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Saturday, May 9, 2020

Of horses and men #2


Fascinating stuff courtesy of Fages et al. at the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (emphasis is mine):

Abstract: The domestication of the horse and the development of new equestrian technologies have had a far-reaching impact on human history. Disentangling the respective role that horse males and females played during this process is, however, difficult based on iconography and osteological data alone. In this study, we leveraged an extensive ancient DNA time-series to determine the molecular sex of 268 horses spread across Eurasia and charted the male:female sex ratio through the last 40,000 years. We found even sex ratios in the Upper Palaeolithic and up until ~3900 years BP. However, we identified a striking over-representation of horse males in more recent osseous assemblages, which was particularly magnified in funerary contexts but also significant in non-ritual deposits. This suggests that the earliest horse herders managed males and females alike for more than one thousand years after domestication at Botai, but that the human representation and use of horses became gendered at the beginning of the Bronze Age, following the emergence of gender inequalities in human societies.

...

The time period around ~3900 years ago marked a drastic shift in male:female sex ratios inferred from excavated remains, after which the horse osteological record comprises approximately four males for every female (Fig. 2). This over-representation of horse males was maintained when disregarding those animals excavated from ritual burial sites (77/25 ~ 3.08 males for every female) and even more pronounced in the animal bones found in funerary contexts (66/14 ~ 4.71 males for every female). This indicates that the status of male and female horses dramatically changed during the Bronze Age period. This is in line with archaeozoological evidence from the Late Bronze Age cemeteries of the Volga-Ural region associated with the Sintashta, Potapovka and Petrovka cultures, that suggest a domination of male horses in funerary rates (Kosintsev, 2010). Interestingly, this pattern somehow mirrors that observed in humans, for whom a clear binary gender structure ubiquitous across all funerary practices, clothing, personal ornaments and representations is not observed during the Neolithic but became the norm from the transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age onwards (Robb and Harris, 2018). In addition, the prevalence of male horses in funerary contexts throughout the past three millennia is in line with archaeological evidence from burial sites (Bertašius and Daugnora, 2001, Taylor, 2017) and suggests that stallions (or geldings) were more prized for sacrificial rituals. This is possibly due to symbolic attributes then-associated with masculinity, mounted warriors and chariotry, such as power, protection and strength (Frie, 2018). In particular, petroglyph images associated with vehicles, characterized by two wheels with spokes, became typical by the late third – early second millennium BCE (Jacobson-Tepfer, 2012). They are generally associated with male warriors and the emergence of mobile warfare (Anthony, 2007) or ritual needs, in particular the passage to the after-life land (Jones-Bley, 2000). This suggests an essential ideological role of stallions and their use in elite warfare and ritual practices (Drews, 2004, Kelekna, 2009, Novozhenov and Rogozhonskiy, 2019).

...

Future research should focus on assessing the molecular sex of horses from Early and Middle Bronze Age Pit Grave and Catacomb cultures, which do show evidence for social inequality, but for which sex inequalities remain to be investigated.

Fages et al., Horse males became over-represented in archaeological assemblages during the Bronze Age, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports Volume 31, June 2020, 102364, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102364

See also...

Of horses and men

Inferring the linguistic affinity of long dead and non-literate peoples: a multidisciplinary approach

The mystery of the Sintashta people

238 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 238 of 238
Anonymous said...

@Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said..

"The influence on the "northern branch" was illustrated by us in other papers (lexically, as special Germano-Balto-Slavic word for "thousand", being non-Indo-European, but having a cognate in Tibetan, as stong<*tausen. Balto-Slavic word for "iron" [Germanic! already in Europe, borrowed a Celtic word later], having a good Tibetan cognate, lcags<gilags<*gilags not from *ltyags)."

It's a linguistic freak of pure water, these words are not even similar. Igor TB is not a linguist and nobody cares about his opinion, he is not an authority or a knowledgeable person in general. He's just an ordinary blogger.

The word for "horse" has been replaced in almost all Indo-European languages, this is due to the increase in the number of horse breeds, which led to the designation of different words, very often borrowed, the spread of these new breeds led to the displacement of the old words.

Wise dragon said...

@Samuel Andrews,

what is your take on the claim that the Basal Eurasians were merely a very old North or East African population that is related to Taforalt? What speaks against BE not being “Eurasian”? However, if BE were indigenous North Africans that would make them technically Africans and the label "Basal Eurasians", misleading? Or I'm wrong?

