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Friday, August 2, 2019

The PIE homeland controversy: August 2019 status report


Archeologist David Anthony has a new paper on the Indo-European homeland debate titled Archaeology, Genetics, and Language in the Steppes: A Comment on Bomhard. It's part of a series of articles dealing with Allan R. Bomhard's "Caucasian substrate hypothesis" in the latest edition of The Journal of Indo-European Studies. It's also available, without any restrictions, here.

Any thoughts? Feel free to share them in the comments below. Admittedly, I found this part somewhat puzzling (emphasis is mine):

It was the faint trace of WHG, perhaps 3% of whole Yamnaya genomes, that identified this admixture as coming from Europe, not the Caucasus, according to Wang et al. (2018). Colleagues in David Reich’s lab commented that this small fraction of WHG ancestry could have come from many different geographic places and populations.

I think that's highly optimistic. It really should be obvious by now thanks to archeological and ancient genomic data, including both uniparental and genome-wide variants, that the Yamnaya people were practically entirely derived from Eneolithic populations native to the Pontic-Caspian (PC) steppe. So, in all likelihood, this was also the source of their minor WHG ancestry.

Indeed, they clearly weren't some mishmash of geographically, culturally and genetically disparate groups that had just arrived in Eastern Europe, but the direct descendants of closely related and already significantly Yamnaya-like peoples associated with long-standing PC steppe archeological cultures such as Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog. I discussed this earlier this year, soon after the Wang et al. paper was published:

On Maykop ancestry in Yamnaya

I hope I'm wrong, but I get the feeling that the scientists at the Reich Lab are finding this difficult to accept, because it doesn't gel with their theory that archaic Proto-Indo-European (PIE) wasn't spoken on the PC steppe, but rather south of the Caucasus, and that late or rather nuclear PIE was introduced into the PC steppe by migrants from the Maykop culture who were somehow involved in the formation of the Yamnaya horizon.

Inexplicably, after citing Wang et al. on multiple occasions and arguing against any significant gene flow between Maykop and Yamnaya groups, Anthony fails to mention Steppe Maykop. But the Steppe Maykop people are an awesome argument against the idea that there was anything more than occasional mating between the Maykop and Yamnaya populations, because they were wedged between them, and yet clearly distinct from both, with a surprisingly high ratio of West Siberian forager-related ancestry (see here and here).


Despite all the talk lately about the potential cultural, linguistic and genetic ties between Maykop and Yamnaya, including claims that the latter possibly acquired its wagons from the former, my view is that the Steppe Maykop and Yamnaya wagon drivers may have competed with each other and eventually clashed in a big way. Indeed, take a look at what happens after Yamnaya burials rather suddenly replace those of Steppe Maykop just north of the Caucasus around 3,000 BCE.

Yamnaya_RUS_Caucasus
RUS_Progress_En_PG2001 0.808±0.058
RUS_Steppe_Maykop 0.000
UKR_Sredny_Stog_II_En_I6561 0.192±0.058
chisq 13.859
tail prob 0.383882
Full output

Yep, total population replacement with no significant gene flow between the two groups. Apparently, as far as I can tell, there's not even a hint that a few Steppe Maykop stragglers were incorporated into the ranks of the newcomers. Where did they go? Hard to say for now. Maybe they ran for the hills nearby?

Intriguingly, Anthony reveals a few details about new samples from three different Eneolithic steppe burial sites associated with the Khvalynsk culture:

The Reich lab now has whole-genome aDNA data from more than 30 individuals from three Eneolithic cemeteries in the Volga steppes between the cities of Saratov and Samara (Khlopkov Bugor, Khvalynsk, and Ekaterinovka), all dated around the middle of the fifth millennium BC.

...

Most of the males belonged to Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b1a, like almost all Yamnaya males, but Khvalynsk also had some minority Y-chromosome haplogroups (R1a, Q1a, J, I2a2) that do not appear or appear only rarely (I2a2) in Yamnaya graves.

