I was going to write a huge post on the linguistic implications of the latest batch of ancient DNA from Iberia courtesy of
Olalde et al. 2019, and then I thought better of it. Admittedly, I don't know enough about the languages of prehistoric Iberia to say anything really useful on the topic. So instead here's an open thread to bounce around a few ideas in the comments.
Just briefly, this is what Olalde et al. say in the abstract of their paper about the relationship between ancestry from the Pontic-Caspian steppe and languages in Iron Age Iberia:
We reveal sporadic contacts between Iberia and North Africa by ~2500 BCE and, by ~2000 BCE, the replacement of 40% of Iberia’s ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y-chromosomes by people with Steppe ancestry. We show that, in the Iron Age, Steppe ancestry had spread not only into Indo-European–speaking regions but also into non Indo-European–speaking ones, and we reveal that present-day Basques are best described as a typical Iron Age population without the admixture events that later affected the rest of Iberia.
However, in the paper it's revealed that "Indo-European regions" actually refers to a Celtic-speaking part of northern Iberia. And it's quite possible that Celts moved into this area from outside of Iberia only during the Iron Age. In other words, the speakers of Indo-European languages here may not have been the descendants of any of the people with steppe ancestry who came to Iberia by ~2000 BCE.
So I'm probably not alone in thinking that the question of the linguistic affinities of these early migrants with steppe ancestry to Iberia (mostly associated with the Bell Beaker culture or BBC) remains open, especially since they evidently had such a profound genetic impact on the later non Indo-European-speaking populations of eastern and southern Iberia. Could they have been the speakers of unattested Indo-European languages, as well as Proto-Iberian and Proto-Basque? If not, why not?
Below is a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of West Eurasian genetic variation. I highlighted some of the ancient samples from Olalde et al., as well as Basques and other present-day Iberians. The Basques form a tight cluster with most of the Copper, Bronze and Iron Age Iberians, and, unlike the other present-day Iberians, they basically look like an Iberian population from the metal ages. The relevant datasheet is available
here.
This is nothing new and very much in line with the results in Olalde et al., but I wanted to emphasize the point that Basques were not just a group that experienced an extreme founder effect in R1b-P312, which is a Beaker-specific Y-chromosome lineage. Rather, they're still very similar to Iberian Beakers in terms of overall genetic structure. So where did they get their language?
See also...
Celtic probably not from the west
Late PIE ground zero now obvious; location of PIE homeland still uncertain, but...
310 comments:
1 – 200 of 310 Newer› Newest»Based on linguistic typology Basque is a EEF language.
BBC was never a clear cut case, unlike Corded Ware, which is, and always was, considered IE.
BB had a South Western affinity and formed more of a complex cultural network than CW.
One way or another, warbands high in steppe ancestry captured parts of this network and spread both within and out of it.
Now we can never be sure which language any of these groups really spoke, but I would suggest:
- The non-IE language was adopted outside of Iberia.
- Since HG lineages took control of Neolithic females throughout Europe and adopted a more pastoralist and warlike lifestyle, we cant be sure of all steppe lineages speaking IE in the first place.
We are talking about enormous changes over long periods of time, huge spaces and large numbers of people.
There is no law for all people with the steppe package speaking IE.
The only group which had to speak IE in its majority for the steppe expansion -> IE expansion is CWC.
That connection must be, BBC on the other hand not.
And BBC = Proto-Celtic is no simple option.
More major changes will pop up and be harder to detect because later people shared a common steppe
substrate.
I'll quote what I posted on anthrogenica regarding the topic, after you said it would be problematic if Celtic languages arrived in Iberia during the Iron Age
"Which is, more likely than not, the case. It's what archaeologists have assumed for a while.
Lusitanian might be a bit different, because eventhough there are central European influences - particularly Hallstatt-like - in the heartland of Lusitania and the northwestern Meseta (Cogotas II), there is also a degree of continuity and conservatism in modern Portugal (eg. Viseu region) and even in later periods in Galicia as evident by their Lusitanian substract and late Celtisation.
So my guess is that there are two/three? scenarios:
1 - incomplete IE language shift in Iberia, some regions picked up the language others did not. 1500 years later social dynamics and cultures could have made both groups split, expand or contract. Most of the peninsula ended up not being IE, with (proto-)Lusitanian being a thing only in the NW, which is a rugged place, fit for some relative isolation. Basically what ffoucart said
2 - those early BB's who crossed into Iberia picked their language from the EEF-substract somewhere in western Europe (France probably). The paper mentions that the model for the BB-source population in Iberia had less steppe ancestry than those of Rheinland/England/etc - 70% Rheinland 30% Farmer iirc, Anglesqueville modelled that aswell. Because the flip side of the coin is that Iberia suffered a replacement greater than originally expected, since you'd need a greater amount of this source of ancestry to match the levels of Yamanya-related ancestry you see here in the Bronze Age. This would mean that Lusitanian could also have arrived with Hallstatt groups during the Iron Age, besides/before the Celts.
3? - BB wasn't IE, but we don't want to go there. Not yet anyway "
By the way, any change I get to see where I plot on that particular PCA? I can do that on PAST with G25, but it'd still be fun to see it on your "standard PCA plot"
If Basques did acquire their non-IE language from intruders after BB, there should be a signal in their genomes. But so far all say no...
And such an impact of Central European Beakers in the region while leaving the local languages intact would be a true miracle. It is so unlikely...
It doesnt look better in France or anywhere else in Western Europe. We now have proof of non-IE linguistic spread of steppe ancestry. I think thats huge and it has potentially big implications much beyond Iberia.
@André
Peoples do not "pick up" languages. Languages are properties of populations and language shift doesn't occur without very powerful reasons. The simplest, but not only, explanation for Basque is that the original language survived the genetic changes indicated by the the Y hgs.
Probably the theory of a Caucasian relationship of the Iberian languages should be reconsidered as an option.
Its now as likely as Celtic coming from early Western BB, if not more so.
"BBC was never a clear cut case, unlike Corded Ware, which is, and always was, considered IE.
BB had a South Western affinity and formed more of a complex cultural network than CW.
One way or another, warbands high in steppe ancestry captured parts of this network and spread both within and out of it."
The big implication is that archaeology needs to be revised to match the genetics, making this statement moot. If the Bell Beaker culture is recognized as two cultures that happened to have similar pottery, although derived from local sources rather than trying to fit a model in place that somehow sees Atlantic Bell Beakers derived from local copoz prototypes and North Sea and Central European beakers that can be derived from local corded ware prototypes, then we can start to unravel the Bell Beaker enigma. This also has the advantage of matching the genetics, and has big implications for linguistic interpretations as well.
There may well have been some kind of synthesis between Atlantic and the more northerly versions, which would also go a long way towards explaining the survival of Basque, even with apparent genetic swamping, if it retained some kind of prestige usage, at least locally. But more to the point, the Bell Beaker phenomena is best interpreted as two separate cultures, and the one invaded, overran, and bred out the other, while probably adopting some cultural accouterments through either the local women that were pressed into servitude or married to invading men, or because they were seen as rich and prestige items worthy of preservation.
From a linguistic standpoint, it's very hard to see the invading beakers as Celtic, because it doesn't really make sense to push a differentiated Celtic that far into the past. However, since much of the territory that was invaded later emerged as some kind of Celtic, this is a tempting thing to do. I suspect that it's more likely that subsequent linguistic waves had an impact on region that are less visible in the genetic or archaeological record. We know of several historical sources where exactly this happened (the Goths are both archaeologically and genetically invisible on the steppes, but we know that they lived there, for instance).
But it's equally hard not to see them as some kind of late North Western Indo-European dialect. And zardos is wrong about one thing; it's not a true miracle that Basque would survive. This kind of thing has happened before, if we look, for example, at the intrusion of the Hungarian language among a population that otherwise closely resembles its Indo-European speaking neighbors, we have the exact same situation. For that matter, although there is an N1 marker that can be found in the more northerly Finnic languages, it is also a language that came to the area after Indo-European had probably already penetrated the area thoroughly, and genetically the Finns and Estonians closely resemble their Indo-European speaking neighbors. Yet, they speak a completely unrelated language.
Olalde's paper is very important not only in the linguistic field-
1-Antiquity of P312 in Iberia before 2,500 BC
2-Evident and very important genetic continuity of the female lineages (some from the Paleolithic-U5b-U3b, H, H1, V, HV0, and others from the Neolithic).These mitochondrial haplogroups are exactly the same in the Neolithic, the Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, regardless of the culture of which we are speaking.-BBC, Millares, Cogotas, Atlantic Bronze, El Argar, Iberian, Celtiberian, Tartessian, Lusitanian
3-It has confirmed what many geneticists said, that is, there were no important female migrations in the chalcolithic, nor in the Bronze Age, nor in the Iron Age.
4-In spite of all the historical events, those same mitochondrial lineages are absolutely majority (+ 95%) at present.
5- However, migrations of Iberian women in the Neolithic to the British Isles and France, and in the chalcolithic to many European BB regions have also been demonstrated.
6- Evident genetic continuity in male lineages from 2,500 BC onwards. It is not true that there was an absolute replacement of the male population, but it is true that the Neolithic lineages (I2a-G2a) only represent 10% of the current Spanish population, and that all the Iberian cultures of the Bronze Age are mostly R1b-P312
7- The Iberian peoples of the Mediterranean coast were absolutely R1b-P312. Olalde has studied deposits belonging to the Indiketes, Layetanos, Ilercavones Edetanos and Contestanos - All of them have left written testimonies in the Iberian language and they were all R1b.
8- The Tartessians were also r1b-P312, they have also left written testimonies in different alphabets and their language was not Indo-European either
9- The site studied in Álava, belongs to the Berones (Celtiberians) and one Celtiberian has turned out to be I2a, however another site studied in Portugal, belongs to the Iron Age, specifically to the Lusitanian culture and was also R1b-P312.
All the Iberian peoples were R1b-P312 and some spoke Indo-European languages and others did not. The solution to the problem is not to investigate the Basques, that are genetically close to the Aquitanians and probably occupy territories south of the Pyrenees in the Iron Age, but to explain why the rest of the Iberian peoples also did not speak Indo-European languages. Keep thinking about invasions, massacres, slavery, imposition of languages etc. are acceptable theories for children under 10 years of age.
It has been demonstrated that the hypothetical migrants, came alone without their wives, did not bring metallurgy, or crafts, or trade, or agriculture, or technology. How could they even dream of conquering Iberia if the Dutch and British lived in the Stone Age.There is only one coherent explanation, small groups of men who adapted to local societies, and adopted the native languages. The Celtic languages that have left written testimony are from the Iron Age and belonged to peoples who had to leave little genetic trace like the Numantine that were exterminated by the Romans.
@Palacista: How many language shifts can be attributed to conquered females? Any at all?
With a male overtake of nearly 100 percent plus large numbers of females?
As far as I see it, not just males came in, but whole clans which just picked up larger numbers of local females in advance.
Now imagine a woman, all her related males dead or enslaved, living in a clan of the proud conquerer, his brothers, cousins, probably even his mother and sister.
That doesnt work. Even if her children would have been bilingual for one or two generations. No way.
@Diego: Hungarian is a very peculiar case in a completely different context: They made a state!
Yet the Ugrians left a mark and the mark was bigger in medieval times.
Basques on the other hand are the Sole survivor, they are the closest to Iberian BB by far.
Its later IE which were different.
Just a rhetoric question. From what side came the Semitic language. From the J siide or from E side?
The Implications can be very important. Because if 90% of CWC's autosomes are not sufficient to have a linguistic shift in the North then why a Greek person must believe that his language came from 10-15% of Steppe ancestry?
Especially given the fact we have until now only Hg J from Greek context. One from Greece and two from Spain.
For those who don't follow the topic. We have 100% of haplogroup J in Levant BA and 0% of haplogroup E in Levant BA. And 30-40% of autosome shift.
While we have 0% of J in Epipaleolithic Neolithic Eneolithic.
An interesting way to frame the question is this: What language did the Neolithic/Chalcolithic layer in Iberia speak? If it was "Iberian", then it has nothing to do with the entrance of R1b, since we know that appears in Bronze and relates to a "Steppe" component. From what I have read, archaeologists suggest that there is no evidence of mass slaughter in Iberia from the Chl > Bronze, so what we might have is a warrior elite arriving with Bronze via southern France around 2500 BC who may have had the breeding advantage.
@Diego
What P312 older than 2500 BC in Iberia?? A few decades here or there that can't be fine tuned within a few decades with carbon dating does not count. The point is Chl > Bronze shows "steppe" ancestry. Please don't nitpick a few decades like you did with the I2-M26 singleton being a "Celtiberian" marker.
Well apparently the Artenacian Culture bordered the Bell Beaker Culture on the Rhine for some time and there is evidence of some influence from Bell Beakers into the Artenacian Culture. Initially it was more widespread but it looks like they eventually ended up in Aquatania and the Basque area.
What we have to remember is Genes can not transfer Language. People transfer Language. A single Mom of another Culture and Language will not teach her child the Language of an absent Father if she still lives in her parents culture. Maybe this interactions shows what happens in a Paterlineal vs. Materlineal when these two types tries to co-exist ?
@Wood: "From what I have read, archaeologists suggest that there is no evidence of mass slaughter in Iberia from the Chl > Bronze, so what we might have is a warrior elite arriving with Bronze via southern France around 2500 BC who may have had the breeding advantage"
No. Thats a diffusionist bedtime Story with no credibility in general and absolutely none in this context.
First, the archaeologists dont search for evidence of massacres.
They usually dig up graves and settlements primarily.
Do you realise how difficult it is to localise a battlefield? They dont even know for sure where exactly historical battle took place.
Also, we deal with mass movements of people inside of a wider cultural network, not a completely new material horizon.
And most important, the genetic shift was much to big and fast for any such social scenarios being remotely possible.
It was a genocidal war, an annihilation of the locals.
Even a brutal and merciless conquest doesnt have that kind of effect if you do not target the locals deliberately.
I suggest they were competitors and there was hate between those entities.
@zardos said...
"If Basques did acquire their non-IE language from intruders after BB, there should be a signal in their genomes. But so far all say no..."
Not needfully so. People in remote areas do adopt languages spoken by neighbouring peoples in less remote areas. All you have to postulate is that Basque was brought to an area such as Aquitaine or the Ebro Valley by population movement, that the people of the current Basque region adopted it as a 'higher status language' and that then the people of the first region (Aquitaine or the Ebro valley) adopted another language for some reason (conquest by Rome or displacement by Celts or whatever) leaving the people in the remote mountainous areas speaking a language that wasn't their's originally.
To take a (fairly) modern example - the people of Skye in North-west Scotland who speak Scots Gaelic, a minority tongue now spoken only in what are now remote areas of NW Scotland. You might have thought they were a remnant of the 4th century migration of Gaels to Scotland - but no. Up to the 16th century they spoke a Norwegian/Icelandic dialect and only adopted Gaelic in the 16th century at which time Gaelic was a High status language which has since been mainly replaced by English.
This even works at the Hunter Gatherer level - there are Pygmies in central Africa who until very recently were Hunter gatherers but speak Bantu languages adopted from their higher status neighbours.
