45 Pra-Słowianie, co żyli jeszcze przed Yamnaya culture,.. czyli Sredny Stog i Dereivka culture 01

http://www.languagesoftheworld.info/bad-linguistics/wheel-vocabulary-puts-spoke-bouckaert-et-al-s-wheel.html

http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/btn_Archeology/Mallory/JMalloryEneolothBronzeAgeEn.htm

Postanowiłem pokazać Wam, że istnieje życie po za Yamnaya… a nawet, że to życie istniało dłuuugo, dłuuugo wcześniej… niż może się komuś „dobrze poinformowanemu” przez tzw. teorię kurhanową / stepową wydawać… Wg mnie było ono już pra-słowiańskie… i pochodzące od łowców mamutów, jak Karelczyk…

Dodatkowo ponownie zwracam uwagę, na trzy typy ludzki, jakie tworzyły rzekomo tzw. pra- indo-europejską kulturę jamową / Yamna / Yamnaya… o czym pisano już w 2012 roku, jak i na to, że ludzie ze Srednego Stogu mieli związki z tzw. kulturą Cucuteni-Tripolye… np. kupowali od niej wyroby metalowe, itp… Dziwne, że jakoś nie handlowali z ludami na i za Skałkazem i nie kupowali np. brązowych siekier np. od Sumerów… hehehe

A i jeszcze jedno. Niestety Davidski wydaje mi się coraz bardziej podejrzany z tą jego manią stepową… Dlaczego on nie widzi, że Yamnaya to głownie R1b, ciemne włosy, oczy, itp… dokładnie jak to widać u tzw. Celtów a nie u Słowian?!! Cuchnie mi to padliną… lukrowaną uprzedzeniem do wyciągania wniosków innych niż jego (i nie tylko jego) ukochana i umiłowana teoria kurhanowa / stepowa… która jakoś tak coraz bardziej rozłazi się szwach…

Overview of the Kurgan hypothesis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_hypothesis

Niestety wikipedia nie posiada strony w języku polskim poświęconej kulturze archeologicznej zwanej Sredny Stog… no bo i po co, nieprawdaż? 😦

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sredny_Stog_culture

The Sredny Stog culture is a pre-kurgan archaeological culture from the 5th millennium BC. It is named after the Russian term for the Dnieper river islet of today’s Seredny Stih, Ukraine, where it was first located. It was situated across the Dnieper river on both its shores, with sporadic settlements to the west and east.^[1] One of the best known sites associated with this culture is Dereivka, located on the right bank of the Omelnik, a tributary of the Dnieper, and is the most impressive site within the Sredny Stog culture complex, being about 2,000 square meters in area.

Overview

The Sredny Stog culture seems to have had contact with the agricultural Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in the west and was a contemporary of the Khvalynsk culture.

In its three largest cemeteries, Alexandria (39 individuals), Igren (17) and Dereivka (14), evidence of inhumation in flat graves (ground level pits) has been found.^[2] This parallels the practise of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, and is in contrast with the later Yamna culture, which practiced tumuli burials, according to the Kurgan hypothesis. In Sredny Stog culture, the deceased were laid to rest on their backs with the legs flexed. The use of ochre in the burial was practiced, as with the kurgan cultures. For this and other reasons, Yuri Rassamakin suggests that the Sredny Stog culture should be considered as an areal term, with at least four distinct cultural elements co-existing inside the same geographical area.

The expert Dmytro Telegin has divided the chronology of Sredny Stog into two distinct phases. Phase II (ca. 4000–3500 BC) used corded ware pottery which may have originated there, and stone battle-axes of the type later associated with expanding Indo-European cultures to the West. Most notably, it has perhaps the earliest evidence of horse domestication (in phase II), with finds suggestive of cheek-pieces (psalia).

In the context of the modified Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas, this pre-kurgan archaeological culture could represent the Urheimat (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language. The culture ended at around 3500 BC, when the Yamna culture expanded westward replacing Sredny Stog, and coming into direct contact with the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in the western Ukraine.

Notes

1. J. P. Mallory, In the search of Indo-Europeans, 1989 p. 198, Distribution of the Sredny Stog and Novodanilovka sites
2. The Journal of Indo-European studies, Vol 18, p 18

Sources

• J. P. Mallory, „Sredny Stog Culture”, Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.

…..

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/prehistorysteppes.html
Prehistory of the Steppes
© 2013, C. George Boeree

http://dienekes.blogspot.co.uk/2005/04/anthropology-of-sredny-stog-and.html

April 10, 2005

Anthropology of Sredny Stog and Novodanylovka

J.P. Mallory reviews a work on the archaeology of the Sredny Stog and Novodanylovka cultures of the northern Pontic area, which are considered by some to be the original Proto-Indo-Europeans. It is interesting that the females are Proto-Europoid, while there is an intrusive Mediterranean element of Balkan origin among the males.

D. Ya. Telegin et al. Srednestogovskaya i Novodanilovskaya Kul’tury Eneolita Azovo-Chernomorskogo Regiona. Kiev: Shlyakh, 2001.

Reviewed by J.P. Mallory, JIES vol. 32, 3/4, p. 363-366.

„The third section of the book surveys the anthropological literature concerning the Sredny Stog and Novodanylovka cultures. For the twenty Sredny Stog burials from Igren, we find the somewhat unusual situation of women outliving males on an average of 7.8 years (males – 35.8 years, females – 43.6); only one individual lived passed 55 years. In terms of the craniological analysis of physical characteristics the Sredny Stog females tend to exhibit a homogeneous Proto-Europoid type that is most similar to the earlier inhabitants of the region. The series of male crania, however, tend to vary more and indicate both more robust Proto-Europoid and more gracile southern European (or Mediterranean) components. The analysis of six Novodanilovka skulls from three sites suggests again the presence of both Proto-Europoid and Mediterranean types. The cranial evidence as a whole suggests a mingling of local Proto-Europoids (seen especially in the east) with more gracial south-east European types in the west, a attern that might be explained by the flow of populations from the Balkan Neolithic (Tripolje) into the western Ukraine.”