As far as I can tell, he suggests that they'll be published in the forthcoming Narasimhan et al. paper. If so, it sounds like the paper will have many more ancient samples than its early preprint that was posted at bioRxiv last year.

For me the really fascinating thing in regards to these new samples is how scarce Y-haplogroup R1a appears to have been everywhere before the expansion by the putative Indo-European-speaking steppe ancestors of the Corded Ware culture (CWC) people. It's basically always outnumbered by other haplogroups wherever it's found prior to about 3,000 BCE, even on the PC steppe. But then, suddenly, its R1a-M417 subclade goes BOOM! And that's why I call it...

The beast among Y-haplogroups

At this stage, I'm not sure how to interpret the presence of Y-haplogroup J in the Khvalynsk population. It may or may not be important to the PIE homeland debate. Keep in mind that J is present in two foragers from Karelia and Popovo, northern Russia, dated to the Mesolithic period and with no obvious foreign ancestry. So it need not have arrived north of the Caspian as late as the Eneolithic with migrants rich in southern ancestry from the Caucasus or what is now Iran. In other words, for the time being, the steppe PIE homeland theory appears safe.

Update 20/12/2019: A note on Steppe Maykop

See also...

Is Yamnaya overrated?

The PIE homeland controversy: January 2019 status report

Late PIE ground zero now obvious; location of PIE homeland still uncertain, but...

439 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   401 – 439 of 439
Arza said...

@ Drago

IMHO it's very important and highly relevant to the PIE debate. David doesn't have to trust me, but if he would trust his own data (because that's all what I'm doing here - showing his work), he would be able to definitively end the discussion with FrankN with just one sentence.

Despite that the difference between Progress and Yamnaya may be subtle, it's at the same time big enough to conclude that "Yamnaya component" instead of Progress was a basis of Khvalynsk. This turns the chronology upside-down. Suddenly Khvalynsk becomes a genetic sink irrelevant to the PIE dispute.

And after the existence of Varna ANI163 with EMBA/MLBA steppe ancestry coupled with the "Balto-Slavic drift" this is the second proof that Yamnaya-like population was present north of the steppe already in the 4th millennium BCE.

This instantly kills any idea of any recent input from the Caucasus (not to mention Iran). In fact in Khvalynsk, from the point of view of the formation of Yamnaya, we are dealing not with the increase of CHG ancestry, but rather decrease and dilution of it in an EHG-rich population.

The same thing, as about Khvalynsk, we can say about Progress or Vonyuchka - they are irrelevant, late and peripheral off-shoots with some Sarazm/Geoksiur shift.

At this moment everyone looking for the PIE homeland is looking at the wrong place and at a wrong time... to sort things out we need to strictly follow the data and not reject it just because saying that "Yamnaya" is ancestral to Khvalynsk is currently viewed as a heresy.

PS The latest rumours about Khvalynsk say that it's full of Yamnayan Y-DNA, but also has multiple other haplogroups that are not present in Yamnaya (or even in any other post-PIE culture) and I saw people wondering how this is possible when Khvalynsk is the source of everything and the PIE homeland... well... you have your answer now - Khvalynsk isn't the source of anything.

Davidski said...

My argument earlier this year was that Piedmont Eneolithic, Khvalynsk, Sredny Stog and Yamnaya all basically came from a ghost population living on the Don-Caspian steppe.

The PIE homeland controversy: January 2019 status report

So yeah, Khvalynsk wasn't ancestral to Yamnaya, nor Yamnaya ancestral to Khvalynsk. They were both derived from a third, as yet unsampled source.

And I haven't really changed my mind since then.

Drago said...

@ Arza
''The same thing, as about Khvalynsk, we can say about Progress or Vonyuchka - they are irrelevant, late and peripheral off-shoots with some Sarazm/Geoksiur shift.''

That's what I meant. Whatever the exact details & origins, given that both Progress/Vonuchka & Meshoko appear amidst an already burgeoning Sredni Stog (senso lato) network, the exact nature of CHG isn't actually the deal breaker- they could be from Colchis, Azerbaijan or the Aral region, it wouldn't make a huge difference.

