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Sunday, May 19, 2019

Who were the people of the Nordic Bronze Age?


Ancient DNA has revealed that large scale migrations and population replacements have often accompanied major cultural changes in prehistoric Europe. But, for now, my opinion is that the formation of the archeologically ostentatious Nordic Bronze Age wasn't associated with any significant foreign gene flow into Scandinavia. I've tested this as best as I could with the few relevant ancient samples that are currently available.


For instance, below are among the most successful qpAdm mixture models that I was able find for various ancient Scandinavian groups dating back to the local Middle Neolithic (MN) period. The Nordic Bronze Age population is represented by three individuals labeled Nordic_BA. Unfortunately, the guy pictured above, from the famous Borum Eshøj barrow burial in what is now Denmark, didn't make the cut. For more details about my sampling and labeling strategies refer to the text file here.

Nordic_MN_B
CWC_CZE 0.822±0.059
POL_Globular_Amphora 0.178±0.059
chisq 14.478
tail prob 0.341086
Full output

SWE_Battle_Axe
CWC_Baltic_early 0.662±0.028
POL_Globular_Amphora 0.338±0.028
chisq 11.234
tail prob 0.591189
Full output

Nordic_LN
Nordic_MN_B 0.928±0.069
SWE_TRB 0.072±0.069
chisq 12.139
tail prob 0.516307
Full output

Nordic_BA
Nordic_LN 0.851±0.061
SWE_TRB 0.149±0.061
chisq 10.897
tail prob 0.619475
Full output

It's impossible to successfully model the ancestries of Nordic_MN_B and SWE_Battle_Axe simply with the populations that were living in Scandinavia before them. Therefore, it's likely that they were migrants or the recent descendants of migrants to Scandinavia. But there's nothing surprising about that, because they're archeologically associated with the Corded Ware culture (CWC), which has always been seen as intrusive to Scandinavia from the south and east.

Conversely, it's easy to produce statistically sound mixture models for both Nordic_LN and Nordic_BA exclusively with earlier Scandinavian populations. Indeed, based on the outgroups or right pops that I'm using, Nordic_LN is almost indistinguishable from Nordic_MN_B, and the same can be said of Nordic_BA in regards to Nordic_LN.

Of course, if I mixed and matched reference populations from across prehistoric Europe, I could probably come up with some spectacular statistical fits even without the need for any Scandinavians. Essentially that's because Nordic_LN and Nordic_BA are closely related to many earlier and contemporaneous peoples living all the way from the Atlantic facade to the Ural Mountains. My point, however, is that this isn't crucial, despite the dearth of ancient samples from Scandinavia.

This is how things look in a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of Northern European genetic variation based on my Global25 data. Strikingly, Nordic_MN_B, SWE_Battle_Axe, Nordic_LN and Nordic_BA more or less recapitulate the cluster made up of present-day Swedish samples. The relevant datasheet is available here.
Granted, two of the Nordic_BA samples sit just south of the Swedes, no doubt due to their slightly higher ratios of Neolithic farmer (SWE_TRB-related) ancestry, but this is also an area of the plot that many present-day Danes call home (not shown, because I don't have any suitable academic Danish samples to run).

I'll eat my hat if it turns out that Scandinavia experienced a major population shift (say, more than a collateral ~10%) during the LN and/or BA periods. And I'll post a clip of it online too.

Update 27/08/2019: Four of the samples from the recent Frei et al. paper on human mobility in prehistoric southern Scandinavia are in my Global25 datasheets. So I thought it might be interesting to check whether their strontium isotope ratios correlated with their genomic profiles.

In the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) below, RISE61 is a subtle outlier along the horizontal axis compared to the other three Nordic ancients, as well as a Danish individual representative of the present-day Danish gene pool. Also note that RISE61 shows the most unusual strontium isotope ratio (0.712588). The PCA was run with an online tool freely available here.


To help drive the point home, here's a figure from Frei et al., edited by me to show the positions of RISE47, RISE61 and RISE71. If RISE276 was also in this graph, he'd be sitting well under the "local" baseline, in roughly the same spot along the vertical axis as RISE47.


Interestingly, RISE61 belongs to Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a-M417, while RISE47 and RISE276, who appear to have been locals, both belong to R1b-M269. My guess is that RISE61 was a recent migrant from a more northerly part of Scandinavia dominated by the Battle-Axe culture (BAC). The BAC population was probably rich in R1a-M417 because it moved into Scandinavia from the Pontic-Caspian steppe via the East Baltic. This is what Frei et al. say about RISE61 and his burial site:

The double passage grave of Kyndeløse (Fig 1, S1 File) located on the island of Zealand yielded 70 individuals as well as a large number of grave goods, including flint artefacts, ceramics, and tooth and amber beads. We conducted strontium isotope analyses of seven individuals from Kyndeløse encompassing a period of c. 1000 years, indicating the prolonged use of this passage grave. The oldest of the seven individuals is a female (RISE 65) from whom we measured a “local” strontium isotope signature ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr = 0.7099). Similar values were measured in five other individuals, including adult males and females. Only a single individual from Kyndeløse, an adult male (RISE 61) yielded a somewhat different strontium isotope signature of 87 Sr/ 86 Sr = 0.7126 which seems to indicate a non-local provenance. The skull of this male individual revealed healed porosities in the eye orbits, cribra orbitalia, a condition which is possibly linked to a vitamin deficiency during childhood, such as iron deficiency.

By the way, RISE47 was buried in a flat grave, which suggests that he was a commoner. RISE276 was found in a peat bog in Trundholm, where the famous Trundholm sun chariot was discovered (see here). He may have been a human sacrifice.

Citation...

Frei KM, Bergerbrant S, Sjögren K-G, Jørkov ML, Lynnerup N, Harvig L, et al. (2019) Mapping human mobility during the third and second millennia BC in present-day Denmark. PLoS ONE 14(8): e0219850. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0219850

See also...

They came, they saw, and they mixed

Children of the Divine Twins

The mystery of the Sintashta people

259 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 259 of 259
Ric Hern said...

Many here will go Cookoo...Heheheeh

Bob Floy said...

@Ric

Before it became clear that Yamnaya dosen't fit the fair haired/fair skinned/light eyed phenotype very well(unless future samples change that, of course), I personally was convinced that the Tocharians must have had something to do with Afanasevo, despite the huge time gap and many other arguments against that idea. Not anymore.

