A fresh batch of Iron Age genomes from across the Eurasian steppes is about to be published along with a new paper at
Current Biology. The manuscript, titled
Shifts in the Genetic Landscape of the Western Eurasian Steppe Associated with the Beginning and End of the Scythian Dominance, is still under review but freely available
here.
Most of the male ancients, including two Cimmerians from the North Pontic steppe, in what is now Ukraine, belong to Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a. Wasn't Conan the Barbarian supposed to be a Cimmerian? From the preprint, emphasis is mine:
The Early Iron Age nomadic Scythians have been described as a confederation of tribes of different origins, based on ancient DNA evidence [1-3]. It is still unclear how much of the Scythian dominance in the Eurasian Steppe was due to movements of people and how much reflected cultural diffusion and elite dominance. We present new whole-genome sequences of 31 ancient Western and Eastern Steppe individuals including Scythians as well as samples pre- and postdating them, allowing us to set the Scythians in a temporal context (in the Western/Ponto-Caspian Steppe). We detect an increase of eastern (Altaian) affinity along with a decrease in Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) ancestry in the Early Iron Age Ponto- Caspian gene pool at the start of the Scythian dominance. On the other hand, samples of the Chernyakhiv culture postdating the Scythians in Ukraine have a significantly higher proportion of Near Eastern ancestry than other samples of this study. Our results agree with the Gothic source of the Chernyakhiv culture and support the hypothesis that the Scythian dominance did involve a demic component.
...
Out of the 31 samples of this study, 16 are male, and with sufficient Y-chromosome coverage for haplogroup assignment (Table S2). R1a (43%) and I (27%) are the two most frequent Y- chromosome hgs in present-day Ukrainians [142]. R1a is also the predominant lineage among Cimmerians, Scy_Ukr and ScySar_SU in our data, and present among Scy_Kaz as well. Thus, although acknowledging our small sample size, the individuals sampled from archaeological context associated with Scythian identity do not appear to stand out from the context of other groups living in the region before and after them. One notable difference from the present is the absence of hg N, nowadays widespread in the Volga-Uralic region and West Siberia as well as among Mongols and Altaians [165-167]; however, this result is consistent with the absence of hg N among Bronze Age and Eneolithic males from the Steppe [168]. In context of their claimed Altaian homeland it is interesting to note that one Scy_Ukr and the single Sar_Cau sample belong to the Q1c-L332 lineage which is a sub-clade of hg Q1c-L330 that today has peak frequency of 68% in Western Mongolians [169] and occurs at 17% in South Altaians [170] while being very rare (<1%) in East European populations and absent elsewhere (https://www.yfull.com/tree/Q-L330/).
Järve et al.,
Shifts in the Genetic Landscape of the Western Eurasian Steppe Associated with the Beginning and End of the Scythian Dominance,
Current Biology (preprint), Posted: 6 Mar 2019, http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3346985
Update 12/07/2019: The paper has just been published and is freely available at
Current Biology [
LINK].
See also...
The mystery of the Sintashta people
On the association between Uralic expansions and Y-haplogroup N
Late PIE ground zero now obvious; location of PIE homeland still uncertain, but...
We need some data on Valeria, too.
ReplyDeleteHaha. Love the click-bait reference to Conan.
ReplyDeleteYeap catchy!!
DeleteBut the problem is that Conan the Cimmerian came from a merging of Atlanteans and very few Hyborians which make the Cimmerians in R.E. Howard's world.
According to Howard there where 3 ages of Earth. The Thurian, The Hyborian and the Aryan.
Each had mankind almost getting eclipsed and reemerging from the apes again.
The timeline is enormous of these 3 epochs and although humans from these different periods could mate and produce fertile offspring they were not corelated genetically!
The Thurian age saw the First Men among the Elder Races of other sentient creatures to rise.
They made the Thurian kingdoms like Valusia, Korala and others and declined When Atlantis from another continent came to power along with the Lemurians who were also from another continent.
Then after Atlantis became supreme an unnatural cataclysm came and destroyed humans.
Then the Hyborian age became where few Atlantean and Lemurian survivors moved to a new continent which was populated by Hyborians a totally different root of humans (less physically strong and not so advanced).
In the west the Atlanteans mingled with Hyborians and made the Cimmerians.
Thus if Conan's DNA was sampled it would have been very very "alien" compared to any that we know although still human!
Speak about the Denisovans again after that, ah?
Hahahaha!!!
