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Saturday, June 15, 2019

Not Bell Beaker, not Corded Ware, but...the SGBR complex


I'd be very grateful if someone could explain to me what this new paper at the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society journal was actually about.

Citation...

Furholt, Martin, Re-integrating Archaeology: A Contribution to aDNA Studies and the Migration Discourse on the 3rd Millennium BC in Europe, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Published online: 10 June 2019, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/ppr.2019.4

See also...


276 comments:

1 – 200 of 276   Newer›   Newest»
Vinitharya said...

All right, from what I can gather is that they maintain that steppe ancestry is connected not to Bell Beaker or Corded Ware, but to the new burial techniques (?) linked to the Single Grave Burial people. I don't know if the Kristiansen cited is the same one Carlos Quiles has a strange vendetta against, but as it deals with the same time period and culture as the "Copenhagen School", I would venture it is. So I think it is saying that the Single Grave Culture were the Indo-European steppe invaders and Bell Beaker and Corded Ware are merely material cultures connected to the steppe invaders and their new burial techniques.

Davidski said...

@Dragos

Lastly; what nobody has still addressed is that- for all the similarity of BB and CWC burials rites & autosomal clinality - why did they adopt different orientations and weapons ; and how it came to be that CWC and BB have mutually exclusive male lineages.

Isn't this a reflection of the fact that the BB and CWC weren't exactly contemporaneous, and that the BB was able to adopt innovations that post-dated most of the CWC period?

I'd say that comparing the BB to the CWC is sort of like comparing Sintashta to the CWC. Sintashta is like a more advanced version of the CWC.

Andrzejewski said...

Just came to my attention:

https://polishgenes.blogspot.com/2018/01/modern-day-poles-vs-bronze-age-peoples.html

@Samuel Andrews wrote: "Modern Lithuanian/Latvian
Yamnaya-43%
MN Farmer-30%
Narva HG-27%

Baltia BA-Kivutkalns.
Yamnaya-38%
MN Farmer-17%
Narva HG-45%"

So there was clearly a shift between the Baltic Bronze Age to today's, with Yamnaya's proportions remaining essentially unchanged while there is a reversal between the roles of WHG and EEF, as represented by Narva HG v. MN Farmer.

What do you think accounts for this dramatic reversal between HG and Anatolian proportions? Is it likely to attribute the shift to the Polish and Baltic populations undergoing deep and profound assimilating into Hungary_BA and/or some Bell Beaker population(s)?

Drago said...

@ Davidski
Yes pragmatic and utalitarian reasons; but also need to consider the less tangible ideological reasons . What exactly that might be is not 100% clear
Another good point F. makes is the need to sample more of the pre-CWC groups from central and Northern Europe; not that there’ll be anything too surprising, but who knows

FrankN said...

[Post exceeds the 4096 character length, so it is split in two parts. All links follow part two.]

Unfortunately, the paper is pay-walled, so I can't make a detailed judgement, and not even figure out what the SGBR complex should refer to.

However, M. Furholt is certainly no lightweight, but considered a leading authority when it comes to German (C. European?) Corded Ware. His 2003 publication on the absolute chronology and emergence of CW (link 1, in German) is still regularly cited, while his later revisions appear to have received less attention.

In 2014 (link 2), he already demonstrated considerable local diversity within the CW horizon. A/o, he showed that CW "A-horizon" amphoras were derived from GAC amphoras in SE Poland. He furthermore conducted a network analysis pointing at the existence of several, only losely connected sub-units within Central European CE, namely

a) a "Single Grave" sphere centered on the Netherlands and the Elbe-Weser triangle, with satellites in Switzerland, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg;

b) an "eastern sphere" centered on Lithuania, with satellites in SE Poland and Kujawia (the pivotal role of Lithuania, also as concerns interaction with the "Single Grave" sphere, can IMO linked to amber trade);

c) a "central sphere" in Moravia, Bohemia and on the Saale (no Middle Elbe this time, that was Schönfelder Culture [post-GAC West] land);

d) somewhat distant outposts in Jutland and SW Sweden [probably partly a methodological artefact. SW Sweden would possibly look less isolated if he had included E. Swedish and Finnish Battle Axe in the analysis. Jutland's relative isolation apparently goes back to a high diversity in battle axes, as might be expected from a major exporter of processed flint. Furholt credits Jutland with having created (and afterwards exported?) the CW "A-Horizon" Battle Axe].

This diversity and isolation from each other obviously relates to non-CW groups blocking/ influencing communication lines, including

1.) GAC in Pommerania and much of lowland Poland,
2.) Goldberg III/ Cham in Bavaria/ W. Bohemia,
3.) Schönfeld on the Middle Elbe/ Havel (at least as far east as Potsdam),
4.) Final TRB N on the Danish Isles,
5.) Possibly (timing and character of transition to Single Grave is yet uncertain) late Wartberg (Michelsberg-derived, related to SOM) in Westphalia and N. Hesse.

[Note, btw, that of the above, only Polish GAC has so far successfully been sampled for aDNA.]

FrankN said...

In a 2016 conference summary (link 3), Furholt called for a nuanced and localised understanding of migration phenomena: "If we – as we should – reintegrate migration as a social phenomenon into our understanding of 3rd millennium Europe, it is even more important to explicitly elaborate our concepts. For example, besides making explicit the differential and complex social phenomena subsumed under the term “migration”, it seems urgent to point out that especially large archaeological units, like Corded Ware, are artificial archaeological units of classification, referring to set(s) of things and practices which still contain a considerable degree of variability, and cannot be equalled with a specific social group, nor does it represent a total social phenomenon that could be explained by a single historical event or factor".

Finally, in 2018 (link 3, abstract only), he has argued that "1) the social composition of Neolithic communities should, in general, be seen as socially heterogeneous and fluid and that 2), in opposition to what is widely assumed, a marked homogeneity of material culture in a region (the basis of definitions of ‘archaeological cultures’) must be read as an expression of marked social heterogeneity within local settlement units."

So, my feeling is that he is arguing for a nuanced interpretation of the CW/SG phenomenon – certainly not along „invasionist“ lines, but rather in a sense of gradual, nevertheless steady, trickling in of „steppe ancestry“ into Central Europe that interacted with resident MN populations in different ways: Sometimes overforming them, sometimes exchanging ideas/ forms, sometimes being rejected, depending on the area in question.

http://www.jungsteinsite.uni-kiel.de/pdf/2003_furholt.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271934290_Upending_a_'Totality'_Re-evaluating_Corded_Ware_Variability_in_Late_Neolithic_Europe

https://www.academia.edu/32901019/Northwestern_Jutland_at_the_dawn_of_the_3rd_millennium_navigating_life_and_death_in_a_new_socioeconomic_landscape

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325212309_Translocal_Communities_-_Exploring_Mobility_and_Migration_in_Sedentary_Societies_of_the_European_Neolithic_and_Early_Bronze_Age

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

Not sure why you bring up Hungary_BA or the Bell Beakers in this context, since obviously these groups had no impact on the East Baltic?

On the other hand, keep in mind that East Balts actually migrated into the East Baltic from the east and absorbed and replaced the West Balts in the region. There was also the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Teutonic Knights, the Hanseatic League, and other potential vectors of foreign admixture into the post-Iron Age East Baltic.

Have a look at the paper that I blogged about here. The Estonians from the Middle Ages show more southern ancestry than the people who lived in Estonia during the Iron Age and Bronze Age, and this is also when Y-haplogroup J2 first shows up in the ancient DNA record there (sample IVLS09KT, 1570-1600 AD).

It was always going to be this way

WeightofAudio said...

So, uh, asserting that CWC and BB are now part of a Single Grave "Horizon"? How does this make sense?

Sometimes I feel like researchers just get bored decide it gets high-time to redefine shit. Maybe I'm just not getting it. It's been a long day.

Drago said...

@ Frank
“certainly not along „invasionist“ lines, but rather in a sense of gradual, nevertheless steady, trickling in of „steppe ancestry“ into Central Europe that interacted with resident MN populations in different ways: Sometimes overforming them, sometimes exchanging ideas/ forms, sometimes being rejected, depending on the area in question. ”

I’d echo that.
Furholts cautions the “avalanche” narrative; certainky, it’s not as if everything in Europe vanished when CWC arrived. Some earlier genetic papers made use of ADMIXTURE approach in modelling CWC (2800 BC); and they used on the basis of LBK (5000 BC) and Yamnaya (300 BC). However, use of more direct methods (e.g. qpADM or Dave’s G25) + employing proximate sources (e.g. TRB or GAC), whilst not excluding other, contemperaneous cultures in northern-central Europe will provide more nuanced understanding into social & demographic dynamics

As Frank outlines, some groups adopted CWC models (eg some of the I2a2 we have seen); others had no need for it.- and went along their own path independently. In any case, the use of cord decorated pottery goes back to the 5th millenium
The decline of Neolithic groups already began in the c,4500 Bc; with WHG introgression and more dispersed settlements. The final caesura in previous Neolithic traditions wasn't the arrival CWC, but the advent of the Bronze Age several hundred years later (when “farmer”, “steppe” & HG ancestry all fused).
The details of how the emergent BA groups formed from the preceding groups (Wartberg, TRB, GAC, CWC, BB) remain to be seen until we get a raft of Bronze Age data, and so the Tollensee paper might be very useful.

Grey said...

"how it came to be that CWC and BB have mutually exclusive male lineages"

tortoise and hare imo

first lot moving west faster (on rivers?) maybe initially more artisanal/trader then expanding dramatically along the atlantic coast and bouncing back west to east (kilts?)

second lot moving west slower (alongside rather than on rivers?) more of a tribal movement (trousers?)

slower lot winning the eventual clash in the middle cos bohemian iron > cornish tin.

Samuel Andrews said...

I'd rather see an apology paper by lefty archaeologist for making false claims about European population history for decades!

BBC had an page on the "History of people of Britain." It still hasn't been updated despite extensive ancient DNA papers on Britain. It was full of the lefty bull crap about pots=/=people, identity (their favorite word) changes but ancestry doesn't, bla, bla.

I emailed this British archaeologist who wrote it. I basically explained their whole framework for interpreting population history from archaeology has been proven to not always work (in the case of prehistoric Europe it has been almost 100% wrong). I explained how what he said about Britain before 0ad was all wrong.

He didn't move an inch. He didn't admit any fault in the way he and other archaeologist look at population history.

Andrzejewski said...

@Sam what you said dove-tails with my post about the reconstruction of Ava on the previous blog entry.

What do you think?

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/no-wait-real-ava-bronze-age-woman-scottish-highlands-180970950/

Samuel Andrews said...

Basically, they're arguing there was a "Single Grave culture" which is arbitrarily seperated into Bell Beaker & Corded Ware based only on pottery. They believe single grave was created by migrating males (who were buried in eastern European styled single graves). But the pottery is from from central/northern Europe.

Samuel Andrews said...

Pots=/=People.
"We
have to be careful to separate the realm of pottery production, whose traditions are created via social
learning, people`s identities, which are subjective,
and their biological ancestry, which might have been
largely unknown to the individuals themselves."

Samuel Andrews said...

Graves=People. And also leftist bull shit about gender binary.

"To sum up, in the early 3rd millennium, what is
really new in Central Europe is the introduction of
a novel package of burial ritual activities and grave
forms that can be connected with migration from
Eastern Europe and is to be seen in the realm of cosmology and social relations (eg, the binary gender
model) but much less so in terms of subsistence economy or material production"

Samuel Andrews said...

They break up "Corded Ware" (Corded Ware, Bell Beaker) into two types. Type 1 has single graves. Type 2 does not. The only ones that fall under type two is Bell Beaker culture in Spain & Italy.

Define Single grave as.
"strict orientation rules
and gender differentiation, the central role of weapons
in male graves and drinking vessels (beakers) in general"
These are the similarities Bell Beaker & Corded Ware graves share. These practises all trace back to their ancestors from the eastern European Steppe.

Samuel Andrews said...

Seperate Corded Ware into two groups. One group were Corded Ware material culture is found in graves & one in which it is found in settlements.

Group 1, Found in Graves: Pretty much of all Corded Ware terrritory.
Group 2, Found in Settlements: Switzerland, Baltic States, Finland, southern Norway.

They suggest Group 2 represents Corded Ware migrants intergating into local "successively integrated into previously existing settlement structures and styles of material culture."

Grizzlor said...

@Andrzejewski
That Ava reconstruction is a travesty,an open attack against White Europe. If anything, most if not all British beakers looked very much like modern day Scandinavians, Poles or Icelanders, nothing like them swarthy types from Iberia that they are trying to paint the celts a. BBC tries obviously downplay the whiteness of Britons, that's to be expected from a communist organization. What I can say for sure, Ava DID NOT have dark eyes and hair. Period.

Those features arrived muuuch later with the Spanish Armada and the jews. Don't listen what these Marxist revisionist are trying to tell you. The original Ava reconstruction had it right, though they probably did not dare to make her as fair as she actually was, to avoid upsetting the far left academia and press.

Samuel Andrews said...

In the "DISCUSSION: A REFINED MODEL OF POPULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 3RD MILLENNIUM" section they put forward their new model for migration in 3rd millenium BC Europe.

Here are some notes from it.
-They correctly point out "Yamnaya" has become an umbrella term for all European Steppe cultures. In reality, Yamnaya was just one of those cultures.
-They wrongly claim Yamnaya was diverse. Genetic data from all over the Yamnaya horizon actually proves they were a homogeneous ethnic group.
-They suggest "Type 2" Corded Ware were local population who recieved (male) Corded Ware migrants that introduced to them Corded Ware burials, battle axes.

Samuel Andrews said...

Basically, this paper is asking for a more detailed, complex, nuanced look at migration in 3rd millenium BC Europe. They don't like how genetic papers describe Corded Ware & Bell Beaker a monolithic groups formed by migrant communities from the eastern Europen Steppe.

They try to describe the complexity of the archeaology....They say the burial practises are ctaullay the signature of migrating population from eastern European Steppe not the pottery. They say the pottery was made locally.

Also, they take time to describe "Type 2" Bell Beaker & "Type 2" Corded Ware whom they say are local communities who received Steppe (male) migrants.

T

Davidski said...

@All

Please don't quote so much of the text from the paper.

And no conspiracy theories thanks.

Samuel Andrews said...

A problem I have, is "Type 2" Bell Beaker & "Type 2" Corded Ware represent a minority of each culture. The bulk of each culture, was in fact founded by not migrants into local community but entirely new communities migrating into new places.

Sure, Corded Ware & Bell Beaker weren't completely uniform monoliths but no one said they were. This is a false accusation by this paper. All, people have been saying is they were founded by ethnic groups & across the whole span of the culture all communities traced most of their ancestry to the same founder population.

Samuel Andrews said...

@Andre
"@Sam what you said dove-tails with my post about the reconstruction of Ava on the previous blog entry.

What do you think?"

I'd have to look at her DNA data. Her reconstruction's pigmentation probably does show skin which is darker than she had. Her complexion is in darkest range for modern northern Europeans. Bell Beaker was slightly darker complexed then their modern decendants.

It is telling that Cheddar man got more news coverage in Britain than Bell Beaker. Actually, news on Bell Beaker got like NO news coverage in Britain or western Europe in general. Even though it is so important to the history of western Europe & their origins.

Anyways, Bell Beaker literally built the foundation for modern Brits & Irish. Bell beaker is what Irish & British share in common. But, I think British Media doesn't care precisly because it could support a sense of identity, heritage for white Brits. While, Cheddar man does the opposite so they'd rather report on that.

EastPole said...

