Four of the samples from the recent
Frei et al. paper on human mobility in prehistoric southern Scandinavia are in my
Global25 datasheets. Their genomes were published along with
Allentoft et al. back in 2015. So I thought it might be interesting to check whether their strontium isotope ratios correlated with their genomic profiles.
In the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) below, RISE61 is a subtle outlier along the horizontal axis compared to the other three Nordic ancients, as well as a Danish individual representative of the present-day Danish gene pool. Also note that RISE61 shows the most unusual strontium isotope ratio (0.712588). The PCA was run with an online tool freely available
here.
To help drive the point home, here's a figure from Frei et al., edited by me to show the positions of RISE47, RISE61 and RISE71. If RISE276 was also in this graph, he'd be sitting well under the "local" baseline, in roughly the same spot along the vertical axis as RISE47.
Interestingly, RISE61 belongs to Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a-M417, while RISE47 and RISE276, who appear to have been locals, both belong to R1b-M269. My guess is that RISE61 was a recent migrant from a more northerly part of Scandinavia dominated by the Battle-Axe culture (BAC). The BAC population was probably rich in R1a-M417 because it moved into Scandinavia from the Pontic-Caspian steppe via the East Baltic. This is what Frei et al. say about RISE61 and his burial site:
The double passage grave of Kyndeløse (Fig 1, S1 File) located on the island of Zealand yielded 70 individuals as well as a large number of grave goods, including flint artefacts, ceramics, and tooth and amber beads. We conducted strontium isotope analyses of seven individuals from Kyndeløse encompassing a period of c. 1000 years, indicating the prolonged use of this passage grave. The oldest of the seven individuals is a female (RISE 65) from whom we measured a “local” strontium isotope signature ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr = 0.7099). Similar values were measured in five other individuals, including adult males and females. Only a single individual from Kyndeløse, an adult male (RISE 61) yielded a somewhat different strontium isotope signature of 87 Sr/ 86 Sr = 0.7126 which seems to indicate a non-local provenance. The skull of this male individual revealed healed porosities in the eye orbits, cribra orbitalia, a condition which is possibly linked to a vitamin deficiency during childhood, such as iron deficiency.
By the way, RISE47 was buried in a flat grave, which suggests that he was a commoner. RISE276 was found in a peat bog in Trundholm, where the famous Trundholm sun chariot was discovered (see
here). He may have been a human sacrifice.
Citation...
Frei KM, Bergerbrant S, Sjögren K-G, Jørkov ML, Lynnerup N, Harvig L, et al. (2019)
Mapping human mobility during the third and second millennia BC in present-day Denmark. PLoS ONE 14(8): e0219850. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0219850
See also...
Commoner or elite?
Who were the people of the Nordic Bronze Age?
They came, they saw, and they mixed
245 comments:
1 – 200 of 245 Newer› Newest»@Davidski
Regardless of the origin of RISE 61, I suppose you will be happy for the possibility of obtaining genomes from the SGC (Jutland), may be the time has come to check if we have P312 hidden in Denmark.
There might be some P312 in Denmark in Bell Beaker associated remains, but I think Danish Single Grave remains will be packed with U106.
Importantly are the dates of these four samples. RISE61 is between 2860 and 2490 BC and belongs to the Single Grave Culture. RISE71 is between 2200 and 2020 BC and belongs to the Bell Beaker culture. RISE47 is between 1500 and 1320 BC and is from Bronze Age. RISE276 is between 800 and 540 and is from Late Bronze Age.
@Bernard
RISE61 isn't associated with the Single Grave Culture. He's probably a recent migrant to the Danish islands.
RISE71 is a female, but just looks like a typical Late Neolithic Scandinavian.
RISE47 and RISE276 are locals, and both belong to M269.
Actually, it should be underlined that both RISE47 and RISE276 are likely to be locals and commoners.
Rather than newly arrived aristocracy.
@Davidski @Bernard
Your comments only reflect the difficulty that exists to hide R1b-51/P312 in the SGC, even in the Dutch sites that on the other hand, have a strong connection with the West (French Sites) -If as David says he is a Scandinavian migrant (Battle Axe culture) and in the Danish SGC we are going to find U106, where will we find L51, in the Netherlands? Isn't it easier to think about French or German Neolithic cultures?
Well, obviously if you find U106 or P312 then you'll find L51.
Dutch Beakers, who look native to the North Sea shores, belong to P312, and RISE98 from Late Neolithic Sweden, who looks native to Scandinavia, belongs to U106.
So I think it's just a matter of getting more samples to see how L51 arrived in the north.
Isn't it interesting that they snuggle approximately halfway between Uralic/Slavic and Celtic....Mmm..
Well it could be that L51 appeared in the Baltic Countries, and recently we have Vk531-R1b in Scandinavia (Norway-2,400 BC), without a drop of steppe blood. But if that happens, and we managed to link the R1b-P297 of the Narva culture with the Scandinavian HG-R1b, I think we would have succeeded in denying an origin of L51 in the steppes, simply because P297 in the Baltic Countries has a genetic continuity of more than 3,000 years (since the Mesolithic) and we would not need steppe migration to justify its presence in Latvia
By your words "how L51 arrived in the north", I suppose you are still thinking of a steppe origin for this lineage, but would you be able to tell me in which culture you think we will find L51 and what is the possible date of its migration to mainland europe?
Let's see what happens with the R1b-genomes of Khvalynsk, but everything indicates that they could be V1636 and Z2103, and therefore in some ways ancestors of Yamnaya. I guess you will agree with me that if this is confirmed, then the opportunities for the steppe have been significantly reduced.
We only have a few samples from the steppes north of the Black Sea. Wait until more Sredny Stog, western Yamnaya, and so on and so forth samples come in.
Ok we will wait, there is no problem, we ask the same regarding Iberia and Western Europe in general. More genomes and less speculation.
But in any case, the genetic heterogeneity that all steppe cultures are demonstrating means that we can rule out massive migrations. That means that the only possibility for L51 in the steppes is that a small group of men of this lineage (and even a single man) migrate accompanying the CWC and then BOOM in Western Europe as it seems that R1a did. "It certainly seems a miracle, but since I am a Roman Catholic I cannot rule it out"
By the way a new study on BB metallurgy and the similarities between Iberia and Hungary has appeared, the truth is that it is surprising. Yamnaya's influence is testimonial.
What study? Do you have a link?
Unfortunately it has not been published online. It is a book entitled-The campaniform graves of Humanejos (Parla, Madrid)- This is what it says about the copper halberd with three rivets and nail found in Tomb nº1-"It is undoubtedly one of the most interesting finds of the necropolis, it appeared about 40 cm from the face of the skeleton of a mature male in primary position along with two Palmela spearheads, a stone wristguard, a small object of bone and Ciempozuelos style pottery. The halberd was deposited with its wooden handle.
Apparently the European halberds have been studied by Schubart (1,973), Schumacher (2,002), Brandherm (2,011), this says the archaeologist responsible for the excavation
"The way to hold the piece of copper and the rivets, are their links with the archaic system exclusive to the peninsular BB daggers. Not in vain, the only halberd documented in a BB grave across Europe it was discovered in the Hungarian necropolis of Szigetszentmiklós near Budapest that presents the same peculiarities as the Spanish one. We have a unique dating that once calibrated places the burial in 2,482-2294 BC, in a margin clearly superior to that estimated for this type of halberds"
I suppose that some expert archeologist who reads this blog will be able to comment on this type of halberds, for my part I can only say that
1- The genetic and material connections between the Spanish and Hungarian sites are more than evident
2- At the moment the Spanish deposits are more ancient
3-I do not know more cases of BB halberds in all Europe
4- I do not know if they have found this type of halberds in the Yamnaya culture, the Spanish archaeologist says that they have western-Atlantic origin
5-The metal casting technique of halberds is the same, only the pottery style varies
6-The wristguards found in the graves are the same type (Sangmeister)
At least you and I agreed that Hungarian BBs are a mixture of German BBs, Neolithic Hungarians and some Yamnaya. The similarity between the German and Iberian BBs is more than evident, and in addition even a horse found in that Hungarian site has Iberian blood. It seems that we are well on our way affirming that BB culture expanded from the West and that it stopped its trip in Hungary
Neolithic hungarians?! Haven't heard about this kind...Do you know when they arrived in Europe from Asia?
I am 100 % sure Panonians are not connected to hungarians by any scientific discipline we know.
Probably recent Russian ancestry.
Yes Hungarians BBs descendants of Neolithic farmers with Y-Haps- H2, G2a2a, I2a2a, together with migrants from Yamnaya Z2013 (1 sample) and Central Europeans BBs.
Szigetszentmiklós-219 BB burials- 102 Inhumations (47%) and 29 symbolic tombs with grave goods but no human remains (13%)- Very common also in Spain-The rest are cremations, which were also practiced in small numbers during the BB culture in Iberia.
Mitochondrial haplogroups are very similar in Iberia and Hungary with repetitions of haplogroups H1, H1 + 16189, T2b3, V3, K1a2a, K1a2c, T2c1d + 152 etc.
The archaeological materials are very similar with some differences in some types of wristguards and certain metal objects that do not appear in Hungary such as Palmela-style spearheads
The relationship between Hungary and Spain is a closed case, the contribution of the Yamnaya culture is minimal, so any attempt to make us believe that this culture was transformed by magic in the Eastern BBs is BS
Now we have at the western and the eastern end of the BB culture 2 RARE IDENTICAL weapons both in their form and in their manufacturing process, so I guess we will find some more in the way these people would follow-The path could be from west to east or vice versa, but for now the Spanish site is somewhat older than the Hungarian, or perhaps both come from German or Moravian sites. To demonstrate this we would have to find this type of halberds in Central Europe
If Iberian halberds, horses and other goods were sought after by people who had the money to import them, then that's one way to explain how they ended up in the Carpathian Basin.
If horse breeding and other technology was being utilized in Corded Ware culture, why use Iberian trade. If one was a entrenpeur it would be a lot easier setting up Hungarian trade within Bell Beaker/Corded Ware zones situated adgacent.
@Davidski-
It could be, but there are too many coincidences, because you have to add the genetic data including some Hungarian Bbs that are more Iberian than me. In any case, the important thing is to remember the mobility and exogamy of the BB culture because it has been proven enough.
It is materially impossible that if both lineages (R1a and R1b-L51) were together in the Yamnaya culture they would develop two such different cultures (CWC and BBC)because their cultural heritage including their language would be the same, even if there had been different migrations separated by hundreds of years. The men of the CWC were warriors armed primarily with axes (stone and copper), however, the warriors of the BBc were primarily archers. Two ways to make war faced and incompatible
The only possibility for the Yamnaya culture is that R1a and R1b-L51 moved through the CWC and later mixed with the Central European BBs, but in that case why only R1b-L51 appears in this culture and never R1a? I'm going to tell you, because the CWC has nothing to do culturally or genetically with the BBC, except for a small percentage of mitochondrial lineages that went to the BBc for exogamy.
@natsuoname-I don't know what you're talking about, and I really don't know what to answer, I don't want to be rude.
@Gaska
PIE weren't archers. The PIE language has no common word for only the bow and arrow.
@natsuoname, in Spanish we can use country demonyms for all peoples inside the borders of that country, ancient of modern, not just for the ethnic people which gave his name to that country. We could say Hungarian beaker people instead of bell beaker people of Hungary, and not being talking about Magyars in bell beaker times. We tend to use other denomyms (like Magyar instead of Hungarians) if we want to be more ethnically accurate.
CW warriors had axes, d flint daggers and bows. They were skilled archers and used the now more frequently than other European groups. At least the main groups of the CWC. There are a lot of flint arrowheads around, especially in high status warrior burials. Actually some of the oldest proofs for composite bows were found in CW contexts.
No common root for bow and arrow in PIE? Whatever that means, it surely doesnt mean PIE were not equipped with bows, thats ridiculous even if it would be true, what it is not.
Linguistic arguments? As far as I know there are PIE words for archery!
@Archi
Well the archers have existed in Europe since the Paleolithic not only in the BBC (In Spain we also have wristguards even in Pre-BB deposits), but the truth is that this culture put special emphasis on remembering their archer warriors in the graves (we have even children buried with small wristguards, their parents were no doubt preparing them for their military career because they have traces of having been used),
However, the CWC preferred the battle ax, that is, the close fight (because perhaps they were stronger or taller than the BBC men). Western archers certainly had another way of fighting, perhaps more like guerrilla warfare and avoiding direct confrontation. The Spanish word "guerrilla" is one of the few that has passed to English, no doubt a coincidence.
Qarlos, there are other ways to write the information in correct way. In your manner people easily can decide for sample Turks are heirs of Illion or Hittits only because they live for 500...600 years there or Jews have something incommon with the culture they have found on today's islraelitic from 60+- years land. After 200 years western culture easily can be named African by your way of expressing.
@ zardos
There were not words in PIE for archery. Of course PIE had bows and arrows, but they were not the archers, for them it was an additional weapon of the ordinary social status that it did not differ from spears.
Maybe two migrations by different R1bs...If Vucedol/Yamnaya as proposed by Gimbutas formed early forms of Bell Beaker then there could have been a Southern Spread of some Vucedol related I2a and maybe some R1b to Spain...
However I can not see that R1b L51 took this Southern Route...
If L51 originated somewhere on the Steppe I think they migrated up the Dnieper to the Baltic area and from there Westwards. Or if L51 originated in Western Yamnaya then maybe it started splitting up somewhere near the upper Vistula and Elbe.
Looking at some cattle distribution I think L21 and DF27 split up somewhere near Alsace in Northeastern France on their way to the West...
