called Cimmerian which used to be assumed to be Indo-Iranian but recently was revealed to be more East Asian shifted on both uniparental markers. Those Cimmerians were later pushed somewhere by the Scythians whose descent was from Andronovo. Tarim Basin Mummies turned out to be closer aDNA to Andronovo than to Afanasievo. So perhaps maybe TB Mummies were Saka or Sarmatians, not Tocharians?

Tocharians were thought to be a separate people, closely affiliated with the Wusun, Yuezhi Confederacy and the spread of Buddhism via the Silk Road. Bear in mind that Tocharian may have been evidenced to be spoken between 300 BC to 800 AD but Afanasievo arrived 5,000 years ago or longer.

Therefore, there are more holes in the Afanasievo= Tarim Basin Mummies = Tocharians than either a sieve or a Swiss Cheese.

pnuadha said...

@davidski

It's unlikely that the Villabruna cluster came to Europe 15,000 years ago from the Middle East. More likely it originated in the Balkans and spread into Central Europe and the Middle East.

Isnt it essentially impossible for the Villabruna cluster have come from the middle east 15,000 years ago?

Correct me if Im wrong. Fu et al proved that the Villabruna cluster (WHG) has no Basel Eurasian (BE). A later paper showed that Mesolithic Anatolian has BE, as well as being almost fully ancestral to Neolithic Anatolian. Before Fu et al, we knew that CHG, found in Mesolithic Caucasus, also has BE. Therefore Mesolithic Caucasus and Anatolia both have BE which WHG lacks, effectively isolating WHG to Europe/Siberia.

Also, are you convinced that EHG is the result of admixture and that this admixture was something like Afonta Gora + WHG + CHG? Does that mean EHG has Basel Eurasian?

pnuadha said...

@andrzejewski

It's actually the Neolithic Farmers who have roots in Anatolia and the Levant, and WHG (Villabruna cluster) who also came from the Middle East 15,000 years ago.

Neolithic Anatolians predominantly come from Mesolithic Anatolians, they have little to no Levant.

After the Neolithic, all the Near East mixed with one another.

Davidski said...

@Colin Welling

Isn't it essentially impossible for the Villabruna cluster have come from the middle east 15,000 years ago?

Essentially yes, but what if, say, there was a proto-Villabruna colony on the Anatolian coast of the Sea of Marmara? Probably not, but if there was, then that would mean that the Villabruna cluster did technically come from the Middle East. That's why I said such a scenario was unlikely, rather than impossible.

Also, are you convinced that EHG is the result of admixture and that this admixture was something like Afontovaa Gora + WHG + CHG? Does that mean EHG has Basel Eurasian?

Yes, and if Basal Eurasian was a real population (because keep in mind that it's still just a ghost pop), then yes, EHG has some Basal Eurasian, because it does have some CHG ancestry.

Gaska said...


@Juanrivera

RISE1 sample is evidently "one of the worse quality samples in the dataset". It shows just one positive call (in one read?) for all known mutations under R1, so in case we accept this is R1b1, we should also accept that the commonly questioned Iberian sample ATP3 from El Portalon is R1b-M269 (or a closely related lineage) or that the Quedlinburg IX sample I0559/QLB15 (Baalberge culture, dated to 3645-3537 BC) is certainly R1 (and possibly R1a or R1b). In other words, if one says RISE1 is "reliable" while ATP3 is "unreliable", this is like using double standards for this type of analysis. ATP3 (3.400 BC) also has ANE ancestry

At the moment CWC is mostly R1a, although recently some I2a have appeared

"Actually, A, C and D were found in Spain by a 2016 study, though whether it's of steppe origin or Amerindian origin is unknown. Also, Q1a is found among Iberians (even Basque, which supports the idea that steppe migrants had it)"

I think you do not understand what we are talking about, these haplogroups (A, C, D) are not related to the steppes, or to steppe migrations, neither to CWC nor to the BBC, nor have they been found in prehistoric Spanish sites. If you are referring to cases in contemporary populations, the explanations are very different and it does not make sense to discuss them here

Regarding hapY-Q, there have been some cases in the Basque Country and in Asturias, and the geneticists attribute them to Indianos (Spanish emigrants to America repatriated), it has nothing to do with steppe migrations.

