Over at
bioRxiv at this
LINK. Note that the Andronovo samples that are shown to be the best fit for the steppe ancestry in South Asians are labeled Steppe_MLBA_East (ie. Middle to Late Bronze Age eastern steppe). Below is the abstract and a couple of key quotes from the paper and its supp info PDF. Emphasis is mine:
The genetic formation of Central and South Asian populations has been unclear because of an absence of ancient DNA. To address this gap, we generated genome-wide data from 362 ancient individuals, including the first from eastern Iran, Turan (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan), Bronze Age Kazakhstan, and South Asia. Our data reveal a complex set of genetic sources that ultimately combined to form the ancestry of South Asians today. We document a southward spread of genetic ancestry from the Eurasian Steppe, correlating with the archaeologically known expansion of pastoralist sites from the Steppe to Turan in the Middle Bronze Age (2300-1500 BCE). These Steppe communities mixed genetically with peoples of the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) whom they encountered in Turan (primarily descendants of earlier agriculturalists of Iran), but there is no evidence that the main BMAC population contributed genetically to later South Asians. Instead, Steppe communities integrated farther south throughout the 2nd millennium BCE, and we show that they mixed with a more southern population that we document at multiple sites as outlier individuals exhibiting a distinctive mixture of ancestry related to Iranian agriculturalists and South Asian hunter-gathers. We call this group Indus Periphery because they were found at sites in cultural contact with the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) and along its northern fringe, and also because they were genetically similar to post-IVC groups in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. By co-analyzing ancient DNA and genomic data from diverse present-day South Asians, we show that Indus Periphery-related people are the single most important source of ancestry in South Asia — consistent with the idea that the Indus Periphery individuals are providing us with the first direct look at the ancestry of peoples of the IVC — and we develop a model for the formation of present-day South Asians in terms of the temporally and geographically proximate sources of Indus Periphery-related, Steppe, and local South Asian hunter-gatherer-related ancestry. Our results show how ancestry from the Steppe genetically linked Europe and South Asia in the Bronze Age, and identifies the populations that almost certainly were responsible for spreading Indo-European languages across much of Eurasia.
...
Third, between 3100-2200 BCE we observe an outlier at the BMAC site of Gonur, as well as two outliers from the eastern Iranian site of Shahr-i-Sokhta, all with an ancestry profile similar to 41 ancient individuals from northern Pakistan who lived approximately a millennium later in the isolated Swat region of the northern Indus Valley (1200-800 BCE). These individuals had between 14-42% of their ancestry related to the AASI and the rest related to early Iranian agriculturalists and West_Siberian_HG. Like contemporary and earlier samples from Iran/Turan we find no evidence of Steppe-pastoralist-related ancestry in these samples. In contrast to all other Iran/Turan samples, we find that these individuals also had negligible Anatolian agriculturalist-related admixture, suggesting that they might be migrants from a population further east along the cline of decreasing Anatolian agriculturalist ancestry. While we do not have access to any DNA directly sampled from the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), based on (a) archaeological evidence of material culture exchange between the IVC and both BMAC to its north and Shahr-i-Sokhta to its east (27), (b) the similarity of these outlier individuals to post-IVC Swat Valley individuals described in the next section (27), (c) the presence of substantial AASI admixture in these samples suggesting that they are migrants from South Asia, and (d) the fact that these individuals fit as ancestral populations for present-day Indian groups in qpAdm modeling, we hypothesize that these outliers were recent migrants from the IVC. Without ancient DNA from individuals buried in IVC cultural contexts, we cannot rule out the possibility that the group represented by these outlier individuals, which we call Indus_Periphery, was limited to the northern fringe and not representative of the ancestry of the entire Indus Valley Civilization population. In fact, it was certainly the case that the peoples of the Indus Valley were genetically heterogeneous as we observe one of the Indus_Periphery individuals having ~42% AASI ancestry and the other two individuals having ~14-18% AASI ancestry (but always mixes of the same two proximal sources of AASI and Iranian agriculturalist-related ancestry). Nevertheless, these results show that Indus_Periphery were part of an important ancestry cline in the wider Indus region in the 3 rd millennium and early 2 nd millennium BCE. As we show in what follows, peoples related to this group had a pivotal role in the formation of subsequent populations in South Asia.
...
These results—leveraging our rich data from ancient samples closer in time to the Bronze Age—show that the group(s) that contributed Iranian agriculturalist-related ancestry to South Asia shared more genetic drift with the Iranian agriculturalist-related groups in our dataset that are temporally and geographically closest, compared to Caucasus HGs (CHG) or early Zagros related agriculturalists previously shown to be related to source populations for South Asians (11, 81). We are not only able to exclude these early farming and hunter-gathering groups, but also Copper and Bronze Age groups in western Iran (Seh_Gabi_C and Hajji_Firuz_C), and even in eastern Iran and Turan (Tepe_Hissar_C, Gioksiur_EN, and BMAC). Our detailed analyses in Text S3 indicate that what is driving the failure of these models is an excess of Anatolian agriculturalist-related ancestry in all of these groups, suggesting that the Iranian agriculturalist-related population that mixed into South Asia had less Anatolian agriculturalist-related ancestry than all of these. However, we find that mixtures using the Indus_Periphery sample (a pool of three outlier individuals from the BMAC site of Gonur and from Shahr-i-Sokhta), provides an excellent source population for the Iranian agriculturalist-related ancestry in South Asia when combined with any individuals in the Steppe_MLBA cluster (Srubnaya, Sintashta_MLBA, Steppe_MLBA_West or Steppe_MLBA_East).
Narasimhan et al,
The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia, Posted March 31, 2018, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/292581
Update 12/04/2018: The dataset from the prerprint has been made available early at the Reich Lab website
here. I've already started analyzing it. You can see the results in several new threads, for instance
here,
here and
here.
See also...
Late PIE ground zero now obvious; location of PIE homeland still uncertain, but...
Central Asia as the PIE urheimat? Forget it
Ancient herders from the Pontic-Caspian steppe crashed into India: no ifs or buts
868 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 601 – 800 of 868 Newer› Newest»@Anthony
I am expecting to see western N1c in particular in Mesolithic Western Siberia, Karelia-Komi Comb Ceramic, Lyalovo (5000−4700), Volosovo (3650-2000 BC), Fatyanovo (3200 BC–2300 BC), Garino Bor (2500–1500 BC). PU or prePU would correspond to Volosovo and Fatyanovo phases and the Iranian influence to Abashevo (2500–1900 BC). The eastern Uralic expansion could correspond to Sargat culture, Cherkaskul’ (c. 1850–1500 BCE), Itkul’ culture (c. 700–200 BCE) and Irmen’ (c. 900-500 BCE). The ancient yDNA from all these cultures is critical for the Uralic ethnogenesis and I will align my theories accordingly.
I am not the right person to defend the Altaic theory. Now that we have quite a lot of ancient DNA from Altai and some yDNA from Neolithic and Bronze Age Baikal, I do not see the origin of western N1c in Altai as to date, we do not have any example of western N1c from ancient Altai. One of the autosomally most Turkic like individuals was yDNA J2a2 from Iron Age Altai. IMO, Proto-Turkic could have its origin in the Karasuk culture as the yDNA is similar: R1a1-Z93, J2a2, Q1a1. As Turks are paternally mostly Central Asian, I do not think that their language should be rooted in the Mesolithic Altaian languages.
@Davidski Aren't you going to change the "Beast among haplogroups" image now that the oldest z93 is now I6561-Ukraine Eneolithic?
I have found some time to look at mitogenomes of those North Iran/Turan Neolithic and Eneolithic groups. No single U4 among them. So basically the only U4 we have is from South Caucasus. Which mean that my initial proposal will not work or may work only if this EHG influx had a only small impact in South Caucasus.
This Hajji Firuz R1b has no radiocarbon dating!! Which btw is strange. Hajji Firuz also has Bronze age layers. And we _have_ one sample from this layer ~4000 year old. Unfortunatly it is a female sample so no Y DNA. I couldn't find it's ADMIXTURE analysis but when raw files are available then it must be compared to this supposedly Eneolithic R1b.
Chances are very high that this R1b is from Bronze Age layer. And he is related to the migration of Afanasevo R1b-Z2103 toward West Asia via Central Asia.
It is this branch. https://yfull.com/tree/R-CTS8966/
Look Chinese on top positions. Then You have subcluster in West Asia. One may think it is was Scythian migration (Gioiello was even suggesting Turkish migration). But there are some _solid_ (when I say solid I mean a DNA ) reasons to think that they migrated in Bronze Age. And the main place where they reached was in Haftavan Tepe. Which is quite close to Hajji Firuz.
Anyway this Afanasevian branch of R1b-Z2103 today is present in Iran. Probably some 10-20% of Talyshes a North Iranian group has this Afanasevian branch. 2.5 % of Armenians had it.
And as You can see in yfull link Chechens also had it.
@Chetan
I don't usually update graphics as new results are revealed. I just make new posts with new graphics.
At some point I'll make a new map showing the oldest examples of the main R1a subclades, but I'll have to wait until more samples come in from the steppe, especially from around the Don River, where I think there might be an ancient R1a-M417 hotspot.
@Aram
We're waiting for the carbon dating for that Z2103 Hajji Firuz sample.
I think chances are very high that this won't turn out to be the Eneolithic Iranian Z2103 that a lot of people are hoping for.
@ Folker
Yep fair enough. Yes it was a nice paper
"And he is related to the migration of Afanasevo R1b-Z2103 toward West Asia via Central Asia."
Why from Afanasievo? The region north of the Caucasus was up to the brim with Z2103
I mean, the origin of the Afanasevo Z2103 is most likely from the Volga-Don region. So isn't it more likely that this one is from there as well. via a parallel migration? (if the dates are corrected, of course)
@ Chad
“I re-read your comment, and I think I misunderstood. Yes, "WHG" formed in SE Europe and mixed with Magdalenians in North Central and Western Europe. Magdalenians though, are basically WHG-minus most or all "Siberian" and having excess UP Euro admixture, or just less of the "Anatolian" basically.”
Ah yep. Agree with that
@Rob, very interesting comment re: NW and NE Caucasian.
Re: CHG vs Iranian farmers, population variation in the belt through Anatolian->probably Afghanistan at least (judging by Indus_Periphery samples) was likely to be clinal, and the adoption of agriculture was likely relatively gradualist with lots of absorption of pre-existing HG.
There's clearly some element of drift that can characterise the Yamnaya and Khavalynsk as related to CHG in ways that simple mixes of the Barcin, SE Kurdistan Neolithic (Ganj Dareh) and Samara HG samples can't quite capture.
By the same token they have offsets towards Levant, Iran, Anatolia that CHG can't quite capture. In addition Rob has previously discussed the archaeological hiatus on the Caucasus after our CHG samples.
Some ancient early farming population may turn up that is perfect.
Sam's correct in my view and experience to say it's probably a misleading simplification to talk to the average layperson about "Iranian farmers" as ancestral to Yamnaya, as Iran is a huge country and this will immediately send laypeople off into imagining migration from Central-East Iran from absolutely the wrong starting points in the wrong directions. Rather than the likely correct starting point in NE Kurdistan (aka NE Anatolia), or at best, the NW limits of Iran.
@Aram
It is strange since the only R1b sample that is close to Hajji Firuz R1b { a few meters?--is F38, Hasanlu IVb, 971-832 BC and that is R-Y23838Y23999 * CTS4582 * Y23838formed 4300 ybp, TMRCA 4300 ybpinfo. Your analysis may turn out correct- there is no continuity.
The Samara samples are old and show continuity [present in the same location]for the last 5500+/- YBP for the R1b-Z2103>Z2106>Z2108>KMS67>KMS75> a trail of snps from ancient Yamanaya to modern day Bahkirs.
The same can be said with regards to branch R1b-M73 connected to R1b-M269.
Samara volga I0124, EHG, Lebyazhinka IV (Russia), 5640-5555 calBCE
is the ancient Hunter Gatherer has the same mutation carried by modern day Bashkirs, that means it has been in the exact same location for at a minimum of last 7500+/-YBP. Co-incidence that two separate branches of M269 are buried beside each other for the last 5500 years, I dont think so.
@ Matt
Yes I think it might be similar to north-central Europe with significant absorption of local hunter-gatherers into the Armeno-Turan Late Neolithic Cline ("ATLNC"), which pushes the CHG content of the final population which arrived at the north Caucasian piedmont with Meshoko culture or just before it. This would have been Georgia itself where relictual Glacial forests remained and where most Mesolithic sites cluster.
Ultimately, and despite Syindik's comments, I am still inclined to follow the view the subsequent Majkop phase is the introgression of 'northerners' carrying the kurgan rite, whilst all the Uruk -type pottery represents countercurrent mobility.
On this topic a bit more
Reich's book certainly talks about:
a genetic connection between Natufians and North Africa ... cannot explain the equally high proportions of Basal Eurasian ancestry in the ancient hunter-gatherers and farmers of Iran and the Caucasus
Implying they have seen Caucasus neolithic samples.