I think the Seine-Oise-Marne Culture had something to do with the Basque...
@zardos-
In the symbolism of BB burial rites, wristguards played an important role as pretigious objects.The social significance of archery equipment in the funerary context replaced the PREDECED SYMBOLISM of Corded Ware battle axes, maceheads and axes. There may be about 2.000 finds of Bell Beakers wristguards from the whole of Europe and Edward Sangmeister collected 262 wristguards from Central Europe.
Do You know how many of these objects have been found in the CWC?
All European prehistoric cultures knew the bow and arrow, but the important thing is the symbolism and only the BBC recognized its dead archers in such a special way. Neither the Yamanya culture nor the CWC did it, and also remember that the majority of the CWC tombs only have stone weapons, while the BB culture has hundreds of Palmela spearheads that could be used also as arrows because there are different sizes and shapes. The culture and symbolism of the warrior archer is totally western, or do you have seen copper spearheads in the CWC?
We are facing two different ways of understanding war and that cannot have the same cultural origin, in the same way that the warriors with ax of the CWC never became warrior archers respected and honored by their community
@Gaska: The main advantages of BB were in my opinion their even wider and more closely linked networks, their metallurgy and better equipment.
Other than that the BB are more like a caste and not as bound to their local subsistence activities.
Corded Ware and BB both used long distance weapons AND close quarter fights. Both had ritual duels, with dagger duels ending more often deadly than the protected and more ritualised fights with the blunt end of the axes in CW.
Both consumed ritual drinks from beakers/cups.
I see a lot of commonalities, not least the single burial, but also fighting style and duels.
BB had more of an expiration date though, because their caste like status was based on secret knowledge and a complex network, especially in Central Europe were they didnt eliminated Neolithic and CW groups like in the West.
The metallurgical knowledge spread to the surviving CW-Neolithic groups in Central and Eastern Europe which brought the BB networks down and spread in all directions, Sintashta included.
The BB survived in the West and refuges for quite some time, but became a periphery which just waited for conquest so to say.
@Gaska
In Eastern Europe in Mesolithic/Neolithic even women buried with arrows. The arrows were an ordinary weapon that did not differ from the spears. Arrows for PIE was just household implements. PIE were not the archers.
But obviously, to give you that argument, if CW warriors went into battle with axes on a regular bases, they were slowed down relative to the even lighter equipped BB.
The BB daggers were surely more effective than the flint daggers from CW, which main advantage was that it could be produced locally, without foreign dependency. And to keep up the relative self-sufficient economy for every small kingroup is one of the most striking traits of the mobile CW in the early phase.
That worked out fine until the metal weapons became more sophisticated, which happened first with BB in Central Europe.
But even the basic equipment with bow and dagger is the same, the BB just more elaborated.
@zardos
"BB had more of an expiration date though, because their caste like status was based on secret knowledge and a complex network, especially in Central Europe were they didnt eliminated Neolithic and CW groups like in the West."
The BBC came later than CWC, and Central Europe merged with them and evolved into the post-corded вcultures. And in Western Europe, they were simply not pushed out by anyone, and remained backward. So there is no their progressive compared to CWC.
No serious warbands are formed only by a single speciality.
In this way, CW people weren't all axemen, and BB people weren't all archers.
As for archery, in surely IE cultures, like Greeks, Persians and Vedic indians, the bow was considered a royal weapon. For Indians it was the favourite weapon of Arjuna, for Persian it was the symbol of power of the Emperor, for Greeks it was the weapon linked to the civilizing activity of Heracles. Read CASADIO, L'arciere nell'antichità greca e romana, written by a serious academic researcher specialized in classical literatures and languages.
Then, I really can't do anything but softly smile when I read some articles and comments in this blog: it seems that historic events, discoveries, etc are always a sort of contest useful to show the mental, racial, social and physical superiority of R1a or how autocthonous R1b is and how neolithic and poor victims G2a, J2a, T1a are... I'm sure that someone can find a reason to redeem himself in life, or to feel better with its situation... but please: we are talking about scientific results... Here it seems the personal bias of everyone can rise to light.
The proof is in the fact that leaks say that we have very few Etruscan samples, and immediatly people rush to conclusions, obviously with biased flavours. Let's wait for the paper, then we can talk with results at hands.
@ic-
Marija Gimbutas was wrong many times, but to say that BB culture originated from a mixture of Yamnaya and Vucedol is the stupidest thing I've heard in my life.
Regarding what you say about L21 and Df27, I think the latter is totally Iberian because in Spain we have evidence of a founder effect, with the two main subclades fully represented. We also have evidence of the migrations of Df27-Z195 to Sicily accompanying the Iberian BB pottery (2.300 BC), so we will leave Alsace for the moment we find this lineage in that land
@Archi: Yes, bow and arrow were normal goods, so they were not recognised the same way as the axes as status symbols.
But in CW gender and social roles became more strict with the hunting warrior as the true member of the group and the rest belonging to him.
Also, that didnt prevent PIE from further developing that weapon and to use it extensively.
This is apparent in CW in particular with BB being even more specialised, which might have been a bigger advantage before protective weapons and the cavalry were fully developed in the Bronze Age,when they became disadvantaged.
Jaja...
@ Gaska
Don't mind me. You will see...
"RISE276 was pulled out of a peat bog in Trundholm"
What? They got aDNA out of a bog body? I didn't think it was possible?
@Lar Ulthes
"As for archery, in surely IE cultures, like Greeks, Persians and Vedic indians, the bow was considered a royal weapon"
Greeks, Persians and Vedic indians were more 1000 years after the CWC and BBC. They were after the Andronovo and Babino cultures, after the charioteer cultures. The Mycenaean Greeks used slings as the main distant weapon.
Bows were not the main weapon because a simple short wooden bow is impossible to conduct sight shouting, and composite bows will appear much later the CWC and BBC, after the invention of chariots.
@Lar Ulthes-
Nobody has said that the CWC were exclusively axmen and the BBc exclusively archers, I have said that they were different cultures with different symbolisms, and that in the case of the CWC, some of the subcultures belong to the stone age, so obviously the BB culture was far superior technologically. In the Spanish BB burials we have hundreds of Palmela spearheads, copper daggers, but also small copper axes and some halberds of both stone and copper.
I do not believe that the CWC and the BBC will face a war as we currently understand even though we have evidence of exogamy and that women could be abducted by one culture or another, what I believe is that the CWC preferred the ax of war and the BBC the bow, which are two different ways of understanding war.
On the other hand, the CWC was mostly R1a and the BBC mostly R1b (even in Iberia), two different lineages, two different cultures, two ways of understanding war, two ways of living and cultivating the land. Nothing makes us think that the similarities referred by Zardos (that are otherwise true) that these two cultures have the same origin.
And now we enter the linguistic debate because if the CWC spoke an IE language, what makes you think after seeing the results in Iberia, that the BB culture spoke an IE language?
I believe that the BB culture stopped the expansion of the CWC in central Europe and occupied strategic territories in Hungary and Poland, or simply its demographic capacity only reached the Carpathian Basin.
And remember that the scientific results in regards to archeology are limited to studying the material remains of different cultures and in this sense the BB culture honored the archers and the CWc axmen
Btw @Lar Ulthes. The IE culture you mention are seveveral millinia later than CWC and BB :)
But yeah, People here always think they know a lot about stuff, which basicaly don't know. Intellectual honestly is pretty Low around here. It's All about flashing your prehistoric epeen and nationalist Bias', and calling other People morons for not agreeing With you.
@zardos
"the cavalry were fully developed in the Bronze Age"
There were no a cavalry in the Bronze Age. The cavalry was developed in the early Iron Age, and appeared in Europe with Cimmerians.
Words for bows in the IE languages began to spread with the invention of chariots, for archers on a chariot and the invention of the composite bow.
@Ric
I've been reading that phrase for many years. Don't mind me, you will see..
L51 originated in Western Yamnaya
L51 in Catacomb
L51 in Repin
L51 in Khvalynsk
L51 in Sredni Stog
L51 in Maykop
L51 in the CWC or SGC
L51 in Asia
L51 migrated up the Dnieper to the Baltic area and from there Westwards.
And in spite of all those "you will see" it turns out that we don't have that lineage outside of Western Europe. I hope you're right and what we see in the future is at least interesting.
I subsumed the chariots under cavalry, which is one problem, the other is your definition of cavalry, because I dont just mean riders attacking in full gallop with a lance.
Just read how Germanics used cavalry at the time of Caesar and that surely existed much earlier than the Iron Age.
Also, the effectiveness of the bow from at least the Neolithic on is proven by numerous findings in corpses and on the battlefield.
The composite bow too might be older.
Davidski, I just emailed you Helene Wilhelmsen's paper on Iron Age (and Viking) Baltic samples and isotopes. I'm not sure if the full text is freely available online. Thought you might find it helpful.
L23+(L51/Z2103) A population/culture rich in L23+ could be quite interesting.
@zardos
"Just read how Germanics used cavalry at the time of Caesar and that surely existed much earlier than the Iron Age."
Nope. The first riders appeared only at the end of the Bronze age.
"Also, the effectiveness of the bow from at least the Neolithic on is proven by numerous findings in corpses and on the battlefield."
No,short bows were not so effective. The long bows were effective, but uncomfortable. Therefore, the bows at the Indo-Europeans have become a mass weapon since the chariot era, and before that it was a personal weapon that is not separated from the spears. Indo-Europeans preferred axes.
You have a lot of finds with arrowheads in their bones and you have masses of them around stormed fortifications. So whatever you think about their effectiveness, they were used in practise with great effect.
Especially CW held the bow in high esteem, which is obvious from their warrior graves.
As for riding horses, I know those ridiculous comments, but they are unfounded. Riding was practised on the steppe early on and spread with steppe-influence West.
Yes, the cavalry developed on and chariots were a game changer too when introduced with the Tumulus culture, but to assume the spread of horses before had no meaning in war is a strange assumption.
I cant understand what's the difference if you use Magyars or Hungarians here...They dont have place in European history till VII-VIII century.
I am not sure how you all here could interpret any DNA data if you dont have any basic knowledge in history or archeology, what to speak about linguistics.
@zardos
"you have masses of them around stormed fortifications."
What? In the (E)Neolithic? It Early Bronze Age? You're confusing times. Even the armies of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome hardly used the bow.
"Especially CW held the bow in high esteem, which is obvious from their warrior graves."
In the CWC there is no cult of bows, there at all arrows borrowed from previous local cultures. In the early phases of the CWC arrows are very rare and only in the later phases are more frequent.
"As for riding horses, I know those ridiculous comments, but they are unfounded. Riding was practised on the steppe early on and spread with steppe-influence West."
You are mistaken. To ride a horse it was necessary to carry out a great selection work by the adaptation of the hooves and back of the horse to riding.
"the cavalry developed on and chariots were a game changer too when introduced with the Tumulus culture, but to assume the spread of horses before had no meaning in war is a strange assumption."
The Tumulus culture had not relationship to development the cavalry and the chariots.
Yes, masses of arrows were used in Neolithic times. You are confusing ages, because the bow got out of use in Rome and Greece when the mass phalanx armies became their main strength and both bowmem and cavalry were more and more drawn from auxiliar forces. Mycenaean, must I remind you on the Iliad, used the bow and chariots.
Celts in later times used chariots and bows independently of each other.
So the bowmem were the more ancient warriors, while the phalanx was the younger innovation with the available bronze being used for shields, helmets and cuirass, iron for spearheads and swords.
The CWC had many elements which seem to be more closely related to Central European Neolithics. That's the difference to Yamnaya and its direct offshots. Its more of a cultural hybrid.
Funnily the arrowheads might resemble those of some other archaeological groups, but they are also quite distinct, f.e. to those of the Schönfelder culture and more elaborated than those, which proves their input into these tools.
As for riding, you now have a growing number of scientists which support the view that if not Botai, so latest Yamnaya used the horse for riding. Like with the composite bow which might have been a Corded Ware invention, you just have the problem with organic materials preservation of the equipment.
The idea that horses were put to use in warfare not before the invention of chariots and clear depictions in art and survived metallic gear is as stupid as the "nothing before Clovis" dogma for the Americas. Forget it.
Afaik Tumulus culture was the time when the first chariots were introduced chariots to Central Europe and expanded over Unetice and beyond with influences from the East. But if you say otherwise and have a different entry date for chariots to Eastern CE you are welcome.
One thing is to tame horses to work in the field or capture/hunt horses to consume their meat, and another to tame them for riding and even to be used in war. The first skeletons with evidence of the practice of riding in Spain have been found in the culture of El Argar (1,700 BC), but the fact that certain men belonging to the elite rode on horseback does not mean that they were used militarily. In fact the remains of horses are very scarce.
The BBc was a fundamentally an "aquatic culture", that followed the courses of the rivers and the commercial maritime routes knowledge from the Neolithic for its expansion. Horses and conquests only existed in the imagination of Kurganists who dream with a conquest of mainland Europe by the Yamnaya riders.
Of course, if L51 and his descendants were in the Yamnaya culture they suffered an unprecedented mutation in the history of mankind. Suddenly the steppe riders left the horses, the battle axes, much of their steppe customs, kidnapped the BB culture in Central Europe and became great archers and great navigators capable of navigating throughout the Western Mediterranean and the Atlantic facade. The men of the Yamnaya culture never sailed and never arrived in Western Europe.