+ Humanejos (Madrid)-2.176 BC- BB Culture-R1b-P312-Mit-Hap-U5b3
+ Monte do Gato (Portugal)-1.507 BC Atlantic Bronze Culture Hap Y- R1b-P312 Mit Hap-U5b3
+ Empuries-425 BC-Indiketes-Iberian Culture-HapY-R1b1a/1a2-Mit Hap-U5b3
This is important to know, same men and same women, different cultures and different centuries in the same territory. There was no female genetic discontinuity since the Neolithic and the male discontinuity is assumed from 2,500 BC. If those men P-312 spoke Indo-European as it is possible that some descendants spoke Indo-European languages and others did not, if since then there have been no external genetic influences?
1-Because those P312 men did not speak Indo-European, but some kind of ancient European language related to Iberian, Tartessian, Basque, Sardinian or other Neolithic languages
The Iberians and Tartessians are direct descendants of the IBeriab BBs, both by paternal and maternal line, and have not suffered conquests nor genetic exchanges, that made them lose their language, ergo, the language of the BB culture was NOT Indo-European.
Because simply neither the Central European BBs nor the culture came directly from the steppes.
I agree that this is the only alternative which is remotely plausible.
Yet you have to agree that even in the cases you mentioned some genflow and dependance can be seen AND even if we completely ignore the lack of proof in that direction, it is in any case much less likely then the scenario of BB ancestors of Basques never speaking IE in the first place.
Also, high status language is a rare sight, its more about dependance of a people from others.The Pygmy are a perfect example.
@zardos "Hungarian is a very peculiar case in a completely different context: They made a state!
Yet the Ugrians left a mark and the mark was bigger in medieval times.
Basques on the other hand are the Sole survivor, they are the closest to Iberian BB by far.
Its later IE which were different."
So what? What does "making a state" have to do with anything? The Kurds don't have a state, and yet they have a different language than their neighbors.
The point is that it is hardly unique for genetically very similar or even identical populations to speak different languages, or for genetically diverse populations to speak the same language. There are examples with the Finno-Ugric languages, there are examples from Afghanistan and India, there are examples from the British Isles. How much Anglo-Saxon DNA do the Irish have, for instance, yet they speak English. I don't know what specifically could have caused a steppe-gene bearing proto-Basque population to speak proto-Basque instead of some late NW Indo-European, but I can imagine all kinds of plausible scenarios. The idea of proto-Basque coming from the steppes is the least plausible.
@ Davidski
Is there any chance for an update adding missing Iberian samples from the common era?
The Hungarian language made its imprint on Pannonia with a mass migration of a discernible people.
These people were capable of forming rule in which their language was spoken.
Because of their state and dominance they could keep their language as the dominant one even when the original Ugrian genetic influence became a nuance.
All the people you mentioned show evidence of an admixture event associated with their language. Kurs are a perfect example.
The Irish might have more Anglo-Saxon and Norse DNA than you might realise, even if that is not the reason for them speaking English.
They were colonised by modern state. Which colonisation do you suggest for Basques? More successful and thoroughly than Celts and Roman, but without leaving a mark on their genpool?
I think Neolithic/Chalcolithic France holds the key to what eventually transpired in the Iberian Peninsula. And maybe Paterlineal and Materlineal interaction along the Rhine and Rhone holds the key to how R1b became prominant in Non-Indo-European Cultures in Southern France and the Iberian Peninsula.
Diego, I don't see any Lusitanian Iron Age sample in the Olalde study. Are you referring to another study?
This is very simple, why the hell would R1b.P312 stop speaking their language if they had no reason to do so. Also here we are in the field of concrete evidence because there are written testimonies of the Iberian language, and has nothing to do with the Indo-European. I suppose that in the British islands it would be the same, small groups of people who mixed with Indigenous women because, in addition, they may speak the same language. The success of lineage R1b-P312 in terms of population is evident, but it can be attributed to many factors, never to the extermination of the native population. I would like to hear Dr Reich now explaining the abduction and enslavement of Iberian women by the brave horsemen of the steppes, and how, after conquering the territory, killing the men and keeping their women, they decided to stop talking Indo-European
@Ric: That doesnt fit for these clearly patrilinear people. You need a context with other dominant male lineages for the language shift to happen. So it must be earlier and in a different place.
The only alternative would be a complete cultural, rather religious phenomenon which was so powerful it made them believers who wanted to abandon their old language. Like Iberian missionaries colonising the region.
But thats the only and much less likely alternative I can think of right now.
But it looks bad for BB being IE on the West.
If we assume that steppe groups were IE speaking, then questioning the assumption that Beakers adopted new languages when they came to Iberia just pushes the question back in time and space, but doesn't go a long way to resolving it.
It seems even less likely to me that there was a language shift somewhere on the European plain where conditions were more similar to the steppe and pre-Beaker societies were less complex than Chalcolithic Iberia. Not to say that scenario is impossible, but I don't currently see a reason to favor it.
In Iberia, and southern Europe in general, I can identify factors that could have impeded cultural dominance for incoming steppe derived groups.
All three major southern European peninsulas are shielded by mountain ranges to their north.
All three have different climates from the steppe--more dissimilar than the European plain where the CWC and steppe BB cultures spread.
All three were more integrated into the Mediterranean Chalcolithic and Bronze Age exchange systems, with greater social complexity and scale than groups to their north.
So I expect to see more incomplete dominance of incoming IE groups, even if their genetic contribution was large. In Spain, less lingistic dominance. In Italy as well with Etruscans and others. In Greece and the Balkans, there is language shift, but pre-IE Y hgs and autosomal ancestry remain common. The specifics will be different everywhere, but the broad patterns look similar to me. Steppe groups were less able to dominate a less familiar environment with relatively powerful established groups.
@Richard
Gruta de Medronhal-I7687/GM-504: 1200–700 BCE (950 AC)-Haplogrupo Y- R1b-L502- Haplogrupo Mitocondrial-V
I refer to this sample, the site is near Cimbra, south of Porto, territory of the Galician-Lusitanians. The Lusitanians and their relatives the Vettones, fought against the Carthaginians and against the Romans from 193 BC. There are doubts about his Celtic origin, but they are brothers of the vettones (more to the west than they were absolutely Celtic)
The sample is not so old for not being able to consider it as Lusitanian, because it is demonstrated that the Vettones and the Vacceans began to fortify settlements in the 9th century BC, that is, they already existed as peoples in the first quarter of the 1st millennium BC
@Synome: I would agree if its not about this speed and magnitude of replacement.
Imagine it in a practical way, its not possible. It seems CWC incorperated more males from differing lineages than Iberian BB did. It doesnt fit.
Diego, there's no confirmation 7688 and 7687 are actually Lusitanian though. They might be, the timeline is maybe acceptable, the location aswell (on the East side of the Buçaco) but that's it, they could have belonged to a different group.
@ zardos
So was the Artenacian Culture, Chasséen Culture and Arzachena Culture descendants all Paterlineal before Lower Rhine related Bell Beaker people arrived ?
Who knows? I dont. But you dont replace all other male lineages and adopt the robbe females language.
Maybe the female lineages were the same as in Iberia, but tribes in Southern France who spoke Non-Indo-European became more militaristic and Patriarchal due to Northern Bellbeaker influence and Steppe Male Gene ?
Urnfield?
@ zardos
I think it all comes down to how long Neolithic/Chalcolithic peoples were neighbours of Northern Bellbeaker people along the Rhine and elsewhere in France.
@André- "Diego, there's no confirmation 7688 and 7687 are actually Lusitanian though. They might be, the timeline is maybe acceptable, the location aswell (on the East side of the Buçaco) but that's it, they could have belonged to a different group"
Ok, 7687 might not be Lusitanian, but Galician, but in any case they would be Indoeuropean, as long as we admit that the Lusitanian was a Celtic language. What is certain is that they were not Iberians according to the place names, and anthroponymy in Galicia and Portugal.
It is also urgent to analyze Basque sites in Navarra, La Rioja, Guipuzcoa and Aquitaine. It may be that we get more surprises.
R1b-P312 is western- (Germany, Alsace, Alps, southern France) and acquired its percentage of steppe ancestry of the CWC women (Central Europan BBs have mitochondrial haplogroups of the CWC and some of the steppes), it could have maintained its Western language and move to Iberia with it. We must bear in mind that the Aquitanians did not speak Indo-European either.
I see now why you mention it Diego. It looks like the only radiocarbon date on human bone from the site where I7687 came from was 890–780 cal BCE, which would date it to around the beginning of the Lusitanian period in the area. His Beaker_Germany admixture proportion is 46.3% and Iberian_CA was 53.7% as per Olalde Table S15.
Regarding your assessment that P312 acquired steppe ancestry from CWC women - someone would have to a handful of pills in Ibiza to see that.
@Ric:
"Maybe the female lineages were the same as in Iberia, but tribes in Southern France who spoke Non-Indo-European became more militaristic and Patriarchal due to Northern Bellbeaker influence and Steppe Male Gene ?"
Lets assume for a moment that was the story, what should we expect? We have a dominant group of Western HG infiltrated Neolithics, with haplogroups different from the steppe people, which managed to hold out and start to dominate some of their already IE neighbours. They were not as genocidal and let the IE male lineages survive. But even then, you would expect a healthy mix of yDNA with the usual suspects from pre-IE and pre-steppe Western Europeans. But what you get is just one dominant R1b lineage for Britain, another one for Iberia. No other male lineages, no Neolithic/Western HG tradition, not even a mix, but a patrilinearly pure clan structure.
That doesn't fit.
BB can't be so dominated by R1b, even worse by single lineages for Britain, Iberia and Central Europe in such a model. That doesn't fit. Its a star like radical expansion in different direction of a R1b clan. That one is not (fully) IE doesn't mean the same for all others, but its a strong indicator.
@Richard
Look at this
I5478/Oostwoud (Frisia)-2.431 BC- HapY-R1b-P312. Mit-X2b4. The most famous of the Dutch BBs for the Kurganists
X2b4-I0049/Germany,Esperstedt, CWC-2.337 BC
I7429- Brandysek -BB Culture-2.350 BC. Mit Hap-I2
Plinkaigalis, Lithuania. CWC-2.635 AC- Mit Hap-I2
I1538- Germany Esperstedt- CWC-2.275 BC- Mit Hap-J1c5
I0113- Germany, Quedlinburg- BB culture-2.190 BC- Mit HAp-J1c5
There are many more examples, but it is clear that some people will never understand it.
I suppose you will continue to look for a path to L51/P312 from the steppes, I suggest you look at the possibility of them arriving in Iberia by boat, passing through Ibiza clearly, because you know, that we Spaniards like to enjoy life.
Anyway, you know I'll wait for you in Barcelona, San Sebastian or Ibiza wherever you want.
Diego, the Dutch sample is something like 90% CWC autosomally. He is not 90% France Late Neolithic nor 90% Iberian Copper Age. The oldest P312 Bavarian resembles Corded Ware samples and modern day populations deeeeeeeep into Russia (Kargopol Russians and Mordovians). Not Iberia, not France, not even modern Germans. Do you not get that? It is the most basic of concepts.
BBC and CWC are IE speaking pastoral populations that settled next to farmers and were highly successful. The spread in Iberia went different, there the BBC men spread into farmer land and replaced male lineages. Those took a local language.
The spread of BBC seems way to early to be considered pre-proto-Celtic. Maybe BBC R1b represent Kentum languages, R1a CWC represent Satem languages? I have seen it suggested.
@epoch:
"BBC and CWC are IE speaking pastoral populations that settled next to farmers and were highly successful. The spread in Iberia went different, there the BBC men spread into farmer land and replaced male lineages. Those took a local language."
They eliminated nearly 100 percent of the local males and brought a lot of their own wives with them. No way they adopted a local language from the robbed brides. How do you think that will work out? They had to speak another language before moving in, whether they had it on the steppe already, in South Eastern or Central Europe, or latest in Western Europe. I don't know how, but a language shift in Iberia looks extremely unlikely by now, unless something new and unexpected pops up.
@Richard
So, have you changed your mind? Now do you think P312 also comes from the steppes? I'll explain one thing,
EHU002- El Hundido (2.434 BC)-Hap Y- R1b-P312- Mit Hap- K1a4/a1
This is the oldest P312 in Spain, as you know it was found buried in a BB grave with Ciempozuelos style ceramics, which as everyone knows will only exist in the Iberian peninsula, So it was clear that our German friend left his custom in the Pyrenees forgot the corded ceramics and was buried with Iberian ceramics because it was prettier.
Trying to interpret prehistory by forgetting archeology, linguistics, anthropology and even uniparental genetic markers, and making an interpretation only based on autosomal components can be fun, but many times you'll come to wrong conclusions. I think there are many people looking for arguments desperately, and this has only just begun. Unfortunately Olalde has only analyzed three other Iberian BB sites, but everyone expects the results of the necropolis of Humanejos (more than 200 Pre and BB skeletons between 3,000-2,000 BC), we'll see what happens,
@Dragos What do you think, might the Urnfield culture have spread some IE languages?
@ As I said, please have a look to any well documented map of the languages spoken in Iberia just before the arrival of the Romans and you will see that at least 75% of the territory was IE speaking
No, I have not changed my mind. P312 shows up when steppe ancestry shows up and the two are indivisible, whether it originated on the steppe or not. Your assertion, that P312 had no steppe ancestry, goes against all the data. There is no nice way of saying it, but it is idiotic.
Keep calm Richard, I see you very upset, maybe you can explain us why half of the Iberian Peninsula and a good part of France, spoke non-Indo-European languages and were totally R1b
Because I suppose that if P312 is linked to steppe ancestry and BB pottery will also be linked to language no?
And please do not say that the Indo-European languages survived in small pockets, it is an insult to our intelligence.
The truth is that I have to thank my countryman Olalde for the good job he has done.
are there any historical examples of a people moving into a region as a minority and adopting the language of the locals but then at some later point ending up as the winner after a civil war?
@Urki
As I said, please have a look to any well documented map of the languages spoken in Iberia just before the arrival of the Romans and you will see that at least 75% of the territory was IE speaking.
Yes, it was mostly Celtic-speaking, but Celts may have arrived in Iberia only during the Iron Age.
The genetic data in Olalde et al. actually shows an interesting pattern in which steppe admixture first arrives very suddenly, then clearly drops, and then slowly rises again. The late rise might be associated with the arrival of Celts, no?
Regardless of the situation before, Celts or at least Celtic newcomers will have come between the Urnfield Culture and La Tene. Urnfield, Hallstatt and La Tene are all Northern-Central European cultural phenomenons.
Interestingly the Atlantic Bronze Age has its own network which relates to the Western Bell Beakers expansions on the British Isles, France and Iberia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Bronze_Age
As things stand right now, I doubt anything along the Atlantic coast was Celtic before Urnfield/Iron Age and whether it was (partly or fully) IE must be questioned and further analysed.
Not 75%, much less
@Davidski-
Of course, Urnfield and celts, the problem is that these people practiced cremation and unfortunately the necropolis of the large fortified villages of the Celts only contain ashes and weapons (Hallstatt type). Anyway, there are some children's burials that can be analyzed.
Those genetic data from Olalde can only mean-
1-Celtic languages came in the iron age
2- P312 did not speak IE or stopped speaking his IE language mixing with the native population and adapting to Iberian societies
I really think there's three possibilities at this point, in order of declining likelihood.