The genome coverages in the Scythian paper are very low with many under 0.1 which means their results have a big margin of error. Thus everything should be taken with a grain of salt. In my experience it’s common to get odd results with these types of coverages.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it seems to me that they need to brush up on their skills using bioinformatic tools. For example, their fig S2 doesn't look good with Natufians and Levan-N having more East Eurasian admixture than the Iron and Bronze Age Central Asian genomes. Also, in the same figure modern Arabs show more East Asian admixture than Caucasians and East Europeans :)
Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of....
ReplyDeleteClearly Conan lived before the TMRCA of ~R1a-Z645.
Does the lack of I2A in the samples show that I2A was further west at this time?
ReplyDeleteInteresting that N is missing. N is suspected to be the lineage of the rurikid dynasty, wonder if the rise of the russian state is responsible for N's spread.
ReplyDeleteIs this the dataset that has the Q1 predictions, with a J2 and J1-P58 guy to boot? I'm not sure why the article mentions modern day people of Ukraine, or people from that region at any time, since it's quite clear from the data the Scythians aren't really from Europe. It looks like they were from closer to the Kazakh steppe + East Asian/Mongolian affinities and a bit from Iran or someplace like Azerbaijan if you look strictly at the Y haplogroups. All the I2 in Ukraine is from the Slavic people from modern times. As we know in ancient times, Ukraine is closer to the haplogroups in western Europe today, lots of I2-M223 and R1b.
ReplyDeleteThe Slavic settlement of the North Pontic steppe, which almost entirely pushed out the steppe nomads from the region, was actually something of a back migration.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, the Sredny Stog II sample from Eneolithic eastern Ukraine is very similar to modern Ukrainians, and lacks the East Asian admix that is present in the ancient Cimmerians, Scythians and Turks of the steppe.
And keep in mind that there was a lot of I2 on the North Pontic steppe before the Iron Age.
Basically, what happened was that the Proto-Balto-Slavs migrated from the steppe into the forest steppe and forests north of the steppe, then a subset of them became Slavs and expanded across most of Eastern Europe, and eventually some of them became Ukrainians and southern Russians.
By the way, it's a bummer that the three Chernyakhiv culture samples in this paper are all females. It would've been nice to see some Y-haplogroups from this (Gothic?) population.
Sredny Stog II was similar to modern Ukrainians, but who were SS I? Neolithic Farmers rather than a Steppe-like population?
ReplyDeleteThat the "Gothic" population has an increase of Near Eastern markers at the expense of EHG ones was a very big surprise for me.
@Andrzejewski
ReplyDeleteSredny Stog II was similar to modern Ukrainians, but who were SS I? Neolithic Farmers rather than a Steppe-like population?
They were mostly of local hunter-gatherer origin.
Sredny Stog II was a mix of Eneolithic steppe people from the east, farmers from the west, and local hunter-gatherers.
Yamnaya was the same, except with much less farmer ancestry.
"The Early Iron Age nomadic Scythians have been described as a confederation of tribes of different origins,"
ReplyDeleteDifferent but related origin. The groups described under the umbrella term of "Sythians or Sythian origin" were tribes descended or related to the Sythian proper people. They spoke all variants of Indo-Iranic lanuages. Should not be confused with people of Scythia. Just as people living in the Roman Empire were not all Romans.
It is also interesting the association between Cimmerians and Thracians. Basically Thracians and related groups formed the substrate for South Slavs post 600 AD (Avars and other groups were too small to be accounted for). Therefore does it mean that modern Southern Slavs have Cimmerians in them?
ReplyDeletePS I have always assumed that Proto-Balkan IE groups (except for Greeks) formed as an amalgamation of Yamnaya groups and Cucuteni Tripolye farmer civilization?
Nope, judging by his very thick Germanic Accent pulling towards the Alps and Brown Hair with blue eyes like the Rathlin Samples I would say that he was distantly related to Northern Bell Beakers and most probably an Outlier among the Cimmerians...Heheheeh...
ReplyDeleteWho were the Wusun? Indo-Aryan, Iranian or Tocharian speakers? Was their language a Centum or Satem one? And what happened to them? That is one of the great mysteries of Steppe-derived Europoid people in the Far East. They might be like Cimmerians, mostly European looking with a slight East Eurasian admixture.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see a blog entry re: Tocharians. They fascinate me enormously. They were mostly R1a1 but with some Siberian admixture, whatever that was. Did they have anything to do with the Afanasievo Culture? Not likely, because the latter mixed extensively with a Botai-like Native-American like Okunevo Culture, which was predominantly ANE with a significant East Asian component, not unlike Botai or Native Americans. The Tagar and Pazyryk Cultures ensued. But if Tocharians were indeed the Tarim Basin Mummies they were much more Europoid and barely had ANY East Asian ancestry, if at all!