Tom Lehman said…
Is there yet any Y-line differ-entiation between ‚Pamir Ferghana’ type (=R1b?), Mediteranean (=E?), and most-robust Europoid (=’nordic’= R1a?)? Please respond to shadehiker@hotmail.com. TY!
Saturday, August 04, 2012 10:33:00 pm

…..

http://eurogenes.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/mixed-marriages-on-early-eneolithic.html

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Mixed marriages on the early Eneolithic steppe

It looks like Sredny Stog was the early vector for the spread of both Anatolian Neolithic and Caucasus hunter-gatherer (CHG) admixture onto the steppe, from the west and east, respectively:

These data testify the assumption about the existence of mixed Tripolye-Sredniy Stog marriages, because Tripolye population represented the Mediterranean anthropological type according to the not numerous Tripolye burials (Потехина 1999, c.154). It is interesting, that the massive Protoeuropoid type was typical for the oldest and the most eastern monuments of Sredniy Stog, while mesomorphic Mediterranean type was typical for the Igren cemetery, which was one of the youngest monuments related to the second and third periods of the Sredniy Stog culture and synchronous to the Tripolye B I and B I-II.

…

Appearance of pottery with pearls at the settlements of the third period of Sredniy Stog culture and glossy ceramics without ornamentation in the eastern variant sites, as well as the group of vessels with the steppe traces at the Svobodnoe settlement, allow me to assume the existence of mixed marriages between the Sredniy Stog and Northern Caucasus population.

Source: Early Eneolithic in the Pontic Steppes, book by Nadezhda Sergeenva Kotova, available at Academia.edu here.

Posted by Davidski at 1:54:00 PM

Romulus said…
This paper is really interesting. So the Sredny Stog people traded their seashell pots to the Tripolye people for metal objects. I’ve only read the part on interactions between Tripolye/Stog but everything in there direct contradicts Gimbustas’s „Steppe Theory”. Still clinging to that David?
December 9, 2015 at 3:34 PM

Davidski said…
Nothing we’ve seen lately contradicts the Kurgan theory of Indo-European origins. Seems to me like you’re clutching at straws to find something that isn’t there.
December 9, 2015 at 3:41 PM

Rob said…
I think that the north & western Black Sea areas will be more complex and diverse than the Samara Yamnaya samples. When we get aDNA from the Black Sea countries and further up in eastern Europe at good resolution, we’ll be able to come up with final conclusions, fine-tunings and modifications.
December 9, 2015 at 4:09 PM

Romulus said…
What is your definition of Kurgan theory? From my understanding it involves metal working & a chiefdom social structure being introduced into Europe from the Steppe by the Yamnaya culture. The role of the Kurgan is an elite burial for the chief. According to the paper you posted metal working and a chiefdom social structure were characteristics of the Tripolye culture and were diffused in to the neighbouring Sredny Stog culture. Even the burial types of the post-Tripolye contact Sredny Stog are derivative of Tripolye. The paper states that elite burials are derivative of those in the Varna culture and that the Kurgans themselves have no special significance other than being burials for members of the Sredny Stog tribe who had to be buried away from the main tribe cemetary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_culture

This paper clearly describes a situation in which Tripolye was the source of the bronze age in the Steppe. I have a hard time believing that every part of Steppe culture was derivative of Tripolye except the language.
December 9, 2015 at 4:23 PM

Davidski said…
Proto-Indo-European people and languages were North Eurasians with a Caucasus substratum who expanded with the Kurgan cultural package. That’s what linguistics and ancient genetics show. Evidences of cultural appropriation from the western edges of the steppe and even the Balkans don’t change this.
December 9, 2015 at 4:34 PM

Rob said…
Kotova’s conclusions are certainly not isolated. The formative role of CT and Majkop on the steppe has been highlighted time and again; and probably served to form a north IE culture from what might have originally non-IE one. This is what archaeology shows, and I suspect archaeogenetics will not be inconsistent with it. But ultimately, answer for the direction of language spread in the formative 4000-3000 BC period is an open one, if one appraises the evidence objectively.
December 9, 2015 at 5:13 PM

Davidski said…
Archaeogenetics shows groups rich in R1a and R1b with maternal admixture from the Caucasus and western Black Sea area expanding in all directions at the right time to be the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Any theories significantly deviating from this scenario are based on false hopes.
December 9, 2015 at 5:15 PM

Rob said…
Well, its not about ‚hopes’ but objectivity and open mindedness. How positive are we that M417 and L51 will come specifically from the Dniester-Don open steppe region? In fact, the classic Kurgan theory stipulates these lines should come form the Volga – Caspian steppe. Where are they ?
December 9, 2015 at 5:22 PM

ryukendo kendow said…
@ Davidski Hi David, you mentioned:

„By the way, I think one of the big problems is that the Anatolian farmers have quite a bit of CHG, maybe over 10% on average. However, this is hidden for them within the Anatolian/LBK cluster. But it might not be hiding for present-day Europeans even if their ancestors also acquired it during the Neolithic, because they don’t share as much drift with the farmers as the farmers do with each other.”

Hmm, just to make sure we are using clear language with clear minds, what do you mean exactly? The Anatolian farmers contain 10% CHG compared to who? To their EEF cousins further west?

I mean, aren’t the Anatolian Neolithic 100% EEF by definition? Which would mean that we would need some new ancient that is even further away from CHG compared to Anatolia Neolithic in what is currently a ‚no man’s land’/empty space to ‚reveal’ that Anatolia neolithic is CHG-shifted compared to this new sample. Or do you mean that some of the Cardial EN samples are indeed shifted away from CHG compared to Anatolia Neolithic, in addition to being WHG-shifted? Do you have any evidence to this effect?

Or do you mean that the EEF component in your recent run is too ‚small’, and too specific for recent shared variation in EEFs, such that it ‚retreats’ from modern Europeans, and the resulting excess EEF in moderns gets dumped into CHG + WHG?