Kristiina said...

Why do you think that Oase1 is K2b? Let me now the source of this information?

On wikipedia, it is under K-M2313* i.e. closer to NO than Ust Ishim (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_K-M9).

There is also a link to the relevant paper: Punctuated bursts in human male demography inferred from 1,244 worldwide Y-chromosome sequences (Suppl. material p. 83-84 https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fng.3559/MediaObjects/41588_2016_BFng3559_MOESM282_ESM.pdf)

”Three Oase1 genotypes overlap with the IJK branch, and all were derived: 7,702,973 (T->A), 7,792,789(G->A), and 21,571,895(G->A). Further, one genotype overlaps with the K branch, and Oase1 also carried the derived allele for this SNP: 15,842,844 (G->A). Next, Oase1 carried the derived T at the M2308 transversion shared by Ust’-Ishim. Finally, data were available for just one of the four K2a1 SNPs, M2346, and Oase1 possessed an ancestral G. Therefore, the Oase1 lineage branches from our phylogeny before the Telugu lineage split with NO, but no earlier than the emergence of the Ust’-Ishim lineage.”

Matt said...

Semi-off topic:

Since G25 has so many new samples since the last time I checked, I thought it might be interesting to revist Early-Middle Neolithic ancestry, and in the context of the steppe admixed samples from Furtwangler 2020's paper.

1) First PCA using the HG and farmer samples with minimal EHG/ANE:
Like we are well familiar with, a pretty classic split of the low/no EHG groups into Western and SE European HG, then farmers into Western/high HG and SE European, with transitional groups.

The Swiss farmer groups look like the Italian Copper Age groups, transitional between Western farmers (including Sardinian) and other Italian Neolithic groups. The TRB/GAC are also transitional, but with more HG. The Swiss look to have slightly less Western farmer related ancestry than British/French, who have less than Iberian. Some slight differences between CHE MN, LN and FN.

(Among the Western farmers, there's this outlier I11600 who is far from the others; I guess this is because he/she is from a group which contributed more to present day Basques/Iberian,by chance, or something like this).

2) Now adding on the steppe admixed samples: https://imgur.com/a/j3LEaMe

You get a new steppe related dimension on PC2, then on PC3 we see the same sort of plot as example 1.

It looks to me like the CHE_LN / CHE_FN might be OK to admix and generate the steppe admixed intermediate samples, but not 100% on that.

You'll notice I've labelled one sample Corded_Ware_CHE_EEF; this is sample MX193, who is a female, and clusters mostly with Iberian_MN/CA farmer. I probably am not alone in noting this but haven't see it before.

She's noted in Furtwangler's paper in the following way: "Published stable isotope results for one of these females (MX193 or Individual 3 in the original publication) indicate that she was not of local origin". (The copy of the original publication I can find doesn't seem to suggest anything specific about that).

Her closest neighbour in neighbour joining is Scotland_N I2657 and next closest are a bunch of Iberian farmers (see: https://imgur.com/a/1PJVILf).

So these Corded Ware assigned guys from Switzerland had a pretty unusual seeming setup - all males y haplogroup I2a1a2, and all samples forming a pretty tight cluster, except with a non-local female (one of two noted in original publication), probably of Iberian or Southern France origin and with no steppe ancestry, among them.

Matt said...

Datasheet from my last post is here: https://pastebin.com/24iKThJZ

A said...

Regarding China:

“The presence of actual Europoid individuals — not just their artistic representations — in China during the Shang period is proven by a couple of skulls (one virtually indistinguishable from that of a modern Englishman born in America) recovered from the cemetery at Hou-chia-chuang [the Shang cemetery site at Anyang]. These skulls were apparently deposited in sacrificial pits along with a large number of Mongoloid skulls and a somewhat lesser number of Eskimoid and Oceanic Negroid skulls as well as an unclassifiable fifth group of small crania. The circumstance of their discovery makes it difficult to draw any firm conclusions concerning the racial composition of the Anyang population as a whole, still less of the ruling elite […] The status of Europoid individuals within Shang society as a whole remains to be determined.”