Likewise, Afanasievo had a very negligible EEF admixture signal although it was strongly detected among Tarim Basin Mummies aDNA, just akin to amongst Indo-Iranians.
Some Anthropologists pin the Tocharians to be the Yuezhi and/or the Kuchans, but they were very influenced by Indo-Iranians who were Satem whereas Tocharian languages were Centum like Celtic ones.
So, basically, who were the Tocharians, and what was their relationship to the Tarim Basin Mummies on one hand and to the Afanasievo Culture on the other one?
@Andrzejewski R1a was Y-DNA determined for Tarim mummies, and we don't know whether they were Tocharians or not, James Mallory talked about it.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Wusun, there was a recent paper by Etienne de la Vaissière about them: https://www.academia.edu/5731941/Iranian_in_Wusun_A_tentative_reinterpretation_of_the_Kultobe_inscriptions
@ Andrzejewski
ReplyDeleteMy pet theory is that Tocharians were Afanasevo relatives who reached Western Mongolia and from there enter the Tarim from a Northeastern Direction maybe after the Tarim Mummies...
Is there a list for the haplogroups found which can be accessed without registration?
ReplyDelete@zardos
ReplyDeletehttps://anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?6522-Early-Medieval-aDNA-from-Poland-coming-soon&p=566293&viewfull=1#post566293
Thank you. How does E2b1 fit in? Never saw that haplogroup in this context. Coverage is very bad though, so rather a mistake I guess.
ReplyDelete@zardos
ReplyDeleteHow does E2b1 fit in?
Yeah, this one might be an error, because it's rather unexpected compared all the rest, and especially the R1a.
But these Scytho-Sarmatian samples are fairly young and with complex ancestry, so there's some room for unusual results.
Re: Tocharian
ReplyDeletehttp://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=42318
Tocharian C: its discovery and implications
April 2, 2019 @ 2:43 pm
guest post by Douglas Q. Adams
From Douglas Q. Adams:
After I sent my little summary piece off to you, it occurred to me that there's another semi-implication to the establishment of Tocharian C in the greater Lop Nor region. It would strengthen the case (certainly not prove it, of course) for thinking the mummies may have been pre-Proto-, Proto- or early post-Proto-Tocharian speakers. The mummies would have been there at the right time, and now the right place, to have been attested Tocharian ancestors.
The interesting question, though, is where did those R1a-rich Tarim Basin mummies come from exactly?
ReplyDeleteThey don't have anything directly to do with Afanasievo, which is rich in R1b-Z2103. And if they're just another Sintashta-related Steppe_MLBA population, then they're more likely to have been Indo-Iranians.
@Andrezejewski I would like to see a blog entry re: Tocharians. They fascinate me enormously. They were mostly R1a1 but with some Siberian admixture, whatever that was. Did they have anything to do with the Afanasievo Culture? Not likely, because the latter mixed extensively with a Botai-like Native-American like Okunevo Culture, which was predominantly ANE with a significant East Asian component, not unlike Botai or Native Americans. The Tagar and Pazyryk Cultures ensued. But if Tocharians were indeed the Tarim Basin Mummies they were much more Europoid and barely had ANY East Asian ancestry, if at all!
ReplyDeleteLikewise, Afanasievo had a very negligible EEF admixture signal although it was strongly detected among Tarim Basin Mummies aDNA, just akin to amongst Indo-Iranians.
There's a lot of nuance that you're missing. The Tarim Basin mummies span over 2,000 years; 1,800 BC to the first few centuries AD. There are no less than FOUR Indo-European language families attested in the region: Tocharian, Saka, Sogdian and Prakrit.
Suggesting that all of the Tarim Basin mummies were Tocharians and that Tocharians were R1a is not supported by the evidence. Most likely, the R1a mummies were Saka or Sogdians or even Indic Buddhist missionaries or others. The Tocharians were probably derived from (or at least related to) Afanasevo, and therefore mostly rich in R1b, but they probably also made up a numerically relatively minor substrate of the first settlers of the basin.