(Just so the rest of you know what I mean, Dodecad had an East Euro cluster that, in addition to tracking steppe ancestry, was extremely specific to recent shared drift/ancestry in slavs, i.e. was too ‚small’ and specific, so it retreated from western Europeans and the resulting excess steppe ancestry was dumped into Gedrosia, the next closest thing. It also retreated from Caucasus populations and exposed ‚West_European’ there.)
December 9, 2015 at 6:19 PM

Davidski said…
Considering that only a small percentage of Y-DNA lineages survive to the present, and only a small percentage of individuals will ever be tested, that’s not an obstacle to sealing the Kurgan hypothesis, especially since we also have genome-wide DNA, with the least admixed Corded Ware coming out 70%+ Samara Yamnaya.
December 9, 2015 at 6:21 PM

Davidski said…
rk, Yeah, I’d say all of the Neolithic samples have some CHG, even those that come out 100% EEF. It’s just not showing up in ADMIXTURE results, because of drift and pseudo-diploid calls. Note that Stuttgart almost always shows some CHG-related stuff, and is the only real diploid LBK genome we have.
December 9, 2015 at 6:25 PM

a said…
” Well, its not about ‚hopes’ but objectivity and open mindedness…”
PIE issue aside.

The Khvalynsk/ Samara R1a/b + samples have opened Pandora’s box for those doubting how ancient R1[a+b] is in this general region. I think your going to be pleasantly surprised when more results come in, as to the antiquity of the ancient R1a/b* hunter-gatherer lines in the region. For example Khvalynsk was L754+ while Samara was positive for L278, both of these are in the range of 16k-18k+/-. Yamnaya are positive for snp’s downstream ie 2103+/in the range of 6k+/-. All 2103+ and L51 plus have L278+L754 in basal postion-thats about 110 million+/- men in Europe. I’m quite certain the same pattern will emerge for R1a, as it spread from this region across vast distances both East and West. Separately this might not have been such a big deal. However together these ancient R1a/b Hunter/gatherer samples point at more upstream and downstream markers will turn up in this ancient R1 region. One day we may even be fortunate to get a actual R1* sample.
http://www.yfull.com/tree/R1a/
http://www.yfull.com/tree/R1b/
December 9, 2015 at 6:38 PM

ryukendo kendow said…
@ Davidski So you mean that different EEFs have different amounts of CHG, and so we don’t really have a 100% ‚EEF’ genome as of now? While ADMIXTURE detects the extra CHG for Europeans, but does not find this for ancients? Sorry for being so nitpicky, I just think the definitions need to be clear so we don’t confuse people.
December 9, 2015 at 6:51 PM

Rob said…
@ -„a”- The question is not about the ‘antiquity’ of R1 in eastern Europe – which is not doubtable. The question is where did the successful/ ‘lucky’ lines expand from ? I doubt it was Samara, or even Khvalynsk, as classical models suggest.
December 9, 2015 at 8:34 PM

Ryan said…
Does anyone have a link to some good sources on the origins of the Sredniy Stog culture they could share?

@a – we know the Steppe in this period was not the only home of R1b at least, as there’s a V88-related sample in Iberia around the same period, and V88 in Africa is almost certainly just as old. Don’t be surprised when R1b starts showing up in ancient remains from Sredny Stog’s neighbours too. At least that’s my bet. I have a stupid question though – when the Black Sea was lower (say ~6000 BCE), would the Dniester and Danube have met?

@Davidski – Is there any reason why we ignore Y haplogroup G2a? It seems like a good candidate for a CHG marker wouldn’t it? And it’s pretty ubiquitous in the Neolithic.

Also, I think it’s worth mentioning this quote from the Wiki page for asabiyyah:

„Ibn Khaldun argues that each dynasty (or civilization) has within itself the seeds of its own downfall. He explains that ruling houses tend to emerge on the peripheries of great empires and use the much stronger `asabiyya present in those areas to their advantage, in order to bring about a change in leadership. This implies that the new rulers are at first considered „barbarians” by comparison to the old ones. As they establish themselves at the center of their empire, they become increasingly lax, less coordinated, disciplined and watchful, and more concerned with maintaining their new power and lifestyle at the centre of the empire—i.e, their internal cohesion and ties to the original peripheral group, the `asabiyya, dissolves into factionalism and individualism, diminishing their capacity as a political unit. Thus, conditions are created wherein a new dynasty can emerge at the periphery of their control, grow strong, and effect a change in leadership, beginning the cycle anew.”

Is it just me, or does this seem to apply to pre-historic cultures too? IE that the „next” wave of cultural/linguistic expansion seems to come from a group at the interface between two existing cultures.
December 9, 2015 at 9:09 PM

Davidski said…
G2a isn’t an Indo-European marker, because the Indo-Europeans made a big impact on Europe and Asia, while G2a did not. It’s obviously a Neolithic farmer marker that was almost totally replaced by Indo-European lines. It’s also not a CHG marker. J appear to be a CHG marker, based on the two CHG genomes we have, while G probably expanded into the Caucasus with farmers.
December 9, 2015 at 9:16 PM

Davidski said…
rk, The Anatolian farmers certainly have some CHG admixture. That’s probably how they also acquired J2a. Stuttgart almost certainly has some CHG admixture. It always seems to show up in ADMIXTURE runs. This suggests that other LBK farmers also have it, even though it doesn’t show up, perhaps for technical reasons? I’m not sure if the Spanish farmers have any CHG. They might not if their ancestors were island hoppers and came from, say, the Levant rather than Anatolia.
December 9, 2015 at 9:20 PM

Arch Hades said…
Can we be sure they had EEF ancestry without their genomes though? My guess is this will come up as the „Caucasus” component, not the Anatolian one. I remember Dienekes posted an article from physical anthroplogy reviewed by J.P. Mallory that the „Mediterranean” types present in Sredny Stog represent geneflow from the Balkan Tripolye in that area. http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2005/04/anthropology-of-sredny-stog-and.html