Ric Hern said...

@ Bob

So where did the split between R1b1a1a2a1 and R1b1a1a2a2 happen ?

Ric Hern said...

Who knows when Tocharian actually arrived in that area. It could have been an Iron Age migration for all we know, or even a Roman era migration or something to do with Alexander the Great...

Bob Floy said...

@Ric

"So where did the split between R1b1a1a2a1 and R1b1a1a2a2 happen?"

Maybe just north of the Caucuses?

"a Roman era migration or something to do with Alexander the Great..."

That I doubt, but it's true that we can't say at this point exactly how Tocharian happened, sure.

Bob Floy said...

If this buzz that we're currently hearing about z93 and Andronovo-type ancestry is true, then that'll obviously narrow down the possibilities. I've seen many speculate over the years that the Tarim basin mummies are connected to Andronovo, although I never thought so myself. And it's hard to believe that those mummies have nothing to do with the Tocharians.

Drago said...

@ Bob
I wasn't even aware that Tarim basin mummies DNA is coming. I was simply hypothesizing on the data which exists from Li et al, which, as we know, used older methods

Davidski said...

The Tocharian samples that are coming aren't the Tarim Basin mummies. Apparently they're from attested Tocharian speaking sites, maybe from along the Silk Road, but I don't know for sure.

Drago said...

That would be amazing

Suyindik said...

@Davidski

1.
This is a description of the Italian(Sicily) Bell Beaker samples I4930, I4933, I4936(2500–1900 BCE) in the "The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe" study:

"We find that the great majority of sampled Beaker Complex individuals in areas outside of Iberia (with the exception of Sicily) derive a large portion of their ancestry from Steppe populations".

So the Sicilian Bell Beaker samples dont have Steppe ancestry.

Another description of the study:
"The oldest radiocarbon dates associated with Beaker pottery are around 2750 BCE in Atlantic Iberia, which has been interpreted as evidence that the Beaker Complex originated there. However, the geographic origin is still debated and other scenarios including an origin in the Lower Rhine area or even multiple independent origins are possible (Supplementary Information section 1). Regardless of the geographic origin, by 2500 BCE the Beaker Complex had spread throughout western Europe (and northwest Africa), and reached southern and Atlantic France, Italy and central Europe, where it overlapped geographically with the Corded Ware Complex."

So, this means the Beaker Complex moved throughout western Europe and northwest Africa, which is connecting the origin of the Bell Beaker culture with the findings in Kelif el Boroud(KEB) which is from 3000 BCE.

2.
This is a description of the Kelif el Boroud(KEB)(3000 BCE) sample from Morocco in the "Ancient genomes from North Africa evidence prehistoric migrations to the Maghreb from both the Levant and Europe" study:

"Furthermore, additional European/Iberian ancestry could have reached the Maghreb after KEB people; this scenario is supported by the presence of Iberian-like Bell-Beaker pottery in more recent stratigraphic layers of IAM and KEB caves.".

So the Moroccon KEB samples are related to the Bell Beaker culture. Could the Italian Bell Beaker ancestry in some Etruscan samples(which you mentioned in the Unknown-source-paper) be related to the Bell Beaker component in KEB and Sicily?

3.
An abstract from another study "Neolithic of north-atlantic Morocco: first radiocarbon chronology attempt":

"Circa 3700 B.C., the upper Middle Neolithic expanded over the entire area studied, with a pottery industry of the Proto-Bell-Beakers type. The final phase of the Middle Neolithic was a favourable environment for the birth of local metallurgy. At about 2700-2500 B.C., it participated in the emergence of the Iberic Bell-Beakers civilization which would return its products to Morocco."

4.
In the Ryukendo report from the Moots paper, the presence of Levant_N(PPNB + Chalcolithic?) and Iran_N ancestries is mentioned in the Iron Age samples from Latium.
Also, it is mentioned that 40% of the samples overlap with South Italy and Sicily.

Since the EEF populations initially migrated in the Early Neolithic from West Asia, maybe the Etruscans are the West Asian core(=EEF) in the Italian Bell Beaker culture(I4930 and KEB) which eventually came from a source in PP-Neolithic North Mesopotamia(which is also connected to later movements into Neolithic/Chalcolithic/Bronze-Age Levant and North Africa)?
And the Italics are the Neolithic Steppe core of the Italian Bell Beaker culture(more related to the Corded Ware complex)?
And in phases of time these two components mixed?

Davidski said...

@Suyindik

Hellanicus of Lesbos:"the Etruscans made themselves masters of some of the lands belonging to the Umbri".

And, in fact, the Umbri cluster together with the Etruscans.

Desdichado said...

You entirely miss my point, which is: these terms did NOT come from any substrate language other than PIE itself. And second, reconstructed (purported) late PIE was likely not Yamnaya but Corded Ware-derived.

It depends on what you mean by late PIE, I suppose. According to Chang et al 2015 linguistic phylogeny, Hittite and Tocharian split from the rest of Indo-European some time before 5,000 years ago, which would predate the Corded Ware culture. Most of the rest of the major stock splits could be constrained within a Corded Ware as late PIE model, although I don't know that there's necessarily any compelling reason to do so. It does require some special pleading for some of the paleo-Balkan languages, including Greek and Armenian (and, if they're related, Phrygian, Thracian, Illyrian, etc.) That groups splits from the remainder of the languages at a time which would be at the very beginning of the CWC phenomena.

Admittedly, all of the rest of the languages could fit into a CWC phenomena, but that means constructing late PIE in such a way that a number of groups have already split off from it, so that's not usually what people mean when they say late PIE.

Or, of course, Chang et al's timing could be wrong.

https://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/news/ChangEtAlPreprint.pdf

Desdichado said...

The Tocharian samples that are coming aren't the Tarim Basin mummies. Apparently they're from attested Tocharian speaking sites, maybe from along the Silk Road, but I don't know for sure.

As far as I know, there are no attested Tocharian speaking sites. There are sites where Tocharian texts have been found, but those same sites also have texts in Khotanese Saka (an eastern Iranian language), Sogdian (another eastern Iranian language), various Prakrits, and even Chinese and Old Turkic... all from the same time period.