As for how they Progress ties in with Yamnaya & Khvalynsk I’m not 100% sure. But it seems Progress -like groups moved south toward the mountains

'' The latest rumours about Khvalynsk say that it's full of Yamnayan Y-DNA''

Althought we should naturally scrutinise which exact sublineages they are & what their carbon dates might be.



''At this moment everyone looking for the PIE homeland is looking at the wrong place and at a wrong time''


Here's something to think about - casting aside for a second speculations about ''pre-pre-protos''; working backward from the daughater languages takes us to east-central Europe; and not too much earlier than 2500 BC

Arza said...

^^^
Correction: should be "5th millennium BCE" instead of "4th".

@ Davidski

Whatever the exact source was and no matter how directly it was linked to the Yamnaya Culture the CHG-rich, Yamnaya-like population was already there... probably somewhere in the forest steppe zone or maybe even further north.

Davidski said...

Yeah, in the Taiga zone. In their tipis.

Don't think so Arza. This is a steppe population we're talking about.

Ebizur said...

[Western Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups found among indigenous people in Yakutia, continued]

H15a1a[1]: Duggan et al. 2013 have found H15a1a (H15a1a1 according to Ian Logan) in 1/169 = 0.59% of their samples of Yakuts. To be precise, this individual was found in their sample of Northeast Yakuts from Verkhoyansky District. Fedorova et al. 2013 have found H(xH1, H8, H20) mtDNA in 12/423 = 2.84% of their samples of Yakuts and 4/125 = 3.2% of their samples of Evenks from Yakutia. However, they have not resolved whether any of these individuals belong to H15a1a.

Besides the Yakut from Verkhoyansky District, H15a1a1 has been observed in ancient Armenia, modern India, an Azeri individual from Iran, a German individual from Halle on the Saale, and five Pamiri individuals from Gorno-Badakhshan Province of Tajikistan. H15a1a* has been observed in Kazakhstan and Poland. H15a1b has been observed in two Qashqais from Iran, four Pamiris from Gorno-Badakhshan Province of Tajikistan, three Sarikolis from Tashkurgan, four Uyghurs, and three individuals (BSQ1337, BSQ6446, and BSQ6447) from a study titled, "The Basque Paradigm: Genetic Evidence of a Maternal Continuity in the Franco-Cantabrian Region since Pre-Neolithic Times." H15a1* has been observed in Denmark, Sweden, England (ancient specimen), Germany (incl. an ancient specimen), Hungary, Armenia (incl. an ancient specimen), Iran (including an "Iranian" and a "Qashqai"), and in a Sorani Kurd from Rawanduz in Iraq.

H1 and H1a:
Fedorova et al. 2013 have found mtDNA that belongs to haplogroup H1(xH1a) in one Northern Yakut and one Evenk from Yakutia. They also have found mtDNA that belongs to haplogroup H1a in one Central Yakut and one Dolgan. H1 and H1a are very widespread mtDNA haplogroups, and Duggan et al. have not observed any instance of H1 or H1a in any of their samples from Yakutia and other parts of eastern Siberia, so I have no idea as to which subclades these Yakut, Dolgan, and Evenk individuals might belong nor where their nearest matrilineal relatives might reside.

H20a:
Fedorova et al. 2013 have found mtDNA that belongs to haplogroup H20a in a Vilyuy Yakut and in a Dolgan.

H20a* has been observed in Buryat, Armenian, and Polish individuals. H20a1* has been observed in an Azeri from Iran, in a Lebanese individual, and in an individual who bears a Greek name. H20a1a has been observed in an individual from Portugal, an individual from Turkey, and in a Uyghur. H20a2 has been observed in Armenians, an individual from Greece, and an individual from southern Italy (Calabria). As for outgroups, H20b has been observed in Druze, and H20c has been observed in France (Basques? "BSQ5443" and "BSQ9602") and Hungary.

