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Wednesday, February 2, 2022

The PIE homeland controversy: February 2022 status report


I think we'll see the emergence of two main competing proto-Indo-European (PIE) homeland theories over the next few years:

- a homeland in the Eneolithic North Caucasus, and the spread of Anatolian languages into West Asia with Maykop-related ancestry

- a homeland in the North Pontic region, possibly within the Eneolithic Sredny Stog archeological culture, and the spread of Anatolian languages into West Asia via the Balkans.

Both theories have support from ancient DNA. Some of it has already been published (for instance, see here).

At this point, I can see myself firmly in the North Pontic camp, even if it turns out that North Pontic-related ancestry only made a fleeting impact on Bronze Age Anatolia.

After all, there's no direct relationship between genes and languages, so to prove that Anatolian languages came from the North Pontic, there's no need for North Pontic-related ancestry to persist in Anatolia, as long as we have solid evidence that people with this type of ancestry moved there at the right time.

In my mind, for now, the Maykop culture provides an excellent explanation for non-Indo-European influences in PIE, and there's no need to make it Indo-European speaking, let alone PIE speaking.

See also...

The PIE homeland controversy: June 2021 status report

247 comments:

1 – 200 of 247   Newer›   Newest»
Rob said...

I recall that commentators who understand the evidence see Majkop as Kartvelian at best, rather than NWC

ancestralwhispers.org said...

I have my doubts about the Para-Kartvelian status of Maykop now. With the release of more modern samples from West Georgia, we clearly see their similarity with Proto-Northwest Caucasians, that is high CHG and no Iran_N. The latter ancestry was crucial to Maykop.
Whatever Iran_N that seems to exist in contemporary West Georgians is likely a result of back migrations by East Georgians.
https://i.imgur.com/KvmKkQM.png

Maykopians right now occupy a somewhat unique spot in the Caucasian genetic cluster, hopefully more samples will answer our questions about the Maykopian ethnogensis, and their legacy to contemporary Caucasians.

Ric Hern said...

I think too much is made of Anatolian Languages and their proposed Archaic Nature, while 99% of Indo-European Languages are sidestepped in the process...

Rob said...

@ ancestralwhispers

Agree that NWC & Georgians are similar genetically
And of course, the post Majkop Dolmen culture expanded from SW Caucasus
I wonder if could be as simple as Kolchian culture -> Kartvelian & Koban-> NWC

Matt said...

In theory you could argue for the same thing between Caucasus->Anatolia&Steppe, that so long as there is some transient influence of the Caucasus on any people in the steppe, there need not be enduring genetic evidence for it to be plausible.

But I think these situations wouldn't be so exactly parallel, considering the state of the non-genetic evidence. The Caucasus->Anatolia&Steppe idea was reopened due to an argument for genetic influence, so if that line of argument were completely closed off, there wouldn't be the same kind of remaining support from non-genetic evidence, as there is in the other case. If you've got A) "Steppe->Anatolia, without enduring genetic evidence, but nonetheless its still the preferred idea per the consensus of archaeology-linguistics" and B) "Caucasus->Anatolia&Steppe, without enduring genetic evidence, but also its not preferred among archaeology-linguistics", it seems like the former should be preferred.

Davidski said...

From what I've seen, there might be an attempt to ascribe the Anatolian-related ancestry in Yamnaya to early Maykop or Meshoko.

But even if this turns out to be correct, I'll still see Maykop as a likely source of non-Indo-European influence on PIE.

vAsiSTha said...

That's the Harvard vs MaxPlanck/Jena hypothesis. steppe vs anatolian hypothesis.

Both are wrong of course lol. At this point, they're just fighting to preserve their egos.

The first 5000-4500bce genome from east of caspian will prove itself as the source of steppe eneolithic.

Davidski said...

@Rob

I'm talking about the level of autosomal steppe or any sort of European ancestry in Bronze Age Anatolia.

Davidski said...

@vAsiSTha

I've seen some genomes from east of Khvalynsk dating to about the same time.

Mostly EHG and WSHG, with very little CHG.

Copper Axe said...

One issue I have is that if you look at the archaeology during the Eneolithic, the formative period of PIE, there isnt a ton of influence or connections to the Caucasus. That becomes more significant later but at that point you dont really have a cohesive PIE unit anymore. So if its non-IE influence on PIE, it is influence between 4500-4000 BC or 4500-3500 BC depending on when you date the Anatolian breakup and for both of those dates I would really look more towards Southeastern Europe. That is the influence which had massive influences on the steppe societies, and this is the type of influence you would see richly reflected in language, mythology and worldview.

ancestralwhispers.org said...

@Rob
There isn't really any toponomical evidence of a NWC presence in Colchis, barring Abkhazia. Svaneti has some too but that appears to be a more recent phenomenon. I'm still of the opinion that Dolmen culture was ancestral to NWC, whereas Colchian culture proper to Kartvelians, their exact relations are a mystery and due to a lack of samples, the lead isn't that good. Koban appears to be G2a1, not exactly a lineage found in large numbers among NWC, and interestingly Dolmen and Meshoko did not harbor typical NWC paternal lineages either, not sure how significant that will be in the long run.

@Davidski
How would that be possible, given the amount of Levant and Iran_N ancestry that our currently available Maykop samples harbor. There is one Maykop sample with no Levant ancestry, but he also harbors a significant amount of Iran_N ancestry, on top of Anatolian and CHG.

Copper Axe said...

For example if we hypothetically run with the idea that the Corded Ware originated from people near the Dnieper on the steppe/forest periphery around 3500-3000 BC how much influence from Maykop would you expect in their culture and society? At best they would've spoken diverging late PIE dialects ancestral to many IE languages, or simply just early IE languages. So prior to the divergence this influence has to be there, which gets you into the late 4th and 5th millenium B.C territory quite rapidly.

Davidski said...

@ancestralwhispers

There were early Maykop or maybe pre-Maykop people on the steppe with mostly Eneolithic steppe and some Meshoko ancestry.

We might see them soon in some paper.

Rob said...

I think (central & northern) Central Asia is mostly going to be WSHG. I can't see any Jeitun or Hissar influences showing up in the Caspian littoral circa 5000 bc. There's no archaeological evidence, so it's a genetic Hail Mary

In the PC steppe, it's mish-mash of fisher-hunter-gatherers with patchy & selective Euro Farmer influence. The approach of 'autosomal parsimony' has steered geneticists in the wrong direction. I think Heyd's latest article on Yamnaya / CWC was a step in the right direction

Copper Axe said...

@Davidski

"I've seen some genomes from east of Khvalynsk dating to about the same time.

Mostly EHG and WSHG, with very little CHG."

Do you know the sites these samples are from? Is it Koshuduk by any chance?

Davidski said...

@Copper Axe

Potentially, Maykop influence on something like Repin or early Yamnaya can be described as influence on PIE.

vAsiSTha said...

"I've seen some genomes from east of Khvalynsk dating to about the same time.

Mostly EHG and WSHG, with very little CHG"

East of khvalynsk isn't east of Caspian.

Matt said...

@Davidski, if I'm remembering rightly I've generally found the models work both ways in the 1240k, either Maykop or European EEF+Ukraine_HG (at least if I remember rightly if Khvalynsk can be included as a source). It seems really hard to prove without any particular samples that are intermediate particularly positions, and unless they've found that it would be hard to be confident.

Although it sounds like someone may have such samples. (I think this was how I interpreted the abstract from Ghalichi saying "In the Late Eneolithic period, we find evidence of admixture from the south into the steppe groups, detectable through the presence of Anatolian_Neolithic-like ancestry.". E.g. not just Steppe_Maykop outliers, but also admixed Steppe-Caucasus people who lacked Steppe_Maykop's WSHG?).

Might not even be confident with such samples; I think Rob would argue for instance that in his view there is a clear y-dna trail in his view (which idea the Sredny Stog sample set might help to test, and we don't know what they have yet save that either M269 generally or Z2103 specifically is apparently not found according to Anthony), and there is the argument that any involvement of Maykop specifically, and possibly any Eneolithic Caucasus culture, is proven null and void by Sredny-Stog.

Re; the comment back to Vasistha, if there's very little CHG in EHG/WSHG cline populations east of Khvalynsk at the same time, then that might suggest some interesting things about how the Steppe_Maykop population came about. (I.e. tends to push a little against one idea that a CHG/EHG Piedmont Eneolithic population was pushing east well pre-Khvalynsk and formed a mixed population in Western Kazakhstan or something like this? Although different populations might co-exist without admixing.).

Davidski said...

@Matt

Although it sounds like someone may have such samples.

That's probably the same thing that I'm talking about.

But this Eneolithic steppe/Anatolian mixture is just part of the mix on the southern steppe at this time. West Siberian ancestry is also there.

That's why for now, I can't see this as anything relevant to Yamnaya, but rather the process that led to Steppe Maykop, including the Steppe Maykop outliers.

Rob said...


well I wouldnt say that Majkop influence is null. The Late Chalcolithic in eastern Anatolia saw the emergence of advanced pastoralist economies. So maybe via Majkop they helped galvanise the final shift toward steppe pastoralism up north.
But, as CopperAxe outlined, it came late on; at a point when the 'world view' of kurgan groups was formed. The direct influence of Majkop was mostly on Konstantivoka groups, which replaced the LDC. And I wouldn't be surpised to see a couple of Y-hg J2a in Eneolithic steppe.

Copper Axe said...

Maybe those eneolithic samples are from the Pearl Pottery culture? This material culture of the N. Caucasus came from the south and naturally had contacts with the steppe foragers they came across. It could make sense as to why steppe_en is featured in some Maykop and KAC samples but never in a high amounts which you often see with recent admixture.

Davidski said...

@Copper Axe

I guess the IBD sharing between Steppe Maykop and Usatovo, as reported by the Harvard group, provides direct evidence of such contacts.

Davidski said...

@Matt

Let's say for now ~80% Progress-like and ~20% Meshoko-like.

But like I say, WSHG isn't far away, and Yamnaya lacks it, so I can't see the origins of Yamnaya here.

Also, Yamnaya has EEF maternal ancestry...

a said...

Meteoric Iron - iron smelting-burials.
Since iron was used by Hittites. Is there any data R1b-z2105 and IBD sharing between Yamnaya graves, Afanasievo, Catacombe in connection with((meteoric iron ), for example graves with-jewellery-tools-weapons-- and or other iron artifacts?

vAsiSTha said...

Some things have to be made very clear:

1. For the ancestors of Yamnaya, There is no purer ancestry found than Steppe_en at progress and vonyuchka. Tt is 50-50 EHG - CHG/Iran. There is no WHG component at all. There may be minor traces of Anatolian.

Any ancestry found north of Caucasus with steppe_en profile but also some WHG, will be considered an intermediate population to Yamnaya. Davidski will claim that this intermediate population is some new exotic stuff with no relation to Iran but that does not make it so.

so unless a population is sampled that has a higher CHGIran:EHG ratio than even steppe_en, steppe_en will remain by default the original source of Yamnaya.

2. The confusion between CHG and IranN comes because f3(Steppe_en; EHG,CHG) as well as f3(Steppe_en; EHG, IranN) are both significantly negative.

There are 2 populations to the south of caucasus range from the same timeperiod - areni_c, seh_gabi and meshoko. all have significant anatolian ancestry, the kind absent from steppe_en.

3. In the G25 models of areni_C, meshoko and Steppe_en; why does only Steppe_en pick up shared drift with Sarazm?

4. In qpGraphs, why does CHG+EHG or IranN+EHG fail due to affinity for an eastern population?

5. in qpAdm of steppe_en as EHG + CHG, why does the model fail due to d-stats showing less affinity with IVC in model than actual? https://pastebin.com/kv3CQY6K

EHG + CHG. p-val=4.2e-15

gendstat: China_AmurRiver_LPaleolithic IVC -3.438
gendstat: Yana_UP.SG IVC -5.262
gendstat: Serbia_IronGates_Mesolithic IVC -4.343
gendstat: ONG.SG IVC -4.518
gendstat: Mbuti.DG IVC -5.557

I do not expect an honest answer from Davidski

Copper Axe said...

@Davidski

"I guess the IBD sharing between Steppe Maykop and Usatovo, as reported by the Harvard group, provides direct evidence of such contacts."

Well Usatovo sites have a presence of Caucasian imported metals and goods, which given that these sites are roughly dated to 3500-3000 bc isn't very surprising as this is when the CMP had developed.

Steppe Maykop - Usatovo IBD links however would be more indicative of interactions between two mound building, steppe pastoralist societies I think. If they didnt have Maykop pottery shells in their otherwise generic and relatively empty graves "the "Steppe Maykop" would have been called Yamnaya such as the people of the Kumsay site.

Without further context it also doesnt exactly mean much because god knows how, when, where and under which circumstances this mixing occurred.

Matt said...

@Davidski, that seems to make sense. I think if that model was proposed for Yamnaya origins, with a group that by chance avoided mixing with WSHG, then the group that mixed would have to move NW very quickly to avoid any homogenization that would lead to incorporating WSHG ancestry.

@CopperAxe, in his Steppe_Maykop video, Anthony mentioned that there was a "fair amount of Maykop ancestry" in "some Usatovo individuals" and repeats the word Maykop there twice to emphasize it. Video with timestamp: https://youtu.be/1O1zDrW7SvE?t=420 . Also after talking in the rest of this video about how Steppe_Maykop ancestry is distinct from the Caucasus Maykop. He then seems to go on to suggest this supports evidence for maritime trade around the Black Sea.

I don't know if this is his way of saying that the ancestry of Maykop proper (the Caucasus group) is also found in some Usatovo people, beyond the finding which we know about where the Steppe_Maykop person (think it was the male kurgan founding grave with the wagon burial) had the relative in Usatovo, which Ringbauer revealed to us. I guess we will have to wait and see.

a said...

Looks like(Volga-Samara region) Yamnaya-Afanasievo-Catacombe(including Derievka proto Dom2 sites)-& other pottery offshoots , resemble more like Eastern steppe-Transbaikal region pottery and Jomon type (conical with cord markings) type pottery, than anything from Mesopotamia.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S104061821630430X

Genos Historia said...