The implication, if Tarim mummies/ proto-Tocharians are R1a is that the Satem shift was an evolving phenomenon. E.g. Hening Andersen has suggested that the earliest IE speakers in the Balto-Slavic region were not yet Satemised.
ReplyDelete@ Desdichado
It's a common idea, but there is not a direct link between Afansievo and the culture of the Tarim Basin. In fact, Afansievo seems like an extinct grouping, localy replaced by Okunevo.
@ Davidski
ReplyDelete“there was a lot of I2 on the North Pontic steppe before the Iron Age”
I don’t think that Ukrainians have I2 from those pre-Iron Age steppe inhabitants. After Mongol devastation, began the great Wallachian colonization. Also, the government of the Russian Empire settled Balkan immigrants such as: Serbs, Moldovans, Romanians, Bulgarians, Montenegrins, Greeks, Macedonians, even Orthodox Albanians
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Serbia_(historical_province)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavo-Serbia
That's where they got I2 in large quantity.
@ Draft Dozen
ReplyDeleteThat's not true. The I2a1b in northern Slavs cannot be accounted as derivative from South Slavs. There is a complex pattern in I2a sub-groupings amongst the Slavic regions/ countries.
@ EurDNA
ReplyDeleteIt's common, because there aren't really any other candidates. Also, the archeological and linguistic evidence is congruent. If Afansevo is very early separated from the Pontic-Caspian and genetically congruent with Yamnaya, then that works with the idea that Tocharian is the first (aside from Anatolian) to separate from the PIE block linguistically.
That said, "replaced by Okunevo" could represent "displaced (to the Tarim Basin)" by Okunevo, or it could represent "replaced (locally) by the Okunevo" but there was a continuum of archaic proto-Tocharian from the Minusinsk to the Tarim basins, or any other variety of scenarios.
I admit that direct ties from Afanasevo to the Tarim Basin are still lacking genetically and archaeologically, but that most likely represents a lack of evidence rather than evidence of lacking ties. There simply isn't another candidate to be the source of the Tocharian languages anywhere nearby that can provide an alternate hypothesis.
@Draft Dozen
ReplyDeleteThat's where they got I2 in large quantity.
Nope, because South Slavic I2 is phylogenetically derived from North Slavic I2.
@ Desdichado
ReplyDeleteYes. And there is still the Ordos Culture also which could be interesting...Sofar R1b samples stretch all the way to the Yenesei River which is basically just North of Western Mongolia....All Tarim Mummies so far did not produce R1b, Yet there are R1b in the Uygurs today. They were displaced from around Western Mongolia....
Both Iranians/Saka and Tarim Basin Mummies were Overwhelmingly R1a1. I can’t say the same re:Tocharians. The latter were R1b like the Celts and just like them they wore tartan plaid clothes and spoke a Centum language. On the other hand, Afanasievo were like Yamnaya mostly R1b and not R1a1. So there must be some gap between Afanasievo and Tocharians, to the exclusion of the Tarim Basin Mummies.
Delete@Ric hern
Delete%90 of Uighur R1b branches derived from botai clade(M73)or archaic siberian clades.
Some %10 from Indo-Iranian R1b clade.
So, Uighur do not have Afanesievo R1b.
I thought Botai went the way of the dodo (or possibly the way of the Cucuteni Tripolye Culture) as per Davidski’s previous blog post...
DeleteRe: Shifts in the Genetic Landscape
ReplyDeleteApproximation of the West Eurasian PCA based on ADMIXTURE results (Asian-shifted samples excluded, PC1/2/4, rotated):
https://i.postimg.cc/5yj63CYz/ChernPCA.png
And now - PCA1/2 with some IDs added:
https://i.postimg.cc/Kj847BhX/Chern-PCA2.png
IMHO Järve overlooked that two Scythian Ukraine samples seem to be rather Western than Asian-shifted and that they fall pretty close to later Chernyakhov samples.
This seems to be supported also by mtDNA which clearly points to Central Europe:
Chern_MJ-36
https://www.yfull.com/mtree/H1c/
Chern_MJ-19
https://www.yfull.com/mtree/H1n6/
Scy_Ukr_MJ-13
https://www.yfull.com/mtree/H11b1/
Scy_Ukr_MJ-14
https://www.yfull.com/mtree/H6a1b/
Eastern expansion of Pomeranian/Lusatian Culture? There are suggestions that the formation of Zarubintsy culture was at least influenced by migrants from the West.