But then again I think the EEF [Anatolian] component is just craniofacially similar to the Caucasus folk so these conjectures are probably wrong IMO. We would see EEF in Yamnaya if it was in Sredny Stog.
December 9, 2015 at 9:25 PM

Rob said…
Ryan Srednij stog is used as a catch all term for the Eneolithic period (4200-3000 BC) in Ukraine; as is Khvalysnk for western Russia . So it’s a pretty broad term, made more complex by the fact that different archaeologists subclassify and periodise each component site, ceramic complex and subregions differently. But I’d recommend you look at Rassamakin – he’s got the best grasp of all- and his stuff is all available on line (academia.edu)
December 9, 2015 at 9:30 PM

Arch Hades said…
Proto-Indo-European people and languages were North Eurasians with a Caucasus substratum who expanded with the Kurgan cultural package. That’s what linguistics and ancient genetics show. Maikop was Kurgan too, but you think it’s non IE, and proto IE was formed north on the steppe, right? So which people do you think started the Kurgan tradition?
December 9, 2015 at 9:32 PM

Kapak said…
„”Maikop was Kurgan too, but you think it’s non IE, and proto IE was formed north on the steppe, right? So which people do you think started the Kurgan tradition?””

Obviously he’s gonna go with whatever strokes his ego the hardest. I must say it’s been amusing watching Davidski’s metamorphisis over the years, from getting his hopes up about R1a only to be shot down by R1b folk…. to now Caucasus people coming into play when this whole time he’s been talking down on them xD. Only way he can *somewhat* redeem himself is if the „PIE men take Caucasus women” scenario turns out true, because he’s really counting on it.
December 9, 2015 at 9:53 PM

Davidski said…
Very few linguistics and archaeologists consider Maikop Indo-European. According to Soviet archaeologists, Maikop settlements were actually raided by Kurgan people from the steppe. And I’m still not seeing R1a-M198 as anything but Proto-Indo-European. You would really have to have your head deep up your ass to think at this stage that it wasn’t a Proto-Indo-European marker.
December 9, 2015 at 9:59 PM

Rob said…
Arch There were many different types of kurgans; and it’s just one component of many different cultural elements; so it’s not the be all and end all But, the specific types of kurgans seen in Yamnaya have theor origins in the CT and majkop cultures
December 9, 2015 at 10:08 PM

Arch Hades said…
Actually „PIE men” had Caucasus mothers. And these later R1 PIE expanding males still had this ancestral line from their mothers but carried a lot of R1 from their fathers. As I’ve said before Mama genes count too. I don’t think it was all EHG males and Caucasus women forming the PIEs, but the paternal/maternal contribution could have been pretty lopsided. That’s something we need more samples get at least a clearer picture of. I think we need a lot more samples of CHGs and the Maikop culture, to see what Y lineages the males in that culture carried.

So it was EHG North Eurasiatic men who were taking Caucasus women to create the later PIE expanding men. But anyway, I dunno…i don’t know if I should view EHGs as patriarchal macho men. I’ve heard they were more probably like wanderers on shamanic journeys and stuff.
December 9, 2015 at 10:15 PM

Rob said…
Dave „I’m still not seeing R1a-M198 as anything but Proto-Indo-European. ” Surely not. You do realise M198 formed 14ky BP? These fisher-forager-hunters werent PIE; I’m pretty sure. If you mean Z280 lineages spread certain PIE then one can easily agree
December 9, 2015 at 10:15 PM

Arch Hades said…
Last reply of mine was to Kapak. „But, the specific types of kurgans seen in Yamnaya have theor origins in the CT and majkop cultures.” So basically the Indo-Europeans to their cultural tradition of Kurgan burial mounds from their southern Caucasus ancestors? Is there an academic source that states this. Anyway it’s pretty interesting.
December 9, 2015 at 10:19 PM

Davidski said…
Sounds like bullshit to me, probably based on bloated C14 dates for Maykop. C14 dates for Repin Kurgans on the Caspian steppe are as old as for Maykop. So why would the Yamnaya tradition come from Maykop and not Repin?
December 9, 2015 at 10:36 PM

Rob said…
Arch „So basically the Indo-Europeans to their cultural tradition of Kurgan burial mounds from their southern Caucasus ancestors?”

Not exactly. As I said; only some kurgans appear to be of Caucasus (Majkop type); some are modelled on CT types. But who knows how this translates at an overall level? There are many other factors to consider – like economy, religion, language , etc

The point is : the proto- Yamnaya steppe was subject to massive influences in its formative period (4000-3000); before it appears to have in turn expanded back out. But the crucial point is that no linear continuity can be traced back to pre-4000 BC cultures of the steppe- which were foragers and thus not IE per definitionem
December 9, 2015 at 10:40 PM

Kapak said…
„” I dunno…i don’t know if I should view EHGs as patriarchal macho men. I’ve heard they were more probably like wanderers on shamanic journeys and stuff.””

Wanderers sounds about right. & maybe even wander on to leave his hypothetical Caucausus wifey to rear the children herself?….. and you know who spoon-feeds and teaches kids how to speak words, right? 😉

I suggest you go on google, and give John Colarusso’s „Pontic” language family a whirl…… he foretold of the N-W Caucasian – PIE connection long before any Reich et en al. or what have you. Mind-blowing…. if you can keep an open mind.
December 9, 2015 at 10:44 PM

Kristiina said…
In “Comparative Indo-European Linguistics”, Beekes identifies IE words with comparative method. I picked up the words that are attested both in the West and the East and that should give a hint of the character of the Indo-European culture: *h2éios ‘bronze’, *gweh3us ‘cow’, *péku ‘livestock’, *h1ekuos ‘horse’, *kuoon ‘dog’, *gwreh2uoon/*gw€rh2n ‘quern’, *h2egros ‘fallow land’, *Hroth2 ‘wheel’, *h2eks- ‘axle’, *uegh- ‘to carry, ride’, *neh2us ‘ship’, *kwrih2- ‘buy’.

