Abstract: The domestication of the horse and the development of new equestrian technologies have had a far-reaching impact on human history. Disentangling the respective role that horse males and females played during this process is, however, difficult based on iconography and osteological data alone. In this study, we leveraged an extensive ancient DNA time-series to determine the molecular sex of 268 horses spread across Eurasia and charted the male:female sex ratio through the last 40,000 years. We found even sex ratios in the Upper Palaeolithic and up until ~3900 years BP. However, we identified a striking over-representation of horse males in more recent osseous assemblages, which was particularly magnified in funerary contexts but also significant in non-ritual deposits. This suggests that the earliest horse herders managed males and females alike for more than one thousand years after domestication at Botai, but that the human representation and use of horses became gendered at the beginning of the Bronze Age, following the emergence of gender inequalities in human societies. ... The time period around ~3900 years ago marked a drastic shift in male:female sex ratios inferred from excavated remains, after which the horse osteological record comprises approximately four males for every female (Fig. 2). This over-representation of horse males was maintained when disregarding those animals excavated from ritual burial sites (77/25 ~ 3.08 males for every female) and even more pronounced in the animal bones found in funerary contexts (66/14 ~ 4.71 males for every female). This indicates that the status of male and female horses dramatically changed during the Bronze Age period. This is in line with archaeozoological evidence from the Late Bronze Age cemeteries of the Volga-Ural region associated with the Sintashta, Potapovka and Petrovka cultures, that suggest a domination of male horses in funerary rates (Kosintsev, 2010). Interestingly, this pattern somehow mirrors that observed in humans, for whom a clear binary gender structure ubiquitous across all funerary practices, clothing, personal ornaments and representations is not observed during the Neolithic but became the norm from the transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age onwards (Robb and Harris, 2018). In addition, the prevalence of male horses in funerary contexts throughout the past three millennia is in line with archaeological evidence from burial sites (Bertašius and Daugnora, 2001, Taylor, 2017) and suggests that stallions (or geldings) were more prized for sacrificial rituals. This is possibly due to symbolic attributes then-associated with masculinity, mounted warriors and chariotry, such as power, protection and strength (Frie, 2018). In particular, petroglyph images associated with vehicles, characterized by two wheels with spokes, became typical by the late third – early second millennium BCE (Jacobson-Tepfer, 2012). They are generally associated with male warriors and the emergence of mobile warfare (Anthony, 2007) or ritual needs, in particular the passage to the after-life land (Jones-Bley, 2000). This suggests an essential ideological role of stallions and their use in elite warfare and ritual practices (Drews, 2004, Kelekna, 2009, Novozhenov and Rogozhonskiy, 2019). ... Future research should focus on assessing the molecular sex of horses from Early and Middle Bronze Age Pit Grave and Catacomb cultures, which do show evidence for social inequality, but for which sex inequalities remain to be investigated.Fages et al., Horse males became over-represented in archaeological assemblages during the Bronze Age, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports Volume 31, June 2020, 102364, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102364 See also... Of horses and men Inferring the linguistic affinity of long dead and non-literate peoples: a multidisciplinary approach The mystery of the Sintashta people
Saturday, May 9, 2020
Of horses and men #2
Fascinating stuff courtesy of Fages et al. at the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (emphasis is mine):
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
238 comments:
1 – 200 of 238 Newer› Newest»Please note that I'm moderating comments, and likely to be doing so for the foreseeable future.
Also interesting they're able to confirm that there were horses present in Iran at Tepe Mehr Ali between 5000–8000 BCE, with median date of 6500.
It seems that these horses were mentioned before here - https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/405270/1/__filestore.soton.ac.uk_users_jw20_mydocuments_e-papers%2520and%2520books_Zonkey_uncorrected_proof_JASC.pdf...
Despite Orlando and Fages last year only mentioning the wild hermiones at this site - https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(19)30384-8.pdf
Doesn't change our ideas, necessarily, of where horses were domesticated, but it adds to my sense of dubiousness that anyone should rely too much on ideas that people in the south didn't know what horses even were and wouldn't have had words for them (even if they were less frequent in that landscape, may have been frequent enough to support a word) and so shared horse words tell us something about IE. (Unlike the wheel evidence, which seems rock solid for core IE, even if probably doesn't apply to Anatolian, which diverged before the wheel or otherwise lost the shared term).
I'm not sure if horse words are useful or not when it comes to the search for the PIE homeland, but the early Indo-European culture was probably the first horse worshiping culture, and there was nothing like it south of the steppe at the time or earlier.
An alternative hypothesis:
The Scythians are thought to have been the first people to geld their horses.[3][4] They valued geldings as war horses because they were quiet, lacked mating urges, were less prone to call out to other horses, were easier to keep in groups, and were less likely to fight with one another. wiki (if it wasn't the Scythians so what)
Other sources extend the superiority of using gelded horses in everyday life)
Perhaps the authors have a way of differentiating Intact/Gelded horses or that they can imagine warriors identifying with gelded horses.
If not isn't that many male bones collected were gelded males, a more parsimonious answer?
@matt date is in BP, so median date of around 4500bce at tepe mehr ali. too bad they didnt get to analyze neolithic caspian horse remain.
@davidski, probably you dont know but the vedic culture always had more veneration for the cow than the horse, same is the case today.
@Davidski, yeah, that's the case I see normally made, that horse cult / sacrifice on steppe well predates in southern world by a long time, much earlier than the dates here of their shift in male:female ratio at around 1900 BCE. I don't know enough about it to be sure.
We do get this horse sacrifice at Gonur that shows up at around 2100-1900 BCE, which coincides pretty closely with the date given here for the shift in sex ratios which they interpret as potentially as in line with a shift in "stallions (or geldings) (being) more prized for sacrificial rituals".
That is maybe the ritual use of horses spreading outwards. At same as is becoming more competitive within cultures (and so more focus on larger, male horses). We know that ancestry at Gonur does not shift at all in any of its y lineage or autosome so it's not really accompanied by substantial gene flow (from either Steppe_MLBA or Central_Steppe_EMBA Kumsay_EBA like individuals).
David Anthony described this burial here - https://imgur.com/a/K5b4pln . (This is where I believe Parpola generated this burbling about elite Indo-Aryan invasions associated with horse iconography at BMAC during periods that we know were unassociated with any substantial geneflow.)
This is also the time when you get those two outliers at Gonur that Narasimhan's paper described as Steppe_MLBA admixed, I1789 and I2122, and they probably are, though I got strange results when trying to model them as such in West Eurasia PCA with Vahaduo. And you also get the Central Steppe EMBA admixed Gonur samples I1783 and I1792.
(West Eurasia PCA Steppe+Turan and South Asia time transect to visualize where these samples fall: https://imgur.com/a/72BUukV).
(Some other discussion of that Gonur horse burial here - https://www.academia.edu/18898152/Animal_Burials_and_Cult_of_them_in_Margiana .)
It would cool to look at this in the context of what cultures were doing with other sacrifices at the time, and whether there is a general shifting to bigger animals (that tend to be males) or specifically male animals.
Its perhaps not that suprising that ~3900 years ago you see the binary relationship that the authors describe as that puts you at the time of the Sintashta culture. However what I think most of us were probable wondering was brought up at towards the end of the study:
'Future research should focus on assessing the molecular sex of horses from Early and Middle Bronze Age Pit Grave and Catacomb cultures, which do show evidence for social inequality, but for which sex inequalities remain to be investigated.'
They haven't done or published yet the aDNA analysis for what's going on regarding matters like these I believe for the Repin culture horse remains as I believe that is supposed to tell us something significant as well. I've been curious to know what has been ongoing here but haven't heard much.
There is no evidence that horses in Botai were used in any other way than for meat, but many previous Eastern European cultures used horses for meat.
The gender difference in the Bronze Age is precisely because the horse became driven, i.e. domesticated.
@Matt
What surprises you? Horses were everywhere in Northern Eurasia and North America in Paleolithic and partially in Mesolithic, but had beaten down everywhere, as they were one of the main meat hunting prey.
Did Yamnaya ride horses across the steppe to form Afanasievo?
Also do we know how R1b-Z2103 got to NW Iran? Was Hajji Firuz part of. a larger migration and what language did he speak?
@Matt
We can't trust what's written in https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/405270/1/__filestore.soton.ac.uk_users_jw20_mydocuments_e-papers%2520and%2520books_Zonkey_uncorrected_proof_JASC.pdf, there's no C14 dating there, the samples are not clear how they were obtained, their context is not clear, they're from Iran, which is already unreliable, besides they refer to some unknown culture about which there's no information at all and the dates were not made. That's why all this has to be multiplied by zero, all reasoning about dates without any reliable information is simply incorrect.
Do they not know Male horses were selected in the bronze age because that is when horse riding and chariots became a thing. Not because of sexism...........
@Samuel Andrews
That sexism thing was the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Steppe riders weren't "woke" enough for modern academia.
@Jatt_Scythian
Did Yamnaya ride horses across the steppe to form Afanasievo?
Also do we know how R1b-Z2103 got to NW Iran? Was Hajji Firuz part of a larger migration and what language did he speak?
Afanasievo people used wagons pulled by oxen. Unlike in the Sintashta culture, horses didn't play an important role in their culture.
Z2103 spread into Iran from the north. There were significant migrations across the Caucasus, probably mostly via what is now Dagestan, into the southern Caucasus, the south Caspian, and all the way down to Mesopotamia. See here...
A potentially violent end to the Kura-Araxes Culture
I think these people may have originally been the speakers of an unknown Indo-European language, but they eventually became the speakers of Hurrian and Iranian languages.
Some quick plots made from their data table, displaying when and where their samples in this paper are from: https://imgur.com/a/7hlbXW3
@Davidski
That makes sense. How does the Armenian fit with the spread of Z2103? Was there a secondary migration through the Balkans?
@Jatt_Scythian
I can't see Armenian being derived from these migrations across the Caucasus that also spread Z2103 deep into the Middle East.
So yes, I think the traditional view that it arrived in Transcaucasia later makes more sense.
Jatt
Afansievo's[R1b-Z2109+] and their horse[domesticated animals] dna has never been tested.
Kura-Araxes=R1b-V1636+
Armenian=Z2106+
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2015/07/high-res-r1b-tree-featuring-16-ancient.html
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9o3EYTdM8lQSnowY29UU09HSmM/view
@a
Can you post a reliable link about domesticated horses in the Afanasievo culture?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200302113351.htm
@a
You just contradicted your own claim with that link.
The earliest individuals to show evidence of dairy consumption lived around 5000 years ago and consumed milk from ruminant species, such as cattle, sheep, and goats. A few thousand years later, at Bronze Age sites dated to after 1200 BCE, the researchers find the first evidence of horse milk consumption, occurring at the same time as early evidence for horse bridling and riding, as well as the use of horses at ritual burial sites.
So obviously it was Andronovo that spread domesticated horses to Mongolia.
Easy, you could be 100% right--- just test the horse remains found at the Afansievo site of Balyktyul-- domesticated sheep-goat 61%,cattle 12% and horse 8%.
Pit grave, Catacombe, Afansievo,Eastern BB= R1b-Z2109+
" Csepel Island. Some sites on the island have ridiculous quantities of horse remains. I2787's family history may reflect the horse trade and networks"
https://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2017/07/szigetszentmiklos-cemetery-santas-six.html
@a
The horse remains at Balyktyul are probably from wild Przewalski's horses that were hunted.
And the horses on Csepel Island don't support your case either.
You have to try and put together coherent arguments from now on. Linking everything via R1b-Z2109+ doesn't qualify.
If you're not able to contribute useful content here I'll block you. Last chance.
@matt this 'tomb of the warrior' I1784 from Gonur is in the main bmac label with 0 input from the steppe(emba or mlba)
Gonur Tomb 2380 sample 17 (I1784): Date of 2201-2031 calBCE (3720±30 BP, Poz- 83485). Genetically male. Nicknamed the ‘Tomb of the Warrior,’ this was skeletally a male, 40 to 50 years old at the time of his death, flexed supine and oriented northnorthwest. The neck of the man was broken, and this was the probable cause of his death. He was buried in a shaft grave on the southeast edge of the large cemetery. This very rich grave was accompanied by one bronze knife, one silver plate, one bronze vessel (diameter
16 cm and height 12 cm), one bronze mace head in the form of a horse head, one bronze mace head with four spikes, one bronze semi-cylindrical artifact near the head, one bronze leaf-shaped arrowhead near the pelvis, and one bronze plate with perforations wrapped in linen cloth near the right shin.
@davidski could you post coordinates of Gonur4 I11039 please? this is only 1 sample in this label with much less anatolian and from the royal cemetery.
Gonur_BA_4 I11039 doesn't have enough markers overlapping with the G25 dataset to get a reliable result.
@Matt
Thanks for the info about that Gonur horse burial, but I'm struggling to see what your point was?
The burial is dated to the period after the Sintashta people first made contacts with Central Asian civilizations, and obviously we don't need to establish that the ritual was carried out by someone with steppe ancestry to assume that it was a ritual introduced from the steppe.
@Davidski, may not have been even introduced from the steppe but people at BMAC just using horse as an animal in sacrificial ritual of separate origin (there are a bunch of other animal sacrifices of Honour).
I thought it was interesting that we see horse used in sacrifices almost immediately to their date in this paper in cultures with no substantial geneflow from the steppe. As part of this conversation about when, where and how horses were used in religious sacrifice. That's all, and nothing really further than that in terms of any implications or "point".
All Hajji Firuz samples are fascinating, especially the Bronze Age Hajji Firuz.
BA HF doesn't really have much of that local Iranian ancestry, it's mostly half Caucasus-related, half Steppe, and genetically closest to Dagestani populations. I hear people saying that it's a Gutian, which it could be, but imo it is a recent migrant from the Trialeti culture.
And the Z2103 in Middle East probably expanded during late KAC or Martkopi/Trialeti, after the expansion of J into Anatolia and Levant.
Target: IRN_Hajji_Firuz_BA
Distance: 1.8018% / 0.01801816
32.2 Kura-Araxes_ARM_Kaps
30.6 RUS_Sintashta_MLBA
27.4 Yamnaya_RUS_Samara
7.6 IRN_Hajji_Firuz_C
1.4 Levant_Canaanite_MBA
0.4 RUS_North_Caucasus_MBA
0.4 TKM_Gonur2_BA
0.0 IRN_Seh_Gabi_C
0.0 RUS_Lola
0.0 TKM_Gonur1_BA
0.0 TKM_Gonur3_BA
0.0 UZB_Dzharkutan1_BA
Distance to: IRN_Hajji_Firuz_BA
0.04331956 Kaitag
0.04571563 Avar
0.04616327 Darginian
0.04814738 Kubachinian
0.04864094 Tabasaran
0.04886003 Lak
0.06622936 Chechen
0.07159875 Tajik_Yagnobi
0.07320008 Ingushian
0.07511165 Kumyk
0.07959966 Balkar
0.08038174 Cherkes
0.08165182 Kabardin
0.08217364 Adygei
0.08244400 Circassian
0.08377939 Azeri_Dagestan
@Matt
May not have been even introduced from the steppe but people at BMAC just using horse as an animal in sacrificial ritual of separate origin (there are a bunch of other animal sacrifices of Honour).
So you're actually suggesting that a horse sacrifice in BMAC, more or less at the time when Sintashta first made contact with BMAC, may not have had anything to do with Sintashta?
That would be quite a coincidence. Or, as they say, pull the other one (it's got bells on).
It may have done (and I allowed for the possibility in the first comment on the topic - "That is maybe the ritual use of horses spreading outwards (from societies in steppe where the most consensus view is it originated").
Or it may have been people integrating an animal that was available in relatively plentiful supply through trade with the north and east into ritual behaviours which they already had around animal sacrifice, with no transmission of beliefs. It's not very improbable.
We probably don't know.
So the earliest documented horse sacrifice in Central Asia happened just at the time when the horse worshiping Sintashta people moved into Central Asia, and we probably don't know what happened?
Seriously?
If you think it's totally impossible that people who sacrifice bulls could sacrifice a horse when they encounter a horse, without adopting the religious ideas of people who sacrifice horses, then I guess you're entitled to believe that.
@Jatt_Scythian, under convergence models of changes in IE dialects (and then languages), where sound and grammar changes happen relatively late and in situ, any southern IE dispersal associated with Haji Firuz BA may have spoken a dialect which was still not very diverged from any dispersal through Central Asia. There may have then been a merger of these dialects when they met in Turan. That would help explain to me why there are sound and grammar changes which connect Armenian-Greek-Indo Iranian as well as ones that connect Baltic-Slavic-Indo Iranian. It's not necessarily the case that there are these all or nothing single dispersals connected to each later attested variety of Indo-European languages. But this is kind of speculative on my part.