@All,

This conversation will go on. Because I'm working on a video debunking an Iran homeland for IE languages.

This blog will be main topic. Because, I will use Davidski's work as my evidence that an iran homeland is wrong.

Also, the Kurgan ghost Rexon will be a big part of the video. He is super pissed about the Iran theory.

Genos Historia said...

I see, this is the next battle. Let me guess this is where the Harvard lab is going. They just won't give up.

"From what I've seen, there might be an attempt to ascribe the Anatolian-related ancestry in Yamnaya to early Maykop or Meshoko."

A said...

@a

One unappreciated aspect of Early Bronze Age and Middle Bronze Age steppe metallurgy was its experimentation with iron. … A Catacomb-period grave at Gerasimovka on the Donets (western Russia/Ukraine), probably dated around 2500 BCE, contained a knife with a handle made of arsenical bronze and a blade made of iron. The iron did not contain magnetite or nickel, as would be expected in meteoric iron, so it is thought to have been forged. Iron objects were rare, but they were part of the experiments conducted by steppe metalsmiths during the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, long before iron began to be used in Hittite Anatolia or the Near East.

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language : David W. Anthony (p.336)

ref: Shramko and Mashkarov 1993 (on p.538)

Genos Historia said...

@Matt,

My impression is David anthony was saying that one Ustavo guy has a Steppe Maykop parent.

I don't know though. Maybe you watched the video with more attention.

If it is Steppe Maykop, Copper axe is right that this does not show connection to the Caucasus. Because, Steppe Maykop were a Steppe people. They should be given a different name because they aren't really deeply connected to Maykop.

Genos Historia said...

As i recall, Anthony mentioned it as an example of mobility within the Steppe.

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

Well Nick seems to favour the former hypothesis, Krause favours a Zargos homeland.

This cay008 sample from the Mesopotamian paper looks like it has the same type of Zargos ancestry as the Steppe.

I also am a big fan of using "Zargos related ancestry" in place od CHG/Iranian Neolithic related".

Matt said...

Wondering a bit now where the sampling will be if there are any samples that are like the Eneolithic Steppe (Progress) plus Maykop/Meshoko without much/any WSHG. One of the things I thought when the Wang paper came out was that the Steppe_Maykop samples who were closer to the semi-shrub desert around the Caspian Sea shore looked like they had more WSHG, and that the sample MK5005 who was down south looked like he had less WSHG. So it seemed possible that if we got sampling from further west, we might find that the samples were more likely to have low WSHG and who were more likely to be just mixed between Eneolithic Steppe (Progress) plus Maykop/Meshoko. I wonder if this will end up being true? Or it will be unrelated to geography?

Dave the Slothtopus said...

You folks might like this:
https://twitter.com/MuseumHalle_E/status/1489222144357593088
^^"Already before aDNA studies, archaeologists had discussed an eastern origin of the Corded Ware Culture. A key find in this discussion was the grave from Egeln. The hammerhead antler pin, has analogies in the Ukraine and the Caucasus region. Photo © LDA Sachsen-Anhalt, J. Lipták."

Sam Elliott said...

I noticed there were samples from the Usatovo Puracari burial site (Tumulus 1, burial 21) and the Giurgiulesti Kurgan (Suvorovo/Cernavoda…grave #4) submitted to the Reich Lab as part of the upcoming Reich/Lazaridis/Shephard paper THE GENETIC HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN ARC: A BRIDGE BETWEEN WEST ASIA AND EUROPE.

Previously I had noticed that there was a blog entry on this Eurogenes site indicating that haplogroup L283 migrated to Europe during the Bronze Age via Mediterranean traders from the south. I can’t find that blog entry anymore.

Is it possible that this L283 lineage, the oldest samples of which are found in Mokrin and Nal’chik, may have moved into SE Europe and Hungary via these early Suvorovo folk from Sredny Stog vicinity?

Are there any additional Sredny Stog samples in the pipeline? Were there economic/trade ties between Meshoko and Sredny Stog?

Davidski said...

@Sam Elliott

I'm working on a new blog post about L283.

Davidski said...

@Silvia

Both Yamnaya and Afanasievo are from Sredny Stog.

Davidski said...

@Matt

For instance, there's an Eneolithic burial from near the Don, but the remains there are of both types (with WHSG and Meshoko-like/WSHG-free).

Davidski said...

@Romulus

There's no Zagros-related ancestry in Yamnaya.

And I'm going to have some fun with Johannes Krause next time he puts out a paper or a book, and claims that Asian horse riders invaded Europe during the Bronze Age.

Rob said...

I wonder if anybody has sampled the Nalchik cemetery. Seems to be Meshoko-like with many burials. I spoke Russian peeps, but its a big, beuracratic country, hard for streamlined answers.

a said...

@A said...


"One unappreciated aspect of Early Bronze Age and Middle Bronze Age steppe metallurgy was its experimentation with iron. … A Catacomb-period grave at Gerasimovka on the Donets (western Russia/Ukraine), probably dated around 2500 BCE, contained a knife with a handle made of arsenical bronze and a blade made of iron. The iron did not contain magnetite or nickel, as would be expected in meteoric iron, so it is thought to have been forged. Iron objects were rare, but they were part of the experiments conducted by steppe metalsmiths during the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, long before iron began to be used in Hittite Anatolia or the Near East.

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language : David W. Anthony (p.336)

ref: Shramko and Mashkarov 1993 (on p.538)"

Thanks, that sample- along with others from Yamnaya-Afanasievo, is also mentioned in "The Urals and Western Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages."by
Ludmila Koryakova and Andrej Epimakhov

It will be interesting to see if these same pieces show up in Maykop.

Matt said...

Sam, I think from talking about "Maykop ancestry in some Usatovo individuals" he means more than one sample. Possibly there's one sample only and he has extrapolated from it. But that and as whether it is Maykop proper or not, we'll see. I don't think it would be too surprising if it was such ancestry; we already know of Yamnaya Ozera with Caucasus ancestry up in Ukraine. Probably not the only such case.

Rob said...

back to the recent Moorjani / Patterson preprint, I find it interesting they've used an 'Iran N' pooled for modelling. but they haven't used CHG (Kotias, Satsurblia)
Anyone understand a reason for that ?

Copper Axe said...

@Sam Elliott

"Are there any additional Sredny Stog samples in the pipeline? "

I messaged N. Kotova not too long ago because I used one of her articles in one of my blogs. Some of her samples from Sredny Stog and earlier Azov sea samples were sent to Reich's lab and she said she was awaiting results, so there is stuff coming!

"THE GENETIC HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN ARC: A BRIDGE BETWEEN WEST ASIA AND EUROPE." I wonder what the conclusions will look like...

@A

If you want to see some of these iron artefacts, I did a piece about them a while back:
https://musaeumscythia.blogspot.com/2021/10/new-evidence-for-meteoric-iron-objects.html

Also regarding pottery, the pottry used in the eastern european steppes or forest-zone does not come from the Near East. It does ultimately come from pottery in East Asia however. So thats why you're noticing what you are noticing.

Matt said...

@Rob, I think CopperAxe compiled all the comments about that but, it's a) large sample size is more important than the most proximate population, b) didn't want to combine shotgun and 1240k capture DNA. From Nick's comments I think. Method concerns.

Davidski said...

@Copper Axe

"THE GENETIC HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN ARC: A BRIDGE BETWEEN WEST ASIA AND EUROPE." I wonder what the conclusions will look like...

Let me take a wild guess: the Pontic-Caspian steppe is in Europe, but it's really in Asia.

Haha.

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

@Rob

"back to the recent Moorjani / Patterson preprint, I find it interesting they've used an 'Iran N' pooled for modelling. but they haven't used CHG (Kotias, Satsurblia)
Anyone understand a reason for that ?"


It's because they are suggesting the Yamnaya Genotype formed 4400 BCE - 4000 BCE i.e. the mixing between the EHG and CHG populations leading to the rise of CHG related ancestry on the Steppe occurred much too late to have come from CHG (13000-9700 YBP) and hence must have come from some CHG rich population living somewhere, probably the North Caucasus or on the Steppe according to Davidski. We need a more recent source for the CHG related ancestry on the Steppe, but a source that isn't from Neolithic Iran. Hence why even if Zargos might not be perfect it's still better than CHG or Iran Neolithic.

CHG - too old
Iran Neolithic - Not right
It's more like North Caucasus Pre-Maykop.

Davidski said...

@Romulus

It's Zagros you dickhead.

And no, you don't need a more recent source of CHG for Yamnaya, because the CHG/EHG mixture in the Progress/Vonyuchka samples can be dated as far back as the Mesolithic.

Davidski said...

@Matt

Correction...

~70% Progress-like, ~30% Meshoko-like

Sam Elliott said...

@Davidski

“I'm working on a new blog post about L283.”

Outstanding. Looking forward to it.

Rob said...

@ Vasistha ( & Romulus)


''so unless a population is sampled that has a higher CHGIran:EHG ratio than even steppe_en, steppe_en will remain by default the original source of Yamnaya.''


Progress, or a population like it, is a major source of ancestry in Yamnaya groups, but it is not the cause of Yamnaya genesis. That would be extremely reductionist in framework, and quite probably wrong.

Progress & Vonuchka existed within a relatively limited time period - 4300 - 3800 BC, at which point their niche became taken by Steppe Majkop groups.
The cultural origins of Progress are eastern Srendi Stog, from the north, but some might (predominantly female-mediated admixture) occurred with groups to their northwest (most likely Dnieper-DOnec southern forest-steppe). The progress_En had been coming south to acquire obsidian, and thus engaged in marriage networks with CHG groups. The time of this admixture is conservatively c. 6000 BC which can be inferred via DATES and archaeological dating of north Caucasus settlement habitation, which occurred during specific timeframes.
Then, we have Meshoko by 4500 BC which has eastern Anatolian affinities, (but of course that does not exclude variablity and the existence of less Anatolian-admixed individuals from a greater sample set like which might be afforded by Nalchik)


So here is a breakdown of the various groups of interest, here
it also tells us that south/southeast Caspian groups like Hotu are distinctive to Progress_EN

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

Zagros Zargos Zebras, whoops I miss interpreted it. The suggestion that the rise of CHG ancestry on the Steppe is autochthonous is a Davidski-Delusion. What's more we know that in the same time period there was an independent west-ward movement of a population rich in CHG ancestry out of Western Anatolia and into the lands bordering the Aegean and Adriatic. We know they were capable of colonizing as far as Crete but presume them incapable of travelling around the Black Sea coast from wherever they originated. Progress is not the source.

Rob said...

With the Dereivkas added.
The two Eneolithic are females, ~ 3300 BC
The 'EBA Ukr" is Dereivka R1b-M269 ~ 2800 BC

We have R1b-M269 in a local HG. Beware the allure of autosomal parsimony, Its a path to the Dark Side

Davidski said...

@Romulus

The Zagros Mountains are in Iran you dickhead.

And no one in their right mind any longer thinks that Yamnaya has any sort of recent or direct ancestry from Iran.

Here's what Nick said recently on CA's blog.

The Yamnaya are genetically a mix of Eastern Hunter Gatherer related
and "Iranian" related but the relatedness should be interpreted very loosely.


https://musaeumscythia.blogspot.com/2022/01/when-did-western-steppe-herder-genetic.html?showComment=1643049711012#c8327088726707873482

Andrzejewski said...

@Davidski “ In my mind, for now, the Maykop culture provides an excellent explanation for non-Indo-European influences in PIE”

What non-IE influences in PIE?

And if exist, couldn’t they have come via some farmer or even forager relic language to the west?

Andrzejewski said...

@Rob “ I wonder if could be as simple as Kolchian culture -> Kartvelian & Koban-> NWC”

No, because Kartvelian languages and NWC ones aren’t found to be related.

andrew said...

I agree with your conclusion.

One small, but important, historical point to support it is that the attested pre-Hittite Anatolian languages have a strong Western Anatolian leaning distribution, and are pretty much absent from Eastern Anatolia.

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

There are different theories about who influenced PIE.

Some of the linguistic families mentioned are Northwest Caucasian, Kartvelian and even Semitic.

I don't have the expertise to linguistically verify or debunk these claims. So if any of them are true, then we need some explanation, and I think Maykop is a good explanation.

Rob said...

@ Andrze

“ No, because Kartvelian languages and NWC ones aren’t found to be related.”

I know they’re different, but so are the Colchian and Koban cultures, although they had links across the mountains
Have you heard of those archaeological cultures ?

vAsiSTha said...

@rob

None of you can explain to me the affinities seen between steppe_en and eastern iran ancestry in ALL the tools that we use.

Till you guys address that, everything about this topic sounds like apologia from posters here.

Davidski said...

@vAsiSTha

I've already explained it, but you don't want to listen, because it doesn't fit with your expectations.

For anyone who is genuinely interested...

Steppe Eneolithic (Progress and Vonyuchka Eneolithic) is derived from populations that are only distantly related to the Eastern and Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers that we have available from sites hundreds and even thousands of miles away and from across the massive Greater Caucasus.

So in order to lower the statistical fits when modeling its deep ancestry proportions, we have to incorporate minor admixtures from other sources that aren't directly relevant.

That's just how these sorts of statistical games work.


Rob said...

@ vasistha
Maybe you’re masterfully detecting admixture from one or two Jeitun females ?