BTW What do you think about Y-DNA of ScySar_SU_LS-13 (R1a-CTS1123)?
https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-S5301/
@ Davidski
ReplyDeletewhere did those R1a-rich Tarim Basin mummies come from exactly?
Dunno. Maybe it was a path like this one?
https://i.postimg.cc/26gqF3G2/tochar.jpg
TMRCA of CTS1123 is just 3200 ybp (formation 3600 ybp), but if we assume that the age is underestimated by 20% we will end with 1890 BCE.
@ Andrzejewski
ReplyDeletere:Tocharians. The latter were R1b
Source?
@Ric Hern Yes. And there is still the Ordos Culture also which could be interesting
ReplyDeleteThe Ordos culture is almost certainly Scythian specifically, and therefore Eastern Iranian.
@ Andrzejewski Both Iranians/Saka and Tarim Basin Mummies were Overwhelmingly R1a1.
In the case of the mummies, "overwhelmingly" means "from 11 samples." That data isn't nearly as overwhelming as you make it out to be, especially since we know of three movements of R1a Indic and/or Iranian incursions in the basin. We would expect to find a high degree of R1a from such movements, but that doesn't necessarily say anything at all about the Tocharians.
I can’t say the same re:Tocharians. The latter were R1b like the Celts and just like them they wore tartan plaid clothes and spoke a Centum language.
There's a fair bit of speculation there. We don't know that the Tocharians were R1b (although I think that it's likely that most of them were), and we don't know who wore those plaids; Tocharians or Saka.
On the other hand, Afanasievo were like Yamnaya mostly R1b and not R1a1. So there must be some gap between Afanasievo and Tocharians, to the exclusion of the Tarim Basin Mummies.
No, that conclusion isn't necessary at all. A more likely conclusion is that the small number of sampled mummies being R1a is because of their association with either Saka, Sogdian, or Prakrit speaking Indo-Iranians that arrived in the basin completely separately from the Tocharians.
What needs to be done is two-fold: 1) more sampling of more mummies, especially from the earlier phases of regions that were later attested as definitely Tocharian speaking: Kuqa and Qarasahar and Turpan, and 2) better archaeological and genetic understanding of the territory between the Minusinsk basin where the Afanasevo culture is found and the Tarim basin where the mummies are found.
Today, the assumption of the Afanasevo with very archaic proto-Tocharian is not known, it's just assumed because it's the most likely (and in fact only serious) contender for the role
Afanasievo early on mixed with Okunevo, which was like Botai and Native Americans an admixed ANE and ENA population. Therefore I would readily expect to see a much more East Asian phenotype and much less Europoid one on the Tarim Basin Mummies.
DeleteAnother factor in favor of the Mummies being Scythians or Saka rather than Afanasievo-based is the high proportion of EEF ratio like European populations, which was sorely lacking in Afanasievo
@ Desdichado
ReplyDeletemovements of R1a Indic and/or Iranian incursions in the basin
Tarim Basin mummies are xZ93.
@Arza Tarim Basin mummies are xZ93.
ReplyDeleteWhich is consistent with Sogdian or Saka, which is by far the most likely assignment of the mummies sampled. Is also fine for Aryan Buddhist missionaries bringing in the attested Prakrit Indic languages that have been found in texts in the Basin.
@Andrzejewski Afanasievo early on mixed with Okunevo, which was like Botai and Native Americans an admixed ANE and ENA population. Therefore I would readily expect to see a much more East Asian phenotype and much less Europoid one on the Tarim Basin Mummies.
I don't know that we know that either. Okunevo replaced Afanasevo in the region, and was in turn replaced by Andronovo. To the degree that they mixed... I haven't ever seen anything that suggested that they did from either an archaeological or genetic point of view. Is there a paper?
Another factor in favor of the Mummies being Scythians or Saka rather than Afanasievo-based is the high proportion of EEF ratio like European populations, which was sorely lacking in Afanasievo
The mummies that have so far been sampled. Your mistake seems to be in assuming that the mummies sampled are representative of all of the peoples in the Basin over the entire 2,000+ year time period that mummies represent. That is clearly not the case from an archaeological perspective; some mummies who have not been genetically sampled have been determined by physical anthropology to be almost certainly Chinese and other eastern populations, for instance. They're not R1a either (or it would be astonishing if they were) but they certainly are Tarim Basin mummies too.