I vaguely remember reading about potential cheek pieces being found amongst the Afasanievo, I don't think it is far fetched to assume they brought domesticated horses with them considering their origin, but they do not seemed to be very horse centric in their culture. Is there any evidence for the horses of the Okunev to have beem domesticated?
Interaction model of steppe - Turan would make sense for indo -Iranian
@ D and re "The horse remains at Balyktyul are probably from wild Przewalski's horses that were hunted."
Just a sidenote but Origin of Finnhorse-project members have been able to identify some DNA from Przewalski horses in Finnhorse. Tthe amounts are apparently not large, but still there.
vAsiSTha
„the vedic culture always had more veneration for the cow than the horse, same is the case today”
vAsiSTha, maybe you can help me as I have some questions related to Vedic culture.
Some time ago we had discussions at this blog about Slavic and Vedic similarities in religion. You may remember it, as you also contributed to this blog at that time.
It was about RV. X.129:
3. Darkness existed, hidden by darkness, in the beginning. All this was a
signless ocean.
What existed as a thing coming into being, concealed by emptiness—that
One was born by the power of heat.
4. Then, in the beginning, from thought there evolved desire, which existed
as the primal semen.
Searching in their hearts through inspired thought, poets found the
connection of the existent in the nonexistent.
Original life came from fire lit in waters by love. Eros born from the ocean, golden embryo, golden egg in the ocean
Fire ritualistically lit on waters represents love and life and in Slavic and Baltic folklore young girls ready for love and marriage carry this ritual during pagan fertility rite later accepted into the Christian calendar.
https://s17.postimg.cc/5aakqdea7/kupala-e1340276920732.jpg
https://s17.postimg.cc/i33a3rs1r/image.jpg
It was interpretatio Slavica of this myth.
Then user Sanuj joined the discussion and wrote:
“Also, just as you narrated the floating of fire on water, that still continues in India, along with the same old Vedic mantras,
https://s7.postimg.cc/ifvpn77ln/IMG_3717.jpg “
I would be very grateful if you could give me some information regarding this rite in India. What is the name of it, how and when it is celebrated etc. Where could I find more information about it?
Festival with the floating of fire on water is also celebrated by Romani people, who as is well known, came from India. Here is the interesting clip from the movie showing this rite of Romani people in Serbia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZf00ad3G6o
"Ederlezi" is a popular traditional folk song of the Romani minority in the Serbian. The song got its name from Ederlezi which is a Spring festival, celebrating the return of springtime, celebrated especially by Romani people in the Balkans. Ederlezi is the Romani name for the Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbian Feast of Saint George. It is celebrated on 6 May [O.S. 23 April] (occurring approximately 40 days after the spring.
What interests me the most is whether you can see some Indian elements in the rite shown in this clip, or is it only assimilated Slavic pagan rite. Romani people are Christians, and it is strange that they assimilated pagan Slavic elements into their tradition.
It also mixes certain things. Notice that Romani people use eggs which in Slavic tradition is used during Easter (egg symbolizes the sun and love, and breaking egg’s shell symbolizes the rebirth of sun and love in spring after death in winter). Egg symbolism is popular in Iran, do use have such symbolic use of eggs in India?
@eastpole
use of egg, alcohol, meat for any religious rite is forbidden as per the most ancient smritis (codified laws). However, ritual sacrifice of animals is allowed accompanied by the exact correct procedures laid out in the shruti ( Vedas, brahmanas, etc). as that is not considered an injury to animals, and the animal reaches the Gods. But over time, this has mostly been replaced by sacrifice of figures made from grains etc into fire altars. Only the shakta (tantric) sects still mainly do animal sacrifice, and also use alcohol in offerings. Vaishnavas will never do this.
As far as floating of lamps on river is concerned, it is done to worship the holy rivers. especially Ganga. After the worship, flowers and lamps on leaves are offered to the river.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAfl-bLFoow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrGqVBSDYkc
The biggest festival when lamps are floated on rivers is at the end of karthika month, on day of Karthika full moon. This has more to do with the lamps than rivers, as lamps are lit everyhere.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Vijayawada/floating-lights-in-river-krishna/article7986800.ece/photo/1/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kartik_Purnima
The spread of Sintashta horse or Afanasievo horse?
Finnhorse,Mongolian horse,Dzungarian horse
"Przewalski's horse (pronounced /(p)ʃəˈvɑːlskiz/[2] or /preɪəˈvælskiz/;[3] Polish: [pʂɛˈvalskʲi]), Equus przewalskii or Equus ferus przewalskii,[4] also called the Mongolian wild horse or Dzungarian horse,"
"They can interbreed with the domestic horse and produce fertile offspring (65 chromosomes).[10]"
Genetic relationship between Mongolian and Norwegian horses?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10905411_Genetic_relationship_between_Mongolian_and_Norwegian_horses
There was no Afanasievo horse you clown.
You may be right.
That's why it is important to test and compare Pit grave-Catacombe horses with Sintashta burials. I can't see how anyone would be against that.
Also when looking at the spread of Yersinia pestis and it's steppe phylogeny R1a Baltic Corded Ware is between Afanasievo- Vucedol phylogeny, + Polish R1b-Corded Ware is similar to 1]Afanasievo, 2] Pit grave.
A is going crazy with his Z2103 fanhood. Its the least successful IE lineage by the way so not sure what he's bragging about.
Anyways maybe I missed this but what R1a lineages did NW Russian, Estonian and Finnish Corded Ware and is it possible to tell what language they spoke(or at least if it was satem or centum or if it was more related to Germanic or Balto-Slavic).
I don't know if Shaikorth, Ebizur, Chad Rohlfsen still read this blog but I was curious what your guys opinion on y K2 and P being East or West Eurasian is? I know some people (think I saw a good summary on Anthrogenica and eupedia) believe the archeology supports the origin of y IJK in Iran and K migrating through Central Asia.
These guys nailed it, but I would go further to say that it is instead more evidence suggesting organized warfare with mounted units ("Riders of Rohan") in which large numbers of warriors are together (but there is a need to keep an unmixed company)
In other words, instead of one warrior on a horse, there are three hundred warriors on horses - that is why they are all stallions and geldings (because the presence of one mare would turn everything into a shitfest)
This transition is almost exactly at this time...
https://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2017/12/hell-on-horseback-unetice-armies-harald.html
So what happened to the horses and cattle found in the Chermuchek Culture ? If I remember correctly the Cattle DNA were already tested....
@bellbeakerblogger,
Thanks for showing me something this paper is actually useful for. The high usage of stallions in Sintashta/Andronovo is evidence they had cavalries and generally used lots of horses for armies.
But overall, I'd say this paper is terrible. I mean, what is the gender of horses in ancient history supposed to tell us? I mean, We already knew Sintashta/Andronovo were the first society to have horse-focused military. The preference for stallions starting in 2000 BC isn't a revelation.
And the thing is, this paper didn't give that obvious, historically significant explanation for the preference for stallions starting in 2000 BC. Instead, of saying Stallion preference is evidence of horse focused military starting in 2000 BC, they argue stallions were favored because of sexism in human society.
Hopefully, they get criticized heavily by their peers in academia. In my opinon this paper is a huge mistake. Because, they made this paper about their personal interests in sexism/gender, instead of on much more relevant historical topics (emergence of horses in warfare).
Dave: "the early Indo-European culture was probably the first horse worshiping culture, and there was nothing like it south of the steppe at the time or earlier.
For "south of the Steppe", see a/o here
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292243410_Terracotta_Equid_Figurines_from_Tell_Arbid_New_Evidence_on_Equids_their_Equipment_and_Exploitation_in_North_Mesopotamia_During_Third_and_first_half_of_second_millennium_BC
While this is about the 3rd mBC, I remember other publications I am unable to retrieve at the moment that describe 4th mBC equid figurines from (probably Hurrian-speaking) 4th mBC N. Mesopotamia - possibly not yet domesticated horses, but rather onagers worshipped for not being tameable.
How do the late 4th mBC Salzmünde and Bernburg Cultures horse burials (in both cases domesticated) fit into your narrative? Accidental burials, no "worshipping" element intended? Or do you want to imply that Salzmünde/ Bernburg were among "early Indo-European cultures" (they certainly had wheeled vehicles..)?
Along this line: Matt, note that "the wheel evidence, which seems rock solid for core IE" points to TRB as core IE culture. The issue, however, is that wheels were known and used long before they were placed under vehicles. We a/o have
- Pottery wheels attested from Mesopotamia by 4,500 BC at latest;
- Spinning wheels (spindles) attested already with EEFs; and
- Wheel drills, as early technological application of the flywheel principle being indispensible for any production of shaft-hole axes, with the latter being a/o well attested from LBK, but probably appearing much earlier already in E. Anatolia/N. Mesopotamia.
So, the whole "wheel terminology" argument ultimately is of equaly validity as saying that steel mills - obviously a British innovation, and a term coined there - imply that grain milling was invented by Anglo-Saxons.
@Frank
I wouldn't call any of the cultures you mentioned horse worshipping or equestrian cultures, like Sintashta, the Scythians, Celts, etc.
Come on, let's be serious, there's no evidence for warrior horse burials outside of the steppe until the Indo-Europeans really get going.
@Davidski,
Is there any evidence Corded Ware, Bell Beaker had lots of horses? As far as I know they had basically none. Yet they were the main spreaders of IE in europe. Which contrdicts premis beyond David Anthony's 2007 book "Horse, Wheels, Language."
Horses, chariots were introduced to most of Europe in Bronze age. I'm not convinced it was a major part of Indo European culture originally.
The first real horse focused culture were Proto-Indo Iranians Sintashta/Andronovo. But, very soon their innovations spread to Middle East even though there was no massive migration of Indo Europeans into Middle East.
I think the theory is Aryans in Mittani state introduced Chariots to Middle East. Then Hittites used it, then Egypt learned it from Hittites. I'm not sure if that is right.
But, anyways, the fact you see tons of chariots in Egyptian paintings by 1200 BC means horse military stuff may have been invented by Indo Europeans (Indo Iranains) but was adopted by societies without major Indo European influence.
Dave: "I wouldn't call any of the cultures you mentioned horse worshipping or equestrian cultures, like Sintashta, the Scythians, Celts, etc."
O.k., I am now getting what you mean. We certainly can add the Veneti (famous for their horse-breeding and horseracing), Saxon burials, the Pomeranian Face-urn culture as potential link, plus probably a number more examples to your list. But that wasn't "early Indo-European culture" anymore, but already represents quite developed and linguistically differentiated later stages.
"there's no evidence for warrior horse burials outside of the steppe until the Indo-Europeans really get going." Could well be, haven't studied it in detail.
However, those burials still seem to be absent from the Pri-Caspian Culture, Sredny Stog II, CWC or whatever else one might want to call "early Indo-European culture". Moreover, I am not aware of any way how such cult might be linked to Tocharians.
The important messages of the paper at hand - and here I differ fundamentally from Sam's assessment of its value - are that
(i) we are talking of a cultural phenomenon that appeared during the EBA (not earlier!)
(ii) over a wide geographical scale extending across much of Eurasia (implying an equally extended sphere of cultural communication, which in all likelyhood also means linguistic communication, i.e. the ability to at least understand IE); and
(iii) may be linked to a more general pattern of gender differentiation - a pattern first becoming apparent outside the Steppe with gender-differentiated CWC/BB burial rites (Furholt's Single Grave Burial Ritus).
@Davidski.
The conclusion I am coming to is
>The horse obsession in Celts and Scythians doesn't have anything to do with both being Indo European speakers.
>Cultures without major Indo European influence were also horse obsessed (Egyptians). They learned how to utalize Horse for military ultimatly from Indo Europeans. But they never became heavily influenced by IEs.
I understand Sredny Stog and early Balkan IEs have lots of examples of domesticated horse. But, is there any evidence they did horse back riding at a large scale for war? It seems the first true utalization of horses for military happened in Indo Iranians then spread around the world due to them and not always because of migrations.
@Samuel
Is there any evidence Corded Ware, Bell Beaker had lots of horses? As far as I know they had basically none. Yet they were the main spreaders of IE in europe.
This is a critical issue that has to be investigated, because horses are very important in Indo-European religion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_twins
There is actually some evidence of horses in the Yamnaya, Catacomb, Corded Ware, and Bell Beaker cultures. But yeah, the horse cult really takes off during the late Bronze Age in Eastern Europe.
So one possibility is that the horse cult was a late development that spread along with chariot technology, especially via already established Indo-European networks.
Another one is that the spread of late Indo-European languages was later than we generally think, and that the Corded Ware/Bell Beaker languages weren't ancestral to any modern languages.
Sam: "Is there any evidence Corded Ware, Bell Beaker had lots of horses?"
The Vienna-Rennweg BB assemblage yielded predominantly horse bones (82.3%) and is interpreted to represent a settlement that had specialised on horse-breeding.
Important here is that we are not talking about some random rural outpost. Vienna's Rennweg marks the ancient Roman army route along the Danube from Augsburg to Budapest and beyond, and the BB settlement is 2km from the City centre, within the limits of the Roman Vicus (civilian settlement) [possibly a reason why they excavated there at all - they expected Roman era finds, but to their surprise stumbled upon BBthe ridiculous quantities of horse remains" on Budapest's Csepel Island as reported by BBB as per a's post above. The preliminary excavation report below (in German) draws the same parallel.
https://stadtarchaeologie.at/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/FWien_13-2010_Penz_Rennweg16.pdf
CONCLUSIONS
The direct dating of horse finds from putative Early
and Middle Holocene contexts is essential for
accurately establishing the biogeographical range of
the wild horse, and the chronology of the domestication and diffusion of domestic horses (Bendrey 2012).
The direct dates for the Newgrange horses presented
here shed important new light on the introduction
of domestic horses to Ireland and to north-west
Europe more generally. The new dates undermine the
argument for the introduction of horses to Ireland as
part of a ‘Beaker package’, with the earliest strong
evidence for horses now dated to the Late Bronze Age.
However, the early use of horse is not well defined
archaeologically or chronologically, in part due to the
general rarity of the domestic horse in the earliest
period of its use, and it seems likely that the horse was
present in Ireland before the Late Bronze Age, as it is
in Britain. Further work is needed before we will be
able to understand more fully the early diffusion and
use of domestic horses in Ireland and Britain, as is
also the case for the archaeological record elsewhere
in Europe.
Horses didn't arrive with Beaker, just like metal working and bronze, came centuries after.
IF Sredny Stog had domesticated horses, if Eneolithic Balkan IEs had domesticated horses, then I'm pretty sure all IEs had domesticated horses.
Davidski has talked about recent Y chromsome ancestor shared between all modern domestictaed horses. Maybe this comes from Sintashta horses? Horse DNA is the thing to check to understand if all IEs had horses.
The divine twin myth is fascinating.
@Romulus,
Well apparently FrankN shows Bell Beaker in Hungary did have horses.
Pretty interesting articel , Frank
more detail :
''An economic specialization is likely to have developed in the Hungarian Glockenbecher-Csepel group: here, the dominance of horses (up to 65% of all animal bones), which is concentrated mainly around Budapest along the Danube, was ascertained otherwise only to be found among equestrian nomads in more distant steppe areas of Eastern Europe, which suggests horse breeding or horse keeping and trading.28 Now, compared to the sites in Vienna, there is not only the parallel with the spatial reference to the important east-west traffic artery Danube Noteworthy, but also the similarly high number of horses found here (Csokorgasse 47.89%, Rennweg 82.3%; see also contribution S. Czeika, 32 ff.). Although the archaeozoological data cannot be easily parallelized in detail, this commonality may be explained by similar, reasonably favorable landscape conditions for keeping horses. In our case, these would be the riparian forests along the Danube lowlands and the subsequent extensive Vienna Basin north and south of the Danube, which could be considered a flat, tree-poor grass landscape. In addition, it seems very tempting to see the end-Neolithic copper blade from Vienna-Eßling (see Appendix 3), which represents the westernmost representative of a Pontic-Caucasian type, 30 in the context just outlined, after all, that region is generally regarded as one of the places of origin for Horse domestication.''
One horse burial is known from the Polish CWC - from Miernów.
@a
Finnhorse is not synonymous with Mongolian/Dzungarian horse at all.
Samuel Andrews said...
"The high usage of stallions in Sintashta/Andronovo is evidence they had cavalries and generally used lots of horses for armies. ..."