Plus his PCA figure on page 138 also includes a much more diverse selection of samples in the approximately 8000 BCE figure marked "Iranian farmers" than in Lazaridis 2016
https://imgur.com/a/hQ3me
Positions indicate that some of these "Iranian farmers" could actually be the CHG samples, the early Armenian Chalcolithic and Iranian Chalcolithic... but this would be extremely sloppy, if not shady and veering into misconduct to describe these so!
Firstly for leaving Eppie Jones, Martiniano, Pinhashi and all their collaborators out of the CHG story and leaping straight to Lazaridis 2016, and secondly describing samples from this wide context as Iranian farmers. Likewise some of the "Levantine farmers" on this plot would overlap Natufians, but again that's sloppy if not almost shady to describe them so!
So perhaps Reich's lab has more Iranian farmer samples that are more diverse than those we see?
@Kristiina
Unless I miss understand what you mean, wouldn't that make N the Vector of PU languages?
@ Anthony
I meant "vector of the Uralic daughter languages", I did not mean vector of PU.
However, many things are open and ancient DNA may change the picture. My mind is not fixed.
@Chad,
If Yamnaya's affinity to CHG is caused by EHG admixture in CHG then Yamnaya has even less than 35% CHG/IranNeo related ancestry and less should be well over 60% EHG. That goes against the opinion in Reich's book of a clean 50/50 mix.
Also, EHG doesn't represent a real population. It is one nudge in a cline going from WHG to ANE.
If CHG is an extinct hunter-gatherer population, explain the high CHG-affinity in modern Caucasians especially Georgians?
The slightly Anatolian ancestry can better be explained by Balkan farmer admixture than EEF-admixed stuff further south. Eneolithic Ukraine was a Steppe-Anatolian mix with no WHG input. Plenty, of western Yamnaya genomes, have EEF admixture. Not hard to believe, people with EEF admixture moved east and brought it into Yamnaya Samara.
@Chad,
Also, the mtDNA mismatch between Yamnaya/Afanasievo/Sintashta/Andronovo and the IranNeo-heavy people in this study is an issue if you're going to argue Steppe's southern ancestor were Iranian farmers.
So Iranian Farmer could mean that the samples came from within Iran in an area which Borders Armenia and Azerbaijan and not necessarily including Central, Eastern or Southern Iran...
So maybe a Pre-Pottery Neolithic Culture will fit the bill ? Pre-Pottery Neolithic people already had domesticated pigs, cattle and sheep...or a mixture of Pre-Pottery Neolithic and Trialetian people...
Away from where this thread is at moment, so, since I'm bored, having a go with some of the values in the spreadsheet for this paper, using the hierarchical model values.
First, sample population latitude and longitude plotted against each other:
https://imgur.com/a/vwhnb
Red dots are "traditional priestly".
What I did then is run a multivariate regression to try and predict values of Steppe_MLBA, Indus_Diaspora_related and Onge(AASI) based on latitude and longitude, to see if longitude can add an additional perspective on the patterns in India today.
I ran the multivariate regression without the "traditional priestly samples", so predicted is "predicted for non-priestly".
The following are then the plots of the predicted values, based on longitude and latitude, against the residuals:
https://imgur.com/a/fV6IZ
It looks like the residual Steppe_MLBA and residual lower AASI is pretty much more consistent here than even in the paper's supplement, for priestly groups. Something of a commentary on how, while the initial Indo-Aryans may not have been a sophisticated people, their descendents were best placed to capture growing Iron Age trends towards institutional organised religion.
For some alternative looks at it:
Plotting Z-fit from the model against predicted Z fit from long+lat: https://imgur.com/a/v50Q0
This is much more equivocal than the predicted vs actual Steppe_MLBA values from the hierarchical model. Some priestly populations are not fit well in the model in the direction of being more Steppe_MLBA, but others aren't.
Plotting Steppe_MLBA against against real Z fit for model: https://imgur.com/a/7kGc3
Shows that out of "priestly groups", about 7/17 (41%) want more Steppe_MLBA than the model gives them, about 9/17 (52%) want less Steppe_MLBA than the model gives them, and the remaining 1/17 is looks right for the model.
About 3/17 (17%) of the priestly groups want *significantly* more Steppe_MLBA than the model fit (Brahmin_Tiwari, Brahmin_UP, Bhumihar_Bihar), 1/17 (6%) wants *significantly* less Steppe_MLBA (Gaud_Karnataka).
Finally plotting Indus_Diaspora and Onge(AASI) against Z fit for model:
https://imgur.com/a/CNjpO
Now this is interesting because the correlation between model fit and Indus_Diaspora is stronger than for correlation with model fit and either Steppe_MLBA and Onge(AASI).
That is, the systematic tendency for the model to go wrong is related to population with high levels of Indus_Diaspora, in which the model implies Indus_Diaspora is being underweighted in populations currently measured by the model as having high Indus_Diaspora, and overweighted in populations with low levels.
I would guess this is probably due to a lack of freedom for the AASI ancestry to vary freely from the non-AASI ancestry in Indus_Diaspora, and so as a consequence, in populations with high Indus_Diaspora, some extra proportion of Steppe_MLBA is being drafted in.
For Onge(AASI), there's more of a pattern in which both groups with the highest and lowest levels of Onge(AASI) would be better fit with more Steppe, which again would seem to confirm that this is an issue of populations being attracted to the real AASI in Indus_Diaspora over the "fake" AASI from Onge, even though it is worsening their fits for Steppe vs Indus ancestry overall.
Overall, in balance, it looks like
a) Steppe_MLBA ancestry is enriched relative to location and AASI decreased in priestly groups, even more so if anything than purely taking latitude into account, but...
b) Evidence is not so strong that priestly groups aren't systematically being underfit in terms of their Steppe_MLBA ancestry
c) Rather groups with high Indus_Periphery may be being overfit with Steppe_MLBA to handle the AASI fraction baked into Indus_Periphery.
Btw, off topic, anyone check out this tweet from Alex Kim a few days ago: https://twitter.com/amwkim/status/981911810805850112
It looks like the Swedish Hunter Gatherer Motala people (the "fairest of them all", as Dienekes described this group back when pigment adna began to come through) actually may have been fairer skinned than we thought; the IRF4 mutation which today is the unique skin lightener only today at significant frequency in Irish and Scots (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000292971000265 , 0.4 Irish, 0.2 English), looks fixed in the Swedish Hunter Gatherer population. Latvia HG are also pretty high in derived IRF4, which makes kind of clinal sense for the time, though the variant today is at no special frequency in the Baltic (even frequencies here in Brits are only about 0.2, and Tuscans about 0.1).
Another revision to Mathieson's data is that the Barcin_Neolithic folks here look to be fixed for the OCA2 blue eyed variant, at higher frequency than present day British or Finns. Blue eyed and olive skinned? Though not everyone with the derived OCA2 actually gets blue eyed.
Just adds to the puzzle of why some European HG populations would be predicted to be light and others quite dark based on modern variation. There's obviously no UV selection / vitamin D story here, or we'd have a puzzle that the most fisher heavy population here, the Scandinavian HG, seem to have the strongest selection for light variants, and their differences in latitude from WHG are small.
The only thing I can think of other than unknown variants and actually more similarity in phenotype is that the low population size in WHG prevented selection?
Sam,
You're again misunderstanding stuff here. CHG has Anatolian and EHG -related ancestry, so they naturally share more ancestry with Yamnaya, modern Caucasus, and modern Euros. It is the same tired story as KO1. Remember you guys freaking out saying KO1 contributed a great deal to modern Euros? I told you guys he was part Anatolian and EHG, and that is what caused the issue with drift and him eating up a chunk of the models. It wasn't real. CHG is the same deal.
Secondly, EHG is not on the WHG ANE cline. You're not paying attention. EHG is a mix of WHG, ANE, extra ENA, and some Basal Eurasian.
Finally, Iranian-like farmers weren't restricted to the Zagros and actual "Iran". This ancestry was wide spread and also in Anatolia and EEF farmers. Nothing is what you think it is.
If we're ending up talking about Iranian farmers influencing other populations and then we have to go "Oh, but they weren't actually restricted to Iran within the Greater Middle East, and were probably absent within Iran until a Neolithic expansion from anywhere other than the very western flanks of Iran" then it's a slightly odd choice of name.
Forget this f4 over-reliance that is minimally effective at distinguishing populations with similar deep history, chunkcount sharing is pretty obvious between Kotias with both later Caucasus populations and the Yamnaya (https://imgur.com/a/Z29z1). No chance this is going to reduce to a simple linear combination of the Iranian, Anatolian farmers and EHG that we have. Some unsampled early population from NE Anatolia-the South Caucasus contributing to the Yamnaya that shared a specific path of ancestry with CHG to the exclusion of all the aforementioned, sure, that's a possibility.
@Matt
"The only thing I can think of other than unknown variants and actually more similarity in phenotype is that the low population size in WHG prevented selection?"
Low population size doesn't have anything to do with that. WHG was probably more numerous than the SHG and EHG even.
Now, so what happened? You can see in the Mathieson 2018 supplement that WHG had low genetic diversity, and that there were no derived alleles for light skin among them (only the two ASIP and that one KITLG).
So, for them to develop light skin, they would either have to have their own variant, out of mutation and selection, due to normal drift (they have an immense drift, this could have happened if time allowed) or with mixing with populations who presented SLC24A5, SLC45A2, TYR, IRF4, the blonde hair KITLG, and other MC1R variants.
This means that the WHG had a very ancient ethnogenesis, from populations lacking all of those alleles.
About what "selects" light skin, there's this recent paper:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128026526000190
But I guess sexual selection played as much of a big role in this as natural selection.
Matt,
I never said they were restricted to the Zagros or absent within Iran. Not sure where that came from or the need for it.
As far as f4 over-reliance, I think you should learn to use AdmixTools and look at it before making judgments. CHG and Iran_N ancestry can be pulled apart. CHG is the same story as KO1. Guarantee it.
I agree with Chad, there's a clear European_HG signal in CHG that is not present in Iran_N.
namedguest: WHG was probably more numerous than the SHG and EHG even.
Hmmm... the published genetic evidence says no, not so:
Nucleotide diversity figures, Mathieson et al 2018: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/suppl/2017/09/19/135616.DC4/135616-1.pdf page 50. EHG and Anatolia_N have more similar conditional nucelotide diversity than EHG and WHG!
Malmstrom 2017: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003703 - "In modern-day Europe, there is greater genetic diversity in the south compared to the north. During the Mesolithic period, by contrast, we find lower levels of runs of homozygosity (RoH) (Fig 3A) and linkage disequilibrium (LD) (Fig 3B) in SHGs compared to WHGs (represented by Loschbour and Bichon [18,35]).
By using a multiple sequentially Markovian coalescent (MSMC) approach [44] for the high-coverage, high-quality genome of SF12, we find that right before the SF12 individual lived, the effective population size of SHGs was similar to that of WHGs (Fig 3C).
At the time of the LGM and back to approximately 50,000 years ago, both the WHGs and SHGs go through a bottleneck, but the ancestors of SHGs retained a greater effective population size in contrast to the ancestors of WHGs who went through a more severe bottleneck (Fig 2C), which is consistent across 100 bootstrap replicates (S2 Fig). These differences in effective population size estimates may be attributed to the admixture in SHGs as migration events can have delayed effects on estimates of effective population size over time [45]. "
Hence my comment.
This may simply be due to the much more admixed history of SHG and EHG than WHG. Which would not be incompatible with what you say (heavy isolation in WHG so they lack the specific variants), but would be incompatible with what you say, significant admix in from Anatolian Neolithic like populations.
The WHG would have to be isolated even relative to the Iron_Gates_HG though, who have only 20% EHG in Mathieson's model, and are treated as more or less unadmixed by the recent Narasimhan paper, yet who have SLC24A5 variant at about 50% and have SLC45A2 at some low frequency.
@Matt
"The WHG would have to be isolated even relative to the Iron_Gates_HG though, who have only 20% EHG in Mathieson's model, and are treated as more or less unadmixed by the recent Narasimhan paper, yet who have SLC24A5 variant at about 50% and have SLC45A2 at some low frequency."
I see no problem with such isolation, the drift supports that. Fst would be a bad measure for that though. And you see, just with 20% EHG they managed to increase the frequency of SLC24A5 and SLC45A2, meaning very favorable selection for the trait, regardless of population size. Novel genes often require either very extreme environmental selection or big population size, but not Quantitative ones, which can be selected even in small numbers (bottlenecks are based on that). So even if at first there was only 1 mixing instance, giving the rise to a single relatively light skinned individual, this gene would spread fast even in a small population. Actually, it would be even faster to do that in a small population, because birth balance is easier to shift.
About Anatolians having the SLC24A5 variant "without mixing", I can only presume that it either arose with them due to normal drift or that such thing happened with mixing with another population. We know those Anatolia_N guys weren't 100% Basal, there are ghosts out there who might have been the precursors of that and to other groups as well.