1) Beakers were not linguistically unified, and carried a second steppe derived language. This could explain the very tenuous connections between Basques and Kartvelian languages, with maybe a 20 kya CHG common ancestor. If J haplogroups were on the steppe in low frequencies, then their languages could have been on the steppe in low frequencies too, and not necessarily lining up 1:1. A multiethnic steppe confederacy would be more normal than not too based on historic experience.
2) A Basque-farmer elite imposed itself on an Indo-European speaking populace. Think a reverse Greece situation (ie a relatively small Y chromosome and aDNA impact). I believe E-V68 is the only other haplogroup found at any significant frequency in all Basque provinces, so that would mean the Basque language was probably introduced by Cardial ware farmers, probably travelling up the Ebro Valley.
3) Beakers were not linguistically unified, and spoke a second, non-steppe language. Given that Beakers don't form a robust genetic clade, with early Beakers lacking steppe admixture and late Beakers showing ~50% steppe admixture, despite being part of a common archaeological culture, I think the idea that language along with the physical beakers survived first contact with steppe peoples is plausible. What were the linguistic boundaries within Beaker culture then though? And how did R1b become so damned ubiquitous?
I applaud you for the way you're handling this issue though David. I'm glad you're keeping an open mind here.
@JuanRivera - "What's Lusitanian, if not BB?" Probably Urnfield Culture IMHO.
@Palacista
Based on linguistic typology Basque is a EEF language.
You might be right, I can't really judge that claim, but in any case, the question is whether it was native to Iberia or brought in from somewhere else with Bell Beakers.
I'm starting to think that the Indo-European expansions from the steppe quickly became multilingual, and Vasconic and Iberian might actually come from an interaction zone between Corded Ware and Western European farmers outside of Iberia.
Interesting discussion. A few of the samples from the Greek colony were not Iberian or Greek. A few were northern European. Where could they have come from? Gaul?
@Samuel Andrews - Maybe Cornwall? There was tin trade into Iberia from there during this period wasn't there?
Spanish Basque Country- R1b (87,0%) I1(0,5%) I2a (5,0%) G2 (1,5%) Q(0,5%) J2(2,5%) J1 (0,5%) E1b (2,50%)
Spain- R1b (70%)- R1a (2%)-I1 (1%) I2a (5,5%) G2(3%), T (2,5%), J2(8%), J1 (1%) E1b (7%)
The only male haplogroup that could be considered autochthonous of the Basque Country besides R1b is I2a. typical of Iberian hunter-gatherers
Spain- Mit hap- H (45,1%) HV0-V (8,2%), J(6,6%), T (8,5%) U (17,5%) K(5,3%) I (1,1%) W (1,4%), X (1,7%)- L (2,4%), U6 (1,1%), others (1,1%)
Basically the same as in Neolithic
I think you all know the case (Published a few months ago) of a genetically and linguistically Polinesian island that through a permanent flow of melanesian prestigious inmigrants (males) has become genetically melanesian, but (and this is the point) has preserved the initial Polinesian language. Any extrapolation?
@Urki
I think you all know the case (Published a few months ago) of a genetically and linguistically Polinesian island that through a permanent flow of melanesian prestigious inmigrants (males) has become genetically melanesian, but (and this is the point) has preserved the initial Polinesian language. Any extrapolation?
This is possible, but Iberia isn't a small island nor was it culturally homogeneous during the Copper and Bronze Ages, and yet basically the same thing happened in northern Iberia and southern Iberia: an almost complete Y-chromosome turnover in areas that are attested as non Indo-European during the Iron Age.
@Dragos said...
BB were completely unified. They were a singular clan of L51 males that spread rapidly within couple of generations.
They were completely patriarchal and actively excluded other groups from their territory and culture
They didn’t adopt anyone’s language
That's true, but Bell Beakers were long gone by the Iron Age, and genes don't speak languages, people do.
Those Iberian and Vasconic speakers in Iron Age Iberia didn't have a clue that they genetically descended from some sort of Beaker cult group.
@ Davidski
So do the celts have sagas about the BB ?
And if Vasconic - Iberian did not come from BB, where did it come from? Phoenician & Greek colonists ?
On the other hand; how do you explain away the obvious archaeological and genetic impact of later Bronze Age movements through Western Europe, which just happen to correspond to where Celtic emerges few hundred years later
@JuanRivera
Most of the Olalde et al. 2019 samples are already in the Global25. Scroll down to Iberia.
@Dragos
So do the celts have sagas about the BB?
Don't know, but the two Hallstatt samples that we have are very similar to BBs, and one even belongs to R1b-P312. So I wouldn't totally throw away the link between BBC and Proto-Celts.
And if Vasconic - Iberian did not come from BB, where did it come from?
I don't know, but like I said, the fact that Basques are so similar to Iberian and French Beakers does suggest that Vasconic was spoken by some Bell Beakers.
But if Iberian was too, based on the evidence from Iron Age southern Iberia, then this suggests that they were multi-lingual, and so it opens up the possibility that other BBs were Indo-European speaking.
Diego, as usual, you make stuff up and hope nobody calls you out. Yeah, half of Iberia was non-IE speaking, but only a quarter or France was, and obviously everything North of the Danube was 100% P312 and 100% IE speaking, so your point gets you nowhere. Besides, what I said was idiotic was your belief that there was P312 separate from steppe ancestry, which has zero to do with language.
@rocca
No we don't know that. We only know that at the time of Caesar's Gallic wars probably a third of France may have been celtic speaking, a third may have been Basque speaking, a third may have spoken an I-E tongue (Belgic) possibly midway between Celtic and Germanic, large parts of the British Isles may have spoken Celric or Belgic, Denmark and areas close to it probably spoke Proto-germanic, and some areas of North Eastern Europe probably spoke Slavic or Baltic.
There are large ares North of the Danube we do not know what spoke (and some we can be sure spoke Uralic tongues such as Lapland and Finland).
Balto-Slavic, Germanic, Indo-Iranian all derived out of the Corded Ware zone. So, it's valid to think their brother in western Europe: Bell Beaker, also spoke Indo European.
What, I'm sure of is all Kurgan Bell Beaker spoke the same language when they expanded across western Europe. Maybe that language was a non-Indo European from their farmer mothers. If, it was Indo European that means Basque & Iberian are languages from Iberian farmers.
@Drago, @David - "@ Ryan
You need to gain some perspective & reality
BB were completely unified . They were a singular clan of L51 males that spread rapidly within couple of generations."
That's not actually true. Early Beakers that pre-date steppe admixture aren't L51 (as far as we know). They were still Beaker folk.
Humanejos has already been analyzed in Olalde et al 2018 and Olalde et al 2019
@Davidski
"Iberia isn't a small island nor was it culturally homogeneous during the Copper and Bronze Ages..."
Nor was it during the Iron Age, nor nowadays. Here you see the preference of northwestern iberia for ancient english populations in correlation with language and culture.
nMonte from Global25:
Galicia (celtic in iron age) "distance%=0.7001"
England_IA,46
Iberia_East_IA,21.4
England_N,15.1
Levant_BA_North,12.1
Iberomaurusian,4.2
Iberia_N,1.2
Iberia_North_IA,0
Iberia_Northwest_Meso,0
Basque_Spanish "distance%=1.1722"
Iberia_North_IA,39.1
Iberia_East_IA,35.8
England_IA,15.2
Iberia_N,7.8
Iberia_Northwest_Meso,1.1
Iberomaurusian,1
England_N,0
Levant_BA_North,0
When did Proto-Celtic arrive in Iberia? Ca.1500 b.c. based on what I've read and gleaned from comments here and elsewhere, so yea the connection between BBC and Celtic languages(in Britain and Iberia) seems weak.
@ Dragos
"So do the celts have sagas about the BB ?"
John T.Koch. Thinking about the Indo-European and Celtic Myth....
This, if I understand correctly seems to point at least to the possibility that the Irish retained the knowledge about How and Why Bell Beaker people reused some Neolithic Graves....So if Irish Ancestors were not in Ireland during the Bronze Age, how did they retain this knowledge in their Myths ?
And if Irish Ancestors did not at least brush shoulders with Ancestors of Lithuanians, how come their Folklore shows striking similarities ?
@ Dragos
"The Boscombe Bowmen"
And looking at this we see in which direction Irish Rathlin samples pull....
@ Ryan
“That's not actually true. Early Beakers that pre-date steppe admixture aren't L51 (as far as we know). They were still Beaker folk.”
There are no pre-steppe Beaker people in Western Europe. Anyhow that’s semantics
@ Ric
I would not deny the utility of mythology in studying the ancient past; however it is difficult to gauge how deep it really goes. As has been stated here before by a couple commentators (in unrelated issues -? Vedas)- the “deeply ancient myths” of prelitterate societies might not be quite so ancient as thought. These collective memories might be but a few generations older than when first written
I put it to you that a profound change occurred in Ireland with the Iron Age . Did you see Celts- Blood & Iron?
Anyhow; either way; Celtic spread with steppe-rich R1b; so what’s the issue ? ;)
@Drago - "There are no pre-steppe Beaker people in Western Europe. Anyhow that’s semantics"
You have no idea what you're talking about do you.
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/02/migration-of-bell-beakersbut-not-from.html
There are multiple Beaker samples there with no steppe admixture.
The Beakers that spread into Britain and Ireland probably did speak Indo-European languages, and these may have been Celtic-related languages, but the idea that they were Celtic doesn't gel very well with mainstream linguistics.
And it doesn't exactly fit with genetic data either, because the Irish are not exactly like the Irish_EBA samples. There was definitely some gene flow into Ireland from Europe after the Bronze Age.
On the other hand, I have serious doubts that the Beakers who moved into Iberia were by and large Indo-European speakers, rather than Iberian and/or Vasconic speakers. I can accept the occasional case of language switching by populations of aggressive patrilineal male bands, but for this to be the rule across a huge place like Iberia that was essentially conquered by such people is a bit too much.
The classic R1b-P312-rich Beakers were definitely a clan, but they were also something of an ancient multinational enterprise, and that almost certainly means that they had to be multilingual. If so, they were multilingual before they spread their enterprise into Iberia.
@David - Is there any reason the whole Atlantic fringe could not have Vasconic speaking? The language shift from Celtic to Germanic came with a rather muted Y chromosome turnover. Indigenous Britons still account for the vast majority of English ancestry - Y chromosome or otherwise - but there are almost 0 Brythonic loanwords in English today. I don't think it's implausible that a Basque->Celtic or Basque->Urnfield->Celtic transition happened between the late Bronze and Iron Ages that left very little linguistic trace.
I think it's worth considering that R1b-L23 may not be a steppe lineage originally, and that it may have gone through a WHG->Farmer transition before hitching a ride with Bell Beakers as R1b-L51 and with Yamnaya as R1b-Z2103. It may be the R1b bearing Vasconic speakers that got assimilated into IE culture in several waves rather than the other way around. Not saying it must be this but I think it should be considered.
@ Davidski
Yes I agree. Because of dialects stretching from one Language into the other it is difficult to pinpoint precisely when and where a specific Language family or Branches of a Language family started. Did English for example start with Angle, Saxon or within the Frisian Territories ? Anything from Denmark to the Netherlands could have been where the Germanic side of English originated. That is a stretch of 700 kms of territory with multiple related dialects....
How much Germanic and Hallstatt do Irish have?
@Zardos
More than half (60%) of the resulting population consisted of locals. Considering that current day Spain has roughly 65% R1b the paper must have missed the left over locals - which is inevitable because of all kinds of sampling biases - so I wouldn't call it impossible. But certainly a switch in SE France is possible as well.
@epoch
There were a couple of genetic shifts in Iberia after the Iron Age, except of course in the Basque region, so it's possible that the frequency of R1b across most of Iberia during the Iron Age was indeed close to 100%, just like among Basques today.
See that's the problem. These theories about the Beakers melting into native Iberian societies and taking on the languages of their local brides do sound plausible, but they're being entertained at the expense of some hard facts, like the fact that Basques look like the direct descendants of Iberian Beakers, and they're not a people who would easily give up a language.
The classic R1b-P312-rich Beakers were definitely a clan, but they were also something of an ancient multinational enterprise, and that almost certainly means that they had to be multilingual. If so, they were multilingual before they spread their enterprise into Iberia.
I agree with this statement.
The Eastern Beakers have a large chunk (50% to 60%) of heritage fresh from the steppe, connected to the other IE groups, and with a totally intrusive ydna. Spain is further away, more chances for the non IE languages to be incorporated the westward trajectory of steppe ancestry and r1b.
People also need to understand that the elite to mass language transfer does not mean the elites are invaders. Image Western Beakers, with a neolithic background, setting up trade networks. Eastern Beakers move in large numbers and some of them take on the language of the networks centers. Davidski may also be right about there being multiple language networks pre steppe intrusion.
@David
You are missing some points about Basques:
- Basque is related to Aquitanian which was spoken in a wide area up to the Garonne in the North and to Toulouse in the East.
- This aera has a very limited known BBs sites.
- Basque and very likeky Aquitanians did have a matrilocal, matrilineal society (the "house system" in which a man marry in another family and take the "House name" when he went to live in the bride family). This is hardly coherent with culturally heirs of BBs (known to be patrilocal, patrilineal).
By the way, about Iberian:
- Iberian could have been a "linga Franca", not a vernacular language. Meaning other languages could have existed in the Iberian area.
- Iberian could be linked to Basque (perhaps the same language family).
- Southern France was not IE before Celts. As an example, the Iberian Elisyques were present around Narbonne before the Volques (Celts).
@Folker
But which part of Iberia was definitely IE before the Celts came? I'm aware of Lusitanian as a possibility in SW Iberia, but that's not a clear case and still disputed.
Unless there are at least signs of something IE in Iberia before the Celtic expansions, it means that the significant population movements from the east during the Copper Age that led to a rapid and massive Y-chromosome overhaul there had a minimal or no linguistic impact.
Very hard to believe.
Unless there are at least signs of something IE in Iberia before the Celtic expansions, it means that the significant population movements from the east during the Copper Age that led to a rapid and massive Y-chromosome overhaul there had a minimal or no linguistic impact.
What is your hypothesis? That the steppe related beakers moving into Spain spoke a single non IE language or that they spoke multiple languages? Still, when and where did steppe related beakers take on non IE languages.
Im trying to figure out why you think its more simple for this(these) shift(s) to happen in France rather than Spain.
I will give you another example of evident genetic continuity between the chalcolithic and the iron age in Iberia.