Matt said...

Colin Welling: Neolithic Anatolians predominantly come from Mesolithic Anatolians, they have little to no Levant.

Barcin farmers who are supposed to be the proxy for Anatolian farmers entering Europe probably about 20% Levant_N, according to studies with preceding populations. But Levant itself likely can be modeled as about 40:60 Anatolian Late Upper Paleolithic HG:Natufian, so you could suggest that paleolithic Levant HG ancestry more like 12%.

(Reduce by 25% for MN to 9%, then through steppe ancestry by 40% to about 5-6% for present day Northern and Eastern Europeans).

Kristiina said...

@Andrzejewski "What "Indo-Uralic"? Show me 10 generic cognates between PIE and Proto-Uralic."

You can start with these (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Uralic_languages):
first person singular IE *-m U *-m
first person plural IE *-me U *-me
second person singular IE *-s (active), *-tHa (perfect) U *-t
second person plural IE *-te U *-te
accusative IE *-m U *-m
ablative IE *-od U *-ta
nominative–accusative plural IE *-es (nominative plural) U *-t
oblique plural IE *-i, U *to-i-
dual IE *-H₁ U *-k
'and' (postposed conjunction) IE *-kʷe U *-ka ~ *-kä
negative particle 'not' IE *ne U *ne
'I, me' IE *me 'me' (accusative), *mene 'my' (genitive) U *mun, *mina 'I'
'you' (singular) IE *tu (nominative), *twe (accusative), *tewe 'your' (genitive) U *tun, *tina
demonstrative pronoun IE *so 'this, he/she' (animate nominative singular) U *sä 'he/she, it'
demonstrative pronoun IE *to- 'this, that' IE *tä 'this', *to 'that'
'who?' (interrogative pronoun) IE *kÊ·i- ~ *kÊ·e- ~ *kÊ·o- 'who?, what?'
*kÊ·i/e/o- + -ne 'who?, what?' U *ki ~ *ke ~ *ku ~ *ko 'who?, what?'
*ken 'who?'
'to give' IE *deH₃U *toHi-
'to go' IE *kÊ·elH- U *kulki-
'to wash' IE *mozg- U *mośki-
'pot' IE *pot- U *pata
'water' IE *woder- 'water' U *weti 'water'
'name' IE *nomen- 'name' U *nimi 'name'
'fish' IE *kÊ·alo- 'large fish' (< Eng. "whale") U *kala 'fish'
'sister-in-law' IE *galou- 'husband's sister' U *kälɜ 'sister-in-law'
'much' IE *pḷlu- 'much' U *paljɜ 'thick, much'
'to cook' IE *bheh1- 'to cook', U *peša- 'to cook'

There are more, but I give only these, because they are easily available.

A said...

"Neolithic Anatolians predominantly come from Mesolithic Anatolians, they have little to no Levant."

Is there any evidence that European hunter-gatherers mixed with Mesolithic or Neolithic Anatolians, prior to the expansion of farming across Europe?


Andrzejewski said...

@Colin and @Matt,

"Colin Welling: Neolithic Anatolians predominantly come from Mesolithic Anatolians, they have little to no Levant.

Barcin farmers who are supposed to be the proxy for Anatolian farmers entering Europe probably about 20% Levant_N, according to studies with preceding populations. But Levant itself likely can be modeled as about 40:60 Anatolian Late Upper Paleolithic HG:Natufian"

Unlike Yamnaya, Antaolia_N was far from being a homogenous population: how else would you explain the high ratio of Haplogroups E1b1b (most common among Greeks and Bulgarians, lots of Italians), which was originally a Natufian/Levant_N signal, Haplogroup T, Haplogroup K, Haplogroups J1/J2 (CHC and Semites) etc.