(Mair, 1990) https://dokumen.tips/documents/old-sinitic-myag-old-persian-magus-and-english-magician.html

“In addition to technology we can look to an Iranian source for the name of the royal magicians or fortune-tellers of the Shang and Zhou courts. The modern Mandarin word for such a magician is ‘wu’ but this would earlier have been pronounced something close to ‘*myag’ or ‘*mag’ which suggests that it may have been borrowed from Iranian, e.g. Old Persian ‘magus’. … That people of a Caucasoid physical type became priest-magicians to the nascent Chinese state finds support from unexpected quarters. Several figures depicting what are widely regarded as Caucasoid physical types have been unearthed in both Shang and Zhou contexts. The two from the Zhou dynasty, recovered from the excavations of a palace in Shaanxi province, are small heads carved from shell. They display large and deep-set eyes, wide mouths, thin lips, large noses and narrow faces, all of which would tend to mark out a Europoid or Caucasoid physical type. Their conical headgear has also been compared with that of some of the steppe tribes. One top of one of them is the cruciform Chinese character for ‘mage’, a symbol which is also reprised in Western art to indicate a magician. So here we find the image of a European physical type in an early Zhou palace and designated with the Chinese word for a ‘magician-priest’, a word believed to derive from the earlier Iranian word of the same meaning. … With Western priests in court and Western chariots on the field in battle, perhaps it is time to consider to what extent the development of Chinese civilization itself was stimulated by Western ‘barbarians’.”

(Mallory and Mair 2000, p.326-327)
https://archive.org/details/tarimmummiesanci00mall/page/326/mode/2up

Matt said...

@wise dragon, "Basal Eurasian" was used because it's component that is a) Basal to other Eurasian ancestry, b) found in Eurasian groups today.

If a population matching that description were found in Africa, there'd be a pretty quick, uncontroversial switch to naming after where they were found.

But until that happens, it wouldn't be very smart to rather presumptively give them a designation as African without any evidence that they lived in Africa after the main trunk of rest of Eurasian ancestry departed the continent.

Anonymous said...


Everything that can be drawn now on the distribution of Y-haplogroups in Paleolithic has been showed in Wikipedia, and has not changed much since then.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Y-Haplogroup_Paleolithic_Migrations.png

LucasM said...

@Davidski

Can you run these on Treemix?

Mbuti
Ust_Ishim
Kostenki14
Sunghir
GoyetQ116-1
Tianyuan
Yana
MA1
AG3
LaBrana
Villabruna
Pinnarbasi
EastMongolia_preBA
Jomon
Anatolia_N
Taforalt
Natufian
Iran_N
Kotias
Onge
Papuan
Australian

Jatt_Scythian said...

I personally also agree P originated in Central Asia (in an ANE or ENA type population-not sure) but we need to deal with why the modern diversity is in SE Asia. I'm not sure if H originated in SW or S Asia. I'd guess the former but it probably spent 20000 yrs doing nothing then.

Tea said...

C1a(CTS11043, est 46,600BP) is a distinct and ancient lineage of its own. As far I know it's only been found in GoyetQ116-1(35,160-34,430BP). It has two branches C1a1(M8 surviving branches TMRCA 5500 BP) found in Japan and C1a2(V20 surviving branches TMRCA 22300BP) which is found in the earliest Europeans from the upper paleolothic. C-V20 was closely related to 3 of the Sungir men as well.

It'd really help if you guys could start posting archeological dates when making your arguments. I know not everyone has confidence in YFulls dating for example but well dated remains would help make any case.

also, random observation, Upper Paleolithic Europeans and Jomon both also had square eye orbits.

A paper with GoyetQ116-1 listed https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4943878/

YFull link https://www.yfull.com/tree/C-CTS11043/

RobertN said...

"Another aDNA paper on East Asia

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/13/science.aba0909/tab-pdf"

How can one access this article, without having to pay $30 for it?

Davidski said...

@RobertN

There are various ways to get papers. One way is to get them here if the relevant people were involved...

https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/publications

RobertN said...

@Davidski

Awesome! Thank you for the link and info.

FrankN said...