Also, that sciencedirect link you posted is broken
So whats the story with Mitanni texts?
Steppe folks came down through Uzbekistan into NW India, iran between 2000-1500BC and went west into Syria/Turkey for the 1400BC treaty?
And iranian separated from Sanskrit later?
Chad Rohlfson: I never said they were restricted to the Zagros or absent within Iran.
About half of that is what you actually said (Iranian farmers doesn't mean ancient farmers from Iran), and the other half is the absurdity that would arise from the term "Iranian farmers" if, as would prove not unlikely at all given the general genetic differentiation shown in the ancient Middle East, samples from Central and East Iran were strongly differentiated from "Iranian farmers" (samples from West Iran and places utterly outside Iran).
I'm well aware that you *can* distinguish CHG from Iran_N in f4 statistics, but these compare their power to irrefutably find very specific signals to haplotypes. The quickest and least complex way to begin to refute ideas of "pseudo-CHG" being created by combinations of streams of EHG, W Anatolian, SW Iranian streams is simply to point to the chunk sharing .
namedguest:Also, that sciencedirect link you posted is broken
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000292971000265X
@Mr. Kulkarni
The Mitanni probably separated before the Aryans entered India. They might have been stationed in Iran/Central Asia, along with Iranian-speaking populations, then they migrated further West and that's that. Probably the same thing happened to Tocharian.
We don't know of the religion of Indo-Iranians before Zoroastrianism as well, they might as well, and is very much a given that they had a similar if not identical religion to the Indo-Aryans, considering that the Indo-European religion as a whole was relatively homogeneous to all of them, and that Indo-Iranians and Indo-Aryans were very close populations.
Actually, the fact that they still retained the old religion might have been a reason for them to migrate away from Zoroastrian Iranics, as they basically declared picking sides in the "Asura vs Deva" conflict.
Matt,
I promise the very idea these are CHG specific haplotypes into Yamnaya is going to be shown to be false. There were five distinct groups of hunters in just Georgia. Even CHG had no cohesion what-so-ever. CHG is a mix of EHG, Natufian-related and Iranian-related. Same as Boncuklu who also shares extra ancestry with WHG. That's just the way it is. There is a lot of ancient sharing, but the stuff that goes to Yamnaya, is more recent and southern streams that have nothing to do with Georgia. I promise you that.
Have you guys seen this ? The excerpt being discussed in the blog entry.
Explains a lot of about steppe component.
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2017/04/population-geneticists-often-not-very.html
@ROB-Player
Explains a lot of about steppe component.
It's pure BS.
Obviously, the steppe component didn't exist in Europe outside of the steppe or in South Asia before the steppe people got there.
Ancient DNA shows this clearly.
It is good to keep an open mind. You are better than Dienekes, would hate to see you go his way.
@ROB-Player
They still have to explain what they're talking about.
@ROB-Player
You're ignoring a simple thing here: Pagani's theory has been debunked by ancient DNA.
In fact, it seems like the authors of Mathieson et al. 2018 went especially out of their way to do this. Have a look what they say about isolation-by-distance in ancient Europe in the paper and supp info here, and how that relates to the steppe component.
The Genomic History Of Southeastern Europe
@namedguest
and then westwards from there into Greece?
@All
why does narsimhan paper argue for 2000-1500BC steppe entry into IVC?
steppe entry into BMAC post 1700BC is shown (and quite categorically state that steppe entered BMAC quite late), but no BMAC ancestry in modern S asians, rather it was the other way around - IVC into BMAC.
Next chronological steppe ancestry in aDNA is from kashkarchi 1200BC in uzbekistan. Then Swat_IA 1000 BC.
Why assume steppe entry into IVC in 2000-1500BC?
@davidski
"You're ignoring a simple thing here: Pagani's theory has been debunked by ancient DNA"
But they used ancient DNA itself to come up with that theory. We have to wait for future papers from them when their theory feeds into the papers from their group then decide.
@namedguest
Please don't link to kooky Carlos' blog. I don't want to popularize his nonsense theories here.
@Mr. Kulkarni
"and then westwards from there into Greece?"
No, the Mitanni stopped in the Levant. Greek was carried on to Greece by the Mycenaean and Doric peoples from the north.
@Davidski
Ok, although his maps are great.
@mr. kulkarni namaskar.
I think that is a very introspective question. I am not sure how and why they came to that conclusion, but that is the least of the worries as papers are not a final word and they have made many assumptions which they have listed in coming to the final conclusion.
That apart when we see the first ancient DNA contact made in BMAC in terms of uniparental markers only the mtdna is seen within BMAC burials. So it kind of hints that they were not in a dominating position at BMAC in 1700 BC.
And then next Mittani are attested in the period of 1500BC to 1300 BC which means in a span of 200 years the same guys have to split from BMAC rush to Syria and aquire enough dominating military on the way overthrow and establish the kingdom there.
@Chad
I think it's clear that the story of the CHG-related or Iran_N-related admixture on the Bronze Age steppe is ultimately going to turn out a very complex one.
I'm certainly not putting all of my eggs in the one basket. It's possible, and indeed likely, that both Khvalynsk and Yamnaya have southern ancestry from multiple sources, including the direct descendants of CHG, as well as CHG-like migrants with more complex ancestry from further south. EEF must also be somehow involved, because even Afanasievo shows EEF mtDNA lineages.
I think in the end this will end up like our discussions about South Asia. I seem to remember how you argued that Srubnaya_outlier was irrelevant to the steppe-related ancestry in South Asians because it was just an outlier.
Well, Srubnaya_outlier isn't irrelevant, because this sample is a mixture between Steppe_MLBA and West_Siberia_N, and the steppe people who moved into South Asia were Steppe_MLBA_East, which is Steppe_MLBA plus 20% West_Siberia_N admixture.
So Srubnaya_outlier was an example of this mixture process that eventually led to Steppe_MLBA_East, and thus the Indo-Aryans.
But you were correct that there was already that type of West_Siberia_N-related ancestry in the Indus Valley before the steppe people got there, and admittedly I was very skeptical that this was going to be the case.
So let's wait for pre-Yamnaya ancient DNA from the North Caucasus and see what it shows. I keep hearing that's it's on its way, so it might arrive any day.
@a
Please don't clutter up the comments here with random ADMIXTURE output.
If you want to make a point using data of any sort, you must explain in a coherent and succinct way what you're attempting to communicate.
Thanks in advance for your cooperation.
Please don't clutter up the comments here with random ADMIXTURE output.
If you want to make a point using data of any sort, you must explain in a coherent and succinct way what you're attempting to communicate.
Thanks in advance for your cooperation.
We need a log to compare the new sample, also can you give a source for your reference to the Neadrthal admixture in various clusters, ie Caucasus Hunter Gatherer-Iranian Mesolithic- Iran Chalcolithic/farmer
@ namedguest
"Ok, although his maps are great."
Meh. Lacking a lot of detail, although admittedly, he probably is a one of the handful of people in the universe who have heard of Dorians.
@a
I've haven't made any references lately to the levels of Neanderthal admixture in any ancient or present-day populations.
This is not something that I focus on. Although, from memory, the Lazaridis et al. 2016 Near Eastern farmer paper had some info about that.
And no, sorry, you can't use the comments here as a log for any data. You need to create your own log or link to one if it already exists somewhere, and then explain in a succinct manner what you're trying to communicate via the data you're linking to.
@Rob
Do you think Crete_Armenoi I9123 was of Dorian origin?
I think she was of Mycenaean stock, and an example of the higher levels of steppe ancestry that we'll see in Mycenaean individuals and sub-populations when many more are sampled.
@ Dave
Nope (because for a start she was earlier than mythical Dorian invasions. NG seems to think that I think Myceneans were the only sub-group of Greek speakers to have existed in Greece. So I like to reflect this to him/ her).
Whether the Dorians in turn have higher steppe ancestry remains to be seen. Croatian MBAs seem to, but in LBA there was probably further Anatolian-like arrival into E Balkans & Greece.
Blogger Davidski said...
@a
I've haven't made any references lately to the levels of Neanderthal admixture in any ancient or present-day populations.
"This is not something that I focus on. Although, from memory, the Lazaridis et al. 2016 Near Eastern farmer paper had some info about that."
Do you ever get the feeling there is a fair amount of cherry-picking going on? Anyway I'll get to the other point for trying to parse the ancient admix with ANE/WHG/Natufian and posting the results.
Lets speculate, going by my memory, if Villabruna has roughly 1.7%+/- and Northern Caucasus CHG-have 1.2%+/- and Mesolithic Iran and Natufian have 0% how can bedouinA or B modeled as basal Eurasian- have above average Neanderthal.Is there a link with WHG and European Neaderthal admixture cline? Will Iranian farmer have Neanderthal admix, if so how did they acquire it?
@a
You're not making any sense.
Samples from Mesolithic and Neolithic Iran and the Natufians all have Neanderthal ancestry. No one ever claimed that they don't.
I can't remember if their levels of Neanderthal ancestry are listed in Lazaridis et al. 2016 somewhere. They might be, but it's up to you to find them, since you appear to be interested in this topic, and currently I'm not.
In any case, since you're not making any sense, I have to now ask you to stop this angle of inquiry here and take it elsewhere.
Davidski said...
@a
You're not making any sense.
"Samples from Mesolithic and Neolithic Iran and the Natufians all have Neanderthal ancestry. No one ever claimed that they don't.
I can't remember if their levels of Neanderthal ancestry are listed in Lazaridis et al. 2016 somewhere. They might be, but it's up to you to find them, since you appear to be interested in this topic, and currently I'm not.
In any case, since you're not making any sense, I have to now ask you to stop this angle of inquiry here and take it elsewhere."
Okay, I just have one more question/request[Neanderthal} since you have a good knowledge of how basal Eurasian works. I promise I wont post anymore on the subject. Can you explain-from the supplement section-
Supplementary Information 5------page 45 the idea behind these super-clusters?
Ancient Near Easterners had less Neanderthal ancestry than ancient Europeans
“EuropeSteppe”: Anatolia_N, EHG, Europe_EN, Europe_LNBA, Europe_MNChL,
Iberia_BA, SHG, Steppe_EMBA, Steppe_Eneolithic, Steppe_IA, Steppe_MLBA,
Switzerland_HG, WHG
“AncientNearEast”: Anatolia_ChL, Armenia_ChL, Armenia_EBA, Armenia_MLBA,
CHG, Iran_ChL, Iran_LN, Iran_HotuIIIb, Iran_N, Iran_recent, Levant_BA, Levant_N,
Natufian
on page 45
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/suppl/2016/06/16/059311.DC1/059311-1.pdf
@a
Those clusters are foremost based on genetic similarity. The paper explains in detail how they're derived. Its' not necessary for me to do this here.
And if you're saying that the higher level of Neanderthal admixture in present-day Europeans creates some sort of contradiction with the fact that ancient Near Eastern farmers had less Neanderthal admixture, then no, it doesn't because present-day Europeans derive a lot of ancestry from European hunter-gatherers who had higher levels of Neanderthal ancestry than ancient Near Eastern farmers.
That's because they had no discernible levels of Basal Eurasian ancestry, which is inferred to have been poor in Neanderthal admixture. On the other hand, ancient Near Eastern farmers had a lot of Basal Eurasian ancestry, which is probably why their Neanderthal admixture was much lower.
I'm now shutting down this debate. If you're not satisfied with what Lazaridis et al. 2016 has on this topic or the explanation I've given, then get in touch with the leading authors of Lazaridis et al. 2016 and ask for clarification.
@Chad,
I don't dismiss your ideas about modelling deep ancestry. I am just not accepting them automatically. I'm being a devil's advocate. Picking the parts that don't make sense. Tearing apart the relation between Neolithic/Mesolithic populations is difficult even for you and David.
Btw, I also noticed the EHG & EEF admixture in KO1 when looking at David's D-stat spreadsheets. I mentioned it several times.
Chetan
Yes it could be from North of Caucasus or Volga but if it shows affinity to WSiberia N then Central Asia will be needed. Anyway based on modern distribution it looks that it came to West Asia via Central Asia /Iran.
A
Iron Age R1b from Iran is a completly different branch unrelated to Afanasevo.
Samuel
What You think about U5b2a1b fron Tepe Hissar. Realistic or not?
@Chad Rohlfson: I promise the very idea these are CHG specific haplotypes into Yamnaya is going to be shown to be false.
If they are found to be non-specific to CHG via the introduction of new hunter gatherer samples from places still fairly close to Georgia, this I can't really say anything about; it would be impossible to do so.
Obviously, I can only make claims in regard to the actual samples we have! From a haplotype perspective, the current CHG are clearly *not* reducable to streams of the current Iranian-related, Natufian-related, EHG-related out there.