What nonsense, stallions and war are not connected in any way, as well as stallions and sexism are not connected. The army doesn't care what sex a horse is. It's much simpler, it's horses of the one sex that got caught in the chariot, there's always been a pair. And since the mares always had stallions that were taken care of, it was the stallions that remained free for sledding/chariots.
Do not forget that these are harnessed animals in pairs, and not as riding or army, there was no army.
@FrankN
"
While this is about the 3rd mBC, I remember other publications I am unable to retrieve at the moment that describe 4th mBC equid figurines from (probably Hurrian-speaking) 4th mBC N. Mesopotamia - possibly not yet domesticated horses, but rather onagers worshipped for not being tameable."
1. The wheel and the potter's circles, and something spinning in general, have nothing to do with each other. So there's absolutely no connection, there's no such thing as an idea that there might be a wheel in the pottery wheel. Here is an example of Sintashta, she perfectly knew a wheel, moreover invented a wheel of modern type, but absolutely did not know a pottery circle (and all other cultures).
2. The wheel is only and exclusively in the cart and nowhere else. The pottery circle is not a wheel and has nothing to do with the wheel.
3. Where did you get that Potter's Circle, certified from Mesopotamia by 4500 BC at the latest? There's no such thing there, except that there were turntables when a man instead of running around the table started turning the table itself. It's not even the idea of a wheel.
@FrankN, this is the argument that has also been applied to rollers, etc. "Wheel" words referred to some other thing and were repurposed. This is the "massive homoplasy and semantic shift" argument. I've considered it in the past.
But I'm not sure anyone really believes that peoples over a large span of space, dispersing much earlier, would systematically retain or innovate a shared term from some earlier rotating thing, which they would then systematically use for wagon and cart wheels? Not really they don't.
This isn't about which culture invented the thing, but whether it's likely that a culture speaking a proto-language knew a thing, so the analogy you mention slightly confuses matters. The mention of TRB also seems to confuse a bit of a strawman idea ("Speakers of LPIE must have been the culture that has first evidence of wheel and invented it!") with the real argument (must have known its use in wheeled transport).
I0805/QLB26
Feature 19614. This 35-45 year-old individual is osteologically and genetically male. The body was buried in NO-SW orientation with the head in the north facing east. Grave goods are scarce and include three silex arrowheads, a few potsherds, and animal bones. A notable observation from the physical anthropological examination is traits at the acetabulum and the femur head suggesting that the individual frequently rode horses.
From Mathieson et al 2015
https://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2016/06/early-horses-in-czech-republic-kysely.html
They analyze a large set of post cranial bones beginning with the Magdalenian and look at successive periods to the Unetice then calculate the deltas in adult horses for various periods. They conclude that within the Lengyel period there is the beginning of unnatural variance and a larger-than-to-be-expected population, suggesting human involvement.
...
I'll close with several factoids. The Bell Beaker and Corded Ware horse remains are rather thin for this area, but they examine surrounding areas and conclude that the Hungarian Beaker horses were generally large (suggesting a horse with Eastern roots for this group), however with a great degree of variability, and possibly co-existing with more than one type of horse in the Carpathian Basin.
To me it looks like metal-rich Carpathian Basin cultures were importing horses from Yamnaya, then later they were exported into Western Europe from Unetice, along with Bronze technology.
OFF TOPIC
The evolution of skin pigmentation associated variation in West Eurasia View
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.08.085274v1
Dan Ju, Iain Mathieson
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.08.085274
From the Abstract:
"Here, we address this question using ancient DNA from 1158 individuals from West Eurasia covering a period of 40,000 years combined with genome-wide association summary statistics from the UK Biobank."
"Our data allow us to disentangle the effects of admixture and selection. Most notably, a large-effect variant at SLC24A5 was introduced to Europe by migrations of Neolithic farming populations but continued to be under selection post-admixture. This study shows that the response to selection for light skin pigmentation in West Eurasia was driven by a relatively small proportion of the variants that are associated with present-day phenotypic variation."
Hi,
Comparative genetic analysis of subfossil wild horses
(from the Neolithic Age and Early Bronze Age)
and present-day domestic horses from Bulgaria 9 March 2018 Gyulnas Dzhebir, et al
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Spassov_Nikolay/publication/323666264_Comparative_genetic_analysis_of_subfossil_wild_horses_from_the_Neolithic_Age_and_Early_Bronze_Age_and_present-day_domestic_horses_from_Bulgaria/links/5aa2df42a6fdccd544b7573d/Comparative-genetic-analysis-of-subfossil-wild-horses-from-the-Neolithic-Age-and-Early-Bronze-Age-and-present-day-domestic-horses-from-Bulgaria.pdf
From the Conclusion:
The results show the presence of the Q (in Equus germanicus from the Early Neolithic of NW Bulgaria) and G (G1) (in E. ferus from the E. Neolithic and the E. Bronze Age of Bulgaria) haplogroups. Both G and Q haplogroups have so far been spread with high frequency in the Middle Asian horse domestic breeds. This preliminary result gives ground to support
the statement of the survival of two different Late Pleistocene wild horses in the Holocene of Eastern Europe and with this to support the polyphylethic hypothesis for the origin of the domestic horse in the western part of the Eurasian steppes.
@vAsiSTha
“As far as floating of lamps on river is concerned, it is done to worship the holy rivers. especially Ganga. After the worship, flowers and lamps on leaves are offered to the river.
…
The biggest festival when lamps are floated on rivers is at the end of karthika month, on day of Karthika full moon. This has more to do with the lamps than rivers, as lamps are lit everyhere.”
Thank you very much vAsiSTha.
So this custom doesn’t seem to be directly related to RV. X.129, Hiranyagarbha, golden embryo, golden egg in the ocean, Eros born from the ocean and the myth that original life came from fire lit in waters (i.e. soul) by love as Sanuj suggested.
Are holy rivers, waters (metaphorically linked with soul) and fire (metaphorically linked with love) celebrated in other Hindu rites by floating of lamps on waters?
@Archi
On my google alert I found an article about Pushkin and mythology:
“MOTIFS OF WORLD MYTHOLOGY IN THE WORKS OF AS PUSHKIN
LN Yurovitskaya, SA Zagritsenko - Russian linguistic Bulletin, 2020
… will become the place of his life A similar story can be found in Hinduism
where the first man Hiranyagarbha is understood as a “Golden germ” that initially floated in the cosmic waters and subsequently gave rise …”
https://www.elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=42687891
Unfortunately I don’t have access to this article. It would be interesting to know what Russian Romantic poets in XIX century knew about it, as we have here some elements of IE myth present in Slavic, Indian and Greek traditions.
In Poland in XIX century Romantic poets were convinced that Slavs came from India and Slavic mythology should be interpreted with help of Vedic mythology. They also believed that Slavs passed that religion that they got from India to Greece, so Orphic and Pythagorean believes should be interpreted with the help of Slavic myths.
O/T - mtdna from Bacho Kiro cave, Bulgaria, the earliest ‘Europeans”
~ 45,000 cal BP
MtDNA N, R, U
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2259-z
@Rob,
Yeah. The mTDNA is important. The 43,000 year old mtDNA is M, N, R. The 31,000 mtDNA is U8.
M/N/R come from dead end earliest settlement of Europe who arrived 45,000+ years ago. mtDNA U8 comes from "West Eurasians" who seem to have arrived in Europe shortly after 40,000 years ago.
@Samuel Andrews
Of course Bell Beaker men knew horses. R-U152+ Bell Beaker sample I6581 (2455–2145 calBC) from Kornice, Poland had this:
"Other traits identified on lower limb bones indicate that the individual most frequently assumed in sitting position, with his thighs and shanks in one/almost one plane. Poirier’s facet, often observed in horse riders, is evident."
@ Sam
''M/N/R come from dead end earliest settlement of Europe who arrived 45,000+ years ago. mtDNA U8 comes from "West Eurasians" who seem to have arrived in Europe shortly after 40,000 years ago.''
I don’t entirely agree with the pre / post-40,000 Bc dichotomy
I commented this example earlier but forgot to left out it was from a Bell Beaker burial in Germany:
I0805/QLB26
Feature 19614. This 35-45 year-old individual is osteologically and genetically male. The body was buried in NO-SW orientation with the head in the north facing east. Grave goods are scarce and include three silex arrowheads, a few potsherds, and animal bones. A notable observation from the physical anthropological examination is traits at the acetabulum and the femur head suggesting that the individual frequently rode horses.
From Mathieson et al 2015
Its common sense that domesticated horses were ridden. Whether they were ridden in battle and even if, how useful they were in the pre-chariot time, is up to debate. But the very idea that PIE when the full domestication set in didn't ride horses is blatantly absurd.
Many archaeologists are still cautious probably, but when asked for what's their best guess, what they think was done, the majority agrees on horseback riding being old. Actually using chariots without having any experience with horse riding is in itself a strange idea. The horses might have been simply not as easy to ride in battle for good manoeuvres and the tactis were still evolving, giving chariots a big advantage and even more so against people which had no experience with domesticated horses.
@Rob
The cave is 200 km east from Oase cave, where two samples, Oase 1 and Oase 2, were found that hardly have any relation to any other modern or paleolithic Eurasian population, but very much to each other.
Since we have to explain the disappearance of this ancestry we could assume - and yes, it is merely an assumption, but hey.. - Bacho Kiro was from the same population.
By the way, everybody seemed to have missed Oase 2. It was discussed in a doctoral thesis, has less Neanderthal than Oase 1, and is is high coverage sample.
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/284164
@eastpole
"Are holy rivers, waters (metaphorically linked with soul) and fire (metaphorically linked with love) celebrated in other Hindu rites by floating of lamps on waters?"
No. This is direct veneration of the holy rivers, water and Agni. Lamps are an adaptation of Agni. He is the 2nd most revered God of the RV after Indra. He is the purifier, oblation devourer, mouth of the Gods - one who has first fill of sacrifices offered to the Gods and through him the other Gods receive their fill of sacrifices. Agni is also the witness - eg marriages are consecrated with sacred fire as the witness. All daily prayers at home and temples happen with lamps lit of cow ghee - clarified butter. Brahmins are also mandated to keep an additional fire 24x7 (garhapatya fire) but some like me maintain it as a lamp rather than traditionally in a fire altar. then there are additional meanings like light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge (vidya) vs ignorance (avidya) etc.
"So this custom doesn’t seem to be directly related to RV. X.129, Hiranyagarbha, golden embryo, golden egg in the ocean, Eros born from the ocean and the myth that original life came from fire lit in waters (i.e. soul) by love as Sanuj suggested."
Don't think so, but only 98% sure.
There is no ritual to worship the attributeless/qualityless (nirguNa), formless(nirAkAra) supreme brahman - as that supreme entity is considered too daunting to even comprehend and there is no scope of a personal connection with the worshipper. Only highly evolved ascetics may do it.
The worship which comes close is worship of the shiva linga which is formless but with attributes of Shiva. Worshipping it is directly worshipping Shiva as well as the supreme brahman (but with atrributes/qualities). The linga denotes the cosmic pillar.
Apart from this, brahmins offer oblations to Prajaapati (who is the supreme deity connected to the hiranyagarbha sukta RV 10.121) in the sacred fire everyday, identified as Shiva by Shaivites, Vishnu by Vaishnavites, Brahma by some.
But apart from this, all form of worship (including what some call idol worship - with form as well as attributes) is ultimately worship of the supreme God as per Advaita philosophy.
@zardos
It is absolutely impossible that before the invention of chariots people rode horses. Riding before the chariots was not known. If riding were known, nobody needs to invent a wheel and a wagon, it's all very complicated and not technologically possible. It is much easier to ride than to invent a wheel, a moving axle, a cart, a shaft, to drive a pair of badly matched animals, especially such as horses, to invent the reins and a wheel with spokes. Once history has recorded the first riders, so immediately chariot disappears, the chariot is expensive and it is impractical, and horse riding is simple and practical, and much cheaper.
Where pack animal was known, there was never invented a wheel or carriage, because it is more practical to carry cargo on animals than on a cart.
It is strictly proved that harnessed animals appeared much earlier than riding animals, that wagons appeared earlier than riding.
From Sarianidi 2001. https://journal.fi/store/article/view/43986/11040
"Supporters of the steppe Andronovo origin of Indo-Aryans slightly exaggerate the role of the horse in the life of the Indo-Aryan tribes. C. Renfrew notes that in the Rgveda the Vedic hymns speak more of chariots with horses than of horsemen (Renfrew 1998).
The domesticated horse was known to the BMAC tribes as early as on the eve
of the second millennium BC. This was proved by the excavations in Bactria where bronze sceptre tops were found in the form of horse heads with carefully plaited mane (Sarianidi 1982, fig. 2). Also their cylinder seals bear horse images (Sarianidi 1998b, nos. 1441, 1442,1444, etc.). Though these finds were not accurately described, their attribution to the Bronze Age cannot not doubted. This statement is supported by the find of a tenacotta horse head on a figurine excavated in Altyn Tepe in the BMAC layer (Sarianidi 1973, fig. 16). The horse's mane is carefully cut, a detail that may speak in favour of a supposition that the statuette does not represent an ordinary working horse but rather a horse used for chariots during
official ceremonies. One can believe that at that time a horse was rather an exotic animal and belonged only to a small group of local elite.
A destroyed tomb near Sarazm (Turkmenistan) deserves our special attention because it can prove that the domesticated horse was known to the people of the BMAC. Among the ceramics typical of the BMAC there was a very impressive find: a pin with a sculptured horse figure and a pair of bronze psali (Bobomulloev 1997, Abb. 3). The tomb contained no objects of Andronovo culture. This, together with the general character of funeral offerings, including ceramics, leads to the conclusion that the tomb belonged to the BMAC. And, frnally, one should mention the burial of an about one-year-old foal that was found at the Gonur necropolis. The foal was headless and its skeleton was placed in the correct anatomical order. No funeral offerings were found but it is worth mentioning that the foal was placed on
its right side and north-oriented - just as the majority of human skeletons at the necropolis.
The image of a spoke-wheeled chariot on a cylinder seal from the grave of the Hissar IIIB of the BMAC (Schmidt 1937, ftg. 118) proved the fact that chariots were not foreign to the people of the BMAC. Additionally, the upper layer of the Namazga Tepe revealed terracotta models of one-axis chariots with spokes painted on their wheels."
Should be noted that Hissar IIIB is carbon dated to 2400-2170 cal bce.
The wheel was invented once, only once. His invention required very specific conditions, mankind did not need a wheel as such, it only needed for one very specific purpose - to drag the sled in the summer.
The wagon come into being from a sled harnessed by animals for individual transporting of a man, but not for cargo. Back in Mesolithic in Siberia, people harnessed dogs into sleds to move around, people in the north of Russia in Mesolithic did the same in the same way, skids and sleds were found there. There is even a version that people tamed dogs were to move sleds. In the north of Russia people have also experimented with other animals - harnessing moose, but rather for sports. In Russia and to the south, skates and ice-skates were often made of bone. In the steppe and forest-steppe, people in sleds began to harness bulls, models of such sleds are in Tripolye since the BII stage (https://i.ibb.co/qgc3g22/image.png). Scrapers used in the summer, but it was not practical, and here as a result of long sufferings to someone in the steppe came to mind how to facilitate the dragging of animals wagons (PIE *weg'h- to drag) - invented the wheel.
The wheel was invented for a reason, such as - let's invent the wheel! No. This was suffered from a desperate situation - how to carry sleds in the summer аnd in the absence of horse riding and pack animals.
The following conditions were necessary for his invention:
1. Acquaintance with the concept of sled animals - sled dogs - it was only in Siberia (island Zhokhov in Arctic 10000-9000BP) and northern Russia (the Veretye culture).
2. Acquaintance with sleds, skids, and scrapers and using it (ibid.).
3. having winters and snow.
4. Knowledge that you can harness other animals in a sled - it was only in northern Russia.
5. Needs to travel long distances. Already people on the island of Zhokhov traveled a 1,500 kilometers for the obsidian.
6. A desperate situation that it was necessary to move in a sled in the summer.
7. The use of skating rinks placed under the sledge to move in the spring on the high water, this was done in Russia.
This all resulted in a cult of burial with sled dogs, which is well known in the steppe. In Indo-European mythology it was reflected as a cult of divine twin dogs Yama and Yami associated with their dogs, two-faced Janus, two-headed dog Kerber known to the Greeks and Indo-Aryans. Later, a pair of sled horses became divine twins Ashwins, who became charioteers, one with the name Dasra "winter", the other with the name Kastūr(ikā) "musk-deer".
In PIE there are no words associated with horseback riding and the concept of a rider. Moreover, they were not even present in the Proto-Indo-Iranian language.