Rob: "Whatever contact northern China had with IE was indirect, removed by 2 degrees. "

Not sure about that, look at T. Chang 1988 (full-text pdf accesible via the link)
http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/year/2009/docId/7147

"In the last four years I have traced out about 1500 cognate words which would constitute roughly two thirds of the basic vocabulary in Old Chinese. The common words are to be found in all spheres of life including kinship, animals, plants , hydrography, landscape, parts of the body, actions,
emotional expressions, politics and religion, and even function
words such as pronouns and prepositions, as partly shown in the
lists of this paper." (p.32)

Noteworthily, one of these cognates is IE *mork "(war) horse, stallion" (only Germanic & Celtic) -> OC mog (c.f. Mong. mori "horse"); another one is PIE *gwou "cow"-> OC gou. For the remaining ca. 1.498 cognates, check out the word-lists provided by Chang, plus those listed under
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Chinese_terms_derived_from_Indo-European_languages

I am uncertain yet what to make out of Chang's conclusion about a particularly close relationship between Old Chinese and Germanic. On one hand, the only IE language Chang seems to be fluent in is German, which may have lead to some kind of "sampling bias" towards German(ic). Then, some of his cognates are apparently rather medieval than Chalcolithic, e.g. IE *bhog "book <-> OC bo:g. It is furthermore a fair assumption that late IA East Germanic (Gothic) presence around the Sea of Azov could have resulted in linguistic influence on Central and possibly East Asia. In short, it seems advisable to break down the cognate list according to (pre-)historical periods before concluding on the IE families that have provided (or maybe also borrowed) OC terms.

Still, his observation that OC-IE isoglosses primarily (exclusively?) relate to Centum languages, i.e. neither Indo-Iranian nor Balto-Slavic, is worth mentionning. [Among his many examples, let me only list PIE *deik "to point at/to" (c.f. Lat./Engl. "digit(us)", German "zeigen")->OC teig; PIE *drk "glance"-> OI drs, but OC dag].

Another intriguing point is his suggestion that the Proto-Germanic "k"->"h" sound shift might have commenced far earlier than commonly assumed. More specifically, he a/o relates OC huang as attested in the name of Emperor Huang-ti (mid 3rd mBC) to PIE *konak "golden"->PGerm *hunangą "honey" (the gold-colored).
Even more intriguingly, the isogloss between IE (Germano-Celtic?) *keuk "hill" (c.f. the Germanic C(h)auci, Irish Kaukoi) and OC hiog "hill" might suggest a quite eastern origin of that sound shift [note in this context also Kashmiri hun "dog", hath "hundred"].

Rob said...

@ Tea
Yep it’s an interesting link between Japan & european C1a line, although probably due to the stochasticity of history
K14 was C1b; suggesting greater loss of UP lineages in Europe than east Asia

FrankN said...

From the Chang paper (p 35.f):

"Historically the emergence of Old Chinese should be connected with the founding of the Chinese Empire by Huang-ti,' the Yellow Emperor, with whom the Chinese still identify themselves today. According to Chinese historiography, he was the founder of the first state of China as well as its high civilization . The Shih - chi (Records of the Grand Historian) informs us in its first chapter that towards the end of the rule of the clan of Shen-nung (Divine Farmer), Northern China was ravaged by war. Huang-ti
defeated Yen-ti (God of Flame Clearing) and Ch'ih-yu (Great Fool), thus becoming emperor of China. It is noteworthy that the decisive battle took place in Chuo-lu (Deer Ford), on the thoroughfare between the present Peking and Inner Mongolia.
Huang-ti's name was Hsiian-yiian which means "wagon shaft". After h i s enthronement, he ordered roads to be built, and was perpetually on the move with treks of carriages. At night he slept in a barricade of wagons. He had no interest in walled towns, so only one city was built at the bow of Chuo-lu. All of this indicates his origin from a stock-breeding tribe in Inner Mongolia.
With introduction of horse- or oxen-pulled wagons, transport and
traffic in Northern China was revolutionized. Only on this new technical basis did the founding of a state with central government become feasible and functional. This emperor must have had an appearance of northern white people, as the epithet "Huang-ti" can etymologically be interpreted as "blond heavenly god" (c f . Word list p. 37).
Huang-ti is mentioned also as the founder of Chinese language in the Li - chi (Book of Rites). In the Chapter 23 Chi-fa (Rules of Sacrifices), which gives the reasons for worship of ancient sovereigns and heroes, we read: "Huang-ti gave hundreds of things their right names, in order to illumine the People about the common goods. And Chuan-hsü was able to carry on his work."
This points out the merit of Huang-ti for the standardization of Chinese language, which took a long time and was continued by his grandson and succesor Chuan-hsü. The aboriginal people had thus to learn new foreign words from the emperors. Probably there-by the Proto-Indo-European vocabulary became dominant in Old Chinese.
The rule of Huang-ti is traditionally dated back to the 27th century B.C. Subtracting 200 or 300 years as hyperbolic predating, we may assume that the founding of the first Chinese empire took place at the latest at about 2400 B.C. This would coincide with the archaeological data of the beginning classical Lung-shan culture (2400-2000 B.C.) in the eastern valleys of Northern China, which is characterized by a great leap in stock-breeding, Not only pigs, poultry and dogs as in the preceding neolithic cultures, but also sheep, cattle and horses were domesticated. Above all, cattle and horses were important for their usage in transport service and warfare, and for improved protein supply for the warriors. The mixture of agriculture and stock-breeding thus laid a Sound economic basis, on which a great empire could function and be maintained. The concentrated use of new economic resources through the state impelled in turn the further development of Chinese culture to become one of the leading civilizations in the ancient world.
"