And we can always go to deeper levels and show that some population had "no cohesion whatsoever"; the so-called "Iranian related" will simply reduce to uncohesive streams of EHG, ANE, Basal Eurasian related that will vary patchily even over small areas, no less than what you believe you see from whichever previous of Georgian hunter gatherers you have (if you do have this and this is not a creative work of fiction). That will just be the way it is, and will always be the way it is for every group.
Kristiina
I think N1c L392 expanded from Abashevo's neighborhood.
Davidski:Well, Srubnaya_outlier isn't irrelevant, because this sample is a mixture between Steppe_MLBA and West_Siberia_N, and the steppe people who moved into South Asia were Steppe_MLBA_East, which is Steppe_MLBA plus 20% West_Siberia_N admixture.
It's actually correct that using SteppeMLBA_East is not important though isn't it? The models with Indus_Periphery in the paper work fine or better with SteppeMLBA_West as well.
The Srubnaya_Outlier in those fits of Srubnaya_Outlier, SteppeMLBA(West), Iran_N, Onge was probably probably representing West_Siberian ancestry in Indus_Periphery*, not the SteppeMLBA_East interaction.
Plus SteppeMLBA_East only has about 7% admixture from SteppeMLBA_West in the final proximal models in the paper...? Table S3.63 Proximal models for Steppe_MLBA_East, supplement page 158. And the other proportions are Khavlynsk and Okunevo, so contribution of actual West_Siberian probably minimal (Khavlynsk=mostly EHG, Okunevo=mostly Yamnaya derived?)
*Though I would not be surprised if ratio of ANE:EHG:Basal is different in Indus_Periphery to Iran_N, in the sense of Basal being more similar between I_P and Iran_N with ANE:EHG different, once controlling for AASI. I'd imagine this can be tested with simple graphs though.
@David I know you disagree about this, but I think we have to give Carlos Quiles a little more credit for his model.
What if, at the end of all things, his model is the one left standing eh?
Well, Srubnaya_outlier isn't irrelevant, because this sample is a mixture between Steppe_MLBA and West_Siberia_N, and the steppe people who moved into South Asia were Steppe_MLBA_East, which is Steppe_MLBA plus 20% West_Siberia_N admixture.
I have a theory about this. I think this will become clear when eastern Corded Ware related populations like Abashevo are sampled.
@Chetan
I've talked to Carlos Quiles over e-mail. Whenever I point out the obvious flaws in his arguments, he replies with utter nonsense.
He writes paragraphs of things that don't make any sense, and, at best, are only loosely connected to the topic at hand.
This is not the behavior of someone who is likely to come up with a winning model.
Aram said...
A
"Iron Age R1b from Iran is a completly different branch unrelated to Afanasevo."
Yes it seems that it is downstream the Armenian R1b-L584 branch. I'm not familiar with the lake Urmia region. How far is the iron age sample F38 Hansulu-Iran from the new Hajji Fruzz sample{ it looks like it could be measured in meters)? When the sample comes[carbon dated and placed in proper R1b ydna branch--etc....] out, I would find it interesting to see the levels of WHG-ANE-Natufian compared to the F38 sample, it should be a good indication of the above levels of admix declining or increasing over the millenia.
Another point of interest for me is the pottery type/age-. What is the oldest and nearest dated pottery to the Hansulu/Hajji Fruzz samples. For example the Volga region has Elshanka type pottery.
Davidski said...
@a
"Those clusters are foremost based on genetic similarity. The paper explains in detail how they're derived. Its' not necessary for me to do this here.
.................
That's because they had no discernible levels of Basal Eurasian ancestry, which is inferred to have been poor in Neanderthal admixture. On the other hand, ancient Near Eastern farmers had a lot of Basal Eurasian ancestry, which is probably why their Neanderthal admixture was much lower. "
Okay thank-you for the summary/ From the top of your head, roughly speaking- what are the top 3 oldest/ancient samples, with the highest levels of Basal Eurasian component.
@Chetan
Do you actually believe that R1a-Z645 is a marker native to what is now Poland and/or the Baltics, rather than intrusive into the region from the steppe with the ancestors of the Corded Ware people?
This is one of the pillars of kooky Carlos' religion. So if you don't believe this, then how can you consider his model viable?
Mr. Kulkarni said...
@namedguest
and then westwards from there into Greece?
@All
"why does narsimhan paper argue for 2000-1500BC steppe entry into IVC?
steppe entry into BMAC post 1700BC is shown (and quite categorically state that steppe entered BMAC quite late), but no BMAC ancestry in modern S asians, rather it was the other way around - IVC into BMAC.
Next chronological steppe ancestry in aDNA is from kashkarchi 1200BC in uzbekistan. Then Swat_IA 1000 BC.
Why assume steppe entry into IVC in 2000-1500BC"
I.m not sure if you know, however just off the top of your head- The Ashoka Chakra -Chakravartin/the relief of Chakravatin, possibly Ashoka, 1st century BCE/CE. Andhra Pradesh, showing spoked wheel. Given the importance of the spoked wheel [eg flag of India etc....] what are the 3-earliest carbon dated spoked wheels from India. What type of construction was used. In other words, how do they compare in construct to the spoked wheels from Sintashta-Arkaim complex regional/carbon dated/wood type/steamed bent wood, or single type construction.
@a
If you're really interested in the topic, then you should know that Natufians and Levant_N have the highest levels of Basal Eurasian.
@Davidski I think it's fairly clear that Z645 is a marker which spread with the Corded Ware culture. I believe Carlos's model accepts this. But according to his model, the CWC did not spread a late PIE language (late PIE taken to mean the ancestor of all non Anatolian languages here). Late PIE is spread by Yamna and Bell Beakers in his model.
Blogger Davidski said...
"If you're really interested in the topic, then you should know that Natufians and Levant_N have the highest levels of Basal Eurasian."
Thanks, I really do not know the subject as well as you.
I was wondering, the earliest carbon dated pottery attributed to this group? Do you know if it is older than pottery found around Malta1/Afonta-Gora region? What is the oldest dated pottery from India?
For example, are the dates, consistent older pottery from the north- and east and - in Bridging the boreal forest- diagram 3 of the following paper
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263306493_Bridging_the_Boreal_Forest_Siberian_Archaeology_and_the_Emergence_of_Pottery_among_Prehistoric_Hunter-Gatherers_of_Northern_EurasiaI
@Chetan
No, Carlos doesn't accept that R1a-Z645 derives from the steppe. His theory is that the ancestors of Corded Ware really belonged to R1b, and that R1a-Z645 is a marker native to Poland the Baltic region, which bounced back in frequency after the early Corded Ware period.
He actually ignores data from early Corded Ware, and all of the currently sampled hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers from Poland and the Baltics, including Globular Amphora, because it doesn't fit his theory that early Corded Ware belonged to R1b and that R1a-Z645 is native to the region.
If you ask him simple questions, like why there's no R1a-Z645 in any samples west of the steppe before the expansion of Corded Ware, and especially in Globular Amphora, he's likely to start rambling nonsense and try to obfuscate his way out of the question.
In any case, obviously Corded Ware expanded from the steppe and took R1a-M417, including R1a-Z645 and R1a-L664, to East-Central Europe, where it then morphed into Trzciniec Culture, which then gave rise to the Balts and Slavs.
Neither Bell Beakers nor R1b-M269 were involved in this process. And last time I looked, Balto-Slavic was a Late Proto-Indo-European language branch.
If you fail to appreciate this, then that's fine, but it's clear then that you've been duped by a crazy person. In any case, please don't ever post his nonsense here again, nor link to his website, because I'll delete your posts.
@Davidski Ok there's a lot more data to come. Let's wait for all of that.
@Chetan
Sure, although I don't expect kooky Carlos to be able to interpret the new data correctly, or even consider it when it doesn't suit his model.
He'll just ignore what doesn't fit, and obfuscate when asked to explain.
"Corded Ware expanded from the steppe and took R1a-M417, including R1a-Z645 and R1a-L664, to East-Central Europe, where it then morphed into Trzciniec Culture, which then gave rise to the Balts and Slavs." (Davidski)
Do you have a theory as to where I2a-L621 etc.. fits into this process? One view (on Anthrogenica) suggests it might have moved from West to East with the Bastarnian complex,and then mixed with R1a, while another suggests that it might have been local. Unfortunately we don't seem to have (?) aDNA for a solution at this time, and the ancestral M423 (Loschbourg, Motala) are side branches (western and far northern).
@Dmytro
I don't have any strong opinions about I2a-L621 or how it came to be.
Going on probability alone, though, it's probably an East-Central European lineage that eventually bounced back after the invasions of the region by the R1a-rich peoples from the steppe.
Ancient DNA will sort it out in due course.
"Ancient DNA will sort it out in due course."
Thank you for the quick comment. Looking forward to the Trzciniec results. Don't know if anyone planning to work on these at this moment.
Some of those Baltic_BA samples from Mittnik et al. 2018 were from Trzciniec culture burials. And they fit the bill as the ancestors of Balts and northern Slavs in terms of the R1a subclades, genome-wide DNA and even mtDNA subclades.
https://polishgenes.blogspot.com/2018/01/modern-day-poles-vs-bronze-age-peoples.html
@a
This is a big problem with a 1500bce entrance to India. Spoked wheels only make an appearance in book 1 and 10 of the Rigveda, the latest books basically. Which leaves two options; The Rigveda was composed before Andronovo on the steppe or they were not Andronovans.
Option 1 cannot be true as the Rigveda describes South Central Asian animals and rivers. Option 2 is possible as two wheeled chariots have been depicted in the Near East as early as 2k BCE.
@Vara
There was no Indo-European migration from the Near East to South Asia, because the non-steppe West Eurasian ancestry in South Asians comes from a population that was less Anatolian-related than the Zagros farmers.
And this type of ancestry is strongly correlated with Dravidian speakers, while Steppe_MLBA_East is correlated with Indo-Europeans.
You're still not getting this?
@ Dmytro
Looking forward to the Trzciniec results. Don't know if anyone planning to work on these at this moment.
There is an ongoing research in Poland on this topic right now and results from it should be published in less than a year.
https://projekty.ncn.gov.pl/index.php?s=2764
Start: 2016-01-26
Time: 36 months
Blogger Vara said...
"This is a big problem with a 1500bce entrance to India. Spoked wheels only make an appearance in book 1 and 10 of the Rigveda, the latest books basically. Which leaves two options; The Rigveda was composed before Andronovo on the steppe or they were not Andronovans.
Option 1 cannot be true as the Rigveda describes South Central Asian animals and rivers. Option 2 is possible as two wheeled chariots have been depicted in the Near East as early as 2k BCE."
Vara--- R1b-Z2108* is found among Dagestan/Russia and Gujarit/Indians[the same snp shared with Yamnaya].Can you give a rough estimate of ANE among the Gujarit population, if not that's fine-just curious.
https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-Z2108*/
@a
Wooden chariot wheels have not been found. Earliest drpiction are stone relief of horse drawn chariots from 200 - 300 bc
@kulkarni
The paper mentions mlba like outliers in bmac at 2100 bc. That must be their basis. In South Asia earliest r1a is from 500 to 400 bc swat just before stone inscriptions in Prakrit, Pali and Sanskrit appear in all parts of India including Sri Lanka.
postneo said...
"Wooden chariot wheels have not been found. Earliest drpiction are stone relief of horse drawn chariots from 200 - 300 bc"
Are you 100% sure there are no wooden spoke wheels in all of ancient India?
Am I wrong in assuming the Indian flag has a wheel on it? Does ancient sanskrit mention chariots with wooden spoked wheels, or does this all mean something else?
@Vara
i'm pretty sure if i went through the liturgy and hymnbook of the Church of England i would find no mention of the internal combustion engine. failure to mention how wheels are constructed in religious poetry is not valid negative evidence.
@thorin
i don't know if chariots were actually important in Indo-Aryan migration or whatever - but the Punjab region is a huge flat plain extensively cleared for field and pasture, why the heck wouldn't chariots work there? they were used from England to China, in places naturally hillier and woodier than northern India. what the heck were chariots doing at a giant legendary battle in Haryana in the epic period if they were no good?
@a
"Am I wrong in assuming the Indian flag has a wheel on it?"
yes whats the relevance?? the flag is made of cloth and is from 1947. Earlier versions of it had a spoked spinning wheel used by weavers.
Earliest clear depiction of wooden spoked wheeled chariots is in stone relief from sanchi, probably from Shunga dynasty of eastern india 185 bc. There are miniature/toy models of wheels made of bronze and clay from IVC. Obviously actual wheels were wooden.
in the rig veda the reference to radial spokes is correct because a verse alludes to 360/720 spokes of a year. While describing a calendar it shows that the word was used to denote a sector of a circle and must have meant spoke in other contexts. These are late verses though and its possible that the earlier verses predate the invention of spokes.
@capra
The wheels are described very well in the Rigveda, they mention the trees used in the making of these wheels, their shape and number. Spoked wheels only appear the latest books.