I'm curious what this is about, but I can't imagine that they can actually isolate a Tocharian speakers' corpse, unless it turns out to look very Afanasevo/Yamnaya like. If it comes out as Andronovo derived, there are already better alternatives than that it was a native Tocharian speaker; most likely it would have been a Scythian or a Sogdian mercenary, or even a Buddhist missionary.

The problem with Tocharian is that there is such a big ghost lineage both linguistically and archaeologically. The earliest attested Tocharian texts come from the 6th century AD, but Tocharian is linguistically supposed to have been split from Indo-European the earliest of all of the branches (except Anatolian.) Nobody knows where they came from, who they are to be identified with in terms of archaeological material culture or historical groups mentioned by the Chinese, etc. And from the earliest point of recorded (Chinese) history, wherever the Tocharians were they were already heavily influenced by and living alongside Iranian tribes.

The comments up thread about people freakin' out if Tocharians end up looking like Indo-Iranians are wrong-headed; if the Tocharians look like Indo-Iranians, they almost certainly were Indo-Iranians. I simply cannot imagine a process by which anyone can determine that a grave is a Tocharian grave unless the corpse is literally clutching a text in Tocharian that says that he wrote it in his native language so that future archaeologists would know for sure that he was a Tocharian.

Bob Floy said...

@Desdichado

The rumor is that the individual they sampled was wearing a t-shirt with "kiss me, I'm Tocharian" printed on it, so they're positive this time.

Andrzejewski said...

@Desdichado "It depends on what you mean by late PIE, I suppose. According to Chang et al 2015 linguistic phylogeny, Hittite and Tocharian split from the rest of Indo-European some time before 5,000 years ago, which would predate the Corded Ware culture. Most of the rest of the major stock splits could be constrained within a Corded Ware as late PIE model, although I don't know that there's necessarily any compelling reason to do so. It does require some special pleading for some of the paleo-Balkan languages, including Greek and Armenian (and, if they're related, Phrygian, Thracian, Illyrian, etc.) That groups splits from the remainder of the languages at a time which would be at the very beginning of the CWC phenomena."

Would you model Phrygians, Illyrians (ancestors of the Albanians?!), Dacians, Thracians etc as an admixture of late Yamnaya Hungary, Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture and Bell Beaker Hungary or rather as just Yamnaya and C-T Culture?

Would C-T survive in the form of Paleo-Balkanic shift?

Andrzejewski said...

@Desdichado "'m curious what this is about, but I can't imagine that they can actually isolate a Tocharian speakers' corpse, unless it turns out to look very Afanasevo/Yamnaya like. If it comes out as Andronovo derived, there are already better alternatives than that it was a native Tocharian speaker; most likely it would have been a Scythian or a Sogdian mercenary, or even a Buddhist missionary."

Afanasievo were displaced by the Okunevo, a population resembling the Botai and Native Americans by being an admixed pop of ANE and ENA. This population was either displaced or assimilated when Andronovo settled in. The Tarim Basin Mummies have overwhelmingly R1a1 aDNA, they look very much Europoid, even by modern standards, and it was said that they have trace amounts of "Siberian DNA", whatever *that* meant.

Yet, aside and along with Saka and other Indo-European "White" settlers described by the Han Chinese as "red haired, fair skinned", we also have an attested Tocharian sub-language family: T-A, T-B and T-C, and its speakers were mostly R1b like Western Europeans (not Balto-Slavs or Indo-Iranians), in addition to wearing Tartan and being mistaken as "Celts".

Were the Yuezhi, Wusun and/or Kushan Tocharian speakers instead of Saka or Scytho-Sarmatian, Indo-Nepalic merchants or some other IE groups at that time? Hard to tell. However, it is quite strange that this language appears presumably out of nowhere at the 5th century and vanishes a few centuries later.

Suyindik said...

@Davidski

Adding some extra information on my analysis above:

A.
Figure 2a from the "The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe" study shows that there are three samples from Northern Italy(Parma).

Ancestries Parma Bell Beakers:

Parma-1: 0% Steppe, 100% EEF and WHG
Parma-2: 25% Steppe, 70% EEF and WHG
Parma-2: 30% Steppe, 75% EEF and WHG

Ancestries Sicily Bell Beakers:

Sicily: 0% Steppe, 100% EEF and WHG

B.
And David Reich mentions in his book "Who We Are and How We Got Here":

"Bell Beaker–associated individuals in central Europe were extremely different, with most of their ancestry of steppe origin, and little if any ancestry in common with individuals from Iberia associated with the Bell Beaker culture.".

"So, in contrast to what happened with the spread of the Corded Ware culture from the east, the initial spread of the Bell Beaker culture across Europe was mediated by the movement of ideas, not by migration.".


These data, together with the Kelif el Boroud(KEB) Bell Beaker(Proto) related sample from 3000 BCE(which has Iberian ancestry), show that the Etruscan language is associated with the West Asian component(EEF).

If we consider the Corded Ware as being of Steppe origin, we can associate this culture with the Indo European language.

Between 3000 BCE and the Early Iron Age is about 2000 years. Many overlapping migrations could have happened.

Before the Early Neolithic a population of WHG origin were present in the Italian Peninsula.

The EEF West Asian population(with Iran_N, Anatolian_N and Levant_N ancestries)(mixed with WHG) were present in the Italian Peninsula in the Neolithic. They were the builders of the Proto Bell Beaker culture.

And then in the Bronze Age(starting around 2000 BCE) the Corded Ware Steppe population(from Central Europe) replaced(and copied the elements of the Bell Beaker culture) the EEF population in Italy(Iran_N, Anatolian_N and Levant_N declines), causing the EEF population to roll back to the Aegean Region(around Lemnos?).

And then some 1000 years later(starting around 1000 BCE) these EEF people(Tyrrhenians) started re-migrating to Central Italy(Tuscany, Latium), and mixing(not replacing) with the existing Steppe people(Italic people/Aborigines)?

Bob Floy said...

@Andrzejewski

"its speakers were mostly R1b"

Say what?

weure said...

It's obvious that Anglo-Saxon are not in the Nordic LNBA zone the German Mediaval (Bavarian) do.....(purple dots)
https://www.mupload.nl/img/fxzi1pd8kp.18.19.png

Drago said...