FrankN said...

My excerpts above from Chang 1998 are mostly self-explaining. Still, a few notes:

1. This seems to represent the earliest written evidence of a language (or at least vocabulary) shift effected by elite dominance.

2. It goes back to Huang-ti, of apparently pastoralist background, using vehicles and domesticated horses, and in all likelyhood speaking Centum-IE, winning war against the "Divine Farmer";

3. While certainly reminiscent of the stories told in the Rigveda, the conquest of N. China by IE pastoralists seems to pre-date events in BMAC/ S. Asia by at least 500 years, possibly a millenium;

4. Early Indo-Europeans seem to have had a so-far unrecognised quality, namely the ability for state-, even empire-building. That quality certainly showed with Parthians, Persians, Alexander the Great, Romans (or British for that matter), but apparently was present already long before.

Rob said...


@ FrankN

The main connection ran from steppe via Mongolia to northern China, and you might be aware that 3 aDNA papers have come to light on East Asia so far.
They have shown that during the period in question the furthest expansion of WSHs was western Mongolia. Central & Eastern Mongolia were in turn inhabited by different groups of people, so too were the 'northern Belt' of China (N1-heavy); finally the O2 heavy Sino-Tibetan derived Han chinese.
This points to an indirect expansion of western Bronzes and chariots into China, mediated by 4 different groups . Some speculative cognates (esp claimed links to Germanic) dont really over turn that evidence
There is then the Xexi corridor, with Andronovo making it to the western aspect; but this route really gets going later, when fully formed languages existed (eg Tocharian) .

Davidski said...

@LucasM

Sorry, no can do. It would take too long because I don't have it automatized anymore. Also, there wouldn't be much data to work with, because the SNP overlap between the samples you chose is quite poor.

Davidski said...

@All

I just realized that Yamnaya_Caucasus was missing from all of the relevant Global25 datasheets. No idea what the hell happened there, but it's now back...

Global25 datasheets

G25_Custom_PCA_data.zip

G25_West_Eurasia_scaled.dat

Kristiina said...

Two new papers from East Asia:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/70D28FAB333D120EA9F4701AE192C891/S2513843X2000016Xa_hi.pdf/_div_class__title__Bioarchaeological_perspective_on_the_expansion_of_Transeurasian_languages_in_Neolithic_Amur_River_basin__div_.pdf

In this paper it is discovered that "Transeurasian" fisher-hunters dated to ca 4000 BP carried yDNA C2a and Q1a1a and mtDNA D4.

The other paper analyzes several samples from Mongolia.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/70D28FAB333D120EA9F4701AE192C891/S2513843X2000016Xa_hi.pdf/_div_class__title__Bioarchaeological_perspective_on_the_expansion_of_Transeurasian_languages_in_Neolithic_Amur_River_basin__div_.pdf

The oldest sample from Zhukaigou, 1599-1427 BCE, carries yDNA C2b1b-F845.

ambron said...

Frank, for example, Chang omits Slavic horse names: Polish "mierzyn", Ruthenian "mierin", Polish "marcha".

Jatt_Scythian said...

Isn't C1b still found in Asia today?

Also how much East Asian is there in Iran_N, ANE, EHG and Steppe MLBA?

Simon_W said...

What about the Neo-Assyrian empire? It was established before the Persians or Alexander established their empires. The Mongolian empire of the Middle Ages was even more impressive. And don't tell me it was too late. The British empire was even later, yet you mention it as an example for IE empires

FrankN said...