I think the important thing about this conversation is to understand that these two cultures (Yamnaya/CWC) were in many ways absolutely incompatible with the BB culture. And yet we have the wonderful "steppe ancestry" that forces us to think that there was some kind of genetic relationship between the men and women of the BB culture and the steppes
@ Zardos
CW warriors had axes, d flint daggers and bows. They were skilled archers and used the now more frequently than other European groups. At least the main groups of the CWC”
Trying that again-
Only specific groups of cwc featured aweorheqds and they might not be “CWC” properly speaking
@zardos
"Yes, masses of arrows were used in Neolithic times."
You're confusing the Neolithic with the Indo-Europeans. You are wrong about the sequence of the use of bows and axes by the Indo-Europeans. Homer's description has nothing to do with the Greeks; his description of weapons does not apply to the Mycenaean Greeks at all.
"As for riding, you now have a growing number of scientists which support the view that if not Botai, so latest Yamnaya used the horse for riding."
Faith has nothing to do with science.
"Afaik Tumulus culture was the time when the first chariots were introduced chariots to Central Europe and expanded over Unetice and beyond with influences from the East."
The Tumulus culture was after the Unetice culture and the Sintashta culture and the CWC. Explain what it has to do to the development of chariots and cavalry? It is unclear what you write.
@Dave the Slothtopus
Helene Wilhelmsen's thesis Perspectives from a human-centred archaeology : Iron Age people and society on Öland (with appended papers) is freely avalable here:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/c6d33164-dd18-466b-9936-44156f3e3ea4
@Drago can you show the sites or science journals with elite
CWC burials with signs of metallurgy? Axes, adzes, arrowheads,daggers etc compared to BB and Yamnaya. Also list the CWC sites with greatest potential for horse and or wagon/chariot remains.
@Drago: Yes, its a Bit of a generalisation, but just a bit. Because arent these the most common weapons you see? And the most widespread custom in the quite variable CWC horizon in which not the same tools were buried everywhere - but its use seems likely.
How would you equip an elite warrior from the Central German CW for an reconstruction at their height?
Btw, if you are up to date to CW reconstructions, how plausible is to you the idea that some CW axes were placed on long shafts, almost like later BB "halberds"/Stabdolche? I just saw it recently the first time presented as a possibility.
Unetice had no chariots, but after its end, at the time of the Tumulus culture, chariots appear, coming from the East.
Concerning riding once more, there are a lot of hints for earlier riding and to assume horsemanship started with chariots and before that horses were just used for meat and rituals is wrong.
But if you dont follow common sense and reasonable archaeological interpretations, just wait for more proofs to come and earlier riding becoming the clear mainstream.
@zardos
No one of the Indo-European peoples did not use "halberds" like BB. In the IE languages have not words for this kind of weapon.
@zardos
"time of the Tumulus culture, chariots appear, coming from the East."
But the Tumulus culture was not involved in the development of the chariot and cavalry, so your references to it are still not clear.
"Concerning riding once more, there are a lot of hints for earlier riding and to assume horsemanship started with chariots and before that horses were just used for meat and rituals is wrong."
))) See what doesn't exist.
"But if you dont follow common sense and reasonable archaeological interpretations"
))) Believer and yea shall find.
For riding need a specific selection of horses, in contrast to the harness.
@a: Crucial is the transition from CEE Corded Ware - EE Fatyanovo-Balanovo -> Abashevo -> Sintashta. With a constant increase of copper to bronze artefacts. Also, in my opinion, the evolution of the composite bow might be seen as a development from within the wider, especially Eastern Corded Ware horizon to Sintashta. Horsemanship, bows, copper-bronze metallurgy, cars/chariots were all developed along the same line and culminated in Sintashta.
"You're confusing the Neolithic with the Indo-Europeans. You are wrong about the sequence of the use of bows and axes by the Indo-Europeans. Homer's description has nothing to do with the Greeks; his description of weapons does not apply to the Mycenaean Greeks at all."
First you said that no masses of bowmen fought in the Neolithic times at all, because the bow was "ineffective". I think you should know now that this is wrong, so you start twisting arguments.
Next axes: They were used before CWC, just different kinds of. Also, the evolution of the phalanx/heavy infantry in the Mediterranean cultures and later Central Europe during Hallstatt too btw obvious.
Mycenaeans obviously used bows in warfare, its ridiculous to say otherwise!
Also, you can quit your talks about "no cavalry before Iron Age" completely, because in Mycenaean times you have definitive proofs for the use of cavalry, not just chariots - in the Bronze Age.
If you say archers and riders were not used in Bronze Age Greece, where we have clear proofs of both, your arguments are proven wrong.
Compare f.e. with these depictions of chariots, bows and cavalrymen in Mycenaean Greece.
@Archi: Yes, Tumulus culture has nothing to do with the invention of chariots, I just mentioned it when refering to the end of the BB culture in Central Europe with Unetice introducing the early Bronze Age and Tumulus culture doing the final blow to BB rests with the fully developed Bronze Age toolkit and cavalry/chariots, introduced from the East via Sintashta. This marked the end of any BB tradition in Central Europe imho.
This had nothing to do with the original invention of the chariot, even though I'd assume that the inputs which formed Sintashta came from the same area as the Tumulus culture, but a long time before, moving with Fatyanovo-Balanovo East. In a way, like with Yamnaya before, a former expansion, an offshot, developed better than the original and came back superiour (Sintashta). The same happened with Corded Ware offshots replacing their Yamnaya teachers and relatives on the PCS. Both in almost circular movements of cultural innovations and people/elites respectively.
Forgot the link to the Mycenaean chariots and cavalry before:
http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/chariots.htm
@Zardos are there any specific archeological CWC elite burials sites you can list with copper and or bronze? Or elite burials with wagon/chariot wheels. Or elite burials with horses? To compare with other archeological sites.
"First you said that no masses of bowmen fought in the Neolithic times at all"
@zardos Yes, masses of bowmen did not fight in the Neolithic times at all. There are not armies of bowmen in the Neolithic. In the Neolithic bows used but Indo-European was not a Neolithic people, he lived in the Eneolithic and he have himself traditions differentiate his from any another peoples. You distort other people's words.
"Also, you can quit your talks about "no cavalry before Iron Age" completely, because in Mycenaean times you have definitive proofs for the use of cavalry, not just chariots - in the Bronze Age."
You must quit that in Mycenaean times used cavalry because it is not true. The cavalry did not use in Mycenaean time - it is proof.
By the end of the Bronze age horse riding was already known, in Mycenae it became known just before their death, but cavalry was not yet anywhere.
"If you say archers and riders were not used in Bronze Age Greece, where we have clear proofs of both, your arguments are proven wrong."
The archers were in Mycenaeans, the cavalry were not. You as always distort other people's words. You used twisting arguments.
@a
Zardos are there any specific archeological CWC elite burials sites you can list with copper and or bronze? Or elite burials with wagon/chariot wheels. Or elite burials with horses? To compare with other archeological sites.
Abashevo; the precursor of Sintashta.
Yamnaya culture-The excavations found a small number of weapons in the Yamnaya graves (most of them did not contain any artefacts at all), one may conclude that the inclusion of weapons to the sets of objects that accompanied the dead was not common for the Yamnaya burial rite
The complex of weaponry of the 'Yamnaya-East' cultural group can be reconstructed as follows: bow and arrows with flint arrowheads (used occasionally); darts with flint dart-heads; stone axe-hammers, rarely - horn hammers and metal 'loopy' axes; flint daggers (rarely - metal daggers).
The weaponry complex of the 'Yamnaya-West' culture group does not differ substantially from the 'Yamnaya-East' group. Bows and arrows were also rarely used; darts with flint heads had almost the same types of heads; stone axe--hammers did show some variety, but along with them, horn and bone hammers and beak-axes, as well as the flat flint axes of the 'Corded Ware' type were increasingly widely used; flint daggers exhibit practically no difference from the 'Yamnaya-East' objects.
The weaponry complex of Corded Ware cultures of Western Ukraine can be reconstructed as follows: bows and arrows with flint arrowheads; darts with flint dart-heads (this category of weaponry is not numerous); stone axe-hammers (the main kind of weapon); occasional metal 'looped' axes, flat stone axes (occasionally flat metal axes); flint and copper daggers.
This has nothing to do with the archers' ideology and with the Western European copper halberds, right?
@zardos
You just get out using chariots under the concept of cavalry, but it's completely different concepts.
In Mycenae horse riding appeared before catastrophes of Bronze age and could be linked with Sea people invaders. But it could be related to the Near East who could get some knowledge from Mitanni also and use donkeys. But none of them used cavalry, they used only advanced chariots. The Cimmerians brought the first cavalry. Until the final Bronze age, horse riding did not exist at all.
@a: Look up Fatyanovo-Balanovo and the metallurgic development of this late, Eastern Corded Ware offshot. For example this dated, but still accurate book for listing some:
https://books.google.at/books?id=nKNOAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false
Look up page 135 and the following: "The grave goods of these master metallurgists are similar to those which we encounter in more southerly graves. At Churachiki the burial contained types III and IV clay casting moulds for shaft hole axes, as well as a copper axe which had been cast in one of them, crucibles, etc.
Fatyanovo is a direct Corded Ware offshot. They had other influences, but these were negligible it seems for their ancestry.
At page 137 you find metal objects from the culture, like from the Churachiki Kurgan.
@Gaska: Thanks for that contribution, but still I see archery as an important aspect of CW warfare. But let's put this to and end this way: BB were advanced bowmen specialists with metal daggers, CW warriors, even though they had their bows and daggers, were not as specialised in comparison.
@Archi: "In Mycenae horse riding appeared before catastrophes of Bronze age and could be linked with Sea people invaders. But it could be related to the Near East who could get some knowledge from Mitanni also and use donkeys. But none of them used cavalry, they used only advanced chariots. The Cimmerians brought the first cavalry. Until the final Bronze age, horse riding did not exist at all."
You are so funny. Steppe people had to learn how to ride their horses after more than 2000 years of breeding from the Near Eastern donkey riders. Why didn't we see that before!
If donkey riders influenced the steppe people, they did so 4000-3000 BC, not at the end of the Bronze Age. Do I have to remind you were the Mitanni were coming from? The Mitanni were chariot specialists directly from the Aryan/Indo-Iranian expansions.
But guess what, the Near East got the horses and chariots from the North and while Assyrians had an excellent cavalry, they didn't taught Europeans how to ride, that just didn't happen. If you want to believe the dogma of "no horse riding", ok, go with it. We will see when more proofs come in. I'm already sufficiently convinced, even if not absolutely 100 percent sure, that riding started with Yamnaya. I'm not saying the could ride into battle like Assyrians, no, probably more a transport like "on faster donkeys", but still, a push for mobility, light cavalry of the "mounted infantry kind", like it was practised thousands of years later even, just more skilled and effective.
@zardos
"You are so funny. Steppe people had to learn how to ride their horses after more than 2000 years of breeding from the Near Eastern donkey riders. Why didn't we see that before!
If donkey riders influenced the steppe people, they did so 4000-3000 BC, not at the end of the Bronze Age."
An incoherent set of words. You wrote something completely wrong and funny.
Chariots were introduced because firing arrows and javelines was more effective with a pilot and standing on a platform than riding a horse with poor equipment and difficult training. That doesn't mean, however, that horseback riding was not practised in peace and warfare. It was just not comparable to later cavalry tactics and the furthest away from shock cavalry. But a faster transport of "mounted infantry-type" light cavalry it was nonetheless. As long as the breeding, tactics, weapons and gear was not more developed, the chariot was a big advantage for the mobile force. But once again, the idea that the chariot was introduced because horseback riding was impossible before is absurd.
@zardos
"I'm already sufficiently convinced, even if not absolutely 100 percent sure, that riding started with Yamnaya."
Yamnians didn't bred horses almost except in certain settled places on the west borders of the Yamnaya culture where horses there were bred yet in the Eneolithic. In the composition of their herd of horses is extremely small, for travel they used bulls. So how could they use the horses to ride if they didn't use the horses at all?
There is no evidence that Yamnians used horses as something otherwise than on meat.
@zardos
"Chariots were introduced because firing arrows and javelines was more effective with a pilot
But once again, the idea that the chariot was introduced because horseback riding was impossible before is absurd. "
This is absurd. The early chariots were only for one man.
Nope, the early steppe chariots came in different sizes and some were big enough for two men.
Back to topic! [I am actually getting pissed off by reading for the 50th time about BB, R1b, IE mythology and whatever else people think they haven't made clear enough in their previous 49 comments].
Dave - I doubt that RISE61 can be linked to the Battle Axe Culture. There are very few Fennoscandian sites that may have produced Sr isotope ratios similar to RISE 61 (0,7126). That Wilhelmsen paper linked above by Argantyr (thx!) reports a baseline Sr isotope ratio of 0.7140+-0.0024 for Öland, well in line with RISE61, but that seems to be it. In general, the Fennoscandian bedrock is geologically very old and as such likely to produce far higher Sr isotope ratios. If you look at Map 1 from the link below, you'll see that Fennoscandian groundwaters typically produce Sr isotope ratios above 0.720.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.469.6898&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Now, groundwater Sr isotope ratios cannot directly be translated into bio-availability. The latter is determined by two additional factors, namely
(i) Precipitation: The wetter the climate, the more the Sr intake is determined by washout from surface soils instead of groundwater washout of bedrocks. Of course, surface soils and bedrock are somewhat linked. Still, high precipitation literally tends to "water down" groundwater Sr isotope ratios.