I did not pick up words with a limited distribution or words that are difficult to reconstruct due to irregularities as this could point to the word being a loanword.

To me the IE culture looks like being very mobile (wheel, axle, verb ‘ride’, ship), and IE’s kept animals and raised cattle (dog, cow, livestock, horse, fallow land) and were involved in trade (buy). Agricultural terminology is not shared to a great extent as I could find only the word for quern.
December 9, 2015 at 10:55 PM

Rob said…
The aforementioned „palaeolexemes’ suggest that PiE spread after the secondary products revolution, which occured everywhere; not just the steppe. In fact, the steppe *received* these inputs, and did not invent them

From where ? Two routes
December 9, 2015 at 11:23 PM

Colin Welling said…
@Romulus I have a hard time believing that every part of Steppe culture was derivative of Tripolye except the language. Linguists pretty soundly place PIE in the steppe. Knowing that metal came from CT culture changes nothing. What do you mean every part of the Steppe culture was a derivative of Tripolye? Ive never heard a credible archeologist ever say anything like that. Gumbitas could be totally wrong but that doesn’t change the basic kurgan hypothesis that PIE was from a steppe culture they obviously spread that culture all over the place.

Gumbitas was fucking nuts, and her version of the Kurgan theory isn’t important IMO. The DNA is showing us exactly what Davidski has said. The heritage that ties the yamnaya together and defines the majority of their ancestry is EHG and CHG. The mix of EHG and CHG in yamnaya mirrors the northern (uralic) and southern (caucasian) linguistic border that was predicted by the steppe hypothesis. And for what its worth, EEF is not spread across the steppe at the time of the yamnaya, so its not like you can use a demic model to say that yamnaya got their IE from CT.

Im guessing the western yamnaya had a chunk of EEF but EEF and CT isn’t the dominant influence that unites the yamnaya.
December 10, 2015 at 1:01 AM

Ryan said…
Also, if Sredny Stog were mixing with CT people, why is there 0 EEF in Yamnaya? Shouldn’t there be some?

Looking at your latest K10 run – I’m having a hard time making sense of it. Based on the FST distances, Anatolian Neolithic, SW Asian and CHG are somewhat closely related to one another. WHG is also closer to SW Asian and CHG than to Anatolian Neolithic. That doesn’t make much sense does it? Or does it simply imply greater African or some other „basal” admixture into Anatolian Neolithic? Though the FST distances apply otherwise.

Also, if we go from the Iberian Chalcolithic to the Basque, we see a huge increase in CHG with a comparatively modest increase in EHG still. I can buy that to an extent for the Basque – presumably they got a small amount of EHG and CHG together from mixing with Indoeuropeans, and an excess in CHG from whatever delivered CHG to Sardinia, but there are a lot of Indoeuropean speaking groups with large CHG values and virtually 0 EHG. I think the different clusters are bleeding over into one another somehow. Maybe Treemix would be more suitable as a primary tool here?

Like, look at the Corded Ware samples, or even Bronze Age Hungary – there’s relative parity between CHG and EHG, just like with Yamnaya. Now look at the modern populations in Central/Western Europe – they generally have a lot more CHG than EHG. So there’s some massive CHG expansion after the expansion of Indoeuropean?

Maybe the EHG samples we have aren’t very good proxies for the actual EHG group that led to Proto-Indoeuropeans? Karitiana is coming out as 40% EHG, and with Q1a showing up in EHG, maybe these Karelians were a bit more closely related to Amerindian groups than the EHG on the Pontic Steppe. I dunno, confusing to say the least. Thoughts?
December 10, 2015 at 2:21 AM

Davidski said…
Ryan, G2a just looks like an early farmer lineage to me that also penetrated the Caucasus. The reason I say J is a CHG marker is because we have 2/2 CHG samples belonging to J, and also that CHG and J reach high frequencies in the Caucasus today. There is J in Sardinia, so both CHG males and females made it down there. (…)
December 10, 2015 at 2:26 AM

Kristiina said…
Where and when do we we have the first archaeological evidence for wheel and wagon? It looks like wheel and wagon were important for the expansion of IE languages. However, it cannot be the whole story as wagons are quite useless in a forest, and IE languages spread for example to Scandinavia where wagons were not very practical. How about the cow? Did Neolithic Europeans keep cows?
December 10, 2015 at 2:54 AM

FrankN said…
@Kristina:
– *kuon ‘dog’ is a Paleolithic Wanderwort, reflected e.g. in East Chadic *kany, Korean *kàŋ-, Nahuatl (Aztec) Itzquintli, Lakota sunka (c.f. Sanskr. sunaka), and various more (see link, root *KVNV).
http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?baseid=+0+1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20+21+22+23+24+25+26+27+28+29+30+31+32+33+34+35+36+37+38+39+40+41+42+43+44+45+46+47+48+49+50+51+52+53+54+55+56+57+58+59+60+61+62+63+64+65+66+67+68+69+70+71+72+73+74+75+76+77+78+79+80+81+82+83+84+85+86+87+88+89+90+91+92+93+94+95+96+97+98+99+100+101+102+103+104+105+106+107+108+109+110+111+112+113+114+115+116+117+118+119+120+121+122+123+124+125&root=config&morpho=0&off=&text_proto=&method_proto=substring&ic_proto=on&text_meaning=dog&method_meaning=substring&ic_meaning=on&text_any=&method_any=substring&sort=proto&ic_any=on&first=1
Actually, I see it as a composite of *Ku, which means „to move, run, depart” in various language families (and is even more frequent as part of ‚dog terms’ around the world), and Proto-Uralic *ni (or related vowel) that shows up in various roots related to „fur, skin, de-skinning”. Thus, PIE *kuon „dog”, as Uralic *kujna „wolf”, would both mean „fur-bearing runner (hunter)”.
[I have written a bit about Dog aDNA at the end of the post on the Jäger paper, you might want to consult this as reference].