H8:
Duggan et al. 2013 have found mtDNA that belongs to haplogroup H8b (H8b1 according to Ian Logan) in 5/46 = 10.9% of a sample of Nyukzha Evenks. Fedorova et al. 2013 have found mtDNA that belongs to haplogroup H8 in 1/125 = 0.8% of their samples of Evenks from Yakutia, but they have not resolved whether this individual belongs to H8b or H8b1.

Besides Nyukzha Evenks, H8b1 has been observed in two Kyrgyz from Tashkurgan, two Shors, two Buryats, and a Uyghur. H8b* has been observed in Lebanon, Poland, and France (Basque? 'BSQ8687').

Ebizur said...

U4a1[e]:
Duggan et al. 2013 have observed mtDNA that belongs to haplogroup U4a1 (U4a1e according to Ian Logan) in 1/169 = 0.59% of their samples of Yakuts. Fedorova et al. 2013 have observed mtDNA that belongs to haplogroup U4a1 in 1/125 = 0.8% of their samples of Evenks from Yakutia and in 1/154 = 0.65% of their samples of Dolgans from Yakutia and Taymyr. However, Fedorova et al. have not resolved whether these Evenk and Dolgan individuals belong to U4a1e.

Besides the Central Yakut from Aldansky District from the sample set of Duggan et al. 2013, U4a1e has been observed in Norway and Denmark. U4a1* has been observed in ancient Baltic, ancient Roman, Ireland, Scottish, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Czech, Romanian, Armenian, Kalash, India, Sarikolis, Kyrgyz (from Kyrgyzstan and Tashkurgan), and Uyghur.

U4d2:
Duggan et al. 2013 have observed mtDNA that belongs to haplogroup U4d2 in 1/169 = 0.59% of their samples of Yakuts. (To be more precise, this particular individual is from a sample of Central Yakuts from Namsky District.) Fedorova et al. 2013 have observed mtDNA that belongs to haplogroup U4d2 in 1/111 = 0.9% Vilyuy Yakuts and 1/154 = 0.65% Dolgans from Yakutia and Taymyr.

Besides the aforementioned Yakut and Dolgan individuals, U4d2 has been observed in Mongolia, Avam Nganasan from the Taimyr Peninsula, Khakassian, Tuvinian, Kyrgyzstan, Uyghur, Volga Tatars, Russians, Poland, Czech, Serbia, Palestinian, ancient Baltic, and ancient Romania. U4d* has been observed in an Armenian and in an individual from Saudi Arabia. U4d1* has been observed in the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Poland, and Russia (Pskov Oblast). U4d1a* has been observed in a Volga Tatar. U4d1a1* has been observed in Finland and in a Russian. U4d1a1a has been observed in Finland. U4d1b has been observed in Russians and in a Volga Tatar. U4d3 has been observed in a specimen from ancient Germany and in modern individuals from Denmark, Canada (with reported Scottish ancestry), and the USA.

U5b1b1a:
Fedorova et al. 2013 have found mtDNA that belongs to haplogroup U5b1b1a in 1/164 = 0.61% of a sample of Central Yakuts and 1/148 = 0.68% of a sample of Northern Yakuts. Achilli et al. 2005 ("Saami and Berbers--an unexpected mitochondrial DNA link") also have found mtDNA that belongs to U5b1b1a in a Yakut individual.

Besides Yakuts, haplogroup U5b1b1a has been observed in Saami, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, ancient Baltic, and ancient Denmark.

K:
Fedorova et al. 2013 have found mtDNA that belongs to haplogroup K in 2/154 = 1.3% of their samples of Dolgans from Yakutia and Taymyr.

R1b:
Fedorova et al. 2013 have found mtDNA that belongs to haplogroup R1b (R1b2a according to Ian Logan) in 2/148 = 1.4% of their sample of Northern Yakuts. Duggan et al. 2013 have found mtDNA that belongs to haplogroup R1b2a ("R3" according to Duggan et al. 2013) in 1/88 = 1.1% of a sample of Central Yakuts; this particular individual is from Aldansky District.