They have not mentioned „Indo-European” even once. And they say:

“Steppe ancestry is not necessarily solely connected to individuals from a Yamnaya-related context”

“Yamnaya is also not likely to represent one unified social group or biological population.”

“The whole notion of Yamnaya …being transferred to Corded Ware in Central Europe is problematic.”

This complicates PIE problem.

Bob Floy said...

"problematic"

LOL. I'm going to head over to their Tumblr page and complain.

Matt said...

Discontinuity in megalithic sites via the re-use and symbolic "closing" and reuse of megalithic monuments is of course what Koch has described in his presentation here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub5izFOdtDs, arguing similarly for effectively a "discontinuity", via in a particular pattern along the Atlantic facade which later sees cist graves, Atlantic metalwork then when they are attested, Celtic languages and Tartessian are attested - https://imgur.com/a/8ng196A.

Leaving aside his linguistic hypothesis (much discussed already, previously), it does seem disturbing to me that this reuse can have such a mercurial interpretation in archaeology - shifting from "Oh, that's continuity, with simply a new religious ritual" to "That's an invasive people signifying their replacement of the previous inhabitants", depending only on which way the wind is blowing in other evidence.

@Sam, re; your tangent on Bell Beaker migration in the media, was covered in all major newspapers and news websites. BBC will probably do a program on it with Alice Roberts or someone, as they have done many such on the Celts etc. Perhaps the media as a whole (and angry Americans on the internet) sensationalized it less.

Samuel Andrews said...

@Matt,
Cheddar man was on the front page of British news for about one week last year. Bell Beaker did not get that kind of coverage. Cheddar man was on the front page of popular non-academic media because he was politicized.

History in general, including Bell Beaker, isn't very newsworthy. Bell Beaker is only worth a few BBC documentaries, a room in the British national museum, & a chapter in British public school history books.

Drago said...

'' Leaving aside his linguistic hypothesis (much discussed already, previously), it does seem disturbing to me that this reuse can have such a mercurial interpretation in archaeology - shifting from "Oh, that's continuity, with simply a new religious ritual" to "That's an invasive people signifying their replacement of the previous inhabitants", depending only on which way the wind is blowing in other evidence. ''

Not really.
For a start, if there is a 500 year hiatus between the last building phase and burial use of a Megalithic monument (c. 3000 BC), and it is then reused c.- 2400 BC, calling that a contnuity seems dubious, (although some sites have no such gap, but nevertheless have clearly excavated phases, e.g. Cerdanyola)
Also, if the communal burial phases people are documented to have one genetic signature, and the person at the ''closing phase'' has another, then it clearly signifies new use by new people.
From the anthropological perspective, careful treatment of what the closing event symbolised outlines what it might have meant.
Eg In Western and West-Central Europe, it is common to find sherds of Bell-Beakers in the uppermost layers of megalithic monuments, sometimes accompanied by bones of a corresponding age. This ‘re-use’ is not restricted to burial-context. Henges and stone circles can contain so-called ‘coves’ from the Bell Beaker period. This points to a changed use of the structure. The most famous example is Stonehenge. I interpret this as a deliberate attempt by a new elite to erase power-mechanisms of previous generations. The effort put into these acts shows that these structures were perceived as a real threat to the new order.

Draft Dozen said...

@Andrzejewski

Look at this reconstructions of Siberian Ice Maiden
The intravital reconstruction of the Princess of Ukok's appearance, taken to Moscow for exhibiting:
https://img.giaoduc.net.vn/w1050/uploaded/2019/yfafs/2012_08_14/hinh_xam_giaoduc.net.vn_7.jpg
https://cdni.rt.com/actualidad/public_images/2014.12/original/5491592d72139efc508b45fc.jpg
The "exact copy", which was returned to Altai for Museum shows:
https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/galyagorshenina/52268261/1521848/1521848_original.jpg
http://altaitur.ru/images/muzei/muzanohina/altaitur.ru-muzei-anohina03.jpg

weure said...

IMO this publication underlines the 'thesis' of Davidski: SGC>BB NW.
And as such it's not an Irish/ British c.q. Isles phenomenon it's more pan-European, I want an excuse for the British/Irish exclusivity claim of Sam ;). They came from the East (SGC), mingled in the North Dutch/ NW Germany area and than went in the boat to the Isles....

Ric Hern said...

Those two pots along the Upper Dnieper River are interesting...

WeightofAudio said...

@Grizzlor

Your comment was pretty far back in the conversation, but I see no one has "dealt" with you yet. Surprised Davidski has not deleted your comment by now.

"Those features arrived muuuch later with the Spanish Armada and the jews"

Are you doing parody or something? Do you know how many waves and waves and waves of Spaniards and Jews it would take to have effected a total genepool like that in so short of a time?

Nay, those features were present for far longer. Don't be a silly goose now.

@all

April 1 was a while ago. The heck is going on here? Well, all I can say is: Fight! Fight! Fight!

Davidski said...

@WeightofAudio

Well, all I can say is: Fight! Fight! Fight!

Steady on. Tame your temper.

Andrzejewski said...

Cheddar Man was described as almost black. What a bollocks!

Andrzejewski said...

Why would BB be slightly darker than their modern descendants?

Andrzejewski said...

@EastPole "They have not mentioned „Indo-European” even once. And they say:

“Steppe ancestry is not necessarily solely connected to individuals from a Yamnaya-related context”

“Yamnaya is also not likely to represent one unified social group or biological population.”

“The whole notion of Yamnaya …being transferred to Corded Ware in Central Europe is problematic.”

This complicates PIE problem."

CWC is probably derived from Sredny Stog II than from Yamnaya.

But it seems strange to me that Yamnaya was mostly R1b with a minority of R1a1 (and some J, I2a or Q1a) whereas Ukraine HG were R1a1. It complicates the picture like you said: was pre-proto-PIE at its earliest stage possible a basal R* language with splits into R1b and R1a1 similar to each other, or was there a cultural dominance between one groups over others? We will likely never know.

EastPole said...

@Andrzejewski

“CWC is probably derived from Sredny Stog II than from Yamnaya.”


I was speculating before that CWC came from West Yamnaya (YAW) as a result of mixing Sredny Stog II men and East Yamnay (YAE) women:

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/08/a-closer-look-at-maternal-origins-of.html?showComment=1533238722007#c7263585452504297957

But is still an open question.
I am upset that important areas like West Ukraine and Poland are not properly researched.
That project from Kujawy is interesting but still long time to go before we know results.

P.S. It will be fun if Kujawy turn out to be PIE homeland (i.e. if alleles from Kujawy turn out to be present in all IE cultures like for example Kujawy->SG->BB, Kujawy->Sintashta etc….We know that they are present in Poles, so….).

Gaska said...

Furholt has always criticized the thesis of Harvard and other geneticists on the hypothetical conquests and massive migrations from the steppes in the third millennium. On the other hand, we were commenting on the doubts generated by the origin of CWC in Yamnaya given the evident difference of uniparental markers. We have also said that perhaps this steppe sign should be sought in Central Europe in the IV Millennium, but so far or no one has done it or nobody has found it. Everything seems to indicate that we were right in saying that Yamnaya only reached Hungary and that the Eastern BBs have very little to do with the steppes.

@Dragos,

The elitist character of the BB culture is a proven fact at least in Iberia- The BB package was not adopted by all the inhabitants of the great Iberian chalcolithic cities, only the richest individuals were buried with their most precious possessions (weapons, copper , ivory, ornaments, gold jewelry etc), however there are contemporary burials to those tombs so luxurious in which individuals were buried without grave goods-But archaeologists have always pointed out as important data

1- That the individuals of these rich tombs can be I2a, G2a or R1b-P312, that is, the wealth was not restricted to a particular male lineage-
2- There are also no certain distinguished female lineages because the richest tombs (even with gold ornaments, copper daggers and ivory buttons) belong to women with typical Iberian haplogroups
3-The wealth should be relatively abundant because families could afford to bury their loved ones with very expensive and scarce goods. That is, they could easily replace these objects

The interpretation of the reuse of neolithic megaliths has always been an interesting topic of discussion-It might mean a break from previous traditions and that the BBs would simply take advantage of the already built tombs. However, in Iberia, many of these megaliths are in very difficult terrains (for example, mountains and forests more than 2,000 meters above sea level). The BBs had to know the terrain very well to find these constructions, that is, they were great explorers who traveled great distances in a short time, or simply used tombs of their ancestors that they knew previously.

Gaska said...


Regarding the comments about the phenotype of different individuals and prehistoric cultures in Europe, I think we have already said everything we had to say- I do not know the nationality of the vast majority of people who participate in this blog, but it seems obvious that One of the favorite topics of discussion is whether Ava, Cheddar Man, Braña, Yamnaya etc were more or less swarthy, more or less tall or more or less handsome. It seems clear that other of the favorite subjects is to relate southern Europeans with phenotypes that apparently do not please the majority of the commentators.

I think therefore, that for a large part of the Anglo-Saxons (and other Northern Europeans) it is very important to demonstrate that they have always been very very white, or that they have never been very very dark, perhaps the "race" is as important to them as to try to deny an Iberian/Italian/Anatolian/African origin and try to demonstrate an origin in the steppes thinking that there is the origin of the European white race. Undoubtedly, they have not yet realized that they are making a fool of themselves.

I am Basque, and apparently, like the vast majority of Spaniards, a descendant of the Iberian Bbs, but if I were given the choice I would rather have Jewish, Moorish, African or Greek blood than be a relative of those racists who are continually seeking arguments to despise , humiliate, ignore or offend all those who according to their criteria do not belong to the superior race-

On the other hand, thanks to these genetic pages, the Spaniards (and in general the southern Europeans) have understood that many people try to avoid any kind of historical genetic relationship with us, that is, as if we were the plague- Good to know, because in Spain we receive more than 80 million tourists a year, knowing what they think of us will be easier to act accordingly.

Matt said...

Dragos: "For a start, if there is a 500 year hiatus between the last building phase and burial use of a Megalithic monument (c. 3000 BC), and it is then reused c.- 2400 BC, calling that a continuity seems dubious", yes you are correct to say that. Although absolute continuity at a specific monument would not be expected I would not think (you would think there's a limit to how much deposition can happen), if there is no continuity within 3000-2400 BCE (or earlier), then there is discontinuity even before steppe ancestry enters the picture, and whatever religious ideology is linked to them has long since ceased in any case* and isn't around to be continuous with anyway.

(*And this seems to be the general rule, from whence it seems Bell Beaker folk spread - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236892612_From_pits_to_megaliths_Neolithic_burials_in_the_interior_of_iberia - "With all this in mind it seems clear that megalithic tombs in the Meseta are known since the end of the Vth millennium cal BC and the beginning of the IVth, and are documented along this millennium down to the Chalcolithic, around the onset of the third millennium when other burial structures began to appear. If in the Northern Meseta, especially in areas as the Lora in Burgos, it seems that a sequence of increasing complexity along the time is documented (Delibes 2010, 26), in the southern Meseta it is likely that the simple mounds and the huge passage graves coexisted (Bueno et al. 2010).

During the third and the second millennia cal BC megalithic monuments were reused as powerful symbols, especially in Bell Beaker times, perhaps for legitimation of the new political structures where power was still unstable (Garrido 2000).

Nevertheless, and excepting the area of Salamanca, where pre-Beaker Chalcolithic use has been extensively documented, there is a very long chronological hiatus (more than 1000 years) between the abandonment of megaliths and this reusing in Beaker times.
"

https://www.pnas.org/content/116/9/3460 - "On the western Iberian Peninsula, date ranges for the onset of accessible structures are calculated for the Estremadura at 3844 cal BC to 3383 cal BC (95.4%; 3658 cal BC to 3432 cal BC, 68.2%) (Dataset S3, M33-1), for the Alentejo at 3743 cal BC to 3521 cal BC (95.4%; 3673 cal BC to 3567 cal BC, 68.2%) (Dataset S3, M34-5), and for Beira at 3883 cal BC to 3782 cal BC (95.4%; 3837 cal BC to 3796 cal BC, 68.2%) (Dataset S3, M35-19). Similarly, the earliest megaliths with entrance in Britain and Ireland are also calculated to the first half of the fourth millennium cal BC. The earliest known megalithic grave in southeast England, Coldrum, is calculated at 3971 cal BC to 3805 cal BC (95.4%; 3960 cal BC to 3880 cal BC, 68.2%) (20), and Parknabinnia on the Burren in Ireland at 3885 cal BC to 3440 cal BC (95%; 3715 cal BC to 3530 cal BC, 68%) (21). The subsequent centuries are a time of megalithic stasis and reuse of ancient megalithic graves. With the exception of the gallery graves in Belgium, there is no evidence for movements or new megalithic regions added at this time. Finally, an even later megalithic expansion occurred in the second half of the fourth millennium in northern Germany and southern Scandinavia".).

weure said...

@Gaska for me comes phenotype not with kinds of prejudice or judgement.....

Regarding the BB phenotype.
I admit that's it's also because I'm brachy-hyspocranic with plan occiput. I always have the idea there is a link with Bell Beakers in this respect. Nonsense? And what wonders me if there is SGC>BB connection how did the BB phenotype developed out of SGC, the SGC phenotype was mostly 'robust dolio' wasn't it?

Any thoughts?

Andrzejewski said...

@EastPole "I was speculating before that CWC came from West Yamnaya (YAW) as a result of mixing Sredny Stog II men and East Yamnay (YAE) women:

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/08/a-closer-look-at-maternal-origins-of.html?showComment=1533238722007#c7263585452504297957

But is still an open question.
I am upset that important areas like West Ukraine and Poland are not properly researched.
That project from Kujawy is interesting but still long time to go before we know results.

P.S. It will be fun if Kujawy turn out to be PIE homeland (i.e. if alleles from Kujawy turn out to be present in all IE cultures like for example Kujawy->SG->BB, Kujawy->Sintashta etc….We know that they are present in Poles, so….)."

Awesome! I have posted a few times here that since all languages, (now probably including Tocharian, if indeed it's an Andronovo-based one!), excluding Hittites or other Anatolian branch ones, are only reconstructed to the Corded Ware Culture level, NOT to Yamnaya proper. Because comparable linguistics shows that all languages spoken today in Europe and even Asia come from either Bell Beaker, Corded Ware or Single Grave. Therefore, Yamnaya might've spoken a perhaps even earlier version of "PIE". In other words, "late PIE" may be "Proto-early-Corded Ware speech" rather than Yamnaya.

But I may be wrong. Like I stated a few posts ago, it's an enigma whether Bug Dniester or Dnieper Donetsk were the original Ukraine HG, whether these mesolithic populations were R1a1 genetically, or if Proto-IE to its earliest manifestation could trace its origins to R* (basal R, before splitting into R1a1 and R1b).

There must be other factors so-far shrouded in mystery. One of them is what accounts for the replacement of Samara HG R1b subclades and substituting them with specific Khvalynsk ones. Other questions could be regarding the CHG Wikipedia entry, stipulating that Samara HG was pure EHG compared to 50% in Yamnaya, which strongly implies a huge increase. That begats the query if CHG components brought PIE into the fore.

@Dragos mentioned that PIE was created as an interaction between CT Culture and Ukraine HG. Therefore, your theory might mesh with his ;)

I think @Sam posted a theory that PIE was invented by Piedmont groups who moved in a pincer-like fork-style manner into both Samara/Khvalynsk and into Sredny Stog, carrying their linguistic heritage in the process. I guess we would never know.

One thing I would like to know was what language the Sredny Stog I (not II) spoke, and whether or not it was even remotely related to PIE; or that Khvalynsk and Repin moved westbound and assimilated Sredny Stog I.