Curiously and interestingly, 30% of Greeks are E1b1b and the second highest one is J1 or J2. Italians (via Etruscans?) have a high ratio of J1 of J2 (CHG/Near East). So we see that not all EEF were originally Y-Hap G like Oetzi was...

Andrzejewski said...

@Phillipe No, but UHG was a sister clade to WHG with mtDNA K1 (which Otzi belonged to, used to be called U8) as its common uniparental marker.

I read here not too long ago that Anatolian Famers descended in part from Greek HG.

Andrzejewski said...

@Kristiina "'water' IE *woder- 'water' U *weti 'water'"

But, another common PIE root for "water" is "ob-".

It was recently demonstrated by (I think) Haakkinen that both terms for 'name' and 'water' were borrowed from PIE into Proto-Uralic or more interestingly, only to SOME Uralic languages.

A said...

"No [...] I read here not too long ago that Anatolian Famers descended in part from Greek HG."

Those sound like contradictory statements...

Apparently around 5500 BC the Black Sea was a lake (substantially smaller than it is today) and Europe was directly connected to Anatolia, so movement back and forth would have been much easier.

Gaska said...


@ Philippe said..."Neolithic Anatolians predominantly come from Mesolithic Anatolians, they have little to no Levant."

Is there any evidence that European hunter-gatherers mixed with Mesolithic or Neolithic Anatolians, prior to the expansion of farming across Europe?

Michael Feldman (2.108)-

"We also detect distinct genetic interactions between the populations of central Anatolia and earlier farming centers to the east, during the late Pleistocene/early Holocene as well as with European hunter-gatherers to the west during the Late Pleistocene"

Based on our observations in PCA and ADMIXTURE analysis we formally tested the 5 ancestral compositions of the three Anatolian populations. We first characterized the ancestry of AHG. As expected from AHG’s intermediate position on PCA between Epipaleolithic/Neolithic Levantines and WHG, Patterson’s D- statistics of the form D (AHG, WHG; Natufian/Levant_N, Mbuti) ≥ 4.8 SE (standard error) and D (AHG, Natufian/Levant_N; WHG, Mbuti) ≥ 9.0 SE (table S3) indicates that AHG is distinct from both the WHG and Epipaleolithic/Neolithic Levantine populations and yet shares extra affinity with each when compared to the other. Accordingly, we find an adequate two-way admixture model using qpAdm12 (χ2p = 0.158), in which AHG derives around half of his ancestry from a Neolithic Levantine-related gene pool (48.0 ± 4.5 %; estimate ± 1 SE) and the rest from the WHG-related one (tables S4 and S5). These results support a late Pleistocene presence of both ancestries in a mixed form in central Anatolia. Notably, the genetic connection with the Levant predates the advent of farming in this region by at least five millennia and potentially correlates with evidence of human interactions between central Anatolia and the Levant during the Epipalaeolithic

Hap-Mit-N1a1/a1- Turkey, Anatolia, Boncuklu, AAF- 8.050 BC
N1a1/a1- Germany, Halberstadt, Neolíthic-5.120 BC

Hap-Mit-N1a1/b- Israel, Kfar HaHoresh, Natufian, Levant-7.650 BC
N1a1/b- Germany, Halsberstadt, Neolíhic-5.102 BC

We examined alleles related to phenotypic traits in the ancient genomes (data table S7).Notably, three of the AAF carry the derived allele for rs12193832 in the HERC2 (hect domain and RLD2) gene that is primarily responsible for lighter eye color in Europeans22. The derived allele is observed as early as 14,000 -13,000 years ago in individuals from Italy and the Caucasus but had not yet been reported in early farmers or hunter-gatherers from the Near East.

To the west, a genetic link is observed between the Anatolian and Southeastern European Pleistocene hunter gatherers. Inspection of the shared genetic components between these two 15 populations provides us with a model explaining the genetic affinity between late Pleistocene Europeans and present-day Near Eastern populations

Interestingly, while the local population structure remains highly stable, a pattern of genetic interactions with neighboring regions is observed from as early as the Late Pleistocene and into the early Holocene. External genetic contributions, associated with two distinct early 5 farming populations of the Fertile Crescent, substituted about 10% and 20% of indigenous ancestry each.