@ Suyindik
Your theory is a garble of confusion
The arrival of EEF in North African predates the BB horizon by 500 years
Bell beakers are a fusion of corded ware pots & Baden (alcohol) drinking jugs
They have nothing directly to do with KEB, Iran Neolithic or even the Italian Neolithic

Richard Rocca said...

@Suyindik

Other Sicilian samples do have steppe ancestry however, with sample EBA11443 from the Fernandes pre-print having the most thus far:

Anatolia_Neolithic: 49.3%
Yamnaya_Samara: 40.2%
WHG: 10.5%
Iran_Ganj_Dareh_Neolithic: 0%

I can't imagine that with more testing we won't find others with even more steppe ancestry.

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

Yet, aside and along with Saka and other Indo-European "White" settlers described by the Han Chinese as "red haired, fair skinned", we also have an attested Tocharian sub-language family: T-A, T-B and T-C, and its speakers were mostly R1b like Western Europeans (not Balto-Slavs or Indo-Iranians), in addition to wearing Tartan and being mistaken as "Celts".

Where are you getting this information about R1b in Tocharians from?

Suyindik said...

@Dragos, Richard Rocca
The oldest archaeological finding of Bell Beaker pottery is found in Morocco - KEB at 3000 BCE. After that the oldest finding is in 2700 in Iberia, and the population(EEF) from the region of KEB in North-Africa are involved in the building of the Iberic Bell Beaker culture.

The dna of these initial Iberic Bell Beaker belong to a mix of an EEF population(first farmers that arrived in Europe from West Asia) and a WHG population, there is no Steppe component at this stage in the Bell Beaker culture. But after around 2000 BCE, only the ideas(no genetic migration) of the Bell Beaker culture were moved to Central Europe, where the population with Steppe origin from the Corded Ware culture were located.

These Corded Ware population replaced majority of the people in Iberia and Italy after around 2000 BCE, which is indicating the movement of Italic speaking people. The original owners of the Bell Beaker culture(whom were replaced by the Corded Ware people) spoke different languages, in Italy it was the Etruscan language. Like shown in several genetic studies these population replacements didnt happen in peace. So, probably the proto Etruscans(with West Asian origin) were forced into the Aegean region, while being able to return to Italy in the Early Iron Age, mixing with the Italic people.

Samuel Andrews said...

@Andre,
"Afanasievo were displaced by the Okunevo, a population resembling the Botai and Native Americans by being an admixed pop of ANE and ENA. This population was either displaced or assimilated when Andronovo settled in."

Yeah, seems like Afanasievo left no descendants. Plus, they settled in Siberia not the Tarim Basin. The idea Tocherians descend from Afanasievo is based on (good) assumption Andronovo spoke a single language and that that language was proto-Iranian.

We'll probably find out Tocherians instead descend from Andronovo. The Iranian language, which all other Andronovo-decendants spoke, is younger than Andronovo. It's possible, Andronovo spoke several different IE languages And that, proto-Iranian was only one of the IE languages they spoke. Proto-Tocherian was may have been another IE language Andronovo spoke.

Gabriel said...

@Davidski

Where are you getting this information about R1b in Tocharians from?

Probably deducted this from the whole media hype about Tocharians and Tarim mummies being “Celts in Central Asia”.

Richard Rocca said...

@Suyindik

Stop spreading nonsense. Moroccan beakers look nothing like Bell Beaker. It is clear that the Iberian Bell Beaker was an immitation of Corded Ware, and the Alsacean woman is just as old as any Iberian sample.

Grey said...

Matt said...
"My view is that judging by the weak evidence of Western steppe ancestry at DSK Eastern steppe, any influence in early stages of Chinese civilization was probably indirect and there were probably never many IE speakers in direct contact with North China, much less any invasion."

my pet theory is before farming/draining the Wei river valley was a big swamp which blocked large scale IE entry into China allowing for a pots not people situation to develop.

Ric Hern said...

Wouldn't it be interesting if the Galatians were free to move within the Seleucid Empire which streched all the way as far as the Ferghana Valley...? After all, what was a few thousand more kilometres to the Tectosages originating from France...?

weure said...

I plotted the Germanic influences in the early middle ages. I used the averages. German Medieval and Swedish Vikings seems to fall into the Nordic LN-BA cluster. German Medieval more westwards and Vikings a bit more eastwards in the cluster. Saxons seems to be mixed with the Britons (plot in between Ireland and Iceland). Szolad and Collegno are Belgian/France shifted, dues to higher EEF?

https://www.mupload.nl/img/f0k4y8ihhnzh.56.47.png

Suyindik said...

@Richard Rocca

I think you need double glasses to re-read my posts, let me help you understand.

The oldest archaeological findings of the Bell Beaker culture are found in Morocco, and then in Iberia, and later in other South European sites, and much later in Central Europe.
David Reich clearly describes this fact in his book with as below:

"So, in contrast to what happened with the spread of the Corded Ware culture from the east, the initial spread of the Bell Beaker culture across Europe was mediated by the movement of ideas, not by migration."

"Beginning around forty-seven hundred years ago, a couple of centuries after the Corded Ware culture swept into central Europe, there was an equally dramatic expansion of the Bell Beaker culture, probably from the region of present-day Iberia."

"Bell Beaker–associated individuals in central Europe were extremely different, with most of their ancestry of steppe origin, and little if any ancestry in common with individuals from Iberia associated with the Bell Beaker culture. So, in contrast to what happened with the spread of the Corded Ware culture from the east, the initial spread of the Bell Beaker culture across Europe was mediated by the movement of ideas, not by migration."

David Reich clearly mentions that the origin of the Bell Beaker from Iberia is different than the origin of the Bell Beaker from Central Europe.
And what puts the final dot into the matter is that first of all, Iberian Bell Beaker pottery is older than Central European Bell Beaker pottery.
And secondly, the Proto Bell Beaker pottery is found in Morocco(< 3000 BCE), and these are genetically the same as the following Iberian Bell Beaker population. These people gave the ideas of the original Bell Beaker culture to the people of the Corded Ware culture.

I advise you to read the following study quotes:

1.
Study "Turek, J. 2012: Origin of the Bell Beaker phenomenon - the Moroccan connection.":

-"The pedigree of the specific Bell Beaker stamped decoration may be found in the northwestern Morocco Late Neolithic cemeteries of Skirat and El Kiffen."