Slight offtopic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrn1_njdibo
Very interesting video about ancient DNA of dogs and wolves(there is one brief segment where he also talks about humans). I cannot find any paper or preprint with these data, so I guess it's based on an unpublished research.
Understand, it is for us the idea that an animal can carry a human being naturally, but not for ancient people. The someone idea that you can ride is crazy, it has never occurred to anyone in human history. In general, the very idea that you can use animals to transport people is crazy, it came to people only once, and it was in the north.
The idea of human transportation developed only in this way:
sled dogs harnessed in sleds >
wild elks harnessed in sleds and skis >
bulls/donkey/onagers/horses harnessed in sleds >
bulls harnessed in sleds on skating rinks >
the invention of a wheel and a cart harnessed by bulls(in the north, and invention of a plough with draught bulls/cows in the south) >
trying to harnessed donkeys/onagers/horses in the cart >
invention of a chariot of harnessed horses >
charioteer is transplanted onto donkeys/onagers/horses in the cart for better handling of the cart >
Eureka, it turns out that draught animals can be used as riding animals!
@ epoch
I’m pretty familiar with the geography and the claims of the stats.
As you know, I’m not generally impressed by sweeping & often simplistic conclusions based on possible over- or mid-intrepretations of stats by a small group of geneticists, which then just repeat what each other says
Bottom line- oase-1 might be an extinct individual, but doesn’t mean all “IUP” individuals disappeared. Nor is it that after 40000 (Auregnacians) somehow become very relevant all the sudden to later European populations. These are just meaningless conclusions they made from their set of at- 4 statistics or whatever
Just look at the table in this current paper -you will see that the pre-and post 40,000 individuals actually share the same range of hgs and phylogenetically kindred. Secondly, what do you think the so-called East Asian signal in Goyet Q116 comes from. Do you think that there was some migration from China to Western Europe which somehow bypassed Sungir & K14 in the middle?
Is there any chance, that Bell beaker & Corded Ware & Yamnaya did use horses at large scale but evidence for it was erased from archaeological record? Because, why is there is only a few examples of horse usage in Bell Beaker? And zero in Corded Ware?
If they ddin't do horse burials. If they didn't make chariots. Does that mean theere will be no trace of horse usage? What happens to horse bones if they are not buried properly?
@Rob,
mtDNA U is 50,000 years old. All 43,000-45,000 year old mtDNA in Europe is not U. They come from Bulgaria, Romania, Italy. But 85%+ of mtDNA in Europe younger than 40,000 years is mTDNA U. We can say these early samples from Bulgaria/Romania/Italy are not maternal ancestors of Europeans after 40,000 years.
This doesn't at all exclude the possibility the ancestors of Augrican lived in other parts of Europe 45,000 years ago. But, it's really unlikely current samples from before 40,000 years are the ancestors of samples from after 40,000 years.
@ Sam
''85%+ of mtDNA in Europe younger than 40,000 years is mTDNA U. We can say these early samples from Bulgaria/Romania/Italy are not maternal ancestors of Europeans after 40,000 years.
This doesn't at all exclude the possibility the ancestors of Augrican lived in other parts of Europe 45,000 years ago. But, it's really unlikely current samples from before 40,000 years are the ancestors of samples from after 40,000 years.''
There is no evidence for such a statement.
Have you even read the paper ?
mtDNA M in B.C is present in Aurignacians and Rigney Gravettian
The mtDNA U in B.C might or might not be ancestral to later U.
Claiming it is 'unlikely' isnt exactly an empirical approach
@Rob,
Some mTDNA samples from Europe dating after 40,000 years belong to M. But, the majority of them belong to mHG U. And so far all samples dating before 40,000 years are not U.
Yeah and many of those also became extinct also due to Ice Age, Yunger--Dryas etc
When combined with the persistence of hg M, pinning it all down to a pre and post-40000 dichotomy is simplistic.
QED
@ Archi
"The someone idea that you can ride is crazy, it has never occurred to anyone in human history. In general, the very idea that you can use animals to transport people is crazy, it came to people only once, and it was in the north."
What about the Rock Paintings of women riding oxen found in the Middle of the Sahara ? Cattle were most probably ridden first because oxen can be very calm animals to work with....
How do you even manage a herd of horses effectively without riding one? I am inclined to side with David W. Anthony on that point, and I believe that horse domestication (and riding) predates the wheel and wagon.
from http://new-indology.blogspot.com/2014/10/can-we-finally-identify-real-cradle-of.html
reference links in the blogpost above
"Ivanova writes that horse bones have been found at Tepe Zaghe near the Alborz in a level of the 6th mill. BC, then in Ghabristan in the same area in the 4th mill., at Tall-i-Iblis in South-central Iran remains of horses belong to 3500 and 3000 BC (here dated also 4400-4100), and in Godin Tepe IV in the central Zagros to 2900-2400 BC (see here). Also Mundigak in Afghanistan has given ancient traces of domesticated horses in Neolithic levels (see here), and Tepe Siyalk around 5000 BC (see here). And probably many cases of alleged Equus hemionus (onager) are in reality horses, because in Iran there is a special breed, discovered only in 1965 in the Caspian region, which can be confounded with the onager for the slenderness of the metapodials, as observed by Bokonyi. After his study of Caspian horses, he could identify also bones of equids from Neolithic Anau in Turkmenistan (4000 BC) as horses and not onagers. So, also the remarks of this 1974 study of the fauna of the Zarzian Palegawra cave must be reconsidered, suggesting that some of the alleged onagers were actually horses. Moreover, in a recent excavation in Mazandaran at Gohar Tappeh, remains of the Caspian horse were found in a cemetery dated 3400 BC. All these dates do not match with the mythical arrival of the steppe horsemen in the 2nd mill. BC, but reveal a presence of particular breeds of horses already in Neolithic times in Iran and South Central Asia."
@vAsiSTha
Wishful thinking.
And New Indology is crap. Nothing that this guy predicted worked out.
Samuel:
"Because, why is there is only a few examples of horse usage in Bell Beaker? And zero in Corded Ware?"
As I wrote above:
One horse burial is known from the Polish CWC - from Miernów.
@Rob
I didn't phrase it well. I should have added that the area took a hit from the Campanian Eruption, which is a pretty good explanation that the ancestry of Oase 1 and 2 disappeared. Considering that Bacho Kiro is so close and seeing some mtDNA similarities I consider the possibilty that they are part of the same ancestry.
By the way, the Oase 2 paper stated that Muierii had some special relationship with Oase 1, but not with Oase 2. That looks like some geneflow between the populations.
I don't think there was a total replacement of all Europeans. Complete HG replacement is very rare, likely requiring catastrophic. There is evidence though that de Campanian Eruption ended Uluzzian presence in Greece and immediately was followed by Aurignacian presence, found on top of the tephra layers.
So I make the suggestion - and it's meant to be nothing more than a suggestion - that this ancestry might be connected.
@Archi: "Where pack animal was known, there was never invented a wheel or carriage, because it is more practical to carry cargo on animals than on a cart. "
Think about that twice and consider the efficiency of drawn vehicles vs. single, small horses which might be rather weak and not very obedient, hard to train. To fight from such horses, without saddlery and in a heated battle might have been not recommended. Horse riding was in its beginning, so was horse breeding.
Remind you, a lot of cavalry fighting, through the ages, was about riding to battle and dismounting there, just to fight on foot, and if necessary, fleeing faster with the horses again.
The chariot was more effective in comparison for a real cavalry tactic, which was not there before. And wagons were highly effective and efficient for transport, obviously. The Indo-Europeans put their whole families and goods on their oxen-drawn wagons, even later steppe people did it.
So the wagon was there with or before the horse, to begin with. And while they were ridden early, they were not actually used IN BATTLE but FOR BATTLE, to get there faster, by riding on the horseback and if the horse is tired just holding to horse and being pulled, like it was recorded for Germanics even in Caesars times.
The charioteers were the first to actually, and quite effectively, use chariots as mass and shock cavalry, still dismounting very often, but really fighting by shocking and attacking with their team of horses and the chariot.
The widespread domestication and the signs on the bones of the frequent riders prove that horseback riding was widespread. Just because chariots were more effective in early cavalry war, what they were, doesn't mean horses were not ridden at all.
@@vAsiSTha
That's where the onagers are, there's nothing wishful thinking. Nonsense about horses in the south has been shouting for a long time, recently shouted about the fact that a horse was domesticated in Arabia 10 thousand years ago, shouted and not a single scientific work was released. As all this pure deception turned out, alas, such deceptions remain in the literature and are referred to by mistake.
Modern research, clearly refutes the ancient mistakes, especially in the erroneous dating of the eye.
Romulus: "To me it looks like metal-rich Carpathian Basin cultures were importing horses from Yamnaya, then later they were exported into Western Europe from Unetice"
Not really:
1. Salzmünde and Bernburg horses in all likelyhood pre-dated Yamnaya. Moreover, IIRC, the Bernburg horse was of the Przewalsk (Botai) type. Their route is still enigmatic, as their riders / drivers apparently didn't leave a discernable genetic imprint, but most likely went north of the Carpathians, not through the Carpathian Basin.
2. Western Europe had its own domestication in Iberia, as such not relying on Yamnaya (or Botai). It apparently exported horses to Central Europe, as evidenced by the 12% Iberian component in the Budapest-Csepel sample (late BB, ca. 2,100 BC)
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(19)30384-8
3. Intriguing are MN horse finds from SW German pile dwellings - an area neither considered as ideal habitat for wild horses, nor having supplied significant numbers of equid bones from EN/early MN assemblages (as have neither NE Switzerland nor Alsace). In two Federsee/ Upper Swabian sites dendro-dated to ca. 3.700 BC [1], horse bones suddenly pop up in sizeable shares: Above 4% in Oedenahlen (with indication of selective culling), and even over 20% in Reute-Schorrenried [2]. Both sites are assigned to heavily Michelsberg-influenced Pfyn-Altheim - but note that most Pfyn-Altheim sites have very little, if at all, indication of the presence of horses. Somewhat later, at Dullenried / Federsee, AMS-dated (on horse bones, no reservoir effect!) to ca. 3.250 BC, horses account for slightly over 50% of the archeofaunal assemblage [1].
K. Steppan [1] is quite a diplomat in interpreting these findings, pointing towards
(a) available biometric data being unable to clearly discern between wild and domesticated horses at the a/m sites (while nevertheless clearly ruling out any Steppe connection - Steppe horses were significantly larger);
(b) calling for (horse) aDNA analyses for ultimate clarification; and
(c) in his conclusion pointing towards SW Germany (plus Switzerland) having served as interface between Danubian and SW European influences during the Neolithic in various respects, including pottery and cultivated plants.
My respective reading is: Domesticated horses reached SW Germany around 3,700 BC from Iberia, in all likelyhood through Michelsberg mediation.
[1] https://www.janus-im-netz.de/file/hs5/HS_5-Steppan.pdf
[2] https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/anb/article/view/50751
4. CWC appears to have hardly played a role in spreading domesticated horses across CE. As per Hecht 2007, p.227 ff, CWC marks the entrance of some embryotic horse-breeding at the Zurich lake area. Preceding Baden-influenced Horgen still lacked any evidence of domesticated horses. However, rather than looking towards the Steppe, a plausible source lies much closer, on the late MN Federsee.
http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/7313/1/Hecht_Schnurkeramisches_Siedlungswesen.pdf
For Middle Elbe - Saale, the archeological record rather points towards less than more early LN presence of domesticated horses than during the late MN (Bernburg/GAC). Moreover, early LN evidence for domesticated horses primarily stems from Schönfeld (post-GAC) sites (Völpke, Polkern).
http://www.gapa-kn.de/GAPA_Band2_PDFs/11.pdf
5. Domesticated horses seem to become ubiquituous with BB. In addition to examples given above by various commentators, let me (non-exhaustively) point towards the Gaunitz e.a. 2018 horse aDNA samples from Arctiparc (NE France) and Haunstetten (Lech Valley), and BB horse burials from Oberstimm and Zuchering (Upper Bavaria), and Vyškov (Moravia).
6. Unetice looks hardly relevant in this respect - timewise too late, geographically too restricted. Might have been one (of posssibly many) enforcers, but apparently neither the prime source nor the prime agent.
@Ric Hern
Undated images are about nothing at all.
Copper Axe said...
"How do you even manage a herd of horses effectively without riding one? I am inclined to side with David W. Anthony"
Who told you it had to be managed? Anthony's wrong.
The very idea of transporting/riding animals is extraordinary, it couldn't have occurred to anyone at all. It's so unnatural. The very idea of domestication of animals came from pet dogs. And the idea of driving animals came from sled dogs.
@davidsji
"Wishful thinking.
And New Indology is crap. Nothing that this guy predicted worked out."
This is not the guy's prediction. Its a compilation of archaeologists and zoologists who have dug up horse remains in the region and the links to books and papers are given in the blog post.
The paper you quoted in this post itself has horse remains from Iran from 5th mill bce.
@zardos
I repeat to you, there are no traces of horseback riding in ancient times prior to the appearance of chariots. Not at all. Anthropologists do not find at people changes connected with riding till times of late Bronze Age, but connected with charioting find. Biologists do not find in horses changes associated with riding, as riding requires a large selection of horses on the device of hooves and back.
About horse fight is nonsense, from fantasy books about Conan. To invent a saddle business instantly and uncomplicated, it is simply a piece of skin put on a horse's back, this object is much simpler of any detail of a cart, in thousand times simpler and more natural than a wheel.
There was no cavalry until the Iron Age, there was no cavalry at all, and this is strictly proven beyond any scientific doubt. The rest is just your fantasy book fantasies that have nothing to do with history. Chariots have never been more effective than the cavalry, unscientific to make up, as soon as the cavalry appeared so chariot instantly abandoned everywhere, because this is a bad weapon. Moreover, the chariot was abandoned even before the cavalry appeared, because it is a really bad weapon. The horse can go everywhere, and the wagon only in limited places.
You apply the logic that cars appeared before the carriages, because the horse is unnatural, but the internal combustion engine is easier, that's how they will count in a thousand years. You have the logic of a modern man who carries his conclusions to antiquity, a typical mistake of a beginner.
Once again proved by strict science - there was no riding, it is strictly proved by science, draught animals appeared much earlier than riding, riding animals appeared only in the late Bronze Age, it is strictly proved by science.
@FrankN
It is not necessary to write the words domestic horse in Neolithic, when there was a wild horse used for meat, there were populations of hunters for wild horses, in fact, all mankind hunted horses exterminating them everywhere. So to think that the hunters of horses were hunting domesticated horses?
@vaThara
"The paper you quoted in this post itself has horse remains from Iran from 5th mill bce."
This is not true.
About the fact that the BBC has more remains of horses and the CWC has few. It's likely because the BBC used arrows to hunt and the CWC used battle axes. Obviously, axes are close combat weapons and long-range arrows. Obviously, with an axe, you can't hunt horses, but with arrows very successfully. Therefore, the CWC could not consider a horse as meat products, and the BBC could consider a horse as meat prey. Obviously, a driving (riding) horse is not a meat product, i.e. to tame a horse it is necessary to lose the connection between horse and pray/meat production in society.
@archi you are a retard
TepeHasanlu_2689 Iron Age 2350–2220 2285 female horse Tepe Hasanlu Iran Fages et al. 2019
TepeHasanlu_2529 Iron Age 2350–2220 2285 female horse Tepe Hasanlu Iran Fages et al. 2019
TepeHasanlu_3398 Iron Age 2350–2220 2285 female horse Tepe Hasanlu Iran Fages et al. 2019
TepeHasanlu_2327 Iron Age 2350–2220 2285 male horse Tepe Hasanlu Iran Fages et al. 2019
TepeHasanlu_1140 Iron Age 2615 2615 female horse Tepe Hasanlu Iran Fages et al. 2019
TepeHasanlu_368 Iron Age 2829 2829 male horse Tepe Hasanlu Iran Fages et al. 2019
TepeHasanlu_2405 Iron Age 2819 2819 male horse Tepe Hasanlu Iran Gaunitz et al. 2018
TepeHasanlu_3394 Iron Age 2741 2741 male horse Tepe Hasanlu Iran Fages et al. 2019
TepeHasanlu_3461 Iron Age 2863 2863 female horse Tepe Hasanlu Iran Fages et al. 2019
TepeMehrAli_Iran1 Copper Age 5000–8000 6500 female horse Tepe Mehr Ali Iran Schubert et al. 2017
TepeMehrAli_Iran3 Copper Age 5000–8000 6500 male horse Tepe Mehr Ali Iran Schubert et al. 2017
The population at Tepe Hasanlu during the Iron Age had a relatively high level of steppe ancestry. So no wonder there were horses there, and they're domesticated horses.