@ Old Europe
"Signs of a direct migration in early III millennium from Atlantic France to ALTAI; EASTERN KAZAKSTAN and....WESTERN CHINA"
Sounds crazy, but given the other discussion regarding the oldest kurgans, there are huge burial mounds in western France dated to around 4500 BC (the Saint-Michel tumulus and Tumiac tumulus). Then of course there are the massive mounds of Knowth and Newgrange in Ireland dated to 3200 BC, among others. And spiral motifs eerily similar to those that are so prevalent in early indo-european culture frequently appear on the megalithic monuments from Ireland all the way down to the temples in Malta.
@capra
"what the heck were chariots doing at a giant legendary battle in Haryana in the epic period if they were no good"
we have no proof of this epic war with chariots. its possible its a memory of a battle or multiple battles. At the time of compilation chariots might have been in vogue and interpolated to earlier layers.
if you cut through the hyperbole in the epics, the chariot mainly seems to function as a mobile platform for archers and VIPs who are stationed at the back. They may not have moved much during battle except in transport to the battlefield itself or as a means for the VIPs to escape and fall back. remember Darius?
Wheeled carts and chariots must have been in use from the atleast 3000 bc all over IVC and not just Panjab.
>Wheeled carts and chariots must have been in use from the atleast 3000 bc all over IVC and not just Panjab.
You can't just make these claims. A chariot is a very specific type of vehicle and there is no evidence of this in 'Panjab' or IVC at 3000 bc (let alone wheeled vehicles). You have to cite your sources. David Anthony (objective expert) describes chariots as needing:
-2 spoked wheels
-standing driver
-built for speed
Check this video out: https://youtu.be/HliaR2Ep24s?t=12m8s
David Anthony (objective expert) describes the invention of the wheel as originating in one of three locationshttps://youtu.be/HliaR2Ep24s?t=14m48s (most in or near eastern europe) with no mention of indus. Clearly the indus wheels originated from the the wheels depicted in Bronocice pot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronocice_pot). There is even evidence of wagon burials in the step around 3500-3100 BC.
You would need something as clear as the bronicie pot (clear depiction of spoked wheel wagon) to make these claims about IVC/panjab.
I know, there's the one with all the astronomical numerology (1.164), and a few others referring to spokes in some metaphor or other. It's poetry, not a technical manual.
@postneo
Yes of course India had wheeled vehicles from mid-4th M BC or so like everyone else.
No I don't think Mahabharata was written as an accurate account of contemporary events of course - point is would be pretty strange to have chariot warfare in Haryana if chariots were useless in warfare in northern India.
Exact role of chariots is unclear at this distance in time but basically they seem to have been the cavalry before cavalry was perfected (two horsemen one bow), so yeah moving quickly around the battlefield and mobile archery, very useful things.
@Stephen Molyneux
I don't think India is actually out of the running for possible origin of wheeled vehicles. Wherever it was they spread like wildfire (or maybe multiple parallel inventions)? There are some radially-grooved ceramic wheel-type objects from the Mature Harappan which have been proposed to be models of early spoked wheels, though this interpretation is not exactly rock solid.
protip on English usage: "let alone (whatever)" means "even less so ", not clear what "let alone wheeled vehicles" is means in this context.
postneo
"in the rig veda the reference to radial spokes is correct because a verse alludes to 360/720 spokes of a year. While describing a calendar it shows that the word was used to denote a sector of a circle and must have meant spoke in other contexts. These are late verses though and its possible that the earlier verses predate the invention of spokes"
Are there any close up pictures of the actual Sintashta-Arkaim chariot wheels? It would be interesting to note their size how many pieces-[1 or many], type of wood and how they constructed them, glue, nails, dowels?
@ Davidski
Can you please look into a better scheme for comments?
I am 99.999% sure that the number of comments is just a dumb setting that can be adjusted when asked for by such a successful blogger, whob has very irritated followers.
@capra
I never said it was an Ikea manual or an engineering book. My point is there is no mention of spoked wheels in the early Rigveda while they're mentioned more than once in the later books.
>I don't think India is actually out of the running for possible origin of wheeled vehicles. Wherever it was they spread like wildfire (or maybe multiple parallel inventions)? There are some radially-grooved ceramic wheel-type objects from the Mature Harappan which have been proposed to be models of early spoked wheels, though this interpretation is not exactly rock solid.
protip on English usage: "let alone (whatever)" means "even less so ", not clear what "let alone wheeled vehicles" is means in this context.
You can't compare those ceramic objects to clear evidence like the bronicie pot as evidence of wheeled vehicles. Firstly, it is not obvious that they depict wheels (as used in vehicles) and secondly we don't have any clear dates for these objects. Read through this paper and try to argue otherwise: https://www.harappa.com/sites/default/files/pdf/Kenoyer2004_Wheeled%20Vehicles%20of%20the%20Indus%20Valley%20Civilizatio.pdf
@postneo
Not an expert on Indian warfare techniques, but chariots were traditionally considered one of the four essential limbs of an army. Not sure of the exact role they played though
@Karl_K
Davidski should implement Disqus for Eurogenes. This standard Blog comment system is horrible.
@Karl
When the dataset from the paper is released, probably in a couple of days, I'll be blogging more often, so the number of comments under each post is unlikely to reach 200.
Matt,
You're misunderstanding what I'm saying. The work of fiction comment is also out of line. Do a little research here. There was no cohesion among hunter-gatherers of Georgia. There are distinct cultural groups. Which is pretty obvious considering inbred CHG is. Remember that high ROH and fst discussion?
Anyway, with a little bit of research into archaeology, you would see that the Caucasus received impulses from the south, from between eastern Anatolia and the Zagros. This isn't CHG, which Tepecik Ciftlik shows well enough. Iran Chalcolithic around Lake Urmia shows that too.
Anyway, you can talk to Nick about this too if you want. Ancient DNA and haplotype analysis has some issues with coverage and phasing. I'm still waiting for a response, but CHG having shared EHG and Anatolian ancestry not in the Iran_N group, being in the original Zarzian homeland, could give the false impression that CHG is more important. My opinion is that those EHG and Anatolian chunks in CHG are creating a false impression that it is important. Also, the fact CHG is much higher coverage is going to cause issues. I'm still awaiting a response on the potential issue of segments of EHG and Anatolian-related ancestry messing with the analysis.
Again, look at the archaeological research here. The Neolithic in the Caucasus was brought in from places that do and will have high Iran_N ancestry. It wasn't some pure Barcin-like groups coming in and getting overwhelmed with CHG admixture.
It'll be clear enough as more stuff from around Lake Urmia and Mesopotamia come out. I see no reason to keep going back and forth here.
Chad Rohlfson: There was no cohesion among hunter-gatherers of Georgia. There are distinct cultural groups. Which is pretty obvious considering inbred CHG is.
Yes; Kotias ROH comparable to Anatolian Boncuklu group; all HG like this. Nothing specially fractionised / high ROH re: CHG. "No cohesion among hunter gatherers of Georgia", probably not, also "No cohesion among hunter gatherers of similar sized regions of Iran" about as likely.
Anyway, with a little bit of research into archaeology, you would see that the Caucasus received impulses from the south, from between eastern Anatolia and the Zagros.
Literally my first post in this comment thread allows for this likelihood. Which would probably have been two way. I'm also quite clear in my last post that haplotype chunks being "non-specific to CHG ... hunter gatherer samples from places still fairly close to Georgia" is not really a problem for me. I'm not particularly obsessed with the idea of continuity from late UP/mesolithic ->neolithic actually in the Caucasus itself, but pure complete replacement from a combination of other currently documented streams, without any continuity with anywhere even *close* to the Caucasus, not likely. I find the idea of an illusion from a composite of west Anatolia, Iranian, pre-CA steppe to be what's unlikely, specifically.
Ancient DNA and haplotype analysis has some issues with coverage and phasing.
While this could be the case, it would be seem very unusual to me that these issues happen to align in exactly the places that would suggest shared specific ancestry between CHG and present day Georgia, either through actual direct sharing or a secondary population (e.g. between eastern Anatolia and the Zagros). And very specifically to certain Caucasus groups who speak the Caucasian languages, and not even to fairly autosomally similar groups like the Armenians.
Since there are chunk donations references for Anatolian, it would be very strange if somehow chunks from Anatolian in CHG were becoming more important/obvious than Anatolian chunks in Anatolia in ways that specifically linked Caucasus populations to CHG. That's a lot of coincidence.
It wasn't some pure Barcin-like groups coming in and getting overwhelmed with CHG admixture.
I will guess that groups moving into the Caucasus during the Neolithic had picked up varying ancestry already that is on a complex cline between Anatolia, the CHG samples, the Iran Neolithic and the Levant Neolithic, and that none of it was "pure" Barcin or "pure" Ganj Dareh, etc.
As I've said, I'm not concerned with whether CHG like ancestry actually lived exactly in the Caucasus rather than close by, but that the ancestry is distinct signal from what can be produced from combinations of the Ganj Dareh, Barcin, Natufian and EHG groups, in a way that is somewhat continuous within the region over time.
I see no reason to keep going back and forth here.
Agreed.
@Vara
So if something does not happen to be mentioned in a poetic metaphor in a collection of verses we can conclude it didn't exist? I don't buy it.
@Stefan Molyneux
I've read it, but thanks for the link.
@Chad
The high drift and haplotype sharing between CHG and Yamnaya can't be a coincidence or, even less so, an error, because CHG also shares extremely high drift and haplotyope counts with Abkhazians and Georgians.
In other words, the relationship between CHG and other populations that it should plausibly be closely related to makes sense, so there's no reason why its close relationship with Yamnaya should be an illusion.
Mesopotamia as a source for Yamnaya looks way out of the ballpark. I don't even have to wait for samples from Mesopotamia to make this call.
@ Chad
Yeah sure archaeologists have defined a number of subgroups in Georgian Mesolithic . But that’s no different to Europe or elsewhere
Philippe
Atlantic megalithism, surely one of the most underrated prehistorical culture of europe. The trail of his influence goes to northern europe (funnel beaker). The funnel beaker, according to some archeologists, influenced both genetically and culturally the maykop novosbodnaya complex. One of the most striking cultural element connected with atlantic megalithism ( but not limited to this culture) was the diffusion of the stone alpine polished axes. Pierre Petrequin is a french archeologist that researched the diffusion of this kind of alpine axes. The diffusion went from southern italy to scotland and from the gulf of Morbhian to VARNA and the....BLACK SEA ( remind you of something?). Her's a quote of one of his study:
The status of the individuals who were interred in the mas-sive mounds in the Carnac area of the Gulf of Morbihan, accompanied by numerous large Alpine axeheads and by other objects imported over long distances, is therefore all the more exceptional and demands to be explained. However, we should not make the common mistake of simply regarding these individuals as ‘Big Man’ chiefs, operating in a system based on conspicuous consumption; such an interpretation ignores the religious basis of the sociopolitical organisation. The evidence encourages us to regard this society –which produced the earliest megalithic archi-tecture in Europe around the middle of the 5th millennium, together with a whole repertoire of symbolic imagery (including the axe), engraved on extraordinary standing stones– as one which was markedly inegalitarian, with some men having acquired an intermediary status between the elite and the supernatural powers. Such individuals would have been theocrats...DIVINE KING ( the priest king one of the most indoeuropean feature ever..)....
This unifying mind set from Portugal to Varna and from Scotland to southern italy looks like a big thing .....I wonder which language connected this cultural and religious beliefs?
I forgot the link to the paper:
https://www.academia.edu/36302986/PETREQUIN_P._CINQUETTI_M._et_BUTHOD-RUFFIER_D._2017.-_Le_choix_des_jades_alpins_in_P._Pétrequin_E._Gauthier_et_A.M._Pétrequin_ed._JADE_2._Besançon_PUFC_et_CRAVA_tome_3_47-68
Old Europe
We have ancient DNA from Chemurchek (Y dna C2) and honestly they don't give impression that they are from West Europe.
At best they were probably influenced by EHG/Afanasevo.
@a
6 spoked copper wheel liked amulet was found in mehrgarh 3500bc-4000bc.
wooden wheels cant survive long in arch records in North indian climate.
@capra
Chariots went from transportation tools in Book 3 to tools of warfare in the later books, which fits with what postneo suggested. You can believe that the Indo-Aryans did not care about the great invention their ancestors made, and suddenly remembered the importance of the spoked wheels hundred of years after their invention, suddenly having a huge influence on their beliefs and gaining importance in their metaphoric poetry, and then they go and depict it almost every temple in South Asia.
@postneo
no steppe ancestry in BMAC till mid 2nd millenium
"These samples show the first evidence of contact between the Steppe and agricultural zones of Turan and date this contact to the middle of the 2nd millennium. The fact that there is no sign of this ancestry before the very end of the 3rd millennium and at multiple locations in the mid-2nd millennium and the fact that the earlier outliers from Gonur have a different type of northern admixture provide highly suggestive evidence that Steppe-related ancestry only arrived in the region fairly late, despite its prevalence thereafter."