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

@From this blog that couldn't spell Museum:

If I had to hazard a guess, the 4000-4400 date mentioned in the preprint most likely represents the entry of EEF(Early European Farmer) ancestry into the Steppe gene pool rather than the original EHG/CHG admix event.

wrong, wrong, completely wrong

Table SC from the Supplementary Material, they are using a pool of Iran Neolithic and EHG.

https://i.imgur.com/rqoOYE2.png

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

Previous studies had shown that the early Steppe pastoralists derive ancestry from Eastern huntergatherers (EHG) and Caucuses hunter-gatherers (CHG) (25, 26). The CHG ancestry is maximized
in Iranian Neolithic Farmers. Using data from 8 early Steppe pastoralists groups (seven Yamnayarelated and one Afanasievo group from Russia), we tested if each group could be modeled as a
mixture of EHG_pooled and Iran_N_pooled reference populations (Supplementary Table SA). We
observed that this provides a good fit for most Yamnaya samples except for individuals from the
Baden culture of Hungary and Kalmykia from Russia (Supplementary Table S5.4).
To infer the timing of this admixture, we applied DATES to each of 6 early Steppe pastoralists
groups using EHG_pooled and Iran_N_pooled reference populations. We observed significant
dates (Z > 2) in 5 groups with similar admixture across all groups (within two standard errors)
(Supplementary Table S6.1). The Yamnaya and Afanasievo cultures were genetically and
culturally very similar and have been suggested to have very recent common ancestry (27). We
confirmed this by estimating the genetic distances between the groups using smartpca (inbreed:
YES) and found the FST across groups is very low (~0.00-0.006) (Supplementary Table S6.2).
Thus to infer more precise admixture dates, we pooled all the Yamnaya samples which show a
good fit using qpAdm and had similar ancestry profiles with Afanasievo individuals and obtained
a date of ~4,100 BCE (~4,000-4,300 BCE).

Davidski said...

There's some very weird stuff in that preprint, like, for instance, Steppe Maykop in the EHG pool.

But anyway, as per one of the authors...

The Yamnaya are genetically a mix of Eastern Hunter Gatherer related
and "Iranian" related but the relatedness should be interpreted very loosely.


So your Zagros theory is BS.

vAsiSTha said...

"Steppe Eneolithic (Progress and Vonyuchka Eneolithic) is derived from populations that are only distantly related to the Eastern and Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers that we have available from sites hundreds and even thousands of miles away and from across the massive Greater Caucasus.

So in order to lower the statistical fits when modeling its deep ancestry proportions, we have to incorporate minor admixtures from other sources that aren't directly relevant.

That's just how these sorts of statistical games work."

Great way to say that you don't know wtf is happening and that you have no interest to dig deeper.

There is no 'minor admixture' needed, the ancestry components required are quite 'major'. and deep ancestries dont suddenly appear out of nowhere showing huge >5 Dstat deviations because of affinities with other populations as compared to your preferred model.

anyone with half a brain can figure out that a real ancestry from the east is required based on G25, qpAdm and qpGraphs.

Target: RUS_Progress_En:PG2001
Distance: 3.2604% / 0.03260379
54.4 RUS_Khvalynsk_En
23.0 TJK_Sarazm_En
22.2 GEO_CHG
0.4 IRN_Hajji_Firuz_C
0.0 CHN_Tarim_EMBA1
0.0 CHN_Tarim_EMBA2
0.0 IRN_Ganj_Dareh_N
0.0 IRN_Seh_Gabi_C
0.0 IRN_Seh_Gabi_LN
0.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1
0.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2

Target: RUS_Progress_En:PG2004
Distance: 3.7911% / 0.03791107
64.2 RUS_Khvalynsk_En
23.0 TJK_Sarazm_En
12.4 GEO_CHG
0.4 CHN_Tarim_EMBA1
0.0 CHN_Tarim_EMBA2
0.0 IRN_Ganj_Dareh_N
0.0 IRN_Hajji_Firuz_C
0.0 IRN_Seh_Gabi_C
0.0 IRN_Seh_Gabi_LN
0.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1
0.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2

Target: RUS_Vonyuchka_En:VJ1001
Distance: 3.3419% / 0.03341851
52.6 RUS_Khvalynsk_En
21.4 TJK_Sarazm_En
21.2 GEO_CHG
4.8 IRN_Ganj_Dareh_N
0.0 CHN_Tarim_EMBA1
0.0 CHN_Tarim_EMBA2
0.0 IRN_Hajji_Firuz_C
0.0 IRN_Seh_Gabi_C
0.0 IRN_Seh_Gabi_LN
0.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1
0.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2

Target: Yamnaya_RUS_Caucasus:RK1007
Distance: 3.5001% / 0.03500122
62.4 RUS_Khvalynsk_En
19.2 TJK_Sarazm_En
12.2 GEO_CHG
6.2 IRN_Seh_Gabi_C
0.0 CHN_Tarim_EMBA1
0.0 CHN_Tarim_EMBA2
0.0 IRN_Ganj_Dareh_N
0.0 IRN_Hajji_Firuz_C
0.0 IRN_Seh_Gabi_LN
0.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1
0.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2

Target: Yamnaya_RUS_Caucasus:SA6010
Distance: 4.0549% / 0.04054918
56.2 RUS_Khvalynsk_En
16.8 TJK_Sarazm_En
14.2 GEO_CHG
8.8 RUS_Darkveti-Meshoko_En
4.0 IRN_Ganj_Dareh_N
0.0 CHN_Tarim_EMBA1
0.0 CHN_Tarim_EMBA2
0.0 IRN_Hajji_Firuz_C
0.0 IRN_Seh_Gabi_C
0.0 IRN_Seh_Gabi_LN
0.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA1
0.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2

ambron said...

In order to find an Indo-European homeland, it is necessary to establish where the CWC comes from. Everything indicates that the CWC was the Indo-European vector, not the Yamnaya.

Matt said...

@Davidski, ah, OK. Makes sense in a way, if there's very high mobility bringing people in from far afield, why would they then end up being bound up locally after having crossed a threshold? And there's a relationship between a Steppe_Maykop and Usatovo for example. Will be useful to see the dating of these people; I wonder how close this will be to Anthony's claim that around 3300 BCE (a couple hundred years in either direction) there's a rapid increase in mobility. Eneolithic sounds way earlier (4000 BCE ish?).

Simulating varying increments of Progress+Maykop ancestry on G25 - https://imgur.com/a/ZIhaTwv . 70% Progress, 30% Maykop looks still quite far south. Seems like the position is southeasterly compared to Yamnaya and something northwesterly is present in Yamnaya which is lacking in a mix like that.

Matt said...

One other thought on this; if it looks like its the eneolithic steppe people who are mixing independently with previously remote and separated Meshoko and WSHG populations, does that indicate more that its the steppe group that are expanding their mobility in ways that would bring them into contact with these groups?

Like if there were always Meshoko admix, we might lean towards it being more of a case that its the Meshoko group that's venturing into the steppes or expanding their networks, but if its more like genetically independent, then is that more of a sign that steppe groups are expanding their networks?

(Though the presence of Caucasus y-dna in the Steppe_Maykop Caucasus admixed group may indicate that's not continuously strictly sex biased in the first generations, and I think some WSHG y-dna Q in Steppe_Maykop like groups may seems to suggest the same, although can't remember the details there so well. This would need more sampling though to understand, as might be different over time).

old europe said...



@ambron

CWC is 40% Dereivka ( the two samples posted by Rob) and 60% Progress like. In brief proto CWC was a specific western subset of Yamnaya which itself is 25/30%Dereivka and 70/75% Progres.
I repeat again and again the PIE question must be based on the origin of the peculiar PIE paternal markers.
And it seems that they are from the Dereivka ( pontic HG) side of the equation. So PIE were very likely a mix between Ukranian ( and western Russia HG ) and EEF.
Period

Assuwatama said...

In order to find Indo-European homeland you have to find the origins of Vedic & Mitanni people.

Their origin pre 1500bce and in IVC will falsify the current models based on 200 years of scholarship in this field.

Davidski said...

@Matt

I'm going to double check this. But it might take a couple of days.

Matt said...

@Davidski, thanks for that.

Not to distract from the discussion, an OT thing: Maybe you guys would be interested in this online lecture today, although I expect she's just talking about her Fatyanovo paper and other published research - https://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/169067 - "Prehistory of the Eastern European Plain" - "Migration has been a major factor shaping human societies and genomes through time and ancient DNA research indicates that, by-and-large, the genomes of present-day Europeans comprise ancestries brought in by three major waves of migrating people: 1) anatomically modern humans 45,000 years ago (ya); 2) Near Eastern early farmers 8,000 ya; 3) Steppe pastoralists ~5,000 ya. However, the detailed genetic history of any given area is always much more complex, calling for more focused and local-scale studies. One such (until recently) understudied region is the East European plain. Here, I will talk about research conducted in the last five years or so, looking into the demographic history of this region. More specifically, the focus has been on Stone to Pre-Roman Iron Age Estonia, Scythian period Steppe, Stone to Bronze Age Western Russia, and most recently on later Iron Age and medieval Estonia."

Assuwatama said...

In his recent interview Indian archaeogeneticist & molecular biologists revealed that samples from Sanauli (2000-1500bce) had Harappan ancestry (85%) and 15% related to Gangetic ancestry (no clarity on what this means).

I am still not sure if he's talking about 120+ skeletons from Sanauli or the royal burial but it's clear there is no steppe admixture among the people of the region considered to be the heartland of Vedic people.

Kinda falsifying Asko Parpola's first wave of Proto-Indo-Iranians arriving on their ox driven proto-chariot.

Davidski said...

Indo-Iranians are from Corded Ware.

Mystery solved.

Rob said...

@ Matt

I wonder if during the Eneolithic ancestry was more varied, although the major block was the prototypical Yamnaya type. Then the reduction in Y-DNA diversity (Z2103-founder effect along the ponto-caspian steppe, due to whatever reasons) is coupled with a more homogenoeous ancestry

Also, I think Meshoko themselves are mixed. Archaeological evidence has suggested it's a 'southern' population coming, then being admixed by a local type of CHG, over & above the EHG-rich groups further north. So probably at least 2 or 3 different social networks in the north Caucasus alone.

NB: any author and enthusiast might have their own way of looking at Eneolithic, but one simple was is 'Early (47-4000, Sredni Stog) & 'Late' (38-- 3200, post-Stog, Repin, etc)

Matt said...

@Rob, makes sense and sounds plausible, certainly can't see anything that makes that unlikely anyway.

@Ashish cool news that big research is still going on in India. Though it seems very much as expected, from what I understand. Isn't it the case that archaeologically the post 1400 BCE Gandhara Grave Culture was seen as the first likely Indo-Aryan influenced cultural horizon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhara_grave_culture)? And that Andronovo Culture isn't fully expanded across its horizons until closer to 1500 BCE than 2000 BCE? So I don't know that we would even expect there to be anything going on south of Swat before 1500 BCE and a lack of Steppe_MLBA related ancestry wouldn't be unexpected between 2000-1500 BCE. The very earliest Pakistan Iron Age sample, with the steppe ancestry, is dated around 1200 BCE (sample I6900).

In Mitanni there is also the evidence of Indo-Aryan speakers beginning not too long before 1500 BCE (the first king in the reconstructed of kings list with an Indo-Aryan like name is around 1500 BCE), and the text of Kikkuli is around 1400 BCE.

Yes, as you note contrasts with Parpola's view of things and his proposed early migrations, but it seems like he's been right about very little that has been testable via genetic evidence. He also proposed an early Indo-Aryan/Indo-European elite at the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex on the basis of horse symbols, etc, which seems totally wrong from the genetics, and there's no influence at all in the high status burials and really not in the sites as a whole, barring outliers, nothing over time. (Generally I guess my impression of him is he just seems to associate wheeled transport and also domesticated horses with steppe groups in ways that seem quite simplistic, because although they were associated and possibly particularly innovative there with wheels and domesticated the horse, the technologies probably spread before and faster than any large movements of the people, because they were useful for lots of cultures? Parpola seems to sometimes say that if the symbol was there, then the people must have been there in high number, but the ideas and technologies surely could travel faster than people.)

Assuwatama said...

Exactly

This is going to be an interesting year. He is currently involved with many samples from late Harappa, South India megalithic to Neolithic Kashmir.

Hope his paper gets published this year itself.

@davidski Sanauli royal burials have Vedic rituals attached to them (people involved in the excavation said that) but no steppe admixture :)

Davidski said...

There's nothing Vedic per se about the Sanauli wagons (not chariots).

They were pulled by oxen or donkeys.

Assuwatama said...

Not chariots....
No point arguing over it. We don't even know what pulled it as no animal remains was found.

Rituals are what they are talking about and its similarity to some hymn in Rig Veda Mandala 10.

Assuwatama said...

Austro-Asiatic speaking Harappans I believe is out of the way as some studies have pointed to their migration from South East Asia to the eastern coast of India post 2000bce (male mediated).

So we have this million dollar question on our hand: what did the ancestors of Harappans (Iranian HG related & Andamanese HG related) spoke?

My bet is on AHG related/AASI rich to be proto-Dravidian speaking group.

vAsiSTha said...

"There's nothing Vedic per se about the Sanauli wagons (not chariots).

They were pulled by oxen or donkeys."

Quit being a Vedic scholar now, there's explicit mention of oxen pulled racing chariots 'ratha' in the RV.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rig_Veda/Mandala_10/Hymn_102

Michalis Moriopoulos said...

@Davidski and CopperAxe

Based on what I've been able to glean, I'm pretty sure the Southern Arc paper being worked on by Lazaridis has nothing to do with PIE or Yamnaya or anything of the sort, but rather historical Greece, Anatolia, and even North Macedonia and the changes that took place in those places during the Hellenistic era. Hence the bridge of Europe to West Asia, which is indeed exactly what East Meds are. I think "Southern Arc" is going to be Harvard's cute name for what those of us on AG call the East Med continuum. I also think the Vranas Marathon sample hinted at in the Danubian limes paper (referenced as sourced from forthcoming Lazaridis paper) will be published in this Southern Arc paper.

Carlos Aramayo said...

@Matt

"...Yes, as you note contrasts with Parpola's view of things and his proposed early migrations, but it seems like he's been right about very little that has been testable via genetic evidence. He also proposed an early Indo-Aryan/Indo-European elite at the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex..."

Maybe Parpola was not so wrong, a recent preprint in bioRxiv suggests genetic admixture between Sogdian-speaking Yaghnobi people ancestors and BMAC inhabitants around the end of Bronze Age (1800-1500 BCE). These could have been incoming Andronovo-related populations who took over BMAC in its late phase. Please see:

https://tinyurl.com/4efhdy3v

And regarding Mitanni, you say: "...In Mitanni there is also the evidence of Indo-Aryan speakers beginning not too long before 1500 BCE..."

However, Jasper Eidem (2014) and Kroonen et al (2018) mention the Indo-Aryan word 'marijannu/marianim' as appearing in a letter from Tell Leilan, northern Syria, dated to before 1761 BCE. So this could be a pre-Mitanni-related presence in the region.