(ii) Diet: Plants and animals use different water sources. As a rule of thumb, annual plants (cereals, herbs) will mostly use surface waters, resulting lower Sr isotope values. Terrestrial animals consume more groundwater, sweetwater fish the most, and when it comes to marine plants/animals, effects are hardly predictable. As such, human Sr isotope values are also determined by each individual's specific diet, as has e.g. been shown for pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, where individuals with higher social status, i.e. higher meat consumption, had higher Sr isotope ratios than "commoners" from the same area.
Well aware of the a/m caveats, the paper linked below has nevertheless attempted to map bioavailable Sr isotope ratios for Central Europe (Fig. 9). Fennoscandia is poorly covered. Still, it becomes clear that, except for Scania, Fennoscandian Sr isotope ratios should lie much higher than RISE61's 0,7126.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0197386&type=printable
From both links combined, the following areas appear to potentially provide for Sr isotope ratios in line with RISE61's 0,7126:
1. E. Prussia (possibly also Lithuania, which isn't covered by any of those papers);
2. CE low mountain ranges between the Ardennes in the West and the Erzgebirge in the East (note in this respect also Sr isotope ratios reported for the Elbe-Saale area in https://collectie.huisvanhilde.nl/pdf/Velsen%20Isotope%20Report%20FINAL.pdf )
3. The Eastern Alps (Austria/ Slovenia);
4. Central France (S. of Paris, N. of the Massif Central);
5. E. Wales, and parts of Scotland.
3-5 look unlikely DNA-wise. However, you might want to check genetic relations of RISE61 to either CWC Lithuania, or CWC-MES, as a means of narrowing down his origin. If none of the two works out, he probably came from Öland.
[There's another caveat here, howewer, which I will address in a subsequent post].
I think that by late Yamnaya & BB; horses might have being ridden; but all the evidence we at present have is “circumstantial”
@ Zardos
I think arrowheads can be used or not depending on pragmatic - functional reasons or for ritual- display reasons. They’ve been used since the paleolithic in Europe
However; they become important during the BB phase, in the classic toolkit; alongside tanged copper daggers. Just before that; they appear in a few sites in southern Poland.
In south Scandinavia; the Flint dagger horizon represents BB movements; but adapted to local lack of proximity to metal networks. Arrows lost some of their currency in Iberia; as new weapons suited for short range coercion were required
It's worth keeping in mind that arrow heads are often in ancient graves not because they're grave goods, but because they were inside the bodies of the deceased who were killed by them.
@FrankN
In general, the Fennoscandian bedrock is geologically very old and as such likely to produce far higher Sr isotope ratios.
Did you consider the possibility that RISE61 may have moved to Zealand as a young child, in which case his isotope ratio might be a combination of high and low ratios?
@Lar Ulthes
No one's claiming that R1b was autochthonous to Scandinavia, or that R1a represents axe wielding elite warriors.
The inference from the results is that the R1b in southern Scandinavia by and large didn't arrive there during the Bronze Age with new elites and a new culture.
Rather, it appears to have been the haplogroup of natives, and usually commoners, whose ancestors lived there since the Scandinavian Neolithic. I suspect that this is why you're so irritated.
Nevertheless, just to underline my point...
- RISE98, Late Neolithic, R1b-U106, basic grave with no clear cultural affiliations
- RISE47, Early Bronze Age, R1b-M269, flat "commoner" grave, local isotope ratio
- RISE276, Late Bronze Age, R1b-M269, buried in a peat bog, local isotope ratio
The Y-haplogroups of the Bronze Age individuals from "high status" barrow graves and with non-local isotope ratios haven't been revealed yet. I don't have a clue what they might be, but I'm expecting some surprises, because it's possible that these people came from many places in Europe, and maybe beyond.
Of course, if you'd like to read fantasy tales about the invasion of Scandinavia by Bronze Age elite R1b warriors, then you know where to go.
@ Davidski
It's interesting that you point your finger against people claiming they're irritate, when they aren't, and don't read those posts of yours where you willingly offend others, but, hey, it's your blog, so your home, your rules. I'm not R1b, so, frankly, I don't give a point of my interest to it... but a thing that irritates me is the double standard used. Even given the fact that some academics write there and they're views aren't exactly the same as yours. But, it's ok, if you feel better than them who are researching on the field.
Then, I see that you definely avoid to underline also the dates of those sample you put in the graph: RISE61 isn't contemporary with other two samples. So, also those other two samples could have arrived in Scandinavia in a moment after RISE61.
@Larth Ulthes
Then, I see that you definitely avoid to underline also the dates of those sample you put in the graph: RISE61 isn't contemporary with other two samples. So, also those other two samples could have arrived in Scandinavia in a moment after RISE61.
I think the dates in the graph that I posted are clearly marked and obvious, unless you're blind or stupid.
My point was that R1b by and large represented local commoners in Scandinavia during the Bronze Age and earlier, rather than elite migrants who brought a new culture to the place.
The main point to understand about RISE61 is that he appears to be a migrant from the east or north, therefore using his DNA profile in any way to measure genetic shifts in post-Neolithic Denmark is pointless.
R1b-M269 may well have arrived in Scandinavia after the time of RISE61, but this is rather unlikely, considering RISE98 and his U106 plus exceedingly Scandinavian genome-wide profile.
Dave: I forgot to thank you for this post. Irrespectively of whether RISE61 ultimately turns out to be (Öland) Battle Axe, or something else, I really appreciate your efforts in placing academic papers into a broader context.
You ask: „Did you consider the possibly that RISE61 may have moved to Zealand as a young child, in which case his isotope ratio might be a combination of high and low ratios?“
No, I didn't consider this. The standard procedure is to measure Sr isotope ratios from tooth enamel. This captures the ratio at the time when the tooth grew, i.e. at the age of 0-3 for the first molars, up to 7-10 years for the third molars. In the case of RISE61, the SR isotope ratio was determined from the second premolar, which starts calcification at the age of 2, and is fully calcified at the age of 6-7, see https://www.aapd.org/globalassets/media/policies_guidelines/r_dentalgrowth.pdf
Theoretically, the case outlined by you is certainly possible. However, I am not aware of any scientific publication ever having considered such a scenario. Your proposal is clearly moving out of the academic mainstream. This doesn't automatically mean you are wrong here, but moving away from the academic mainstream usually requires providing further evidence, e.g. from the aDNA side, to substantiate claims.
Otherwise, you quote Frei e.a 2019 as follows (emphasis is mine):
"The skull of this male individual [RISE61] revealed healed porosities in the eye orbits, cribra orbitalia, a condition which is possibly linked to a vitamin deficiency during childhood, such as iron deficiency.".
Iron deficiency! Humans especially need iron for producing Hemoglobin (red blood cells). Since RISE61 was male, we can immediately rule out a common cause of iron deficiency, namely blood loss during menstruation. This leaves two other potential causes:
1.) Blood loss to parasites such as hookworms (most common), but also Plasmodium (Malaria);
2.) A diet low in bio-absorbable iron.
3.) Lack of Vitamins promoting iron absorption, escpecially Vitamin C.
ad 1.): I am not aware of any studies about LN hookworm infections, but I guess they were pretty common and as such can't help in narrowing down RISE61's geographic origin. Similarly, Malaria was still present along the Upper Rhine in the 19th cAD and - given higher temperatures during the Holocene Climate Optimum - could have been quite widespread across CE during the LN.
ad 2.): Bio-absorbable iron is a/o contained in meat, nuts, and green leafy vegetables such as spinach. This means that HGs, e.g. from the Pitted Ware Culture, are rather unlikely candidates when it comes to iron deficiency. It is more of a farming issue, even more so as "for children, a high intake of cow’s milk is associated with an increased risk of iron-deficiency anemia".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron-deficiency_anemia
ad 3.): A Vitamin C deficiency again points to farmers rather than HGs. The latter shouldn't have had much problems to cover their Vitamin C demand from berries, crap apples and the like.
In short - RISE61 seems to either have suffered from parasites during his youth, or originated from a farming background with high cereal and/or cow milk, but little meat consumption. In the case of a predominantly cereal-based diet, his Sr isotope ratios would be somewhat lower than suggested by the local bedrock, as such increasing the possibillity of a Fenno-Scandian origin. Provided, of course, Battle Axe faunal assemblages don't demonstrate a substantial element of game within the diet. I haven't looked into BAC faunal assemblages yet (possibly also lack sufficient proficiency of Swedish), but other commenters here might potentially help out in this respect.
@ FrankN
It can be genetic also. Some of my family have an inability to absorb Iron. Large amounts are stored in the liver and do not contribute much to other bodily functions...
@ FrankN
So maybe the population he originated from were in an area with high levels of Iron....
How to explain the very low frequency of R1a in Anatolia (even with the later Indo-Aryan, Slavic, Turkic, Balkan migration/relocation to there) if the R1a is original PIE?
@Cpk
Neither R1a, nor any other Y-haplogroups, are the original PIE, because genes don't speak languages, people do.
This means that languages can be learned from other people without any gene flow.
And it's likely that the people living in the PIE homeland belonged to several different Y-haplogroups, and when they migrated to different places they may not have taken all of these haplogroups with them every time.
Simple logic.
@Davidski
Which one of those haplogroups do you think might have brought IE to Anatolia?
@Cpk
Which one of those haplogroups do you think might have brought IE to Anatolia?
Don't know, don't really care. Waiting for more data.
@JuanRivera
It does beg the question of what advantage U5a2a1 has for it to be the only U haplotype seen so far in the area, instead of for example U2e or U4.
A rifle back in the 1800s.
@All
I think it's possible that one of those R1b-M269 individuals, RISE276, may have been a human sacrifice considering that he was found in a peat bog in Trundholm, where the famous Trundholm sun chariot was also found.
The insight is rather limited, because most Northern cultures seem to have made human sacrifices and executions, if possible, in bogs. That's a fairly old and common practise.
@Davidski
Early chariots of Sintashta and Petrovka could fit one person, only some of them were wider by a couple of dozen centimeters and theoretically could hardly fit two persons.
@Drago: The way you said it, some could assume that flint daggers were produced and spread by direct BB people's movements, but thats not true.
There are older flint daggers in various CW contexts and buried with 100 percent CW warriors. The practise spread at the end and in contact to BB though.
It is also true that it was very common in the SGC, which is part of the CW culture, even if BB would have directly developed from them without significant external influence, what I doubt.
@Archi: How the early chariots were used exactly is not known. They might have been exclusively used by a single person without a pilot or by two. In any case, the chariots spread rapidly and soon were used by two or more people before the advent of an effective horseback cavalry for direct attacks. At least for the regions we have a good historical record, which means the Near East.
But that has zero influence on my principle argument and no one serious can tell people that horses were not ridden before the Iron Age, just because we lack a photograph or Nixe description by a trusted historiograph. The circumstancial evidence and common sense should be enough for building the case and if there is some doubt for the early phase, I'm fine with it.
But to tell people there was no horseback riding before the Iron Age us outright wrong.
Chariots were used because they were more effective, not because transport per horses was not possible before.
Imagine a rider on a weak horse with bad gear wearing his military equipment on the horseback.
They could ride and hop into battle like mobile infantry, but a faster and larger chariot with two horses was surely more impressive and could be used directly with a stable,fast moving platform. That's the point, not that riding was impossible.
The position of Baltic is interesting. Fairly distant from Germanic compared to Slavic...I thought it was the other way around. Interesting.
Slavs share more of the Central European and less of the HG heritage compared to Balts.
Balts are more exceptional, even more so if you add isolation and FU influences to the equation.
Zardos
''The way you said it, some could assume that flint daggers were produced and spread by direct BB people's movements, but thats not true.
There are older flint daggers in various CW contexts and buried with 100 percent CW warriors. The practise spread at the end and in contact to BB though.
It is also true that it was very common in the SGC, which is part of the CW culture, even if BB would have directly developed from them without significant external influence, what I doubt. ''
Not exactly.
The BB culture arrived in Jutland c. 2350 BC; and represents a pretty significant episode; and viewing this as an evolution from the local SGC culture is problematic; despite what an autosomal PCA might suggest.
This is not to say, arrowheads or daggers never featured in CWC/ BAx/ SGC (which are regional variants of the same phenomenon); but their importance was not central.
From Jutland, the local form of BB group inaugrates the Flint Dagger Horizon that I mentioned. There are further changes after 2000 BC- in the final Neolithic & start of the Bronze Age, which marks the flourshing of bronze, and definitive elites.
These changes do broadly mirror the genetic changes tracked in Scandinavia, they just haven't been formally / properly described
We have therefore a western culture of navigators, metallurgists, merchants and archers, in front of an eastern culture of shepherds who lived in wagons, who barely have permanent settlements and who give priority to heavy weapons and contact fighting. Even individual burials cannot make us think that the BBc derives from the CWC, you only have to see the collective burials throughout Europe (England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Sicily, Spain and Portugal, or the diversity of funeral practices in Hungary and Poland. Archaeologically therefore it makes no sense to link or derive one culture from the other.
But it is also evident from some works published in Germany and Switzerland that both cultures coexisted in very close settlements, which evidently produced genetic contacts between them. If male lineages from the CWC (for example R1b-L51-P312) were incorporated into the BBc, we would face an instant acculturation of this lineage and probably a founder effect. However, we have the Kromsdorf site with R1b-M343 (2.612 BC)-"Based on radiocarbon determinations obtained from three burials, the north–south orientation of interred individuals and a characteristic Glockenbecher vessel that are hallmarks of Bell Beaker cultures"- "The remarkably different genetic patterns seen at Eulau (CWC) and Kromsdorf coincide with differences in the way the deceased were interred between each cultural group"
Then we already have a very old Bb burial in Thuringia with R1b-M343 without the need to resort to the CWC or the SGC-Regarding the mitochondrial markers of this site, they are all western, never seen in the steppes or in CWC. Three of them documented so far only in Iberia, and another three in German, French and Spanish Neolithic cultures. Ten individuals from 9 burials (two of them doubles of men and women) were recovered, that break with the German Neolithic tradition of burying members of the same lineage in collective graves (Berzingerode site, Bernburg Culture) since all documented mitochondrial haplogroups belong to different lineages (with which it is evident that there was no maternal relationship between the different individuals, which I interpret as a migrant group of unknown origin newly arrived in those lands).