-"In this context, the Bell Beaker style as it was known from the European continent was distributed later. There are two cemeteries on the Moroccan Atlantic coast dated roughly into the mid-4th and beginning of the 3rd Millennium BC. For these cemeteries pottery is characteristic with a bell beaker style stamp decoration (Camps-Fabrer 1966, pl. XLIII) that is identical with the later Bell Beaker ornament in the region of northern Morocco and in Europe."

2.
Study "Le Néolithique nord-atlantique du Maroc: premier essai de chronologie par le radiocarbone":

-"Nine 14C dates, compared to previous data, are used to propose a chronological framework for the North Atlantic Neolithic in Morocco. The Cardial established late, from 5300 B.C., over a poorly-known autochthonous population, and spread to the south. The scarcely-evidenced Middle Neolithic followed, from 4500 B.C., with Saharian influences. Circa 3700 B.C., the upper Middle Neolithic expanded over the entire area studied, with a pottery industry of the Proto-Bell-Beakers type. The final phase of the Middle Neolithic was a favourable environment for the birth of local metallurgy. At about 2700-2500 B.C., it participated in the emergence of the Iberic Bell-Beakers civilization which would return its products to Morocco. There is an abridged English version."

Gaska said...


Suyindik, I think you do not have things very clear, and that you need to improve your knowledge of Western Europe chalcolithic-

I have mentioned in this and other forums that the deposit of Kehf el Baroud Cave, is an example of the chalcolithic Iberian migrations, because all the mitochondrial haplogroups there, are Iberian (ie Europeans), never before seen in African sites- But you also have to study and understand the deposits, because that chronology of 3,000 BC does not refer to the BB pottery, but to the ceramics related to the culture of Los Millares, which as you know is prior to the BBC- This site shows that the large fortified cities of the Iberian Peninsula south such as Zambujal , Leceia and Los Millares kept open the trade routes of the western megalithic culture-Atlantic facade, Ireland, Brittany, Western Mediterranean, North Africa-

Genetically the BB culture in Iberia is an exact continuation of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures and continued with the same commercial and migratory routes as its ancestors, that is to say, they imported African and Asian ivory, Sicilian amber, and exported salt and metallurgical technology. These commercial routes always remain open with migratory movements, as has been demonstrated in Sardinia, Sicily, Liguria, Parma, southern France, and Morocco. They moved not only women, but also men (Df27 in Sicily) because the deposits have Ciempozuelos style ceramics that is exclusive to the Iberian Peninsula-

Regarding migrations to other European BB regions, years ago, Brotherton, Haak and others demonstrated the similarity of German and Iberian mitochondrial haplogroups, clearly relating them to female migrations (exogamy?)- However, when part of the International Scientific Community tried to resuscitate the theory of the Kurgans (Gimbutas), through the steppe ancestry and the massive migrations of R1a and R1b from the steppes, they found a problem- This problem is called Iberia, because not only the BB culture originated there (Cardoso and Henriques dating by C14, have made it absolutely clear), but it was also very doubtful to think of an eastern origin of R1b-L51/P312- What was the solution adopted by the Harvard scientists?- Negate absolutely any kind of genetic exchange between iberia and the rest of European BB regions- For this Olalde, who had already published a previous work fighting Brotherton, used the absurd argument that Mit-Hap H3 had not been found in Iberia. As absurd as this argument may seem (in fact H3 is a typically Iberian Mit haplogroup, which has been found in a large number of chalcolithic sites also campaniform), was accepted by much of the scientific community and international public opinion as a dogma of faith- We finally got rid of those Iberians and now we can explain our steppe origin without problems- However, new studies have complicated this simplistic and infantiloid vision of European prehistory, and more and more geneticists, linguists and archaeologists are fighting hard the theory of the Kurgans as interpreted by Heyd, Kristiansen, Reich and others.


Gaska said...

@Richard Rocca said "Stop spreading nonsense. Moroccan beakers look nothing like Bell Beaker. It is clear that the Iberian Bell Beaker was an immitation of Corded Ware, and the Alsacean woman is just as old as any Iberian sample.

As a result of the turn that events are taking, the guardians of the Kurganist orthodoxy have taken refuge in the CWC as the last trench to continue dissociating Iberia from the BB culture, resurrecting in some way the old and discredited Dutch model.The purpose is obvious, try to disassociate R1b-L51/P312 from Western Europe, or at least from the despised Iberia. My friend Rocca uses the Hegenheim deposit that he mentioned to tell us that even a very early BB without a trace of steppe signal is not Iberian, but French, so we still do not need Iberia to explain that mixture between steppe ancestry and BB culture that produced in Germany or France-

However, I recommend you to avoid future surprises, take a look at the mitochondrial haplogroups of those ancient BB French sites. And also since you like to mention it so much, to the Kromsdorf site, because some of the women who made the BB pottery found there, were absolutely Iberian- Simply Exogamy? Or did the men move too? I hope we do not take long to find out. The CWC is a culture that has absolutely nothing to do with the Bb culture, the first has its origin in the steppes and the second in Western Europe - The BB culture was much more uniform (there are at least 14 variants of the CWC) and much more technologically advanced than the CWC (many of its subcultures were still in the Stone Age). If you want to maintain a serious and coherent debate about the chalcolithic cultures of Europe, you should avoid saying "Iberian BB was an immitation of CW culture" because no European archaeologist will take you seriously-To start you can start by telling us in which aspects of the material culture, the Iberian BBs imitated the CW culture, please surprise us-

And remember what we've always said P312 is absolutely Western and bringing L51 from the steppes does not make any sense-


@Dragos said- "Bell beakers are a fusion of corded ware pots & Baden (alcohol) drinking jugs They have nothing directly to do with KEB, Iran Neolithic or even the Italian Neolithic"

It may be that some features of BB culture in Eastern Europe will be a mixture of Western and Central European elements, as it can not be otherwise, due to the migration of Western BBs and their mixing with the inhabitants of these regions- However, the Bb culture in Iberia lasted 1,000 years and in Hungary 300 years, that is,that is, the oriental Bb simply represent a kind of cultural outliers that went as far as they could

The Bb culture in a certain way, stopped the Indo-European expansion (CWC and Yamanaya Hungary) and that is one of the explanations for which the R1b-P312 lineage can not, and can not be related in the future to the IE language, both in Iberia, and in France , and probably also in Italy in a short time- I can not understand how some can continue to defend an Eastern or Central European origin of the BB culture, I recommend reading the last work published on this culture north of the Douro River, the dating by C14 are exhaustive and totally reliable, and of course at least 250 years older than the Dutch, German, Czechs, Hungarians and Poles

Ric Hern said...