Matt said...

Re; whether there was any geneflow between steppe groups with a hunting and gathering economy and populations south of the Caucasus with a farming economy, would comment, the difference in subsistence methods doesn't automatically exclude exchange of ancestry.

Pitted Ware Complex groups who were basically fisher gatherers in Northern Europe had EEF ancestry (of 10%, maybe more - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/03/03/113241.full.pdf), despite not being farmers. So did Sredny Stog II in quite more significant quantities (I6561 and I4110 about >40%), without adopting a farming economy. Hofmanova's thesis (https://publications.ub.uni-mainz.de/theses/volltexte/2017/100001355/pdf/100001355.pdf) showed that genetically Aegean farmers "infiltrated the nearby hunter-gatherer community of Lepenski Vir" without changing subsistence.

Though basically that if any admixture happened and assuming that groups south of Caucasus had some Anatolian HG related ancestry quite early, it would have to be fine scale and balanced by Central Asian influence.
It would probably make sense to not to be *for* it, as it does seem simpler to propose a deeper CHG+EHG origin for the Eneolithic Piedmont Steppe, but we can't exclude it unless samples are generated that are directly relevant to the question.

A said...

@Diego

Thanks!

epoch said...

@Kristiina


"There are more, but I give only these, because they are easily available."

The non-easily available, what do they consist of? I know Kloekhorst came up with the idea that some of the innovations of Anatolian could actually be archaic only surviving in Anatolian and linked them to Uralic.

@Davidski

Offtopic, so feel free to ignore these, but could you do:

Mbuti GoyetQ116-1 EHG Kostenki14
Mbuti GoyetQ116-1 EHG Muierii2
Mbuti GoyetQ116-1 EHG Sunghir
Mbuti El_Miron EHG Kostenki14
Mbuti El_Miron EHG Muierii2
Mbuti El_Miron EHG Sunghir

A said...

Did Seima-Turbino come from Andronovo?

Slumbery said...


Interesting that Sintashta_MLBA_o1 takes some Maykop ancestry. Originally I though that Sintashta_o1 is a result of an eastward Yamnaya (or Poltavka/Catacomb) expansion mixing with the locals. But I am not sure now. In nMontes both Sintashta_o1 and Steppe_Maykop reject Ukraine Eneolithic and Khvalinsk, while in the same test those come up as 40% of the ancestry of Yamnaya_Kalmykia. Sintashta_MLBA_o1 and Steppe_Maykop can be both modelled as just Progress_Eneolthic + WSHG/Botai + minor Maykop admixture, without any further stuff from Ukraine or the Samara region. (Well, Steppe_Maykop also takes some Iran_N like stuff, but that is only AY2001m (however she represents the entire Maykop ancestry in Steppe_Maykop without the outliers too...))

At this point I think it is possible that Sintashta_MLBA_o1 did not have significant Yamnaya ancestry, instead it had significant ancestry from a displaced Steppe_Maykop group.

Davidski said...

@epoch

I don't have Muierii2 in my dataset.

Mbuti GoyetQ116-1 EHG Kostenki14 0.0205 3.199 714577
Mbuti GoyetQ116-1 EHG Sunghir 0.0237 4.894 743379
Mbuti ElMiron EHG Kostenki14 -0.0068 -1.089 585274
Mbuti ElMiron EHG Sunghir -0.0029 -0.607 612343

Mem said...

No,it derived from native west siberian.

Davidski said...

@Matt

Re; whether there was any geneflow between steppe groups with a hunting and gathering economy and populations south of the Caucasus with a farming economy, would comment, the difference in subsistence methods doesn't automatically exclude exchange of ancestry.

Yeah, but positing that the Eneolithic Piedmont population got its elevated level of CHG-related ancestry from Neolithic groups in the Near East doesn't make any sense on multiple levels.