For the data of this deposit, if it is true that R1b-L51 was hidden in the CWC, he had to go to the BBc at a very early date (2,900-2,600) and join Western women from either German Neolithic cultures or directly with Iberian migrants.
Of course the really interesting thing would be to check the autosomal composition of this individual-Emerging genetic patterns of the European Neolithic: perspectives from a late Neolithic Bell Beaker burial site in Germany- Ester J Lee (2.012)-
There won't be a huge genetic shift in Scandinavia during the appearance of the Bell Beaker culture there if the Bell Beaker culture spread from the Lower Rhine, because Dutch Beakers are basically identical to Late Neolithic Scandinavians.
But yeah, P312 is likely to show up in Scandinavia at this time.
There's no evidence that M269 arrived in a big way in Scandinavia with elites during the Bronze Age. In fact, the data we have suggest that M269 was by and large the marker of the commoners in prehistoric Scandinavia, and this might actually make it hard to find in the ancient DNA.
Take a look at what Frei et al. say about commoner burials.
@Drago: "This is not to say, arrowheads or daggers never featured in CWC/ BAx/ SGC (which are regional variants of the same phenomenon); but their importance was not central."
How do you reconcile this with a thesis in which it was proven that imported "French" flint daggers were one of the main weapons and status objects for the SGC warrior elite.
So important, that the original was mainly buried with elite members, whereas cheaper copies were used for the middle class which imitated the expensive imported pieces?
This is also interesting, because it shows the close interaction of SGC with the Western cultural groups, including those outside of the "steppesphere" so to say.
Link to the work: https://www.academia.edu/34565465/Late_Neolithic_daggers_in_French_flint_from_the_Netherlands_gender-and_age-related_grave_goods
The four genotyped individuals don't really add much to the general conclusion of the paper. Zealand was an odd place during the period when RISE61 was buried, so it's no surprise that he was an immigrant considering his (East-)CW like genome in a location where no CW variant was firmly established.
(Getting the genomes of some native Zealanders from the same period could be more interesting IMO... were they pure TRB survivors, or were they mixed with CW people? Some info on Zealand in the Middle Neolithic B can be found in Rune Iversen's Was there ever a Single Grave culture in East Denmark? Traditions and transformations in the 3rd millennium BC.)
RISE71 is perhaps the most interesting one, as she lived relatively early in the Late Neolithic, in former SGC territory, and is the oldest (studied) individual in her tomb. And she was not obviously an immigrant.
The main takeaway is that there are no signs of an immigration wave corresponding to the cultural shift from SGC to the Late Neolithic/Flint Dagger Culture, and neither in the transition from Late Neolithic I to Late Neolithic II. And Scandinavian archaeologists seem to agree that the transition from the Late Neolithic to the Nordic Bronze Age was merely an effect of extended trade networks that allowed increased imports of metals (and social segregation because these imports didn't reach everyone), not a profound cultural shift as such.
Now, some SGC genomes would still be very nice to get...
@ Davidski
“There won't be a huge genetic shift in Scandinavia during the appearance of the Bell Beaker culture “”
Of course there wont be; because it’s intraeuropean phenomena ; not Neolithic migrations & steppe migrations or the odd exotic traveller from Africa or the East.
And that's the challenge. Its easy to detect steppe ancestry statistically (although this has suffered from basic errors). Reconstructing ethnogenesis is a different ball game.
@Drago
I'm pretty sure I'll be able to tell if there was a large scale migration of elites from the Carpathian Basin to Scandinavia at the start of the Nordic Bronze Age. And my bet is that there wasn't.
I would wonder about a big genetic shift from SGC too, but not for the Nordic Bronze Age and the Iron Age.
I would bet on a significant shift especially in the elite and the first results seem to support that.
Funny we wrote the exact opposite.
But how about not the Carparthians, but just somewhat South, like Central Germany or Poland.
@zardos
The elites made up a small percentage of the population in Scandinavia, so even if a large percentage of them arrived from outside of Scandinavia, this couldn't have shifted the genetic structure of the commoner population.
However, the problem is that most of the graves that have survived with some remains intact are elite graves. So if most of the samples are from such graves, it's going to look like a big migration happened.
Then again, it's likely that most of the foreign elites were from other parts of Scandinavia, so even though their isotope ratios might look odd, their DNA probably won't appear very unusual overall.
@Davidski
“I'm pretty sure I'll be able to tell if there was a large scale migration of elites from the Carpathian Basin to Scandinavia at the start of the Nordic Bronze Age. And my bet is that there wasn't.””
No I dont think there was ‘migration’ either, don’t recall saying there was. It was a network & cultural model.
But naturally this entails human mobility
@ Zardos
Yes - theres Grand-Pressigny flint daggers appearing in a few Dutch CWC graves, & a couple of CWC-styled burials in France (with AOC pottery). However ''This network did not remain thereafter; importations stopped at approximately 2400 cal BC, probably being replaced by exchanges of copper daggers.'' (-Salanova).
These Copper Daggers probably came via the Carpathian basin, & thus Yamnaya. But they are ultimately a Majkop design.
Thus, despite being of flint, the Nordic Flint Dagger horizon is linked to Copper Daggers, not the preceding west European flint daggers.
So if U106 is native to Scandinavia, then it might mean they adapted the technique from the Bell Beaker
@zardos
"How the early chariots were used exactly is not known."
No, it is known. They were only individual transport for pastoralism and hunting. The transport for couple of peoples was the wagons with bulls that use Indo-Aryans even. The early horses were very weak and low therefore it took a wheel with spokes with the couple of the horses for transporting only one person. One horse couldn't cope to transporting one men.
"Chariots were used because they were more effective, not because transport per horses was not possible before."
It is the fantasies.
Buried with knives and arrows in Eastern Europe were in the Mesolithic/Neolithic. That's archaism.
@All
I found two samples from barrow graves in southernmost Sweden. They were in Allentoft et al. 2015 of course. No idea what their isotope ratios are, but...
Sweden_LN RISE179 Abekås 1 2010-1776 calBCE mtDNA K1a3 Y-hg I
Sweden_BA RISE175 Abekås 1 1395-1132 calBCE mtDNA T1a1 Y-hg I1a
These results potentially suggest continuity in the region from the Late Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age, at least among the elites.
@Davidski,
"I found two samples from barrow graves in southernmost Sweden. They were in Allentoft et al. 2015 of course. No idea what their isotope ratios are, but...
Sweden_LN RISE179 Abekås 1 2010-1776 calBCE mtDNA K1a3 Y-hg I
Sweden_BA RISE175 Abekås 1 1395-1132 calBCE mtDNA T1a1 Y-hg I1a
These results potentially suggest continuity in the region from the Late Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age, at least among the elites.
"
According to this paper, RISE179 is considered as local. RISE175 on the other hand has has a probable non-local value (page 51). The authors are not 100% sure if this sample is non-local though.
More info can be found here (pages 38-64).
http://www.archaeopress.com/Public/download.asp?id=%7B2862B30C-AB19-41C1-983E-D748A128A197%7D
@a
On account of the oldest horse grave, there is a chance that the late Protruding Foot Beaker (local CW variant) grave from the Veluwe was buried with a horse bone. It's currently being investigated.
There was a horse molar found at Mienakker, a dutch PFB settlement. No one can tell if it's a wild horse or not, though IIRC it was possibly a deciduous tooth.
@David: Do you think I1 came to Northern Europe via LBK Neolithic farmers?
Since that is still the oldest case for I1, isn't it?
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2014/09/first-i1-m253-from-prehistoric-europe.html,
It could have been present among Funnelbeakers and expanded rapidly from within after CW colonisation? Or did it came in later? I mean 2010-1776 is not that old after all, if you consider that Unetice is some hundred years older than that. So there was time for migrations generations before this individual.
Or are there even older instances of I1a found in Scandinavia?
@zardos
Do you think I1 came to Northern Europe via LBK Neolithic farmers?
I suspect that I1 was native to southern Scandinavia, but always a minor Y-haplogroup there until the Nordic Bronze Age, when it rose to a high frequency due to a sharp founder effect.
But I've heard all sorts of other theories, like, for instance, that there was a migration of an I1-rich population to Scandinavia during or just before the Bronze Age. That seems unlikely though.
As usual, we need more samples.
@Tesmos
According to this paper, RISE179 is considered as local. RISE175 on the other hand has has a probable non-local value (page 51). The authors are not 100% sure if this sample is non-local though.
More info can be found here (pages 38-64).
http://www.archaeopress.com/Public/download.asp?id=%7B2862B30C-AB19-41C1-983E-D748A128A197%7D
Thanks, but this paper has very strange ancestry estimates in Table 5, so I'm not sure what to make of it.
And yeah it's very speculative anyway.
@Davidski,
Yeah I agree. We should take these isotope results with a grain of salt.
Davidski
I’m not familiar with the concept of an internal founder effect; especially when the said lineage is missing from dozens of Mesolithic & Neolithic samples to date. What’s the mechanism ?
@Drago
The mechanism is very simple.
A lineage that crashed in terms of diversity and frequency thousands of years ago, and almost went extinct, survives at a very low frequency across Scandinavia, or even in a small region of what is now Sweden, and then sharply rises in frequency during the Bronze Age because one local clan becomes very successful for whatever reason, such as new social organization and/or economic stimuli being introduced from the outside.
That's basically the story of I1. You can see it by looking at its SNP structure. And I'm not saying anything new or controversial here.
@Drago
Take a look how shallow the I1 phylogeny is here.
https://media.nature.com/original/nature-assets/ncomms/2015/150519/ncomms8152/extref/ncomms8152-s1.pdf
The expansion that resulted in 99% of modern I1 lineages appears to have post-dated the expansion of R1a-Z93 on the MLBA steppe, and even in South Asia.
It looks to be a Nordic Bronze Age phenomenon.
Im familiar with the basics of genomics. But there’s 2 issues there
- your claim that hg I1 has been present in Scandinavia since the Mesolithic needs proof; and flows againat the current data set
- we need more than an ad hoc explanation as to why it became successful
From Kristiansen’s older (&better) work on the pre-Nordic BA “. The southwestern network comprised mostlycentral Jutland, the old core area of the Single Grave Culture. In theeastern zone hoard deposition prevailed in the western zone tumulus burial. There can be little doubt that some chiefly persons and their retinue from Germany settled in Jutland, just as travellers from theCarpathians reached southeast Scandinavia. Marriage alliances can also be documented in the appearance of female ornament sets in some burials (Bergerbrant 2007). This was a period of strong foreigninfluences and local reception, which in the end would lead to theformation of a new Nordic culture and society”
Certainly seems to provide a reasonable explanation. And no; this is not claiming that there’s was a mass migration from Hungary (I’m not sure why you repeatedly make that straw man).
@Drago
I never claimed that I1 was present in Scandinavia since the Mesolithic, but I suppose that's possible, since it's a lineage that seems to have been once widespread across Europe until its near extinction. It's more likely, though, that it arrived in Scandinavia during the Neolithic.
The most common I1 lineages are today rooted in Scandinavia, and especially Sweden, and they seem to have mainly moved into continental Europe during the Iron Age.
Also, there's a Late Neolithic (~2,000 BC) sample from southern Sweden that probably belongs to I1, so for now, that's about as close to a smoking gun for the origins of the 99% of modern I1 as we've got.
I'm not denying that there were strong foreign influences on Scandinavia around the time of the Nordic Bronze Age, and that a large proportion of the elites will turn out to be of foreign stock. But I don't expect the obvious foreigners to belong to I1. I reckon they'll show somewhat more exotic haplogroups than that, like J2, E1b and unusual subclades of R1b, like maybe R1b-V1636, which popped up in the Swedish samples from the Viking paper.
The problem is that it's impossible to say whether that supposedly 4,400 year old clade of I1 was in Russia 2,000 or even 1,000 years ago.
Stora Forvar 11 likely belongs to I1, this individual being a Mesolithic SHG from Sweden 7500 years before present (5481 B.C.). There is also that I1 from Neolithic Spain.
SF is not I1; it’s got some calls along the line to I1 (pre-I1)
There is more solid I1 in Late Paleolithic Iberia; & LBK Hungary
I had a look at RISE179, the likely I1 sample from a barrow (elite) grave in Late Neolithic southernmost Sweden. The sequence is very poor, but this individual seems very Swedish, minus any sort of obvious southern shift despite all of the ancient DNA damage.
The problem I see is, that I1a is not proven anywhere for the time that really matters. So as long as we lack that, its all speculative.
BUT: There are always exceptions, but as a rule, if there is a sudden expansion of a formerly rare lineage, there was some sort of overtake.
G2a spread with the Neolithic colonisation and although other haplogroups like I2 and E1b were present, they G2a absolute dominance was nowhere broken, and considering how they expanded, chances were much higher then.
Haplogroup I replaced G2a not from within, but from a stronghold of their own, by conquest of Neolithic groups and the elimination of the older Neolithic lineages.
And thats what we see until Unetice, which incorporated foreign groups in their system. Yet in their core region HG lineages of I seem to have spread.