Gaska said...

Regarding the individual tombs and their relationship with the cultures of the steppes

"The appearance of the BB culture can be considered as a mere secondary event, which does not challenge the ideological and social bases. In Italy, the long lasting pre-BB period when the ideology of the warrior dominated, is known through the famous Remedello (3.350 BC), Spilamberto (3.350 BC), Gaudo (3.300 BC) and Rinaldone cultures. Grave goods in male graves from the dominating strata are composed of a dagger (in cooper or flint), a copper flat axe, a cooper quadrangular sectioned awl, and a more or less big amount of finely retouched flints arrowheads that probably accompanied a bow"

"The same phenomenon has hit the Iberian peninsula, though to a lesser extent. The end of the IV Millenium is characterized by the spectacular development of metallurgy, the appearance of anthropomorphic steles and a whole range of copper objects that significantly resembles the one observed in Italy. Alcalá burial (Algarve, southern Portugal). This grave was placed in a niche put in the edge of a tholos, the abundant grave assemblage it yielded, consisted of the usual mix of cooper (3 flat axes, 4 halberd blades, 5 dagger blades, a chisel, and a quadrangular sectioned awl) and flint (7 non retouched large blades and 13 arrowheads). It is commonly attributed to a late phase of los Millares culture"

How can someone defend an origin in Yamnaya culture for individual graves, if they were known in Western Europe before that culture existed in the steppes?

And what about the collective graves?

+The Appropiation or the destruction of memory? BB reuse of older sites- Ulrike Sommer. In Northern Europe, the Funnelbeaker culture (Trichterbecherkultur- TBK) was interpreted as the native Neolithic population, while the bearers of the Globular Amphora (GAK) and Corded Ware (CWC) cultures came in from the East and the bearers of the Bell Beaker culture immigrated from the West-However, in the western half of the distribution of Bell Beakers, from Spain and Morocco to Ireland, Western Scotland and Switzerland, Bell Beakers are normally associated with communal burials. They are mainly found in structures associated with previous ceramic styles, both megalithic graves and hypogees. In France and Spain, older structures are often re-opened (‘broken into’ for use). Only in Ireland is there a specific form of megalithic grave specifically associated with Bell Beakers, the so-called wedge-tombs. Beakers are frequent finds in Scottish megalithic graves. The megalithic grave at Clettraval (North Uist, outer Hebrides) illustrates such a re-use of an early Neolithic structure. Blocking is also frequent, but normally only noticed when modern excavations have taken place. In southern France, Bell Beaker burials are found predominantly in dolmen, but there are strong differences between different styles. Lower Saxony (Germany) about half of all megalithic graves of TBK type contain finds of Bell Beakers or Corded Ware, often both. In the East, this re-use of older structures is common in other cultural traditions that are often interpreted as intrusive as well, namely by the Globular Amphorae (GAK) and Corded Ware (CW) cultures. In Mecklenburg, many TBK graves contain GAK-vessels, Corded Ware vessels are also common. In the Western TBK area, all three groups can be observed as well. Although we often accuse Bell Beaker people of being squatters in collective tombs, we have to admit that they did not initiate that habit.




Bob Floy said...

What's most interesting to me at this point is the possibility that BB and CWC may have been speaking different languages. The data from Iberia seems to suggest it.

Andrzejewski said...

Single Grave might have been speaking a different language too

Bob Floy said...

I mean, languages belonging to different families, that is, as opposed to them all being IE speakers.

mike said...

Dear me. Some of the comments above! There is a very simple explanation for the apparent contradiction of a sudden total genetic change but strong elements of archaeological continuity. DNA testing a beaker culture burial is not the same as DNA testing a beaker era burial. Actual beaker culture burials will be tested in studies like this. However non classic beaker culture burials of the beaker era generally will not be selected for testing. This creates a self fulfilling prophesy of sudden total genetic change. People need to bear in mind that the % of the population buried in clear cut beaker cultural ways may have been a small minority of the overall population of the beaker era. In other words the local substrate isn’t being found because they are not being chosen for testing because they are culturally ambiguous, often unimpressive cremation pits etc. What probably really happened is the beaker people arrived then outbred the locals (who they remained aloof from) over maybe 2-4 certitude. The process is invisible in the ancient dna recurs because studies of the beaker era are dejecting unambiguous beaker burials not a randomised selection of all burials daring to 2500-2000BC. I don’t think people understand just how small a percentage of the populations was buried in classic beaker fashion. The population of Neolithic isles was probably 100s of 1000s but the number of classic beaker culture burials is probably in the 100s.

mike said...

Totally absurd expecting CW clone beakers in NW Europe who entered an area with a failing simple farming society with the highly admixed/diluted beaker people in SW Europe who encountered complex Cooper age societies. It’s pretty likely that the SW beakers adopted the languages of the more complex societies they encountered there. Rather like Germanic invaders into SW Europe at the end of the Roman Empire who wanted to rule not destroy the Latinate society they encountered

Andrzejewski said...

Yes. SG, BB and CW all speaking unrelated language families maybe

mike said...

Interestingly in Ireland building of megalithic tombs had died out at least 500ys before the beaker people arrived but the beaker people as soon as they arrived in Ireland started to build a completely new type of megalithic tomb ‘wedge tombs’. However the beaker era primary period of use (not to be confused with later reuse) of each of these small beaker megaliths in Ireland was more as a family vault used for Individual burials over a few decades than for the Neolithic collective burial rite.

Andrzejewski said...

Why would Beakers remain aloof from other population? Yamnaya and CW merged w/locals and so did farmers when met foragers? Why exception to rule when it comes to Beakers?

Andrzejewski said...

So what you’re describing is farmers dying out because of Pestis?

mike said...

A moderate advantage in degree of resource access and perhaps better health/immune system, will make your lineage outbreed others to a surprising degree over a few centuries. The beaker people not only had a different genetic makeup to the farmers but they had a different social structure, mating network tradition and the details of their habitational and subsistence strategies were different too.

Anonymous said...

It's simple, but most won't like it. I already know Davidski won't, but maybe I'll be surprised. I am nearly 100% sure the following is correct as it's the only explanation that can explain everything completely. Bell Beakers spoke Vasconic, Corded Ware spoke Indo-European, and Yamnaya spoke Sino-Caucasian (Sino-Tibetan then derives at least areal influence from the (proto-)Afanasievo culture via metallurgical influences (see influence from NW China on highly stratified Majiayao culture)), and Tocharian thus from later CW-derived expansions consistent with Tarim basin DNA). It's a bit odd that Sino-Tibetan sprang from Yamnaya so I'm expecting and totally deserve healthy skepticism. Bell Beakers derive from the broad pre-Yamnaya horizon as can be seen with Mikhaylovka I:

Mikhaylovka I (3600-3400 BCE) had connections to the west, and is related to the Kemi Oba culture (3700-2200 BCE) at the Bug-Dniepr area and the Crimea, and seems to have had connections to the Maykop culture (3700-3000 BCE).

Mikhaylovka II (3400-3000 BCE) had connections to the east, as reflected by its repin-style pottery. Mikhaylovka II is divided into a lower (3400-3300 BCE) and an upper level (3300-3000 BCE). Mikhaylovka II shows a shift from farming to cattle herding, typical for the Yamna horizon.

Bell Beaker folk spread from Cernavoda to Central Europe (also consistent with the archaeological record of the first truly brachycephalic intrusions into Europe coming via the Danube):

"It [Cernavoda] is a successor to and occupies much the same area as the earlier neolithic Karanovo culture, for which a destruction horizon seems to be evident. It is part of the 'Balkan-Danubian complex' that stretches up the entire length of the river and into northern Germany via the Elbe"

Just as Corded Ware seems to have shown a cultural influence on GAC just before taking over, so too did the Bell Beaker folk with the Baden culture.

Celtic languages spread to West with Urnfield culture, not with BB culture, with a second expansion via Hallstatt (accounting for q vs p split, which may or may not be related to the arrival of chariot folk from the Steppe between Urnfield and Hallstatt).

Anonymous said...

If I didn't make the above clear, basically I think Bell Beakers departed from the Steppe to the West centuries earlier than Yamnaya proper as can be seen with initial influence on Mikhaylovka I, with Yamnaya proper having its influence seen with Mikhaylovka II. Bell Beakers absolutely cannot derive from the Corded Ware culture even if there was a mixture between the two at the mouth of the Elbe (in SGC, as per Davidski holding BBs expanded across Europe from there), there are so many reasons (brachycephaly, Y DNA difference etc.) so I won't get into it. Bell Beakers probably got their brachycephaly from mixing with Caucasians around the Black Sea.

Matt said...

Well, hey, if people are going to argue that Iberian+Basque are remnants of a single young language family splitting at most 4500 YBP and formerly widely distributed across Western Europe (or even all the way back to the Pontic-Caspian steppe), without much positive linguistic evidence for any of this, then why not one up them and do one better by suggesting that all the Sino-Tibetan languages and Caucasian languages only split at around this same time?

I guess 1000 years gets you to languages as different as Ubykh and the inscriptions on Old Chinese Oracle Bones....

Anonymous said...

Oracle bones are much later than this split for one thing, most are around the time of the Shang dynasty. This is all proposed to be around the 4th mBC, which is way earlier.

Also, several points. The North Caucasian languages are probably younger than current methods predict as mountainous terrain results in increased linguistic divergence (those same mountains have resulted in ridiculous levels of tribal identity too). And which other culture can you think of that accounts for a range spreading at least from Europe to the Caucasus to China? You might write off Dene-Caucasian/Sino-Vasconic as too far-fetched, but if someone as smart as Murray Gell-Mann is telling linguists off for being overly conservative it's worth opening up. Yes that is an argument from authority, but Gell-Mann was until he died early this year amongst the smartest humans alive, so that's some authority. Also, we (well, not Carlos...) already know that CW-derived cultures spread across a ridiculous range and as Yamnaya appears to be separate (which is the whole point of the paper Davidski mentioned) there's no reason why you couldn't attribute this to it. If CW-derived cultures spread at an earlier point like Yamnaya, people would probably be just as overly skeptical. Yamnaya-derived cultures were in China in the 4th mBC and at a more embryonic stage of Chinese history, almost two millennia before CW-derived cultures arrived.

Anonymous said...

Are people really still arguing for Beakers from Iberia?

Drago said...

@ Gaska

“The elitist character of the BB culture is a proven fact at least in Iberia- The BB package was not adopted by all the inhabitants of the great Iberian chalcolithic cities, only the richest individuals were buried with their most precious possessions (weapons, copper , ivory, ornaments, gold jewelry etc), “”

Yes that’s true - and it really doesn’t matter for the sake of argument where P312 came from. It could have come from Ireland; Iberia ; Netherlands for all we care- but the result of the same- it was very much the preserve of certain lineage systems, & it resulted in the marginalisation & displacement of previous groups and cultural codes ; everywhere from Ireland to south Iberia. We can look to climate, germs , spells; but there’s really only one common denominator . Olalde got it right in his overviews

About megaliths- CWC and BB reused TRB megaliths also. They reused older kurgans. The theme here is reuse, something they tended to do. Other groups in history have done the same .

Drago said...

@ mike

'' Totally absurd expecting CW clone beakers in NW Europe who entered an area with a failing simple farming society with the highly admixed/diluted beaker people in SW Europe who encountered complex Cooper age societies. It’s pretty likely that the SW beakers adopted the languages of the more complex societies they encountered there. Rather like Germanic invaders into SW Europe at the end of the Roman Empire who wanted to rule not destroy the Latinate society they encountered ''

The Roman Empire analogy isn't very well grounded, as it compares apples to oranges. Because, the Germanic invaders were a minority which were assimilated into Ibero-Roman provincial structures. This is not the case with the BB era, where they rapidly became demographically predominant, & everythng seems to have changed as a result of their arrival- Los Millares, VSNP, etc all ended c. 2400 BC.

@ Matt

''hey, if people are going to argue that Iberian+Basque are remnants of a single young language family splitting at most 4500 YBP''

What calculations did you arrive at, or what literature exists thus far, aside from the Ice Age refugium theory ? If that's the gold standard theory, then we're probably in need of somethign new.

Some of the newer ''hiding in the Pyrenees'' theories don't seem much better, either.

Gaska said...

@Dragos

The BB funerary ritual in Iberia is elitist and destined to differentiate certain individuals and families from the common population (whose funerary uses do not show as much ostentation). The Spanish archaeologists say textually-"Who were those people? During the expansion period of BB culture (2.500 BC), these genetic markers appear for the first time in Iberia (P312). These males have local and foreign ancestors in their recent genealogy. This suggests the arrival of a continuous trickle of males from Central Europe and the perpetuation of this lineage in the following generations"

"The consequences of the results of this surprising work (Olalde, 2.018-2.019) are far from being calibrated. Its scope will depend on its confirmation by further studies with many more samples. Therefore, the prudent course is not to venture to build model or hypothesis on this basis-In fact, although Humanejos documents the appearance of this supposed sign of Central-European ancestry in some individuals, it does not appear in other samples (for example-individual 1- Tomb No. 5) whose maternal and paternal ancestors are undoubtedly peninsular (and is buried with the whole BB package)

That is, in Iberia, most people (archaelogists, genealogists) think that hasty conclusions have been drawn (especially Olalde) and that the origin of P312 is a subject open to debate-




Ric Hern said...

At the end of the day Linguistic connections between Kartvelian, Uralic and Indo-European can not be ignored. And in this regard I think the Kartvelian connection specifically can not be ignored since it is mostly isolated in the Caucasus area. Uralic is spread over a much greater territory so pinpointing an area in which PIE could have developed is more difficult. So Kartvelian and CHG-like ancestry must be Central to this discussion. And therefore the Caucasus Piedmont Eneolithic makes most sense at this stage when talking about Early PIE Origins.

Ric Hern said...

The Origin of Haplogroup R1b L51 seems to be between +-4200 and 3800 BCE. And its So called Brother Clad is found in the Pontic Caspian Steppe nearest to this timeframe. If I remember correctly some Historical Linguistics points to 3500 BCE as the time when PIE started to split up and therefore PIE most likely originated between the Kartvelian connection (Mesolithic ?) and 3500 BCE somewhere between the Northern Caucasus and Derievka...

E. Donovan said...

@Ric Hern

Well, apparently the CHG thing is way further back in the equation, and in any event whatever level of it there is in any ancient or modern population may have nothing to do with its relation or lack thereof to the Indo-European language family itself. Components may increase, for example, in the process of them being ground to dust as distinct entities. Likely we're not looking at something so stark but Indo-European is overall rather a little closer to Uralic than can be made convincing for its relationship to Kartvelian. I'd give the WHG component in EHG as well as ANF proper as much potential influence.

Apparently something only "wins" if there's one or another branch of ANE involved. Pretty sad considering the Leiden Indo-Uralic model basically declares EN East Asia the ultimate source via "Anatolian" as we call it.

Ric Hern said...

@ E. Donovan

On a PIE basic structural level Kartvelian makes more sense and I personally think Kartvelian is closer there.

Yes the Kartvelian connection is deep and most probably Mesolithic in nature, But Still this connection can not be Excluded from the Equation. And therefore the CHG-like component seen within the Steppe Ancestry can not be ignored when talking about the origins of PIE.

Ric Hern said...

@ E. Donovan

And just to be clear, I did not say that EHG, WHG etc. must be excluded, but at this stage the Kartvelian/CHG-like connection can not be excluded because of the clear Linguistic and Genetic evidence for both within Later Indo-Europeans...So saying that Yamnaya spoke something totally different from PIE according to some, is in my view far fetched...

Ric Hern said...