Matt said...

@Carlos, there is no sign of anything like that in published samples from Gonur which are dated from 2160 BCE to 1750 BCE, nor in the post Gonur samples 1700 BCE (post BMAC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactria%E2%80%93Margiana_Archaeological_Complex) samples from Sumbar and Parkhai (3x samples from 1400-1250 BCE).

Graphically: https://imgur.com/a/lT9cYsd

Perhaps something in very late BMAC, in its very dying phases, or just past that is possible, despite lack of any steppe admixture in the post-BMAC TKM samples from late 2nd Millennium and that this only appears clearly in TKM_IA around 800 BCE.

To have something evident through dated samples is usually different than proposing it indirectly based on present day dna.

But anyway, that was not what Parpola proposed, which was that there was an Indo-Aryan/IE/steppe elite present at the height of the civilization, and this was clearly indicated by horse-headed sceptres, horse sacrifice, etc. So I don't think under any circumstances we could say "Parpola was not so wrong".

Regarding your other comment, it is possible that people in Syria knew of Indo-Aryan names by 1700 BCE. Whether this is any indication of a presence around there in any notable number would be less clear.

epoch said...

@vashishta

"in qpAdm of steppe_en as EHG + CHG, why does the model fail due to d-stats showing less affinity with IVC in model than actual?"

So the model didn't fail with IVC moved to the left populations?

James Roper said...

Long so in several parts: I have a radical hypothesis that imo is actually correct for several reasons but I’ll just throw this out here as conjecture for now. I’m fully aware this will look like mad speculation often seen in this area.

Kelteminar is the Dene-Caucasian Urheimat (so Yamnaya is part of that family too representing the North Caucasian language family, Basque is from the Bell Beaker culture derived from the Lower Mikhaylovka culture, the Northwest Caucasian languages from the Novotitarovskaya culture, Northeast Caucasian languages from the Kura-Araxes culture (as a sister clade to Hurro-Urartian), Sino-Tibetan is from Afanasievo, and finally Adena-Austric (comprising Na-Dene, Almosan, Macro-Sioux, Muskogean, Burusho-Yeniseian, Chukotko-Kamchatkan–Amuric and Eskimo-Aleut and of course Austric) from the Seima-Turbino phenomenon as ultimately Yamnaya-derived). Kelteminar stems from the confluence of the Hissar culture and the Steppe peoples to the North, with the Hissar culture from the Zarzian culture.

Iberomaurusian is Afrasian, classified as such: Aztla-Numidian, which compromises Aztlan as a group designated Mixe-Tulo-Chimuan and macro-Arawakan, and Numidian containing the Guanche languages as a subset of itself; Sahelian as containing the Chadic and Berber languages; and Negevic as containing the Egyto-Nubian and Semitic languages.

James Roper said...

Nostratic is derived from the Harranian Complex (Gobekli Tepe, Nevali Cori etc) and spread with the Neolithic package. The Kartvelian branch is of the Shulaveri-Shomu culture (whence Maykop). The Indo-Hittite branch is of the Gelveri culture, becoming Indo-European proper in the Cucuteni culture with pre-Anatolian developing in the Catalhoyuk culture. Indo-European as the cultural package we know emerges from the bubonic plague of the mid-4th millennium BCE, which notably affected beavers. Beavers are an ecological keystone species and, of course, famous for their dams. The plight of the beavers would, on top of the plague ravaging dense humans settlements like those of the Cucuteni culture, result in both ecological collapse with dwindling faunal populations across the board and massive flooding - both from the lack of beavers maintaining their dams. It would have been devastating, giving rise to the deluge myth as a single narrative source. In lieu of this, the resource scarcity and flooding in the zones of the Cucuteni culture by the Dnieper especially (notably the Tripolye settlement) would cause splintering of the population and a necessary shifting focus to pastoralism. This can be seen with myths similar to that of “Inanna prefers the farmer” *spoiler - she chooses the herder, Dumuzi* as well as the word for “to protect” and “to shepherd” being identical and undergoing semantic drift to the latter. It is in this climate that probably Uralic-speaking mercenaries derived from the Sredny Stog culture (itself derived from a Comb-Ceramic cultural folk and Maykopians, so unlike Yamnaya containing DNA from Anatolian farmers) play their role as mercenaries in the competition for land, forming the truly Indo-European Middle Dnieper culture in the process, that would go on to form the Corded Ware culture. Much like the Vikings, they would travel by river in boats also carrying animals such as their livestock and horses themselves as a means of rapid mobility given the inter-tribal warfare amongst these Indo-European groups, which thus actively promoted their swift dispersal in cultural horizons. The Cucuteni culture, perhaps better described as a civilisation, also first invented the sail and are the first known sailors: such a technology would spread with “Cucuteni-Stogians” to new lands to settle to avoid this starvation around the middle of the 4th millennium BCE plague, where as elites (necessarily for the domination of the land) they would form linguistic superstrata over the local population, as with pre-Anatolians to form the Anatolian language family and also Sumerians via the Jemdet Nasr period and Emesal (see Urshanabi of Sumerian mythology for a fascinating parallel). It’s here that the so-called Euphratean language strata of Sumerian, speculated as Indo-European, formed. I’ve personally reconstructed so many Sumerian terms, usually deities, in Indo-European that it’s beyond coincidence. An example: Dumuzi the deity associated with shepherds and fertility is reconstructed as *domh₂-ós-seh₁ literally meaning “Tamer that grows”, compare proto-Germanic *tamaz from *domh₂-o-s meaning “tame”. Phonetically from the logograms it’s dumu (child) + zi (life) where dumu or *domh₂-o is the full grade root aorist meaning “tame” (often used to describe the word “child” in Indo-European languages) and *seh₁ literally meaning amongst other related terms a word along the lines of “long” or “lasting”. The translation of “Tamer that grows” - tamer in the sense of a shepherd - makes total sense if you’re familiar with Dumuzi.

James Roper said...

Dravidian and Afrasian (specifically Negevic) inclusion in Nostratic is through the spread of developed agriculturalists from the Harranian complex. Nostratic is then mostly an areal phenomenon affecting proto-languages. Elamite would arise from a Dravidian-derived Susianian language dominated by pastoralists of the Banesh culture (Elam proper). Sumerian would similarly arise from a Dravidian-derived Eridean language dominated by advanced agriculturalists of the Samarra culture. Uralic influence is widespread from the spread of pottery across both Northern and Southern Eurasia from Baikalia, affecting Indo-European in particular with the interactions of the Cucuteni culture and the Sredny Stog culture.

The other main language family is Amerind, which by virtue of its relatively high level of isolation is of all the indigenous Amerindian language families. The languages I mentioned otherwise are not indigenous.

Rob said...

Indo-Europeans weren't expanding into defenceless areas. We see that in Europe (e.g. Remedello warriors) and probably same thing in south-central and northern South Asia. It wasn't a single expansion of 'Aryans' , but a complex process, even with reverses of fortunes at times
I think Indo-Aryan developed in SCA whilst proto-Iranian was still further north, in the steppe during M2.
The main thing which allowed the expansion of indo-Aryans further south was the decline of BMAC, whilst Iranian expanded closer to M1

DragonHermit said...

@Michalis "Based on what I've been able to glean, I'm pretty sure the Southern Arc paper being worked on by Lazaridis has nothing to do with PIE or Yamnaya or anything of the sort"

I think the point is to see if there is a correlation between PIE languages and steppe ancestry in that region, since we've had samples that have little/no steppe ancestry that were IE-speaking.

It's quite clear 95% of PIE languages were spread by steppe component-heavy people, but I can't tell you if the language originated with ANE/EHG people or CHG people. I don't think the "paternally ANE" argument is enough if we look at Basques and Etruscans, so it could be that a "southern PIE" branch not carrying steppe ancestry went south.

But there are a lot of things to consider here:

(1) EHGs could have just as likely spread their language to CHG-heavy people, and they took it south with the EHG component being diluted.

(2) There will always be edge cases. Finding 1 population without steppe ancestry, when there's another 247 or whatever, is not a convincing case.

I'm not entirely ruling out some Maykyop-like people originating the PIE language, but it's unlikely.

Newswire Terminal said...

Many people here pointed out that CHG is a better fit for Yamnaya Steppe component than Iran_N. However, I believe it would actually be Iran_Chalcolithic as perhaps the most "related" to the Steppe component. As Iran_Chlc carries the Levant component that is seen in the Steppes, in which CHG does not have the Levant component. David Reich did mention this once before, and I quote: "To the north, a population related to people of the Iran Chalcolithic contributed ~43% of the ancestry
of early Bronze Age populations of the steppe." - David Reich

phodges said...

This is a great discussion. It is nice to see commentators who radically disagree behaving civilly.

I think Vasistha has the theory closest to what happened. Dismiss, or read on if you are interested.

IE languages (and the Caucasus/Iran genetic cline) formed along the Mountain arc Caucasus-Altai and spread to the steppe primarily from Central Asia. The Indo-Iranian culture would have been the Chang-i-Sakmak/Merhgarh cultural zone.

What is overlooked by every discipline is the success and ubiquity of Transhumance. It is very old. Goats were domesticated ~10,000bc. This was the primary driver of both the spread of populations and their mixing, the discovery of new pastures and areas with agricultural potential. Populations spread first up and down the mountain arc from the Caucasus to the Altai- what Frachetti calls the Inner Asia Mountain Corridor- creating a genetic cline.

These transhumance practicing Mountain populations spread and mixed into the steppe from the Central Asian mountain arc Caucasus-Altai by extending transhumance into the steppe, where vertical transhumance was augmented by N-S transhumance- this would be how that Caucusus/Iran like genetic signal mixed into the steppe and helped populate the steppe. And why you have on the Caucasus/Kuban steppe, populations with genetic signals originating from Siberia to Anatolia. Frachetti has great material documenting transhumance systems throughout this region.

In this scenario the Sredni-stog and other steppe people people picked the Central Asian genetic signal, probably IE language, and with them the successful transhumance strategy that enabled them to spread all across the steppe.

Virtually every paper from Narasimhan to the latest Chintalapati/Patterson document the ever increasing genetic contribution through time from the this region (the great khorasan road/inner Asian Mt Corridor- call it Central Asia) in nearly every direction. Toward Anatolia, towards the Steppe, and towards the Altai-Sayan.

Soviet Archeologists, from Kuzmina to Maria Ivanova, repeatedy document physical and cultural influence from Central Asia to the steppe.

Very early in this process, the Eastern Iranian Plateau, Sang-i-Chakmak to Mehrgarh, formed a cultural area. From the Mehrgarh side arose the IVC, and Indian Civilization. From the Sang-i-Chakmak side arose the BMAC and the whole array of settlements from the Gorgan Plain to Sarazm- the Iranian cultural zone.

That's my fairy tale.







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

This Beaver theory is the best thing I've read here.

Carlos Aramayo said...

@Matt

"...But anyway, that was not what Parpola proposed, which was that there was an Indo-Aryan/IE/steppe elite present at the height of the civilization, and this was clearly indicated by horse-headed sceptres, horse sacrifice, etc. So I don't think under any circumstances we could say 'Parpola was not so wrong'..."

BMAC's urban period lasted from 2250 to 1700 BC. Parpola proposed two phases of conquest by Indo-Aryan people, the first by Petrovka culture sometime around 1900 to 1750 BC, and the second by Fedorovo-Andronovo in the post-urban period, around 1750 to 1500 BC. The new genetic paper mentions 1800 to 1500 BC as the Andronovo-like culture take over of BMAC. So at least, in timing, Parpola's view is not so far. Of course, I'm not saying this confirms the whole Parpola's view, as the genetic paper suggests they were Iranian-speaking, and not Indo-Aryan.

On the other hand, the Indo-Aryan word marianim in a letter from Syria is not around 1700 BC as you seem to suggest in your comment, it actually is from before 1761 BC, before the reign of Zimri-Lim ended in the region of Mari.

vAsiSTha said...

@epoch

"So the model didn't fail with IVC moved to the left populations?"

That fails too because 2500bce ivc with 30% aasi is not the true source of steppe_en. It is not possible to run further qpAdm models because of lack of relevant samples from the eastern regions.

But qpgraphs can be run as they consider shared drifts and allow ghost nodes. And all qpgraphs show that an eastern population related to the iranN ancestor of IVC is required as one of the sources for steppe_en.

Ric Hern said...

@phodges

Just one problem with the Goat theory is that the Wild Goats which mixed to form the Domesticated European Goats are only found in the Western Parts of the Caucasus and not in the Eastern Caucasus. The Western Part of the Caucasus is much closer to Sredny Stog than the Altai...

Rob said...

@ phodges

“ Virtually every paper from Narasimhan to the latest Chintalapati/Patterson document the ever increasing genetic contribution through time from the this region (the great khorasan road/inner Asian Mt Corridor- call it Central Asia) in nearly every direction. Toward Anatolia, towards the Steppe, and towards the Altai-Sayan. ”

Which particular papers , stats, figures are they ?

Matt said...

@Carlos (Continued): Later in the same article:

Second wave of BMAC Aryans: ‘Atharvavedic’ Proto-Indo-Aryans

A second, Proto-Indo-Aryan wave of Aryans replaced the Pre-Proto-Iranians as the rulers of the BMAC c. 1900 BC. A grave at Zardcha Khalifa near the site of Sarazm in Tajikistan has yielded typical Sapalli-Dzharkutan phase BMAC pottery and other artefacts along with a horse-topped bronze pin, horse-bits of bronze and cheek-pieces of bone identical in shape with the psalia of Sintashta-Arkaim (cf. Fig. 6) (Bobomulloev 1997; cf. Sarianidi 2001: 434).