There's no evidence that there were domesticated horses in Iran before the Bronze Age, when steppe people arrived there.
Archi: "There was no cavalry until the Iron Age"
Cavalry is well attested from the Tollense Battlefield, which dates to the 12th cBC.
"It is not necessary to write the words domestic horse in Neolithic, when there was a wild horse used for meat ..
Yeah, but what about the places where there was no wild horse for meat, no evidence of horse bones even in primarily HG contexts (e.g. Schussenried), yet such bones suddenly appear in sizeable fractions of the archeofaunal assemblage?
I am not only talking about SW Germany here - my sources are all in German language, which might have kept you from understanding them. But the following papers, the first dealing with LN Lithuania (a/o late Narva), and the other one with Bohemia, are quite clear and should be understandable even to you:
http://briai.ku.lt/downloads/AB/11/11_022-031_Girininkas,_Daugnora,_Antanaitis-Jacobs.pdf
http://sciencepress.mnhn.fr/sites/default/files/articles/pdf/az2016n1a2.pdf
And for the Salzmünde and Bernburg horse burials, the fact that they contained domesticated horses, in all likelyhood imported from (much further) south-east, has been established with aDNA.
I would really appreciate if you upgraded your often insufficient knowledge instead of contuining littering this comment section with bullshit like " the BBC used arrows to hunt and the CWC used battle axes." There's lots of analyses of CWC arrowheads available, some of which I have pointed to just a few weeks ago when we discussed the fresh aDNA from Lesser Polish CWC.
@ Epoch
Yes I think so. Western Europe seemed relatively sheltered, upwind
Measuring on an average without radiocarbon dating is bullshit and a lie from the data of disrespectful authors. The Roman Empire existed in Holocene between 12000 BP and 0 BP, we take the median and get 6000 BP, therefore Caesar lived in 5th millennium BC, he came to India vini vidi vici and founded Harappa putting his foot on their heads.
Ave Caesar, founder of Harappa!
FrankN said...
"Cavalry is well attested from the Tollense Battlefield, which dates to the 12th cBC."
That's not true, the cavalry's not found there, there's only speculation, but no facts. In those days, people used to ride horses sometimes. Technically, it's the beginning of the Iron Age, but the reall cavalry will only be known to the Cimmerians.
"Yeah, but what about the places where there was no wild horse"
The wild horse in Europe was only finally exterminated in the 19th century.
"I would really appreciate if you upgraded your often insufficient knowledge"
I have sufficient knowledge, you have insufficient knowledge, we write about general characteristics. Naturally, both BB knew axes and CW knew and used arrows, but we are talking about cultural preferences in mass use rather than individual knowledge.
@Archi: You get rude sometimes, but I think you contribute a lot of valuable stuff, especially from the Russian language sphere and have some origianl ideas and concepts I very much appreciate. But with horses you are so far off, and this really made me laugh:
"About the fact that the BBC has more remains of horses and the CWC has few. It's likely because the BBC used arrows to hunt and the CWC used battle axes. Obviously, axes are close combat weapons and long-range arrows. Obviously, with an axe, you can't hunt horses, but with arrows very successfully. Therefore, the CWC could not consider a horse as meat products, and the BBC could consider a horse as meat prey. Obviously, a driving (riding) horse is not a meat product, i.e. to tame a horse it is necessary to lose the connection between horse and pray/meat production in society."
Did you read this text a second time before posting it? Are you f* serious?
Corded Ware hunted with battle axes? Is this some sort of comedy and do you want to ridicule the ancient Eastern European people? Do you think they were dumber than the Homo erectus? That's the most comical and absurd "explanation" for an archaeological and cultural pattern I ever read. Do you think the Corded people were throwing their battle axes at ther prey or what?
BB had BETTER bows, but Corded Ware people had bows and used them for hunting and fighting. They just didn't value it that much, so it was not as an important grave good as for BB.
Back to normal: There is enough evidence for making horseback riding in the Bronze Age highly likely and Tollense is a good case maker. You will her from the final results there. But there is also the Bell Beaker male, mentioned above and in every reconstruction of established scientists, when they can add a little bit of speculation, they say BB were riding. Actually most
But if you think that they had more horses, because CW were too stupid to use spears and bows, its up to you.
Anthony is not the only one which wrote something similar, the early riders didn't fought from horseback, but they rode into battle.
There are depictions of people riding equids (could be onagers) from the late third and early second millenium BC in the Near East. A seal from the BMAC as well and that one looks like a proper horse. Onagers are nasty buggers and harder to domesticate than horses so if people by then already were riding onagers than is it really that farfetched to imagine people riding horses?
As for riding being that special: It is not. People were riding cows before, they used wagons before, oxen drawn. Humans try to play with all kind of things and even children try to ride animals, actually even monkeys do it.
The real challenge was to domesticate the horse and making it strong enough to carry an adult male in battle, while being so obedient and well-trained to make it efficient. That was no easy thing to achieve, the breeding, the training, the tactical innovations.
But trying to ride animals is no big leap. It just won't have worked like it does with the later cavalry, but still it was useful enough for being bred and the techniques improved.
@zardos
I'm talking about it very seriously. I've already written, we are talking about cultural preferences. BB preferred bows for hunting, CW did not prefer bows, in general, Indo-Europeans are from others that the bow for them is a disrespectful weapon. CW certainly knew bows and arrows, but did not like them, perhaps because for them hunting was generally backward. A horse is a hunting pray for meat, the American Indians were great at hunting wild horses for meat, so they were completely exterminated and it never occurred to them to ride them. In the north of Europe, the wild horse lived everywhere, even in Neolithic, but, not surprisingly, the wild horse survived until the 19th century in the CWC territory, in other territories it was exterminated everywhere until the Bronze Age. Once again, in order to use the horse in sledding/chariots you must stop treating it as a meat object and prey in hunting.
Tollenze is not an indicator, I have already written that this is the finale of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, at that time riding horses are already fixed, but specifically for Tollenze there they are all speculation, horses could be used exactly as they were all used then, as chariot harness for the delivery of people in the Dragoon style. That's how chariot horses began to be used in the 13th-12th century BC, chariots then began to die off, and they were no longer used as weapons.
Copper Axe said...
"There are depictions of people riding equids (could be onagers) from the late third and early second millenium BC in the Near East."
There are dates from ~2000BC and later, which is more likely, there are clearly donkeys. There's a typical donkey landing on the back of a donkey and control of an arrow or a donkey bait. It's not horse control. In those days, the charioteers were already moving from the carriage to the back of the harnessed animals. And since the harness animals in the Middle East were donkeys, and donkeys were also pack animals, riding them was the safest.
@Archi: Preferences, ok, but CW were using the bow almost like people before them did. Its Bell Beakers which were more different in giving the bow a much higher importance.
"A horse is a hunting pray for meat, the American Indians were great at hunting wild horses for meat, so they were completely exterminated and it never occurred to them to ride them."
The did exterminate the horse quite fast, the habitat for horses in America was much more restricted than in the Eurasian steppe. Also, they had little to no experience with domestication at all. Its very important that Indo-Europeans did first get in touch with Neolithic people, learned how to keep and breed cattle and THEN they used their beloved prey. That's different from Botai probably, which were less Neolithicised.
In Tollense there was, most likely, and you will hear from that, actual cavalry fighthing from horseback. The horseback riding and cavalry had a development, an evolution which started early in Yamnaya and Tollense is really close to the endpoint. You will see with more results coming in. Just wait.
You know what a big advantage of the chariot was, even if just being used in a "dragoon style"? The horses were easier to control and oftentimes a second person, the driver, was keeping horses calm.
Like I said, the main limiting factor was the horse breed, training and equipment.
But since some great commentators seem to read, especially for you Archi, Frank and Rob:
I once saw a reconstruction of a Corded Ware warrior in thick armour (organic material) and with the battle axe being on a pole, so a longer range pole weapon, similar to later Stabdolche. Do you think that reconstruction, done for a scientific exhibition, has any credibility? Saw it anywhere? I think it got inspired by the study about duels with Corded Ware elite males fighting with the butt of the axe and were covered by some sort of protection, especially around their heads.
Unfortunately I found very little about this anywhere. Was any wooden shaft of a Corded Ware axe found? Even more?
Copper Axe said...
" I0805/QLB26
A notable observation from the physical anthropological examination is traits at the acetabulum and the femur head suggesting that the individual frequently rode horses."
" Rowing exposes the femoral head and acetabulum to high levels of repetitive abutment motion and axial loading" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30516651
In Sumerian horses were called “onagers of the Kur”. To them, Kur signified the remote inaccessible mountains beyond human reach in the Zagros. They were just aware horses came from lands that they did not know about, and they seem to have been aware of areas as far as the Caspian Sea.
@davidski said
"The population at Tepe Hasanlu during the Iron Age had a relatively high level of steppe ancestry. So no wonder there were horses there, and they're domesticated horses."
There isnt "high level" of steppe_mlba ancestry in the hasanlu sample. It is 10pc. On the other hand, ancestry from BMAC is much more abundant.
Target: IRN_Hasanlu_IA:F38
Distance: 1.9920% / 0.01991983
55.0 IRN_Hajji_Firuz_C
26.4 UZB_Bustan_BA
9.8 RUS_Sintashta_MLBA
7.6 Anatolia_Kaman-Kalehoyuk_MLBA
1.2 KAZ_Zevakinskiy_LBA
0.0 KAZ_Dali_MLBA
0.0 KAZ_Zevakinskiy_MLBA
0.0 Saka_Kazakh_steppe
0.0 Saka_Kazakh_steppe_o1
0.0 Saka_Kazakh_steppe_o2
0.0 Saka_Tian_Shan
0.0 Saka_Tian_Shan_o
Target: IRN_Hasanlu_IA:F38
Distance: 1.8783% / 0.01878327
45.0 IRN_Hajji_Firuz_C
20.4 IRN_Hajji_Firuz_IA
20.0 UZB_Bustan_BA
7.4 RUS_Sintashta_MLBA
6.4 Anatolia_Kaman-Kalehoyuk_MLBA
0.8 KAZ_Zevakinskiy_LBA
0.0 KAZ_Dali_MLBA
0.0 KAZ_Zevakinskiy_MLBA
0.0 Saka_Kazakh_steppe
0.0 Saka_Kazakh_steppe_o1
0.0 Saka_Kazakh_steppe_o2
0.0 Saka_Tian_Shan
0.0 Saka_Tian_Shan_o
@All - looks like Qiaomei Fu's East Asian study is out: https://phys.org/news/2020-05-ancient-dna-unveils-important-piece.html
Gonna read.
https://i.ibb.co/hY6q7Qs/PIE-Wagon.png
Here is a picture of the Proto-Indo-European terminology of draught transport, nothing like that in horseback riding. There, even for riding in groups of languages there is no recovery of common terms.
Cf. Old Island drag, Old Swedish dragh, Middle English draye "sleds".
@vAsiSTha
More samples from Bronze and Iron Age Iran are on the way.
And the appearance of domesticated horses there correlates with the arrival of significant steppe ancestry.
Modern IRanians have low Steppe ancestry. It is around 13%. They are more than anything Iran Chl+Levant BA. What happened to the Steppe ancestry in Iran?
Pashuten and Tajik have a lot.
@zardos
"CW were using the bow almost like people before them did."
No, not almost either. At the PIE level, even the word for bow is not restored. There are more recent dialect words for these concepts. In fact, CWC and PIE have used bows much less than anyone else.
"In Tollense there was, most likely, and you will hear from that, actual cavalry fighthing from horseback."
I will not hear it, because there was no such thing, you pass wishful thinking off as real. Wishful thinking is not an argument.
"The horseback riding and cavalry had a development, an evolution which started early in Yamnaya and Tollense is really close to the endpoint. You will see with more results coming in. Just wait."
What, and in the Yamnaya culture of riding was not at all, there were almost no horses in it. They have not appeared during a hundred years of mass research of this culture, will not appear in the future either, because it is absolutely impossible, everything is already researched there. Wishful thinking is not an argument. Here is nothing to wait for.
"You know what a big advantage of the chariot was, even if just being used in a "dragoon style"? The horses were easier to control and oftentimes a second person, the driver, was keeping horses calm.
Like I said, the main limiting factor was the horse breed, training and equipment."
It is immediately obvious that you know absolutely nothing about chariots or horses.
It wasn't easy to drive a chariot! The carriage always had at least a couple of horses that were difficult to drive. So we had to invent a bunch of tools to control the horses, shaft, horse cheeks and so on. There was only one person in the early chariots, the other could not fit there. Moreover, the wagon had wheels attached, which made it impossible for the wagon to turn. There were solid heavy wheels, which could only pass through the terrain adapted for that purpose.
It took hundreds of inventions, such as the pivoting axle and the spoked wheel, were necessary to invent a chariot and put horses in it, but in order to ride a horse and control it perfectly, it was enough to pass a rope between its teeth (or insert a ring in its nose), as the American Indians did, they rode the prairies perfectly without saddles and bridle. That is, you don't need to make any inventions for riding, you just need to tame the horse, tame the riding horse can be easily controlled even without any devices. But we do not find any images of horseback riding anywhere, even on donkeys up to 2000BC.
The horse will pass absolutely everywhere, the cart only in limited places, nomads do not need any cart at all, they all carry on pack animals that were known before the invention of the cart.
Dragoon's style of using chariots appeared in the armies already when the chariots began to die off, at sunset itself. The meaning of Dragoon style was to quickly get to the battle, to stop the chariot leaving with her charioteer and enter the battle on foot, and then as quickly to escape on a chariot from the battle. In ancient times, riding horses were not used in Dragoon style at all, because they just escaped from the battlefield, there was no sense in this style.
Frankly, I see that you have absolutely no knowledge of the subject of which you are writing, you frankly do not know anything at all.
@Archi
great posts on this subject, very informative
Another aDNA paper on East Asia
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/05/13/science.aba0909/tab-pdf
Amongst other things, they seem to show a 30% admixture edge from Tianyuan to Yana -ANE line
...otherwise, the main focus of the paper is demonstrating that Neolithic northeast & Neolithic southeast Asians are different.
Need more Paleolithi & Meso data to understand what drove these differences
Matt posted a link to it earlier. Maybe David Will make a thread. The big find seems to be that East Asian variation is defined by different proportions of North Neolithic ancestry vs South Neolithic ancestry.
Story of origins of modern East Asians is very different than that of Europeans. I hope ancient DNA experts don't try to say they are similar. East Asians didn't form because distantly related groups mixed.
The two ancestors who formed East Asians, were already closely related. On other hand, Europeans were formed by three ancestors who shared very little in common.
The Chinese papers really need to start including Y-DNA data . It will make understanding thinge easier
@ Sam
''The two ancestors who formed East Asians, were already closely related. On other hand, Europeans were formed by three ancestors who shared very little in common.''
Maybe what differentiates them is pre-Neolithic Hoabinhian -related ancestry in southern EAs.
The PCA graph from the study of ancient genomes from China published yesterday suggests a gradual "southward" shift of the ancestry of East Asians through time from the Late Paleolithic to the present day. The ancient specimens from Shandong in the north and the ancient specimens from Fujian in the south both appear more genetically "northern" than present-day inhabitants of the same locations. May this be ascribed to distortion due to projection onto a background determined by a PCA of the variation apparent in a set of samples of present-day East Asians?
@Ebizur
"The PCA graph from the study of ancient genomes from China published yesterday suggests a gradual "southward" shift of the ancestry of East Asians through time from the Late Paleolithic to the present day. The ancient specimens from Shandong in the north and the ancient specimens from Fujian in the south both appear more genetically "northern" than present-day inhabitants of the same locations. "
That doesn't seem right. Historically, you would have continuous streams of ancestry from northern China to the south, not the reverse. I wonder if it is projection bias, does anyone know?
PS. I also think the 32% ENA in ANE is an overestimation.Haven't finished reading though.
@ebizur, PCA projection looks like it may be quite substantial, and some of the overall shifts in position may also mask that different ancestry complements "cancel" a bit (e.g. recent people from North China having ancestry from both early Neolithic South China and early Neolithic / Mesolithic NE Asia, in models)? I would say worth looking at formal qpAdm and qpGraph models and PCA seems not necessarily a good guide to visually gauge "how much" shift, exactly.
It is true that in the admixture analysis Qihe (Fujian) has clearly more northern ancestry than Atayal and the Neolithic southeast Asians, but the Liangdao 1 and 2 samples are clearly closer to the Neolithic southeast Asians and Atayal and carry very little northern ancestry.