1- I3485-Castillejo del Bonete-2.200 BC-Chalcolithic- HapY-R1b-CTS2229 Mit Hap-J1c1
2- I7691-Monte da Cabida-1.950 BC-Atlantic Bronze Culture-Hapl Y-R1b-L51- Mit Hap-J1c1
3- I3494-Coveta del Frare-1.836 BC-Bronce Age-HapY-R1b-P312- Mit Hap-J1c1/b
4- I6470/RISE912- Dolmen del Virgazal- 1.651 BC- Bronze/HapY-R1b-P312-Mit Hap-J1c1
5- I4559-Galls Carboners-1.600 BC-Hap Y-R1b-P311- Mit Hap-J1c1
6- VAD004-Valdescusa (La Rioja) 1.464 BC-Cogotas Culture- HapY-R1b-L151- Mit-Hap-J1c3
7- I8570-Túmulo Mortorum-1,400 BC- Valencian Bronze culture-HapY-R1b-L151- Mit Hap-J1c3
8- I12877-Mas Den Boixos-445 BC-Iberian Culture-Layetania- HapY-R1b-M269-Mit Hap-J1c1
9- I3326-Puig de la Nau-225 BC Iberian Culture-Indiketes-I3326- HapY-R1b-P297- Mit Hap-J1c
This is the irrefutable proof of the genetic continuity of the Iberian BBs, all the Bronze cultures of the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal, Mediterranean, North) and at least the Iberians (Indiketes and Layetanos),are direct descendants by both paternal and maternal line. Obviously there are more samples of Tartessians and Celtiberians to see with absolute clarity the genetic composition of the iron age, but the fact that the Iberians are BBs is the proof that the Iberian BBs did NOT speak Indo-European.
The Iberian language was spoken in a territory from the river Herault (France), to Andalucia. Important remains of writings have been found in Ensérune, between Narbona and Béziers in France. It has five vowels, the same as those of Spanish or Basque:/a,e,i,o,u/
- Ausetanos,ilergetes, indiketes, layetanos, cossetanos, ilercavones, edetanos,contestanos bastetanos, and oretanos
@Colin
Im trying to figure out why you think its more simple for this(these) shift(s) to happen in France rather than Spain.
Beakers seem to have developed from either Corded Ware (Single Grave) or some other steppe-derived population, but they were obviously influenced heavily during their ethnogenesis by non-steppe groups, most likely from Atlantic Europe, which is probably one of the main reasons why they're so different from Corded Ware.
I suppose that this is when they may have picked up their non-Indo-European languages, like Proto-Iberian and Proto-Basque, perhaps in an interaction zone between Single Grave and Old Western European cultures in northern France. After that it seems too late, considering how strong the Beaker ethnic identity seemed to have been.
Otherwise we're looking at a scenario in which these very aggressive Beakers, clearly with great purpose, rush into Iberia during the Copper Age, assimilate into a variety of indigenous Iberian cultures, adopt their brides' languages, and leave no real trace of any Indo-European language, but despite this, thanks to their dominance and prestige all over Iberia, their Y-chromosomes basically reach fixation within a very short time.
What do you believe is more likely? I'd believe the latter if there was some direct evidence to back it up, but all I'm seeing there are contradictions with the data.
Those are 2000 years of history, but obviously other factors influence, because another 2,000 years have passed since the Spaniards spoke Latin and the language has evolved so much that we would not currently be able to understand a Roman. The evolution of IE may have been more radical, since it was not a written language, look at what happened to Latin in 2000 years, despite being a written language. However, although that language of the BBs had evolved or changed much in those 2,000 years, the truth is that it never lost its non-Indo-European character, just as Spanish has not lost its Indo-European character after 2,000 years.
Probably the language of all the BBs was a language linked to the Neolithic farmers, who were genetically very uniform (hap-G2 and mitochondrial), and could easily be imposed on the hunter-gatherers for their technological superiority. That Pan-European language left clues in toponyms and hydronyms throughout Europe, and given the mobile character of the BB culture it is easy for it to adopt it. During the iron age and thanks to the Celts and Romans the Indo-European languages became hegemonic, until then they were never a majority.
@David
"See that's the problem. These theories about the Beakers melting into native Iberian societies and taking on the languages of their local brides do sound plausible, but they're being entertained at the expense of some hard facts, like the fact that Basques look like the direct descendants of Iberian Beakers, and they're not a people who would easily give up a language."
But one thing is clear: The spread of this ancestry was entirely different from the way it went Ireland or England. It did absorb local females to the point that majority of ancestry was local. But I do get the point.
But take a look at this Prince and his twenty Wives.
https://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-prince-and-his-twenty-wives-garcia.html
It made me think. If there already was a warrior culture developing in pre-steppe BB Spain and this burial is indicative for warriors (princes, kings, warlords) did have such large harems, think what would happen if one IE speaking invader that takes the place of such a local prince would father children in a harem of 20 brides. His language would have been absolutely a minority but all his children would have 50% steppe admixture.
"Unless there are at least signs of something IE in Iberia before the Celtic expansions"
What do we know of pre-Celtic hydronyms and toponyms?
I never believed into that theory of BB being proto Celtic. But saying that pre-Celtic or pre-Italic formed outside BB area and then by some magic all those R1b were indo europeanised requires a lot off special pleading.
All those non IE samples are DF27+ or something like that. Virtually all Basque R1b is Df27. So the most cautious assumption would be that the shift to Basque (and Iberian?) occured at Df27 level somewhere in France or while crossing Pyreneans.
On Maciamo's maps there is a hotspot of U152+ exactly in the place where Tartessian was spoken. That is quite interesting if the Iron Age Tartessian turns out U152+.
@ Ryan
“You have no idea what you're talking about do you.
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/02/migration-of-bell-beakersbut-not-from.html
There are multiple Beaker samples there with no steppe admixture.”
Watch how you address your superiors.
Go ahead and point out one DNA analysed and carbon dated individual from west of the Rhine with a BB set that isnt from of CE / R1b/steppe
@Urki: I think you all know the case (Published a few months ago) of a genetically and linguistically Polinesian island that through a permanent flow of melanesian prestigious inmigrants (males) has become genetically melanesian
Yes, there may be more scenarios like this in time. (How did Tibet become mostly haplogroup D while the language is obviously linked with Sinitic?).
There's some empirical support for the "Father Tongue" hypothesis, but really this support is just showing that speakers of different language groups tend to have different y-haplogroup frequency distributions more than they have different mtdna distributions. Since y-dna is subject to greater male reproductive variance and patrilocal dynamics are much more frequent, this is actually not too surprising though.
Under this sort of model though, the fact that speakers of some two related languages have completely quite different but structured y-dna, with unstructured mtdna would be interpreted as support for "Father Tongue". But I think you can see the obvious problem with that!
The 'strong' version of evidencing this hypothesis is to show that y-dna accompanies linguistic phylogeny, in an unbroken connection. That's sort of lacking at the moment.
It's not like it's too hard to imagine some sort of linguistic switching at the wavefront into Iberia - we may think that preserving language was critical to these people, but they may well have seen it as a tool of convenience, and what really mattered to them was their male kin connections, warrior skills, etc.
Some groups may well have adopted bi-linguality because it made it easier to talk to women and the few very males incorporated into the community (at a structural disadvantage for reproducing y-dna), then the children would tend to the adopted language as realized that dad would understand both and mother would only understand one (which is often the way bilingual transformation happens today, where parents speak one language and a wider community another). We have little idea of the dynamics during the period in which steppe ancestry becomes established in Iberia. Or anyway, IMO we have little idea.
Basque language origin outside Iberia and introduction during even as late as Iron Age is possible, but there's no strong evidence for it. Vasconic substrate is vaporware, and there's no attestation of any Basque like languages outside Iberia (some claims are made about Sardinia, but it doesn't seem like those have any substance to them, and are highly speculative).
@Aram
All those non IE samples are DF27+ or something like that. Virtually all Basque R1b is Df27. So the most cautious assumption would be that the shift to Basque (and Iberian?) occured at Df27 level somewhere in France or while crossing Pyreneans.
OK, so we're probably not looking here at the movement into Iberia of random Beaker big shots from different parts of the Beaker realm, but more likely at an expansion of a single clan from some place in Western Europe.
@epoch
The spread of this ancestry was entirely different from the way it went Ireland or England. It did absorb local females to the point that majority of ancestry was local.
Some of this happened in France though, considering that Dutch, German and British Beakers aren't good surrogates for the eastern admix in Iberian Beakers because they have too much steppe ancestry.
The ~20 concubines thing is possible, but it sounds like a reverse version of the standard elite dominance language shift model. So I'm skeptical.
@Dragos: "Go ahead and point out one DNA analysed and carbon dated individual from west of the Rhine with a BB set that isnt from of CE / R1b/steppe"
Olalde 2018 - I1767: M - U5a1a1, I2a2a1a1a - Beaker Britain - BK_England_NOR. 1 / 21 is only about 5% of their Beaker Britain sample, tho.
@ Matt
That’s quite obviously an assimilated individual in Britain
Or are you proposing BB began in UK ?
I’m asking you, Dave , Ryan or Colin to prove the Neolithic/ Iberian BB origins falsehood you keep mentioning
Was the Basque area more developed than rest of the Europe at the time? If this was the case maybe it would be more prestigious to keep the language.
I don't know about the "Neolithic/ Iberian BB origins" or whether on the cultural side the phenomenon really forms a coherent single origin or elements from various sources, or any of what this means (if anything) for language.
I was simply responding to the challenge which you laid down; assimilation of males happened in British Beaker ("west of the Rhine"), probably not very much.
@Dragos
I have no strong opinion about the place of origin of the Bell Beaker cultural package, whatever that actually is, but as you know, my view is that the quintessential Beaker population came from the Lower Rhine region.
Iberia keeps getting mentioned as a likely homeland of the Beaker phenomenon, even in papers from the last twelve months authored by Beaker experts, so it's something that I keep in mind.
I don't exactly know what Ryan's views are on the topic.
@ Matt/ Dave
The statements Ryan and Colin are making are: BB originated in Iberia; hence the incoming steppe/ R1b guys could have acquired their language as they did their culture ; kinda like franks in Rome . Entirely reasonable - don’t get me wrong
My arguement is this supposition isn’t validated
I looked at “Iberia non steppe” individuals that made the G25
I1970- cave multiple burials; I2a. BB ceramics found in the cave; but relation to bodies not clear
I4229- long period collective cave . Since 3500 BC. Remains comingled and scattered, Rich site, long--lasting
well connected site with gold, ivory, beads, pre-Beaker ceramics, and into BB era see BB ceramics.
C14 date 23-2000 BC. I2a1a1
Etc
See the pattern? There’s in fact no clear relationship to BB materials
Now compare :
I5665 - R1b-M269; steppe+
El Virgazal (Tablada de Rudrón, Burgos,). Ciempozuelos Beaker tombs are present: Bell
Beaker, carinated bowl and hemispherical bowl–, three stone wristguards, a V-perforated button
possibly made of ivory. Buried in crouched position, head facing North, in stone burial structure.
2200-1950 BC.
With the facts known by now I doubt any BB spoke an IE language.
They are too close to each other. I know we cant be sure, because later Hallstatt and La Tene were also not exclusively Celtic or non-Celtic.
But the combination of genes and material culture is a smoking gun for the ethnolinguistic identity of a people.
Why dont consider a different language being present among the steppe people themselves?
We have to reconstruct the migration of R1b, and the beginning of BB with steppe ancestry.
Before that its all guesswork, but its still more likely the connection with the non-IE started further East.
If it happened West of the Carparthians, you need to find another smoking gun with the later Western BB lineages living with other male lineages in a cultural group.
The best fit would be with non-IE lineages elite graves and R1b commoners.
So far we dont even know how "steppe Beakers" came into existence. There is no proven genealogy.
But the idea of language transfer with 100 percent male lineage continuity through robbed females is good for laughs, but no serious explanation.
@Dragos,
You have to take into account an important factor, absolutely ALL the objects of the BB package existed in Iberia at the beginning of the BB culture, wristguards, pottery (all styles), tanged copper daggers, ivory buttons, boar's tusk, etc ... It would be that the entry of Indo-Europeans gave meaning to that package through a different ideology (tombs of individual warriors) etc but that was not a radical change, the tombs are evolving from collective to family (women with children, two men , two women) etc. In nearby tombs of the same period you can find two BB burials with similar grave goods and it turns out that one man is R1b and the other is I2a or even G2a.
There were social differences between them? NO
Acculturation Yes
In addition, the role of women in the BB culture is very important, nobody talks about them, but in Spain there are individual tombs of women with a large number of gold objects, African ivory, variscite necklaces, and even valuable copper objects. There were also princesses in the chalcolithic. They were not slaves.
@Iñigo- Olalde has studied some tombs of Humanejos, but there are dozens of skeletons to analyze.We know that they are dating in Groningen and that there are some samples in Harvard.
After more than 1,500 ancient genomes analyzed in Spain (+200 men) we can already get a pretty accurate idea of the Prehistory of Iberia, it only remains to finish the knowledge about the first half of the III Millennium BC (3,000-2,500 BC) and expand the samples of the Bronze and Iron Age. What the hell is happening in Italy and France, we can never understand the prehistory of Western Europe without a lot of samples from those countries.
Allow me a personal theme, I am Df27-Z225, and Olalde has found Z225 in Herviás la Rioja, 60 km away from my grandfather's house. It seems that in our family we have never been very travelers, but it seems incredible that 4,000 years later we continue in the same place.
Surely since the trip from the steppes was very long, they decided to stay forever in the same place.
The ideal scenario for R1b being originally IE, but converted West of the Carparthians would be a language transfer in the BBC network itself, through an Iberian elite which played the role of missionaries and colonisators, like foreign masters which were finally overthrown and hunted, even im their own homeland.
That scenario should have left a mark however and regardless of the female status, you need accompanying male elite members in the North.
You need the connection. Probably it will pop up somewhere North of the Als and West of the Carparthians, but until then, an ethnogenesis, difference further East is more plausible to me.
@ «Basque is a EEF language»
I invite those who argue that Basque is a EEF language to adduce evidence to substantiate their statement.
If you say that Basque must be an EEF language because Basques carry EEF ancestry, I say that it should rather be Sardinians to speak an EEF language because the have the highest amount of EEF in Europe.
@ Open Genomes
I fully understand the reason why you want to turn the Celt-Iberian I3758 into a Basque speaker.
IMO, the Celt-Iberian yDNA I2a1a1a is rather related to Chalcolithic Spain and not to the first farmers. On yfull, there is an I2a1a1a-BY189905 haplotype which seems to be Iberia-specific with a TMRCA of 4400 ybp. I2a1a1-L158 has been detected in LN Cova de Els Trocs Catalonia, dated 2907–2761 cal BCE. Instead, the first Iberian farmers belong to haplotypes I2a1b, R1b-V88, G2a2, H2, E1b.
If R1b-L51 was so damned sovereign everywhere in Iberia as it seems to be, why an earth would it have abandoned its language? I think that, logically, Basque should be an R1b-L51 language with an Iberian Chalcolithic substrate related to yDNA I2a1a1a with some Celtic and Roman influence.
@Kristiina
Haplogroup I2a1a1a is documented in Iberia at the beginning of the chalcolithic, 500 years before the BB culture. It could evolve in situ of the Iberian hunter gatherers or arrive with the Neolithic farmers.
DA96B-Dolmen de Ansiao-3.250 BC- HapY-I2a1a1a1b-F1295- Mit- K1b1/a
I11599-Cabezo de Arruda- 3.100 BC- HapY-I2a1a/1- Mit Hap-J2b1/a2
In other words, our Celtiberian friend is a descendant of men who were already in Iberia from Pre-BB Chalcolithic. Berones were neighbors of the Basques and the Vardulos (Álava), the former spoke Euzkera and the latter Celtic (at least is what is believed by the toponymy of their villages-Gebala-Gebalaeka-Tullonium-Segontia Paramica-Tritium Tuborikum-Thabuka- Ptolomeo II, 6, 65
I suppose the Celts would be R1b and they would also mix with Iberian men and women, or maybe they were a mixture of uniparental markers as the Visigoths have turned out to be.