@ Gaska

Please refresh my memory. Which R1b samples and lineages predates 2800 BCE. in Iberia ? How many R1b samples before this time ?

Meanwhile back on the Steppe Ranch....

Suyindik said...

@Gaska
You have a problem accepting what the sources I quoted from are trying to explain. I advise you to read those sources seriously and enlighten yourself with wisdom.

We are speaking about the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age, this is a period which lived a lot of migrations and mixing before it. So, talking about North Africa and Iberia as if they are two distant planets isnt going to help anyting. The regions are very close, and looking at the Y-DNA of Kelif el Boroud(KEB), you can either say this population is related to the Peqi'in population(which is related to earlier Northern Mesopotamia) or related to the EEF population in Europe which also originated in West Asia. The Iberian population which lived right before the occuring of the Bell Beaker culture in the region had the genetic structure of WHG + EEF, which means that the EEF component is the dna of KEB.

As for your point on if the pottery in Moroccon Late Neolithic / Early Bronze Age belongs to the Bell Beaker culture, this is what "Jan Turek" writes in his study in 2012: "There are two cemeteries on the Moroccan Atlantic coast dated roughly into the mid-4th and beginning of the 3rd Millennium BC. For these cemeteries pottery is characteristic with a bell beaker style stamp decoration (Camps-Fabrer 1966, pl. XLIII) that is identical with the later Bell Beaker ornament in the region of northern Morocco and in Europe.".

And you should do something about your not logical hateful prejudice against the conclusions of the team of David Reich. It is a clear fact that the Y-DNA of the original owners of the Bell Beaker culture(Morocco, Iberia) IS NOT EQUAL to the Y-DNA of the owners of the Corded Ware culture(migrated from the Steppe into Central Europe). If the Proto Bell Beakers are of West Asian origin(EEF), then how can it be that the Corded Ware people(with Steppe origin) brought the Bell Beakers culture into Iberia and Morocco, it does not make any sense. Like David Reich described it, Bell Beaker culture was adopted by the Steppe people in Central Europe by movements of ideas, NOT by the migration of genetics.

Ric Hern said...

@ Gaska


So where and when did the split between R1b1a1a2a1 and R1b1a1a2a2 happen ? And how did R1b1a1a2a2 end up thousands of kilometres from Iberia ? Can you please pinpoint the migration before 3500 BCE from the West that put Yamnaya where they were found ?

Ric Hern said...

@ Gaska

The only scenario that maybe(a very small chance) could have pulled this of is if R1b M269 was found in the Balkans before the Farmers started to displace them mostly towards the North and maybe through Italy and R1b M269 split into two groups who independently evolved into R1b1a1a2a2 on the Steppe and its Brother R1b1a1a2a1 in Iberia.....

Ric Hern said...

@ Gaska

Or the Suvorovo Cultural expansion stopped in the Transylvanian Plateau while its people kept on moving towards the West through nooks and crannies avoiding detection by means of a narrow migration along foothills and mountains all the way to Iberia.

Ric Hern said...

So if R1b in the Caucasus Piedmont area were not Proto-Indo-European sprakers, and they expanded towards the West through Sredny Stog (R1a only ?) territory, how did they manage to sidestep PIE influence in that area on their way towards the West ?

Gaska said...

@Suyindik-"We are speaking about the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age"

The first thing that you have to be clear about is the chronology of the Neolithic, the Chalcolithic and the Bronze Age in Iberia- and the second thing you have to know is that R1b-P312 in Iberia is much older than the Bronze Age (2,000-900 BC) - El Hundido 2.434 BC and that there are 10 other samples between (2,500-2,000 BC)

@Suyindik-So, talking about North Africa and Iberia as if they are two distant planets isnt going to help anyting"

Of course they are not two different planets, it only takes a few hours to cross the strait even in the Neolithic- Where do you think the Asian and African ivory, and the ostrich eggs from the Iberian deposits came from? Obviously trade with Africa. But what you have to understand is that in the Moroccan sites where there is typically Iberian pottery (Los Millares-3000 BC and BB 2,700 BC) there are also typical European women with Mit-Haps never seen in Africa, then it is clear that the pottery did not travel alone but there was a European genetic impact in the north of Morocco

I think you have not understood what I said, first, there are pottery from Los Millares (3.000 BC) and then BB pottery (2.700 BC), which is further evidence of the continuation of trade between Iberia and Morocco, and Iberian migrations related to the BB culture - those settlements in Africa, Sicily, Liguria they were a kind of factories where the exchange or trade of goods took place.

@Suyindik said-" And you should do something about your not logical hateful prejudice against the conclusions of the team of David Reich.

Thank God, I do not hate anyone, I simply do not agree with their work or the conclusions they draw from their studies. To say that there is no genetic exchange between the BB culture of Germany and Iberia because they have not found Mit-Hap-H3-is an idiocy-

@Suyindik said "It is a clear fact that the Y-DNA of the original owners of the Bell Beaker culture(Morocco, Iberia) IS NOT EQUAL to the Y-DNA of the owners of the Corded Ware culture(migrated from the Steppe into Central Europe)"

1-You can stop dreaming, Morocco did not participate in the genesis of BB culture, there are very few deposits there, Africans lived in the stone age and archeometalurgy has shown that the arsenical copper found in the deposits is Iberian-

2-Of course, the Y-DNA of the original owners of the BBC is not equal to the YDna of the CWC, You should know that the CWC is almost entirely R1a, and that the BBC is almost entirely R1b-P312, with which at no time (neither at the beginning nor the end of the BB culture) the Y-DNA of the CWC is equal to that of the BBC

@Suyindik-If the Proto Bell Beakers are of West Asian origin(EEF), then how can it be that the Corded Ware people(with Steppe origin) brought the Bell Beakers culture into Iberia and Morocco, it does not make any sense. Like David Reich described it, Bell Beaker culture was adopted by the Steppe people in Central Europe by movements of ideas, NOT by the migration of genetics.