Liangdao1 (Taiwan Strait) sample is dated to 8300 max, and Liangdao2 (Taiwan Strait) sample is dated to 7600 max, while Qihe Fujian is dated to 8400 max. IMO, the time difference between Liangdao1 and Qihe samples is not significant.
This means that there is an important early difference between such southern locations as Fujian and Taiwan Strait, although the geographical difference is not that great.
"And the appearance of domesticated horses there correlates with the arrival of significant steppe ancestry."
No bhrata. The arrival of elephants, male zebu ancestry, and horses in the near east region correlates with the arrival of bmac like ancestry.
zebu paper: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6449/173
Elephant paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00758914.2016.1198068
No one gives a crap about zebus.
My statement was correct, and you'll soon see it confirmed 100%.
@Matt
It seems that most of northern Han have southern East Asian admixture, including from Shandong. But not sure if it is as high as the PCA makes it to be.
Could I ask you your opinion about all Han having West Eurasian ancestry via Paleo-Siberians? Would it not be wiser to use Neo-Siberians instead as a proxy for northern Siberian ancestry?
I was quite surprised by Devil's Gate having West Eurasian ancestry as well, I thought it did not.
"No one gives a crap about zebus."
The hittites sure did. Thats why they made a bunch of bronze and terracotta zebus. https://www.brownpundits.com/2019/07/18/who-brought-the-zebu-in-the-near-east/
I've got some bad news for you. The ancestors of the Hittites came from Ukraine.
@vaThara you are a retard
Horses have nothing to do with BMAC, don't twitch it.
Zebu was brought by this migration:
Copper Armenia Areni-1 (Bird's Eye Cave) [I1407/ARE 12] 4350-3700 BCE M L1a
Copper Armenia Areni-1 (Bird's Eye Cave) [I1634/ARE 1/44] 4330-4060 calBCE (5366±31 BP, OxA-19331) M L1a
Copper Armenia Areni-1 (Bird's Eye Cave) [I1632/ARE 1/46] 4230-4000 calBCE (5285±29 BP, OxA-18599) M L1a
Bronze Iran Seistan, Shahr-i Sokhta [I11462 / 406, IRV Grave 309, Period I, phases 8 or 9] 2911-2880 calBCE (4270±20 BP, PSUAMS-4778) M L1a
These samples have nothing to do with the Hittites. Maybe they are the Sumerians at all.
Naturally, there are no dates for the "horses" in TepeMehrAli in 5000BC, where the samples are not dated at all C14, as well as the culture itself is not dated.
@ Archi
In some Western Germanic Languages "Frisian-Drage, Afrikaans-Dra etc." it can mean "Carry".
@Ric Hern
You gave verb values, and I gave noun values. All these roots had verb root meanings *weg'h-, *dhregh- "drag", *hr- "move" from which nouns were formed. From *dhregh- was formed the meaning of a sled, a skid, which gave the Russian droga "bar connecting the front and rear axes of the cart", (dual num.) drozhki "light cart", Irl. droch "wheel".
See place https://i.ibb.co/pzdtNVn/PIE-Wagon.png
Ric: German Trage "barrow" (c.f. Engl. "wheel-barrow")
Archi: For a reconstruction of a MN SW German cart (ca. 3,000 BC), and its technical relation to sledge remains from slightly earlier, see
https://janus-im-netz.de/file/hs3/schlichtherle.pdf, p. 29f
An early yoke was found in Arbon-Bleiche (Horgen culture, 3,380 BC).
@archi
read this paper with all the carbondating done in fars iran, dont come and puke here.
The horse remains are from the lapui culture at tepe mehr ali
https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/oip128.pdf
There is so much uniformity for the words for cattle in all IE languages
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/g%CA%B7%E1%B9%93ws
The words for horse on the other hand come from at least five different roots. Quotes from "Five IE roots for Horse" by Coleman, Current Anthropology 1988, (p. 450).
"Thus while *wlkwo wolf and *gwea3W cow for instance are widely enough attested to justify their places in the proto lexicon many other roots are more problematic. Thus four different roots are used for wheel. *dhreg to run in Greek trokhos reth to run, roll Latin rota, Lithuanian ratas *kwel to rotate turn in Old Church Slavonic, kolo and its reduplicated form *kweklo in Old English hweol Vedic cakrah, Tocharian Kukal."
"The horse also figures prominently in discussions of Indo European prehistory. Five different roots are attested *marko in Old Welsh march, *kurs to run in Old English hors, a2er to plough in Lithuanian arklys, *kob in Old Church Slavonic konj and the widespread *ekwos in Old Irish ech, Latin equus, Vedic asvah, Avestan aspo Tocharian yakwe and perhaps Greek hippos. Here we might infer that the proto-lexicon contained several words for the animal, depending upon its function, as Lithuanian has zirgas "steed" beside arklys and Old English eoh < *ekwos war horse beside hors, or that the animal was known only in some areas of Proto Indo European speech and the original word *ekwos was therefore dialectal and the others innovatory AFTER THE DISPERSAL (emphasis mine). However, the fact that in modern Europe Greek alogo, Italian cavallo and German pferd are all innovations against hippos, equus and hors respectively, COUNSELS CAUTION (Emphasis mine). A single root across languages would be conclusive for the proto lexicon; a multiplicity of roots is inconclusive either way.
Says it all as far as whether cattle or horses/wheeled transport were more involved in the IE breakup and dispersal.
@archi
"Zebu was brought by this migration:
Copper Armenia Areni-1 (Bird's Eye Cave) [I1407/ARE 12] 4350-3700 BCE M L1a
Copper Armenia Areni-1 (Bird's Eye Cave) [I1634/ARE 1/44] 4330-4060 calBCE (5366±31 BP, OxA-19331) M L1a
Copper Armenia Areni-1 (Bird's Eye Cave) [I1632/ARE 1/46] 4230-4000 calBCE (5285±29 BP, OxA-18599) M L1a
Bronze Iran Seistan, Shahr-i Sokhta [I11462 / 406, IRV Grave 309, Period I, phases 8 or 9] 2911-2880 calBCE (4270±20 BP, PSUAMS-4778) M L1a
"
Glad you accept that L1a in armenia chalcolithic is from the east. i agree.
But sadly that has nothing to do with the zebu in near east in the 2nd millenium bce.
You see, i read papers, you fart without reading thinking you know everything.
"However, despite archaeological evidence for contact between civilizations
of the Fertile Crescent region and the Indus Valley (9), the influence of the zebu genome is detectable in ancient Southwest Asian cattle only 4000 years later (Fig. 2). However, after ~4000 yr B.P., hybrid animals (median 35% indicine ancestry) are found across the Near East, from Central Asia and Iran to the Caucasus and Mediterranean shores of the southern Levant
(table S2 and fig. S1). During this period, depictions and osteological evidence for B. indicus also appear in the region (9, 13). In contrast to
autosomal data, but similar to earlier work (14), we find persistence of B. taurus mitochondria, suggesting introgression may have been mediated
by bulls (Fig. 2)."
"Three features of this zebu influx after ~4000 yr B.P. attest that the influx was likely driven by adaptation and/or human agency rather than
passive diffusion. First, the extent of indicine introgression does not follow a simple east-towest gradient; for example, it is pronounced in
Levantine genomes fromthe western edge of the Near East. Second, the introgression was widespread and took place in a relatively restricted
time interval after four millennia of barely detectable B. indicus influence. Third, it was plausibly driven by bull choice, as we observe up to ~70% autosomal genome change but a retained substratumof B. taurus mtDNA haplotypes (Fig. 2 and table S3). Hybrid B. taurus–B. indicus herds
may have enabled the survival of communities under stress and perhaps facilitated expansion of herding into more-peripheral regions. Restocking
after herd decline may have also been a factor. Westward humanmigration has been documented around this time (19, 20) along with archaeological
evidence for the appearance of other South Asia taxa such aswater buffalo and Asian elephants in the Near East (21), suggesting the movement of
large animals by people.
From: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6449/173
@Archi: "No, not almost either. At the PIE level, even the word for bow is not restored. There are more recent dialect words for these concepts. In fact, CWC and PIE have used bows much less than anyone else."
They might have valued the bow as a weapon less than others, especially the Bell Beakers, which were the opposite in this respect, but they used it on a regular, normal base. So your initial argument about BB just having more horses and more horse bones around their settlements because they were the better hunters being refuted. There is no PIE or IE culture without the heavy usage of the bow. That doesn't mean they all valued it the same way, what they did not and CW less so than others, that's it.
"I will not hear it, because there was no such thing, you pass wishful thinking off as real. Wishful thinking is not an argument."
The vast majority of archaeologists which can speak more freely say that horses were ridden early and the evidence especially in Tollense is quite clear. We had this debate months ago, but the horses on the battlefield and the wounds which appear to have been either caused by or inflicted upon a person on a horse are very clear.
There is no professional reconstruction of later BB life already without using horses and horseback riding. Its a petty position to negate horseback riding just because you don't get a photograph or clear cut depiction of a man riding.
"What, and in the Yamnaya culture of riding was not at all, there were almost no horses in it. They have not appeared during a hundred years of mass research of this culture, will not appear in the future either, because it is absolutely impossible, everything is already researched there. Wishful thinking is not an argument. Here is nothing to wait for."
Horse bones were found in Khvalynsk and Yamnaya burial contexts. This tells us nothing about the status of domestication, but it leaves it open to debate.
I also found this theory interesting, that horses were caught even when used for traction and riding, for quite some long, from wild populations - in which sometimes stallions would be easier to caught, because they might try to defend their harem.
Compare:
D. S. Mills, S. M. McDonnell, Sue McDonnell, The Domestic Horse: The Origins, Development and Management of Its Behaviour.
We can probably agree upon the fact that there is no conclusive evidence for early riding so far, but only hints which allow logical conclusions. But if those don't satisfy you, you have to wait for more data to come, especially from the wearing of bones from riding and more DNA tests from the animals to prove domestication and selection.
Concerning the "dragoon style" I said before that this was the most likely and usual form of early chariot warfare.
David,
In books, Hittites are always depicted as 'dark people' - I realise that this is mere artistic licence, born of the fact that modern people from Turkey are dark, but if Hittites originated from Ukraine, it's fair(!) to assume that, originally at least, they were a light/white complected people.
I know it shouldn't jar, but preconceptions held from reading children's encyclopaedias are strongly held.
OT. Ancient city in China 2000 BC with Indo-European elements:
https://twitter.com/xujnx/status/1259364705853997056
I remember, that in Lusatian culture in Poland Chinese glass was discovered.
And Slavic word ‘kolo’ “wheel” is also in Chinese.
http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp047_sino-tibetan_wheel.pdf
Some other Slavic words like ‘honey’ were also present in Chinese and Tocharian.
They are testing the skeletons now. Interesting to know if there were influences from Europe.
@Archi
I won't publish your comments if they're abusive.
@vAsiSTha dont come and puke here.
https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/oip128.pdf
You are completely unable to read, watch, and always write one lie. There are no radiocarbon C14 dates for either "horses", or Tepe Mehr Ali, or Lapui culture. It doesn't even say that Tepe Mehr Ali belongs to Lapui culture, it doesn't mention it at all.
Moreover, it says that this culture is a very blurry thing:
quote
Banesh Phase (Proto-Elamite).ca. 3300–2600 B.C. The two sites dating to this phase indicate a drastic depopu-lation in the region. Both sites are small and one also had Lapui pottery.
@zardos
"There is no PIE or IE culture without the heavy usage of the bow."
This is your personal view based on nothing. There is no evidence for it, it contradicts all the data.
"The vast majority of archaeologists which can speak more freely say that horses were ridden early and the evidence especially in Tollense is quite clear."
There is no evidence for it, it contradicts all the data. You completely confuse the times, Tollense is very postive, this is the final bronze age beginning of the iron age. It has long been known that at the end of the bronze age, horses are already ridden, this is even in Egypt in isolated cases, and in the North-Eastern steppe at this time there are no chariots, riders are already moving there, but not in Europe. At this time, the Indo-Aryans are already well aware of horsemanship, it is perfectly spelled out in the rig Veda, but the Indo-Aryans do not know the cavalry, they have an army only of chariots. Cavalry in Europe only appears with the Cimmerians, so your proof goes down the drain, since it belongs to a later time as recorded horsemanship, it is anachronistic.
"There is no professional reconstruction of later BB life already without using horses and horseback riding"
It's just fantasies.
"Concerning the "dragoon style" I said before that this was the most likely and usual form of early chariot warfare."
No, It's just your fantasies.
@EastPole
So Poles are responsible for not just Greek and Indian civilization, but the Chinese too? Next thing you know they'll discover Jesus's real name was Janusz and he was actually born in a manger in Białystok not Bethlehem
@archi
"It doesn't even say that Tepe Mehr Ali belongs to Lapui culture, it doesn't mention it at all."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867419303848
Tracking Five Millennia of Horse Management with Extensive Ancient Genome Time Series
Tepe Mehr Ali is located in the province of Fars, Southwest of Iran. The site belongs to the Lapui culture, dated to the Chalcolithic (6th-4th mill. BCE), and shows an over-representation of domestic animals such as cattle, sheep and goats but also a significant number of wild herbivores, such as hemiones and gazelles (Sheikhi Seno et al., 2012).
From https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/405270/1/__filestore.soton.ac.uk_users_jw20_mydocuments_e-papers%2520and%2520books_Zonkey_uncorrected_proof_JASC.pdf
Iran1 CGG_1_017447 Mehr Ali 0.07 6510 24 ♀ Horse x Horse
Iran2 CGG_1_017448 Mehr Ali 0.08 84,294 336 ♀ Hemione x Hemione
Iran3_Bijar CGG_1_017449 Mehr Ali 0.41 637,366 1596 ♂ Horse x Horse
really dont give a rats ass about direct dating of the horse bones, fact is that horse was present in Iran in the chalcolithic. And also central asia (subsequent research will prove it, same for south asia).
@Samuel Andrews
I didn't read the paper, but if East Asian populations are modeled by just two Neolithic populations, it is simply because researchers are not using old enough samples. It simply depends on how far you want to trace the ancestry of these populations. If you limit yourself to analyzing European ancestry using only Neolithic individuals, they are all related. But we don't do that. In general, European ancestry is modeled using Paleolithic individuals, such as AfontovaGora3. If you do the same thing in Asia, it is certain that you will have a genetic flow of very different populations.
As a basic check - see how divergent lineages in east Asia - Y -Hg C, various K, N, O , D
There’s a wealth of complexity there
On a tangent, trying to rebut Archi's claim that riding came only after chariots
"In one of the most recent discoveries from January, a team of Iranian and British anthropologists, working on human remains in the city from the 3rd millennium BC, identified a male camel rider who they believe was a messenger in ancient times.
Studies of the skeletal remains belonging to the man reveal evidence of bone trauma, suggesting that he was a professional rider who most likely spent most of his life on camel back.
Indications of riding are seen on the right leg bone of the man, who died at the age of 40 to 45. The swellings show that he continuously worked as a professional rider since he was a teenager. There are blade-shaped swellings on the lower part of the leg bone which indicate that he used to gather up his right leg while riding, suggesting that he rode on a large animal like a camel or ox. Although there is evidence showing that smaller draft animals were also used in the Burnt City, the act of gathering up a leg while riding is something that one does while riding a camel over long distances. Scientists, then, believe that the man was probably a courier who traveled regularly on camelback."
http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/Iran_s_Burnt_City.htm
Shahr-i-sokhta
@Archi
“the approximation of the late origin of Centum IE, only SGBR
https://i.ibb.co/ysMC0zL/Centum-IEgroups.png”
EastPole:
“Archi, what do you think about the wave theory:
https://i.postimg.cc/Wp68wCJW/CWC-Wave-Theory.jpg “
@Archi
“Wave theory and wood theory are opposed only in images; in fact, they do not contradict each other, but complement each other.”
Have been thinking how to illustrate it on language tree. What do you think:
https://i.postimg.cc/fTJbn1G3/Language-Tree-2.jpg
@vAsiSTha, btw, the Zonkey paper was actually published with those samples, so it's not just an uncorrected preprint
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030544031630187X).
I get some concern about these Tepe Mehr Ali samples, since they stand alone somewhat , though I would not dismiss them. Horses within the Southwest Asia region seem an understudied topic. There seems to be too much assertive, dogmatic dismissal of "Horses were not in this region; these Equids here were definitely not horses", etc, without too much evidence. They surely were not highly frequent, but it is possible they could have been around and integrated as wild breeding stock into expanding lineages if the domestication event were elewhere.