MtDNA haplogroup R1b2b has been observed in two Uyghurs. So, the mtDNA R1b2 clade appears to have split into one subclade that is now found among Yakuts and another subclade that is now found among Uyghurs.

MtDNA haplogroup R1b has been observed in an ancient specimen from the Baltic. R1b1* has been observed in an ancient specimen from Armenia and in modern individuals from India, Armenia, and Bulgaria. R1b1a has been observed in Uyghurs. R1b1b has been observed in Finland (including a Finland Swede).

Leron said...

It would cause many complications if relatively high levels of Steppe is found in early non-IE populations while early attested IE speaking groups having comparatively less Steppe than them. I don’t see how looking thst far east, so to speak, will make the PIE question easier to solve.

epoch said...

@JuanRiveira

"R1b is also observed in AG3, Karelia_HG, Botai, and maybe other ancient samples."

The R1b in AG3 is mtDNA R1b, just like KO1. AG3 was female.

Matt said...

In f3 statistics, you can get "Yamnaya specific" drift dimension to some degree: https://imgur.com/a/f8Cf6hd

Dimensions 1-4 deal with All vs None, Starcevo_N vs EHG, CHG vs Iron Gates, StarcevoN+EHG vs CHG+IronGates, then you finally get to the Yamnaya specific numbers.

Particularly attracted to Yamnaya seems to be Afanasievo, Poltavka, Catacomb, Kubano-Tersek, Yamnaya_Caucasus, Yamnaya_Ukraine, while Darkveti-Meshoko seems to be on the other pole.

I'm not 100% sure all the positions are exact; some may be pure artefacts - for'ex there's no reason for Iberia_Northeast c8-12CE to be far from present day Iberians and Europeans.

But those are the problems you get when looking at extremely fine f3 stat differentiation. (Similar problems emerge splitting f3 for Iberia+British farmers vs Globular Amphora Poland - there's clearly some real effect confounded by statistical artefacts).

Matt said...

Note, "Yamnaya specific", above means "using Yamnaya_Samara as a column".

Ryan said...

Backtracking a ways here - re: Ireland becoming more "southern" in the Iron Age. Are there any R1b haplogroups that reflect that? Are there any obviously Halstatt haplogroups present?

Matt said...

@Ryan, re: y dna and population change in Ireland there's not an adna record as of yet. So eyeballing wiki's data on the topic, I'd guess that there could be.... but that equally all the present day y-dna seems to be R1b (vastly the majority), then equal and small minorities of I2a, I1 and R1a which is probably plausibly attributable to a composite of local "pre-Beaker" farmers and Germanic population movements with the Vikings and Saxons, and some much smaller scale movements before that.

That's a crude look at relatively high level haplogroups though, perhaps people who are hardcore into y phylogeny within R1b or something like this could say more.

Generally, the idea of later population movements into the BI which are masked by similar percentages of steppe:farmer:WHG is interesting, but is hard to quantify.

I suspect that unlinked PCA (whether G25 or Celtic-Germanic or Northern European PCA or West Eurasian PCA) tools will be minimally useful to solve this and haplotype chunk profiles will be required, as with the recent Viking Age adna paper (whether or not they got this right, it is probably the way to go).

Broad unlinked PCA will not have the discriminatory power necessary, and small differences between affinity to ancient Steppe, Neolithic, etc will disguise strong resemblances at haplotype level.

Certainly Cassidy's 2016 paper on the Bronze Age Rathlin Island genomes using haplotype chunks shows a *really* *really* strong signal in the Isles mapping to Wales+Scotland+Ireland, with only England an exception, probably explicable by Saxon and Viking era movement and ongoing two-way movement between England and France - https://www.pnas.org/content/113/2/368 (see Fig 3, though note these are normalized to Max=1, and the absolute haplotype chunk sharing for Rathlin at its max is higher than e.g. Ballynahatty).


Not a pattern where the Rathlin Island haplotypes only have limited resemblance in Ireland today or something like this.

But it's hard to quantify ancestry %s from haplotype chunks of course.