I think you should think a bit about what you say, or study a bit more about genetics and archeology because this phrase does not make any sense-or at least I do not understand anything you're saying-

1-Not only the Proto BBs but all the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Europeans (including the CWC and the BBC) have a greater or lesser degree of EEF and WHG, and obviously EEF has its origin in Anatolia-What does this have to do with what you are saying?
2-Who has said that the CWC brought the BB culture to Iberia?
3-David Reich is one of the people in the world who knows less about the Iberian BB culture and of BB culture in general
4- His conclusions about the migratory movements in the chalcolithic also do not make much sense I have explained my opinion previously

Gaska said...

@Ric Hern-"Please refresh my memory. Which R1b samples and lineages predates 2800 BCE. in Iberia ? How many R1b samples before this time ? Meanwhile back on the Steppe Ranch....

Atp3-

It is better to wait while sitting or lying down because you will get bored waiting


Ric Hern said...

@ Gaska

I'm already bored...

Gaska said...

@Ric

Unlike a large number of experts, I have no idea where the IE originated, how it was expanded, or with what unipartentals markers it is related. For me everything is speculation until we can establish correct relationships between genetics and language. I think that for the moment, that has only happened in Iberia where R1b-P312/Df27 speaks NO-IE languages ​​for millennia.

Could it be that R1b-P312 or its different descendants spoke several languages ​​?. Could it be that they were opportunists and hijacked the Neolithic languages ​​of the territories where they were established? Do you think P312 came from the steppes and forgot their language in Iberia ?. I think P312 was at home or near home and neither he nor his ancestors ever spoke IE

It seems very good that you keep looking for L51 in the steppes, for me that does not make any sense. I hope the geneticists help us solve the problem.

Suyindik said...

@Gaska

The Proto Bell Beaker culture is being formed before 3000 BCE in North Africa (and Iberia). Do the mathematics, and determine if 2500-2000 BCE is earlier or later than 3000 BCE. How can the source of the Bell Beaker culture lie in Central Europe when the oldest findings are not from there?

What do you define as European actually? First of all if we consider the ancestors of the Natufian culture as the locals of North Africa, we are talking about before 10.000 BCE. There is a big gap between 10.000 BCE and 3000 BCE, and a lot of migrations happened. For example the Chalcolithic Peqi'in population migrated into the Levant from Northern Mesopotamia. And the Y-DNA of them was also present in the KEB culture in North Africa which was not there before. If you look at the Y-DNA and MT-DNA of the Levant before and after the migration of the Peqi'in people, you can also see changes(similar to the EEF from Europe) in their dna.

You also do not seem to understand that the Early European farmers came initially from West Asia, mixing with local WHG populations(and migrating back towards West Asia in phases of time). So, what does European dna mean? Using terms like "European mitochondrial dna" is therefore very meaningless and vague.

@Gaska-"You can stop dreaming, Morocco did not participate in the genesis of BB culture, there are very few deposits there" ==>

Dude, if you keep ignoring the facts I quoted from the studies of "Jan Turek" and "Serge Occhietti", I have nothing else to add to you.

Migrations from the Steppe into Central Europe happened around 3000 BCE including both R1a and R1b, you can not bend this fact. If these are not found around 3000 BCE in Iberia and Morocco, then you know what this means I suppose...

Richard Rocca said...

@Suyindik,

If one wants to, one can squint their eyes hard enough and also see Remedello culture pottery as Proto-Bell Beaker. It is up to the imagination (or biases) of the archaeologist. Like I said, there is nothing Proto-Bell Beaker about anything in Morocco dated to 3000 BC. Outside of quoting general dates, why don't you give us a link to a radiocabron dated grave in Morocco that has a Bell Beaker buried in it?

@Gaska,
Iberia is now the second best tested location on the planet after Britain, and still no L51. The Yamnaya of the western steppe (from Hungary to Moldova) has zero samples tested so far. So yes, it makes a whole lot of sense to keep testing the steppe.

And yes, I keep mentioning Hegenheim because it is as old as any Iberian Bell Beaker date. Since Bell Beaker pottery is distinct in that it has cord decorations, which obviously originated on the steppe, there is an obvious geographic link between a woman using such a technique being found only a few miles away from Corded Ware territory.

By the way, the ATP3 sample you keep trying to resurrect is as low quality of a sample as can be found, and there's a reason why it's not used in any autosomal study. I can show you many DOZENS of M269 level calls from other samples who clearly belong to haplogroups G2a, I2a etc. It's embarrassing at this point in time to still be discussing it.

Gaska said...

@Suyindik said-"The Proto Bell Beaker culture is being formed before 3000 BCE in North Africa (and Iberia)

You really have no idea where the BB culture originated- Campaniforme: chronology, pottery, and contexts of a long term phenomenon in the Portuguese Douro Basin-Maria de Jesus Sanches (2.018)-

@Suyindik said-How can the source of the Bell Beaker culture lie in Central Europe when the oldest findings are not from there?

In that we agree, but in Spain there are thousands of deposits of the Bb culture, in Africa the deposits can be counted with the fingers of a hand- They were simply commercial colonies

@Suyindik said-What do you define as European actually?

If you can not distinguish between European and African uniparental markers, you do not understand anything about genetics- African migrations have absolutely nothing to do with European migrations

@Sayindik said-"also do not seem to understand that the Early European farmers came initially from West Asia, mixing with local WHG populations(and migrating back towards West Asia in phases of time). So, what does European dna mean? Using terms like "European mitochondrial dna" is therefore very meaningless and vague"

Everyone knows that humanity has its origin in Africa and everyone should know that European farmers came from Anatolia-I have to explain what European DNA and European mitochondrial DNA mean? You do not understand it? You know that mutations occur, right? and that these mutations occur in some places and not in other places? You understand that there are mit-haps typical of Europe (and within Europe of certain regions), and Mit Haps typical of Africa, Asia or Australia, right?-Ergo if you have Mit-Hap X2b + 226 only in Iberia and U6 only in Morocco, any minimally intelligent person can deduce that one lineage is European and the other African. And obviously in Spain there are no Bb sites with Hap Mit U6 and in Morocco are BB sites with Mit-Hap X2b + 226. It is clear the direction of the migrations, right?