@vAsiSTha
"In one of the most recent discoveries from January, a team of Iranian and British anthropologists, working on human remains in the city from the 3rd millennium BC, identified a male camel rider who they believe was a messenger in ancient times.
Studies of the skeletal remains belonging to the man reveal evidence of bone trauma, suggesting that he was a professional rider who most likely spent most of his life on camel back."
This delirium from the yellow Iranian newspaper 2006, it has not been confirmed, there was no scientific publication on the subject because it is a duck brought here by a duck. There were many such ducks in 2006-2011, for example, that 9000 years ago the Arabian horse was a riding horse: BBC News - Saudis 'find evidence of early horse domestication' https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14658678.
Undated abstractions and indirect rumors from inaccurate sources do not say anything, nor do they say vague definitions. There is no definition of finds in the archaeological source for Tepe Mehr Ali, nor is there a dating of the culture or its era.
EastPole, a wave theory diagram is a cross-section of a language tree. The tree shows diachronic development, the wave - synchronic.
@EastPole
"Have been thinking how to illustrate it on language tree. What do you think"
I have already given a picture, in which the genetic flows are exactly the same as those reconstructed by the linguists. That is, the genetic flows coincide with the linguistically reconstructed wave flows of isogloses, which are shown in the network diagrams (the average between the tree diagrams and the wave diagrams).
https://i.ibb.co/tKzfKjx/IE-with-TMRC.png
@Matt
"I get some concern about these Tepe Mehr Ali samples, since they stand alone somewhat , though I would not dismiss them. Horses within the Southwest Asia region seem an understudied topic. There seems to be too much assertive, dogmatic dismissal of "Horses were not in this region; these Equids here were definitely not horses", etc, without too much evidence. They surely were not highly frequent, but it is possible they could have been around and integrated as wild breeding stock into expanding lineages if the domestication event were elewhere."
The dating there is the most important, because the horse in Northern Eurasia in Pleistocene lived everywhere, and even in the beginning of Holocene was still exterminated unevenly, they are in Çatalhöyük. The extinction of the horses was not homogenous. However, in the Middle East in Holocene, her findings are isolated and constitute 0% of the faunistic findings, that is, it is literally one find of a bone, more often an undefined species, on many thousands of animal samples. The percentages from the findings there already appear when the horse is domesticated and came from the north.
@Rob,
"As a basic check - see how divergent lineages in east Asia - Y -Hg C, various K, N, O , D
There’s a wealth of complexity there"
N and O belong to K2. Under haplogroup F, East Asia and OCeania only has K2. Y DNA F is most diverse in Southwest Asia.
yHG C and D are two divergent clades in East Asia. D comes from Onge-like people. C come from unknown source. It looks like core of East Asian ancestry comes from people who only carried Y DNA K2.
@Mary,
Well,using Neolithic genomes, Europeans are mix between two distict groups: "Euro farmers" and "Kurgan pastorlists". They were related but distantly related. Their relationship might be as close as was between Neolithic North China and South China.
@EastPole
I really doubt Indo-Europeans made it that far into China. Also where does it say anything about testing the remains?
The PhD Thesis of Naveed Khan - February 2019. He was one of the authors of the 2019 Horse paper.
The genomic origins of modern horses revealed by
ancient DNA: from early domestication to modern breeding.
http://www2.bio.ku.dk/bibliotek/phd/Naveed%20Khan.pdf
@Davidski (or anyone else who knows)
Maybe a redundant question, but would you recommend we use scaled or non-scaled samples in Global_25?
Use whatever makes more sense in terms of the models that you're testing.
@matt
The 1 sample at mehr ali had some 650000 nuclear reads, which for zonkey was more than enough to assess whether it was a horse or a donkey, thats what the authors say.
@@archi
"There is no definition of finds in the archaeological source for Tepe Mehr Ali, nor is there a dating of the culture or its era."
Yes archi, only the steppe had horses. any horses found elsewhere are wild asses. They manipulated the research and are lying. the government and the researchers are out to get you, beware.
@Jatt_Scythian
There is significant evidence that these Neolithic communities in China traded with the Afasanievo and the Sintashta/Andronovo cultures, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities. We know the Wusun and Yuezhi roamed in Gansu so if you can reach that far Northern Xaanshi isn't that farfetched.
That said trade contacts does not imply actual presence, since you could have many intermediary populations being part of that trade connection. Shinto in Japan has some Indo-European similarities (white horse cult and dragon slayer myth) as well as a sudden adoption of mounted warfare and tumuli, but it is unlikely a group of Scythians reached Japan.
@Jatt_Scythian
“I really doubt Indo-Europeans made it that far into China. Also where does it say anything about testing the remains?”
https://twitter.com/razibkhan/status/1261366166699700224
We will see.
To my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong: The G25 is a PCA, so the importance of the components/dimensions varies, with dimension 1 being the most important and dimension 25 being the least important. Importance comes from the percentage of variance each component captures. Hence it doesn't make overly sense to treat each component as equally important, which is avoided by the scaling.
Regarding the question about the earliest cavalry with mounted warriors, I remember reading in general Montgomery's history of warfare that the Assyrians were among the first to introduce this type of troop. It's historically attested that they had it since the reign of Adad-nirari II (911-891 BC). That's before the Cimmerians invaded the Near East and about as early as the beginning of the Chernogorovka and Novocherkassk cultures commonly ascribed to the early Cimmerians.
Regarding domestication of horses. putting it out there. from "A PROBLEM OF THE EARLIEST HORSE DOMESTICATION. DATA FROM THE NEOLITHIC CAMP AYAKAGYTMA
‘THE SITE’, UZBEKISTAN, CENTRAL ASIA" http://briai.ku.lt/downloads/AB/11/11_014-021_Lasota-Moskalewska,_Szymczak,_Khudzhanazarov.pdf
"The horse bone and tooth finds from Ayakagytma ‘The Site’ take, from an archaeozoological point of view, a special position (Lasota-Moskalewska et al. 2006, p.206ff). In osteological material belonging to the earliest sub-phase ‘c’ (8000–7700 cal. BP) a share of the identified as horse family remains reaches 35.2%. In subsequent layer ‘b’ (7700–7500 cal. BP) it
ncreases even to 43.6% (Table 1). The remaining finds in majority belong to domesticated cattle and camel. Wild animals are represented only by a few species occurring in a scarce number of bone fragments. E.g. a share of aurochs remains totaled 5.2%, which is understandable in a context of an intensive cattle breeding, and a need of herd extension. A conspicuous disproportion between the shares of the remains of the beasts of chase and the remains of horse family allows us to suggest that in Ayakagytma ‘The Site’ horse could be bred and used by the Neolithic people. With their
conomy based on cattle breeding, they could ride horses and camels, and
use them as a mean of transport. Such a picture is well supplemented by a presence of domesticated dog (Table 1)."
"Conclusions
Although we do not have the direct proves for the Neolithic horse
omestication in the Central Asian lowlands, we have tried to show the premises which let us build up such a hypothesis.
The first is an extremely high share of the Equidae remains, sometimes exceeding 40%. We are well aware that not all of those remains represent horse itself, but also other species belonging to the same family, nevertheless, the indices like that show a great interest in horse among the Neolithic inhabitants of Ayakagytma ‘The Site’.
The second is the height in withers. We managed to reconstruct the dimensions of only one individual, which was much taller than the wild horses. It could mean that at least this particular animal was domesticated for a long time, with grading up not excluded.
The third premise is the width of the sole surfaces measured on the bases of the hoof prints preserved in Ayakagytma ‘The Site’. They also indicate that an animal who left them was much larger than an average wild individual, but fit well to the sizes of horses domesticated for a long time.
The fourth, indirect premise is a presence in an osteological material from Ayakagytma ‘The Site’ of the remains of the other fully domesticated species of mammals: cattle, sheep/goat, pig and dog, not excluding a possibility of domestication of camel. It would mean that the Neolithic societies from the Kyzyl-kums were acquainted with animal breeding, and in their case horse would not be an exception. All that leads us to a more than probable conclusion that the horses were domesticated since the very beginnings of the CentralAsian lowlands Neolithic, which is dated to a turn of the ninth and eight millennium cal. BP. At the same time, it would be the earliest date for horse domestication that we have today"
@ Samuel
You should go and check K2 on yfull:
https://www.yfull.com/tree/K2/
K2 includes K2b (Tianyuan), P, Q and R.
What you wrote above seems to mean in practice that in your opinion K2 arose in SE Asia and equals ENA, except for D which equals Onge, while F arose in Southwest Asia and equals more or less BASAL, while you abstain from taking any position on C.
EastPole wrote,
"And Slavic word ‘kolo’ “wheel” is also in Chinese."
It is not at all clear that Chinese 軲轆 gulu "wheel; to roll, rolling; repeating, repetitiveness" is a loanword from a Slavic language. Similar words or morphemes exist also in the Tibetan (kolo "wheel; vehicle, car, chariot; machine, device; chakra, cycle") and Japanese (kuruma "wheel; vehicle, wagon, cart, car, chariot; any rotating device or machine, e.g. a cogwheel, a pinwheel, a windmill, a watermill," kururu/kuroro/kururi "a pivot hinge; a sliding wooden bolt (for locking a door); a threshing flail," koro "any object that may be laid out in great numbers to facilitate the moving of a large and heavy object over the top; short and slender pieces of firewood; whale cracklings/fritters/rinds; a die, dice; a pebble, a small piece (of stone)," korob- "to stumble and fall, to tumble; to lie down in a careless manner, to have sex in a wanton manner; to convert, to turn to, to switch allegiance to; to turn out, to come to, to change and result in a certain situation," korogar- "to roll; to take a tumble; to lie around, to lie about, to happen to be (abundantly available in a certain place)," kurum- "to wrap up (in something), to swaddle," koromo "a robe; clothing; a batter or bread-crumb coating (on fried food)," kuru-kuru "round and round, whirling, spinning, twirling," koro-koro "rolling; frequently shifting or changing") languages.
@Samuel Andrews
Do you think y H originated in SW Asia? What about y P?
Now every local archaeologist claims that they domesticated the horse first, the Saudits surpassed them all out, they "have" the earliest dates of domestication, they were still in the "Palaeolithic" pranced on horses. The Ayakagytma naturally hosted equides, because close to Przewalski's horses area. The outdated claims that they were domesticated horses in Neolithic times, without any proof, are connected with local pride.
@vAsiSTha
There are even old papers claiming that Sintashta came from Syria. Look how that turned out.
@Ebizur
„It is not at all clear that Chinese 軲轆 gulu "wheel; to roll, rolling; repeating, repetitiveness" is a loanword from a Slavic language. Similar words or morphemes exist also in the Tibetan (kolo "wheel; vehicle, car, chariot; machine, device; chakra, cycle") and Japanese (kuruma "wheel; vehicle, wagon, cart, car, chariot; any rotating device or machine, e.g. a cogwheel, a pinwheel, a windmill, a watermill," kururu/kuroro/kururi "a pivot hinge; a sliding wooden bolt (for locking a door); a threshing flail," koro "any object that may be laid out in great numbers to facilitate the moving of a large and heavy object over the top; short and slender pieces of firewood; whale cracklings/fritters/rinds; a die, dice; a pebble, a small piece (of stone)," korob- "to stumble and fall, to tumble; to lie down in a careless manner, to have sex in a wanton manner; to convert, to turn to, to switch allegiance to; to turn out, to come to, to change and result in a certain situation," korogar- "to roll; to take a tumble; to lie around, to lie about, to happen to be (abundantly available in a certain place)," kurum- "to wrap up (in something), to swaddle," koromo "a robe; clothing; a batter or bread-crumb coating (on fried food)," kuru-kuru "round and round, whirling, spinning, twirling," koro-koro "rolling; frequently shifting or changing") languages.”
It is interesting that words with roots “kol-, kr-“, relating to circular shape or movement in Slavic, occur also in similar meanings as you listed in our languages, which seems to be a natural development of a rotating or circular movement concept.
The earliest known depictions of a wheeled vehicle comes from Bronocice in Poland. It was dated by the radiocarbon method to the mid-fourth millennium BC. Not long after Corded Ware Culture formed in that area and after 3000 BC it started to migrate east. Cultures related to CWC formed also in Central Asia and reached Mongolia after 2000 BC. We don’t know how far east they went.
If Chinese had contact with IE cultures which had wagons and words for wheel it probably was a culture derived from CWC. So similar words for wheel and other circular shapes or movements in Slavic and Chinese may not be a coincidence.
@Kristina,
I think you agree yHG K2 originated in Central-East Asia? Correct?
K2e (including N and O): East Asia
K2b1: Papua New Guinee.
K2b2 (including R and Q): Central/North Asia
K2 is the main lineage in East Asia and Papua New Guinee and in Paleolithic Central/North Asia.
But almost all Y DNA F clades are from Southwest Asia. Which points to yHG F originating in Southwest Asia.
K1 (LT)=Southwest Asia.
H: Southwest Asia
G: Southwest Asia
IJ: Europe and Southwest Asia
I do think most yHG F subclades in Middle East come from Basal Eurasian.
@Kristina,
Y DNA C and D are more basal than Y DNA F. They make East Asian Y DNA diverse. Y DNA C and D could come from originally very basal Eurasian pops. But, maybe they mixed with mainstrem East Asian pops who carried Y DNA K2 originally.
It is possible Y DNA C is mainstream Eurasian, Y DNA G is basal Eurasian, eventhough yHG C is more basal than G in Eurasian Y DNA tree.
@Samuel Andrews
That makes no sense. F (xGHIJK) have nothing to do with Basal. Only haplogroup that has anything to with Basal is Y-DNA E.
C and F (xGHIJK) was probably generic Eurasian (non-Basal). Ust-Ishim is already K2a and shares more alleles/related to Asians/Oceanians than to anyone else. 2016 study points out Australians are 56% K and they carry several K clades upstream of Ust-Ishim so we already have upstream K's moving into Australia very early.
This is what Pille Hallast shows : Early replacement of West Eurasian male Y chromosomes from the east. She also notes in twitter that this phylogenetic and phylogeographic patterns unlikely to change.
https://twitter.com/pille_hallast/status/1203043801855598593
East Pole: "similar words for wheel and other circular shapes or movements in Slavic and Chinese may not be a coincidence."
Of course it's no coincidence. Compare
- Proto-Wakashan-Nivkh *kəlx- "round, circular" (Nikolaev 2017)
- Nootka caxʷ "round" (ibd.)
- Proto-Kartvelian *ḳwer- "round"
- Proto-North Caucasian *gwɨ[l]gwǝ "round object; skull"
- Yenisseian: *k[ǝ]ŕga (~g-) "head"
- Proto-Eskimo *akra-ɣ- "wheel, to roll, round; (snow)ball"
- Proto-Uralic *kerä "round, rolling; to turn, rotate"
- Proto-Turkic *Kul- " to roll (down)"
- Proto-Afroasiatic *kur-"round object, ball"
- Proto-Katuic *kol "round"
- Proto-Bushman *kVrV "round"
[all via https://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/main.cgi?root=config&morpho=0]
That's a Paleo-Word, in all likelyhood used by ANE (considering the Bushman term, maybe already during OOA times)!
@SamuelAndrews
We also have WHG with haplogroup I and one of the EHG with J. None of those have Basal ancestry.
Basal is associated with E and was likely common in Near East, until these E's were replaced by GIJLT over time moving in from Iran/Caucasus.
@ Sam
“ N and O belong to K2. Under haplogroup F, East Asia and OCeania only has K2. Y DNA F is most diverse in Southwest Asia.
yHG C and D are two divergent clades in East Asia. D comes from Onge-like people. C come from unknown source. It looks like core of East Asian ancestry comes from people who only carried Y DNA K2.”
Ok but if you wanna impress - what’s the order their arrival; routes & respective techno-complexes of each lineage ? :)
Also Sam, Oase-1 in Europe was K2b
Northern Han have West Eurasian-admixture from European steppes. Chariots and bronze appear in China during 1200 BC in Shang Dynasty, they were heavily influenced by Indo-Europeans.
"This analysis confirms that two source populations are consistent with all of the ancestry in most Han Chinese groups (with the exception of some West Eurasian-related admixture that affects some northern Han Chinese in proportions of 2-4% among the groups we sampled"
"The average dates of West Eurasian-related admixture in northern Han Chinese populations Han_NChina and Han_Shanxi are 32-45 generations ago, suggesting that mixture was continuing at the time of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) and Song Dynasty (960-1279 BCE) during which time there are historical records of integration of Han Chinese amd western ethnic groups, but this date is an average so the mixture between groups could have begun earlier."