Though I think if we start to get high quality late Bronze Age-early Iron Age genomes from the continent with broad autosomal similarities and they simply don't show these patterns of haplotype donation to the BI that Rathlin Island shows, that will speak volumes that the ancestry must necessarily have been much lower, even if quantifying anything like this is hard.

epoch said...

@Juan

My bad, you were refering to mtDNA.

Samuel Andrews said...

Indians only have about 13% Andronovo ancestry. That equals 8% 'Yamnaya' ancestry. On the other hand, Indians are probably 30-40% Iran Neolithic. So, the bulk of their West Eurasian ancestry is from Iran.

Also, Indians don't have BMAC ancestry. This means the Aryans did not mix heavily before arriving in India. This probably means they were mostly Andronovo when they arrived in India.

vahaduo said...

@ all

Hi. I'd like to share something with you.

https://vahaduo.github.io/vahaduo/

This is a new online tool for quick estimation of ancestry proportions.

All tabs and options are rather self-explanatory, but there are few things to keep in mind:

- data should be pasted without headers,
- some errors in the pasted data are auto-corrected,
- in the [DISTANCE] tab Euclidean distance is calculated,
- default colour gradient options in the [DISTANCE] tab are optimized for Global 25 scaled spreadsheet;
- in the [SINGLE] tab precision is set to 0.2%,
- in the [MULTI] tab default precision is set to 0.2% and it could be dropped to 0.8% - [FAST MODE - YES],
- sometimes there is some randomness visible in the results - theoretically it's possible to reduce this effect, but the time cost is too high to be worth it, as the algorithm is optimized for speed of operation,
- tables displayed in the [MULTI] tab are sortable,
- I wasn't able to test this tool on different platforms and in multiple browsers, so if you find any errors or glitches, let me know.

Enjoy!

vahaduo said...

Sample output (model - 147 Bell Beaker samples, target - English average, calculation time - 0.658s):

Target: English
Distance: 1.0838% / 0.01083801
Aggregated
31.2 Bell_Beaker_England
22.8 Bell_Beaker_FRA_C
11.2 Bell_Beaker_England_EBA
9.0 Bell_Beaker_CZE
9.0 Bell_Beaker_Iberia
7.0 Bell_Beaker_Bavaria
4.8 Bell_Beaker_NLD
2.0 Bell_Beaker_HUN
1.6 Bell_Beaker_ITA
1.4 Bell_Beaker_HUN_EBA

vahaduo said...

@ JuanRivera

It's because the principle is the same (Monte Carlo random walk simulation). What matters is the different implementation. The algorithm is much faster and it auto-scales with the data (more source populations - longer run, fewer source populations - shorter run).

I have another (actually the original one) algorithm ready to deploy that works on a completely different basis. It gives virtually the same results, but due to different way of operation some other interesting tools can be built upon it.

weure said...

Last weekend in a Dutch newspaper the Volkskrant: ‘On the Veluwe there once lived probably 100.000 Russian and Ukrainian people.’ The article is about a citizen science project under auspicien of the archeologist Bourgeois. In the Dutch region the Veluwe, famous as a Bell Beaker hotspot, they have made photos with laser technology. With citizens help they have screamed 240000 pictures until now.That’s a third of the total amount. Previous was thought that there were 500 a 750 Single Graves, the front runner of the Bell Beakers. Based on this research the amount must be much higher about 2000. This means that there were are lot more Steppe pastoralist. On the Veluwe probably 100000 and the Veluwe is only one hotspot in the Netherlands, areas like Drenthe may have had also those kind of amounts. These areas where dense populated at that time.
Researchers also found that in the teeth of those people there was some plague dna.
In the end that makes the ‘neo Dutch model’ of Davidski that people of the Single Grave flowed into Dutch Bell Beaker and spread to for example the Isles even more likely IMO.
Article, in Dutch:
[url]https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/op-de-veluwe-woonden-eens-misschien-wel-honderdduizend-russen-en-oekrainers~b916bf75/[/url]

FrankN said...