Also,
"3952 Taken together with the data we have from the Copper Age period, the BMAC sites also 3953 suggest that there was not a massive influx of Yamana-derived ancestry into Central Asia 3954 prior to 1750 BCE, as the BMAC sites before this period do not seem to have significant 3955 increases in Steppe related ancestry compared with the populations from the pre-Copper Age
3956 period. It is, possible, however, that such ancestry may have arrived earlier but is not visible 3957 in the urban context of the BMAC civilization with its different economic base. "
I know why the authors suggest 2000-1500bc entry into IVC. to claim that steppe folks caused the fall of IVC. The data does not suggest it yet. Plus the glaring lack of R1a in the male samples.
Yajur veda contains a lot of material on chariot building. However, chariot evidence from archaeology is curiously absent.
Still, the earliest chariot excavated is from upper ganga basin 350bc-50ce. The absence of chariot remains from India tell us nothing about the rig vedic people origins.
Mr. Kulkarni said...
"Yajur veda contains a lot of material on chariot building. However, chariot evidence from archaeology is curiously absent.
Still, the earliest chariot excavated is from upper ganga basin 350bc-50ce. The absence of chariot remains from India tell us nothing about the rig vedic people origins."
It might actually have something to do with the type of tree. For example perhaps Sintashta had a type of tree/wood that was easy to work with to produce a spoked wheel, same with ganga basin, however the further south you go in India the different type of tree like palm trees- just speculation--
Regarding steppe dynamics and Y-DNA - mtDNA.
Herodotus writes about a quite historical event that happend in 7th century B.C IIRC. During the raid of the Royal Scythians against the Medes, which lasted 28 years, their woman in Scythia mixed with the male slaves they had.
This account basically says that a set of complete new "slave" Y-DNA set was created of the size of the entire Royal Scythian population.
When the Scythians came back they defeated the slave population which retreated.
The degree of historical authenticity can be questioned. If true, this is a model for Y-DNA swaps that basically create an alternative tribe with potentially completely different Y-DNA.
Successful steppe tribe raids that lead to better conditions for the warriors, could in other instances mean that such events of female-slave mixing could create new tribes.
The patriarchal Indo-European steppe warrior culture would hence be prone to such Y-DNA swap events.
@a
yajurveda is mainstream dated 1200-1000bc. composed wholly in india. so local tree species was used.
Mr. Kulkarni said...
"yajurveda is mainstream dated 1200-1000bc. composed wholly in india. so local tree species was used"
Any pictures of yajurveda spoked wheels?
@a
no pictures.
here is the translated text. http://www.hinduwebsite.com/sacredscripts/hinduism/yajur/white_yajurveda.asp#page_72
Mr. Kulkarni said...
"no pictures.
here is the translated text. http://www.hinduwebsite.com/sacredscripts/hinduism/yajur/white_yajurveda.asp#page_72"
Interesting.
It looks like there are not any pictures of the Sintashta spoked wheels either, most likely due to wood decay. Perhaps we can assume this also happened in parts of India.
Here is a wagon kurgan burial 4000+/--from Georgia with 4 regular wheels-it also has some honey preserved food. In terms of age-- the sample from Georgia would have been up there with Yamnaya[I0429, Lopatino I, Sok River, Samara (Russia), 3339-2917 calBCE ] and Afanasievo-culture I6715-3300-2500 BCE Russia
http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/best-preserved-ancient-fruit-found-4000-year-old-burial-chamber-honey-s
I have read through many of the vedic hymns and off the top of my head cant think of many instances of Indra being associated with Chariots. This is interesting given he is the indo-aryan war-leader god par-excellence. Infact, I most recall mention of chariots in association with Sun-God or the Dawn.
Actually, I cant even recall any mention of chariots being used in war.
@mzp
In book 1 and 10 there are many instances in which Indra and other heroes trample over their enemies while riding their chariots. However, in the earlier books there isn't much about chariot warfare and in book 3 Indra used his chariots to move around and his fighting was done with the vajra.
Great arguments against the genetic evidence guys.
You should get in touch with the authors and ask them to add a supplementary section with this sort of stuff.
It seems you use the term 'evidence' rather loosely.
@vara
You got any hymn numbers, I wanna check those out.
@vara
Dont worry I found some mentions in book 3.
@mzp1
Well, yeah, you might be right; the fact that steppe ancestry obviously only appears in South Central Asia after 2000 BCE, and this is exactly what was inferred by many historical linguists and archaeologists before any ancient or even modern DNA from the region, might just be a remarkable coincidence.
It probably isn't though.
Except it is not really as simple as that, and if your honest I think you would agree.
@mzp1
It seems that what you're ignoring is that this is just the beginning, and every time new aDNA data from South Asia are published, and probably a lot sooner than you expect, these findings will be cemented further, until there won't be any way to obfuscate the outcome.
So you're the one who needs to become honest here.
As far as I am concerned there is no such thing as Aryan Migration Theory, only Aryan Migration Half-Baked Nonesense.
I say this because any serious theory would attempt to explain the biggest event in Indo-Iranian history, namely the split off between IA and Iranian. So far your theory is unfalsiable for that event because it is silent on it.
This paper doesnt even show any steppe impact on Bmac, so how did the bmac region become Iranian?
@mzp1
This paper doesnt even show any steppe impact on Bmac, so how did the bmac region become Iranian?
I'm trying my best to be patient and civil with people like you here and elsewhere. But something will snap badly at some point if you keep this up.
Have you even bothered to read the paper abstract? This is what it says...
We document a southward spread of genetic ancestry from the Eurasian Steppe, correlating with the archaeologically known expansion of pastoralist sites from the Steppe to Turan in the Middle Bronze Age (2300-1500 BCE). These Steppe communities mixed genetically with peoples of the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) whom they encountered in Turan (primarily descendants of earlier agriculturalists of Iran), but there is no evidence that the main BMAC population contributed genetically to later South Asians.
Obviously, if they put this in the abstract, then there must be data in the paper supporting it. And I can assure you that there is. But don't take my word for it; read the paper yourself.
@davidski
It seems that aDna speaks to you about language and culture as well. Do share the the secret of the wonderful ability.
This whole subject started with the translation of Rig Veda. You can't stop relying on it when it stops suiting agendas.
Eg. Rig vedic horse has 34 ribs. Use this info. This is an Arabic horse.
https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rig_Veda/Mandala_1/Hymn_162 man RV1.162.18
@Kulkarni
It seems that aDna speaks to you about language and culture as well. Do share the the secret of the wonderful ability.
Again, this is laid out in the paper:
- Indians with the highest levels of Steppe_MLBA ancestry are upper caste Indo-Aryan speakers
- Indians who lack steppe ancestry, and are basically like the three Indus_Periphery individuals, are usually Dravidian speakers.
And since most Indians are basically just mixtures of Steppe_MLBA_East, Indus_Periphery and indigenous South Asian hunter-gatherer, then chances are pretty good that Steppe_MLBA _East took Indo-Aryans languages to India, don't you think?
As more often there is a little gem in the paper that goes unnoticed:
"We show that there was a west-to-east cline of decreasing Anatolian agriculturalist-related admixture ranging from ~70% in Chalcolithic Anatolia to ~33% in eastern Iran, to ~3% in far eastern Turan (Fig.1; Supplementary Materials). The timing of the establishment of this cline is consistent with the dates of spread of wheat and barley agriculture from west to east (in the 7th to 6th millennia BCE), suggesting the possibility that individuals of Anatolian ancestry may have contributed to spreading agriculturalist economies not only westward to Europe, but also eastward to Iran."
This is not how we were told before, as the general idea seemed to be that agriculture arose pretty much independently in Anatolia and the Zagros area. Also, I'm not sure you actually can go as far as they do in drawing this conclusion. But if true it would basically depose the Fertile Crescent as place of origin of agriculture.
I'd say worth discussing.
@epoch
I mentioned this briefly in one of my replies to Vara above, but in the context that a Near Eastern population couldn't have brought Indo-European languages to South Asia, because the non-Steppe_MLBA_East-derived farmer ancestry in South Asians has the lowest ratio of admixture from Anatolia, even lower than the Zagros farmers.
But it is also an interesting point in that it perhaps suggests that Zagros farmers have more Anatolian ancestry than the Anatolian farmers have Zagros ancestry. So those models that we saw previously with the Anatolian farmers packing ~40% Zagros ancestry might have been way off.
@Mr. Kulkarni
Archaeology, Anthropology and Linguistics were enough for proving the cultural question.
Have you read anything about this matter prior to this paper release? Try these here, starter guides:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_migrations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language
About your obsession with the Arabic horse, do you even know from where does it come from? The Arabic is a breed that descended from the Nisean Horse, a most famous horse from the Iranic peoples of the Steppe.
Today, its most close descendent is the Akhal-Teke breed of Turkmenistan.
The same process happened with the Saluki dog, which became famous due to the Pharaohs liking them and Arab Bedouins breeding them. But again, it's an Iranic dog from Central Asia, with its close relatives being the Afghan Hound and the Russian Borzoi.
@epoch, I think it made a lot of sense to discuss the Iran_N as being isolated from other populations back in Iosif Laz's 2016 paper, as the Iran_N were the maximally unadmixed point on their cline. The Levant_N, Iran_N, WHG, EHG models made a kind of sense, despite the fact CHG and Anatolian clearly harbour some independent drift that's relevant to present day people (and simulations of CHG and Anatolia_N as models would work relatively poorly even in PC1-PC3).
But it looks to me from what I did with paper proportions and Global 25 like the Indus_Periphery samples imply that the clines that looked to end with Iran_N actually extend far beyond them, and this is still apparent even though a lot of this was probably leveled already out by the time of Indus_Periphery from the late Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. Leveled out probably by a lot of initial migration out in a west->east direction followed by a more two-way dynamic once agriculture has spread.
I'd guess that Iran_N group probably did have ancestry from early agriculturalists to their west, like how the Levant_N group look to have had an Anatolian like stream (which probably includes some Iran related stream). We can only know that for Levant_N by comparing them with Natufians, so they'd need a transect of pre-Neolithic samples to do the same for Iran, and so far the only sample is Hotu and I believe a new very low coverage sample in this paper, neither of which are in a fit state to use for models.
@namedgenes While a few key technologies like the horse, wheel etc. are useful, most of the 'archaeological evidence' is garbage. kuzmina knows very little about indian traditions and comes to several nonsensical conclusions in her study. The steppe sites need to be restudied by archaeologist with assistance from Indian experts. I think the genetic evidence speaks for itself. even the 'low caste' IA speaking chamars have around 30% r1a. In the dravidian speaking south r1a is much rarer in non brahmin groups, with a frequency between 10 and 25 percent in most castes and nearly absent in many isolated tribes. Ancient DNA and the dicovery of Late Bronze age steppe ancestry in modern Indians only confirms this
So the Basal-rich K7 was correct in that showed Iran_N to carry a lot of the Basal-rich component, which is actually a composite of something WHG-like and Basal Eurasian, and obviously shared with Anatolian farmers like Barcin_N.
The Basal-rich K7
Interestingly, it doesn't show any Iran_N input in the Anatolians.
I hope the samples are released soon. I still find odd things that need further testing to get a good idea.
For example, the Gonur2_BA samples (Indus_periphery with some 18% Onge-related ancestry and apparently no Anatolian_N) when compared to the SPGT (~22% Anatolia_N, ~22% Onge-related) samples with formal stats (Fig. S3.39) doesn't seem to match those qpAdm models.
f4(Outgroup, Anatolia_N)(Gonur2_BA, SPGT) = |Z-score| < 2 (So not significant)
f4(Outgroup, Onge)(Gonur2_BA, SPGT) = Z-score < -2 (So Gonur2_BA higher Onge-related?)
Yeah, apparently the dataset is on its way, so is a new spreadsheet with revised Y-haplogroup calls, and other stuff too. We just have to wait a bit.
@Davidski
Indians who lack steppe ancestry, and are basically like the three Indus_Periphery individuals, are usually Dravidian speakers.
Where do you see that Indus_periphery samples are anywhere close to Dravidians? Hard to say exactly, but it seems to me that 2 of them are closer to modern populations from Pakistan (Brahui, Balochi, Sindhi, Pathan, Kalash) than to anyone else. While the other one with higher Onge-related ancestry is probably closer to Punjabi (still Indo-Aryan from Pakistan). The SPGT samples should also be closer to modern Pakistani populations than to anyone else.
While other SC Asian ancient samples should also be closer to the modern populations in the areas, with the more northern shifted samples probably closer to Tajiks, or even Yamnaya a couple of them.
I don't think any ancient sample from this paper resembles modern South Indians/Dravidians.
@Alberto
I didn't say that the Indian_Periphery individuals were necessarily close to Dravidian-speakers.
What I said, or at least attempted to communicate, was that the Indian_Periphery individuals and many Dravidian-speakers, specifically those form south India, lack steppe ancestry, and so both can be modeled as something close to Iran_N-related, but with less Anatolian input, West_Siberia_N-related, and indigenous South Asian or Onge-related.