– The „wagon terminology” (including wheel/ axle) has been discussed ad infinitum, no need to repeat it here. Lets just note that the *uegh- ‘to carry, ride’ concept seems to be most stringently applied in Germanic (cf. way, wagon, to wage, wave, weigh – the latter seems to point at the first wagons only beeing two-wheeled), which corresponds to the first evidence for wheeled (ox-)carts stemming from Funnelbeaker (FB) contexts. However, unless FB spoke PIE (which I don’t think, as Germanic languages are lexically, morphologically and phonologically quite removed from the IE ‚mainstream’), this „PIE terminology” would actually constitute an early borrowing from a Non-IE language.

– *gweh3us ‘cow’, *péku ‘livestock’, *h1ekuos ‘horse’, *kwrih2- ‘buy’ are semantically linked. The „cattle trade” connection is well documented, be it for Latin pecus „cattle” vs. pecunia „money”, or for Ags. cheap „cows, cattle” turning into English cheap (i.e. ‚good business’). „buy” vs. Celtic bou „cattle” is also pretty transparent in this respect. This doesn’t invalidate the IE connection (and certainly not your conclusion on cattle herding at the heart of IE culture), but leaves us with a couple less of truly independent cognates.

– The Bouckaert paper on Northwest-Caucasian – IE connection that Dave posted here some months ago didn’t convince me at all when it comes to lexical parallels identified therein. There, were, however, two exceptions: One was kinship terms (relevant to Dave’s opener!), the other one was animal husbandry terminology. IIRC, *h2egros ‘fallow land’ was part of these NWC-PIE cognates. Others which I recall were ‚porch’, ‚meadow’, and ‚ewe’/’ovis’. Note on the latter the archaic Caucasian nominal class system, often fossilised but still reasonably well preserved in Chechen. There, a ‚null’ or ‚e-‚ feminine prefix contrasts with a ‚s-‚ masculine prefix. Technically, this would allow to turn a female ‚ewe’ into a male ‚s-ewe’, i.e. a ‚sheep’ (which originally designed the male, before beeing gender-neutralised). The same principle would turn a German Tier „deer, animal” into a Stier „bull” (Stu in Chechen).

What does that leave us with: PIE as quite some Creole, drawing its ‚core vocabulary’ from various sources.
December 10, 2015 at 3:00 AM

Rob said…
Kristiina Wheels were probably invented in Mesopotamia (kohl) but spread rapidly and widely through a cultural transmission. They were certainly present in Cucteni-Tripolye and Majkop, from where Yamnaya adapted them. Each EEF group had different economies, but cattle were already present in Carpathian late Neolithic groups

Frank N PIE is not a ‚creole’. Linguists have very specific definitions of a creole, and one cannot simply make up their own theories. IE has none of the features of creoles, such as lacking inflexional morphology. However, some of the pre-PIE steppe languages might have been creoles
December 10, 2015 at 3:15 AM

Kristiina said…
Frank, you may very well be right in what you say about the origin of the IE words mentioned above, but, in any case, they are shared between both Eastern and Western IE languages and show regular sound correspondences and, therefore, must have been part of the IE expansion.

Rob, do we have DNA from Carpathian Neolithic groups who kept cattle? It is true that cattle was domesticated pretty early: „Archeozoological and genetic data indicate that cattle were first domesticated from wild aurochs (Bos primigenius) approximately 10,500 years ago. There were two major areas of domestication; one in the Middle East/Europe (the area that is now Turkey) giving rise to the taurine line and a second in the Indian subcontinent (the area that is now Pakistan) resulting in the indicine line. Modern mitochondrial DNA variation indicates the taurine line may have arisen from as few as 80 aurochs tamed in the upper reaches of Mesopotamia near the villages of Çayönü Tepesi in southeastern Turkey and Dja’de el-Mughara in northern Iraq”.
December 10, 2015 at 4:08 AM

Chris Davies said…
@ FrankN – „*kuon ‘dog’ is a Paleolithic Wanderwort, reflected e.g. in East Chadic *kany, Korean *kàŋ-, Nahuatl (Aztec) Itzquintli, Lakota sunka (c.f. Sanskr. sunaka), and various more”
nkịta – Igbo
kutiru – Fula
ngui, ngitĩ – Kikuyu
December 10, 2015 at 4:26 AM

FrankN said…
@Rob: „Wheels were probably invented in Mesopotamia (kohl)” That’s one theory, so far unproven. Below you find a summary on all securely and tentatively dated archeological evidence for wheeled carts:
http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/mischka329/mischka329_supplement.pdf

Extracts:
– Wheel traces, Flintbek/D (FB), 3423–3390 calBC
– Pictogram on pottery, Bronocice/PL (FB), 3631–3380 calBC
– Wooden wheel with axle, Stare gmajne/SLO (Baden), 3357–3116 calBC (axle, old wood effect?)
– Clay tablet, Uruk, 3641–3381 calBC (unsecure: dating of cultural layer, not in situ, charcoal may display old wood effects)
– Wheel model, Ğebel Arūda/IRQ (late Uruk), 3335–3103 (charcoal, may display old wood effects, from burnt roofing)
– Wheels, Starokorsunskaya/RUS (Majkop), undated, context estimated at >3370 BC
– Terracotta-fragment of wagon model (?), Harrapa/IND, undated, context estimated at 4990 BC

This means so far we can be sure of FB having carts by around 3.400 BC. Maykop and Uruk appear to be at best contemporary, possibly later than FB. As concerns Majkop, there have been quite a number of older Russian „context datings” that had to be substantially corrected downwards over the last years.
Harappa is interesting, though, and might deserve a closer look.

Independent invention of the wheeled cart cannot be excluded. The following technological predecessors are being considered:
1. The potter’s wheel (assumed for Uruk)
2. Flywheels, especially those mounted on drills (FB?)
3. Spindles (Harappa?)