With those two pots in the Upper Dnieper I wonder if some Steppe migrants sidestepped the Plague by migrating into the Belarus Marches and expanding from there Westwards...

Andrzejewski said...

@Ric Hern @E. Donovan "On a PIE basic structural level Kartvelian makes more sense and I personally think Kartvelian is closer there.

Yes the Kartvelian connection is deep and most probably Mesolithic in nature, But Still this connection can not be Excluded from the Equation. And therefore the CHG-like component seen within the Steppe Ancestry can not be ignored when talking about the origins of PIE."

Except for Kartvelian, Hatti, Maykop, Hurro-Urartians etc. are all offshoots of the Kura-Araxes complex, which is at least 55% Anatolia Farmers with the rest a melange of CHG, Iran_N and some minor Steppe ancestry. 80% of Svan male Y-DNA is G1a. So I expect Kartvelian to be closer to any Neolithic farmer language in Europe (TRB?) than to CHG ones.

Andrzejewski said...

@Ric Hern "And therefore the Caucasus Piedmont Eneolithic makes most sense at this stage when talking about Early PIE Origins."

It's @Samuel Andrews who said that Piedmont Eneolithic is the starting launching point for PIE.

Ric Hern said...

So according to the Map Single Graves correspond more with Corded Ware Type 1...

Matt said...

@Big Momma, Afanasievo dispersal and the Yamnaya horizon, the formation of that genotype, and then geographical divergence from each other are at a median date about 3000 BCE. There may have been some prior linguistic divergence within a structured population I guess, if you really wanted to push the dates back.

But the main point, in addition to the constraints by the attestation of Sinitic, is that the Sino-Tibetan family itself probably diverges internally about 7.6 kya (https://www.pnas.org/content/116/21/10317). This using methods which get the right dates for Austronesian, Austroasiatic, Bantu, Semitic and possibly IE, and which essentially the only forms of dating that exist apart from "linguistic paleontology", and which are far the superior of Starostin's glottochronology.

You would need to propose that all that differentiation within family and the immense morphological differences with Caucasian languages, evolve at very high rates and that all the linguistic differentiation within Sino-Tibetan happens at a time scale very close to the first attested Chinese.

This really to me seems to absolutely strain credibility - for Sino-Caucasian there's no language family found by the comparative method, the Bayesian methods to estimate differentiation produce a timescale that is incompatible. (There's also no trace of "linguistic paleontology" grounds for this young Sino-Caucasian dispersal if we cared about such a thing).

Gell-Mann being a very smart guy, and even then he probably would've supported a much deeper chronology for Sino-Caucasian* by a factor of least 2x, is not really going to cut it!

*https://www.academia.edu/13072385/The_Dene-Sino-Caucasian_hypothesis_state_of_the_art_and_perspectives - "at least ten millennia of diversification (Gell-Mann, Murray, Ilia Peiros, & George Starostin. 2009. “Distant Language relationship: The Current Perspective.”) the present day DSC languages, not surprisingly, have an amazing diversity"

@Dragos: What calculations did you arrive at, or what literature exists thus far, aside from the Ice Age refugium theory ? If that's the gold standard theory, then we're probably in need of somethign new.

Constructing some kind of linguistic model that meets the peer review of the linguistic community and specialists in both Basque and Iberian which suggests a young Copper Age date would be required, yes.

It's certainly not enough to say that the languages are possibly loosely related in some form (a weak Vasco-Iberian hypothesis) and it's an open book and therefore we can postulate an enormous unattested sphere of our time period of choice across Western Europe as a whole (let alone back to the steppe) far from any attestation or linguistic evidence, on the basis of a essentially a y-dna marker and expansion alone.

zardos said...

In German Single Grave was often used synonymous for Corded Ware as most typical CW burials were single graves and that rite was newly introduced by CW newcomers.
The article seems to be pretty worthless and just plays down the significant results of aDNA testing with an adapted "pots not people" to "rites and migrants, no tribes and ethnicities".
Just another rearguard action from the political correct interpretation of archaeological results like it was established mostly in the 1960s.

Nobody can ignore the variation in widespread phenomenons like Corded Ware, but looking for significant results, just look at the Kujawy paper.
That matters, not relativist constructs. And again, both CW and BB used a single grave burial rite introduced from the East, thats it.
To use SGC for a regional complex is somewhat problematic as we can see.
Same goes for battle axe, since boat axe is more appropriate for naming the East Baltic phenomenon.

Davidski said...

Yeah, to me it just seems like Furholt isn't happy with the discoveries from ancient DNA, and would probably prefer it if the ambiguity of the pre-aDNA era remained to this day, so that there was some room for his type of philosophizing. Fortunately for most of us, we can now move on.

Gaska said...

@Davidski-

Yes, fortunately for most of us, we can now move on, but we all have to try to do it in the right direction

Furholt (2.018) was very clear about the massive migrations proposed by Haak (2.015)- "One could ask how many newcomers would be required to create a population turnover of 79 %, or even a total exchange of populations by 2500 cal BC, assuming 1 million inhabitants in central Europe around 3000 cal BC"

For example, if we have a 3.5 % annual growth rate in the newcomer population, 200 newcomers would be enough to reach a population of 1 million after about 250 years, and after 300 years it would exceed 6.5 million. This calculation illustrates that there is a possibility that this population turnover does not have to involve the kind of massive migration suggested-

Other potential routes of migration are not considered. For example, in their Supplementary Information 2, Haak et al. (2015) demonstrate that three individuals connected to the Pitted Ware culture in Sweden (taken from Skoglund et al., 2012) are clearly under that eastern genetic influence. The pottery, after which this archaeological culture is named, shows a much stronger connection with the vast areas of north-western Eurasia (Iversen, 2010; Piezonka, 2015) than is the case with the Corded Ware connection to Yamnaya. Pitted Ware appears in northern Denmark between 3100 and 2600 cal BC (Iversen, 2010), while in Sweden and the eastern Baltic it is already known from the early fourth millennium, and it can be connected to much older pottery traditions

@zardos said-"That matters, not relativist constructs. And again, both CW and BB used a single grave burial rite introduced from the East, thats it"

Regarding the obsession with single grave burial and their origin in the steppes, no one can deny that it is a funeral practice typical of certain steppe cultures, but everyone should understand that it is also an extended practice in Western Europe since the Neolithic

Lugar do Canto Cave-Its material culture immediately pointed to a Middle Neolithic cemetery but recent radiocarbon determinations also allowed the recognition of an apparent two step phasing of its use within the period (ca. 4000-3400 cal BC): an older one characterized by a single burial and a later reoccupation as a collective necropolis. Comparisons with other well-dated cave cemeteries in Southern Portugal permitted the recognition of changing funerary practices and strategies of cemetery use during the later stages of the Neolithic and the Chalcolithic: 1) ca. 3800 cal BC as the possible turning point from the practice of individual to collective burials;

That is, long before the Yamnaya culture existed, individual funeral practices already existed in Iberia, where there are dozens of deposits to prove it. To think that a large part of European archaeologists are dangerous leftists because they have different interpretations of the prehistory of their countries from which it is claimed by a small group of archaeologists and geneticists is simply the recognition of the absolute lack of arguments to justify the steppe origin of BB culture/R1b-L51/IE Language




Gaska said...


@Big Momma said-"Are people really still arguing for Beakers from Iberia?"

Would you be so kind as to explain where the Bb culture originated? Surely your arguments will be taken into consideration by the international scientific community

@Big Momma said-"Bell Beakers spoke Vasconic"

I think so, but we need more proof

@BM-"Bell Beakers probably got their brachycephaly from mixing with Caucasians around the Black Sea"

Are you sure of what you are saying?

@BM- "I think Bell Beakers departed from the Steppe to the West centuries earlier than Yamnaya proper as can be seen with initial influence on Mikhaylovka I, with Yamnaya proper having its influence seen with Mikhaylovka II"

R1b-L51 and the Bb culture have absolutely nothing to do with the steppes. Try to prove otherwise

zardos said...

@Gaska: "R1b-L51 and the Bb culture have absolutely nothing to do with the steppes. Try to prove otherwise"

Not again please. Even if L51 was not introduced from the steppe directly and recently to the BB, whats still possible, your wording is completely wrong.
A significant portion of the later BBC is definitely genetically and culturally steppe derived. And be it through Corded women, but the fact remains.

epoch said...

@Davidski

I agree, yet there is some interesting stuff there, such as the distinction between Corded Ware in settlements and Corded Ware in burials. Continental bell beaker has more farmer ancestry.

Ric Hern said...

Yes and as far as I can remember Davidski also does not rule out the Caucasus Piedmont area....

Andrzejewski said...

@Ric Hern "Yes and as far as I can remember Davidski also does not rule out the Caucasus Piedmont area.."

Do you think that PIE was a CHG language which took over Samara HG and Sredny Stog I (or "Bug Dniester" language)?

epoch said...

@Big Momma

Are Cernavodă or maybe even Vučedol - as I reckon that one is included in your theory - samples typically brachycephalic?

Anonymous said...

I'm unsure about Vucedol but I think it's unrelated to the Bell Beakers. Seems like more of a Yamnaya thing.

And it would be good to know if Cernavoda was brachycephalic. Certainly, at the same time period, there was an introduction of brachycephalic types around the Lower Danube. Most anthropologists assumed they came from Troy, but I think they were L51 folk coming from Ukraine. If remains clearly attributed to the Cernavoda folk were not brachycephalic, that would mean BBs got their brachycephaly from Ertebolle-related folk however based on the Bell Beaker skulls that seems highly unlikely.

Unrelated, but I really can't figure out how brachycephaly was introduced to the Dinaric Alps. There was a separate introduction of brachycephalic types across Italy with cultures like the Gaudo culture and the Rinaldone culture and presumably they came by way of the Balkans. Those cultures are extremely interesting by the way, hopefully the Italian paper will be published sooner rather than later, but given how slow all these researchers are I doubt we'll be seeing it for months.

epoch said...

@Big Momma

"Certainly, at the same time period, there was an introduction of brachycephalic types around the Lower Danube."


Which culture would that be?

weure said...

"that would mean BBs got their brachycephaly from Ertebolle-related folk however based on the Bell Beaker skulls that seems highly unlikely"

High skulled brachycephaly is often found on the North German Plain. So a result of a Funnelbeaker/ SGC mix?

Anonymous said...

@epoch From what I read it was during the Copper age, which basically means Cernavoda.

@weure "Borreby" (a really terrible name...) is clearly different. They had ridiculously large and wide heads and small straight/concave noses. Ava is an example of this type. Bell Beakers as basically as "Dinaric" as it gets. Most modern anthropologists refer to it as Taurid, but that's much more general and just a way of avoiding archaic typology for obvious reasons. There probably was some "Borreby" influence from WHG elements encountered between the Rhine and Elbe (BB homeland imo) but it almost certainly was not responsible for the classical BB cranial forms.

weure said...

@BM yes Coon made it a mess. But seriously ok I personalize this and may be this utterly nonsense but I have about the measures and also with plan occiput:

"Your cephalic index is: 83.8 (brachycephalic)
Your height/length index is: 74.8 (hypsicephalic)
Your height/breadth index is: 89.2 (acrocephalic)
Your facial index is: 88.1 (leptoprosopic)
Your upper facial index is: 56.3 (mesene)
Your nasal index is: 56.9 (leptorrhine)"

I'm not the exception in the North Dutch area and certainly not in the North German area. Borreby talk is nonsens. But TRB/SGC/BB mixtures gives.....these kind of stuff ;)

Anonymous said...

@Matt I'm aware that most methods propose a much older divergence of e.g. Sino-Tibetan than I'm suggesting (8th mBC rather than 4th mBC, although Matisoff thinks it's as young as I'm saying), but in the grander context of Dene-Caucasian or at least Sino-Vasconic with Dene-Yeniseian a separate group if you want to steer clear of possible Old World interactions with the Americas there is absolutely no other group that could account for such a spread of languages other than pre-Yamnaya L23 folk on the PC Steppe. None. It is quite obviously the only option if Sino-Vasconic is a meaningful group even if the group is held together by areal influences, and it is also very clearly supported by archaeology (e.g. Afanasievo's influence on what would eventually become the Chinese people, Yamnaya's incursions into the Caucasus, and (though not from Yamnaya but rather a common L23 origin) the now seemingly correct link between BBs and Vasconic).

@weure Dutch people like Arjen Robben have a Beaker-esque appearance, though it's a very German look more than anything. But it's not related to the pre-Neolithic inhabitants of the North German plain. That's for sure.

weure said...

@North Dutch, like Robben, are 1/2 SGC and 1/2 TRB.....

the dude said...

Head shape owes a great deal to the position and method the baby was cradled. Ever since the change to babies sleeping on their backs a few decades ago (considered preventative of cot death) there has been a lot of issues with flattening the rear of skulls and brachycephaly caused by this. Until a few decades ago babies were recommended to sleep on their front or sides which at that time was considered a preventative for choking. Its very easy for a baby that spends a lot of time on its back to get head flattening.

weure said...

Sharp dude!

andrew said...

I've done a post discussing some points related to the article at length, good catch by the way.

https://dispatchesfromturtleisland.blogspot.com/2019/06/eurogenes-calls-attention-to-notable.html

andrew said...

@BigMomma

"Bell Beakers spoke Vasconic, Corded Ware spoke Indo-European, and Yamnaya spoke Sino-Caucasian (Sino-Tibetan then derives at least areal influence from the (proto-)Afanasievo culture via metallurgical influences (see influence from NW China on highly stratified Majiayao culture)), and Tocharian thus from later CW-derived expansions consistent with Tarim basin DNA). It's a bit odd that Sino-Tibetan sprang from Yamnaya so I'm expecting and totally deserve healthy skepticism"

The Sino-Caucasian/Sino-Tibetan part is IMHO almost certainly not true. Yes, there were some sporadic contacts and influences between West Eurasia and East Eurasia in the Bronze Age.

But, the linguistic distinction between the Bell Beakers and Corded Ware culture is not contradicted by the evidence (yet) and is a plausible way to explain the result. Once can see the Celtic horizon, in part, as the shared substrate influences of a family of Vasconic languages upon which an Indo-European superstrate is imposed.

Anonymous said...

@the dude It's so reductionist to claim that, the cradling hypothesis is basically bullshit. Especially as the Basques retain a lot of these traits.

@andrew It's more than sporadic, Afanasievo was at the very least indirectly responsible for the rise of social stratification amongst the Chinese (ofc they weren't differentiated to being Chinese yet but you get the idea). Metallurgical techniques give rise to that (social hierarchies).

Unrelated, but later on the Shang dynasty was basically founded as a result of technology transfer with Indo-Europeans.

Ric Hern said...

I think more evidence is needed from the Mesolithic in the Caucasus Piedmont area and as far North as the Lower Don to determine the precise manner of interactions in that area. Either peaceful alliances and or bride kidnapping or trading etc...What was meant by 2000 years of CHG Ancestry rising in the Steppe to reach Yamnaya levels ? Does this mean that the Yamnaya Culture and close relatives were 2000 years in the making ? In other words started to form at or before 5000 BCE. I think yes. But Pre-Eneolithic samples will throw some light on these questions...

Andrzejewski said...

@Ric Hern "I think more evidence is needed from the Mesolithic in the Caucasus Piedmont area and as far North as the Lower Don to determine the precise manner of interactions in that area. Either peaceful alliances and or bride kidnapping or trading etc...What was meant by 2000 years of CHG Ancestry rising in the Steppe to reach Yamnaya levels ? Does this mean that the Yamnaya Culture and close relatives were 2000 years in the making ? In other words started to form at or before 5000 BCE. I think yes. But Pre-Eneolithic samples will throw some light on these questions..."