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.25.004606v1.full.pdf
Shang Dynasty Emperor was also called Yellow Emperor or Blond God (Huangdi). The word "yellow" in Huangdi is more accurately rendered as "blond", referring to the color of Huangdi's hair.
"The chariot first appeared in China around 1200 BC, during the reign of Wu Ding. There is little doubt that the chariot entered China through the Central Asia and the Northern Steppe, possibly indicating some form of contact with the Indo-Europeans. Recent archaeological finds have shown that the late Shang used horses, chariots, bows and practiced horse burials that are similar to the steppe peoples to the west."
The Sinologist Tsung-Tung Chang said that the epithet "Huang-ti" can be etymologically interpreted as "blond heavenly God". He suggests that Huangdi was related to Indo-European migrations to China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Emperor
@Vincent,
"Basal is associated with E and was likely common in Near East, until these E's were replaced by GIJLT over time moving in from Iran/Caucasus."
But, the thing is we see no Y DNA E clades indigenous to Iran or Anatolia or Caucasus. Y DNA E arrived in those places recently.
If you think Y DNA E used to exist in those parts of the Middle East, mTDNA M1 suggests that is not true. mtDNA M1 is the female counterpart to Y DNA E and it is absent in Iran, Anatolia, Caucasus just as Y DNA E is.
I agree with you Y DNA E (and mtDNA M1) comes from a Basal Eurasian pop. But, we have no evidence this pop contributed ancestry to IranN, ANatoliaN, CHG.
@Rob, Thanks for mentioning Oase-1 is K2b. That's interesting. Which means Ust-Ishim is K2a, Tiyanun is K2b, Oase-1 is K2b.
Y DNA K2 must have been a major haplogroup which expanded across a huge range of Eurasia 40,000-50,000 years ago.
In my opinon Oase-1's people in Europe went extinct after 40,000 years ago. They were replaced after 40,000 years ago by pops carrying Y DNA C and I who maybe came from Southwest Asia.
I've said many times. mtDNA U is key. It is THE West Eurasian mtDNA lineage.
80%+ of Europeans dating after 40,000 years belong to mtDNA U. Most ANE samples belong to mtDNA U. Iberomausians West Eurasian ancestry is linked to mtDNA U6. Many mtDNA U clades are indeigenous to the MIddle East.
mtDNA U can explain most of the "West Eurasian" maternal ancestry in the Middle East. All other mtDNA are prime candidates for Basal Eurasian mtDNA.
This logic makes sense.
Y DNA E and mtDNA M1 are smoking guns for Baal Eurasian.
But, other than them there is no super basal mtDNA/Y DNA in Middle East. So, we have to consider basal Eurasian isn't as basal as we thought. We have to look at mtDNA/Y DNA in Middle East but not in Paleo Europe.
FrankN,
Also cf.:
Korean gōŋ "a ball"
Korean gureu- ~ gull- "[v.i.] to roll; to roll about, to roll around (on a hillside, in mud, etc.); to stumble, to tumble; to recoil (as a firearm when a projectile is shot from it); to be lying strewn about"
Korean gūlli- "[v.t.] to roll (dice, a marble, snow into a snowman, one's eyes, etc.); to treat (oneself or one's own belongings) recklessly; to use (a car); to make (money) work, to put to use; to rack (one's brain)
Ainu karkarse ~ karkasse ~ karakasse ~ karakahse "to roll over"
Ainu karkar "to wrap (one's legs with grass-woven leggings)"
Ainu sikari "to turn around; to turn, to bend, to wind, to curve, to meander; to become bent, curved, rounded, or circular" (probably < Ainu reflexive prefix si- "oneself, itself" + Ainu kari "to go in a circle")
Ainu karip "wheel; ring; hoop" (cf. Ainu -p ~ -pe, a frequently used nominalizing suffix, "thing that ~s, thing that is ~, one who ~s, one who is ~")
Ainu ninkari "(large, hooped) earring" (cf. Ainu ni "tree; wood")
Ainu kira "to run away, to escape, to flee"
Ainu kiru "to turn (something a certain direction), to turn toward, to turn to"
@Archi said
"Now every local archaeologist claims that they domesticated the horse first, the Saudits surpassed them all out, they "have" the earliest dates of domestication, they were still in the "Palaeolithic" pranced on horses. The Ayakagytma naturally hosted equides, because close to Przewalski's horses area. The outdated claims that they were domesticated horses in Neolithic times, without any proof, are connected with local pride."
Lol. The lead author is a now 83 yr old accomplshed Polish archaeozoologist. She expressed some great uzbek pride in that paper. The 2nd author is also Polish. only 1 of the 3 is an Uzbek.
ALICJA LASOTA-MOSKALEWSKA, KAROL SZYMCZAK AND MUKHIDDNIN KHUDZHANAZAROV
@vAsiSTha
Ancient horse DNA and archeological data point to Eastern Europe as the location of the domestication of the modern domesticated horse lineage.
https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/06/of-horses-and-men.html
This also correlates with Eastern Europe being the Proto-Indo-European homeland based on historical linguistics data and human DNA.
So it's OK. Everything makes sense. :)
For people interested in the material indo european influence in china
https://historum.com/threads/did-europeans-introduce-metallurgy-wheeled-vehicles-and-horses-to-china.176711/
If you want to compare early chinese mythology
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_gods_and_immortals
Here is an anticipe the symbol of the god of heaven introduced in the shang dinasty at the same time chariot, horse....enter in china
https://ibb.co/djFMrRm
@ Samuel
You skip the origin of K2b in your post. Currently, it is in North China as Tianyuan, K2b, is the earliest individual on the ENA branch with East Asian drift. In the tree diagram of this new paper, all North Chinese and South Chinese samples are rooted with Tianyuan. When this is combined with what you explained above, K2b must have arisen in North China and was ENA, and K2b1 went all the way down to Indonesia, while K2b2 (P) split later on and some branches ended up in the Philippines and another branch in the Andamanes and only one branch headed west, i.e. P-P226.
The present data does not show where N or O arose, but K2a probably did not arise in East Asia, because we know that there is K2a in UP Europe and in UP Siberia. In the tree diagram of this new paper, all North Chinese and South Chinese samples are rooted with Tianyuan, Kostenki and Yana, i.e. with the northern colonization of Eurasia. The relationship with such southern branches as Onge and Papuan is left unresolved in the tree.
This paper also confirms more recent gene flow from the north as it is written that ”Paleosiberian-related ancestry from Siberia also greatly impacts recent East Asians, with the exception of a 300-year-old individual from coastal mainland southern East Asia, island populations, and Tibetans. This lack of Paleosiberian-related ancestry in the peripheral edges of East Asia suggests that different types of gene flow from north to south occurred in East Asia.”
Yes, I do support the Central Asian origin of yDNA K versus Southeast Asian origin, because all ancient evidence is going against the southeast Asian origin. If it is adequately proven in the future, I will of course accept it.
Liangdao (亮島 “Bright/Shining/Illuminating Island”) is an islet (length approximately 1.7 km, area approximately 0.35 km²) located in the Taiwan Strait about 26 km to 27 km off the tip of the Huangqi Peninsula in Tailu Town (苔菉镇), Lianjiang County, Fuzhou, Fujian. It is about 191 km distant from the National Palace Museum in Taipei and 175 km northwest of Cape Fugui, the northernmost point of the island of Taiwan. (However, the distance to Guanyin District, Taoyuan City, Taiwan is slightly less, at approximately 167 km.) Geographically, Liangdao is much closer to northeastern Fujian (Fuzhou & Ningde) on the mainland than it is to the island of Taiwan. The mtDNA of the Liangdao1 specimen (supposedly male) has been reported to belong to haplogroup E (a typically Austronesian mtDNA haplogroup related to haplogroup M9), and the specimen has been radiocarbon dated to 8,320-8,060 cal BP. The Liangdao2 specimen is supposedly female and has been radiocarbon dated to 7,590-7,560 cal BP.
Suogang (鎖港遺址) is an archaeological site located near the southern tip of Magong, the main island of the Penghu or Pescadores Islands in the Taiwan Strait, about 55 km due west of the mouth of the Beigang River (北港溪) at the border between Chiayi County (嘉義縣) and Yunlin County (雲林縣) on the west coast of the island of Taiwan. The Aogu Wetland now projects a few kilometers toward Magong Island on the south side of the river mouth. The artifacts recovered from the Suogang site are associated with coeval artifacts from the southwestern coast of Taiwan. The authors have sequenced two individuals from the Suogang site, specimen B1 and specimen B3. Associated shells have been radiocarbon dated to 4,633 - 4,287 cal BP and 4,793 - 4,407 cal BP, so the B1 and B3 specimens from Suogang are probably contemporaries of the specimens from Tanshishan and Xitoucun in the Min River basin in mainland Fujian with whom they share a similar position on the PCA graph.
Tanshishan is an archaeological site located along a creek near the Min River (闽江) in Minhou County, Fuzhou, Fujian, about 15 km upstream of the Jinshan Bridge (金山大桥) in Fuzhou City, the capital of Fujian Province and about 108 km WSW of Liangdao. The authors of the present study have performed radiocarbon dating and found that specimen M6 dates to 4,419 – 4,246 cal BP, specimen M20 dates to 4,526-4,417 cal BP, and specimen M26-1 dates to 4,410-4,225 cal BP. Autosomally, the PCA suggests that these specimens are very similar to the Liangdao specimens from three to four millennia earlier.
The Xitoucun site is located 15 km or so upstream along the Min River (about 12 km plumbline distance) from Tanshishan. Specimens from this site have been directly radiocarbon dated to 4,419-4,246 cal BP (M49), 4,530-4,417 cal BP (M32), 4,530-4,417 cal BP (M26), 4,527-4,406 cal BP (M15), 4,580-4,423 cal BP (M13), 4,644-4,500 cal BP (M44), and 4,418-4,240 cal BP (M18-2), so they are contemporaneous with the specimens from Tanshishan (especially specimen M20), and they are likewise considered as representatives of the Tanshishan culture. On the PCA graph, they overlap with their contemporaries from Tanshishan and Suogang and with the several millennia more ancient specimens from Liangdao.
Ancient samples from Vanuatu (I think these are early Lapita pottery-using settlers of the island) appear much closer to the Min River basin (continental northeast Fujian) & Taiwan Strait archipelagic specimens (Liangdao, Suogang) than to present-day Austronesian-speaking peoples in the north (Atayal) and east (Amis) of Taiwan. However, the Austronesian-speaking Bunun people of southern Taiwan appear to be somewhat closer to the Liangdao, Min River Neolithic, Suogang, and Vanuatu Lapita specimens. The most autosomally divergent tribe, the Atayal, are almost exclusively Y-DNA O1a-M119 if I remember correctly. The Amis, who are slightly less divergent on average, have a significant number of members who belong to the O2a2b2-AM01822/F3223 and O2a2a1a2b-Y26395 subclades of O2a2-P201 besides many members of O1a-M119. The Bunun are peculiar among the remaining aboriginal tribes of Taiwan for their high frequency of O1b1a1a1a1a-M88, which is typically found among Tai peoples, Vietnamese, and Kuy people (an Austroasiatic > West Katuic-speaking people of Northeast Thailand and neighboring parts of Laos and Cambodia), although they also have a great deal of haplogroup O1a2-M50. According to kolgeh on the Anthrogenica forum, one of the specimens from the Tanshishan site belongs to O1b1a1a1a-F1252, which is the clade that contains O-M88.
There appears to be a notable difference between the Qihe2 specimen from a cave in a somewhat inland location in southwestern Fujian and the Tanshishan and Xitoucun specimens from riverside settlements three to four millennia later near the coast of northeastern Fujian. The riparian/coastal inhabitants of northeastern Fujian ca. 4,500 ybp seem to have been related to coeval populations of the Penghu Islands (and probably also southwestern Taiwan) as well as people from three or four millennia earlier on Liangdao and Lapita pottery-using people (probably proto-Oceanic Austronesians) from one and a half millennia later on Vanuatu. Qihe2, from a more southwesterly and inland location in Fujian (and several millennia earlier than all the other sampled specimens except the two from Liangdao) appears to share less of the southeastward/Austronesian drift.
So the archaeogenetic record has been revised and Oase-1 had Y-DNA K2b and not K2a* like Ust-Ishim?
@ SLMD
Whatever contact northern China had with IE was indirect, removed by 2 degrees.
_______________
Curiously, Neolithic northern China was predominantly hg N
https://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-13-216
But modern Han Chinese are overwhelmingly derived from O-lineages
Archaeologically, this correlates with shifts during the LN - BA, with rise of new centres
Now we have more or less equally old N1b1 samples in Neolithic Northeast China, including Shandong, and N1a in Neolithic Baikal, both with an Northeast Asian autosomal profile. N1a and N1b separated 21700 ybp, so we need LGM N samples to resolve the question of its origin.
Few graphics using the new East Asian samples to generate Global 25 PCA: https://imgur.com/a/c1akti5
Most salient PCs selected.
I would say that on these, in general:
- The centre of Han is about halfway between the coastal North Neolithic (8000-6000BCE) and coastal South Neolithic. (The centre of Han here is probably reasonably representative of the I think bigger panel of Han from Melinda Yang's paper, since both are pretty close to Miao. And Yang's Han average pretty close to a province population level weighted average of province proportions in the paper, which together represent about 50% China's population, without too much obvious to me bias to north or south.)
- But, it seems on this paper Han is more between the Late Neolithic (2500 BCE) South Coastal samples (Tanshishan and Xitoucou) and Early Neolithic North Coastal Samples (Liangdao, Qihe).
- Qihe looks possibly non-ancestral to Han as displaced away from Asian cline. This doesn't reflect being closer to Hoabinhians or anything as we know from the formal stats in the paper that's not the case. So this probably represents more Kostenki14 / Yana / GoyetQ116 style compression where the sample is more compressed to centre because it's not so well represented among recent people.
- Liangdao looks possibly more ancestral to Neolithic groups in Vietnam, but not quite the same.
It may be that Liangdao is too early for specific Austroasiatic and Austronesian drift to emerge. Or it could be that Liangdao is intermediate populations nearer Yangtze and upper reaches of Mekong which were the true ancestral populations to Austronesians (and China) and Austroasiatics, respectively. Or it could just be some compression on G25.
So I think the paper's general idea that the South Coastal Neolithic Hunter Gatherer populations were roughly on the East Asian cline and not as different as Jomon, let alone Hoabinhian, basically stands. It wasn't the case that broadly East Asian ancestry came to the south of China with cultivation and agriculture.
But at the same time, Liangdao *may* (may) not be exactly representative of the ancestral southern population(s) contributing about 40-50% to Han. (Unless the Liangdao samples are extra compressed or something).
There may be some slight compression of these guys on this PCA, but I think in general the results are in keeping with paper, mostly.
(Linear Discriminant Analysis version of same thing: https://imgur.com/a/5dNVdMc).
"Srtmil said...
For people interested in the material indo european influence in china"
Thank for sharing these valuable resources. One need not assume that these contacts automatically support the steppe homeland theory of PIE or late PIE. They may even work against it.
https://www.academia.edu/35493286/A_brief_note_on_the_two_older_Indo-European_words_for_earth_and_man_as_compared_to_Tibetan_-_2017
"The influence on the "northern branch" was illustrated by us in other papers (lexically, as special Germano-Balto-Slavic word for "thousand", being non-Indo-European, but having a cognate in Tibetan, as stong<*tausen. Balto-Slavic word for "iron" [Germanic! already in Europe, borrowed a Celtic word later], having a good Tibetan cognate, lcags<gilags<*gilags not from *ltyags).
The same was illustrated for the most part of Indo European, (frequently, except only Anatolian) cf. Germanic fehu<*pecu, Latin pecu, Tibetan phyugus<*pheugs<*pegus but ARYAN pasu (emphasis mine)."
Further,
"But Tibeto-Burman dialects most heavily influenced the Germano-Balto-Slavic continuum (as its territory for some time overlapped with that of proto-Bodish Tibeto-Burmans),earlier, and later, by the end of the 1 millennium BC Tibeto-Burmans influenced Indo Aryan languages but in a completely different way"
Igor TB then goes on to explain how the modern Indo Aryan word for horse ghoda is a borrowing from Tibeto Burman while the Sanskrit ashwa is still there but used only in more formal speech and writing.
Now the question arises, in what part of the world could Tibeto Burman languages have SIMULTANEOUSLY influenced Germanic, Latin, Balto Slavic AND new Indo Aryan languages?
Post a Comment