Then:

Even though the connection is not quite clear, I assume that this earliest ‘Proto-Indo-Aryan’ layer of the BMAC aristocracy spread to northwestern South Asia as well, eventually forming the ruling élite of the ‘Cemetery H’ culture (c. 1900-1300 BC) that succeeded the Indus Civilization in the Indus Valley. The depiction of the horse on a BMAC type seal at Somnath/ Prabhas Patan in Gujarat (CISI I: 359) and on a Jhukar period seal at Chanhu-daro in Sind (Mackay 1943: pl. 50: 10a) is suggestive, likewise the BMAC-affinity of the Jhukar seals (cf. Winkelmann 1998: 3-4). The origins of the cremation burial in Cemetery H is a problem, however; in the Eurasiatic steppe, the origins of cremation have been traced to the Late Pit Grave and Poltavka cultures of the Volga steppes (cf. Avanesova 1997: 166). In any case, the Cemetery H culture seems to have spoken Old Indo-Aryan of the ‘Atharvavedic’ variety (the main source of epic and classical Sanskrit), when the main group of ¤gvedic Aryans speaking a different dialect entered the Panjab c. 1400 BC (cf. Parpola, in press a).

These are the events for which there is no genetic evidence.
He may have subsequently modified this view to something like you suggest, but he did argue back in 2002 for a pre-proto-Indo-Iranian elite but Indo-European speaking elite at BMAC, by 2100 BCE, with a language related to Indo-Iranian. And the basis of these arguments has been ideas equating the presence of ox-cart races, horse symbols at all, with an Indo-Iranian or pre-Indo-Iranian identification.

If Parpola had proposed an longer continuous wave of "takeovers" stretching from 2100 BCE down to 800 BCE, we probably wouldn't say he was "not so wrong" on the basis that some of admixture (not necessarily accompanying a "takeover") involving steppe cultures must have happened at some point in that very wide timeframe.

If he has modified his theory to exclude any takeovers during the urban phase, but talks about will be borne out by genetic evidence.

I've talked about Gonur and then subsequent sites in Turkmenistan because we're talking about the BMAC, but there is quite a bit of post-BMAC sampling from Uzbekistan at Bustan, Dzharkutan and Sappali-Tepe and although there are some steppe outliers found in Uzbekistan at the Kokcha (and the securely dated two of three of these are still dated 1650-1400 BCE), there is no integration of Steppe_MLBA ancestry at the sites of Bustan, Dzharkutan and Sappali-Tepe in the period that you are talking about. Furthmore, there are samples at Kashkarchi in Uzbekistan at 1050BCE with no southern ancestry. Although multiple different ancestries could persist in a region, there is no direct evidence that admixture had happened, and there is definite evidence that groups with no steppe ancestry were persisting at the sites which have been tested.

Davidski said...

@Newswire Terminal

That quote by David Reich is outdated.

Yamnaya is overwhelmingly derived from Eneolithic steppe populations that are as old as Iran_Chl, and maybe even older.

A few Eneolithic steppe samples have been published and many more are on the way. Samples from the Sredny Stog culture in Ukraine are basically identical to Yamnaya.

You need to update yourself.

James Roper said...

Thanks Romulus - also would like to mention that these sailing Cucuteni-Stogians may have been responsible perhaps for a lot more that I’ve been conservative on such as the priestly-civil divide amongst Egyptians with the first Egyptian dynasties, having similar exogenous origins in hierarchy as with the Sumerians considering themselves “black-headed ones” with their King as their self-proclaimed divine pastor: if you look at the logograms comprising pr-o for pharaoh there's a potential link with *per(i) “around” as in the sense of enclosure (pr in Egyptian hieroglyphs means house or palace in the dynastic sense like “House of Lancaster” for example, related terms in Afrasian languages also mean enclosure in the sense of land boundaries for a flock and have lead to a relatively confident assumption that pr was “per”) and *Ho “denoting possession, authority etc” (o here in hieroglyphs, note that this is a speculative enunciation as it’s a vowel, means “leader” or “head” [of something]). There aren’t any vowels so that part is guesswork but we know pharaoh sounded not too far from per(i)-O or similar. Head of the House = Pharaoh.

I am staunchly opposed to coincident developments, I do not think the bottle gourd floated across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World without people and self-fertilised as is supposed, though I also contest it wasn’t 8000 years ago either but more recent. There’s similarities with this and the sweet potato out of South America.

I would like to add as a final thing not to underestimate the advantage technology has in spreading language. It’s obvious in recent times, for example in the Americas, but say with the spread of metalworking to China with Afanasievo or speculatively to SE Asia with one “branch” of Seima-Turbino that I’m linking with the Austric languages: those tribes are going to expand and dominate, and tribes that come into their fold will do the same themselves etc.

James Roper said...

With the CHG/Iran_N etc source of Yamnaya, what better than Hissar? Hissar is a development from the Zarzian culture, it’s not from Iran_N.

James Roper said...

I’m very soon to publish a paper (not in a journal or anything but it’ll be out there) with a much more rigorous explanation of everything here in a package spanning from the Mesolithic onwards and some Palaeolithic background. Will post here after I’ve released it.

Andrzejewski said...

@Davidski “ A few Eneolithic steppe samples have been published and many more are on the way. Samples from the Sredny Stog culture in Ukraine are basically identical to Yamnaya.”

Seems like the very first speakers of anything resembling or ancestral to PIE originated with Sredny Stog. Anything before or prior - Khvalynsk, Samara, Yanyuchka etc - is largely irrelevant to its ethnogenesis.

Rob said...

@ Vasistha

Is that Harappan genome you used I6113 ? its coverage is 0.01x, right ?

Newswire Terminal said...


@Davidski

I quoted Reich in regards to the "related" or "like" component of Yamnaya CHG/Iran_Chlc, not to claim the origins of it being North or South of the Caucus. As in, Iran_Chlc would be a better fit for the "likeness" over CHG or Iran_N.

Davidski said...

@Newswire Terminal

Iran_Chl is very distant from the CHG-related ancestry in Yamnaya, more distant than CHG itself or even Iran_N.

Lazaridis, Reich, Patterson et al. picked Iran_Chl for two main reasons:

- Iran_Chl had Anatolian-related ancestry that Yamnaya also had, but CHG and Iran_N lacked it

- they assumed that their unusual, northern-shifted Armenia_Chl samples were representative of the Chalcolithic Caucasus, so they concluded that Yamnaya's CHG-related ancestry must have come from south of Armenia.

But as we now know, the CHG-related ancestry in Yamnaya was already on the steppe during the Eneolithic and probably much earlier, and the Anatolian-related ancestry in Yamnaya can easily be explained by minor gene flow from European farmers and/or the Caucasus, so there's no need to involve Iran_Chl in any models or hypotheses.

Newswire Terminal said...

@Davidski

Interesting, thanks for the information. However, when I take a look at the papers they usually show that Iran_Chlc carries the levant/Anatolian related component which both CHG and Iran_N seem to lack. In the Steppe_EMBA the Levant/Anatolian also shows up, like Iran_Chlc. This might be a totally different, coincidental admixture from another unrelated group to Iran_Chlc people, but for "likeness" sake, CHG and Iran_N doesn't seem to add up where components are lacking.

Ric Hern said...

@ phodges

To be more clear, the Asian Goats are genetically distinct from European and African Goats. And Goats from the Zagros are the closest to Asian Goats genetically. So if goats were introduced from the Altai into Europe there would have been a genetic trace which there isn't.

Davidski said...

@Newswire Terminal

What I'm saying is that Yamnaya's EHG ancestors acquired their CHG and Anatolian ancestries separately.

So Yamnaya's CHG ancestry is most similar to CHG.

The only way that Iran_Chl becomes relevant here is if you lump the CHG and Anatolian ancestries in Yamnaya together and wrongly assume that they must have been acquired by Yamnaya's EHG ancestors from the same source.

Newswire Terminal said...

@Davidski

Yes, I agree. The two components were very likely acquired through two separate entities. The Non-EHG component does resemble Iran_Chlc quite a bit, but I think that the EEF did have some interaction with Yamnaya (plus CHG_like source) and that is how they coincidentally got their Iran_Chlc likeness. But another point I was pondering, considering that Iran_Chlc had also somewhere like 8% EHG, but Anatolian_N did not (until Anatolian_Chlc), plus the other components we spoke about, how come this can't be some sort of proof that there was a penetration through Caucasus that resulted in interactions between Yamnaya and Iran plateau people, that might explain how Yamnaya might have spread their Indo-European language to Iranian plateau and Anatolia?

Davidski said...

@Newswire Terminal

I doubt that Iran_Chl has any real EHG or steppe ancestry. To me this looks like much older Ancient North Eurasian-related ancestry.

Steppe ancestry, and thus real EHG, began arriving in western Iran somewhat later, along with typical steppe lineages of R1b. The languages that accompanied this gene flow may have been Indo-European.

Iranian languages spread into Iran from the east, along with Sintashta-related ancestry and R1a.

Newswire Terminal said...

@Davidski

Hmm interesting, from the papers I've seen, they usually do include EHG as a component in Iran_Chlc. The reason I brought it up, is that, the prevalent assumption that Anatolian IE languages are a lot older than Sintashta/Andronovo migrations. This was one of the main drivers of "South of the Caucus" PIE theory amongst some molecular/traditional anthropologists.

Davidski said...

@Newswire Terminal

It's EHG-related ancestry, and usually it's just an artifact of trying to explain the complexity of the ancestry in these populations with just a few reference populations.

Iran_Chl has components that are similar to ANE and WHG, so this can be interpreted as EHG-related ancestry.

And I can't see Anatolian IE languages being explained by steppe migrations into Iran and surrounds during the Chalcolithic.

Anatolian languages probably spread into Anatolia via the Balkans, either during the Chalcolithic or the Bronze Age.

If they moved into Anatolia via the Caucasus, then they didn't affect any of the Chalcolithic Iranian populations that have been sampled, because they lack steppe ancestry.

Steppe ancestry arrived in Iran during the Bronze Age from the west and east, but only the steppe expansion from the east matches the archeological and linguistic evidence of Indo-Iranian expansions.

vAsiSTha said...

"Is that Harappan genome you used I6113 ?"

Used the 6 shahr_sokhta_ba2 samples

ambron said...

David, because you saw unpublished samples, tell us where in your opinion was the homeland of the CWC.

Davidski said...

Somewhere in Ukraine. Possibly near the Moldovan border.

ambron said...

David, thanks!

Copper Axe said...

@Davidski

Your "Global25 pop averages ancient scaled" file (Global25_PCA_pop_averages_scaled.txt) has the modern averages in it rather than the ancients. It seems it was updated not too long ago.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F2rKEVtu8nWSm7qFhxPU6UESQNsmA-sl/view

Or maybe my Google Drive is absolutely tripping right now...

Davidski said...

@Copper Axe

Thanks.

Have a look now.

Assuwatama said...

Does anyone know what lapis Lazuli was called in Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian/Akkadian/Assyrian and possibly ancient Greek?

Or in the languages from where lapis Lazuli was unearthed in archaelogical dig.

Copper Axe said...

@Davidski

Its fixed now, thanks!

Gaska said...

It seems that finally the mystery has been solved, the origin of CWC, and therefore of Yamnaya-Afanasievo cultures, all Indo-European languages, male lineages R1a-M417, R1b-M269>L51>L151, I2a-L699, R1b-Z2103 etc...is somewhere in Ukraine. Harvard and Max Planck were right, it doesn't matter that Yamnaya culture doesn't work because the reality is that the steppe riders or their relatives/descendants of the CWC conquered old Europe thanks to their horses, copper and plague. Once established in mainland europe, they invented the BB culture and expanded throughout Europe reaching the most remote places of the continent including the British Isles and Iberia. Congratulations Davidski, I suppose that if everybody in this blog and in the most important scientific circles agrees with this theory it will be because they (and you) have proofs about it and that those proofs are enough to leave no room for controversy. Now they only have to publish their findings and I sincerely hope that in 7 years they will not have to discard Ukraine and therefore they will not repeat the same mistakes they made with the Yamnaya culture. This time, I suppose they will have everything well tied up, we cannot expect anything else from these prestigious scientists.

Iberians, Tartessians, Etruscans, Rhaetians, Ligurians, Aquitanians, Basques, ancient Occitans and other Iron Age peoples spoke non-Indo-European languages in Western Europe despite being overwhelmingly R1b-P312. However, the Greeks and some Anatolians spoke Indo-European languages despite the fact that so far no trace of steppe male markers has been found in those regions (in the case of Anatolia there is not even a trace of autosomal steppe components). But you know what?, it doesn't matter, surely there are good linguists willing to justify these amazing findings and meanwhile we will always have the famous steppe signal and our advanced computer tools to try to prove the unprovable, that is, that R1b-P312 and the BB culture spoke an Indo-European language.

James Roper said...

RE near Moldova: development from Bug-Dniester culture?

James Roper said...

And I really don’t think Bell Beaker, Yamnaya etc spoke an Indo-European language. Bell Beaker, imo, must have spoken a Vasconic language. See Dene-Caucasian and what I wrote above. Sredny Stog -> Corded Ware is the sure origin. Bell Beaker, it should be remembered, is a distinct culture to Corded Ware.

Andrzejewski said...

@Gaska “ However, the Greeks and some Anatolians spoke Indo-European languages despite the fact that so far no trace of steppe male markers has been found in those regions”

What did you smoke? Mycenaean Greeks were at least 20%-25% Steppe.

James Roper said...

Also worth noting Cucuteni was centred on that region. It’s not solved by any means in my view other than certainly Corded Ware is the furthest back that can *confidently* be said to be Indo-European.

Carlos Aramayo said...

@Matt

"...there is no integration of Steppe_MLBA ancestry at the sites of Bustan, Dzharkutan and Sappali-Tepe in the period that you are talking about. Furthmore, there are samples at Kashkarchi in Uzbekistan at 1050BCE with no southern ancestry. Although multiple different ancestries could persist in a region, there is no direct evidence that admixture had happened, and there is definite evidence that groups with no steppe ancestry were persisting at the sites which have been tested."

Bustan, Dzharkutan and Sappali-Tepe are not "classical" BMAC sites, the core of BMAC is in Margiana, not in Bactria. But, anyway, if we accept your view, that would affect the whole Indo-Aryan migration hypothesis of around 1500 BC to South Asia, not only that of Parpola. However, the Guarino-Vignon et al. (2021) paper, solves this problem by using both ancient and modern DNA and stating: "The main event at the bottom of Indo-Iranian ancestry in southern Central Asia occurred at the end of the Bronze Age/Early Iron Age, through the admixture between local BMAC groups and Andronovo-related populations perhaps linked to the end of the Oxus Civilization" (Guarino-Vignon et al. 2021: Discussion).