So even if limited, the game went on. Considering the farmer-Corded revival in Unetice and related groups, I would say that this is minimum as good as a bet for the spread of I1a.
Because the influx of Central European groups and culture shortly before the Nordic Bronze Age would have been a prime opportunity for a new lineage, possibly even tribal group, to establish themselves.
Of course, an older local lineage could have achieved the same, but I think its less likely.
Can't wait to take a really close look at these strange Karda_VA samples from the Viking preprint...
Surprisingly, three individuals from the Kärda site show much higher genetic similarity to Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age Danish individuals than to all other VA individuals in the dataset. The site is located far inland, in south-west Sweden. This similarity is quite unexpected, given that the samples are AMS-dated to the middle of the VA, and consistent with the presence of Caucasus-related ancestry inferred in the qpAdm ancestry modelling. Studies of VA burial customs suggest that the Småland area was characterized by locally confined cultural groups 47 . The genetic data suggest that this pattern of cultural isolation was sustained in marked contrast to contemporary coastal and island communities. Consistent with this hypothesis we find that the individuals from Kärda show a marked reduction in nucleotide diversity compared to other VA groups (Fig. S9.1), although they also have high amounts of Southern European ancestry.
On page 34 of the main text (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/703405v1) they're modeled with qpAdm with almost 50% Armenia_MLBA-related ancestry.
And at least two out of the three males belong to R1b1a1b, which obviously isn't anything typically Scandinavian, but probably the subclade seen in the Progress_Eneolithic samples from the North Caucasus steppe...
R-V1636: Eneolithic steppe > Kura-Araxes?
Chances are that the ancestors of these people arrived in Scandinavia during the Nordic Bronze Age, either from somewhere in Eastern Europe or maybe even West Asia.
@David: If an individual would be lets say one quarter Unetice and the rest of its ancestry LN Scandinavian,would you be able to detect that?
So far I read the differences within Scandinavia were fairly significant.
Addition: We need samples from the transition to the NBA.
@Drago
That Iberian "I1" was also pre-I1. It just shows that pre-I1 was widespread among WHGs.
I'm skeptical about that Hungarian LBKT I1. It seems like they checked only a limited number of SNPs, so is it a real I1 or another pre-I1? Also, it hasn't been directly dated, and we've seen a number of archaeological context datings turning out wrong...
@zardos
If an individual would be lets say one quarter Unetice and the rest of its ancestry LN Scandinavian, would you be able to detect that?
No, I wouldn't be able to detect that sort of fine structure. Even significant Unetice admix wouldn't cause LNBA Scandinavians to look like outliers.
So yes, it's possible that I1a arrived in Scandinavia with migrants from Unetice.
But the problem I have with this scenario is that it doesn't appear to be reflected in modern DNA, because Scandinavia, rather than Central Europe, looks to me like the homeland of I1 based on modern SNP structure.
I'm not saying that it looks like I1 originated in Scandinavia, but rather that its main surviving lineages bifurcated there during recent prehistory, and then many of them moved into Central Europe during the Iron Age and Medieval period.
Actually, the Unetice population looks fairly heterogeneous for its time, and it seems to me that some of the Unetice individuals might even be from Scandinavia, or at least they might have significant ancestry from there.
@Angantyr
I'm skeptical about that Hungarian LBKT I1. It seems like they checked only a limited number of SNPs, so is it a real I1 or another pre-I1? Also, it hasn't been directly dated, and we've seen a number of archaeological context datings turning out wrong...
So am I, also because the test wasn't done with NGS, so there's no way to be sure that the result wasn't due to a contaminated sample.
Yep that’s true
Nevertheless; if more high -WHG LBK & other individuals like BKG keep turning up; I’m sure I1 will turn up somewhere in north-central Europe
Btw Nagy’s findings have so far all been confirmed in any later NGS studies which further used her data. So I wouldn’t a priori dismiss it
The Karda sample might prove to be interesting indeed. My impression is that, to the Iron Age, Scandinavia got a lot of those which were either successful or had to flee from Central Europe.
My impression is also that the transition from BB - Unetice - Tumulus all brought new elements from the East to Central Europe. So probably, at some point with high resolution, we might see some of the strata from Central Europe as regional (sub-) populations in Scandinavia.
Those Kärda group might be just one of those instances.
Also, someone should tell Reich & Co emphatically that the rapid spread of y-haplogroups is not to explain by "wealthy men" in most of prehistory, because any sort of wealth has to be justified and defended. No single BB did produce myriads of children because of his "wealth".
If someone would have been just wealthy on his own, not part of a powerful clan, sooner or later someone would come along, crash his head and take what he has instead of delivering virgins.
Even though we come closer to the "wealthy man" vision in the Bronze Age, still its about lineages and kinship networks primarily.
If a wealthy and knowledgeable son of a more developed BA group made his way to a foreign neighbour, how would that have looked?
He probably would have come with a brother, a bunch of cousins, some trusted warriors, craftsmen, his whole entourage, including slaves.
Even without a conquest by force, a portion of the country would have been more or less overtaken by this immigration and those of his tribe which might have followed. There were individual travellers and bride exchange, but thats not the game changer.
“Actually, the Unetice population looks fairly heterogeneous for its time, and it seems to me that some of the Unetice individuals might even be from Scandinavia, or at least they might have significant ancestry from there.”
Yep - a network. That’s why it’s interestjng
It’s a change from patriarchal-based tribes running around bonking each other on the head; and clear cultural links to SEE
@Drago: Unetice and the related cultures, including BB survivors, seem to be pretty diverse in many ways.
My impression now is that a stable, unified IE Central Europe with increased Eastern, Sintashta related influences dates to the Tumulus culture, not earlier and that the Unetice period had a more transitional character so to say. During the Unetice period quite strange and rather independent cultures popped up and Tumulus groups and the following Urnfield worked like a broom, which brought everything back to more homogeneity.
Thats my impression. Unetice might have been just not strong enough for a unifier, but just for regional expansions and the establishment of networks with its parts bring extremely diverse and independent.
I would not wonder if non-IE speaking large unities would have still existed in Central Europe.
But I doubt it for the time of Tumulus culture.
@Drago
"SF is not I1; it’s got some calls along the line to I1 (pre-I1)
There is more solid I1 in Late Paleolithic Iberia; & LBK Hungary "
"I1" in Late Paleolithic Iberia & LBK Hungary is not I1, they are also pre-I1.
The I1 haplogroup have been formed in Scandinavia ~4600 ybp and before that in Europe were extincted pre-I1 everywhere.
This study is of interest and puts the IE influence in the Near East on a new level probably:
"After the Bronze Age, the South and North of the Near East therefore followed different genetic trajectories: in the North the Levantines admixed with a Eurasian population carrying steppe ancestry whose impact never reached as far south as the Yemen, where people instead admixed with Africans leading to the genetic structure observed in the Near East today."
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/749341v1
That study seems to be based on modern genomes, so it's probably picking up all sorts of stuff that might not have any bearing on the PIE homeland issue, like Scythian and Turkic ancestry.
True. Do you hear anything new for the Basal Eurasian question? Whether there was a homeland for this component as a real population and if so where? The Maarib group is said to be less SSA admixed, yet more BEA than Levantines.
Anything you know of in the study-pipeline?
Sure, bidirectional it was, but much more Eastern shifted than BB, and TC still more so than Unetice.
I think the many independent regional cultures were simply the result of the BB collapse. Their monopolies and strictly controlled networks were gone.
Unetice was more about new technologies and trade after the crash.
Interestingly both Tumulus and Urnfield are much more of an ideological and religious character, they spread a complete lifestyle, if not people.
"Tumulus C. succeeded Unetice in main part of central Europe. The large number of tumuli represent plots of leading families. Their number, & the fact that swords & horse gear become frequent suggests a greater access to such assets; although still restricted to a trans-regional elite."
Those tools were most of the time restricted to the elite in continental Europe. However, its the first time you have even in pre-iron Age Europe something which resembles Hallstatt and what we know about Celts. So the question remains whether this elite is of local, even Beaker origin or not.
I'd say locals made it, but the formative elements came from the East.
@ Zardos
Sintashta was more important for Eurasia than Europe.
The Unetice culture (2300->1600) has 2 phases - proto-Unetice (= the local late Beaker & CWC groups) & Developed phase (with influences from Middle Danube). The developed phase is found in Germany, Greater Poland, and reaching the Baltic coast & even influences in the Wessex culture. There are pockets of more conservative groups - Straubing, Ries, Altenberg, etc. The innovative groups - like Unetice & Wessex were like islands around key trade Zones & ore & salt rich regions & might have been more diverse.
Tumulus C. succeeded Unetice & “filled in”” more of central Europe. The large number of tumuli represent plots of leading families. Their number, & the fact that swords & horse gear become frequent suggests a greater access to such assets; although still restricted to a trans-regional elite.
Zardos I think Tunulus culture is from Germany . It’s generally thought as a movement back toward the east
I know that interpretation and it is or at least seems to be true for its expansion, but once again I want to concentrate on the details of its emergence. And to view it as a local, even Southern German phenomenon, just seems to be not right.
@ Dragos
And how does the Wietenburg Culture compare with this ?
I1 is the paternal lineage of the Jötnar. Loki and the Frost Giants of Norse Myth.
@Romulus
I1 is the paternal lineage of the Jötnar. Loki and the Frost Giants of Norse Myth.
I'm not overly familiar with Norse mythology, but yeah, it already seems like I1 was the paternal marker of the Scandinavian elites buried in barrows (aka kurgans).
@zardos
Do you hear anything new for the Basal Eurasian question? Whether there was a homeland for this component as a real population and if so where?
I haven't heard anything about that.
I have doubts that Basal Eurasian was a real population, but I think that Basal-heavy populations, possibly like the Iberomaurusians, will show up in the southern Near East in burials older than those of the Natufians.
Let's hope that the final Dzudzuana paper is published soon, and it has more new ancient samples from the Near East than the preprint.
Dzudzuana Ice Age foragers: a different type of Caucasus hunter-gatherer
@ Zardos
If Unetice collapsed 1600 BC; and a series of (formerly vassal) groups emerged in its place; then it might indeed have something to with arrival of chariot complex.
@All
I've managed to dig up more info about RISE98, the Late Neolithic R1b-U106 sample from Lilla Beddinge in southwest Sweden.
As stated above, thirteen flat-graves have been found at Lilla Beddinge with certainty (Tab. 5.2).
...
In Grave 49, three adults crouched in a half-sitting position were buried in a row, all facing the SE. Between the middle adult and the adult in the SW, two infants had been placed. According to Malmer, this grave may also be interpreted as human sacrifice (Malmer 2002, 141).
...
Grave 49 only had one grave good: a bone needle.
See here from page 60...
The time-depth of Corded Ware burial landscapes
@Drago: "If Unetice collapsed 1600 BC; and a series of (formerly vassal) groups emerged in its place; then it might indeed have something to with arrival of chariot complex."
And a collapse of Unetice at 1600 BC is exactly what can be seen in the record. Settlements were abandoned and those which remained were more heavily fortified. Its also no coincidence, that the disc from Nebra was buried at exactly the time you would assume for a foreign invasion and/or internal disruption. In the past some archaeologists tried to explain that with economic or ecological issues, but like most of the time, that's nonsense. There was something drastic happening which disrupted the whole, well established and organised system completely. And while internal issues might be the reason, a foreign influx and game changer is the more likely explanations. Looking at what happened in the East at the very same time, I think its reasonable to assume the Sintashta-related chariot expansion has something to do with it.
I wouldn't even wonder if part of the Unetice elite would have fled West, into areas already interconnected or even overtaken, but more secure, further away from the disruption, especially Scandinavia.
If all that seems fanciful, one has just to look up the historical records when they were available. Developments and movements like that happened all the time in historical Greek and Roman times.
@ Zardos
It doesn't seem likely that there was a large migration of Sintashta into central Europe, apart from around Thrace & some secondary flows further south & west.
Rather, it was one of several factors which contributed to the demise of Unetice system. The successor groups were ''locals'', and the transition essentiallty represents a transfer of power from a few 'kings' to a broader group of elites.
I didnt suggest mass migration from Sintashta directly, but the new technologies and tactics were surely introduced by people and while the mostly local continuity seems to be likely, I would still expect some surprises from aDNA. Though I wonder how accurate autosomal analysis is right now when dealing with so closely related groups. YDNA is the only measure probably atm, but even in this respect the impact of an incursion would only result in moderate shifts in this context.
The fact that the Tumulus culture is strongly influenced from the East undoubtedly. The culture from the previous agricultural becomes purely pastoral, the population is almost nomadic. The origin of the Tumulus culture is synchronous with the arrival of Mycenaean Greeks in Greece, for whom it is known that they came from the Danube and of the Northern Black sea region from the Babino culture. Apparently the Tumulus culture could have originated under the influence of the Trzciniec culture.
@ Archi
Multi-Cordoned-Ware Culture
Pastoralism + Chariots + In contact/conflict with Sintashta...
@zardos
What do you make of individual SZ1 from the Bronze Age Carpathian Basin, dated to 3,000-1,000 BCE, and belonging to Y-hg R1a-Z93?
HUN_BA_SZ1
HUN_BA 0.631±0.040
RUS_North_Caucasus_MBA 0.056±0.051
Saka_Tian_Shan 0.312±0.037
chisq 10.961
tail prob 0.532295
Full output
From this paper...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06024-4
It's not a one haplogroup it's an already formed ethnicity, bearer of a specific culture and language respectively.