You're probably right that two of the Indian_Periphery individuals, those with minimal Onge-related input, would show high affinity to present-day populations from around the Indus Valley, like the Brahui, Balochi, Makrani, and Sindhi.
That's because these present-day groups no doubt have a lot of ancestry from the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) population and they also show similar ratios of West Eurasian ancestry to the two Indian_Periphery individuals.
However, unlike south Indian Dravidians, these present-day groups carry significant levels of Steppe_MLBA ancestry, and the likely source of this admixture were their Indo-Iranian ancestors from the steppe.
In regards to the third Indian_Periphery individual, the one with around 40% Onge-related ancestry, he's obviously going to better match South Asians with similar levels of Onge-related input to his, and the Punjabis from the Human Origins are such a group. But please note that, again, these present-day Pakistanis have quite a bit of steppe ancestry, so in that sense they're clearly distinct from this Indian_Periphery individual, even though they might show high affinity to him overall.
So I'm certain that when I get the data we'll see that this Indian_Periphery individual shows even higher affinity to Dravidian-spakers with around 40% Onge-related input and minimal to no steppe ancestry.
Hope that makes sense.
@Davidski
Yes, that's much more clear.
Though I'm not so sure that the Steppe_MLBA ancestry is as easy to tell apart as people may think. There is a lot of overlap in the streams of ancestry there. I expect that Global 25 will do a good job at it, but we might still see that different setups can give different results.
Let's see if the Y-DNA issues are solved these days and that gives a bit more confidence in the models.
@epoch
" I think it made a lot of sense to discuss the Iran_N as being isolated from other populations back in Iosif Laz's 2016 paper, as the Iran_N were the maximally unadmixed point on their cline. The Levant_N, Iran_N, WHG, EHG models made a kind of sense, despite the fact CHG and Anatolian clearly harbour some independent drift that's relevant to present day people (and simulations of CHG and Anatolia_N as models would work relatively poorly even in PC1-PC3"
Back then I thought that the model of three separate groups independently switching from HG to agriculture, and only then mixing to become the Middle-Eastern civilizations very nicely fitted the archaeological narrative.
So this new approach certainly shakes things up.
@Matt
That previous response was directed at you, btw
@namedguest
Much of the archaelogical evidence cited for Aryan 'invasion' is a pile of shite. Reich notes the lack of archaeological evidence in his book.
2nd, I do not favor indigineous aryan theory, neither out of india theory for IE spread.
Rather, i favour any theory which puts rigvedic aryans before 2500-3000bc, even if they come from the north pole, or from antarctica, or aliens.
@Davidski
You need to forget about South Asia and focus only on Central Asia for the time being.
From the paper...
"The absence in the BMAC cluster of the Steppe_EMBA ancestry that is ubiquitous in South Asia today—along with qpAdm analyses that rule out BMAC as a substantial source of ancestry in South Asia (Fig. 3A)—suggests that while the BMAC was affected by the same demographic forces that later impacted South Asia (the southward movement of Middle to Late Bronze Age Steppe pastoralists described in the nextnsection), it was also bypassed by members of these groups who hardly mixed with BMAC people and instead mixed with peoples further south."
As I said, the steppe people had little impact on BMAC populations, so how do you explain the Iranianization of the BMAC region??????
This paper is not about South Asia, it is about Central Asia. Strange that we are attempting to interpret it in terms of IA rather than Iranian, when it is clearly more relevant for Iranian.
You need to have BMAC as non-IE for the AMT to hold, so where did that IE come from?
The fact that both the paper and the discussion here is more concerned about South, rather than Central Asia, just shows how selectively everything is being interpreted.
Your quote literally says that BMAC was demographically affected by the southward movement of Middle to Late Bronze Age Steppe pastoralists. Do you have difficulty reading?
@MZP1 "suggests that while the BMAC was affected by the same demographic forces that later impacted South Asia (the southward movement of Middle to Late Bronze Age Steppe pastoralists described in the nextnsection),it was also bypassed by members of these groups who hardly mixed with BMAC people and instead mixed with peoples further south"
What is the issue there? Some groups bypassed and headed further south. Some groups mixed with BMAC. That's what this passage seems to be saying
Yeah, but I dont believe everything I read on the internet. Show me the demographic impact on bmac.
In fact this might explain the Rigvedic people's hostility to fort-dwellers in the earliest stages of the Veda. What if the Rigvedic Aryans were those pastoralists who genetically "bypassed" BMAC dwellers. Naturally they would feel hostility to those other tribes which mixed with the BMAC population.
@Chetan,
What is the issue here?
I have asked four times how the BMAC region was Iranianized and noone can point me to any coherent theory, instead I am ignored every time, or the subject is changed.
The only conclusion that can be drawn from the paper is that Andronovo people moved south and a few mixed with BMAC peoples on the periphary. Also, I recall reading somewhere that the from the archeological record the andronovo people, on moving south, settled down and mixed with agricultural communities ie. they gave up their nomadic way. This is consistent with the data from this paper and we can conclude that it was the andronovo migrants, who only mixed with periphary BMAC groups, took up BMAC culture rather than the other way round (Andronovo taking over and influencing the bmac).
@mzp No Andronovo people mixed with both BMAC and with the Indus people further south. What the paper says is only that those pastoralist groups who mixed with the Indus people had very little or no BMAC admixture. What is so difficult about that?
@Chetan,
Bypassed not because IVC has no BMAC, but because BMAC has no Steppe.
Yes bypassed by those specific pastoral groups that went to India. But other pastoral groups derived from the same Andronovo population would have mixed with BMAC. And caused a language shift for sure since we know East Iranian languages were later spoken there.
"would have"
You mean according to AMT? I dont care about your "would have". The paper is here we dont need any "would have" special pleading.
@MZP1 This is what Vagheesh Narasimhan himself says.
https://twitter.com/vagheesh/status/980902014271086592
The Turan samples show no elevated steppe ancestry till 2000BC
Which means they show it afterwards. There is data in the paper supporting this obviously but I can't find it for you right now.
Those samples are be from the BMAC periphery regions, ie outside the walled BMAC cities.
"There is evidence of sustained contact between the BMAC and the Eurasian steppes to the north, intensifying c. 2000 BC. In the delta of the Amu Darya where it reaches the Aral Sea, its waters were channelled for irrigation agriculture by people whose remains resemble those of the nomads of the Andronovo culture. This is interpreted as nomads settling down to agriculture , after contact with the BMAC, known as the Tazabagyab culture.[14]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactria%E2%80%93Margiana_Archaeological_Complex
In addition to no genetic impact on the main bmac cluster it is clear these newcomers were nothing like elite, conquering, warlike tribes.
All you guys looking to interpret this paper in terms of IE (Iranian) history need to read the below link and understand what is going on. It describes the contact between BMAC and Andronovo very well.
http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/sugd/index.htm
The papers authors are deliberately using the term Turan to widen the BMAC zone in an attempt to argue steppe impact on BMAC where there is none. Turan=/=BMAC.
@mzp1 Look at the overall picture instead of getting caught up in minor details. Unless you can establish that Indo-Iranians were already present in the BMAC before 2000 BC and BMAC was already speaking an Iranian language, all of your points are moot.
The papers authors are deliberately using the term Turan to widen the BMAC zone in an attempt to argue steppe impact on BMAC where there is none. Turan=/=BMAC.
Conspiracy theory. Why would they do that?
@Mzb Maybe the region was Iranianized only after the end of BMAC when the neighboring Yaz culture expanded.
It's not a 'minor detail'. Anyway, I think I made my point clear and I havent received any kind of coherent response. You sound like somoeone admitting defeat with the whole 'minor details' nonesense.
What this paper needs to do is to model modern and Iron Age Iranians and compare them to older ones because the Iran and Turan samples fill a great temporal and spatial gap for Iran starting from the neolithic onwards.....
INSTEAD the paper does that entire exercise for South Asia when they only have 3 peripheral inferred samples and a small number of swat samples stretching in to 300 bc. In that sense the paper is mixed up
That would certainly seem like the ACADEMIC thing to do.
@mzp1 No I don't admit defeat. It's clear from the paper that BMAC received steppe admixture starting from 2000 BC. They say that right in the abstract. As for dissecting the samples one by one, you should ask someone who usually does that here, not me.
Also you need more than a just "you failed to reply" to establish your position which I assume is some kind of Indo-Iranian migration from Iran to Central Asia, not through the steppes. There is literally no mention of any such model in the vast literature on IE studies. Even Caucasus/ Anatolian model proponents would agree that the later stage of expansion of IE took place via the steppes and the Iranian languages arrived from there.
Hmm.
The paper suggests that the spread of wheat and barley was connected to the spread of Anatolian admixture eastward.
But...
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-the-Near-East-indicating-the-Fertile-Crescent-according-to-ref-23-Shaded-areas_fig1_51436907
@Chetan,
You simply dont know what your talking about.
"It's clear from the paper that BMAC received steppe admixture starting from 2000 BC."
From the paper...
" Outlier analysis shows no evidence of Steppe pastoralist ancestry in groups surrounding BMAC sites prior to 2100 BCE, but suggests that between 2100-1700 BCE, the BMAC communities were surrounded by peoples carrying such ancestry."
That is the closest the paper gets to finding any steppe impact on bmac. It is only confined to the surrounding regions.
This is consistent with everything I stated in the few comments above relating to the archeological record.
There is nothing else in the paper about steppe impact on bmac, especially within, rather than on the outskirts of BMAC, and the data goes down to 1400BC
The implications are pretty clear.
There is steppe in BMAC. Please back your nonsensical claims with evidence.
Parkhai LBA outlier has significant steppe(15-20%). Bustan samples have steppe(10-15%). Sappali has 20-35% Steppe. Gonur also has samples with significant steppe, one them dates to pre 2100 BC.
The Northern Afghan Sample is also from 2300 BC, 10-20% Steppe.
Parkhai, Gonur, Sappali, Bustan are hardcore BMAC areas. Northern Afghanistan is also BMAC territory.
@fortheking,
Ok then maybe you need to speak to the authors because that is not what I get from the paper.
Page 20 table titled Summary of Key Findings
only mentions steppe dna intrusive to "surrounding" (their word not mine) bmac regions.
I dont have time for this discussion. I simply read the paper and it seems pretty clear.
Then read the supplementary material and educate yourself. Look at the models. Check pages 137 and 138.
Look at the supplementary material to get a major conclusion from the paper? Doesnt make sense. Notable steppe input on BMAC should be mentioned in "Summary of key findings" esp given they talk about Steppe input on surrounding communities.
I think you are probably reading it incorrectly.
Why don't you look at the Data yourself instead of waiting for the author's comments? The Data(Which was produced by the authors) speaks for itself.
I believe the samples you are talking about are those mentioned by the authors as 'outliers'. In the same way I could argue the Indus Periphery outliers show an Indo Europeanization of BMAC from IVC.
@MZB1 Ok I have taken out the relevant quotes from the article
"The absence in the BMAC cluster of the Steppe_EMBA ancestry that is ubiquitous in South Asia today—along with qpAdm analyses that rule out BMAC as a substantial source of ancestry in South Asia (Fig. 3A)—suggests that while the BMAC was affected by the same demographic forces that later impacted South Asia (the southward movement of Middle to Late Bronze Age Steppe pastoralists described in the next section), it was also bypassed by members of these groups who hardly mixed with BMAC people and instead mixed with peoples further south.)"
"Second, between 2100-1700 BCE, we observe BMAC outliers from three sites with
Steppe_EMBA ancestry in the admixed form typically carried by the later Middle to Late Bronze Age Steppe groups (Steppe_MLBA)."
Also from the summary,
"Outlier analysis shows no evidence of Steppe pastoralist ancestry in groups surrounding BMAC sites prior to 2100 BCE, but suggests that between 2100-1700 BCE, the BMAC communities were surrounded by peoples carrying such ancestry."
Steppe admixture starts to appear in the BMAC region initially as outlier individuals, but probably expands after the end of BMAC, probably with the Yaz culture. That isn't in the article, but it's easy to guess since most groups in the region today have substantially high steppe ancestry. Also,it says South Asians have very little admixture from the main BMAC population because the Indo-Aryan migrations being relatively early, took place before steppe outliers started mixing with the BMAC population.
"First, around ~2300 BCE in Turan, we observe two outliers at the BMAC site of Gonur with West_Siberian_HG-related ancestry of a type that we observe at multiple sites in Kazakhstan over the preceding and succeeding millennia."
The admixture in the Gonur samples dated from before 2100 BC appears to be West Siberian_HG related than steppe related.
"Importantly, in the 3rd millenium BCE we do not find any individuals with ancestry derived from Yamnaya-related Steppe pastoralists in Turan.
So unless you are arguing that the IE languages spread directly from Iran to Central Asia, there is no way that Iranian languages were present in the region before the 2nd millennium BCE.
I will be the first to concede that there isn't enough information in this article to answer all our questions, while whatever information is there supports the previously accepted model of I-Ir arriving in the region after 2000 BCE.