Arza: You seem to have misunderstood me. I have never proposed anything like a post-4000 BC Transcaucasian migration as origin of "Steppe" ancestry. [Such link, however, may explain the appearance of non-light sensitive barley in Eastern Europe and ultimately Danish Single Grave, but that's a secondary aspect.]

Instead, I am with Dave when he posits: "Piedmont Eneolithic, Khvalynsk, Sredny Stog and Yamnaya all basically came from a ghost population living on the Don-Caspian steppe." I actually wouldn't call it a "ghost population" but think we can attach a name to it: (pre-)Caspian Culture.

See also
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2017/09/two-starkly-different-neolithic.html
where our host here stated: "I think it's possible that these [pre-Caspian] migrants could have been the main source of the, thus far imprecisely characterized, Caucasus-related ancestry in the potentially Proto-Indo-European Khvalynsk and Yamnaya peoples."
The (pre-)Caspian culture has certainly supplied the template for later "Steppe" cultures, in the form of typical Steppe pastoralism with a strong aquatic element in the diet, and also as concerns "Steppe-typical" lithics such as the leaf/fish-shaped arrowheads extensively discussed by Gimbutas.
Available AMS dates point to an entrance on the Lower Volga during the early 5th mBC, and subsequent expansion into various directions, where Pre-Caspian People absorbed region-specific local substrate (Transcaucasian in the Elbrus Piedmont, EEF/CT-related in Sredny Stog, elements connected to the Combed Ware "out of Siberia" expansion in Khvalynsk).

Andrzejewski said...

@FrankN “Available AMS dates point to an entrance on the Lower Volga during the early 5th mBC, and subsequent expansion into various directions, where Pre-Caspian People absorbed region-specific local substrate (Transcaucasian in the Elbrus Piedmont, EEF/CT-related in Sredny Stog, elements connected to the Combed Ware "out of Siberia" expansion in Khvalynsk).”

Yes, that’s what I’m starting to think: PIE has originated in migrants from the Caucasus into Khvalynsk(and other areas and regions) 7,000 years ago. It may or may not have been associated with the Black Sea Deluge as described in legend of Gilgamesh.

Andrzejewski said...

@Sam why did the Andronovo not admix with either Botai or BMAC but did with Dravidians is beyond me. Aren’t ASI = “Dravidians” something like 35% Iran_N and 65% Onge?

Ric Hern said...

@ weure

Thanks. Very interesting.

Andrzejewski said...

Is it possible that Prikaspiiskaya culture arrived with CHG elements and they partially replaced EHG like Elshanka Culture?

Andrzejewski said...

Is it possible that Pit Ware/Combed Ware is of West Siberian ancestry and derivation?

FrankN said...

The 100 Million Dollar question is: From where did the (pre-)Caspian Culture, proto-Yamnaya [proto-late PIE?] migrants reach the Lower Volga? Russian research is still puzzled in this respect. Vybornov 2016, e.g. states: "The origin of Prikaspiiskaya culture is reckoned to be connected with the Lower Don region. Some migration from Western Asia could also have occurred." Tsybrij e.a. 2017, OTOH, describe (pre-)Caspian elements as late, non-native entrants on the Lower Don, thereby effectively ruling out a Lower Don origin (for respective links see my posts above).

I myself am also unable to point towards a specific place of origin. Nevertheless, exclusion and triangulation provides some hints.

Let's start with the subsistence model: Pastoralism, strongly based on sheep and goat plus some bovids, but so far w/o any attestation of domesticated pigs, coupled with a lot of fishing.

1. Virtual absence of domesticated pigs allows for excluding all cultures with a strongly pig-based subsistence, i.e. Darkveti-Meshoko, Neolithic Crimea, Varna-Gulmenita, CT, GAC. In all likelyhood - provided that not some day some bones of domesticated pigs show up in "Steppe pastoralist" assemblages - the exclusion may be extended to all ANF-descended/related cultures, where domesticated pigs always played a relevant, albeit typically not dominant role. This most notably concerns Caucasian Shulaveri-Shomu and Sioni, and the Neolithic Sursk(aya) Culture around the Dniepr Rapids (UA_Neo I1732/ I1738, presence of domesticated pigs archeologically attested).
In fact, there ís only one area with a „no pigs“ Neolithic model: Central Asia. I leave an extensive discussion to another time and place. For the time being, please refer to Mallory's respective discussion in his recent paper on Tocharians (see the preceding posts here).