Well, 3,000-1,000 BCE, thats a dating range. But obviously, most incursions from the steppe which had an impact on Central Europe are supposed to hit Pannonia even harder. Like Iranians which influenced Hallstatt and early Celts. Just an influence on Celts, but independent tribal unities in the very same place.
On the other hand the Corded Ware groups are peculiar with their forest steppe specialisation.
Its Sintashta-Andronovo which jumps to the steppe proper with new innovations.
@Archi: Exactly, Unetice was, at least culturally, more a farmer culture , a true fusion of Corded and Neolithic influences on many aspects of its culture and identity.
That's what I meant before with Neolithic revival and Tumulus culture switching back to the steppe-Corded style. That some of the yDNA so far retrieved from the Unetice center were haplogroup I might be pure coincidence or not.
Interestingly I see more Unetice traditions in the Nordic Bronze Age then in what followed in Central Europe.
I looked up which authors might see similar patterns and combine it with recent DNA results and came across this:
https://adnaera.com/2018/11/17/the-beginnings-of-the-bronze-age-in-europe/
Most of these Blog writers are well known here anyway :D
But good to see other people see the Neolithic-Southern cultural vibe in Unetice, which makes the appearance of haplogroups of farmer-HG provenience even more suspicious. Same goes for I1a in the Nordic Bronze Age.
I always wondered about how Unetice (and some aspects of the NBA) fit into IE customs as we know them from the clearly IE cultures before AND AFTER. Well, probably its not just an economic and civilisational difference, but also one of derived ideology. Rather of elites and knowledgeable people rather than demic diffusion and ethnic shifts (can we exclude that completely?), but with a demographic impact of these influential newcomers.
I might be proven wrong in the near future, but I1a in the NBA from the (relative)
South East like Unetice is really my best bet right now. And there is something odd about Unetice itself which "is off". Yes, they keep some steppe derived/IE traditions, but they neglect or abandon (too) many others. In a way even BB, which I wouldn't see as clearly IE at all, have more of the IE cultural traits.
So there is a lot to work on about this topic and Tumulus culture is the revival and final triumph of clearly IE traditions in Northern-Central Europe. Not BB, not Unetice. Corded Ware traditions are of the same strain, yet somewhat "underdeveloped", but the question is, how much of it survived the changes and how much of it, which we can see later on, was kind of "re-imported"?
Zardos
Tumulus C. might represent a consolidation of IE in Northern. Europe; because 1600 BC is rather late for Mycenaean , let alone Anatolian etc; but generally I definitely agree that sort of dynamic consideration is what’s required
Your take otherwise seems very similar to Drew’s “Militarism & IE””;.
Btw that Szolad outlier might have something to do with this map; from same book- arrival of cheekpieces
@zardos
I looked up which authors might see similar patterns and combine it with recent DNA results and came across this:
https://adnaera.com/2018/11/17/the-beginnings-of-the-bronze-age-in-europe/
That's not really a reliable source.
Take a closer look at the figure from Frei et al. that I posted.
The period when the foreign elites really hit Scandinavia is not the Late Neolithic, which means they can't be from Unetice. In fact, it looks like they might be associated with the Tumulus culture, doesn't it?
If so, that's probably too late to be the source of the I1a founder effect in Scandinavia.
By the way, here's an interesting quote from the Allentoft et al. 2015 supp info...
"The 2nd millennium BC saw the intensification and expansion of networks created during the 3rd millennium BC by new technologies of mobility, such as chariots, and by the full-scale adaptation of bronze, leading to a more complex political economy [58]. According to Frachetti (2012): "By the second millennium BC, these incipient regional interactions fostered the spread of new and emerging technologies, cross-fertilized domestic and economic innovations, and ramped-up trade in commodities and raw materials. This growing interactive network promoted new opportunities to extend institutional codes and to capitalize on flexible regional political relationships" [17,20]. It is still a matter of uncertainty what regional demographic and cultural impact, e.g. in the form of language change, these travels and interactions would have had [59,60]."
doi:10.1038/nature14507
@Drago
OK, so...
- Unetice is roughly contemporaneous with the Nordic Late Neolithic, but finished by the time the Nordic Bronze Age gets going
- the Nordic Bronze Age is, in fact, contemporaneous with the Tumulus culture
- mobility in and migration into prehistoric Scandinavia appear to reach their peaks during the Bronze Age there, well after Unetice is gone.
If that's all more or less correct, then why are we spending so much time discussing the Unetice culture here?
Davidski
Consider the ‘big picture’ & look at raw dates
What’s the link between late Neolithic tribes in the north & the emerging Bronze Age elites in the south? The first phase of these links is Unetice period; which begins c. 23/2200 BC. This had already impacted the Nordic region; at the tail end of third millennium; although the full realisation of the NBA is said to occur somewhat later. Frei’s isotopic inferences don’t contradict that
It also seems you’re misinterpreting the suggestions of the post (perhaps somewhat outdated but otherwise accurate)- in that you think it implies a migration from Anatolia ? Read again carefully
Unetice, it seems, is a chain of hubs of local origin linking as far as England to the Balkans societies; a higher order of an organisation where previously it was a series of competing tribal systems
So if there’s no R1a in Shaft graves or west Anatolia; there has to be some other link
I think what Allenthoft missed in this comment is the importance of kinship-groups and the fact that we have truly disruptive events rather than a continuous development. Elites were killed, towns burned and sacred sites defiled.
My current position is that Scandinavia got its fair share of most major developments in Central Europe until the later Iron Age. The reason is that until then powerful and technologically superiour tribal units could take their share of the North.
When iron was introduced to the North, it made a local higher development possible for the first time. Also, the groups South of Scandinavia might have developed culturally, but they became so stratisfied, that the numbers of free warriors began to shrink. Which means even small tribal units of the North could muster at times more able, trained warriors than a numberically larger ethnic unit from the South.
Unetice was probably the first victim of its own development in this respect, its military base might have been fairly small and dependent on the payroll. When this system became destabilised, it was hard to defend both against enemies from within, as well as from those outside. If those from the outside had superiour tactics, the whole system would have collapsed almost instantaneously and with the sacred leader defiled, a whole world would have collapsed even if theoretically enough of the people survived.
On the long run a state/group with a military draft will be more reliable than a state which defence is based on mercenaries for a variety of reasons.
As for I1a, every century more or less matters. So far the oldest samples are not too far off for the LN-Unetice transition, aren't they?
As for the timing:
"- Unetice is roughly contemporaneous with the Nordic Late Neolithic, but finished by the time the Nordic Bronze Age gets going
- the Nordic Bronze Age is, in fact, contemporaneous with the Tumulus culture
- mobility in and migration into prehistoric Scandinavia appear to reach their peaks during the Bronze Age there, well after Unetice is gone.
If that's all more or less correct, then why are we spending so much time discussing the Unetice culture here?"
The first point was made by Drago, that the Nordic countries mediator was Unetice.
The send point is, that Unetice collapsed! Now what does the collapse of a state-like structure and the possibility of hostile forces, whether domestic or foreign, running wild between the ruins mean?
That there were a lot of elites and professionals with "secret knowledge" which might have been on the run. What options did they have? Now they had contacts to the North before, probably some went to Scandinavia already.
I would assume a lot of them would have sought refuge in Scandinavia, among tribals which respected them, needed their knowledge and were ready to defend them if someone followed.
When did most of the Byzantine knowledge reach Italy? When the Eastern Roman empire collapsed. Couldn't pay or protect its most valuable assets and people.
I think the Nordic Bronze Age might be actually the result of Unetices demise and the development in Scandinavia might have been slower without this collapse. Before that Unetice used its monopoly, knowledge and connections, to keep the periphery dependent, this actually hampered development there.
@zardos
The oldest likely I1 in Scandinavia is dated to the Nordic Late Neolithic: 2010-1776 calBCE.
This individual (RISE179) was buried in a gallery grave barrow in Scania, but he doesn't show any obvious ancestry from south of Scandinavia and is probably a local based on his isotope ratio.
In fact, if he does have any foreign ancestry, then it's likely to be from the east somewhere, but it's hard to tell due to the poor sequence, and he might just have a lot of ancestry from the preceding Battle-Axe population.
The site is Abekås 1. If you can dig up anything on the links between this site and continental Europe, especially pertaining to the Unetice culture, that'd be interesting. I haven't been able to find anything like that though.
@ Zardos
“'' Exactly, Unetice was, at least culturally, more a farmer culture , a true fusion of Corded and Neolithic influences on many aspects of its culture and identity. ''
This is probably anachronistic to refer as such, because by 2000 BC, there was no sharp distinction between farmer & pastoralist. Even CWC seemed to settle fertile areas. Andronovo aren't nomads. Sintashta incorporates many 'higher civilization' qualities from east-central Europe. TC weren’t nomads either
At the dawn of IE in Europe, it was the more settled cycle which was dominant , not eastern nomads which actually have no link to IE culture
The male- female distinct burials; males buried with weapons and female with spindle whorls; side crouched burials, etc etc. These are all eneolithic norms from ECE/ SEE which incoming CWC males adapted into
@ Davidski
Galley graves are from TRB period. They’re reused in later periods
@Drago
Galley graves are from TRB period. They’re reused in later periods.
Yes I know, but they're reused by elites because they need their barrows to show off in the after life, while commoners just get flat graves.
Actually, I don't know when this social distinction kicked in, but I guess it was during the Late Neolithic sometime, because before then TRB used mounds and Battle-Axe used flat graves, and it's not like the former were the elites and latter commoners.
I'm pretty sure, though, that RISE98 was a commoner and RISE179 part of the elites, and obviously their haplogroups are different. It'll be damn fascinating to find out if this R1b-M269 vs I1-M253 social distinction is confirmed with more samples.
I think thats a question of semantics and definitions. True nomadism is rare, but TC was definitely more warlike, pastoral and mobile than Unetice. Unetice is actually rather immobile and inflexible in comparison. I dont mean individuals but groups of people.
Its not by chance that in continental Europe was a sequence pf expansive language groups and always the more settled and culturally more developed competitor lost, unless the advantage of technology, tactics, discipline and numbers were on the developed side.
Celtic -> Germanic -> Slavic.
The same is true for other world regions.
One of the reasons is simple: Farmers cant take their cultivated fields with them. Pigs are also not that good.
Cattle and sheeps are just fine. slash and burn agriculture suffices of there is time and need for it.
Unetice in particular seems to have grain and storage like more Southern cultures, untypical for the time and region.
And yes, Sintashta had many civilisational, Western qualities. Corded Ware came from the forest steppe and incorporated Neolithic elements.
You are absolutely right. Its more a relative than an absolute distinction. But an important one nevertheless.
What’s Germanic actually linked to ?- Jastorf- which also expands into scandinavia . These are farming, cremating communities
Same with proto-Slavic cultures.
Same with La Tène. Warriorhood ermeges from a stable population base; which might refer to Urnfield traditions which follow TC
Anyhow; we’re into uncharted waters now. So it seems the demographic base of much of Europe was already established by 2500BC. The rest is fine detail of tribal formations for which we need more data
I don't know if Germanic is linked to Jastorf. No one really knows that.
RISE174 from Iron Age Scania looks darn Germanic. Was this person a migrant from continental Europe? I doubt it.
“RISE174 from Iron Age Scania looks darn Germanic. Was this person a migrant from continental Europe? I doubt it.””
How different would he be from scandinavians if he (or other people from that period) moved from lower saxony ?
The contrary argument is that Jastorf models were simply “adapted” in Scandinavia; just so happening after the late Bronze Age societies there collapsed. Doesn’t seem in line with what we now know- culture change is linked to people
Zardos
The function of ‘forts’ is contextually variable. They can be used to control territory outwardly and serve as links in expansive trade networks
Well, let's put this into perspective, during the Bronze Age we had these sorts of guys running around in what is now northeastern Germany, and they're quite different from RISE174. Not overly Germanic-like either.
Tollense Valley Bronze Age warriors were very close relatives of modern-day Slavs
@All
I managed to get eight of the Welzin warriors into the Global25 datasheets. Look for the DEU_Welzin_BA prefix. Same links as always...
Getting the most out of the Global25
The results are very interesting, and a little crazy. But I double checked them with other analyses and they do make sense.
So yeah, it really seems like there was an eastern German/Polish-like population rich in local hunter-gatherer ancestry living in Central Europe during the Bronze Age. But the Tollense Valley battle also involved warriors who were probably foreigners, perhaps from as far as the East Baltic and Atlantic Europe.
Let's hope better and many more samples from the Tollense Valley battleground are on the way very soon.
Davidski
That’s true. Most of These guys are on a Balto-Slavic cline
@Drago
"because 1600 BC is rather late for Mycenaean"
1600 BC exactly coincides with the arrival of the Achaeans in Greece and the emergence of Mycenaean civilization. There were no Greeks in Greece before that date.
"So if there’s no R1a in Shaft graves or west Anatolia"
Say's who? No such data.
"not eastern nomads which actually have no link to IE culture"
Pffff. The eastern nomads were the IE, the IE culture from the CWC.
@ Archi
Nope
Mycenaean civilisation develops from at least 2300 BC
There’s very little Z93 in Balkans; maybe isolated in some Roma; Pontic Greeks.
The really important thing is that there's Z93 in the Bronze Age Balkans and Carpathian Basin.
I'm pretty sure those Z93 individuals weren't the only two at the time in the area. There will be more of them, maybe many more, and not just in Bulgaria and Hungary.