Samuel Andrews said...

@Davidski,
"Somewhere in Ukraine. Possibly near the Moldovan border."

This is what I am thinking too, based on the fact the Kurgan cultures there in SW Ukraine are the only option besides Yamnaya. They existed there till 3000 BC, right before Corded Ware began in 2900 BC.

The chronology seems to line up.

They would have lived as southern neighbors of Globular Amphora, Funnel Beaker a long time.

Andrzejewski said...

@James Roper “ Also worth noting Cucuteni was centred on that region. ”

Likely that farmer component in Yamnaya is originated in Tripolye

Gaska said...

@Indoandrei

I usually smoke good Cuban cigars, while reading funny fairy tales that people like you believe without complaint. A study on the Iron Age in Greece is soon to be published, so far the only relationship of that region with Indo-European languages is a small percentage of steppe ancestry (the uniparental markers are clearly Anatolian). Many people think that the autosomal EEF signal (together with the J2a and J2b-L283 lineages) in the Balkans and the rest of Europe is enough to justify the origin of PIE in Anatolia. I have no idea in which region or in which culture IE originated but the only genetic continuity that has been proven so far is that of the R1b-Z2103 markers between Yamnaya, northern Balkans, and the Latins and Daunians in Italy. The rest is wishful thinking

Simon_W said...

@Gaska

Ligurian was an IE language, see:
https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_ligure_antica

"Recentemente (2016) Adolfo Zavaroni, che in precedenza aveva pubblicato vari studi sull'ingente mole di iscrizioni rupestri incise dai Ligures Friniates del Frignano e dell'Appennino tosco-emiliano, [7] ha rivolto la sua attenzione alle iscrizioni rupestri della Liguria che egli ritiene siano anche più numerose. Come anticipazione degli studi in corso ha pubblicato su www.academia.edu due articoli: a) "Lingua, scrittura, divinità e arte rupestre degli antichi Ligures: l'iscrizione di Beverino (La Spezia)"; b) "La lingua degli antichi Liguri: iscrizioni e figure sacre su due rocce di Campocatino (Alpi Apuane)". Nei suoi precedenti studi Zavaroni era incline a considerare i Friniates una popolazione che aveva una propria lingua (indoeuropea, affine alle lingue italiche) e una propria scrittura e dubitava che essi fossero Liguri nonostante Tito Livio li avesse chiamati Ligures Friniates o semplicemente Ligures. Tale scetticismo era dovuto al fatto che i Friniates chiamavano se stessi Ombros, Umbros e al fatto che la letteratura glottologica riguardante l'antica lingua dei Liguri lo aveva indotto a credere non solo che non si conosceva nulla di probante sulla sua tipologia ed origine, ma anche che la scrittura fosse poco o per nulla diffusa nell'attuale territorio ligure, dove parevano documentate soltanto incisioni rupestri senza iscrizioni e rare iscrizioni etrusche (non rupestri). Nel 2015, però, dopo la scoperta di scritte su una pietra altare e su un cippo nell'alto Appennino reggiano (rispettivamente Busana e Passo dell'Ospitalaccio poco lontano dal Passo del Cerreto), Zavaroni iniziò ad esplorare alcuni siti liguri, scoprendo iscrizioni nel medesimo sistema grafico (improntato ad un frequentissimo uso di legature) e nella stessa lingua dei Friniates. Quindi la lingua dei Liguri che abitavano nell'attuale Liguria sarebbe la stessa dei Liguri dell'Appennino tosco-emiliano (almeno fino all'attuale provincia di Bologna e alle Apuane). Tale lingua era indoeuropea. Secondo Adolfo Zavaroni, la comparazione con le lingue italiche, le celtiche e le germaniche (rari sono i lessemi praticamente identici a lessemi etruschi) porterebbe ad una interpretazione pressoché sicura di tutti i numerosissimi termini e dei tanti appellativi divini contenuti nelle iscrizioni."

Simon_W said...

Translated with google translate:

"Recently (2016) Adolfo Zavaroni, who had previously published various studies on the huge amount of rock inscriptions engraved by the Ligures Friniates of Frignano and the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, [7] turned his attention to the rock inscriptions of Liguria that he he believes they are even more numerous. As an anticipation of the studies in progress, he has published two articles on www.academia.edu: a) "Language, writing, divinity and rock art of the ancient Ligures: the inscription of Beverino (La Spezia)"; b) "The language of the ancient Ligurians: inscriptions and sacred figures on two rocks of Campocatino (Apuan Alps)". In his previous studies Zavaroni was inclined to consider the Friniates a population that had its own language (Indo-European, akin to the Italic languages) and its own script and doubted that they were Ligurians despite Tito Livio having called them Ligures Friniates or simply Ligures. This skepticism was due to the fact that the Friniates called themselves Ombros, Umbros and to the fact that the glottological literature concerning the ancient Ligurian language had led him to believe not only that nothing conclusive about its type and origin was known, but also that the writing was little or not at all widespread in the current Ligurian territory, where only rock engravings without inscriptions and rare Etruscan (non-rock) inscriptions seemed to be documented. In 2015, however, after the discovery of writings on an altar stone and on a cippus in the upper Reggio Apennines (respectively Busana and Passo dell'Ospitalaccio not far from the Cerreto Pass), Zavaroni began to explore some Ligurian sites, discovering inscriptions in the the same graphic system (marked by a very frequent use of ligatures) and in the same language as the Friniates. Therefore the language of the Ligurians who lived in present-day Liguria would be the same as the Ligurians of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines (at least up to the present province of Bologna and the Apuan Alps). This language was Indo-European. According to Adolfo Zavaroni, the comparison with the Italic, Celtic and Germanic languages ​​(the lexemes practically identical to Etruscan lexemes are rare) would lead to an almost certain interpretation of all the numerous terms and the many divine names contained in the inscriptions."

Davidski said...

@Matt

Roughly 65% Progress, 25% Meshoko, 10% Ukraine N.

Dospaises said...

@James Roper

" And I really don’t think Bell Beaker, Yamnaya etc spoke an Indo-European language. Bell Beaker, imo, must have spoken a Vasconic language. See Dene-Caucasian and what I wrote above. Sredny Stog -> Corded Ware is the sure origin. Bell Beaker, it should be remembered, is a distinct culture to Corded Ware."



Did you know that OBR003(central Bohemia, 2911 to 2875 cal BCE) Obříství Bohemia_CW_Late is the oldest proven R-L151,xU106, xP312 and that R-L151 is one branch above R-P312 and that R-P312 is prevalent in Bell Beaker?

So if we follow your logic that Bell Beaker did not speak an Indo-European language then one of two things are also true - 1. Corded Ware did not speak an Indo-European language or 2. Bell Beaker acquired a non-Indo-European language through a maternal lineage.

Matt said...

@Carlos_Aramayo, I think there's some confusion here. I did not state they were classical BMAC sites, just that they were well post-BMAC sites from the Turan region that lacked Steppe_MLBA ancestry, in the post-BMAC period you are talking about. To me that's an indication against Steppe ancestry being common or ubiquitous around at least 1400 BCE - although it's definitely not proof that mixed groups did not already existed at this time.

(Btw, it looks like the first part of my comment above was cut off but basically the gist of it was that I cited a paper from 2002 "PRE-PROTO-IRANIANS OF AFGHANISTAN AS INITIATORS OF SAKTA TANTRISM: ON THE SCYTHIAN/SAKA AFFILIATION OF THE DASAS, NURISTANIS AND MAGADHANS" where Parpola stated the following about BMAC - "It seems to me that c. 2100 BC, when the Sintashta-Arkaim culture was emerging but the horse-chariot had not yet been developed, a group of ‘Pre-Proto-Iranian’ speakers, ancestors of the Dasas, came to southern Central Asia from the lower Volga-Ural steppes and took over the rule of the BMAC in its Namazga V phase (Dashly-3 in southern Bactria, Sapalli in northern Bactria).". Like I said above, he then went on to cite features like ox-cart races at BMAC as evidence for this. So I think that kind of falsifies a suggestion that he only ever saw steppe influence at a relatively very late stage in the BMAC sequence, and that he is then "not so wrong" when we find none of it, even in high status graves. Though possibly he might have modified his view after 2002, it does seem to show to me he has some previous habit of mis-estimating steppe connections that are too early on the basis of some ideas.).

Gaska said...

Yes, U106 and L151 in Bohemia, and you know where Bohemia is. As far as I know , it is in Central Europe, far away from the steppes. And you should know that ALL the men of that lineage analyzed to date have NO grave goods associated with the CWC. Neither the L51 found in Switzerland (Aesch, Auvernier, Burgäschisee, etc), Germany (Althausen), Iberia (Lechuza cave) or England (3.200 BC) have grave goods related to that culture.

One sample U106 in Bohemia has a battle axe type A.

Stone axes in the Bohemian Eneolithic:Changing forms, context and social significance-Jan Turek (2.011)-Polished stone axes and adzes first appeared in Bohemia in the Early Neolithic with the Linear Pottery Culture (LBK).

The supposedly early uniform ‘A-Horizon’, originated and emerged independently in different parts of Europe, and those components – the A-Beaker, the A-Amphora, and the A-Axe are spread unevenly throughout the Corded Ware regional groups and are embedded in regionally diverse cultural backgrounds

The model presented for Jutland suggests that one component of the A-Horizon – the A-Axe – was invented in that region.

Pitted Ware Culture? "Unlike the Funnelbeakers, they did not have megalithic graves and use of red ochre-Grave goods include ceramics, stone and flint axes, boar tusks, pig jaws, pendants of fox, dog and seal teeth, harpoons, spears, fishhooks of bone, and other artifacts. The presence of slate artifacts and battle axes attest wide-ranging contacts between the Pitted Ware people and other cultures of Northern Europe and the Baltic.

And this is what the first abstract (2.019) said about Bohemia

Genomic Insights into 3rd millennium Bohemia-Author(s): Papac, Luka (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena)-Ernée, Michal (Institute of Archaeology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague)-Krause, Johannes (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena; Faculty of Biosciences, University of Jena). "Interestingly, we identify a possible admixture cline between our Late Neolithic Bohemian individuals and a source with high Eastern hunter-gatherer related ancestry, currently best represented by Lithuanian Neolithic individuals of the Narva culture. We also detect a number of interesting OUTLIER individuals which add to our understanding of the dynamics and regional nuances of population interactions in 3rd millennium B.C. central Europe

Yes, I may have lost my mind, but if I were a detective I would not look at the forest steppe but at those cultures of northern Europe. More than an autosomal component is needed to demonstrate the geographic origin of a uniparental marker.

vAsiSTha said...

@carlos @matt

the admixture between BMAC ancestry and steppe probably happened around 1500bce or a bit later. the admixed ancestry is seen in swat 1000bce samples.

"if we accept your view, that would affect the whole Indo-Aryan migration hypothesis of around 1500 BC to South Asia, not only that of Parpola."

In general, the migration hypothesis is too late as per the genetic evidence compared to the steppe theorists' hypothesis. I doubt steppe ancestry will even be found in NW Indian river plains by 1000bce.

Davidski said...

@Gaska

Everyone knows that L51 and U106 came to Bohemia from the east with steppe ancestry.

You must be one of the last people on the planet not to know this.

Rob said...

Steppe MLBA in Swat ~1300 squares just fine
We don’t have to fixated, as Carlos is, on some former hypothesis
Nor do we have to be constrained by what some Vedic theorist claims to be the age of events

Matt said...

@Davidski, cheers.

When I was running qpAdm models last year (back in May), I went through some different setups to look at the Steppe_EMBA group* (Yamnaya and all those who fit rank=0 with them on qpWave). One of the setups I tried with allsnps=YES gave me a pass P value for Yamnaya_Samara for Steppe Eneolithic = 70%, Ukraine_N = 18%, Maikop_Novosvobodnaya = 12%. So that seems relatively more Ukraine mixed and less Meshoko/Maikop admixed than what you describe. (Another working model for Afanasievo was Steppe_Eneolithic 42%, Khvalynsk 26%, Ukraine_N 8%, Maikop_Novosvobodnaya 24%*.) I wouldn't defend that totally as I can't remember how SNPs it got etc, but gives some sense of relative proportions?

It looks like a population like that would be slightly south of Yamnaya. See here: https://imgur.com/a/EQIgpNo

On the other hand, in the PCA David Anthony previewed, there was one sample labelled Early Sredni Stog that was about as north of Yamnaya as that mix looks south of Yamnaya? - https://imgur.com/a/MWX38hE

*My model above was pright=c('South_Africa_1900BP.SG','USA_Nevada_SpiritCave_11000BP.SG','Russia_Sunghir.SG','Russia_Yana_UP.SG','China_Tianyuan','Japan_Jomon.SG','Sweden_Mesolithic.SG','Kazakhstan_Botai_Eneolithic.SG','Italy_Mesolithic.SG','Russia_Ust_Ishim_HG_published.DG','Turkey_Boncuklu_N.SG','Georgia_CHG.SG'), allsnps = TRUE)

Davidski said...

@Matt

What does IBD say about the relationship between Yamnaya and Maykop?

Carlos Aramayo said...

@Rob

I'm not based on "some former hypothesis", I've presented the most recent paper by Perle Guarino-Vignon, et al., (2021). 'Genetic Continuity of Indo-Iranian Speakers Since the Iron Age in Southern Central Asia'.

https://tinyurl.com/4efhdy3v

Which states:

"The period between 1800 and 1500 BCE saw Andronovo-like culture take over, until the rise of Yaz cultue" (Guarino-Vignon et al 2021: Introduction).

This is a recent genetic paper that uses already published aDNA samples, as well as recently taken modern DNA in Yaghnobi population in Central Asia.

Rob said...

@ Carlos

So where’s the new data which supports the premise that a “takeover” happened c 1800 Bc ?


vAsiSTha said...