Davidski said...Yeah, this one might be an error, because it's rather unexpected compared all the rest, and especially the R1a.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the Y-chromosome coverage for Eb2 sample MJ-40 is the second lowest lowest (0.011) of all the male samples. Very likely to be a garbage result.
Or, to be more to the point, the mummies that appear over a more than 2,000 year period belong to multiple peoples and multiple populations. Some may well be Tocharians. Some are certainly Sogdians and/or Saka. Some are Chinese. Some probably belong to other barbarian populations that may have been kicking around at various times in the neighboring Junggar basin or Gansu corridor, like Xiong-nu, Yuezhi, Wusun, etc. Identifying ANY of these groups from Chinese historical documents with ethno-linguistic groups is a speculative and dicey thing to try and do.
ReplyDelete@ Desdichado
ReplyDeleteWhich is consistent with Sogdian or Saka
Which R1a-xZ93 subclades are found among Sogdians and Sakas?
Andronovo replacing and perhaps partially assimilating Okunevo or a related population might be responsible for the rise of some Saka and/or Cimmerian groups with some pronounced East Eurasian phenotype and genotype.
ReplyDelete@Arza I'm not very familiar with the subclades of Z93, but given that the Saka and Sogdians are both East Iranian peoples, I would expect Z93 subclades for them. Probably L657 subclades Y5 or Y30.
ReplyDeleteIf we're talking about fictional characters, did anyone else see the Anthropology of Game of Thrones video? I thought it was well done.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YapTmRiVH4U
@ Desdichado
ReplyDeleteI'm not very familiar with the subclades of Z93
xZ93 means negative for Z93. Tarim mummies are reported to be R1a, but not the Indo-Iranian-type-of-R1a.
@Arza Which report? I don't admit to being current in all of the literature, but as far as I know, both the Saka and the Tarim mummies genetic analysis were not SNP analyzed, so something more specific than R1a has not been determined for either of them.
ReplyDelete@ Desdichado
ReplyDeletehttps://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7007-8-15/comments
Hui Zhou, Jilin University
18 July 2014
Our results show that Xiaohe settlers carried HgR1a1in paternal lineages, and Hgs H, K, C4, M*in maternal lineages. Though Hg R1a1a is found at highest frequency in both Europe and South Asia, Xiaohe R1a1a more likely originate from Europe because of it not belong to R1a1a-Z93 branch(our recently unpublished data) which mainly found in Asians.
That report seems to be begging too many questions. He says that it's not a Indo-Iranian R1a lineage, but is more similar to Afansevo... which is primarily R1b-Z2103, as far as I know. I think more information needs to be published.
ReplyDeleteOT: FAO @Tea and others, another day, another phylogenetic paper on Sino-Tibetan, this time from Max-Planck - https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-05/mpif-oos043019.php / https://phys.org/news/2019-05-sino-tibetan-language-family-revealed.html : "Our estimates suggest that the ancestral language has arisen around 7,200 years ago."
ReplyDeleteSlight variation from: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1153-z - Consistent with the northern-origin hypothesis, our Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of 109 languages with 949 lexical root-meanings produced an estimated time depth for the divergence of Sino-Tibetan languages of approximately 4,200–7,800 years BP, with an average value of approximately 5,900 years BP. In either case they suggest a deep time depth.
(Same methods used to date IE, Dravidian, etc.)
"I can’t say the same re:Tocharians. The latter were R1b like the Celts and just like them they wore tartan plaid clothes and spoke a Centum language."
ReplyDelete*if* there was a switch from kilts to trewsers* related to horse riding is it known which the Tarim mummies wore?
(*maybe also a switch from kneeling on one knee (kilt) to squatting (trewsers)?)
@Grey
ReplyDeleteKilts were a specifically Scottish thing. The Gauls wore plaid trousers. So does, for example, the Cherchen man mummy from the Tarim Basin.
Desdichado said...
ReplyDelete"The Gauls wore plaid trousers."
yes, Gauls did and Romans, Scots, Greeks, Iberians (?) didn't.
i think there's probably a reason.
Desdichado said...
ReplyDelete"...plaid trousers. So does, for example, the Cherchen man mummy from the Tarim Basin."
ty
Conan the Indo European Thor can be R1b, R1a, R2 in respective regions.
ReplyDeleteIt's K2B2 + Scythe from Iron Age
Rigveda talks about metallurgy.R2 Roma people are good smiths
its all K2 and Iron.