A possible evolutionary scenario of R1b lineages may be chronologically
(1) origin of M269 in Eastern Europe-Balkans
(2) origin of L51 in Central Europe
(3) colonization of the entire continent by L11, as evidenced by the high frequency of L11* in different parts of the Atlantic coast, from the Baltic to the southern coast of Portugal-
(4) Origin of S116/P312 from L11 individuals inhabiting the Eastern Cantabrian coast, that is, the area of the Franco–Cantabrian refuge;
(5) Origin of the DF27 sublineage from S116 individuals inhabiting the refuge area, while other S116 individuals (U152-L21) spread from Central Europe- (British islands, Italy etc)
(6) Origin of U106 from L11 individuals who inhabited the southern coast of the North Sea-No one can fully affirm the culture to which RISE98 belongs and I think its antiquity (2,154 BC) does not allow us to affirm that it belongs to the SGC/CWC/BAC. For now, European genomes tell us that U106 is much younger than P312 although this contradicts geneticists' estimates.It is strange that U106 is totally absent from BB culture, but I think it is unlikely that it has its origin in Scandinavia, taking into account that in the last Viking paper it is quite scarce. That's why I have to bet on the southern coast of the North Sea (Denmark, Holland, North of Germany)-
The fact that both P312 and U106 are Western, means that L11 and also L51 cannot be very far away, this is something that people will have to accept sooner or later.
@ Davidski
I think that’s certainly true
Perhaps they brought chariots & horses to Mycenaean chiefs ?
But the main destruction levels in Greece occur 23/2200 BC
@Drago
"Mycenaean civilisation develops from at least 2300 BC"
Oooo? ))) NOPE. Go learn History. Mycenaean civilization began in the XVI century or you did not finish school?
The Unetice culture is one of the most interesting of European prehistory and it is undoubtedly heir in many aspects of the BB culture. What happens is that except in Bronze ad sites especially isolated as Iberia or the British Isles, we will find that all Bronze Age cultures in Central Europe (including Tumulus and Urnfield cultures) and of course the Iron Age cultures, are abruptly heterogeneous in as for its uniparental markers.
The BB layers from Welschingen “Guuhaslen” have been dated by radiocarbon measurement of three single cereal grains. The radiocarbon dates cover a time span between 4440 cal BP and 4060 cal BP (2 sigma) (2490 and 2110 BC). The BB dates overlap the CW dendro dates only at the fringe of the probability distribution; thus a contemporaneity of both cultures is currently unlikely. From the EBA burial ground in Singen a number of 14C-dates exist (Krause 1988a). A group calibration (Weninger et al. 2009) of BB and EBA dates shows
that both are rather successive, although the earliest occupation of the Singen graveyard might be contemporary with Engen-Welschingen “Guuhaslen”.
The site Engen-Welschingen “Guuhaslen” is exceptionally rich in plant macro-remains from the BB phase – in fact it is the site with the richest material for that period. The preserved plant material represents activities such as threshing and further processing
of cereals as well as collecting of wild fruits. The archaeological material including a rich, wet preserved, archaeobotanical assemblage in a ditch that received run off from a settlement close by.
According to our pattern of reasoning discontinuity between the settlement phases connected to CW and BB material cultures, as well as continuity between BB culture and EBA, becomes visible. It can be seen foremost in the use of different parts of landscapes for plant and animal production, as indicated in the pollen record and in the macroremains.
Furthermore, it could be shown that the low-lying hinterland of the CW settlements was used for pasture, whereas BB phase people instead used the higher-elevated forests as pasture. The pollen record shows no continuity whatsoever from CW to BB phases in the Western Lake Constance area.
CW plant spectra hint to a decrease in arable farming in favour of a stronger use of collected plants compared with earlier Neolithic plant spectra. The pollen record indicates a decrease in land use pressure. As with the pollen record, the BB phase macro-remains indicate more open spaces. A new cultivar– spelt – also occurs, which will become the most
important crop in the EBA. The pollen record shows continuity between BB and EBA.
A possible contemporaneity of CW and BB as wellas of BB and EBA cannot be excluded.
Nevertheles, the sequential replacement offers the least complicated solution. Up to now there are no mixed finds of CW and BB known. We therefore assume both pottery styles were not in use by the same people at the same time then the abandonment between the two phases can only be explained by repeated settlements of both groups.
The inhabitants of the Hegau and the Lake Constance area used different parts of the landscape, they preferred different food, followed a different life style and had a different economic basis. CW phase land use is forest based, seemingly with an higher
amount of collected plants, as evidence for open land or grassland are missing – thus it represents a land use closely resembling that of the former Young Neolithic. Whereas in the BB phase land use, is characterised by indicators of more open spaces, cultivation of spelt and an increase in NAP, and resembles Bronze Age land use.We conclude that BB economy is the first stage of a mode of production more typical for the EBA in the regions north of the Alps.
Off topic q, but how Slavic are South Slavs?
@Davidski
"The results are very interesting, and a little crazy. So yeah, it really seems like there was an eastern German/Polish-like population rich in local hunter-gatherer ancestry living in Central Europe during the Bronze Age. But the Tollense Valley battle also involved warriors who were probably foreigners, perhaps from as far as the East Baltic and Atlantic Europe."
The beginning of World War Zero.
I wonder if the Germans are holding back the Tollense battle paper because this year is the 80th anniversary of the Second World War? LOL
@ Archi
“Oooo”
- are you constipated ? Try some Figs
“Go learn History. Mycenaean civilization began in the XVI century or you did not finish school?”
16th century is Shaft Grave horizon; which develop from tholoi used for hundreds of years earlier
I hope it's not true, on that battlefield we have at least one Basque waiting for us. We know the chalcolithic better than the Bronze Age in Europe, and in my opinion the key to understanding the dispersion of the IE languages is the Central European Bronze Age.
It seems we have another Tartessian genome. This is an individual who has been found in the Tartessian sanctuary of Turuñuelo de Guareña (Badajoz-400 BC) - It has not yet been published. I have asked the chief archaeologist of the excavation and he says it will not take long. Apparently there is no news (I guess it will mean that it is R1b-P312) although there was much speculation because the sanctuary was destroyed after a ceremony where dozens of horses, some oxen and a dog were sacrificed (supposedly due to the threat of the Celts ).In the sanctuary a Greek sculpture has also been found (commerce, settlers?, DNA will solve our doubts)
https://m.europapress.es/extremadura/noticia-yacimiento-tartesico-turunuelo-guarena-badajoz-gana-premio-nacional-arqueologia-fundacion-palarq-20181109172451.html
Look at the photo of the sacrifice, we have many horses to analyze
@Drago
Do not fantasies. Mycenaean civilization was began about 1600 BC.
Your imagination on what happened of that do not matter. In the previous period in the Peloponnese it did not speak Greek, it is known clear, linear writing was not invented for the Greek language.
"The really important thing is that there's Z93 in the Bronze Age Balkans and Carpathian Basin.
I'm pretty sure those Z93 individuals weren't the only two at the time in the area. There will be more of them, maybe many more, and not just in Bulgaria and Hungary."
Even if they didn't made it in a big way to Poland, since the Carpathian region was so closely interlinked with the Unetice centres, it would have had a direct impact in any case. It almost certainly would have significantly weakeneed the whole Unetice system.
And the Unetice collapse should be directly linked to the quick Nordic Bronze Age development imho. Whether they brought I1a or just some other minority lineages which diappeared afterwards or survived on a very low level in Scandinavia is open to debate. But the NBA "explosion" can never be explained by local development, but direct, strong foreign impulses and I guess the most important, early and formative one was Unetice "refugees", whether they came as beggars or in a more demanding way. And if a local lineage used their knowledge, this might have boosted it like a foreign invading one.
Concerning Scandinavia, whether NBA is already completely Germanic or not, is open to debate. But the recent results from NE should caution us for all possibilities, including the survival of different, now extinct languages in the region.
Tollense really looks like a case for an invasion, with more primitively equipped locals attacking an invader in an almost Teutoburg forest like style. If you look at the weapons, some are like local made tribal equipment, others look like highly paid mercenaries and aristocrats in an adventure like Pizarro and Cortez. Just with a worse ending. Probably an internal dispute and one side called for help from the whole known world whereas the other relied more on a local draft. Specialist were killed by storming tribal warriors, including bowmen and cavalry.
Its worth to note than in Tollense - again in the Bronze Age - we have a proof for the use of horseback cavalry.
"Well, let's put this into perspective, during the Bronze Age we had these sorts of guys running around in what is now northeastern Germany, and they're quite different from RISE174. Not overly Germanic-like either."
Well, like I proposed, the more data we have, the more we will find the different strata from Central Europe incoming into Scandinavia and some forming regional variants which might have survived far longer, some even to the Viking Age like you saw yourself.
At the same time Scandinavian like people lived in Central Europe which might have pushed away different incomers, making it look like a continuity, when it is actually now. Only precise IBD checks and y-lineages will clear that up once the data is coming in.
The time of Tollense battle is the destruction of the Tumulus culture, the creation of the Lusatian and Urnfields cultures, the beginning of the Catastrophe of the Bronze age called World War Zero.
@ Archi
Migrations to Peloponnesus occurred 2300 BC; not 1600 BC
Make use of the internet
@Drago
"Migrations to Peloponnesus occurred 2300 BC; not 1600 BC"
You are mistaken. There were three migration to Peloponnese - about 2300 BC from Anatolian like CHG; about 2000 BC of Minyans (approximately Luwians); about 1600 BC of Mycenaean Greece Achaeans.
"Make use of the internet"
Don't be ashamed. Use scientific literature, but not your ignorance. You always write categorical statements in topics in where you know nothing, you just don't have even school education, some imagination.
@Archi: I think Tumulus to Urnfield is one of those cases were its possible to argue for continuity rather than a strong break. There are a lot of cases for transitional burials and I just don't see as much of a collapse as in the times before. Rather an expansive movement from within? A religiously inspired expansion after a demographic build up? Probably one of these expansions just went North, but was blocked at Tollense, at least for the time of this battle - probably they succeeded later.
There is an economic and network collapse at that time, but rather because of what happened from within Tumulus, rather than because of external, non-domestic, non-natural influences.
@Archi, @Drago
Aegean Prehistorian here.
Let me summarise the state of affairs here regarding Mycenaeans and EBA archaeological evidence.
1) In the EBA I and II periods (ca. 3100/3000-2300/2200 BC) the people of southern Greece (i.e. the regions of Boeotia, Attica, and the entirety of the Peloponnese) seems to have established a cultural zone with a set of common material cultural and societal characteristics. Whether or not the EBA cultures followed that of the Final Neolithic directly or after a hiatus is still debated.
What seems certain is that, when it reached its socio-cultural peak in the advanced EH II period, the so-called Early Helladic culture shared the following:
* the “corridor houses” of arguably administrative function;
* the use of schist and clay roof tiles;
* the extensive use of seals and “sealings”, usually interpreted as evidence for control over taxation in kind;
* some sort of settlement hierarchy in sub-regions, i.e. larger settlements at the centre with smaller sites as one goes further away to peripheral “settlement rings”;
* common drinking customs, exemplified by a “sauceboat & saucer” drinking set;
* rare metallurgy: very few copper and some arsenic bronze, no real tin bronze.
2) A corresponding EBA cultural zone in the Cyclades has a common culture of its own, both in contact with Crete and southern Greece, but entirely distinct nevertheless.
3) In western Anatolia, on the other side of the pond, there is yet another cultural zone, which also encompasses the northern Greek islands (see: Thermi, Poliochni). Here we see the start of the urbanisation process in EBA I, with the use of megara as administrative buildings, and the introduction of the potter’s wheel and tin bronze from southeastern Anatolia in several different phases of EBA II depending on the site (see any Anatolian archaeology handbook for Küllüoba, Karataş, Troy, Beycesultan, Limantepe, and Aegean prehistory handbooks for Troy, Thermi, and Poliochni). An Anatolian trade network is hence postulated by many for EBA II and many others extended this to the Aegean as well.
Now, the bottom line:
In the Cycladic islands, during the EC IIB period, a new, according to many intrusive, material culture appears: the so-called Kastri Group. Anatolian pottery shapes like depas (plr. depa) and tankard, potter’s wheel, and tin-bronze appear in some of the Cycladic settlements, and some newly established sites bear architectural resemblance to the Anatolian ones.
Equally important, in Attica, Boeotia, and on the island of Euboia off the Attica coast, a similar development occurs, with Anatolian/Northern Aegean-like material culture appearing in tandem with the existing EH II ones, the so-called Lefkandi I culture.
Some, like Rutter for example, consider these later EBA II developments two pages of the same book and Lefkandi I/Kastri Group evidence of the same phenomenon.
It should be noted that, in this period, i.e. EH IIB in Attica and Boeotia and EC IIB in the Cyclades, there is no archaeological evidence for conflict and/or destruction horizons. Therefore many see a trade network phenomenon here, others think technology/customs transfer, still others peaceful infiltration of Anatolian or northern Aegean peoples into southwestern Aegean.
THEN:
At the end of EH IIB, Peloponnesian EH IIB sites are destroyed, EC II cultural assemblage disappeared from record, and the surprising level of sophistication reached in southern Greece vanishes. In the EH III period (i.e. 2300/2200-2100/2000 BC) the situation is drastically different. Messenia and Laconia are entirely deserted, Argolid and northwestern Peloponnese display an entirely different material culture, with apsidal buildings, potter’s wheel, somewhat evolved Anatolian-inspired pottery shapes.
Some scholars, therefore, see a population movement here, i.e. those who had already come slightly up north during the Lefkandi 1/Kastri Group phenomenon, now at the start EH III destroyed the Peloponnesian EH II sites, eventually from northern Aegean/Anatolia.
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