That's what I'm thinking, that CHG component (dissimilar from Kartvelians, who are probably more of an EEF factor) was responsible for the transformation from Samara HG into Khvalynsk,
as well as from Dnieper Donets and Bug Dniester Ukraine HG (="Sredny Stog I") into Sredny Stog II. I believe that PIE came with CHG from Piedmont and spread out in a pincer-movement to encompass the entire Volga-Don and then PC Steppe zone.

Fanty said...

" Andrzejewski said...
Why would BB be slightly darker than their modern descendants?"

Drift or selection.

I think thats what I recall to have read in the past 2 or so years. BB caused northern Europeans to become darker in skin tone and that this effect reversed later. And the article talked about a sign for selection against the high pigmentation or just random drift.

I wonder if such things are really that fast though. :-/

Andrzejewski said...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_Hunter-Gatherer

"Caucasus Hunter Gatherers coexisted with the formation of the Yamna culture, since Samara hunter-gatherers featured only Eastern European Hunter Gatherer (EHG) ancestry and no CHG ancestry, whereas Yamna samples had up to 43% of CHG ancestry."

That nailed it! Perhaps the premonition that "White" = "Caucasian" didn't fall that far from the tree after all...

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

I believe that PIE came with CHG from Piedmont and spread out in a pincer-movement to encompass the entire Volga-Don and then PC Steppe zone.

There's absolutely no evidence for this.

Romulus the I2a L233+ Proto Balto-Slav, layer of Corded Ware Women said...

Have you blogged on this yet blogowski?

Article | Published: 05 June 2019

The population history of northeastern Siberia since the Pleistocene
Martin Sikora, Vladimir V. Pitulko, […]Eske Willerslev

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1279-z

a said...

Andrzejewski said...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_Hunter-Gatherer

"Caucasus Hunter Gatherers coexisted with the formation of the Yamna culture, since Samara hunter-gatherers featured only Eastern European Hunter Gatherer (EHG) ancestry and no CHG ancestry, whereas Yamna samples had up to 43% of CHG ancestry."

That nailed it! Perhaps the premonition that "White" = "Caucasian" didn't fall that far from the tree after all..."

Interesting to see the fits using Progress--1-4-R1b-V1636-some old 4 wheeled wagons around those regions.Wine-- Kartvelian-Armenian-Hittite also is of interest.

Romulus the I2a L233+ Proto Balto-Slav, layer of Corded Ware Women said...

Using f4 statistics, we confirmed on the other hand that CHG shares more alleles with Mal’ta
than with Yana (f4(Mbuti,CaucasusHG_LP;Yana_UP,Malta_UP), |Z| = 4.8). An alternative
scenario to account for this increased sharing involves gene flow from a CHG-related group
into Mal’ta, and a corresponding admixture graph including gene flow from a source
diverging prior to the basal Eurasian mixture provided a good fit (max(|Z|) = 2.5) (Figure
S6.5). Mal’ta was also successfully modelled as a 2-way mixture of Yana (72 ± 4%) and
CHG (28 ± 4%) (p=0.22) using qpAdm with a set of 9 outgroups (Mbuti, Yoruba, Mota_N,
Onge, Papuan, Ust_UP, Kostenki_UP, Sunghir_UP, Zagros_EN).

Davidski said...

@Romulus

See here...

Y-haplogroup P1 in Pleistocene Siberia (Sikora et al. 2018 preprint)

Anonymous said...

Just found this in support of the Cernavodan origin of L51 (well, at it's earliest stages it probably came from the Ukraine), it's a map of R1b L51 up to but not including the overwhelmingly dominant L151/L11 mutation:

http://bsecher.pagesperso-orange.fr/genetique/Busby_R1b(xL11).jpg

Note this sharp and also broad hotspot is also well, well away from any Bell Beaker territory.

In this theory, L51 migrates to the SGC "proper" area (essentially the same area as what would later be occupied by Ingvaeonic-speakers) from the Late Baden culture area at roughly the same time Corded Ware "proper" (the R1a dolichocephalic guys basically) migrated around East-Central Europe and across the Baltic Sea to Fennoscandia (forming the Boat Axe culture) but also as far West as modern Alemannic territory and maybe with influence felt even beyond France to Iberia (see Kossinna's smile). So simplistically in the standard Corded Ware maps, everything is R1a except SGC territory (i.e. Netherlands + NW Germany + most of Jutland) which would be L51 dominated. The migration of L51 and the R1a guys are as mentioned both at around the same time (from 2900 BCE), and presumably (as has been speculated in the past for the origin of the CWC expansion) this was triggered as a reaction to the Yamnaya expansion through Hungary & arcing towards Galicia (the respective points of origin of migration for L51 and the R1a guys respectively, note that (both late periods) Baden is to L51 as GAC is to the R1a guys). Both the L51 and R1a guys are part of the same basic horizon (SGBR, as per this paper) hence the lack of obvious archaeological differentiation.

From the SGC area, U106 heads on into Boat Axe territory and P312 spreads across Europe as the BBC. Makes perfect sense.

Andrzejewski said...

@Big Momma I can see why Gaska would love your theory

Drago said...

@ Matt

I certainly agree that everything is still tentative; however given than an Iberian linguist has pointed to similarities, I don’t think it’s for us who aren’t proficient in the sub-matter to dismiss it; and I’ve not come across any academic objections to it

However, in suggesting “ from any attestation or linguistic evidence, on the basis of a essentially a y-dna marker and expansion alone.“ I don’t think that’s a fair summary of some of the views here; because they’ve outlined multiple strands of evidence (autosomal; archaeology; YDNA). I understand youre sympathetic to posts highlighting the “continuity & integration “ thesis; but that really isn’t a sound interpretation. If one were to read the literature already expounded here; it’s be clear why (& contrary to our friends Gaska’s view; much of it is spearheaded by Iberian specialists themselves, naturally).

FYI- wrt Urnfield - Vasconic (I admit an interesting proposal) - then should we not have even more evidence for its presence throughout central & Eastern Europe (given the recent & expansive character of the Urnfield phenomenon) ?

Bob Floy said...

What reason is there to think that Vasconic was spread by Urnfield?
Wouldn't it make more sense that to think that it came with BB?

Andrzejewski said...

@Bob Floy "What reason is there to think that Vasconic was spread by Urnfield?
Wouldn't it make more sense that to think that it came with BB?"

Yes, we already discussed it previously, and we kinda reached a conclusion that both Basque and Etruscan came with Bell Beaker. :)

But I was attempting to read the article on Single Grave, past the abstract, but they charge you $25 to continue, so I guess it would remain a mystery for me :(

Bob Floy said...

@Andre

Honestly, from the bits I've seen and the other bits that have been repeated here by other users, this paper sounds like a bunch of hair-splitting agenda garbage to me, and I couldn't be bothered to read it.

In any case, Vasconic coming with BB obviously makes much more sense than it comning with Urnfield("Celtic" languages did come from SOMEWHERE, for Christ's sake), unless the authors have some huge revelation that's eluded other researchers up to this point.

Much has been said about proponents of the steppe=PIE theory oversimplifying things, but splitting hairs endlessly and torturing the data to keep things ambiguous is just as bad, maybe worse. A "working" theory, which is really all we have right now with respect to the PIE question, ought to be fairly simple in any case.

Andrzejewski said...

@Bob Floy Recently I've started to think that perhaps a Piedmont_Eneolithic CHG-rich small group 7,000 years ago is where PIE started...

E. Donovan said...

@Floy

In Basque DF27 you're probably looking for about as much connection as their is between N-L550 and Lithuanian. They're Sardinian-shifted. I really hate these not thought out narratives because they keep setting up southern spectrum people to fail. It's almost as if it's driven partly by some kind of false flag mechanism.

@Hern

I get you, but we can't avoid the fact that Bell Beaker and BB-derived populations exhibit less CHG relative to EHG than Yamnaya or Corded Ware, meaning much of it must be indirect and yet they still speak along the mid to early PIE spectrum.

Bob Floy said...

@Andre

Not sure exactly what you base that on, but, I guess it's possible, like many other things. The origin of PIE is actually muddier now than it was five years ago, I'd say. Things have really only gotten more complex.

The only thing that seems like a fairly safe bet to me is the Sintashta/Andronovo connection to indo-Iranian, but as for the genesis of PIE itself, we're gonna need some clarification of the Anatolia business before we can say much more.

That said, I still feel that PIE from the eneolithic steppe is still the best theory, but it's development and spread were probably much more complicated than most of us thought.

Bob Floy said...

One idea I'm leaning toward more and more, though, is that the westward expansion of L51 in the bronze age was probably not IE speaking.

Ric Hern said...

E. Donovan

Like I have explained many times before and tried to simplify it by using Cattle Breeding as an example.

Breeding Pure Brahman Bulls to Pure Hereford Cows will give you a 50/50 Mix. If you keep on crossing the descendants with Pure Brahman Bulls you will have Almost 100% Brahman Genes within 8 generations...This concept is as simple as falling out of a tree. Taking an average of 20 years per human generation you can see that Autosomal Relations can be changed drastically within less than 200 years.

So there you have it.

Bob Floy said...

@E. Donovan

"In Basque DF27 you're probably looking for about as much connection as their is between N-L550 and Lithuanian. They're Sardinian-shifted. I really hate these not thought out narratives because they keep setting up southern spectrum people to fail. It's almost as if it's driven partly by some kind of false flag mechanism."

I'm not entirely sure what your point is.
Basques don't have to be autosomally identical to BB for them to be the patrilineal descendants of BB. If that's what you meant.

Ric Hern said...

E. Donovan

So in the case of IE spread from the East we clearly see how relatedness to Steppe drops towards the West. 75% > 50% > 30%.

But Language do not always follow the same decline because a Paternal Society can enforce their Language upon a newly invaded territory and it depends on how successful and accurate the Language was transferred in a specific area etc.

That is why Iberia isn't really a surprise with the 40% replacement within +-500 years, compared to the British Isles and Irelands 90% replacement within plus/minus 200 years....

Gabriel said...

@Bob Floy

And how do we reconcile that with Germanic? You know, R1a, the presence of R1b, the whole thing?

Simon_W said...

Regarding the problem of Bell Beakers and the Dinaric type, it's important to distinguish between the occasional occurrence of Dinaric individuals and Dinaric averages of whole samples. Dinaric or typical Beaker-like looking skulls already occur in the Neolithic Hamangia and Boian cultures, although on average these cultures were of the regular Mediterranean EEF type. So this has nothing to do with either Anatolian or Steppe influence. I guess it's probably a WHG variation. The later Cernavoda was typologically diverse, but some steppe influence can be seen in the occurence of the normal Yamnaya type. I read Dinaric individuals also occur in Baden-Vucedol, but Baden-Vucedol was predominantly Mediterranean, too. In the Carpathian Basin the first cultures with significant numbers of Dinarics were Kisapostag and Gata-Wieselburg, which however were derived from Bell Beaker!

So as far as I can see there is no culture with brachycephalic, planoccipital averages anywhere in eastern or southeastern Europe that predates Bell Beaker, and from where the Beaker folk flooded to central and western Europe, carrying large numbers of R1b with them. Both, the brachycephlic cranial shape and R1b-L51 seem to be the result of a founder effect.

In the Western Balkans and in the Carpathians the Dinaricization was much more of a slow, gradual evolution. Although Dinaric individuals occur in earlier samples, the Western Balkans, at least their southern half, reached a brachycephalic average for the first time in the Roman age. The Slavic intrusions pushed the averages back to mesocephalic means. But then the cephalic index slowly but steadily increased again, to reach brachycephaly in the early modern era, also in the Carpathians.

Bronze Age Cyprus was also home to a planoccipital brachycephalic population, but (considering Beaker DNA) this must be an ïndependent evolution that has nothing to do with Bell Beakers. It may be responsible for some of the Taurids in the Mediterranean area.

Gaska said...

I have never believed in massive migrations, invasions or conquests of Western Europe, I think the population was much smaller than we think, except in some regions of southern Iberia and Italy where there were large Chalcolithic cities. The rest of the territory was a virgin territory barely exploited by Neolithic farmers. I think what we have up to now is a massive founder effect of P312 in France/Germany/Spain, Df27 in Iberia and L21 in the isles.

I recently said that I had read more than 12 different options for the origin of L51 and that none of them is minimally demonstrated-I believe that L51 is Western (understanding Germany also as the West) and that the famous steppe ancestry had to enter mainland Europe for the first time in the Neolithic without ruling out later small migrations

We have very clear the explanation of the origin, the ideology and dispersion of the Bb culture, first through Iberia and then through other regions of Western Europe and we do not need to look for explanations in the CWC, the SGc etc.


Bob Floy said...

@Gabriel

Excuse me, I meant to write the "initial" westward expansion of L51.
I've come to think that some steppic groups were maybe non IE speaking, especially those BBs who colonized the Atlantic coast.

weure said...

@Simnon so the BB phenotype is accorsding to you HG derived?

About plan occiput BB and the bias of Kurt Gerhardt see:

It's in German but I suppose ypu read German, or not?

Der „Planoccipitale Steilkopf“ – ein forschungsgeschichtliches
Rudiment im Rahmen des Glockenbecherphänomens
Henrik Junius und Joachim Wahl (PDF)

Gaska said...

Everyone talks and thinks about the Basques, Iberia, Bb culture, and when we think about our origin, our languages, and our culture, it turns out that everyone thinks we are wrong-

Ok, the Basques like our Iberian, Tartessian and Spaniards/Portuguese brothers, are overwhelmingly Df27, and we speak NO-IE languages- Euzkera may even have a mesolithic origin given the importance of the WHG legacy (especially in Iberian women). Neither do we need to look for its origin outside Iberia because the linguistic connections with other languages ​​are very weak, I do not know if Yamnaya, the Western Neolithic cultures, the Sardinians or the Anatolian farmers spoke Euzkera/Vasconic, and I really do not care

Unlike the Anglo-Saxons who are delighted with their origin in the steppes, for us Ukraine, the Black Sea, Russia, the Caucasus etc mean absolutely nothing, we do not speak their language because we do not speak IE, and we do not belong to the same race , because their uniparentales markers are very different from ours. There is no Df27 in the steppes and there is no R1a or R1bZ2103 in Iberia. Phenotypically we are not equal either because we are white Europeans and the Yamanya riders were swarthy uraloids, and of course the Bb culture has absolutely nothing to do with oriental chalcolithic cultures, then I guess you will understand that accepting a colonization/migration from the steppes does not make any sense to us.

That is, unlike other regions of Europe, we do not need the steppes to explain our genetics, our culture and our language, nor do we pretend to be the origin of anything except ourselves, that is, we do not pretend to have any genetic connection with the Dutch , the Irish, the Flemings, the Moors or the Jews-We only want our people and our language to survive the pressure of the Indo-European languages ​​such as French and Spanish, which unlike the Euzkera, are huge languages ​​with hundreds of millions of speakers. That is, the IEs are our traditional enemies and the truth is not very pleasant to share with them the haplogroup R1b-P312

Ric Hern said...

And this is precisely the problem, when Emotions are dragged into Science and Archaeology....

Bob Floy said...

@Gaska

Honestly, you're a little overwrought about this whole subject.
It would be nice if a person could mention Basque here without an impassioned, three paragraph long political speech from you, lol.

Ric Hern said...