Analysis of mass grave of Globular Amphorae culture from southern Poland: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/04/30/1820210116
ReplyDeleteInteresting all males I2a2a1b2 again.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Zlota culture is basically synonymous with GAC, just some variant cultural features.
Unlike the other GAC samples, the Zlota samples do show minor steppe ancestry.
ReplyDeleteSo the Zlota group may have been a very early result of mixing between CWC and GAC that eventually led to Sintashta.
the artistic reconstruction in fig 3 is great
ReplyDeleteThe GAC mass burial is....
ReplyDelete-Families executed by axe hit to the head.
-Mostly contains young moms & their children.
They have made hilarious mistake in Supplementary tables: instead of geographical coordinates for Koszyce, they put geographical coordinates of Košice, in Slovakia.
ReplyDelete@ Romulus
ReplyDeleteHere is the original one:
https://www.lepszypoznan.pl/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/7TNtv9.jpg
Besides obvious changes, it looks that skeletons no. 9 and 4 turned out to be of opposite sexes.
@ Desdichado
ReplyDeleteI wonder what RISE786 YamnayaKaragash was all about ? A Yamnaya migration seperate from Afanasevo ?
@Davidski
ReplyDelete“So the Zlota group may have been a very early result of mixing between CWC and GAC that eventually led to Sintashta.”
I am not sure CWC mixing with GAC led to Sintashta:
“If the general interaction between Globular Amphora people and neighboring, steppe-related cultures (including early
Corded Ware) was primarily hostile, it would explain why Globular Amphora individuals carry no steppe ancestry and, in part, why Europe experienced such a dramatic reduction in Neolithic genomic ancestry at this time”
In other areas was the same. CWC interacted with FBC and TC but was hostile towards GAC.
https://i.postimg.cc/sXCNLvY7/screenshot-495.png
https://i.postimg.cc/pVwp6v4x/screenshot-494.png
https://www.academia.edu/31593295/Pelisiak_A._2007.The_Funnel_Beaker_culture_settlements_compared_with_other_Neolithic_cultures_in_the_upper_and_middle_part_of_the_Dnister_basin._Selected_issues._State_of_the_research._Analecta_Archaeologica_Ressoviensia_2_23-56
EEF in Sintashta could come from FBC and TC or maybe from FBC and TC mixed with GAC, but not from GAC directly IMO.
Three families in Koszyce-mass burial.
ReplyDeleteFamily 1: Indi8 (Mom), Indi9 (teenage daughter), Indi13 (young son), Indi7 (Baby boy cousin).
Family 2: Indi12 (Mom), Indi6 (teenage daughter), Indi4 (teenage son).
Family 3: Indi14 (Mom), Indi5 (adult son), Indi15 (adult son).
Family 3a: Indi10 (adult brother), Indi11 (adult brother). Half brothers of indi5, 15. They have same Dad.
Family 3b: Indi5 (Dad), Indi1 (Mom), Indi2 (Infant son).
Clearly, these are maternal family units. The mom of each family is represented. This is surprising because Y DNA shows Globular tribes organized themselves along paternal lines (they all had the same Y DNA).
It looks like this is an intentional genocide/wiping out of entire families. We know this because babies were also killed.
Assuming this is familicide, the key question is why weren't the fathers/husbands of these families also killed? Assuming they were killed, why weren't they buried with their families?
@East Pole
ReplyDelete"In other areas was the same. CWC interacted with FBC and TC but was hostile towards GAC."
I agree that this makes the GAC people somehow unlikely to be the source of EEF in both CWC and Sintashta.
Also, I disagree with Davidski regarding the importance of the Złota group for the genesis of Sintashta, as this would require the Sintashta lineage diverging from the Central-Western European CWC lineage before the EEF admixture was acquired. The Złota Group was evidently distinct from the contemporary CWC groupings in Poland and elsewhere, so it could not have been ancestral to CWC.
David, do you have access to the published DNA samples from Złota, and if so, do they work better than Ukrainian GAC as a source of EEF in Polish CWC and Sintashta?
ReplyDelete@all
can someone try to model CWC using Ukraine eneolithic sample ( like I6561 ) ?
I don't have the Zlota samples yet, and I don't have a strong opinion at this stage about how the Sintashta genetic structure formed.
ReplyDeleteThe only theory that I have a big problem with is the one that posits that during the Middle Bronze Age European farmer ancestry diffused into the steppes near the southern Urals, while R1a-Z93 was already present there before that happened.
From memory, this was actually suggested in a major ancient DNA paper, which is mind boggling, because it's so idiotic.