@Chris Davies: When allowing for a centum-satem sound shift, the Mbutis’ Ba-senji, clearly one of the most ancient dog races, may also belong to the class of ‚kuon Wanderwords.
Another etymology, however, links the Basenji to Suahili mbwa shenzi “wild dog”. In any case, the Mbutis’ dog keeping tradition, outside the habitat of any wolves, should give anybody using them as ‚unadmixed’ outgroup for admixture stats a second thought..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basenji

Your examples seem to relate to what I think are derivatives on a hypothetical *ku „to run”, as e.g. in proto-AfrAs *gay-„to move”, Maa a-kúɛt „to move fast, run”, and of course Lat. currere „to run” plus other IE reflexes such as Celtic carrus and Germanic hart and horse. Note here also the Kudu, Sidamo goda „game, gazelle”, Akkadian gadu „(young) he-goat”, and lat. haedus, engl. goat, [pol. koza?], etc. The chain can be set forth into Dravidian and Austroasiatic.
December 10, 2015 at 5:56 AM

Romulus said…
@David „G2a is not an Indo-European marker” There is no such thing as an „Indo-european” marker. Indo-European is a language family and G2a is a y chromosome. They can be spread and move independently of each other. The idea of an unbreakable connection between the two is obviously false, there are many examples (Basque, Chadic). This type of thinking I see as unproductive. I could see R1b as a majority CHG marker in Europe coming from Varna, even though it exists on the Neolithic Steppe. There is a lot of it south of the Steppe that needs to be explained. I see Indo-European language and culture coming from Varna/Tripolye regardless of Y or autosomal, whether it originated there or with Farming in general I don’t know. Sredny Stog types sem only a proxy for this culture swept up in the wave.

@Colin „linguists have traced PIE to the Steppe” Linguists speculate and not much else when it comes to PIE, they can’t „prove” shit.
December 10, 2015 at 8:59 AM

capra internetensis said…
@FrankN: It does not matter if PIE borrowed the word from some other language – borrowing words for useful inventions is utterly normal and does not remotely make a language a creole – the point is whether the word shows regular development in daughter languages after being borrowed into the proto-language, rather than being borrowed piecemeal into different branches from different sources at a later date.

If for instance the root for „wagon, drive” was borrowed from Funnelbeaker – not that we have anything like the chronological resolution necessary to say where wheeled vehicles spread from – it must have been borrowed at an early stage, since we have Sanskrit vahati. It is not plausible that Indo-Aryan borrowed a Harappan word and Germanic borrowed a Funnelbeaker word and they just happen to look like regular cognates; the word is Proto-(Nuclear-)Indo-European. Which is the point, if we are trying to reconstruct PIE material culture, it doesn’t matter where the words and useful objects may have come from originally.
December 10, 2015 at 9:13 AM

Romulus said…
The ‚proposed’ linguistic connection between PIE and the Steppe is itself very stupid and has been debunked. Wheeled vehicles weren’t invented on the Steppe, they were invented in Mesopotamia and transmitted TO the Steppe BY Tripolye, just like every other aspect of their culture. David Anthony’s book is expired crap.
December 10, 2015 at 9:21 AM

Der Frost said…
Differences between anthropological types of males (robust UP) and females (gracile Mediterranean) belonging to Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age cultures of Romania-Moldova-Ukraine were noted even during the interwar period by Romanian bioanthropologist Olga Necrasova (born in 1910 in St Petersburg, emigrated with her White Russian family to Romania after WW1).

With respect to how exactly these contacts between settled and pastoral populations took place, this article is also worth a read: http://cucuteniar.ro/downloads/Dan%20Monah%20-%20Salt%20Springs%20Places%20for%20Salt%20Recrystallization%20and%20Ritual%20Centres%20for%20Exchange%20with%20Steppe%20Population.pdf

Last, to nitpick a bit, the use of the term „Tripolye” alone is too ambiguous in this context. Cucuteni and Tripolye (or Tripillia in Ukr.) were kin but distinct cultures (the Cucuteni is the originator, an expression of the Balkan Chalcolithic world and thus more complex, while Tripolye is the a acculturated form, a more rustic „forest Chalcolithic” culture). So are you referring only to Tripolye or to C-T as a whole?
December 10, 2015 at 9:41 AM

Kurti said…
David said „Very few linguistics and archaeologists consider Maikop Indo-European. According to Soviet archaeologists, Maikop settlements were actually raided by Kurgan people from the steppe.” Well thats what SOME Russian archeologists thought back than. Most modern archeologists date the Maikop Kurgans as older as the Yamna Kurgans. In fact the oldest Kurgans are said to be in Leyla Tepe in Southeast Caucasus.

„The earliest known kurgans are dated to the 4th millennium BC in the Caucasus.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leyla-Tepe_culture

Obviously Kurgans are a Southern introduction into the Steppes not vica versa. I am also not aware of any scientists having proved that all of the ~50% Caucasus DNA came via female lineages. How? If ~50% of Yamna mtDNA is actually EHG. We are dealing here with a fusion of EHG and CHG like people. Imo the only reason we only encountered R1b in Yamna period Kurgans is because Kurgans represent Elite burials. They are not representative of the General population. Most likely those are the lineages of the „Royal families”. A Strong indication for this is how one single lineage ( R1b L23) is being replaced entirely by another single lineage (R1a z93). One Elite replacing the other. No sign of other modern Indo European lineages despit ~80% of the Indo European language family being outside of these two lineages. To be fair we still don’t even know where R1b L23 (typical for Armenian, Anatolian, West Iranic and Balkan branches of Indo European) came from.
December 10, 2015 at 10:43 AM

Kurti said…
By the way, to say ~4000 BC Maykop culture was all yDNA J because 13-8.000 BC CHG samples turned out this way is just …. amateurish.
December 10, 2015 at 10:45 AM

Krefter said…
@Kurti, 50% of Steppe mtDNA is not EHG. 72%(36 of 50) of Yamnaya/Poltavka mtDNA is not U(xK). Catacomb has a strangely high amount of U4 and we don’t have their autosomal DNA but besides that Steppe mtDNA looks mostly CHG. Besides we can’t determine if admixture was gender bias because Yamnaya Y DNA comes from a single Mesolithic man.
December 10, 2015 at 10:59 AM

Kurti said…
Fire Head said „50% of Steppe mtDNA is not EHG. 72%(36 of 50) of Yamnaya/Poltavka mtDNA is not U(xK). ” Well than it’s 30%. I don’t know how much this changes the point. 50 or 70. It’s still 30% too much EHG female mtDNA that remains.