@Suyindik said- Migrations from the Steppe into Central Europe happened around 3000 BCE including both R1a and R1b, you can not bend this fact. If these are not found around 3000 BCE in Iberia and Morocco, then you know what this means I suppose...

I guess you'll also know which lineages were typical of the different steppe cultures right? - And I guess you'll also know that none of them appear in Western Europe

Gaska said...

@Richard Rocca said-"Iberia is now the second best tested location on the planet after Britain, and still no L51. The Yamnaya of the western steppe (from Hungary to Moldova) has zero samples tested so far. So yes, it makes a whole lot of sense to keep testing the steppe"

Totally agree, but I suppose you will agree with me that they could also study the Franco-Cantabrian region (3,000-2,500 BC) because it has zero samples tested so far. So yes, it makes a whole lot of sense to keep testing Southern France and Northern Spain

@Richard- And yes, I keep mentioning Hegenheim because it is as old as any Iberian Bell Beaker date. Since Bell Beaker pottery is distinct in that it has cord decorations, which obviously originated on the steppe, there is an obvious geographic link between a woman using such a technique being found only a few miles away from Corded Ware territory.

My point is that her Mit-Hap and also some of those of Kromsdorf are typically Iberian (or may be French)- Then in Western Europe there are population movements throughout the Chalcolithic period (3,000-2,000 BC) in all directions and anything could happen-I have already said many times that there was only a BB people moving throughout Europe and mixing in certain regions with its inhabitants- For me it is indifferent if P312 originated in the south of France, Switzerland, Bavaria or northern Italy, I think it goes to be very difficult to determine the exact place, I think it originated in the Franco-Cantabrian region because it is what many Spanish scholars think- Also at this point of the debate you should know that this is not our true objective

Atp3 is one more anecdote of the Iberian and European prehistoric genetics, what can not be done is to deny a possibility, and to give for certain others, much less credible because they fit the theory that we are trying to defend-

Suyindik said...

@Richard Rocca
If the facts dont suit you, it becomes "imagination (or biases) of the archaeologist", right? You are being ridiculous...

Suyindik said...

@Gaska
When there were no Bell Beaker pottery(<2700 BCE) in Iberia there were Bell Beaker pottery in Morocco. This is showing the point of origin and the direction of the migration. If you do not understand this, then this discussion is being ridiculous.

I was trying to explain that even the Y-DNA defined as being of African origin(E) is found in the EEF, these are earlier than when the Steppe people arrived in Central Europe, so thats why I ask if you know what youre writing about when talking about terms like "European markers". Talking about genetically distant groups can only be mentioned before 8.000-10.000 BCE when populations were really genetically different from each other. Late Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age are periods which have lived many mixing and migrations of lots of groups.

Also, the Bell Beaker sample "I4246" from Iberia shows Y-haplogroup E, this shows clear connection of the Bell Beaker sample with North Africa(where the Proto Bell Beaker pottery is found). Besides that, Y-haplogroup G is also found among Iberian Bell Beaker samples, adding to this is that the Moroccon KEB sample also had Y-haplogroup T, both showing connection of the Bell Beaker culture to the EEF(and together with this to older Pre Neolithic Mesopotamia, CHG and Zagros regions).

John Thomas said...

At last!

Gaska has met his match! (Suyindik).

Gaska said...

@Suyindik-To say that BB culture originated in Africa is as absurd as to say that there is no difference between African and European markers-I have already recommended you two papers about BB culture in Iberia for you to read. I can recommend some other about metallurgy, so you can see where the copper found in Morocco comes from-Unfortunately for you the only things that originates in Africa during the Neolithic and the Chalcolithic, is the desert sand, the ivory and the ostrich eggs- The pottery as well as the people who made it, were European

I guess WHGs (I-R1b,C1) will also be Africans, right?
You forgot to say that we also have some cases of HapY-E with the Goths in the 5th century-Of course, considering your theories, the Goths will be African too, will not they?

I suppose you can also tell me what migrations there were during the Bronze Age in Iberia- Maybe you know one that Spanish archaeologists do not know



Gaska said...

However, if that will make you feel better and happier, then I will give you the reason and from now on I will defend the origin of Bb culture in Africa. You've convinced me

Suyindik said...

@Gaska
There is no one sentence in my comments talking about African origins, I am only making an analysis on the origin of the Bell Beaker culture. You can continue to drown in your observations based on modern dna, talking about "African" and "European" dna. Like I mentioned before, since the Holocene, different groups of people(from different locations) made dozens of migrations into regions of Eurasia and Africa, each time overlapping the previous group. You can not define people from 4000-3000 BCE with terms like "African", "European" or "Asian". Only thing we can do, is to assign specific genetic attributes to specific cultures, and make links between different locations and cultures, and define where the oldest occurence of a specific culture has been found in order to know the origin of this culture.

Gaska said...

@Suyindik said- we can not define people from 4000-3000 BCE with terms like "African", "European" or "Asian".

True, actually, they were all Africans, do not insist, you've convinced me,

What part of Morocco do you think these migrations or population movements come from? Casablanca, Tanger, the Rif?
Can you send some more interesting paper to understand BB in Africa?

weure said...

@Davidski do you have an explanation why in the PCA my family is closer to Rise and Rose 97 and these Rise's are more on distance to the Saxons, whereas in the Monte Wedrunner G25 checkfit these Rise's are much more closer to the Saxons than to my family?

Davidski said...

@weure

On that plot you're just looking at two of the most significant dimensions of genetic variation, while the nMonte runner uses all of the available data to calculate overall affinity.

weure said...

@Davidski clear thanks!

A said...

@Bob Floy "I've also wondered whether PIE was a Corded ware phenomenon, rather than Yamnaya, more so after the Iberian revelations."

How would that work for Celtic and Latin?

weure said...

LukaszM made an ancient calculator based on good old K36 (available on Your DNA).

My sample unisono early Germanic, with one exception Rise98....no coincidence in this respect.

https://www.mupload.nl/img/gicv3lruz.13.38.png

weure said...

Rise71, Pre-Germanic development in the LN Flint Dagger Period.

See:
https://anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?21097-Pre-Germanic-development-in-the-LN-Flint-Dagger-Period

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