I still say that Cucuteni may be the source of the EEF signal in Sintashta. They were in Ukraine, for Christ's sake, so why not?
ReplyDeleteI think some salient features are interesting
ReplyDelete1) ''“If the general interaction between Globular Amphora people and neighboring, steppe-related cultures (including early Corded Ware) was primarily hostile, it would explain why Globular Amphora individuals carry no steppe ancestry and''
GAC don't have steppe ancestry because they're not from the steppe, but appear to have formed in central- north Poland, as the collaborating archaeologists in the paper have described. The 2 groups aappear to have maintained bounderies, and we might expect only certain individuals to show admixture between the 2, and more as time progresses.
2) ''why Europe experienced such a dramatic reduction in Neolithic genomic ancestry at this time''
That might be the case in northern Europe; but not in southern Europe.
Even in the north, the final result is 50% replacement, which suggests a gradual fusion between groups which have some common cultural forms but might be genetically distinctive (e.g. steppe, MNE). Furthermore, it might not be correct to extrapolate the high steppe admixture in early Central European CWC, or Dutch Beaker individuals, onto all of central Europe.
@Ric Hern I wonder what RISE786 YamnayaKaragash was all about ? A Yamnaya migration seperate from Afanasevo ?
ReplyDeleteMaybe. They were a mobile people, and making the journey probably wasn't all that hard, all things considered.
Or maybe he's just a random wanderer. Somebody who was more adventurous than most, or someone kicked out of society a la Eric the Red many centuries later, to turn up somewhere unexpected.
Samuel Andrews said...
ReplyDelete"Assuming this is familicide, the key question is why weren't the fathers/husbands of these families also killed? Assuming they were killed, why weren't they buried with their families?"
maybe
1) raid - most of the men away somewhere else (e.g. transhumance)
2) it happened after a battle/skirmish so most of the men were killed outside somewhere.
@desdichado
ReplyDeleteAren't The oldest europoid tarim mummies like Cherchen man too old to Be saka or sogdian? He's from 1500 bc, iirc.
Just checkes. He's from 1000 bc. Guess he could Be indo-iranian, but still too early for saka or sogdian. But The People pf The xiaohe cemetary are from 2000 bc, and All things equal, their european side is definitely not sogdian or saka, and going by what we know so far, unlikely to Be related to indo-iranian.
ReplyDelete@ Davidski
ReplyDelete"Nope, because South Slavic I2 is phylogenetically derived from North Slavic I2"
Do the Ukrainians have the only and only northern slavic branch I2? When could the migration to the Balkans happen? Certainly not in the Antes times and after. How about Romanians and Moldovans? Ukrainians have a heavy influence from them, even visually many Ukrainians look like Balkanians. It must be a lot of Balkan branches in them. Ukrainians being connected in their genesis with the medieval Drevlians, Volynians, Tivertsi. But these tribes differed from the majority of the Slavs and the population that preceded them. Is there something similar to the Slavs in PCA, Y-DNA in the Chernyakhov culture samples? The population of the Cherniakhov culture of Western Ukraine was gracial, narrow-faced with a moderately prominent nose (23 ° -25 °), the Drevlyans and others were massive, broad-faced, with a well protruding nose (33 ° -35 ° maximum among all Slavs). In other words, there was a replacement of the population. Western, southern and most eastern Slavs were also gracial and narrow-faced. Until we have genetic data on them (Drevlyans, etc.), nothing clearly can be said.
@Draft Dozen
ReplyDeleteYou sound crazy.
Learn the basic structure of I2 or don't post here again.
There's a wrinkle in that idea. Namely the author of Conan was an Irish-American. He wrote in one of his essays the following:
ReplyDelete> The Gaels, ancestors of Irish and Highland Scotch came of pure-blooded Cimmerian clans.
Conan after all is a name found in various Celtic languages including Irish and is found in several specific irish mythic contexts eg:
Conán mac Morna -- Fenian Cycle warrior
Conán mac Lia -- Fenian Cycle warrior
Conand -- leader of the Fomorians
In which case it's probable that Conan the Barbarian is R1b-P312 ;)
Can anyone verify The Cimmerian —> Dacian link?
ReplyDeleteConsidering Conan is actually meant to be a proto-Gael and so are his people. He would be R1b. He isn't slavic or Germanic, but proto Irish/Scottish. People should do their research on the series before making such comments.
ReplyDelete