It's special pleading and the usual pitiful reaction to the likelihood that the Yamnaya genotype is native to the Pontic-Caspian steppe.

pnuadha said...

@davidski

Yes, and if Basal Eurasian was a real population (because keep in mind that it's still just a ghost pop), then yes, EHG has some Basal Eurasian, because it does have some CHG ancestry.

Suppose Basel Eurasian (BE) is not a real population. Can we still say with certainty that WHG does not have CHG or EEF ancestry because of the inferred, although not real, BE element?

Also, can you give a recap as to why you think the CHG in Khvalynsk, Stredny Stog, and Yamnaya came from Mesolithic Eastern Europe (southern steppe) and possibly paleolithic Eastern Europe? Im a bit fussy on the timing and location of important changes.

I know yamanaya like groups were on the steppe by the neolithic. I forget how early and how widespread the yamnaya like cluster was on the steppe. I also know that some of the Caucasus had some "Siberian" (ANE + extra East Asian) ancestry as seen in Maykop, which the yamnaya lack. What other limiting factors do we have to conclude that Yamnaya was a local development? Why do you think there was a CHG cline in Eastern Europe during the mesolithic or even paleolithic rather than having developed during the early neolithic?

Thanks in advance.

Davidski said...

@Colin

Suppose Basel Eurasian (BE) is not a real population. Can we still say with certainty that WHG does not have CHG or EEF ancestry because of the inferred, although not real, BE element?

As far as I know, WHG doesn't show any CHG or EEF ancestry.

But the inference that EHG has CHG ancestry is based on direct tests of CHG ancestry in EHG, so it doesn't rely on Basal Eurasian being a real population. In other words, whether Basal Eurasian really exists or not doesn't change the fact that EHG shows a signal of CHG ancestry, whatever that entails.

What other limiting factors do we have to conclude that Yamnaya was a local development? Why do you think there was a CHG cline in Eastern Europe during the mesolithic or even paleolithic rather than having developed during the early neolithic?

There are two main and related limiting factors.

Farmers with significant Anatolian ancestry were dispersed all over western Asia well before 4,000 BCE, including in the North Caucasus (Darkveti-Meshoko).

However, there are no obvious signs of such Anatolian ancestry or cultural Neolithic farmer influences in the Yamnaya-like Eneolithic Piedmont steppe population. So if this Piedmont steppe population wasn't even interacting with the nearest farmers, then why would it be interacting with a more distant farmer population south of the Caucasus and getting its CHG from it?

Thus, the most reasonable conclusion is that the Piedmont steppe and surrounds was something of a refuge for a very ancient CHG-related population, because the Caucasus shielded it from Anatolian admixture. But it wasn't shielded by anything from EHG admixture, which probably affected it very early via bidirectional gene flow, because EHG is recorded on the steppe as early as ~9,000 BCE, and it already shows some CHG admixture at that time.

Gabriel said...

So, where did the Palaeolithic proto-CHG/Iran_N population come from? It’s still likely to be from the Caucasus and surrounds and not from Eastern Europe, right?

Ric Hern said...

From the Baradostion Culture > Imeretian Culture/Dzudzuana in the Caucasus > Kammenaya Balka. Archaeologicaly it was linked to the Lower Don during the Late Upper Paleolithic.

Ric Hern said...

@ Them meee

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamennaya_Balka

Ric Hern said...

@ Them meee

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baradostian_culture

Ric Hern said...

@ Them meee

Apparently the Baradostian contributed the the formation of the Zarzian Culture as well as the Imeretian Culture and apparently Zarzian influence stretched as far as Gobustan. But Imeretian influence reached the Lower Don.If early Caucasus inhabitants lacked EHG but later ones did have EHG it will in my opinion only point to a North to South migration which could have influenced Iran during the Mesolithic.

Open Genomes said...

Here is I1635, R1b-L389* R-V1636 from Kura-Araxes Kalavan.