Considering the 75% Yamnaya relatedness to some Northern Europeans. What is the easiest way to acquire a 75/25 ratio. An initial first cross that produce 50/50 And then a second 100% cross onto a 50/50 to attain a 75/25 ratio. So this implies, in its simplest form, two migrations into a specific area. To get a 50/50 ratio without an F1 mixture a 75/25 F2 individual can mix with a 25/75 F3 individual giving you a 50/50 ratio in an F4. A 50/50 individual mixed with a 25/75 will give you a 37.5/62.5 ratio individual. Etc...

Ric Hern said...

@ Andrzejewski

In other words what I'm trying to say is, if Corded Ware was a 75% Yamnaya Related mix there had to be an initial 50/50 ratio mixture moving into a 100% Yamnaya area or a 100% moving into a 50/50 ratio area. So in essence this means that whoever moved into an area to form Corded Ware already had Yamnaya related ancestry and the area already had Yamnaya Related Ancestry before the influx. So if Corded Ware Ancestry 75/25 originated in Sredny Stog 2, it means that 100% Yamnaya Related group moved into Sredny Stog who already had 50% Yamnaya Related Ancestry. Or if Corded Ware originated in Poland then the Pre-Yamnaya population already had 50% Yamnaya Related Ancestry...

zardos said...

@weure: The article you quote doesnt disprove Gerhardt in any way, even on the contrary, they just prove that no progress was made since Gerhardts standard work was published.
The BB were majority wise brachycranic contrary to CW and most neighbouring Neolithics.
That the BB characteristic type is more pronounced in males was always noted. Consider this and count the typical burials and you see the Steilkopf as Leittypus.
The criticism with the measurable skulls is ridiculous, unless they accuse Gerhardt of deliberately selecting skulls, what they do not. Counting the measurable male skulls of typical burials you get rates unseen before in Northern and Central Europe.
This needs to be explained and environmental factors are in no way sufficient. No way.
The idea of Mesolithic and Neolithic groups from Eastern France contributing, plus selection and founder effect might suffice.
The article was written before the ancient DNA results were available, which excuses their relativism somewhat. The article is overall "ok", but in no way debunks it Gerhardts work.

Ric Hern said...

@ Andrzejewski

And if Central Europe were 50/50 ratio it doesn't really mean that that area was hit by a 100% Yamnaya group encountering a 100% Neolithic group. It could mean that a 25% Yamnaya Related group, already present in Central Europe, admixed with a 75% Yamnaya Related Corded Ware Group....

Gaska said...

@ob said-"Honestly, you're a little overwrought about this whole subject. It would be nice if a person could mention Basque here without an impassioned, three paragraph long political speech from you, lol"

It may be, but I think it's a good idea for everyone to give their opinion, although without trying to impose any official truth

@Ric-"And this is precisely the problem, when Emotions are dragged into Science and Archaeology...."

No my friend, the real problem is that genetics has not been able to solve the problem of the origin of R1b-L51 at the moment, and that all theories in this respect are only speculations. How are we going to accept that Basques have an origin in the steppes if in the Iberian chalcolithic we have not found R1a/Q/R1b-Z2103/R1b-V1636 and not a single mitochondrial marker typical of the steppes?

It seems to me very well that you think that L51 is hidden in the steppes or in the SGC, but you will understand that scientifically this is not the evidence we are looking for. what amazes me is that in the British Isles and their American relatives, the hypothesis of the Kurgans has been so easily accepted to explain their genetics.

Regarding the proportions of steppe ancestry, you have to bear in mind that the models and analyzes are done with respect to individuals not of cultures or regions, whereby the results can lead to confusion. You can look at the different proportions of autosomal component in the individuals of BB culture (in France, Iberia, Sicily, Italy, England, Hungary), there are individuals without steppe ancestry (or with very small percentages) and yet in the Nehterlands they look like riders of the steppes.


A said...

@Gaska

« southern Iberia and Italy where there were large Chalcolithic cities.« 

What are the names of these cities? I only know of Los Millares.

Ric Hern said...

@ Gaska

Just show me the Migration Route of R1b Z2103 (THE BROTHER OF L51) or its Parent from Iberia to the Steppe please.

Keep in mind that Z2103 or its Parent had to arrive in the Steppe long before the Bell Beaker Culture started to evolve.

If you can do that I will jump on your wagon.

A said...

Gaska: « what amazes me is that in the British Isles and their American relatives, the hypothesis of the Kurgans has been so easily accepted to explain their genetics. »

The Scots already had a traditional origin story that they came from Scythia. I don’t know about the Anglo-Saxons.

Ric Hern said...

@ Gaska

And like I mentioned before, Autosomal Relatedness can change drastically within as little as 200 years/10 Generations.

How much Sardinian Relatedness were found in the Steppe Samples ? Now compare this to Steppe Relatedness the Other way around...

Gaska said...

@ A said "What are the names of these cities? I only know of Los Millares"

There are many, both in Spain and Portugal,

In Andalucia there are at least 6 Chalcolithic sites where longitudinal defensive pits have been documented- Valencina-PapaUvas-La Alberquilla-Carmona-Marroquíes Bajos and Eras del Alcazar in which carbon 14 dates have confirmed their continuity between 3,713-2,460 BC, and 11 cities with defensive walls of stone that are more recent in the time because it has been demonstrated that its occupation extended between the years 3.118-2.287 BC -

Almeria-Los Millares (3.155-2.870 BC) -Almizaraque (2.915-2.635 BC) -Zajara-Tarajal (2.970-2.525 BC).
Granada- Las Angosturas (Gor, 3,040-2,640 BC) - El Malagón (Cullar Baza, 2,895-2,520 BC) -Villavieja (Fuentes de Cesna, Algarinejo).
Huelva- Cabezo Juré (3,000 BC) - Junta de los Rios (Puebla de Guzmán) - Campos -
Jaén- Cerro Albalate (Porcuna).

The dates refer to the date of construction of the walls, not the existence of the villages. As you will see, the defensive concerns are much earlier than the supposed steppe invasions-Many of them are already excavated and hundreds of skeletons have been recovered

Extremadura- Pijotilla (Badajoz), San Blas (Badajoz)

Portugal-Vilanova, Porto Torrao, Zambujal, Leceia, Penha Verde, Moita da Ladra etc.

Many of them fortified, others with triple line of defensive pits.

There are even fortified chalcolithic settlements in Castilla

Castro del Pedroso (Trabazos, Zamora)- 2.695 BC
Castro del Pico de la Mora (Peñafiel, Valladolid)-2.900 BC

Pits of Trenches in the North Plateau- 50 Chalcolithic villages defended by pits have been documented that are associated with the first sedentary settlements and the consolidation of agrarian life in the provinces of Zamora, Valladolid, Salamanca, Segovia and Palencia.

weure said...

@zardos I have read it a little bit different they state that Gerhardt could not state thta the planoppicital phenotype of the BB is representative, the samples (skulls) were too small, too restricted and may be not well enough to draw such conclusions.

Gaska said...


@Ric-"If you can do that I will jump on your wagon"

Ric, I think that sooner or later you'll end up jumping in my wagon, but in reality I do not try to convince anyone, I simply expose what I think (other Spaniards like Iñigo Olalde think totally the opposite to, or what I think)

I have never said that R1b-Z2103 originates in the West nor do I know its migratory routes nor what it does in the Yamanya culture, only that it is an oriental marker (although there are very old subclades of Z2103 in Italy and other European regions) and remember that the phylogeny of L51 is totally western.

Ric Hern said...

@ Gaska

R1b1a2a1 / R1b1a2a2.

zardos said...

@weure: Yes, but that was just pseudocritical blabla based on what?
They stated that only 10 percent of the total burials could be assigned to the Leittypus. But thats a ridiculous distortion. If more than 50 percent of the skulls cant be assigned properly, you have to consider those which can, like Gerhardt did. That would be only wrong if he would have deliberately excluded non-typical specimen, which he did not.
So why should the measurable sample not be representative?
Also, you have to consider sexual dimorphism and more incoming males, which means males are more important for the judgement.
Add to that the more typical, fully equipped BB being almost always of the Leittypus, Gerhardt is vindicated. Further consider other results from different countries, like those from the British Isles they mention themselves and the only criticism left is that more than half the skulls are too damaged for the visual inspection applied.
So what? Burials too can be too damaged, ancient DNA as well. So are the archaeological and genetic results worthless because of the limited sample size? Of course not, and Gerhardt himself noted the different types present among BB.
Its most important to note the stronger Corded type percentage in females. Like they write too, since the females being more variable and deviate more often from the Leittypus even if sexual dimorphism being considered. Not just in Iberia, but in Germany also.
So the planoccipital BB males came in with a lower rate of females, taking local women and those local males allowed are mostly in the poor and not fully equipped burials.
So the physical Leittypus is real and of significance. The article just tried to be critical without real foundation or anything better to offer.
I wonder what the authors write now after aDNA largely proved the mocked Kosinna to be right with his ethnic-tribal interpretation.
Probably they still try to play it down like in the article with which this post started...

EastPole said...

@Zardos

“I wonder what the authors write now after aDNA largely proved the mocked Kosinna to be right with his ethnic-tribal interpretation.”

aDNA proved Kossinna to be wrong, not right.

zardos said...

Wrong about what? I did not refer to his ideas in detail, but the idea of archaeological cultural provinces with a distinct burial custom and grave goods almost always correspond to ethnic unities, especially if there is a sudden change which points to an intrusion.
Like in the order if appearance LBK, GAC, CWC and BB in Central Europe.
All archaeological cultures accompanied by a distinctive physical type and like we know now different male lineages and autosomal profile.
Or what did you mean?

EastPole said...

@zardos

Corded Ware came from the east and they were not Germanic:

https://books.google.pl/books?id=a4gqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT160&lpg=PT160&dq=Kossinna+corded+ware+reich&source=bl&ots=gF-0YKeYe6&sig=ACfU3U0aARWHda9R2pjOUJ-ToyZG39qlmQ&hl=pl&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwifiPvAh_PiAhXIJFAKHfVjDWQQ6AEwB3oECAkQAQ#v=snippet&q=%22Corded%20Ware%20culture%20came%20from%20the%20east%22&f=false

zardos said...

Right, but this has nothing to do with his interpretation in general.
The sentences above the quote you point to just proves my argument: Kosinna was, for the most part right and it was for ideological reasons only the majority of archaeologists dismissed the most logical explanations for decades.
Not that it wasnt obvious before DNA results, but those made the ethnic interpretation irrefutable.
I remember the debates about "pots not people" from the university in the 1990s. They started with ideological, judgemental moralization without even bothering to care for real arguments.
As if moralization is a self-evident proof of anything. Political correctness kills intelligent appreciatIon of facts.
The same can be said for many political systems of course, its just that the blind spots are at different places depending on the dominant ideological distortion.
Kosinna had his spots too, but that doesnt disprove his general approach.

A said...

@Gaska, thanks for that, very useful information.

Gaska said...

@A - you are welcome

@zardos-In this I am basically in agreement with you, because although not all cultures are genetically homogenous, the truth is that there are certain physical characteristics that can be linked to certain cultures. CWC is basically R1a and although BB c was initially a mixture of Neolithic lineages, it later became a culture monopolized by P312. I suppose that when we have more data from the rest of Western Europe, most of the cultures of the Bronze Age (2,000-1,000 BC) will be overwhelmingly R1b-P312 as has happened in Spain-

I do not know what you understand by politically correct in the debate of "pots not people", but I am convinced that the pottery and other cultural features did not travel alone. I think that in Iberia we have the perfect example with the Ciempozuelos style that, as you know, is practically exclusive to BBC in Spain. Archaeologists have identified 37 different geometric patterns in the decoration of the vessels, and these decoration motifs are repeated in all regions for hundreds of years. Obviously no equal models emerged in different regions by chance, the women who made those vessels traveled with the pottery and taught their daughters or friends to decorate the vessels following a previously established pattern- This example can be extended to all of Europe where the BBC is surprisingly uniform in its ideology, its customs and its technology-

So I think Kossina was basically right in identifying cultures with races or peoples

weure said...

@zardos the only thing I can distillate from that research is that Gerhardt was not solid enough to claim that plan occiput was dominant among the BB. That’s not pseudo science that’s a prevention for pseudoscience. Still it clears that plan occiput occurred among the BB.....

Kossinna was simply wrong. Those old anthropologist were still in the Volk frame. Pots, people etc were congruent and homogenous. Modern DNA research show we all are mixtures, not pure types or homegenous. You can’t find a single one.

When BB NW Europe is evolved out of SGC and SGC was more dolio and not brachy and plan occiputal, than it was a deviation as a result of a SGC and TRB mix? Open question for me....

zardos said...

Political correctness means that specific ways of speaking and thinking about a specific issue being bad and forbidden for ideological reasons. Those who dont comply being threatened and socially shunned. Even arguing about the ban in question is forbidden. Doing research which might lead to people question the ban is forbidden.
That's why the archaeologists protested and pulled back, like in the quote about Kosinna.
Its like questioning the holy church in medieval times: Refering to Kosinna in non-pejorative manner is like preaching to Satan. Even without refering to those archaeologists from the past, every single conclusion coming close to their interpretation is a heresy.
But they are rational experts and geneticists introduced false, premature and the best - "too simple" interpretations of prehistory.
Yeah sure. Better simple than lyers or incompetent, and thats the only two optioNS left for too many of those experts in fact twisting.
Not all, but too many. A correction of this unscientific quackery was overdue and genetics delivered.
Not that the genetic results were not twisted by the same bunch, but at least they have to try harder and more people get closer to the truth.

EastPole said...

@Gaska

“So I think Kossina was basically right in identifying cultures with races or peoples”

No, he was wrong and didn’t identify cultures with races or peoples properly.

Only DNA, linguistics and archeology together can give us some reasonable answers.

Corded Ware is now linked with Balto-Slavs and Indo-Iranians, not with Germanics.

zardos said...

@weure: You just subjugate to the authority of a "scientific paper" without critically reading between the lines. They just argue Gerhardts work was not perfect and we dont like his interpretation, even though we have nothing better and other researchers came to the same conclusions.
The BB males in the fully equipped burials are so overwhelmingly of the planoccipital type, that this is the typical BB. Whats even more important: That type was very rare to absent in the whole area, all neighbours and is in some ways the opposite of the Corded type which he succeeded in a lot of places.

SGC and TRB can never produce the BB type through mixture. And for evolutionary processes time was too short.
My guess is that their was an external input of significance, probably from Eastern France, if not from further away, and selection plus founder effect produced the new type.
I dont see a direct line from local Neolithics or CWC, even on the contrary. CW did contribute, but you need a population X. My wild guess is a so far unsampled or undersampled Meso-Neolithic mix. This would leave the possibility of regional R1b from an older westward movement open.
Finding the true source of L51 might be key.
Even if it came with CW, where did they settle down and with whom did they mix with first.
Because all those classic BB with the signature need to have to come from a clearly defined source. Thats the significance of the Leittypus: Its too different and too specific to just pop up by chance so far and wide, so suddenly.

Andrzejewski said...

I didn’t understand your last paragraph

zardos said...

@Eastpole:"
No, he was wrong and didn’t identify cultures with races or peoples properly.

Only DNA, linguistics and archeology together can give us some reasonable answers.

Corded Ware is now linked with Balto-Slavs and Indo-Iranians, not with Germanics."

Kosinnas concept was realistic, but the material and methods applied were insufficient. Yes he had prejudices and blind spots, but how would he have dealen with new data? We cant say.
What I can say is that the materials and methods today are sufficient, but a large portion of the concepts still in use is pure crap which has nothing to do with how life was and still is.

Why do you think Corded Ware is not linked to Germanic? Proto-Baltoslavic is the most obvious successor in the East, but Germanic too is connected CW in the West.