Spanish historians say that the Berones and other Celtic peoples arrived around 600 BC and that they were Belgian Celtic peoples of the Lower Rhine and Moselle,
Well, it's deeply ironic that out of the tens of male samples in this paper the only Iberian Indo-European speaker belongs to I2a1. And, as far as I can tell, there's not a single R1b-L51 from an attested Indo-European speaking site.
I never would've picked that one. I never would've believed it if someone leaked it to me before the paper came out.
Sampling bias is partly responsible for these somewhat quirky results, but it can't explain away all of that Beaker ancestry in both ancient and modern non Indo-European Iberians. That correlation is way too obvious.
But at least the I2a1 guy, and indeed all three Celtiberians do have elevated steppe ancestry, and in fact they're very similar to the Hallstatt samples that we have available. Relief!
Also, one thing that people aren't talking about much is the elevated steppe ancestry in the R1b samples from the Greek colony. They look like recent Celtic migrants from somewhere to the northeast, rather than native Iberians with local Beaker-derived steppe ancestry.
What is really known about R1b origins in Western Europe and the migrations before they hijacked BBC? We must have a complete and detailed genealogy and archaeological context, then things will clear up.
It might be one single find which might change the picture.
When they hijacked BB networks, they had a high steppe derived ancestry, thats obvious, but where and what were the carriers before?
Davidski those R1b from Ampurias are Indiketes, that is to say, Iberians that coexisted with the Greeks, their mitochondrial haplogroups are also almost all iberian (HV0+195-H3+152-U5b3-K1a+195, H1), however the Greeks (HapY-J) have mitochondrial haplogroups that had never been seen in Spain. H13a1a1-H14a2c-H33
You have to take into account that the Urnfield culture, entered Iberia through the western passes of the Pyrenees perhaps because of that, the Indiketes have more steppe ancestry than their southern Iberian neighbors. The Greek colonies of Emporion (Ampurias), Rhode (Rosas) and Massalia (Marseille) were founded by Greeks from Phocea. I mean, I do not think the Greeks transmitted steppe ancestry to the Indiketes. Or maybe yes, we go from surprise to surprise.
We have always said that linking uniparental markers or autosomal components to a certain language does not make much sense, and this paper has proved us right.
What has surprised me is that some Visigoths were E1b (500), it is amazing. Alaric I attacked Constantinople, ravaged Greece (395 and 396) and sacked Rome in 410. Where did those Visigoths acquire haplogroup E1b in Greece ?, in Rome?
For those interested in how different kinship patterns can cause strong correlations between uniparental markers and language, check out this recent study: https://www.pnas.org/content/114/49/12910
The study was done in Indonesia, but we know from anthropology work that many premodern societies mimicked these dynamics.
@zardos
"Who knows? I dont. But you dont replace all other male lineages and adopt the robbe females language.
Maybe you've heard of the Normans? I mean, seriously; why do these conquering Viking settlers marry local Frankish women and within a generation or two they're speaking French instead of the rest of northern France speaking Norse?
There are also a few Iberia_East_IA individuals with very high steppe-related ancestry, some of which are included in the G25 dataset, such as I12879 of I3324, both of which were modelled with over 60% Germany_Beaker (similar to the N_Iberia_IA samples in G25, which plot close to them in that PCA) besides I3326 who scores a whopping 97.9% which clearly makes him an outsider. It seems peoples from beyond the Pyrenees were moving (perhaps trickling?) into Iberia during the Iron Age.
As for Lusitanian and its toponymy, there are multiple names with non-celtic IE elements, particularly in settlements. This is more obvious in settlements with the celtic suffix -briga that is occasionally preceded by one of such elements.
The paper "Toponyms of Lusitania: a re-assessment of their origins" by Curchin, Leonard A. concludes with the following:
"The foregoing discussion of individual names is a necessary
prelude to conclusions about the linguistic origins of Lusitanian
toponyms. From this discussion, the names may be classified as follows.
Toponyms whose attribution to a language category is considered
probable but not absolutely certain, are followed by “(?)”. In cases
where probability was not apparent, I have listed the names as “Uncertain”,
rather than making a subjective judgment that might skew the
results. Names ending in -briga are not counted as Celtic unless the preceding
element is also Celtic.
Pre-Indo-European (3 names = 2% of total)
Indo-European, undifferentiated (56 = 33.5%)
Celtic (50 = 30%)
Iberian (2 = 1%)
Latin (30 = 18%)
Uncertain (26 = 15.5%)
Although the origins of some 15% of Lusitanian toponyms cannot
be plausibly identified, several conclusions of a linguistic nature may be
drawn. First, it is noteworthy that 30% of the names appear to be Celtic,
while a similar quantity (33.5%) appear to be non-Celtic Indo-European.
These close figures provide equal weight of support to arguments
on both sides of the continuing debate as to whether Lusitanian is, or is
not, a Celtic language (cf. GORROCHATEGUI 1994: 14-15, with further bibliography). If Lusitanian is not Celtic, scholars must somehow
account for 30% of the toponyms being loanwords from Celtic; if Lusitanian
is Celtic, they must account for a large, underlying and presumably
anterior Indo-European stratum. It may be helpful to compare the
case of the Arevaci, one of the subgroups of the Celtiberians, among
whom one would expect a high proportion of the names to be Celtic.
However, only 36% of its toponyms are Celtic, while another 36%
appear to be non-Celtic Indo-European (CURCHIN 1997: 277). It may
perhaps be wisest to classify Lusitanian as “para-Celtic”, a language of
peoples bordering on, and strongly influenced, by Celtic speakers, but
having strong roots in Old European."
So if we do not consider them Celtic (which they most probably weren't) the author does mention that many names were of Celtic origin. This is probably why in the past Lusitanians were considered a celtic people - their material culture had many Hallstatt influences, which probably were a consequence of actual migration of Celtic peoples into the region, the difference being that, unlike other areas of the peninsula, the celticisation process was incomplete and didn't get to the point of a language shift. This hints at Lusitanian being a substract in the West (obvious in 'Gallaecia'), however it gives no evidence on when this Lusitanian language arived. It could have been just a few centuries before Celtic, or it could be much older.
@Synome
For those interested in how different kinship patterns can cause strong correlations between uniparental markers and language, check out this recent study: https://www.pnas.org/content/114/49/12910
Thanks, interesting paper.
So if this is the way it went down, then no wonder that Indo-European languages weren't established in Iberia during the Beaker period.
Hence, ironically, Iberia was Indo-Europeanized at this time in terms of Y-chromosomes, but not language.
Normans: The Normans didnt eradicate all Frankish males down to the last peasant, or did they?
There was no complete replacement and the context was completely different in medieval Francia.
The new elite had a reason to adapt to their subjects, neighbours and finally official ruler. To the church, administration and written high language.
Now R1b BB lineages could have been under Iberian BB rule or the like, but to make that a real possibility, you need to find a corresponding archaeological and genetic context.
R1b BBC in Spain is more like Germanic in Southern Germany or Slavs in Slovakia rather than Normans.
Just more brutal, genocidal and with just one male lineage being allowed.
"So if we do not consider them Celtic (which they most probably weren't) the author does mention that many names were of Celtic origin. This is probably why in the past Lusitanians were considered a celtic people - their material culture had many Hallstatt influences, which probably were a consequence of actual migration of Celtic peoples into the region, the difference being that, unlike other areas of the peninsula, the celticisation process was incomplete and didn't get to the point of a language shift. This hints at Lusitanian being a substract in the West (obvious in 'Gallaecia'), however it gives no evidence on when this Lusitanian language arived. It could have been just a few centuries before Celtic, or it could be much older."
Hallstatt is commonly believed to be the material culture best associated with "common" Celtic before it broke up into constituent languages, and it is MUCH later than the Beaker arrival; c. 800 BC, lasting for about three centuries before La Tene spread over its area and introduced a new material culture from a region within the Hallstatt zone (and spreading with it new languages or dialects?) And even then, proto-Illyrian is usually associated with the eastern Hallstatt zone, and I know of nobody at all who posits that Illyrian is a para-Celtic language.
Sometimes people talk about Urnfield being associated with early Celtic, but it's also usually considered to be at a point where Celtic hadn't yet completely differentiated itself from Italic or Venetic or some other branches of NW Indo-European.
@zardos. You're trying too hard. Yes, the situation isn't exactly the same. But the distinctions are becoming nitpicky at this point.
@Synome: This can explain shifts in which yDNA plays not as much of a role, but usually in slow and peaceful manner.
It can not explain large scale, violent shifts of genocidal character like they took place in Iberia.
Also, there is plenty of evidence for patrilocality in BBC and female mobility.
Thats an ethnological curiosity, but it doesnt solve the basic problem we are facing.
There is no way to reconcile this with nearly 100 percent male replacement.
It could explain a more complex pattern, probably, but not the one we see.
Vast areas of the Iberian Peninsula is basically semi-desert....What was the real population density during this time ?
Davidski said... "Well, it's deeply ironic that out of the tens of male samples in this paper the only Iberian Indo-European speaker belongs to I2a1. And, as far as I can tell, there's not a single R1b-L51 from an attested Indo-European speaking site."
That's the problem, it might be the ONLY sample from an attested Indo-European site. Lusitanians were clearly pre-Celtic IE speakers, so MAYBE I7687 is an early Lusitanian and he is R1b1a1a. If the classification of Tartessian as a Celtic language is correct, and not just a case of Celtic borrowings (and I'm not saying it is one way or another), then of note is sample I12561 which is R1b1a1a2a1a. So, we need more than just one sample to talk about irony. Noteworthy is that, for all of the talk of Urnfield/Hallstatt/La Tene, not a single U152 sample has been found. I know U152 is not covered by the Harvard BAM files, but certainly many of its sub-clades are and they would show up if any of these cultures were responsible for IE speech in Iberia, no?
I2a1a1 is old, the TMRCA of L158 is 11.4kya, there is nothing to suggest that the Celtiberian I2a1a1 sample is a direct descendant of the I2a1a1 from the Dolmen of Ansaio. We have I2a1a1 Bell Beakers around 2300BC in Hungary (I2741) and around 1900BC in Remedello North Italy (RISE 486), the I2a1a1 Celtiberan could have easily come from a totally different branch from central Europe. Unless we have the BAM files and more downstream SNP assignments the speculation about the I2a1a1 Celtiberian is baseless. The clade is simply to old to draw any conclusions yet.
For a language shift through contacts, you need an intact community to be in contact with. The R1b lineages didnt spare enough in Britain or Iberia for that to be possible.
The article in the NYT is funny with a scientists quote stressing there were no massacres.
How can he be so sure? Does he think the Iberian males just stepped back with a smile and watched the newcomers taking their brides and land? Ridiculous.
Nobody wants to state the obvious first, but rather fall back to completely implausible complex constructs which could be alternative explanations.
If they find someone with a dagger in his chest, they might still insist him dying from an heart attack by being so impressed from the high status symbol.
Basques are the issue. They are nearly 100 percent R1b and resemble Iberian BB the most. That has to mean they introduced the Vasconic language.
Which other languages can be attributed to R1b and steppe inluenced BB with the same or higher probability? None.
@zardos
Basque are not 100% R1b, probably closer to 85% or even as low as 80%. The issue is that the rest of Spain and Portugal have been offset by Middle Eastern and North African ancestry, not additional so-called Indo-European ancestry. If we have a problem with Basque speaking non-IE, then we should also have the issue with the Bronze Age populations being R1b and speaking non-IE. The R1b shift in Basque, happened to the rest of Iberia, it's just Basque region and Aquitaine were sheltered from the aformentioned MENA ancestry.
Of course, I2-M26 probably was Celtiberian, just as the I2-M223 guys were CWC. However, we all know the root branches were represented throughout the hunter-gatherers of Europe. To envision an army of I2-M26 guys marching into northern Spain from central Europe at the exclusion of any IE speaking M269 is absurd. I2-M26 is just a rare branch today, but even some of my close British cousins carry it, as do the isolate Neolithic Sardinians. To this point, no M269+ have been found in Europe prior to 2500 BC or thereabouts. That's still very meaningful, I suspect the answer lies in the northern Balkans around 3000 BC where L51*/L11* will be found.
@David
If you can have the land by marrying the bride instead of killing everybody, what do you choose? « Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube ». Basques are R1b to a great extent, but don’t speak an IE language, and share other cultural traits of BBs (patrilocal, patrilineal, patriarcal). At the very least, Basque were matrilocal and matrilineal.
So, it is not only a matter of language, but it is a different kind of society.
We can conclude from the paper that BBs have children with local Iberian women.
A better sampling and understanding of local societies are needed to choose between local assimilation of IE BBs migrants and migration (from France) of non IE Steppe admixed BBs. And both could have happened too.
Lusitanian looks like a BBs linguistic heritage. It is pre-Celtic and probably from a side branch of Italo-Celtic. So if BBs imported proto-Lusitanian in Iberia, is it parsimonious to make them also speakers of proto-Aquitanian or proto-Iberian? Especially if those societies didn’t change to adopt BBs cultural traits as patrilocality?
I think it is premature to conclude that BBs diffused non IE languages and cultures.
@Wood: I know that modern Basques are not 100 percent R1b, yes, but early BB newcomers were and in Basques, after all those centuries, little changed.
They are a living proof for the argument.
Of course you are right about the Bronze Age non-IE Iberians, but the Basques continuity is to me the most impressive and indisputable argument on this matter.
I completely agree however, one should argue more careful to not open up holes for unjustified criticism on an otherwise clear cut case.
@Wood: Concerning matrilocality:
How do you know the ancestors of the Basques were matrilocal?
So far all we have from BB points to patrilocality and I doubt any short time change in the given context.
On the long run marriage locality can change, so you can't necessarily conclude from more recently times to ancient customs.
@Zardos
It is not Basques who were matrilocal. A large part of Aquitaine around the Pyrénées area were as well. Béarn is well known for its tradition of matrilocality. Strabo about Cantabrians is making a reference about matrilocality.
Therefore we can say that matrilocality is very old in Northern Spain.
@Dragos - "Go ahead and point out one DNA analysed and carbon dated individual from west of the Rhine with a BB set that isnt from of CE / R1b/steppe"
BK_Hungary_Sfu, BK_France_Heg, BK_Italy_Gui1, BK_Italy_Per, BK_Portugal_POR, BK_SpainMAD1, BK_Spain_Cer.
Some of these multiple burials.
Enjoy.
But we have no accounts for BB times and no matrilocality can explain the issue under the given circumstances.
Nevertheless it would be worth to investigate the locality in Iberia, because if different BB groups had different customs in this important behaviour, it is significant.
Ideally they should use combined genetic and isotopic testing in future studies.
If the Iberian BB would be matrilocal, what I doubt, but British, Northern and Central European not, that would be of interest.
In any case, the initial impact was too big in Iberia.
Before the Spanish data, Basque and the other non-IE languages of Iberia coming from the Neolithic was the simplest explanation. Now that we know these people had strong steppe admixture and 100% R1b from the Bronze age, although their descendants are non-IE, everything is open again.