Rob: "you might be aware that 3 aDNA papers have come to light on East Asia so far.
They have shown that during the period in question the furthest expansion of WSHs was western Mongolia.
"

Well, there is that Afanasievo sample in Jeong e.a. 2020: "an Early Bronze Age (EBA) site in the southern Khangai Mountains of central Mongolia has yielded Afanasievo-style graves with proteomic evidence of ruminant milk consumption (Wilkin et al.,2019). Analyzing two of these individuals (Afanasievo_Mongolia, 3112-2917 cal. BCE), we find that their genetic profiles are indistinguishable from that of published Afanasievo individuals from the Yenisei region (Allentoft et al., 2015; Narasimhan et al., 2019) (Fig. 2, Fig. S11), and thus these two Afanasievo individuals confirm that the EBA expansion of Western Steppe herders (WSH) did not stop at the mountain ranges separating the Western and Eastern Steppes (Allentoft et al., 2015), but rather extended a further 1500 km eastwards into the heart of central Mongolia (Fig. 3a)."

These two Afanasievans from "the heart of Central Mongolia" appear to be the most southeasterly CA/EBA samples currently available. Wang e.a. 2020 covers Central Mongolia only for the LBA and onwards, with ca. 35% WSHG ancestry during the LBA.
For Southern Outer Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and the Middle Yellow River basin, we don't have yet any CA/BA aDNA. As such, Chang's theory of an IE elite taking over N. China during the second half of the 3rd mBC can currently neither be proven, nor disproven by aDNA. However, aside from linguistics, there are quite a number of archeological indications for substantial "steppe" influence, e.g. the arrival of domesticated goats in N. China around 2,500 BC, and the Shimao site mentionned above by EastPole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimao

Wise dragon said...

@Matt,

"@wise dragon, "Basal Eurasian" was used because it's component that is a) Basal to other Eurasian ancestry, b) found in Eurasian groups today.

If a population matching that description were found in Africa, there'd be a pretty quick, uncontroversial switch to naming after where they were found.

But until that happens, it wouldn't be very smart to rather presumptively give them a designation as African without any evidence that they lived in Africa after the main trunk of rest of Eurasian ancestry departed the continent."


Thanks for your reply but I'm a bit confused by your answer. Basal Eurasians were part of the Out of Africa bottleneck event, they lacked Neanderthal admixture. So how can they be theoretically Africans at the same time? I've read that they were living in Arabia/West Asia or North Africa. Or would they be only "Africans" in a geographical sense and not genetically speaking????? Some are even questioning that that BE is a real population and not merely veiled Iberomaurusians, ANA, or even proper East Africans, etc.

Francesco Brighenti said...

@EastPole & vAsiSTha

“The biggest festival when lamps are floated on rivers is at the end of Kartika month, on day of Kartika full moon. This has more to do with the lamps than rivers, as lamps are lit everyhere.”

The same ritual is observed in Odisha as _Kartika Purnima Boita Bandana Utsava_, a name that can be roughly translated as ‘festival held on the full moon in the month of Kartika (and consisting in) saluting a person by floating lamps (placed on) miniature boats (in the streams at night)’ – see, e.g., at https://tinyurl.com/yav62y2c . According to Odia historians, this ritual would remind of the past maritime activities of the merchants of Kalinga (the ancient name of Odisha) who sailed to Southeast Asia for trade and were saluted through this ritual before sailing off to distant locations oversea. The _Loy Krathong_ or _Loy Brah Prahdip_ festival observed in Thailand in the same month is very similar to – and possibly an imitation of – the floating of lamps ritual of Odisha.


Samuel Andrews said...

@Wise Dragon,

If Basal Eurasian lived in Africa, they were Eurasians in Africa. Just as modern North Africans are basically Eurasians in Africa. They are Africans of ancient Eurasian origin.

But it is very unlikely Basal Eurasian lived in Africa. They were certainly native to Southwest Asia.

I've said many times but towards deaf ears.....Basal Eurasian wasn't super basal or super exotic.

I think they were standard Eurasians who were slightly less related to East Asians than Paleolithic Europeans were.

My evidence for this is mtDNA/Y DNA. Other than Y DNA E and mtDNA M1 (which are linked to Iberomausian), We see no super basal haplogroups in Southwest Asia.

Haplogroups which originated in Southwest Asia include stuff like mtDNA H, J, T, X2. Y DNA G, J, H. None of those are very basal.

There's no good evidence in Y DNA and mtDNA of a super exotic, basal Eurasian population.

Dzundua 28,000 years ago in Caucasus mountains already had BAsal Eurasian ancestry. This kind of ancestry is indigenous to Southwest Asia, is not from Africa, and mixed with "UHG" way back in the Upper Paleolithic.