@carlos

On what basis are the dates 1800-1500bce for 'andronovo takeover' made and for what specific location? The aDna samples we have hardly show any such event happening in that timeframe.

Carlos Aramayo said...

@Rob

This is what the study says:

"...Finally, we tested different Steppe populations which admixed with BMAC to model Turkmenistan_IA with qpAdm. We first constituted a set with Poltavka, Srubnaya Western_Steppe) and 4 individuals from Russia labelled as Andronovo (Central_Steppe)50, to estimate the affinity with Europe and Western Steppe previously highlighted with D-statistics and f3-statistics. We only obtained one model with 2 sources that we could not exclude, and it implies an admixture of 43% BMAC and 57% Andronovo (p-value = 0.31) suggesting that Andronovo individuals are the best proxy for the steppe population which admixed with BMAC to form the Iron Age southern Central Asia group. When testing for the best model between Andronovo and Karasuk (Central Steppe with East Asian component) to estimate the affinity with Asia, we produced a single fitting/ relevant model implying Andronovo (p-value = 0.51) with roughly the same proportions. Further tests explored the best model between Andronovo and Sintashta, two genetically close populations, and the single significantly outcome was the one with Andronovo and BMAC (p-value = 0.498) in the same proportions. Eventually, we tested the best model between the individuals labelled Andronovo and two populations belonging to the Andronovo-complex: Fedorovo Shoindykol18 and Alakul Lisakovskiy18. Once again, the only valid model was the one with Andronovo and BMAC. Overall, we can say that the Iron Age population from southern Central Asia emerges from the admixture of BMAC with a Bronze Age population close to the Andronovo individuals, which presents a profile with an affinity with Western Steppe rather than with a Central Steppe with an affinity with East Asia (like Karasuk)." (Guarino-Vignon et al 2021: section 'Iron Age Turkmenistan ancestry').

Davidski said...

@Carlos

They're talking about this...

https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/07/an-early-iranian-obviously.html

Carlos Aramayo said...

@Davidski

Thanks for the reference. I see you've already taken into account this issue and saw that "...Damgaard et al. did mention that DA382 was [from] Middle to Late Bronze Age (MLBA) steppe origin..."

Dospaises said...

@Gaska

What is your hypothesis for the source of Steppe autosomal DNA and R-L23 haplogroups? None of the R-L23 positive specimens from Yamnaya, Afanasievo, CWC or Bell Beaker from the 3rd millennium BC are without Steppe autosomal DNA.

Matt said...

@Davidski, true, without checking it I think there was nothing in what Reich and Ringbauer showed, which is a point against it for Maikop anyway? I'll check later on the slides that were previewed to make sure.

...

Also all: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.03.478968v1 - "Interdisciplinary analyses of Bronze Age communities from Western Hungary reveal complex population histories" - Gerber et al

John Thomas said...

He's back.

Davidski said...

@All

On a somewhat related note...

Interdisciplinary analyses of Bronze Age communities from Western Hungary reveal complex population histories

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.03.478968v1

ambron said...

"We can take into consideration the outgroup f3-statistics results, chronology, timing of HG admixture according to Freilich 2021 between ~3400-2400 BCE, qpAdm results and the geographical distribution of groups and outliers of similar HG makeup. These suggest a dated migration pattern for this undescribed population with dominant HG genetic ancestry from what is present-day Bulgaria to the Baltic through the Eastern borders of the Carpathians (Fig. 3 b). Ancestors of Bk-II likely branched off from this migration route and started to move towards West, by at least around ~2500 BCE, subsequently intermixing with various groups. Interestingly, the phylogeography of mitochondrial haplogroup U4b1b1 (individual S15) perfectly fits this scenario."

The mystery of the Balto-Slavic drift is solved. Arza talked about it a long time ago.

Gaska said...

@Davidski-Everyone knows that L51 and U106 came to Bohemia from the east with steppe ancestry. You must be one of the last people on the planet not to know this.

I don't care, I was also the only person on the planet who said that Yamnaya culture was going to fail and now it turns out that Max Planck agrees. You see David, this is the same issue as before, just give me a case of L51>L151>P312 in Ukraine and the discussion is over. Someone who knows a lot about these things told me that at the moment there is nothing at all. We will see who is right

@Dospaises said "None of the R-L23 positive specimens from Yamnaya, Afanasievo, CWC or Bell Beaker from the 3rd millennium BC are without Steppe autosomal DNA.

There are R1b-L754-P297-M269 cases all over Europe that have no trace of steppe blood because they are all related to WHGs. Check these samples

XN191 (5.199 BC)-Stuttgart-Mühlhausen I-Germany-LBK-HapY-R1b-L754
ATP3 (3.389 BC)-El Portalón, Atapuerca-Spain-HapY-R1b-M269
I3019 (3.200 BC)-Cheddar, Totty Pot-England-HapY-R1b-M269
MX304 (2.734 BC)-Auvernier-Switzerland-HapY-R1b1a/2a1a-L51
MX310 (2.721 BC)-Burgäschisee-SwitzerlandHapY-R1b1a/2-M269

steppe ancestry can only be linked in origin to those uniparental markers that have been located in the steppes. In their expansion throughout mainland Europe, women played a fundamental role because the farming communities were not very numerous clans, but small family groups whose genetic composition could change from one generation to the next with the arrival of only a few people. 100% of the Spaniards who are R1b-P312 have steppe ancestry, that is proof that this lineage has its origin in Ukraine?- Of course not, in his last work on Bohemia Max Planck made it clear that it has western origin.

Davidski said...

@Gaska

The Max Planck people have some weird theories, especially about the PIE homeland, but when it comes to the origin of L51 and steppe ancestry in modern Europeans they agree with everyone else that the source is a Yamnaya-related population in Eastern Europe.

So I don't know why you're saying that Max Planck has some original theory that backs up your claims.

Copper Axe said...

Its amazing how quickly people can cook up all sorts of wacky theories. This Pannonian article is fresh of the print and folks are already trying to reinvent the kwékwlos :)

ancestralwhispers.org said...

I wonder if this Progress-Meshoko admixed population might be the reason why Yamnaya Bulgaria scores additional CHG.

Dospaises said...

@Gaska

XN191 and ATP3 aren't positive for R-L23 so they don't count. Remember I stated R-L23 and I stated it for a reason. Those specimens are from before 3rd millennium BC.

I3019 is questionable according to the spreadsheet and it has extremely low coverage. It doesn't even have very many R1b derived SNPs and of the few it most aren't even on the YFull tree so the results can't fully be trusted. Supposedly also from before 3rd millennium BC.

MX304 has 21.5% Yamnaya_Samara and MX310 has 30% Yamnaya_Samara according to the study's authors. MX304 is positive for R-P311. They are from the 3rd millennium BC. So they somewhat prove my point. They are low coverage though so not the best samples.

So you have not given me a single reliable specimen that is from the 3rd millennium BC that is positive for an R-L23 haplogroup that lacks Steppe autosomal DNA.

R-M269 specimens that are not positive for R-L23 don't prove anything since not all of them are ancestors of the first person that was positive for R-L23. No one ever said all R-M269 has Steppe autosomal DNA.

All R-L51, R-Z2103, R-L151, R-P312, and R-U106 specimens are descendants of a single man that was positive for R-L23, R-PF6404, and R-L478/PF6403. He lived between 7,000-6,000 years ago. So anyone that lived after him that is negative for R-L23 is on a completely different branch. If there is lack of proof of a derived call for R-L23 or a downstream SNP then there is no proof the person is one of his descendants.

Gaska said...


@Davidski

Yeah, Yamnaya related, but NOT Yamnaya, something you and I agreed on years ago. This is what Papac and Max Planck say-

1-"It is currently NOT POSSIBLE to directly link Yamnaya, CW, and BB groups as paternal genealogical sources for one another"

2-"These results show the presence of excess Latvia_MN/Ukraine_Neolithic/PittedWare-like ancestry in Bohemia_CW_Early relative to all known Yamnaya and central European Neolithic groups"which show that CW groups share more alleles with ancient northeast European groups than do Yamnaya

3-known Yamnaya groups are an unsatisfactory source for "steppe" ancestry in Bohemia-CW-Early-Our results allude to either a northeast European Eneolithic forest steppe contribution to early CW ???????

4-Steppe ancestry is also present in BB individuals; however, they predominantly carry R1b-P312, a Y-lineage not yet found among CW or Yamnaya males. Therefore, despite their sharing of steppe ancestry and substantial chronological overlap, it is currently not possible to directly link Yamnaya, CW, and BB groups as paternal genealogical sources for one another, particularly noteworthy in light of steppe ancestry’s suggested male-driven spread and the proposed patrilocal/patriarchal social kinship systems of these three societies

Meaning that early CW society in Bohemia encompassed people who had demonstrably different histories, likely originating from ideologically diverse cultures, who spoke different mother tongues.

A scenario of R1b-P312 originating somewhere between Bohemia and England, possibly in the vicinity of the Rhine, followed by an expansion northwest and east is compatible with our current understanding of the phylogeography of ancient R1b-L151–derived lineages

We'll see if anyone finds those R1a-M417, and R1b-L51>L151 in any Yamnaya related group.Afaik there are only Z2103 (among other lineages like I2a, R1b-V88....) in Sredni Stog, and they will certainly never appear neither in Khavlynsk, Maykop or eneolithic progress


Davidski said...

@Gaska

So what's the big deal if it turns out that Corded Ware didn't come from Yamnaya but was a Yamnaya-related population from the forest steppe?

Gaska said...

@Dospaises, everyone knows that;

1- Any R1b that has appeared or will appear in Europe west of the Tizsa river between 20,000 and 2,500 BC will have many problems to be accepted. Some will have low coverage, others will be archaeologically dubious, others will be outliers, others are dead lines that had no descendants and others are certainly misdated. In 2.015 when Harvard and colleagues elaborated the new steppe theory there was not a single R1b in mainland europe (except some V88 in Iberia and Germany)- Seven years later all Europe is full of R1bs, first linked to the WHGs and then to the some neolithic cultures. It will be impossible that all the samples that keep appearing will be considered invalid, sooner or later they will have to recognize that they made a serious mistake and that they were hasty in their conclusions.

2-NO L51>L151 or R1a-M417 in Yamnaya culture, do you understand? There is only R1b-Z2103, it is boring to have to repeat the same thing day after day and year after year. The solution proposed by Max Planck could work (because of the coincidence in the Narva component) but I have the impression that it is only an emergency solution to disguise the disaster.

3-Of course, all R1b in Europe after 2500 BC have steppe ancestry, but not because they have their origin in Yamnaya, but because there were strong population movements that (for the moment) include more than 70 mitochondrial markers with origin in Yamnaya-Afanasievo, Ukraine, Khvalynsk, Majkop, Progress and Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan) that reached the heart of Europe and that in the course of 500 years changed the genetic composition of the whole continent. To this you have to add R1a-M417 r1b-Z2103, I2a-L699 and some Q clades that also contributed to this autosomal change. R1b-L23>L51 and P312???? No way, simply because it has not yet been discovered in Eastern Europe. Unlike the male markers, the female markers are shared by the steppe cultures especially Yamnaya-Afanasievo, the CWC and the BBC. How to deny the change of autosomal composition in the latter culture?

4-Steppe ancestry is not exclusive to R1b-L23>Z2103 or L151, there are many cases of G2a and I2a all over Europe with good percentages of Yamnaya signal?-they also originate from the steppes? No way

5-Using the steppe signal to demonstrate the origin of a uniparental marker or PIE in the steppes is a loser's resource, everything would be much easier if you were able to demonstrate genetic continuity in the male uniparental markers. And this is a chimera at the moment.

XN191, ATP3, I3019, MX304, MX310, CLL07 (Lechuzas Cave) VK531 (Norway) I2181 (4.497 BC)-Smyadovo.. are all European neolithic farmers, buried in dolmens or mass graves.And you still think that the horsemen of the R1b-L51>L151 steppes invaded Europe on their horses? It seems hard to explain that they immediately abandoned their customs and buried themselves in the dolmens of their enemies.

That is, your main point is that there may be cases of R1b-M269 without steppe ancestry. We agree because this also means that this lineage does not have its origin in the steppes either.

And regarding R1b-L23, you are of the opinion that it has its origin in the steppes and therefore all its descendants have to show that autosomal signal.This is radically false, the autosomal composition varies from generation to generation and it is possible that this component is totally lost in three or four generations.

Gaska said...

@Davidski

No big dale with CWC in the forest steppe, its autosomal composition fits with that region and no big problem in accepting the relationship of CWC-R1a-M417 with some branch of the IE. the problem is that I doubt the relationship between L51>L151 and CWC-M417, they have very different histories and in my opinion they made very different trips

Davidski said...

So why are L51 and M417 both first found in Corded Ware and not anywhere else?

Gaska said...

@Davidski

If I knew the answer I would have already written about it, meanwhile I can only look for solutions.There are three reasons why I doubt that both lineages made the journey together from the Ukraine.

1-PWC/Narva like admixture seems specific to this R1b-L151 group.Is it possible that it also existed in Ukraine? Yes, but in any case its ultimate origin would be in the Baltic/Scandinavia, not in the steppes

2-Between 3,000-2,725 BC approx, only U106 and L51 appear with some clearly Yamnaya-Afanasievo women (outliers-around 3.000 BC). Then R1a-M417, Q1b2a and Z2103 appears (2.750-2.725 BC).If they left Ukraine together, why do some lineages (L151) appear before others? Why R1a is in all the cultural variants of the CWC from the beginning (Poland, Baltic, Sweden, Germany...) and L51 only appears in Bohemia? Why does that Baltic signal not appear in other regions of the CWC if the origin is the same? Why discard Yamnaya if the rest of the uniparental markers coincide? -My opinion is that they do not want to leave L151 behind and have sought the solution of the forest steppe

3-The archaeological context is very doubtful, mainly because only sample U106 has a type A battle axe (which also has its origin in Jutland), while the rest of L151 have no grave goods or they are not associated with the CWC. Furthermore, it is evident that the TRB occupied a territory stretching from Jutland to Bohemia in a pre-CWC time period. I believe that U106 may have originated in southern Scandinavia (Jutland) and that it moved to Bohemia where it mixed with steppe women. Its descendants had steppe ancestry and were there when the rest of the male lineages arrived.