I also have a very hard time understanding how a culture could have lost all its male lineages while conserving its language. So pre-Vasconic, pre-Iberian and pre-Tartessian (being one language that diversifies later, or multiple languages) probably came to Iberia with the Central European Bell Beakers.
One hypothesis could be that the steppe ancestors of CWC were multi-lingual, having both IE and non-IE dialects. The Army of Attila had turkic, germanic and iranian speaking people in it.
One other possible source of non-IE steppe could be in the genesis of the Central European Beakers. They could be a fusion of Western Bell Beaker religious ideas, steppe people and local neolithic genetics and local R1b lineages.
I know from unpublished sources that France is going to be the same story as Spain: sudden R1b replacement of all male lineages in the Bronze age. And I'm ready to bet Terramare, the predecessors of non IE-Etruscans are going to be just as steppe -rich as the rest of Western Europe.
Before the Spanish data, Basque and the other non-IE languages of Iberia coming from the Neolithic was the simplest explanation. Now that we know these people had strong steppe admixture and 100% R1b from the Bronze age, although their descendants are non-IE, everything is open again.
[...]
One hypothesis could be that the steppe ancestors of CWC were multi-lingual, having both IE and non-IE dialects. The Army of Attila had turkic, germanic and iranian speaking people in it.
That can't be a very serious hypothesis. There's almost a thousand years between the spread of steppe genes from the steppe and their arrival in Iberia. The notion that they traveled together for that long in the same material and genetic bundle while somehow maintaining linguistic separateness that ONLY manifests in Iberia at the far western extreme of their migration (until the Age of Exploration) is more preposterous than the idea that invading men picked up the language of the locals while eventually replacing all of their Y-DNA lineages.
@AWood
I never said that they went alone somewhere. Unless we have more SNP data, the Celtiberian I2a1a1 could have easily come with the Hallstatt Celts and the original I2a1a1 in Iberia was nearly wiped out. When you look at modern Iberian M26 quite a big proportion falls under one clade with a TMRCA of 3100 ybp per YFull and the upstream branches seem to be german.
@Zardos
BBs are unlikely to have been matrilocal. But at least some French and Iberian local cultures were very likely matrilocal at the time of BBs. The point is therefore how interacted BBs and locals, as BBs were not present everywhere.
As a matter of fact, we have only a handful of BBs sites in Aquitaine. Often, we have « pockets » of BBs in a territory with other sites not belonging to BBs or with only a limited number of BBs artefacts. We have therefore often coexistence of « pure » BBs sites with « mixed » BBs sites, the later probably from local origin. Read Lemercier about this. A possible explanation would be that locals « bought » BBs products.
CWC will not be the key. My guess is another steppe group took a route south of the CW territory and finally met with CW after a clockwise movement in Western Europe.
I was sceptical of BB being simply a CW offshot, but recent results kept it open.
Yet I'm very sceptical again. After all BB are significantly less steppe derived than Yamnaya and CW, we have no proven IE speakers of direct BB derivation, but now various non-IE ones.
Even if R1b came direct ly from the steppe and the carriers were originally IE speakers, a lot could happen on their way West.
Iberia however is too late for the language shift. France also it seems.
I've just been reading Forni's 2013 article in which he argues that Basque is an Indo-European language. He shows that a case can be made that it is descended from an I-E language closest to Italo-Celtic.
https://www.academia.edu/3801960/Evidence_for_Basque_as_an_Indo-European_Language_EXCERPT_
It's not the most pursuasive of articles but neither is Koch's criticism of it and it does show that a case can be made.
@Folker: I know that from other regions, its always the same with BB.
It is good to note, but it doesnt change the fundamentals.
Still non-IE are overwhelmingly R1b and Basques the purest Iberian Beakers.
There is no space for another interaction than BB finishing off local males and their descendents being Basques. There can have been no language transfer from the vanquished.
@Jool
Thank you about your « spoiler ». Even if I am not agree with you about how to interpret data, it is also my guess that Etruscans will very likely be R1b in numbers with noticeable level of Steppe admixture.
@Zardos
In a matrilocal society, it is the language of the mother which matter. And we know that the mothers were from local origin.
Your point would stand if BBs society imposed itself all over the place. But it was not the case. Some cultural traits did, others didn’t.
And you have no explanation for Lusitanian either.
The matrilocal society needs to stay intact and make the rules for that to work out. Does 100 percent replacement sounds like anything could be intact afterwards unless the newcomers wanted so?
No. And Basques are so important because they leave so little space for alternatives.
Lusitanian is a later problem.
A hypothesis consistent with Davidski’s proposal that the steppe rich R1b immigrants to Iberia were not Indo-European speaking:
Civil war in Corded Ware Horizon with a hybrid character:
part intra-steppe-elite faction hostilities, part resistence from below out of the pre-steppe demographic substrate which itself has
acquired elements of steppe culture and genes.
Basically low-ranking steppe “sons” siding with their pre-steppe mothers (and retaining their language, but acquiring elements of
steppe patriarchal ideology) against their higher-ranking “brothers” wich have both steppe fathers and steppe mothers (or at least
more of the senior matrilines with stroner steppe connections) . This brothers/status lineages groups conflict gets entangled with
intra-elite conflict fault lines between high-ranking steppe groups, and thus some factions in high elite get allies with the resistence
from below and over time they too revert to the older pre-steppe language(s). (Perhaps CW were multilingual but with some dialect
of PIE as lingua franca and high status elite language)
And some of these then take the lead and make up the greater part of the groups that migrate to the southwest into Iberia, taking
with them R1b, high steppe autosomal dna and a hybrid culture which is mostly steppe-derived but also retaining pre-steppe
elements, most crucially the pre-steppe languages.
@Zardos
Lusitanian is not a later problem as it is not linked with later migration, nor a Celtic language.
Again, we know from Greeks that some cultures in Iberia were matrilocal during IA. There is no reason to believe it was not already the case before. You have nothing against it.
And it was not a 100% replacement. Nobody is believing that. An huge impact, with massive replacement by male migrants, for sure. But it is very unlikely it took place in a single event, and homogeneization took several centuries. As pointed by Olalde: there is coexistence of Steppe-rich groups with locals. The exact process of homogeneization requiers more research.
By the way, if BBs imported non IE languages in Iberia, it would only point the difficulty to France, where those BBs were very likely from. And to which LN culture they were given their specific admixture and probably language. Horgen? SOM?
@Aaron Wood- "To this point, no M269+ have been found in Europe prior to 2500 BC or thereabouts. That's still very meaningful, I suspect the answer lies in the northern Balkans around 3000 BC where L51*/L11* will be found"
To this point, the only thing that is true is that from the Gimbutas theory, the only thing left are ashes. There is no L51 / P312 in any culture of the steppes, the BB culture originated in Iberia, there were no invasions or conquests and in addition not even R1b-P312 spoke Indo-European in Iberia. Maybe it's time to stop thinking about the steppes and look more at Western Europe.
You should stop saying nonsense about Basques because you have no idea what you're saying.
@ RL48MAN
I do not argue that the Celtiberian I2a1a1a (I3759) belongs to an Iberia-specific I-L158 clade. It is more probable that it does not. In addition to one Hungarian Bell Beaker (I2741) – if we exclude the Iberian samples – I2a1a1a has also been detected in the Baden culture (3600–2800 BC) in Hungary (I2753) and in Sintashta (I1003) (2100–1800 BCE). The Basque I2a1a1a could also be in part from the Celts if I2a1a1a turns out to be an important y line in Celtiberians.
Does anyone know the Basque I2a1 haplotypes in more detail? It would be very informative in order to determine the age and importance of I2a1 in Basques.
Diego Arroyo de Lagasca Encinas said..."the BB culture originated in Iberia"
Which part of the Bell Beaker culture originated in Iberia exactly?
@epoch:
"It made me think. If there already was a warrior culture developing in pre-steppe BB Spain and this burial is indicative for warriors (princes, kings, warlords) did have such large harems, think what would happen if one IE speaking invader that takes the place of such a local prince would father children in a harem of 20 brides. His language would have been absolutely a minority but all his children would have 50% steppe admixture."
Again, too late to a thread, but here goes my one-reply-per-thread self-imposed quota: It does not matter if one steppe guy had a thousand wives or a thousand steppe guys had one wife each, as long as there was a single generation male-replacement by some "steppe clan" with relative endogamy henceforth, the steppe admixture would remain ~50%. You need multiple generations (and hence a not-quite-so-violent replacement story) to explain lower autosomal steppe levels IF you are to assume that the particular Y-DNA indeed must have been brought from the steppe...
On an independent note, I just cannot comprehend why it is so difficult for people to understand the multi-lingual conglomeration approach to "steppe" explanations. Given that more recent historic variations of steppe nomads are known to have been multi-lingual (and multi-ethnic) conglomerates -- something that most likely proved to their advantage -- why in the hell could that not have been the case in earlier iterations of "steppe people"...
As long as people remain attached to notions of Indo-European "purity" (whether that be linguistic or genetic), they will be blocked from seeing the probabilities clearly...
@Richard Rocca "Which part of the Bell Beaker culture originated in Iberia exactly?"
He has been banging on this same drum for over a year now. Basically it's an old, now obsolete, now disproven, now debunked theory. No credible scientist believes that BB originated in Iberia. I, for one, didn't even believe in it 5 YEARS AGO! Diego probably uses old Wikipedia sources to quote this hogwash.
If you noticed, he posts and reposts:
1. Basques are descendants of El Miron/La Brana HG.
2. BB originated in Iberia.
@MomofZoha "On an independent note, I just cannot comprehend why it is so difficult for people to understand the multi-lingual conglomeration approach to "steppe" explanations. Given that more recent historic variations of steppe nomads are known to have been multi-lingual (and multi-ethnic) conglomerates -- something that most likely proved to their advantage -- why in the hell could that not have been the case in earlier iterations of "steppe people"..."
Who do you think were the first speakers of PIE language?
@Kristiina Do you think Basque is a non-IE HG (WHG) language or a non-IE EEF language?
On an independent note, I just cannot comprehend why it is so difficult for people to understand the multi-lingual conglomeration approach to "steppe" explanations. Given that more recent historic variations of steppe nomads are known to have been multi-lingual (and multi-ethnic) conglomerates -- something that most likely proved to their advantage -- why in the hell could that not have been the case in earlier iterations of "steppe people"...
As long as people remain attached to notions of Indo-European "purity" (whether that be linguistic or genetic), they will be blocked from seeing the probabilities clearly...
That's a straw man. It has nothing to do with "purity" and everything to do with time depth. Multilingual and multiethnic conglomerates are fundamentally unstable and will homogenize over a relatively short time depth. The time depth from the expansion out of the steppes to the expansion into Iberia is almost a thousand years. To presume that a society managed to be genetically homogeneous and homogeneous with regards to material culture, but linguistically segregated for 1,000 years is the least plausible option being proposed.
Only if you assume CW and BB lineages migrated together. It is no problem any more if you assume they sat somewhere around the Carpathians or whereever, moved in South of CW and were cultivated by Western Beakers on their way at some point, before hitting CW in the North. Such a clan might have been from the steppe, or not, but could have steppe admixture and influences regardless of language.
I'm not saying that is THE single best explanation for sure, but its an option if those R1b lineages for Western BB came from the steppe.
As for those harem, political dominance and social advantage theories without mass killings, massacres and violent stuff, well, no, people don't accept such rule peacefully and even then, the numbers are simply too fast too high. You don't get there with elite dominance in a couple of generations and you surely don't virtually extinct the male lineages by social factors, matrilocality or whatever, you have to cut the locals down. Thats the only way to reach such percentages in a short period of time.
And the way it happened left no space for sophisticated language transfers. The less than 50 percent are not for sure, as you don't know the average of the incoming BB, which might have been already admixed from related people in France - for that the study on France should be informative.
Also, they might have went on round for round, which means they brought in some females of their own, which seems to be the case, but after every major conquest, the females were distributed among them, resulting in a lowering steppe percentage.
This way some newcomers from the North might be "more steppic", whereas some local clan members would have lower and lower percentages without a single local male being allowed in their community. Since their contribution seems to minimum 40 percent, not many such admixture events being needed. They are close to 50 percent.
And whether some locals were kept alives as slaves or scouts or whatever, that doesn't change the big picture. There was no cultural interaction worth to be noticed for a language shift.
Only if you assume CW and BB lineages migrated together. It is no problem any more if you assume they sat somewhere around the Carpathians or whereever, moved in South of CW and were cultivated by Western Beakers on their way at some point, before hitting CW in the North. Such a clan might have been from the steppe, or not, but could have steppe admixture and influences regardless of language.
What evidence of this split migration and Carpathian camping is there? Bell Beakers chart on a PCA overlapping CWC with some minor Neolithic Farmer-like drift, and the expansion into Iberia comes from the Dutch and German Bell Beaker area, which is geographically located within the territory of the CWC. So yea; I do assume that the Bell Beakers are derived from the CWC, and see no compelling reason to entertain any other interpretation.
These genetic profile of Northern Beakers is the only reason I ever considered BB steppe being an offshot of CWC, I never did so before. But even the genetic evidence is far from absolute by now, we don't have the necessary R1b genealogy and migratory path.
Also, the Northern Beakers are one thing, whether they were really the first R1b and steppe derived people adopting BBC is another question which has to be answered separately.
These are all just scenarios for me, some more, some less likely. But language shift in Iberia is one of the less likely scenarios right now.
|OT| -
Davidski
Pinarbasi paper formally put. Hopefully genome data will become available?
Whether you did so before or not, the PCAs are what they are. Northern Bell Beakers are CWC people with a bit more farmer drift. And Northern Bell Beakers are the source of the invasion into Iberia. And scenarios that align genetic, archaeological and linguistic evidence are the ones that are the most likely. Any scenario that ignores the close genetic relatedness of northern Bell Beakers and the CWC and proposes a genetically and archaeologically invisible connection to the Carpathians or some other staging area that ISN'T located within the western Corded Ware horizon merely to solve a lingusitic problem that is only a problem because of your dogmatic insistence that Y-DNA replacement HAS to mean linguistic replacement, in spite of numerous similar scenarios through history that show that it does not, is a case of the tail wagging the dog.
I've already pointed out the Normans to you, which you dismissed because not every last Frankish peasant man was killed, but then again, you can hardly say that definitively about whatever pre-Bell Beaker cultures provided men in Iberia too. All you can say is that with the samples sampled, all of them are steppe Y-DNA lineages closely affiliated with the northern Bell Beakers. Most likely many of them were killed. Most likely many of them were not, but social pressures or other issues caused their descendants to wane over time and the steppe Y-DNA lineages to thrive and prosper.
There are all kinds of easily plausible scenarios in that situation where a segment of the population, especially one isolated in the Pyrenees, would adopt the local language even with significant Y-DNA replacement. Your rejection of any of those scenarios because you can't see past the Y-DNA lineages has led you to propose what seem to me to be very tortuous just-so stories that have no evidence to back them up.
I have found interesting references about the three BB burials of El Hundido, two of which Olalde has analyzed. There are 3 men of 45, 50 and 55 years old, very tall for the time (1.83 meters and 1.76 meters) brachycephalic, with evident signs of intense effort in both upper and lower extremities, Achilles tendon evidence long walks in rugged and mountainous areas (then we also have to forget about horses).