2. The fishing stuff points towards either a coast or larger watercourses.

t.b.c

Davidski said...

@vahaduo

Hi. I'd like to share something with you.

https://vahaduo.github.io/vahaduo/


Thanks, I'll check it out.

Open Genomes said...

@Juan Rivera

M9984 from Magadan on the Sea of Okhotsk does have about 5.6% Steppe ancestry, and Tien Shan Hun-like ancestry:
Global25 nMonte ancestry composition of sample: M9984 Population: RUS_Magadan_BA Bronze Age Siberia

However, individual M0831 from Magadan is entirely lacking in this kind of ancestry:
Global25 nMonte ancestry composition of sample: M0831 Population: RUS_Magadan_BA Bronze Age Siberia

If this is true, then it's fascinating how Steppe ancestry reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean after 1000 BCE.

@David, can you confirm this Steppe ancestry in the case of M9984?

Given that these are both women, it seems that this may be mediated by the female line via bride exchanges in a network extending westward to Afanasievo. However, both mtDNAs, G1b and D2a1 respectively, are Siberian.

epoch said...

@weure

The university of Leiden is reinvestigating a recovered grave from their attics: A barrow of Niersen, in the middle of a row of barrows. The barrow was excavated in 1907 by J.H.Holwerda, is roughly 2500 BC. Skeletal remains of several people were found, plus bones from an animal. Likely a cow or a horse.

The remains were lifted in one piece and transferred to Rapelenburg in Leiden (Dutch museum) and are currently investigated. If the animal remains are indeed from a horse it would be important.

https://www.archeologieopdekaart.nl/de-eerste-boeren/nierssen/pointofinterest/detail

Here more Dutch info on the row of barrows, which is dated 2600-2500BC. Exactly the moment of the transformation of SGC to BB:

https://www.handelenwandelopdeveluwe.nl/index.php/artikelen/10-de-grafheuvelreeks-epe-niersen-deel-1.html
https://www.handelenwandelopdeveluwe.nl/index.php/artikelen/12-prehistorische-astronomie-op-de-veluwe.html

I think this has potential.

Ric Hern said...

@ epoch

Thanks.

Ric Hern said...

@ epoch

What is interesting is the poles, small buildings and other structures found near the grave mounds...does this maybe point to some permanent type of Graveyard maintenance by an upkeeper ? Very interesting.

epoch said...

@Ric Hern

I actually visited a number of them two year ago. The area still has large swathes of heath, kept clear of trees by sheep herds and you can clearly make them out.

https://mijngelderlandmedia.azureedge.net/beeld/Verhalen/verhalen/Grafheuvels_Epe.jpg

The recent investigation just added even more, less visible.

epoch said...

@Ric Hern

I just heard that they are investigating if it would be feasible to extract aDNA, and if so, where to extract it form.

Davidski said...

@Open Genomes

Magadan_BA M9984 does have some steppe ancestry. Sintashta works well enough, better than Huns, at least in the model that I tried.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1JJPbgPkgxzCoVcYQ6h_TAlQHZFR_b8Bx

weure said...

@epoch, thanks (late response due to holiday).

Ric Hern said...

@ epoch

Something else that is interesting is the seemingly continual interaction between the Netherlands Beaker folk and Seine-Oise-Marne and Wartburg areas....

Davidski said...

@vahaduo

Your online tool is awesome. And it works offline too, after downloading the web page.

I put a link to it in my guide to the Global25.

Getting the most out of the Global25

vahaduo said...

@ Davidski

Thanks! I'm glad you like it and you find it useful.

a said...

Hopefully the new papers will have some wagons/chariots/basic metallurgy/horses to compare with the future paper on Indian chariots/wagon/horse finds.

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