Ric Hern said...

I think the back migrations into Africa basically mixed up all pure Basal Eurasian relatives. So any samples younger than 35 000 years old I will not expect to so anything in that line. I think 60-70 000 years old samples will be more informative...and even then it could stay illusive...

Jatt_Scythian said...

@Samuel Andrews

So the idea that E is SSA and P is SE Asian are wrong in your opinion?

Samuel Andrews said...

@Ric Hern,

Are you saying BAsal Eurasian pops lived in North Africa till West Eurasian pops with mtDNA U6 migrated into Africa and mixed with them?

@Jatt Scythian,

I'd agree Y DNA K2, including P, are Eastern Asian whatever that means in a geographic sense. It could mean they are from Tajikstan. Not necessarily East Asian as people usually think of it.

Anywyas, yes I do think Y DNA E is Eurasian. Its brother yHG D is East Asian, its cousin yHG CF is Eurasian. So, yeah I think it is for sure Eurasian.

Jatt_Scythian said...

@Samuel Andrews

I mean Tajikistan is in Central Asia and was and still is predominantly West Eurasian. P might be East Asian in a geographic sense (which makes sense given how east Yana was) but do you think it was associated with East Asian/Australoid/Negrito people (ENA)?

M.H. _82 said...

@ FrankN

''For Southern Outer Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and the Middle Yellow River basin, we don't have yet any CA/BA aDNA. As such, Chang's theory of an IE elite taking over N. China during the second half of the 3rd mBC can currently neither be proven, nor disproven by aDNA.''

That's not true. Although of heterogeneous methodology, there is a transect of data from 10,000 to 3000 BP
There is not evidence of either Afansievo or Andronovoa population imparting an elite conquest of northern China. If we are going to make such (rather bold) claims, then we'd need some well argued evidence, not folkore and dubious etymologies.
In fact, all the evidence so far goes against your scenario

gamerz_J said...

@Jatt_Scythian

So regarding the haplogroups, E most likely arose in a Eurasian or closely related population. I'd say it is not SSA. Regarding P, I stand by that it is ENA, based on what we know today.

"Isn't C1b still found in Asia today? Also how much East Asian is there in Iran_N, ANE, EHG and Steppe MLBA?"

If you mean the mtDNA subclade, I don't think so but not confident about it. If you mean the Ydna subclade, then yes.

I don't know how much East Asian there is in Iran_N, but the models I've seen suggest it is about 10% ENA on top of what it has from ANE. Global25 seems to agree. ANE are somewhere between 10-30% East Asian, assuming an admixture model into ANE and that the affinity is not due to something else.

EHG probably had what ANE had and maybe 3% more. Though, perhaps different EHG groups had different amounts of this admixture.

Narasimhan et al (2019) models Central_Steppe_MLBA as 91% Western_Steppe_MLBA + 9% WSHG so that would make it about 1-2% more East Asian than say the Yamnaya.

I might be wrong however, so anyone is welcome to correct me on the above.

It's really hard to calculate ancestry percentages like that though in the case of Steppe_MLBA the estimates are probably pretty accurate. I am not sure they are for the other populations, as Davidski has said, deep ancestry is difficult to estimate (especially with a low number of relevant ancient genomes).

PS. Also ENA is not East Asian per say. WSHG had admixture from East Asian proper (potentially EHG as well) but I think ENA is a better term than East Asian for the other populations.

gamerz_J said...

@MH_82

Well, while I overall agree with you that evidence is lacking for a significant Indo-European contribution to N. China during the 3rd mBC, one could perhaps argue that the ANE signal that the recent paper suggested in Han (but not Tibetans and Japanese-though I doubt Tibetans don't have it if Han do) represented as admixture from Paleo-siberians, could instead be due to admixture from a Steppe-related group.

The issue with that is archaeological evidence of course, overall scant but there was that site for example in Shanxi,I think @Matt or someone else mentioned earlier.

M.H. _82 said...

I don't think the presence of Goats really supports the contentions implied in the above remarks

gamerz_J said...

New paper: Paleolithic to Bronze Age Siberians Reveal Connections with First Americans and across Eurasia, Yu et al (2020)
https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30502-X.pdf

East Asian ancestry apparently did not completely replace ANE ancestry around Lake Baikal region.Also some samples from the Late Neolithic-Bronze Age period carry Steppe ancestry (and the plague).

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