Gaska said...

@zardos-

Political correctness is the same throughout the Western world. I was referring to the particular case of "pots not people". What is politically correct for you, or for the social media in your country, to say that pottery traveled alone or say that people also traveled? that's what I was asking you-

It seems that in certain groups it is perfectly acceptable that the BB culture entered the isles with R1b-P312 because it came from the steppes-Therefore it is acceptable that the pottery did not travel alone. However, everyone denies that these pottery could travel from Iberia, Italy or Sicily or that P312 does not originate in the steppes-In this case, it is possible that the ceramics travel alone and of course everyone denies that there could be genetic exchanges- I think it is a double way of interpreting prehistoric/genetic events based on our racial/social preferences etc.

In Spain and France the genetic tests are not very popular and there are political parties that try to increase the impact of the North African invasions to satisfy the current immigrant population and show that Europeans are not so different from Africans. That is politically correct in Western Europe-When they have discovered that only 4% of the male lineages of the ancient kingdom of Granada are descendants of the Moors, it turns out that R1b-Df27 are experts in genocides (Granada, America etc) and some politicians even say that we should ask for forgiveness so that the Moors and Jews do not feel offended

Andrzejewski said...

@Simon_W Reading what you wrote on the topic and doing further investigation, I strongly believe that the brachycephaly in Beakers originated with the WHG Swifterbant Culture of Northern Netherlands:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swifterbant_culture

@Davidski pinned down the origin of Bell Beakers to the Northern Rhine region, which was part of the Funnelbeaker horizon and consisted of WHG foraging groups living in harmony with Neolithic Farmers to the east of them. So, let’s hypothesize this theory:

CWC assimilated and integrated TRB- and GAC- related groups: by then the gracile Mediterranean types have already absorbed ALOT of forager Cro-Magnon introgression. Later on they moved into the Northern Rhine region, diluting the Steppe component even more and assimilating the Swifterbant people. Therefore the Beakers developed their typical “dynaric” cephalic index. Bell Beakers moved to the Carpathian basin until they met the Yamnaya Hungary type. So perhaps that helps explain why dynaricism typical to BB started further north and only later on so we find them in the Balkans?

zardos said...

@Politically correctness has a national twist in every European country indeed. Its target is always the historical source of national and male pride, whatever it is, because that should be deconstructed.
This can produce funny results worldwide, because of different national traditions.
In India the left and minorities celebrated the Aryan invasion theory, the more brutal and heroic the better, because of the "international" support for "the suppressed". In other parts of the world its more appropriate to play it down.
Or for BB, they must be nice and lovely traders, or the worst killers of all time. Nothing in between. Both story lines fit the agenda. But to accept that they just took a chance when it was offered to them is no option, because it would make genocidal conflicts probably a too normal human behaviour for the wider audience. And that could make them think too much about the future of their own kind.

Andrzejewski said...

@weure yes. Probably from the foraging Seifterbant Culture:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swifterbant_culture

Which may explain why dynaricism so typical to Beakers started out in the Northern Rhine (former stomping ground of HG Swifterbant) and only moved later to the Balkans. If @Davidski is right regarding the Northern Rhine origin of BB then HG admixture goes a long way to explain it!

Ric Hern said...

If Iberia retained their Neolithic Languages it is no surprise because we see a more gradual change which affects only 40% of the Autosomal DNA in Iberia compared to a more rapid and substantial change in the British Isles which affected 90% of the Autosomal DNA.

Gaska said...

@East pole said "No, he was wrong and didn’t identify cultures with races or peoples properly"Only DNA, linguistics and archeology together can give us some reasonable answers. Corded Ware is now linked with Balto-Slavs and Indo-Iranians, not with Germanics.

I do not have the slightest idea of ​​the language that the CWC spoke, and I agree that the union of all these scientific disciplines is necessary to solve many mysteries of prehistory.

Regarding Kossina-"Sharply defined archaeological cultural areas correspond unquestionably with the areas of particular people or tribes" and "a unified set of archaeological artifacts, a 'culture', was the sign of a unified ethnicity."

Of course these words can be qualified (as I said in the case of the BBC), but in other cases a certain ethnic group is clearly linked to a certain culture. Sure you can think of a few examples quickly (both of genetically compact cultures, and cultures that never were)

Andrzejewski said...

@Ric Hern agreed. However, reading the Wikipedia entry re: Sredny Stog it did not mention anything on population turnover, only that the material Culture was more Yamnaya-like st it’s second, later stage.

Andrzejewski said...

@Gaska If the Ava reconstruction turn out to show a much more Mediterranean looking Beaker individual in Scotland than had been previously acknowledged or understood, and judged by the fact that Spaniards (and Basques in particular!) are descendants of Beaker culture, then maybe:

1. Bell Beakers were originally a non-IE speaking population.

2. BB originally looked Mediterranean and not “Northern-shifted” as their descendants may look today. Maybe it explains either an introgression of a later population, or just a genetic drift/natural selection process?

weure said...

@zardos, I'm more into the middel ground I guess they have a point that based on Gerhardts fouddings we can't make all to bald conclusions, nevertheless plan occiput simply did occur (and presumably not among the SGC).

@ Andrzejewski
'CWC assimilated and integrated TRB- and GAC- related groups: by then the gracile Mediterranean types have already absorbed ALOT of forager Cro-Magnon introgression. Later on they moved into the Northern Rhine region, diluting the Steppe component even more and assimilating the Swifterbant people. Therefore the Beakers developed their typical “dynaric” cephalic index. Bell Beakers moved to the Carpathian basin until they met the Yamnaya Hungary type. So perhaps that helps explain why dynaricism typical to BB started further north and only later on so we find them in the Balkans?'

They didn't move later on into the Northern Rhine region. We talk about the area roughly between the Rhine and the Elbe. When the SGC people came in the TRB were there. The TRB in that region, so called TRB west, was a TRB North derivative (at least according to Frank N, he called it in German Tiefstich invasion from 3400 BC. As such is TRB a mixture between Ertebolle and ENF.

But basically you think that the 'Dinaric' BB phenotype is something of a mix between (and an evolvement out of) TRB (so Ertebolle/ENF blend) and incoming SGC (2800 BC)?

Do we have an image of the TRB phenotype?

Anonymous said...

@Simon_W Very interesting that you mention that about Hamangia and Boian (both Dudesti derived, with very strong links to Anatolia), they were probably Y DNA J1 and T (and J2?) pastoralists from the Northern Middle East entering in small numbers into G2a farming societies (the same people are almost certainly the CHG Neolithic folk described by Moot in the upcoming Italy paper). It definitely isn't a WHG variation, no mixture of WHG and ANF can result in it either. The founder effect argument is possible but extremely reductionist. The Dinaric phenotype seems to be an originally Caucasian phenotype. As for why no predominantly Dinaric population appears in Europe before the BB folk, I think that's just because the BBs were the first to basically go their own way with replacement and all, rather than fully assimilating into e.g. Old Europe.

Andrzejewski said...

You’re basically right...however you are missing a prominent component: CWC first assimilating GAC and TRB types in situ in Germany proper; then they moved to the Northern Rhine area where they met and integrated the Swifterbant Culture foragers. Maybe that’s how Bell Beakers acquired their brachycephalic cranial index, or perhaps there is/are another, more plausible explanation(s)

Ric Hern said...

Isn't it interesting how R1b didn't arrive in the British Isles until the arrival of Bell Beakers from the Netherlands ? Considering that Spain is much closer to the Isles than the Isles are to Ukraine one should have expected to find R1b much earlier in the Isles....Even if R1b were Mesolithic Natives to Germany or France the Isles should have shown some Neolithic R1bs, but it doesn't.

Andrzejewski said...

@All By the way, does anyone have any clue what’s the difference between TRB/Funnelbeaker v. GAC? From what I understand so far (details are vague and murky), is GAC just a further local development of the existing TRB populations, or are there some incoming immigrants transforming the culture in some unknown ways?

weure said...

@Andrzejewski Swifteerbant was already swept away by TRB-West (3400 BC>) and TRB West is North Dutch and NW Germany. No difference. These area's were also the SGC (2800 BC>) and BB hotspots (North Dutch and NW Germany)!

Seen from North Dutch perspective SGC came not from the southeast (Rhine area) but from the (north)east.

Andrzejewski said...

There’s something that fascinated me about the Stračevo-Körös Culture, which is the first known Neolithic farmer civilization in Europe, admittedly regarded as ancestral to the LBK and subsequent cultures:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starčevo_culture

“In human remains of Starčevo culture in four investigated samples (Lipson et al., 2017) were found three different Y haplogroups: H2, which is common in Dravidian speaking people of India, Pakistan and Romania, G2a2a1 and G2a2b2b1a, which are common in the Caucasus and Iran. Also there were found four different mtDNA lineages: T1a, N1a1a1, K1a4 and W5. All male and female lineages correspond to those that were found in European Neolithic farmers.”

What does the wide diversity within the mtDNA tell us? And how come there is no mtDNA H found AT ALL among the skeletal remains?

Andrzejewski said...

@Big Momma where did you read that it came from the Caucasus? You have no evidence for that!

epoch said...

@weure

"Swifteerbant was already swept away by TRB-West."

Was it? Vlaardingen is often seen as a continuation of it, as I understand.

weure said...

@Andrzejewski, these are the Single Grave Culure hotspots, Jutland, Schleswig Holstein, Weser- Elbe, Northern Netherlands (above the Rhine).

These are also the TRB hotspots.

As a North Dutch I have a genetic profile that is congruent with Nordic LNBA, so a SGC/TRB mix, and shows not so much affinity with for example the Rhine Main area.

weure said...

@epoch Vlaardingen is not so much North Dutch. North Dutch like me show a typically TRB/ SGC mix.
The Tiefstich TRB invasion from the North to the West was already more Ertebolle influenced than Swifterbant.
TRB like in Drenthe was differentiated from Vlaardingen/ SW Dutch I guess.

@Andr. this is the picture belonging to the previous posting:
https://www.mupload.nl/img/g7wx32g7o.53.28.png

Gaska said...

@Andrei said- "If the Ava reconstruction turn out to show a much more Mediterranean looking Beaker individual in Scotland than had been previously acknowledged or understood, and judged by the fact that Spaniards (and Basques in particular!) are descendants of Beaker culture, then maybe: 1. Bell Beakers were originally a non-IE speaking population.

I think that the genetic continuity in Iberia between the chalcolithic and the Iron Age has shown that the Bb culture at least in Spain did not speak IE, but obviously I can be wrong.

@Andrei said- 2. BB originally looked Mediterranean and not “Northern-shifted” as their descendants may look today. Maybe it explains either an introgression of a later population, or just a genetic drift/natural selection process?

I see that you are still very concerned about the Bbs phenotype, I do not know how the BBs were phenotypically but I know a study about the Iberian Chalcolithic (Pre-BB and BB) with more than 400 samples-blue eyes (34%)- green/hazel (6%)- Brown (60%). Regarding the hair only a small percentage (4-5%) had blond or red hair-

Current Spanish population--Blue/Gray-(26,3%)-Green/hazel-(44,2%)-Brown-(29,5%)

Then, if for you, "northern shifted" means blue eyes, I think the inhabitants of Iberia during the chalcolithic were quite from the North, but remember that it is a genetic character linked also to the WHG- I do not know what happens in other countries, but in Spain many people have children with blue eyes although neither parent has them, they are inherited in some cases from grandparents or great grandparents. However, if the father and mother have blue eyes, their children always have this eye color. I for example have children with blue eyes and children with brown eyes

If for you "northern shifted" is identified with blond hair, then both the inhabitants of Iberia in the chalcolithic and the current ones are typically Mediterranean



weure said...

@epoch @andr.

This is the TRB hotspot zone in the Netherlands, only NE Dutch. Most westwards outlier of the North German Plain. no Vlaardingen connection:

https://www.mupload.nl/img/557zppmhy9.10.00.png

TRB is higly Ertebolle and not Swifterbant:
https://www.mupload.nl/img/cflc3yti2w9.08.42.png

Source:
Ceci N'est Pas Une Hache: Neolithic Depositions in the Northern Netherlands
Karsten Wentink (2006)

Gaska said...

@weure-"As a North Dutch I have a genetic profile that is congruent with Nordic LNBA, so a SGC/TRB mix, and shows not so much affinity with for example the Rhine Main area"

Do you know what the genetic makeup of SGC was? I understood that for the moment it is a mystery



Andrzejewski said...

@Gaska "@weure-"As a North Dutch I have a genetic profile that is congruent with Nordic LNBA, so a SGC/TRB mix, and shows not so much affinity with for example the Rhine Main area"

Do you know what the genetic makeup of SGC was? I understood that for the moment it is a mystery"

It is a mystery, because the authors of this paper made sure you'd have to fork out $25 in order to read their precious study.

weure said...

@Gaska I plot in the Nordic LNBA corner, so pretty SGC:

https://www.mupload.nl/img/2d77acn4iyg.png

And Rise98 nis mostly seen as a kind of CW/SGC example, my results done by LukaszM 'ancient calculator' (yourdna)

Baiuvarii_Germanic_ALH_10 0.7402196
CL146_Longobard 0.8035453
SZ4_Longobard 0.8168243
SZ11_Longobard 0.8698396
CL145_Longobard 1.0254931

CWC_Sweden_RISE98 1.0730047

CL93_Longobard 1.0793674
Niederstotzingen_Alemmani_9 1.0948192

weure said...

@Andr. Remind you some recent posting of the big boss here:

' My guess is that Single Grave populations from what is now Denmark and surrounds harbored much higher levels of WHG-related ancestry than the more easterly Corded Ware (aka Battle-Axe) Scandinavian groups, and they passed this onto present-day Scandinavians. Nordic_LN:RISE98, although from a burial site in what is now southern Sweden, might well be of Danish Single Grave origin.'

'This is how things look in a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of Northern European genetic variation based on my Global25 test. 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.'

It's exactly in that Nordic LNBA cluster that I plot, that's because the TRB/SGC mixture is likewise that of Northern Germany and Southern Scandinavia.


John Johnson said...

So understanding Furholt in general: he's essentially one of the cultural bloc deconstructivists. Their position is essentially that the concept of the Childean culture bloc was bogus and that more dynamic models are needed to understand prehistoric Europe.

In the past Furholt, wrote two papers aimed and demolishing TRB and CWC as useful concepts for understanding Middle and Late Neolithic Europe's cultural situation. While he has a point that the material and burial rituals exhibited throughout these horizons are not strictly uniform, he still at the same time lambasted the idea of migration in the past as a critical part of CWC development.

Now in lieu of all these aDNA findings he has to salvage his theoretical construct of Middle and Late Neolithic Europe by integrating the genetic data which blatantly contradicted his line of thinking. Some of his work wasn't bad, I mean his absolute chronology paper of CWC cleared up something that archaeologists for years could not resolve/were unsure of: oldest CWC dates were from the east. However, he still cowtailed to the deconstructivist trends within the time he was writing in and renounced migratory factors relating to CWC similar to how Whittle did in '96.

Anyway, I'm sure the paper probably is confusing to read as he'll be integrating the genetic data with his own dynamic nuanced understanding of the material and burial culture of the TRB and CWC groups. Which is fine. I'm sure the situation was quite nuanced at the time, nothing really surprising there, but I don't really think he's much of an illuminary here in that regard either. All this undescores anyway how clinging to extremes in conceptual thinking can lead to throwing out perfectly valid ideas like migration, which Furholt, unfortunately in spite of how his work could be useful at times, was guilty of.

Samuel Andrews said...

@John Johnson.