I dont care what you think "probably" happened. It is very clear from both archeological and genetic record, Andronovo only penetrate to the outskirts of bmac and the data goes down to 1400BC. Why do I have to keep repeating myself.
AMT posits the Andronovo southern movement as bringing Indo Iranian to the region, but that starts from 2100BC, which is why those samples prior to 2100BC are considered outliers. They are not part of any large-scale movement that could have affected the bmac region in any significant manner
Looking at the larger picture, there is no major change in bmac peoples down to 1400BC, but we have Medians and Scythians attested from 900BC far away from BMAC, both of which are widely divergent (in language and culture) from Early Iranian, and each other, and both having historic roots in the bmac region.
You cannot fit the data.
@Mzb1 You keep saying you don't care about the arguments given, but you yourself have no alternative model of how Indo-Iranian languages got to their present are. Unless you can explain that using your model, there is no point in continuing this discussion.
So I'll ask you once more. If Iranian languages didn't arrive with Andronovo groups, then where did they arrive from and when? If you can't answer that simple question, all your objections are moot.
You havent made any coherent arguments. Just go over this current exchange.
I thought it was clear I believe BMAC = Iranian and IVC IA. Not sure we should go into that here though as this is mostly about the current paper. I dont mind having those discussions elsewhere at another time.
You can read the information in the link I posted
http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/aryans/location.htm
That gives a good argument for BMAC being Iranian.
"I thought it was clear I believe BMAC = Iranian and IVC IA."
How do you explain the accepted dating of c.2000 for Proto Indo Iranian if Indo-Aryan was spoken in IVC and Iranian in BMAC?
If you are coming from the point of view of a fringe model like this accepted by no one, I'm afraid I can't help you.
@mzp1
Modern Iranians and Indians differ from BMAC and IVC, respectively, in that they have significant steppe ancestry that pre-dates the Scythian and Turkic expansions and is closely related to the steppe ancestry in Europeans.
What languages did the people who spread this European-related steppe ancestry speak if not Iranian and Indo-Aryan?
@chetan
"These samples show the first evidence of contact between the Steppe and agricultural zones of Turan and date this contact to the middle of the 2nd millennium. The fact that there is no sign of this ancestry before the very end of the 3rd millennium and at multiple locations in the mid-2nd millennium and the fact that the earlier outliers from Gonur have a different type of northern admixture provide highly suggestive evidence that Steppe-related ancestry only arrived in the region fairly late, despite its prevalence thereafter."
Also,
"3952 Taken together with the data we have from the Copper Age period, the BMAC sites also 3953 suggest that there was not a massive influx of Yamana-derived ancestry into Central Asia 3954 prior to 1750 BCE, as the BMAC sites before this period do not seem to have significant 3955 increases in Steppe related ancestry compared with the populations from the pre-Copper Age
3956 period. It is, possible, however, that such ancestry may have arrived earlier but is not visible 3957 in the urban context of the BMAC civilization with its different economic base"
@Davidski,
Andronovo spoke Iranian, not Proto-Indo-Iranian.
Anyway, this paper should have shown us the spread of Steppe ancestry throughout BMAC and Iran resulting in modern Iranians having it. It doesnt, so not too useful in terms of getting at the Iranianization of Iran. Postsneo's last comment is spot on and I agree with him 100%.
I am saying Andronovo and BMAC and IVC all spoke similar languages, Iranian outside, and IA in South Asia.
@mzp1
Andronovo and the Indus_Periphery samples are separated genetically by thousands of years of isolation from each other.
They don't share any sort of recent relationship.
So it's impossible that they could have spoken closely related languages, unless Indo-Iranian languages date back to the early Neolithic, and they spread during the Neolithic both to the Pontic-Caspian steppe and India.
But no one in their right might is likely to accept such a solution.
That they have different ancestry does not preclude them speaking the same language. You cannot say it is impossible. Also, Sintashta precedes Andronovo and they had close contacts with BMAC, and also is something of an outlier in the steppe being such an industrial complex. How do you get Sintashta levels of urbanisation and trade from Yamnaya without outside help? Anyway, that is just my theory and I would wait for more data before being more confident of it.
Speaking of neolithic clines, https://s7.postimg.org/4syxh7h6j/BCD0666_D-027_B-4_EBC-_A75_C-1_EC6870_CF3_CB.png
In the western end (Anatolia), we see from boncuklu aceramic phase a Natufian shift as the early neolithic progresses, forming a cline between west Anatolia and the Levant
C. 4000 BC, the main axis shifts towards (CHG/ Iran) genetic admixture.
@epoch, matt, Davidski,
I was always kind of skeptical that farming arose independently (and practically simultaneously) in two adjacent areas without any genetic relationship. Direct gene flow from Levantine/Anatolian farmers is most likely -- but what if we consider more ancient common ancestry?
There is evidence of proto-farming in the Levant way earlier than the Neolithic. So perhaps a Basal-rich population already primed for farming split into Western and Eastern branches some time prior to the Neolithic; Basal-rich + WHG = Anatolia_N, Basal-rich + ? = Iran_N.
Basal-rich is in turn Basal + UHG. All super speculative, but to keep going, perhaps UHG was related to hg G, and in this theoretical proto-farming Basal-rich population would explain the West/East split of G2 vs G1 if it happened really early, and/or G2a1 vs G2a2 if it happened closer to the Neolithic.
“Basal-rich + WHG = Anatolia_N,”
It’s not that simple. There are at least 2 or 3 strata of HG ancestry in ANF.
@ Chetan
“How do you explain the accepted dating of c.2000 for Proto Indo Iranian if Indo-Aryan was spoken in IVC and Iranian in BMAC?
If you are coming from the point of view of a fringe model like this accepted by no one, I'm afraid I can't help you.”
Lol so 1700 BC is “consensus” but 2500 BC is “fringe” ?
That’s pretty tight lines
@mzp@kulkarni
I dont think the Reich lab had any initial agenda in their "off topic" conclusions. They started with the hope of extracting IVC dna but it failed. But they continued on their trajectory because they had piled on a whole host of collaborators who were more agenda driven than what it needs to be.
We have to contrast this with the Mycenaean paper which stuck to genetics without touching on language. In contrast, here we authors like David Anthony.
Iran has been completely sidelined even though the bulk of the samples pertain to it instead of South Asia.
Perhaps due to the obsession by some of the collaborators with vedic, without which there is no IE reconstruction. The collaborators were over eager to "notch a kill" so to speak and veered off course.
@David
"Andronovo and the Indus_Periphery samples are separated genetically by thousands of years of isolation from each other."
language acquisition only takes a few generations and andronovo would have adopted languages from more populous regions for better success.
@postneo
You can't wiggle out of this.
Andronovo is the only plausible genetic link between Europe, especially Eastern Europe, and South Asia that correlates with the close linguistic relationship between these regions.
So Andronovo could not have switched to Indo-Iranian in Central Asia, because if there was no migration of Indo-Iranians from the steppes to Central and South Asia during the Bronze Age, then that leaves no way to explain the close relationship between Balto-Slavic, Greek and Albanian to Indo-Iranian.
Interesting info about genetic history of Britain from David Reich: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43712587
“ the genetic data may be hinting at a separate migration from continental Europe during the Iron Age - perhaps one that brought Celtic languages into Britain.”
And as Schriver said, celtic / IE spread to Ireland as late as the Roman period by Language shift
Balto-Slavic, and Albanian are modern branches with no attestation till recent historic times. There is no hard sequence of singular one step splits between these that can be proved nor can any of the "splits" be hard dated. The split in IIr is not dateable either. The languages of IVC, BMAC, Jiroft, Andronovo, Sintashta, yamnaya, Botai, CW, CT, GAC, BB are completely unknown.. there is no way around this... R1b, R1a satem, centum is a load of crap. Haji firuz is not IE simply because of R1b, this is another load of bullcrap.
Many modern Iranian and Baloch/Brahui groups are similar if not almost identical to the late BMAC groups + BMAC outliers.
@Rob
"It’s not that simple. There are at least 2 or 3 strata of HG ancestry in ANF."
One shared with Natufians and one shared with Iron Gates.
Natufians:
Mbuti Levant_Neolithic Kostenki14 Villabruna 0.0464 8.951 710555
Mbuti Levant_Neolithic Kostenki14 Bichon 0.0310 5.932 806519
Anatolians, w.r.t. Iron Gates:
Mbuti Barcin_N WHG Iron_Gates_HG 0.0092 5.171 1140577
Mbuti Natufian WHG Iron_Gates_HG 0.0056 2.222 502960
@Rob
I meant to say: I can distinguish at least two.
I have started thinking that Andronovo could have spoken Tocharian. Andronovo is dated to c. 2000–900 BC and Tarim mummies are from 2000-1500 BC. Tocharian inscriptions are from 6th to the 8th century AD. I hope we get DNA data from the Tarim mummies so that we will know if they are related to MLBA or EMBA.
Those Southeastern Iron Age Britons could maybe be the ancestors of the Silures of Southeastern Wales.Maybe a migration from Brittany or Spain where more Neolithic ancestry could have survived ?
@rozenfag, very interesting. sounds like it will be confirming what was found by the D stats of the form:
D(MiddleNeolithicFarmerA,MiddleNeolithicFarmerB;Beaker_Britain;Iron_Age)
that Davidski and Azra were helping me with.
(Where Beaker_Britain and also the Dutch Beakers in general had a strongest affinity to Globular_Amphora_Poland which was subsequently diluted, particularly in the Roman and Iron Age Britain samples, in favour of affinity to a more generalized farmer affinity, and/or an increased affinity to Atlantic farmers).
And also the accumulation of further average Middle Neolithic ancestry shown in the CA-EBA->MBA->LBA sequence (which I think went something like 5%->9%->12%), which could probably disguise a larger actual migration dynamic between Britain and more southern regions of Atlantic Europe where introgression of Atlantic farmers was more substantial (France, basically, if not exclusively).
@PF: Does being "primed for farming" help actually get the same founder crops though? If not, then you need some exchange of founder crops and it seems simpler to imagine that this comes with some population exchange?
...
Also re: Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic, I actually had a question on this subjects for anyone who knows.
It looks like between these sets of languages, trees based on lexicon root meaning traits (like Garrett+Chang's) place them as not very related and certainly not a clade, while morphological trees (like Ringe+Warnow's) place them as closely related, and clade together against Italic, Celtic, etc. Root meaning traits imply a very deep split, with the split off fairly early in the sequence of Anatolian->Tocharian->Greek/Armenian/Albanian->Indo-Iranian->others, while morphology gives the Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic split as relatively shallow.
It seems then like the language groups (Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic) share "cognate words", despite not having shared root meaning traits, because the morphological similarities lead to similar construction of word forms derived from the same original root (but which today don't actually reliably often much share the same root meaning, and don't really mean the same thing, so lack a root meaning trait.).
Really question @Rob and others with linguistic leanings, to see if this is an accurate summary.
If so, I guess part of the linguistic question is how these elements of the system can produce a different tree form. (Either how the Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian languages became so different in root meaning traits, implying high time divergences, while morphologically remained similar, or how morphology converged between languages which diverged at high time depths, without this leading to shared root meaning traits.)
@Matt
The large majority of special correspondences between Balto-Slavic and IndoIranian are archaisms, not innovations. This is important because it implies that a comparison of Balto-Slavic with Indo-Iranian leads to a reconstruction of an early stage of Indo-European.
http://www.baltistica.lt/index.php/baltistica/article/view/2284
Roman impact on Britain is severely underestimated. It is visible uniparental markers.
Hallstat will also have impact. But imho it will not be impressive.
By the way, it seems to me that the trees based on lexicon root meaning traits (like Garrett+Chang's) are still very experimental, and not exactly mainstream within historical linguistics.
There are two schools of thought on the position of Balto-Slavic in IE. One led by scholars like Kortlandt which Davidski linked to, group Balto-Slavic with Indo-Iranian and explain some of the isoglosses of Balto-Slavic with other European IE branches by means of a centum substrate it absorbed.
Another school groups Balto Slavic with Italo-Celtic and Germanic within a North West Indo-European group. In that case, the similarities between Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian are due to a common substrate.
A close relation between Greek and Indo-Iranian is OTH much more accepted.
Or perhaps it is just the western most IE languages that are most divergent I.e Italo-Celtic and germanic while the others have more in common with each other.
Why is italo-Celtic so different from Germanic given they are relative close to yamna and were not affected by having to go through large dominant and advanced civilizations like Bmac and IVC?
Modern and ancient DNA supports the Kortlandt school in this matter, because it shows that the Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian language families share ancestry from a paternal gene pool derived from or related to the Corded Ware population.
The only other major branch of Indo-European known thus far to share substantial ancestry from this gene pool is Germanic, and this is probably why it's been so difficult to place it robustly on phylogenetic trees. Sometimes it's shown to be sitting closer to Italo-Celtic, and at other times to Balto-Slavic.
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