Regarding the grave goods, the typical Ciempozuelos pottery has been found (it has only been found in Iberia), but, here comes the interesting thing- The Palmela spearhead found in the grave (which is also typical of the Iberian Peninsula) has similarities in the form with BB daggers found in Brittany, and the bone button V perforated, presents similarities with others found in Bohemia-Moravia. The dates are valid for the two tombs analyzed because one was also intact, that is, before 2,400 BC, one in 2,434, the other a few years later. Their mitochondrial haplogroups are typically Iberian, but we can be in the presence of a first generation of French migrants, for the mixture of Iberian pottery and perhaps copper of Brittany. The connection with Brittany both by sea and land is evident in many Spanish sites (Galicia, Basque Country, Navarra, La Rioja and Burgos).
The focus of expansion of R1b-P312 may not be the Alps or the Netherlands but Brittany, which is close to the British Isles and Galicia.
Show me any case in which more than 60 percent of the male lineages were replaced in a short period of time and a total input of at least 40 percent which resulted in no language shift.
If you quote the Normans, you are on the wrong track, because their impact was low and they adapted to the environment they met. The BB on the other hand conquered the whole of Iberia in a short period of time and replaced virtually all males. They came in with some womensfolk too and only took local females as they advanced. That is no scenario in which "mothers teach their sons their culture", that's nonsense.
So they came in, most likely killed fathers, brothers and old people, let only a few survive other than the young females, came in with their complete package, in patrilinear clans and with some womensfolk, but they chose to adopt the local culture and language? In which world?
If the scenario in Copper Age-Bronze Age Iberia isn't enough, with a nearly 100 percent short time replacement by patrilinear clans, what is enough?
That is the ideal scenario for a language shift in the direction of the newcomers and surely not for an assimilation of the new elite, like in Western Francia, Normandy, Norman England or China.
We deal with a brutal conquest and a mass colonisation which resulted throughout history always in a new new ethnos dominated by the conquerors.
Actually it is much, much more extreme than most examples of a similar kind which resulted in a language shift in favour of the conquerors. I always favoured demographic change and replacement scenarios, but even I was surprised that the replacement numbers were so high in Britain and Iberia. That was really unexpected. They acted genocidal in an organised attempt to errase the local lineages and traditions and there is no way around the newcomers dictating culture and language. They might have taken up this or that custom, some items and knowledge from the local women they took, over time, but surely not the language, no way.
As for the BB in the North: Fine, you have the "Dutch Beaker", but how did they come up and which intermediaries were there between them and the SW Iberian Beakers which seem to have transmitted the original BB culture?
You don't know the migratory path of R1b into Western Europe, you don't have the exact same component in CW. There are many scenarios for how the Western BB could come up and what's there is not sufficient to make a definitive conclusion about the "steppe BB" origins. Just wait and see, but I highly doubt for a variety of reasons they are a simple offshot of CW.
Yet for Iberia that matters little, because whatever caused the language shift for Iberian Beakers, it almost certainly happened North of the Pyrenees anyway.
"Basque and very likeky Aquitanians did have a matrilocal, matrilineal society (the "house system" in which a man marry in another family and take the "House name" when he went to live in the bride family)."
"Also, one thing that people aren't talking about much is the elevated steppe ancestry in the R1b samples from the Greek colony. They look like recent Celtic migrants from somewhere to the northeast, rather than native Iberians with local Beaker-derived steppe ancestry."
Carthage used to hire Celtic mercenaries - did the Greek colonies?
Well is that not interesting. :)
Villalba-Mouco et al. 2019 (Current Biology)
"Interestingly, CHA002 was assigned to haplogroup R1b-M343, which together with an EN individual from Cova de Els Trocs (R1b1a) confirms the presence of R1b in Western Europe prior to the expansion of steppe pastoralists..."
and El miron or Goyet Q-2 ancestry found to have expanded all the way to Eastern Europe/Poland in ... "We note the presence of Goyet Q-2 ancestry in MN Trocs, where this ancestry was not observed during the EN, but importantly also in MN individuals from France and Globular Amphora from Poland."
So maybe R1b for BB actually originated in western europe??? With an expansion all the way into Samarra??
May explain the R1b in so many non-IE attested speakers???
@Grey "Carthage used to hire Celtic mercenaries - did the Greek colonies?"
Looking further back to the Bronze Age and what you don't see in Iberia, Naue ii swords, which are found from S. England to Scandinavia to all over Central Europe to the Aegean/East Med and even Ugarit/Levant and Egypt. They have been associated with mercenaries in some papers, but whoever was hiring, they didn't seem to go to Iberia.
See map at pp. 364 and 374:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0079497X15000171
Also:
https://www.academia.edu/21306979/The_Dissemination_of_Naue_II_swords_-_a_Case_Study_on_Long-distance_Mobility
^^This despite the fact that Iberia was a major source of copper for the other regions...
@Dave
ty
@Zardos
I wouldn't get too dogmatic about things at this stage. I think this is a realistic model, perhaps more realistic than the genocide of Iberian males...
- Copper Age Iberian societies steadily import high status males from the Bell Beaker culture, perhaps as part of a political process or even cultural trend
- the foreign males integrate into the native cultures and adopt the languages of their brides, who are usually derived from local power groups
- their paternal lineages are very successful because they're carried by males from wealthy, high status homes, and eventually completely dominate the Y-chromosome gene pool
Here's an interesting quote from Olalde et al. 2019...
These patterns point to a higher contribution of incoming males than females, also supported by a lower proportion of nonlocal ancestry on the X-chromosome (table S14 and fig. S7), a paradigm that can be exemplified by a Bronze Age tomb from Castillejo del Bonete containing a male with Steppe ancestry and a female with ancestry similar to Copper Age Iberians.
Of course, this is still a somewhat unusual and complicated explanation, considering that we're dealing here with the Iberian peninsula, rather that, say, a small island in the Pacific Ocean.
A much simpler, although not necessarily correct, explanation would be that the expansions from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, or at least Bell Beaker populations, were multi-lingual, and Iberia was by and large colonized by Proto-Iberian and Proto-Basque speakers during the Copper Age.
@Lee Albee
It's been known for a while that R1b-V88 was present in Western Europe long before the expansions from the steppe.
Of course R1b-V88 is phylogenetically very distant from the Yamnaya R1b-Z2103, while R1b-L51 is very close, and there's no R1b-L51 in Western Europe before the tail end of the Copper Age.
I am agnostic over the correct narrative, but I think that if Basque is EEF the narrative runs roughly like this:
1. Steppe pre-BB have relatively advanced metallurgy and learn of stunningly great tin supplies in Tartessia via Mediterranean trade routes. (FWIW, I think Tartessia is the best candidate for Atlantis too.)
2. There is a small, first wave of Steppe pre-BB men who migrate to Tartessia (which is the archaeolgical epicenter of BB culture. They integrate into a quite advanced local culture, marry local women and rise to the top based upon their skills and culture, adopting their wives' EEF languages in a 95% non-BB society. Their skills and cultural influence transforms and revitalizes local culture. (Compare the Eastern Roman Empire where the Roman invaders began to speak Greek.)
3. Chain migration from the steppe follows and the new BB synthesis spread culturally to both new migrants who are integrated into pre-Basque culture (a hybrid of EEF and steppe pre-BB), and those who are not, outside Iberia.
4. The ongoing steppe migration leads to a war-like world with lots of fortresses arising in Portugal and the less advanced non-BB influenced locals being wiped out first, while the BB lineages dominate in the hybrid culture.
5. BB derived cultures go from Portugal to France and then eventually circle back to modern Basque country.
6. At the time of Bronze Age collapse, the BB derived cultures collapse in the face of Urnfield and later IE migration, but this is hard to see genetically because the conquerers and the conquered are genetically similar and the change is mostly due to elite dominance and not mass migration, wiping out Vasconic areas linguistically in many places.
OTOH, I think that a multi-lingual steppe with a basically Northern IE and a basically Southern pre-BB is plausible since the R1a v. R1b sorting is strong enough geographically to suggest an invisible language divide keeping them from seeping into each other more with the pre-BB, non-IE folk eventually collapsing in the steppe in the face of a CWC derived invasion that makes R1b disappear from the region. If so, Basque is a distant relative of some Caucasian language.
@synome, that's a nice study, though largely telling us what we already know; whenever individuals disperse for marriage (male or female), they'll usually switch to the language of the community they're joining and the children will speak that language, whichever the "dispersing sex". it would be rare for that rule to be flouted I'd guess. It seem like it doesn't tell us really too much about these situations of major sex biased mass migration though, where males were the "dispersing sex" but not really as individuals...
@steinh04: "Civil war in Corded Ware Horizon ... Basically low-ranking steppe “sons” siding with their pre-steppe mothers (and retaining their language, but acquiring elements ofsteppe patriarchal ideology) against their higher-ranking “brothers” wich have both steppe fathers and steppe mothers " - I don't know about this (this hierarchy of "rank" being present), but these are very feuding cultures, so it would not be too surprising to me if some element of cultures might intentionally adopt another language to highlight their differences (for instance).
@Matt
It seem like it doesn't tell us really too much about these situations of major sex biased mass migration though, where males were the "dispersing sex" but not really as individuals.
Yeah, this is actually the main problem for the scenario that I outlined for Zardos above.
https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2019/03/open-thread-what-are-linguistic.html?showComment=1553031086643#c5380347799929676318
@Zardos.
Yes and then those same Normans conquered England, gave up French and shifted to English
@Urki
I honestly can't see too many parallels between the migration of Bell Beakers into Iberia and the Norman invasions of France and England.
The Bell Beakers moved into Iberia in relatively large numbers and had a massive impact on the genetics of the region. The Normans didn't do that in France or England.
@Davidski
"The Bell Beakers moved into Iberia in relatively large numbers and had a massive impact on the genetics of the region. The Normans didn't do that in France or England."
But when? If the BB started small and assimilated, and then came in large numbers, the vanguard could have adopted an EEF language and then assimilated later BB arrivals. The example of Romans who ended up speaking Greek in the Eastern Roman Empire is a better analogy.
@andrew
Take a look at Figure 2B here...
https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/2019_Olalde_Science_IberiaTransect.pdf
The genetic impact of the Bell Beaker and related migrations from the east was very significant from the start, and caused the local Y-chromosome lineages to basically vanish in maybe less than 500 years.
Based on the available data, this process looks like a wavefront that eases somewhat with time, but continues at a significant rate into the Iron Age.
I can't see anything gradual there. It's all very sudden.
Is the steppe mtDNA in Iberia mostly due to later Celtic migrations?
@David: Yes I sometimes write dogmatic on the issue, but that case is closed, there is no other explanation. Men don't just disappear. The locals don't just stop reproducing in the face of new elites, unless the elite kills, castrates or enslaves them. That some sort of elite dominance results in the disapperance of a male population without violence and killings doesn't happen. In the course of many generations, successful elites could begin to dominate a population, yes, but not the way it happened, not that much, not that fast. Nearly 100 percent and to this day the fingerprint of the
And in situations where there was no genocidal campaign, you always end up with more pre-conquest local lineages. It makes no sense, no sense at all. That they took the local females makes the case even more compelling, because otherwise you could argue that they sought refuge or whatever and steppe BB led them live.
But that is not the case. They took everything, they took it with force, and they didn't let the local males escape. That's how it was in Britain, thats how it was in Iberia.
The numbers don't add up otherwise, no additional data needed. The result speaks for itself and any explanation based on slow and peaceful change can be just cosmetic. We have now two major cases of the same people, steppe BB, eradicating all competing male lineages in a greater region. I mean, the British Isles and Iberia, that is no small island, no secluded valley, that's a huge and diverse landscape. That was a campaign, an organised and consequent invasion. Most likely they knew the country and its people very well.
What's even more intriguing is that most of the non-BB R1b variation seems to come from refuges and later migrants to Iberia. With the lowest numbers in the Basque country, in which BB ancestry is the most dominant.
Look at haplogroups from the pre-steppe BB era in modern Iberia, what is left. And it happened in such a short time period.
"- Copper Age Iberian societies steadily import high status males from the Bell Beaker culture, perhaps as part of a political process or even cultural trend
- the foreign males integrate into the native cultures and adopt the languages of their brides, who are usually derived from local power groups"
Ok, lets assume that happened. But where is step two, how can they make local lineages disappear? I tell you how, even if that happened, if they "imported males" (who did that, importing males for their status?), they did so for a real reason.
Maybe as mercenaries?
And you know how that could have ended. Some mercenaries come home and can report of how weak but wealthy the Iberians are. That the land is rich and the girls are beautiful or whatever. The next thing that happens is they come back with all their brothers, cousins of all grades and tribal allies. They will prefer to take what they want rather than being paid by the weak masters.
That's what happened over and over again.
But never could there have been a constant flow of peacefully integrating males until they reach nearly 100 percent of all male lineages without changing the language, even less so in such a short time span. If there is a shift in male lineages, there is a reason and a short term reason is usually war and the killing of the others. Anything else needs a lot more time and won't be so complete.
The local lineages go from 100 percent to under 10, the newcomers from 0 to more than 90 in which time span? Men don't give their land away for free, nor their women or goods. They don't disappear, they don't stop reproducing if they have a choice.
Not in ancient times and not the cultures we are dealing with.
@ Davidski
https://www.academia.edu/38336128/Formation_of_the_Indo-European_branches_in_the_light_of_the_Archaeogenetic_Revolution
John T. Koch
Draft [19-iii-2019] of paper read at the conference ‘Genes, Isotopes and Artefacts. How should we interpret the movement of people throughout Bronze Age Europe?’ Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 13–14 December 2018
Slides from the presentation:
https://www.academia.edu/38220415/Formation_of_the_Indo-European_Branches_in_the_light_of_the_Archaeogenetic_Revolution
Although he presents a "classic" view that Basque is related to EEF and Celtic was spread by BBC (I wonder if his view would change if he had read this discussion), parts dealing with IE-Basque interactions resulting in the Celtic branch are pretty interesting.
The recurring idea (= emerging consensus?) of Celtic as Indo-European on an Iberian and/or Aquitanian/Palaeo-Basque substrate
LANGUAGE:
In separating from Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Celtic developed new features found also in Palaeo-Basque
Here's another intriguing resource I found that pertains to the kinship system that may have predominated in parts of Iberia: The so called "House system". https://www.academia.edu/30005756/House_Societies_in_the_Ancient_Mediterranean_2000_500_BC_
The main thrust is that the basic unit of social organization in this system is not the male patrilineal clan, as in most pastoral societies--but rather the house dwelling, where rules of descent and inheritance are bilateral and there is often uxorilocality. This means men move into the houses of their brides. The rules are set up to preserve the integrity of the house and the wealth of the family that dwells in it. Think of medieval castles and marriage alliances.
A key point is that these types of societies may have been common in the Mediterranean from the Bronze Age through the Iron Age, right around the time period under discussion. It also might suggest why we see a similar disruption of the typical steppe replacement and dominance scenario we've come to expect from looking at northern and central Europe when we look at different areas of southern Europe. The incoming Beakers may have succeeded in dominating society in Iberia, but by coopting the existing social system rather than imposing their own. With this may have come adoption of the local language(s).