Matt said...

The PCA in the new paper on Hungary is probably a little projection compressed, so what I've done is taken the qpAdm proportions from their models and then simulated where samples like that should land: https://imgur.com/a/FVKyyrU

(Obviously no Balto-Slavic drift taken into account with these models).

The proportions for their models with EHG in look wrong and to place samples too far east, but the mainstream WHG+Steppe+ANF model looks pretty good.

Judging by this, the BK-II set might be slightly richer in HG ancestry than the Serbia set that I label Mokrin_EBA_1 and the Croatia set from Transdanubian Encrusted Pottery MBA, but not a lot richer in HG.

Carlos Aramayo said...

@Davidski, vAsiSTha

A new paper on Orkney islands, Scotland, could this be a case of female-mediated ancestry of Indo-European expansion similar to Swat?

https://tinyurl.com/297ppkn3

"The Orcadian Neolithic has been intensively studied and celebrated as a major center of cultural innovation, whereas the Bronze Age is less well known and often regarded as a time of stagnation and insularity. Here, we analyze ancient genomes from the Orcadian Bronze Age in the context of the variation in Neolithic Orkney and Bronze Age Europe. We find clear evidence for Early Bronze Age immigration into Orkney, but with an extraordinary pattern: continuity from the Neolithic on the male line of descent but immigration from continental Europe on the female side, echoed in the genome-wide picture. This suggests that despite substantial immigration, indigenous male lineages persisted for at least a thousand years after the end of the Neolithic."

Dilawer (Eurasian DNA) said...

Davidski

“What does IBD say about the relationship between Yamnaya and Maykop?”

IBD certainly would be a better tool to use for evidence of a more recent relationship between Yamnaya and Maykop or Yamnaya and Iran-N/CHG vs most other tools which are based on agreements of single SNPs and thus ambiguous on how recent or distant the shared drift is. Beagle 5.2 combined with Hap IBD seems to be quite good according to our testing.

The problem though is good diploid genomes are needed for this otherwise phasing which needed for IBD is sort of meaningless when you deal with the pseudo-haploid ancient genomes since they not only lack hetrozygous positions but many of their homozygous 1/1 and 0/0 positions are not accurate.

Yamna-Karagash is the only public diploid Yamna. It was genotyped using Affymetrix Axiom’s 1240K ascertained SNPs which according to our tests perform decently enough to differentiate demographic differences to the tune of Iran-N vs CHG

We also have a couple of good coverage Samara samples that we diploid genotyped but we need good Maykop or Iran-N or CHG diploids to put things in context.

The genetic relationships between Yamnaya Karagash and moderns were obviously different depending on whether we used IBS or IBD

Dilawer (Eurasian DNA) said...

AshishKaull

“Does anyone know what lapis Lazuli was called in Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian/Akkadian/Assyrian and possibly ancient Greek?

Or in the languages from where lapis Lazuli was unearthed in archaelogical dig.”

In pashto Lapis is Lajawar. Not sure about Arabic. It’s said that that the Lapis used in the eyes of ancient figures around Mesopotamia and Syria and in the sarcophagus of Tutankamon in Egypt , so 3500-1300 BCE came from the mountains around Badakhshan Afghanistan

Davidski said...

@Dilawer

I was asking Matt about the pseudo haploid IBD results that were recently presented by the Harvard group at a couple of online forums.

Based on those results, it doesn't look like there's any recent relationship between Yamnaya and Maykop, which is in line with uniparental markers and fine scale PCA.

Matt said...

Orkney thing got published -

https://scitechdaily.com/ancient-dna-rewrites-the-history-of-prehistoric-orkney-britains-ancient-capital/

"But why was Orkney so different? Dr. Graeme Wilson and Hazel Moore of the Orkney-based EASE Archaeology, who excavated the Links of Noltland, argue that the answer may lie in the long-term stability and self-sufficiency of farmsteads on Orkney, which the genetic data suggests may have already been male dominated by the peak of the Neolithic. When a Europe-wide recession hit towards the end of the Neolithic, they may have been uniquely placed to weather harsher times and maintain their grip on the population as newcomers arrived."

https://www.pnas.org/content/119/8/e2108001119 - "Ancient DNA at the edge of the world: Continental immigration and the persistence of Neolithic male lineages in Bronze Age Orkney"

Comparable levels of steppe ancestry to other people in Britain at the time.

Dilawer (Eurasian DNA) said...

@Davidski

I wasn’t aware they posted something like that. I’m surprised they would do that Since many genotypes on those pseudo-haploids don’t carry much evidence in terms of read depths so they have to do some educated “guessing”. Definitely not as good from an evidentiary standpoint.

A little caution is needed with PCAs . For example a British person plots closer to a Georgian than to an African-American even though the latter has more recent ancestry from Britain than the Georgian

Davidski said...

@Dilawer

A little caution is needed with PCAs. For example a British person plots closer to a Georgian than to an African-American even though the latter has more recent ancestry from Britain than the Georgian.

That's because the African ancestry in the African-American is highly divergent from West Eurasian ancestry.

It would be strange if a PCA didn't account for that.

But if you look at the dimensions that clearly separate the British and Georgian populations, the African-American will show relatively higher affinity to the British, and his/her ancestry proportions can be accurately determined from these dimensions.

Dilawer (Eurasian DNA) said...

I think Davidski’s position on Yamna’s demograhy as well as Nick’s comments both make sense based on the evidence thus far

Rob said...

I wonder if BA data from parts of Ireland will show similar I2a hotspots as Orkney
Ireland is said to have a different Beaker transition than England / Scotland acc to archaeology

ambron said...

Matt, I can see one BK-II sample should be similar to modern Poles.

Davidski said...

Only Bk-I (S9) is similar to modern Poles, but only in terms of ancient ancestry proportions.

ambron said...

David, I meant position on Matt's PCA.

Davidski said...

The position is coincidentally similar. Look at Fig. S.5.2.1 in the supp info.

Bk-II and even Bk-III look outside the range of modern European diversity. Only Bk-I can pass for a modern Central European, broadly speaking.

Assuwatama said...

I am not sure yet but lapis Lazuli was called

"za-gìn-duru" is Sumerian
"vaiḍūrya" in Sanskrit
"veḷuriya" in Pali


Although/Probably derived from Dravidian word which originally meant "white crystals of quartz and beryl".

Unlike Sanskrit word where it meant for blue and green beryl.

@all I would appreciate your opinions.

Modern Persian & Arabic name for it resembles Sanskrit word "Rājāvarta" from the 13th century book.

Assuwatama said...

@Davidski

What was the primary weapon of cordedware culture?

My primary understanding based of few verses from Rig Veda; Bow & Arrow appears to a be preferred choice of weapon.

Rig Veda 6.27.6

"Three thousand, mailed, in quest of fame, together, on the Yavyavati, O much-sought Indra,
Vrcivan's sons, falling before the arrow, like bursting vessels went to their destruction."

Rig Veda 6.75 is littered with mentions of bow.

Bow & Arrow were among primary weapons of Harappans as well as in sanauli royal burial bow imprints have been found on the coffin besides some arrowheads.

Davidski said...

Warlike herders and their weapons

https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2019/10/warlike-herders-and-their-weapons.html

Arza said...

South-to-North Migration Preceded the Advent of Intensive Farming in the Maya Region

The genetic prehistory of human populations in Central America is largely unexplored leaving an important gap in our knowledge of the global expansion of humans. We report genome-wide ancient DNA data for a transect of twenty individuals from two Belize rock-shelters dating between 9,600-3,700 calibrated radiocarbon years before present (cal. BP). The oldest individuals (9,600-7,300 cal. BP) descend from an Early Holocene Native American lineage with only distant relatedness to present-day Mesoamericans, including Mayan-speaking populations. After ~5,600 cal. BP a previously unknown human dispersal from the south made a major demographic impact on the region, contributing more than 50% of the ancestry of all later individuals. This new ancestry derived from a source related to present-day Chibchan speakers living from Costa Rica to Colombia. Its arrival corresponds to the first clear evidence for forest clearing and maize horticulture in what later became the Maya region.

https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/view/PRJEB49391

Copper Axe said...

"Warlike herders and their weapons

https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2019/10/warlike-herders-and-their-weapons.html"

Also relevant I guess:

https://exarc.net/issue-2021-2/ea/reconstruction-compound-bow-sintashta

Assuwatama said...

Thanks 🙏

Dospaises said...

@Gaska

I don't have all day to respond to all of your post so I will have to respond in parts.

1. You grouped a lot of info in this. Most importantly the non-R-L23 was not separated from the R-L23. Phylogeny is extremely important because a contemporary lineage that is separated by a direct paternal ancestor by 6,000 years or more is irrelevant to my points that you attempted to counter. Not all R1b all over Europe is from the same phylogeny and not even from the same time period. The vast majority of R1b in Europe from the past 5,000 years is R-L23. They all had that single common ancestor I mentioned previously. All R-P312 and R-U106 has a single R-L151 ancestor in common. That is also extremely important. So throwing out general info about R1b from 20,000 and 2,500 BC won't always apply unless it is a R-L23 specimen such as the Afanasievo individual.

2. DO you not understand that I never said L51>L151 existed in Yamnaya. Do you not understand that I never mentioned R1a-M417. Do you really not understand that it does not matter since my point is about R-L23 haplogroups having Steppe autosomal DNA and not about specific R-L23 haplogroups being found or not being found in Yamnaya proper? It is boring having to read comments directed to me that have nothing to do with my point.

I will get back to you on the other points when I have time. So far you aren't doing very well understanding my point.

Tigran said...

Now there are claims of an origin of R1a and corded pottery in China by some on AG. Laughable.

ambron said...

Let us remind you that Bk-I S9 is also this individual from the CTS3402 paternal line, relatively common among today's Poles.

Assuwatama said...

I was wondering if steppe ancestry made its way into India and Greece around the same time why do the ancient languages; Mycenaean Greek and Vedic show such deviation as if the steppe source for both population spoke different Indo-European languages to begin with.

Just how many pure steppe folk lived in steppes belonging to different IE family to change the language of Europe and India-Iran.

Western Europe had diluted steppe at 2000bce (hybrids of old european women and steppe/yamanaya men) and can never be the source of languages in Greece and India-Iran. Minoans and Mycenaean were genetically similar for most part. What differentiates the two was 15-20% steppe in Mycenaeans. Which I believe needed a pure steppe source.


Do we have any population estimates of steppe people from 3000bce-1500bce? By 250bce 50 million people existed in South Asia with a large population already in the middle indo-Aryan phase.


Also key to note is the increased steppe ancestry of modern day population compared to ancient samples in SWAT. Doesn't this point to the existence of pure steppe source despite the claims that pure steppe source disappeared post 1500bce?

Assuwatama said...

This pure steppe source on account of cremation would go undetected post 1500bce ...

Any possibility?

Rob said...

Re Hungary BA & WHG

Firstly, Alberto & I pointed this out years ago, long before talk of Bs drift or whatever ; and this was exaggerating the impact of Yamnaya if not considered
Secondly , I’m not sure this is a Carpathian or EE source of WHG . The lineages point to Western Europe

Assuwatama said...

Fire

a-ak-ni-iš in Hittite
Ugnis in Lithuanian
Ignis in Latin

Agni in Vedic
Atar/Atash in Avestan
Azar/Athash in Persian
Pozar in Russian


Shouldn't Agni be among the oldest if not older than Hittite?

Assuwatama said...

Rig Veda 7.6.1

PRAISE of the Asura, high imperial Ruler, the Manly One in whom the folk shall triumph-
I laud his deeds who is as strong as Indra, and lauding celebrate the Fort-destroyer.


Only Asura that I can think of between 2000-1500bce is the one of the Assyrians but by 1400bce Assyrians were in conflict Deva worshiping Mitannis who later by 1200bce scumbed to Assyrian assaults which may or may not have lead to demonizing of Asura in later scriptures.

Assuwatama said...

Kassites
c. 1595 BC — c. 1155 BC

Though not of the Indo-European origin had 2 interesting names in their list of Gods;

Marutta(š)
Suria(š)

Both pretty prominent figures in Vedic pantheon. Even though Suria/Surya has much lesser hymns to his name he end up having more temples than those of Indra Mitra Varuna Nasatya together :)



Give or take 1500bce 6 possibly more primary Vedic dieties were in relevance 1500bce in near eastern religions. Most likely bulk of Rig Vedic hymns were already composed by 1500bce if not the entire text.

Assuwatama said...

1500-1200bce

Assyrian-Mitanni conflict appears to be a perfect ground for later Assur-Deva demi-God conflict of the Puranas.

Davidski said...

@ambron

None of these samples or populations show any direct relationship with Poles.

They went extinct during the Iron Age.

Matt said...

@Davidski, just as a quick comment, did check - https://imgur.com/a/bvCS0BK

Reich's presentation on the topic, showing 8-12cm segments, long, found some weak links between 3x "Russia Maikop" samples at the 8-12cm level and Russia_Yamnaya and Poland_Corded_Ware. The 3x Russia_Maikop are probably the Steppe_Maikop. Nothing there indicating a Caucasus_Maikop link.

Ringbauer's presentation showing very long 16-20cm segments didn't show anything at all for Maikop. His presentation talked about the link between the Usatovo and Steppe_Maikop individual.

So there isn't anything that says no, but since there isn't anything they have presented which says yes, it's probably no.

Grant said...

AshishKaull

"Shouldn't Agni be among the oldest if not older than Hittite?"

OK, I'll take the bait. The consensus view among linguists is that the Anatolian subgroup was the first to split from P-I-E, whereas the Indo-Iranian group was one of the last, possibly the very last. Hittite was less conservative (in some respects) than other branches of I-E – perhaps the most conservative being Balto-Slavic (especially Lithuanian, among modern I-E languages). Hence one would not normally expect a Hittite root to be further from P-I-E than any cognate in Indo-Aryan.

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

RE:Hungary Paper

Seems like the Funnelbeaker migration into the Carpathian Basin was a lasting success. I5689 from Slovenia_EIA shares a Y-Chromosome with these Hungarian Funnelbeakers.

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