Thanks for your post. It makes sense that Furholt was one of those archaeologists opposed to the idea of coherent cultural groups in archaeology. I'd like to see archaeologists try to explain the expansion, succes of certain ethnic groups in 3rd milenium bc Europe instead of trying to deconstruct their existence.

Bob Floy said...

In other words, his agenda comes first, so his work is of limited value.

epoch said...

@John Johnson

Furholt makes a hard distinction between areas where corded ware was found in settlements and areas where it was found in graves. He then states that the Netherlands was the latter while coastal Netherlands was the former. But thgis distinction is not hard in the Netherlands:

https://www.academia.edu/4602432/74_Drenth_Brinkkemper_Lauwerier_SGC_small

I do think it's an important to know that there are settlement areas and non settlement areas but at least in the Netherlands there are settlements found in barrow areas.

Davidski said...

On the image from the paper that I posted above Furholt marked Estonian Corded Ware with a brown beaker, which means what? No SGBR?

And so what, since there was a massive population shift there with a lot of gene flow from the steppe, including and especially male mediated gene flow?

weure said...

@Epoch nevertheless in genetic sense you see for the NE Duttch area a congruent development with the North German Plain and Southern Scandinavia. So connected with TRB and SGC. The same area's are important hotspots of the BB are: Drenthe (Drents plateau), and the Veluwe and the zone above Amsterdam (Noord-Holland).

So TRB:
https://www.mupload.nl/img/zq0i468fqqo.png

And SGC:
https://www.mupload.nl/img/6lgh049o.png

Imo this results in the only real differential genetic line or break(NE vs SW) in the Netherlands (Lao 2013)

https://www.mupload.nl/img/82r80ql.png

You see the same shapes on the map!

Drago said...

New paper on cwc in Netherlands
The introduction of Corded Ware Culture at a local level: An exploratory study of cultural change during the Late Neolithic of the Dutch West Coast through ceramic technology
E.J. Kroona, Fokkens, et al

Drago said...

@ epoch

“Furholt makes a hard distinction between areas where corded ware was found in settlements and areas where it was found in graves”

However it’s probably mostly research & preservation bias. I think F. might be reading too much into it. More and more CWC settlements are emerging (mostly due to highway constructions which accidentally uncover)

@ Big Momma
“Very interesting that you mention that about Hamangia and Boian (both Dudesti derived, with very strong links to Anatolia), they were probably Y DNA J1 and T (and J2?) “

I would be very surprised if that’s the case. I’d imagine them to be G2a with some I2a2 even R1b

Grey said...

Andrzejewski said...
"Why would Beakers remain aloof from other population?"

religion maybe?

Grey said...

Andrzejewski said...
"So what you’re describing is farmers dying out because of Pestis?"

or the neolithic farming package not being suited to the Atlantic climate vs dairying.

Samuel Andrews said...

Anybody know why Neolithic human cultures were so obsessed with pottery & why most of them buried their dead with pottery? How was pottery used & why did this make it important.

weure said...

@Dragos '' New paper on cwc in Netherlands'

CW in West-Dutch is kind of 'coastal' edgy, marginal.

I'm more and more convinced that TRB and SGC are 'responsible' for a genetic wathershed in the Netherlands.

The strongshold of TRB+SGC+BB were in the Northeast Dutch areas, the sandy soils, although accessible from the North Sea.

Northeast Dutch like me have a kind of LNBA Nordic genetic signature. In the rest of the country is this way less (or not) the case.

Suyindik said...

@Andrzejewski, Simon_W

Malak_Preslavets (Mathieson et al. 2017) is considered to be of Starčevo–Kőrös–Criș origin. The Y-dna of Malak_Preslavets: G2a2b2a, T1a1a and C.
Mt-dna of Malak_Preslavets: T2b, T2e, J1c, J2b1, H, H5b, U5a1c, U5a2

Lipson et al. 2017 found Y-dna for the Starčevo–Kőrös–Criș culture: G2a2a1, G2a2b2b1a, H2 and Mt-dna: K1a, T1a2, N1a1a1, W5

Fregel et al. 2018 found in the sites related to the Proto Iberian Bell Beakers, Kelif el Boroud and El Toro Y-dna G2a2b2a3a and T1a1a, and Mt-dna: X2b, K1a1b1, K1a4a1, T2b3, T2c1d, J2b1a, K1a1, K1a2a

Harney et al. 2018 found among the Peqiin population a majority of Y-dna T1a1a, and the Mtdna found is matching with most of above study results.

All these groups were a mix of Pre Neolithic Mesopotamians and eastern Zagros people. These early farmers initially moved from West Asia in the Neolithic into the Balkans and Iberia. Then they invent the Bell Beakers culture in Iberia which shows signs of them in the Varna culture and later in the Iberian and Hungarian Bell Beaker regions.

Also in the population of Varna Necropolis, were found G2a and T1a, together with R1b which shows the initial locations were mixing between Steppe and Early Farmers began, just like in the Maykop / Steppe Maykop culture were Early Farmer components J1, J2, G2, L, T1a were found together with Steppe components like Q and R1b. As for the case of the early Iron Age of Italian Latium, I think the Steppe component is associated with the Indo European Celtic/Italic populations because in the Iron Age samples of Britain was also found R1b. And the Early Farmer component in Iron Age Latium is associated with the Etruscans.

self-consumer said...

@weure

Are you, or were any of your recent ancestors, Frisian? Could the differences between the north/northeast and south Dutch be attributed to their descent from North Sea vs Weser-Rhine Germanic speakers? I imagine the latter would have assimilated more southerly populations, including Celts, and retain less continuity with LNBA Nordics, than the former.

Ric Hern said...

@ weure

What dialect did your forefathers speak ? Dutch-Low Saxon or Frisian ?

Matt said...

Off topic, for anyone interested in Asian stuff: https://phys.org/news/2019-06-chromosomes-reveal-population-boom-ancient.html

"Researchers built evolutionary family trees using the Y-chromosome sequences and saw a pattern indicative of a population decrease and sudden increase: a remarkable decrease in the number of ancestral Y-chromosome sequences around 2,500 years ago."

A Japanese specific redo of other papers with time expansions of y-dna clades - https://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2015/03/13/gr.186684.114.abstract
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8152
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2013/08/new-papers-on-human-y-chromosome.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16271-y

Similar patterns of dip and expansion, more recently in the Japanese population than others (2500kya). Some subclades of Japanese haplogroup D1b are close to "star-like" (like the I2 subclade in Sardinians, R-M269 in Western Europe, EEF origin R1b-V88 in the Sahara, etc).

This roughly corresponds to colonisation of Japan by agriculturalists.

Slightly pushes me towards the view that expansions of y-dna in Europeans more likely to be due to population expansion I guess.

Davidski said...

@All

There's a new French website about Indo-European languages and cultures...and genetics. Looks promising, but I haven't had a chance to look at it closely yet...

http://etudesindoeuropeennes.fr/

Vinitharya said...

Ooh, time to take advantage of my three years of high school French. Just hope it isn't a French Carlos Quiles.

weure said...

@self-consumer, in strictly sense I'm not a Frisian, my family comes from Groningen (in earlier days also part of Friesland, to make is easy ;) and Drenthe, that's on somewhat higher sandy soils. Buth the distances are small. Groningen and Drenthe lay between nowadays province Friesland in the west and Lower Saxony in the east. Besides that my bot grandparents from my fatherside can be in paternal line traced to Friesland. But the biggest Nordic LNBA similarity is from my mother's side, Drenthe is a funnelbeaker (and single grave) hotspot. It has the oldest population of the Northern Netherlands. Coastal Groningen en Friesland have inhabitants (coming from Drenthe!?) since about 500 BC.

I really think the 'deep ancestry' makes the difference between North and South Dutch. Ok there was an Anglo-Saxon influx in the North. And the Rhine-Weser Germans, say the Franks, went to South Dutch, Belgium, Northern France they were presumably close to the other Germanic tribes but may be their effect was at least in the South somewhat on the surface.

The deep ancestry, long before the Germanic movements, had made IMO the difference. The Northeasten part of the Netherlands were part of the movement on the North German Plain. TRB came in from Southern Scandinavia. Single Grave had basically only effect in the Northeast. And the Bell Beaker strongholds were also in that same area. So there is an affinity between Nordic LNBA and the NE Dutch.

"I imagine the latter would have assimilated more southerly populations, including Celts, and retain less continuity with LNBA Nordics, than the former.'

Indeed seen from someones perspective you could say that in genetic sense Northern Europe starts above the Rhine c.q. fades out in North Dutch and vice versa for the South Dutch South European outlier or beginning.

This effects even the phenotype. North Dutch are taller (average 3 cm longer) than South Dutch and much lighter featured.
Illustrative is Herc2, North Dutch have North European results, South Dutch have a tendency to South Europe:
https://www.mupload.nl/img/zsc7hhhsmg.42.32.png

EastPole said...

@Vinitharya

“Ooh, time to take advantage of my three years of high school French. Just hope it isn't a French Carlos Quiles”

One of the links is to Academia Prisca which is Carlos Quiles.

There are links to French sites but unfortunately I don’t speak the language. I wish I spoke it because just glancing there I came across very interesting article:

https://www.persee.fr/doc/rhr_0035-1423_1994_num_211_1_1329

It is in French but has English introduction. It points to similarity between Slavic god Svantevit and Apollo of Amyklai in Sparta:

https://i.postimg.cc/Nftjvfdy/screenshot-503.png

It is interesting because I was arguing before that Hyperboreans who introduced Apollo cult to Greece were not Mongols as some western scholars think:

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/09/avars-and-longobards.html?showComment=1536749543676#c9044525303467916563

Matt said...

Re; Dutch differences and height, patterns of height, latitude and ancestry are quite interesting between countries.

In the Netherlands more steppe ancestry seemingly relates to being taller, though even South Dutch males must be 181.5cm tall to average out with North Dutch to 183cm in cosmopolitan Dutch samples (assuming 3cm difference).

In the UK, steppe ancestry seems to relate to being shorter (Scots and Irish don't seem taller than Southern English, and slightly shorter - https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/2019_SohailMaier_eLife_Height.pdf - "Interestingly, the north-south genetic cline in the UK tracks the height gradient in the opposite direction than in Continental Europe (Figure 2—figure supplements 2 and 4 )", i.e. more steppe ancestry = shorter).

In Spain, the Basque Country and Galicia in the north seem respectively taller and shorter than the average (Basques about 4cm in the lead at the start of the 20th century, 2cm only by 1970 births, may be less today) - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4666548/. Basques of course don't have more steppe ancestry than other Spanish, but do have more EEF and less North Africa/East Mediterranean, while as for Galicia "The highest amounts of north African ancestry found within Iberia are in the west (11%) including in Galicia.... We speculate that the pattern we see is driven by later internal migratory flows, such as between Portugal and Galicia", (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-08272-w). However Canarians also relatively tall.

3cm would actually be quite a large height gap within a nation in the contemporary context. Italians, with the largest genetic differentiation in a state within Europe, only go from 178cm in Friulia Venezia Giulia in the North East to about 171 cm in Sardinia or 172cm in Sicily (6-7 cm) - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ajpa.23177. (Sardinian males today are about 5'7" against an Italian male average of 5'8.5" - 5'9"). A small portion of that may relate to economic circumstances, but those tend to be due to poor nutrition at lower levels of income than is the case in Europe.

Davidski said...

Academia Prisca? WTF? LOL

weure said...

Ok ok David here are the exact figures woman in the outmost North are 2,4 longer and man 2,1 compared to the South. These were the ‘official’ measures from 10 years ago:

‘Groningen longer than Limburger
The traditionally known differences between "long" northerners and "small" southerners still appear to exist in 2006. The difference in height between men in the three northern and two southern provinces was 2.1 cm. For women, the difference between north and south with 2.4 cm was even slightly larger. Age differences between parts of the country have only a limited influence on the outcomes.’

https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2008/02/lengtegroei-nederlander-stagneert

weure said...

And as the crow flies the distance between Den Bosch the capital of Brabant and Groningen the capital of the North is 118 miles, 190 kilometers.

Matt said...

@weure, thanks for the ref; one thing I do take from that is that the west and east of the Netherlands are pretty much the same as the north, about 181 for Oost and West against 181.5 for north an 179.25 for south.

So that does clarify that tall height in the Netherlands relative to NW Europe isn't the preserve of the north Netherlands alone, but also typical of people in the West who are presumably genetically similar to NW Germany, Britain, in their level of steppe/northern ancestry. The south, although still quite tall in Europe, seems relatively an outlier, despite genetically that the south isn't hugely an outlier and clines are fairly smooth through the country - https://www.nature.com/articles/ejhg2013118/figures/3

The data there are 2003/2006, and whole population, while a similar reference for children alone in 2009 that tells a similar story is is Fig 4c https://www.nature.com/articles/pr2012189, with North+East+West about the same and the South about 0.22 standard deviations lower.

"Variation across the geographical regions has lessened since 1997. The mean height SDS in the north and in the south are closer to the overall mean (Figure 4a). The mean height SDS in the north of the country is still significantly higher than that in the south (difference = 0.22 SDS; P < 0.001) and the major cities (0.12 SDS; P = 0.018). This means that 21-y-old boys and girls from the north are on average 1.6 and 1.4 cm taller, respectively, than those from the south. "

(This study reports a higher average of 183.8cm in Dutch boys in 2009, so the south would be about 182.1cm and the north 184cm, or for girls 170.7cm average, so south 169.2cm and north 170.8cm.).

There's a bit more convergence among most recent young people. Of course, some of this probably likely to be due to internal migration, just as slight degrees of internal convergence in other nations (e.g. Basque Country losing some of height advantage relatively within Spain) are also from the same phenomenon... (E.g. other studies reported that PCA score within Netherlands was more predictive of final height than birth coordinate, although those medical studies must have been biased for older ages so may overestimate for children).

weure said...

@matt I guess you could say that West and East Dutch are seen from a North-South axis in an intermediate zone..

The internal migration is in the Netherland more from South and North to the West (Amsterdam etc), and 'internal' North and 'internal' South, North-South movements or vice versa is quitte marginal.

In the past this was also because of religion ground North was/is Calvnistic and South was/is Roman Catholic.

Matt said...

@weure, hmmm... If not much migration into South Netherlands from rest, then I guess we can say that probably doesn't explain much of why that region converges with the rest.

Btw, further off topic, I found OurWorldInData had a nice sequence of GDP per capita numbers and measured height sequences. That allowed me to improve on what I've done before in using Global25 to model the differences in height which are due to ancestry (as formerly relying on Grasgruber data which only represented a slice in time and no GDP controls).

Results are here: https://imgur.com/a/8cQgI0R if anyone who gets the concept is interested.

(Detail: I used a hierarchical set of regression such that first accounted for trends due to years sampled, then log GDP per capita, then finally G25 coordinates for closest populations. I didn't use Africans here or Latin Americans as the G25 doesn't really represent national populations from those regions.)

Suggests that you may still end up with a Northern+Eastern European greater height of about 4 inches vs shortest Eurasian populations, and 2 inches vs Southern Europe, once all the convergence is done.

(Re; GDP full GDP per capita works less well as height improvements relating to GDP basically stop after about 7000-10000 GDP/capita, and log is superior for linear equations. Because GDP matters much less after 7000-10000, where I've set = UK GDP to visualise the differences purely due to development, it basically doesn't matter matter if the countries ever actually reach that level, so long as countries converge to about where China is today.)

Same data also suggests MN farmers and Barcin may have been about 2 inches shorter than Yamnaya / Baltic Bronze Age (based on modern patterns in descendents and eliminating differences due to GDP).

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