R1b-V1636 is the Y haplogroup as the two Progress Eneolithic samples PG2004 and PG2001 who were an important ancestral component of Yamnaya.

Chalcolithic ancestry composition of sample: I1635 Population: Kura-Araxes_Kalavan Chalcolithic Caucasus

I1635 is 40.4% Darkveti-Meshkoko.

Meshkoko was a Eneolithic (Chalcolithic) fortress in the North Caucasus, in a culture that preceded Maykop, and which was roughly contemporary with the adjacent Progress Caucasus Piedmont Steppe Eneolithic.

Here in turn is I2056 Darkveti-Meshkoko, who was J2a-Y11200, a subclade of J-CTS900 which is modal in the Northeast Caucasus today.
J-Y11200 was also found in Maykop Culture individuals.

Neolithic ancestry composition of sample: I2056 Population: Darkveti-Meshoko Chalcolithic Caucasus

I2056 is a simple mix of 61.4% CHG, 34.4% Anatolian Neolithic Farmer, 3.0% Ganj Dareh Early Iranian Neolithic, and 1.2% extra ANE.

Was a this, or a similar population, the source of the CHG in Progress Eneolithic, bringing with it a small amount of Anatolian Early Neolithic farmer ancestry, which ultimately ended up in Yamnaya?

Neolithic ancestry composition of sample: PG2004 Population: Progress_Eneolithic Chalcolithic Steppe

Davidski said...

@Open Genomes

Was a this, or a similar population, the source of the CHG in Progress Eneolithic, bringing with it a small amount of Anatolian Early Neolithic farmer ancestry, which ultimately ended up in Yamnaya?

The Anatolian-related ancestry in Yamnaya is from the North Pontic steppe. It was mediated via Eneolithic populations like Dereivka I and Sredny Stog II.

Individuals from these cultures provide by far the best mixture references in formal models for Yamnaya and Afanasievo.

Yamnaya_Samara
Dereivka_I_I4110 0.324±0.035
Progress_Eneolithic_PG2004 0.676±0.035
chisq 6.797
tail prob 0.976979

Afanasievo
Progress_Eneolithic_PG2004 0.638±0.038
Sredny_Stog_II_I6561 0.362±0.038
chisq 10.855
tail prob 0.818366

Open Genomes said...

@David

It seems then based on formal statistics that Progress Enolithic, PG2004, contributes the single most important percentage to the ancestry of both Yamnaya and Afanasievo.

Neolithic ancestry composition of sample: PG2004 Population: Progress_Eneolithic Chalcolithic Steppe

In that case, Progress Eneolithic PG2004, from the piedmont steppe zone of the North Caucasus, needs to be more closely investigated as the most important of the three sources of Yamnaya and Afanasievo, which are Progress Eneolithic, Eneolithic Volga river Khvalynsk, and Eneolithic Dnieper river Dereivka (including Sredny Stog).

While PG2004 is generally a more or less equal mix of EHG and CHG, there's the additional 13.8% "Afontova Gora 3" ANE, the 5.2% European Neolithic-like farmer, and an Iranian Neolithic like element present in both Darra-i-Kur from Tajikistan and Ganj Dareh.

This raises some important questions about Progress:

1. How did the European Neolithic element get to the Eneolithic Caucasus Piedmont steppe?

2. Why does Progress have substantially more ANE than the populations to the north, west, and south, respectively Khvalynsk, Dereivka, and CHG?

3. Most importantly, where is the Iranian Mesolithic/Neolithic-like ancestry coming from that is above what's found in CHG?

Can you show the source of the extra Iranian-like ancestry in PG2004 that isn't present in these other populations, nor in the West Siberian Neolithic / Botai further east?

Does the Early Anatolian-European Neolithic farmer ancestry in PG2004 have WHG, in a way that for example Tepecik-Ciftlik Tep003 doesn't?

Davidski said...

@Open Genomes

It's very difficult to correctly model the Progress and Vonyuchka_Eneolithic samples. As you can see, even the distances in your nMonte models are rather high even though you're trying a lot of reference samples.