@Synome
The incoming Beakers may have succeeded in dominating society in Iberia, but by coopting the existing social system rather than imposing their own. With this may have come adoption of the local language(s).
The suddenness, scale and character of the genetic change in Copper Age Iberia makes it difficult for me to see this as a two-way cultural process and exchange.
It really comes across as something remarkeably one sided, in which the survival of native languages seems unusual and unlikely.
Diego
''ou have to take into account an important factor, absolutely ALL the objects of the BB package existed in Iberia at the beginning of the BB culture, wristguards, pottery (all styles), tanged copper daggers, ivory buttons, boar's tusk, etc''
You repeating this error 100 times won;t make it true
@ Davidski
''Well, it's deeply ironic that out of the tens of male samples in this paper the only Iberian Indo-European speaker belongs to I2a1. And, as far as I can tell, there's not a single R1b-L51 from an attested Indo-European speaking site.
I never would've picked that one. I never would've believed it if someone leaked it to me before the paper came out.''
Well , some people had been predicting this for years. Anyway, lets move forward to some of the current points.
Some of the ''resident linguists'' above (not Kristiina of course) here are divorced from the scientific facts which surround our scenario, much like Koch's recent proposals.
E.g. I saw '1. Steppe pre-BB have relatively advanced metallurgy and learn of stunningly great tin supplies in Tartessia via Mediterranean trade routes. (FWIW, I think Tartessia is the best candidate for Atlantis too.)
2. There is a small, first wave of Steppe pre-BB men who migrate to Tartessia (which is the archaeolgical epicenter of BB culture.
Point 1 is incorrect because pre-BB copper technology was no more advanced than anything present in central Europe, esp. around the Alpine foreland.
Point 2 is also incorrect. It's the comical reverse of the ''farmer wives'' theory. We now have the ''steppe hubands theory''.
For a start the earliest steppe -admixed individual is in fact a female (I0462, Burgos, northern Spain); date of 2566–2346 cal BCE (3950±26 BP, MAMS-25936). She is modelled as 77.1% Germany_Beaker.
Further he argues:
They integrate into a quite advanced local culture, marry local women and rise to the top based upon their skills and culture, adopting their wives' EEF languages in a 95% non-BB society. Their skills and cultural influence transforms and revitalizes local culture. (Compare the Eastern Roman Empire where the Roman invaders began to speak Greek.,
This is oncorrect. These people led to the halt of Los Millares, and a new society emerges. Theese did not replenish what was already a vibrant society,but they destroyed it.
Another interesting site from SE Iberia
Camino del Molino, Caravaca de la Cruz, Murcia .
Multiple pit burial near a settlement, with post-depositional manipulation (remains in chaotic positions). Equal proportion of Male & Female , young adults and old. > 50% have evidence of violent injury.
It is always more useful and rewarding when hypotheses are based on reality.
(I think I posted this on the wrong thread, so I'll post it here as well.)
Several ancient Iberians cluster with Basques:
The larger Basque-related clade on the Global25 Ward's distance-squared clustering tree
The complete Global25 Ward's distance-squared clustering tree (PDF)
First, I3758 clusters closely with Basques, and it's a very good candidate for a Vasconic speaker.
@Kristiina
It's not that I'm trying to turn I3758 into a Basque speaker, it's just that she clusters so closely with modern Basques, that she's virtually identical to them. She's also Iron Age, from 365–204 cal BCE, so there's a very good chance that she was already a Vasconic speaker.
A closely associated clade has I2478, a Beaker Italy North, and I12879 Iberia East Iron Age who cluster with modern Spanish Pais Vaco, French South, and French. Ancient Iberian is not thought to be a Vasconic language but these may be similar to ancient Iberian speakers, since they apparently were present in Southern France. Another possibility here is that they were Ligurian speakers. Ligurian was a divergent centum IE language.
Another group that clusters with Basques is EHU002 Iberia Central Copper Age with Steppe, and I3238 Iberia Northwest Copper Age with Steppe, and significantly, I7238, a Czech Beaker. The Chalcolithic is quite early for Steppe ancestry in in Iberia. Central and Northwest Iberia were not historically Vasconic, but rather Celtiberian. The interesting thing is that this kind of "Vasconic-mix" ancestry was also found far from Iberia too, in Czech Beaker.
I8339, Iberia Northeast Roman Period would seem to be yet another Vasconic speaker, and he clusters with Iberia Northeast 6th century CE.
Probably the most interesting thing in this clade is a group of ancient Iberians, I3324 Iberia East Iron Age, I8203, I8214, and I8209 Iberia Northeast Empuries 1 along with I3759 Iberia North Iron Age who cluster with I6582 and I6561, Beakers from Poland. There is something about these Polish Beakers that makes them cluster away from the other Beakers. This may be higher Globular Amphora ancestry than the others. Poland of course is even further away from Iberia than the Czech Republic.
@Dragos
I can't recall anyone making the bold prediction that samples from attested non-Indo-European Iron Age sites in Iberia would show steppe ancestry and essentially a 100% frequency of R1b-L51.
As far as I know, no one saw that coming.
The prediction made by the detractors of the steppe hypothesis was that R1b-L51 would be found in indigenous Mesolithic, Neolithic and/or Copper Age Iberian samples without any steppe ancestry.
That was obviously a bad prediction that has no chance of coming true.
Here are the Global25 runs for I3758, the Iberia North Iron Age from 365–204 cal BCE who clusters closely with Basques:
Bronze Age and earlier ancestry composition of sample: I3758 Population: Iberia_North_IA Iron Age Europe
I3758 has quite a bit of Steppe and other Beaker ancestry, including 14.0% Srubnaya. Nothing particularly Vasconic here.
However:
Chalcolithic and earlier ancestry composition of sample: I3758 Population: Iberia_North_IA Iron Age Europe
Here I3758 has 57.6% Iberia Southwest Chalcolithic / Scotland Neolithic with 3.8% Tisza Late Neolithic. His Steppe-related ancestry is actually just 18.6%.
Therefore, he has very high Iberian / British Isles Neolithic ancestry compared to Steppe ancestry.
It would seem that Vasconic speakers differ from regular Steppe-related Beakers in that they have very much elevated ancestry from the Neolithic of Atlantic fringe, the Megalithic cultures. This raises the question as to whether the Megalithic cultures of the Atlantic coast and British Isles were Vasconic-speaking.
So we are at proto-Basque/pre-Pict being descendants of western Beakers who were a mixed EEF/steppe population in France?
@Leron Picts were Celtic, similar to Bretons.
Who knows? Maybe the CHG in the Steppe spoke Proto-Basque and the EHG Steppe spoke Proto-IE?
@David - "I can't recall anyone making the bold prediction that samples from attested non-Indo-European Iron Age sites in Iberia would show steppe ancestry and essentially a 100% frequency of R1b-L51. As far as I know, no one saw that coming."
I thought it was pretty likely given modern R1b frequencies among Basques and the way Beaker folk washed over Europe like a plague elsewhere. I'm pretty sure at least Kriistina made this connection too. I'm surprised it surprised you to be honest.
I agree with Dragos' points.
"The suddenness, scale and character of the genetic change in Copper Age Iberia makes it difficult for me to see this as a two-way cultural process and exchange. It really comes across as something remarkeably one sided, in which the survival of native languages seems unusual and unlikely."
Isn't this true pretty much wherever we've found R1b-L51 so far though? It's not like we have an area where IE males were obviously assimilated by non-IE speakers in central/western Europe.
So our options are:
We are missing data from such a location (maybe somewhere a non-IE culture took over IE lands?)
Or R1b-L51 is from the steppe but the steppe was multilingual (I think this would be very hard to test for one way or the other).
Or R1b-L51 isn't from the steppe and the steppe ancestry in Beakers is maternal.
Do we have good enough data to check for sex bias with the X-chromosome yet? Like Mathieson did? I would use CWC as a donor population and see if the X chromosome has more or less CWC ancestry than the aDNA as a whole if you can.
Andrzejewski said...
@Leron Picts were Celtic, similar to Bretons.
Seems like it wasnt obvious for someone who actually made contact with them, because the Romans didnt think of the Picts as Celts, while Tacitus even makes a guess that Picts may be related to Germanic people (or to be exact, he estaminates them to be migrants from Germania, somewhen in the past), because they have the same looks.
Thinking about it, he disagrees with himself with this, because he said earlier in the book, that no other people looks even remotely like the Germans and one cant see the traces of other populations in their faces. (what made him the bold estamination that they are an isolate population that isnt admixed or had any other contact to other civilisations) and now he says, Picts look similiar.
Maybe it has something to do with population density. Maybe even giving daughters up to marry into numericaly strong tribes to form alliances. When looking at the population densities today, we see that Germany, Belgium, Britain and Poland have relatively high population densities compared to France and the Iberian Peninsula. So if this trend was the same during the Chalcolithic/Bronze Age then it would have made sense for tribes in France and Iberia to form alliances with tribes on the other side of the Rhine. We see several Tribes on both sides of the Rhine that probably were both Celtic/Germanic mixtures. This could have been the case during the Chalcolithic/Bronze Age also. In fact all major rivers from the Vistula to the Rhine could have had this kind of Braking effect with some admixture before the next expansion towards the West....
@Ryan
From memory, you've always argued that R1b-L51 wasn't originally associated with steppe ancestry, but became associated with it via admixture between its bearers and the Corded Ware people.
I don't think that'll work out for you in the long run.
And Kristiina's POV seems to be that R1b-L51 is originally from the Near East. Again, that seems unlikely to me.
@David - "From memory, you've always argued that R1b-L51 wasn't originally associated with steppe ancestry, but became associated with it via admixture between its bearers and the Corded Ware people."
Yes (though I equivocate more on that now), but that was on the basis that I don't see how you get overwhelming R1b-L51 people (Basques) without getting an overwhelmingly R1b-L51 language.
"And Kristiina's POV seems to be that R1b-L51 is originally from the Near East. Again, that seems unlikely to me."
I remember from the Beaker Behemoth Kristiina saying "so BB = Basque it looks like" or something along those lines. Maju has been saying that for years too (not that I agree with his entire theory there).
I'd add that the star-like phylogeny of R1b-L51 (and R1b-L23 to a lesser extent) suggests the expansion was very rapid and probably uh... "not nice" or not a two way exchange as you'd put it.
In some African Traditions the Bride Price can make a family very rich very soon when you have a daughter, comparing to having too many Sons which can make a family very poor very soon. Steppe people had a lot of cattle....Maybe in order to reap some benifit from the Cattle exchange and Higher Status that the Brides Family gained through this arangement the Husband maybe chose to join the Brides Family and maybe this is how R1b guys from across the Rhine attained higher status within the Neolithic/Chalcolithic tribes....
In some African Traditions the Last Born son inherits everything while the older ones had to do their own thing....So there could have been many ways for Steppe Males to take advantage of belief systems among the Neolithic/Chalcolithic peoples....
Ryan: Do we have good enough data to check for sex bias with the X-chromosome yet? Like Mathieson did? I would use CWC as a donor population and see if the X chromosome has more or less CWC ancestry than the aDNA as a whole if you can.
They're basically just running qpAdm on the X and autosome and then seeing what satsifies the following two equations:
X = 1/3 M + 2/3 F
A = 1/2 M + 1/2 F
Then the distribution in the supplement (https://imgur.com/a/jw5iDDE) is just this taking into account the range of X and A allowed by their error bars. (So if their qpAdm got about X=75% Iberia_CA, A=62.5% Iberia_CA, that leads to the 100% Iberia_CA Female, 25% Iberia_CA Male, that is the centre of the distribution in their summary, and the rest around it is adjusting for different proportions around standard error.)
I don't see why it should be not possible to do for British Beakers+CA as they have for Iberia_BA, or Central Europeans I guess (despite heterogenity). Using Corded Ware Germany might be a sticking point as there are not many, but using large set of Steppe+GAC Poland samples should be OK, and should still show a signal. Could even do it in modern populations.
Y dna can easily change his language with the elite assimilation mechanism. This is how all that R1a became Turkish speakers.
Too much concentration on the IE topic is bad for understanding how genetics and linguistics work.
One should look elsewhere too see what was happening in other parts of world.
From linguistic point of view it is practically impossible for the Uralic languages to have formed in North China thus to be connected to haplogroup N. Yet Uralic expansion has excellent correlation with haplogroup N.
If Dene Yenisseian theory is true then Yenisseian languages must be an East Asian language not a language of Afontova Gore. Thus the idea that any Q was speaking Yenisseian languages is wrong.
Not surprisingly the most common haplogroup of early Turkish speakers Huns was the Q. The reason for this is simple. Because it was the Q who learned the herding the first in East Eurasian steppe.
@Aram
Y dna can easily change his language with the elite assimilation mechanism. This is how all that R1a became Turkish speakers.
But that was the result of the invasions of Iranic-speaking regions by Turkic armies, not really the result of Iranic men taking up Turkic languages because they married Turkic women.
For those which still reach for straws to avoid the explanation by the mass killings of the males in Britain and Iberia for sure, but most likely throughout steppe BB territory:
Matrilocality, status, bought brides etc. explain nothing if the local males completely disappear in such short periods of time. That doesnt work out in reality, no matter how many twists you include in such a narrative.
In every other scenario there must be more local survivors. To deny genocidal actions in the case of Western steppe BB, not just in Iberia, is just a denial of reality.
Otherwise I completely agree with Ryan, these are the only realistic scenarios, but which one is true can be only speculate about with what we have right now.
Btw Basques are not unique. Sandawe an isolate in Africa has tons of ancestry from Bantu and Cushitic farmers. 75% of their Y dna is related to those groups. In most likelihood initially they were like Hadza a B haplogroup tribe but managed to survive after assimilated tons of foreign ancestry.Probably even more than Basques.
That is because there were farmer refugees, like in Northern America, which preferred to live as hunter gatherers and probably rapes or affairs by neighbouring tribes.
It is a completely different setting and of course, the change happened over a long period of time and there is a significant survival of the indigenous males.
Thats the problem ibn Iberia. You can have male migrants which assimilate to locals , but not these numbers and context.
But that was the result of the invasions of Iranic-speaking regions by Turkic armies
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From Xiongnu the proto Turkish homeland we have R1a and R1b and two cases of haplogroup O.
It is obvious that haplogroup O is not a proto Turkish so we are left with two West Eurasian markers.
So it is not so easy to figure out who were those initial Turkish armies who assimilated Iranian speakers. What is the initial haplogroup of Turks and what autosomal profile they had?
From linguistic point of view it is very unlikely that they are an East Asian language because they are very different from Sino Tibetans.
They are more connected to West Eurasian linguistic world yet initially they were 90% east asian. How that happened?
@ Davidski And Kristiina's POV seems to be that R1b-L51 is originally from the Near East. Again, that seems unlikely to me.
No, I do not think so. :) If Hajji Firuz had been an early R1b-269 in Iran, it would have been the oldest R1b-269 we have. If the original haplotype assignment was indeed correct and the sample is now defined as belonging to the Iron Age, there is currently no evidence for a West Asian origin of R1b-269.
My true opinion, which can of course change at any moment, is that R1b-M269 is from the area between the Balkans and North Caucasus.
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