What this suggests is that your models are only rough approximations of reality.

These Eneolithic steppe individuals actually can't be modeled via formal stats with Anatolian and/or Ganj_Dareh_N admixture, nor with any of the Central Asian Eneolithic populations.

They appear to be the descendants of a more basal sister clade of CHG, but probably with extra ANE and EHG.

It's possible that only the EHG admixture in them is rather recent.

Ric Hern said...

@ Davidski

How much EHG and CHG does the Sidelkino sample show ? Because if ANE is higher both in Sidelkino and Progress it could point to a Pre-9000 BCE ANE population in the Caucasus Piedmont area who got Semi-isolated by desertification to their North or the Black-Caspian Seas Spillway

Davidski said...

@Ric

I don't know, I haven't tried to model them recently. But from vague memory, Sidelkino doesn't stand out from the rest of the EHG samples in any obvious way. There might be some details about that in one of the recent preprints or papers.

Aram said...

@Andre

The high level of haplogroup E among Greeks has nothing to do with Neolithic farmers. It is a Bronze Age massive founder effect. (4000-4500 years ago).

Halfalp said...

@Philippe Yes, the Lazaridis paper about Dzudzuana, says that already Iron_Gates HG's of the Mesolithic era, shows Dzudzuana ancestry, likely from Mesolithic or very Early Neolithic Anatolians. Wich actually make sense, because Balkans and Anatolian humans had to have relationship in the course of all their history.

My bet, is that Villabruna ancestry, originally came with y-dna I and maybe mtdna U5 from Anatolia from South of the Caucasus early as 30'000 BC. They mingle with Sunghir related people to form Vestonice. But it was too north, the real unadmixed Early Villabruna ancestry must have been somwhere in the Balkans. Then R1b came from Eastern Europe in the Bolling-Allerod interstadial and from the Danube, got into the Balkans and Italy forming probably already the WHG / EHG cline in the east. Then in Mesolithic times, the people from Balkans had relationship with Dzudzuana people as Anatolians HG's, wich can be shows with the few mtdna H13 in Lepenski Vir.

What i'm actually interested to know is: Can the CHG ancestry in Eastern Europe being related with Dzudzuana ancestry, or would a calculator pick up EEF instead of CHG to shows Dzudzuana ancestry? I recall Laziridis saying " Steppe brought Dzudzuana ancestry into Europe ".

Aram said...

Ok. To avoid confusion E-M78 entered Europe with Neolithic farmers. Cardial ware.
But modern high level of E in Balkanes is a recent event. The oldest case of the subclade most common among modern Balkanians is found in Moldavia. Scy197. But it's radiocarbon date is disputed

Gaska said...

@Halfalp

"Surprisingly, the Dzudzuana population was more closely related to early agriculturalists from western Anatolia ~8 thousand years ago than to the hunter-gatherers of the Caucasus from the same region of western Georgia of ~13-10 thousand years ago".

ERGO Dzudzuana ancestry spread throughout Europe (from the Balkans to Spain) with the Anatolian farmers. At least that is how I understand it, although I am not surprised by the words of Lazaridis, it seems that everything in Europe comes from the steppes.

"The Villabruna cluster has been modeled as contributing to both the ~30kya Věstonice and ~20kya El Mirón-cluster populations suggesting that it must have existed somewhere in relatively unmixed form long before the oldest genetic data we have from it at ~14kya.

Drago said...

@ Diego
DzDz didn’t expand with ANF
The first part of Halfalp’s perspective is fairly accurate. I’d only contend whether Anatolian Mesolithic (rather, epipaleolithics to be propper) actually represent this Dzudzuana interaction. I’d content no, because they’d have basaloid ancestry, and there was movements from Balkans to Anatolia also

Gaska said...


@Dragos

It is not enough to say that it did not expand with the ANF, I suppose you will have a theory about it and you could share it with us. If DzDz and the Anatolian farmers are related (supposedly genetically), what happened ?, did they leave that autosomal component in Anatolia?

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