„Besides we can’t determine if admixture was gender bias because Yamnaya Y DNA comes from a single Mesolithic man.”
As I said ROYAL Burials, therefore not representative of the general population. But how do you know yDNA came from a single Mesolithic man? We are in the Bronze AGE era so it is a single Bronze Age male or rather family that probably spred it’s yDNA.
December 10, 2015 at 11:07 AM

Romulus said…
@Kurti Not all kurgan burials are elite burials, likewise not all elite burials are kurgan burials. „There was a combination of ground and kurgan burials in the funeral rite in the Sredniy Stog culture. A kurgan mound is often considered as an indication of high social status of the deceased, because it demanded considerable temporal and working expenditures. But it is difficult to explain the existence of kurgan mounds in the Eneolithic only on the basis of social status of the deceased. The burials with numerous grave goods and well-decorated funeral clothes, as well as the burials with poor inventory and without adornments, were found in the kurgans and ground cemeteries. Simultaneous use of ground and kurgan burials can’t be also explained by the gradual transition from the burials in the large cemeteries to the individual burials under kurgans, because ground burials were widely used during all period of the Eneolithic, Bronze Age and following times. In my opinion, the main explanation of the existence of such biritualism in the rite is the territorial affixment of the burial. The majority of ground cemeteries was situated near the settlements, such as Igren, Petro-Svistunovo and others. They are also encountered in the steppe between the Don and Dnieper – on the native territory of Sredniy Stog population. Small mounds above the burials near the settlements assisted in orientation in the planigraphy of necropolis.”
December 10, 2015 at 11:50 AM

Kurti said…
Romulus

„”There was a combination of ground and kurgan burials in the funeral rite in the Sredniy Stog culture. A kurgan mound is often considered as an indication of high social status of the deceased,” Well I should have clarified myself a bit. In my previous post I wrote „Elite”. With „Royals” I meant an Elite group or as You said „High social status”. We know in most ancient cultures, high social status is often shared between a few related groups / families. So having Kurgan Burials predominantly belonging to one and the same branch of the same Haplogroup is a clear indication for me that we are dealing here with Elite groups related to each other paternally.
December 10, 2015 at 11:56 AM

Davidski said…
Have you actually noticed that all of the reliably tested Andronovo, Corded Ware, Poltavka, Potapovka, Scythian, Sintashta, Srubnaya and Yamnaya remains are R1a and/or R1b. Even if these are all from elite burials, and the lower crusts of society carried more varied haplogroups, it’s clear that the early Kurgan expansions were driven by the paternal descendants of Eastern European hunter-gatherers. So you have no argument.
December 10, 2015 at 12:16 PM

Davidski said…
These people simply don’t have very much genome-wide ancestry from the earliest Indo-Europeans. That’s because languages aren’t passed on through genes. They are learned. But if you want to link the Proto-Indo-European expansion with something other than the Kurgan expansion, then I’m all ears. Thing is, I haven’t seen anyone put forth a sensible alternative yet, and every time we get more DNA from ancient people who are supposed to be early Indo-Europeans, the same patterns show up.
December 10, 2015 at 1:03 PM

Davidski said…
rk, Here are those D-stats.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9o3EYTdM8lQYkZnQU9HNUE2M3M/view?usp=sharing

Btw, the latest ADMIXTURE run was supervised. The thing with supervised tests that use a lot of samples and clusters, is that they’re not really supervised. It’s more like an exercise in trying to point the software in the right direction. Also, most of the clusters aren’t independent of one another, so if I try to fiddle with the levels of one, this can have a dramatic impact on some of the other clusters, or even the whole run. I’m going to try some unsupervised runs with my synthetic CHG, EHG and WHG samples, which actually look pretty close to what they should be.
December 10, 2015 at 1:34 PM

Romulus said…
My current theory is this: Indigenous peoples of Europe achieved behavioral modernity through contact with the cultures of Neolithic Farmers migrating from the Near East. These cultures served to deliver advanced Mesopotamian ideas to Indigenous Europeans.

1.Agriculture
2.Sedentary living
3.Animal domestication
4.Metal Working
5.Social Structure.
6.And because it makes sense, Language.

When Indigenous Europeans met these people they probably thought they were Gods because they were much more advanced, hence they became subservient to them and adopted their language and culture. Once the initial culture shock regressed and these ideas became fully integrated in to Indigenous European cultures, bigger Hunter Gatherer types killed off the original farmer males and took over. During this period there is an East to West migration of R1b types to Western Europe via BBC, originating in Ct/Stog. I like this theory because it is linear and very basic/simple. It does not involve the spontaneous appearance of ideas in places where there was no catalyst for them to exist. It can explain Basque as a pre-farming language.
December 10, 2015 at 1:51 PM

Davidski said…
Indo-European is a North Eurasian language group, and its initial expansion is tied intimately to the expansion of indigenous Eastern European DNA across and out of Europe, especially paternal markers. So no, Indo-European languages did not arrive in Europe with farming. Actually, that would be quite hilarious, considering that practically all Indo-European languages contain substrata usually related to farming that is clearly of non-Indo-European origin. What it would mean is that the supposedly advanced Indo-European farmers borrowed most of their farming related words from indigenous European hunter-gatherers. Duh.
December 10, 2015 at 3:05 PM

Davidski said…
Matt, Maris and even Saami have a lot of East Eurasian admixture. Saami also seem to be adapted to semi-Arctic conditions. The term massive in this context refers to the face, but apparently the Sredny Stog people were also very tall for their period.
December 10, 2015 at 3:58 PM

Matt said…
Re: Sredny Stog, could mean an adaptation leading to the Yamnaya had already started by that time? Probably know more once they’ve sequenced a large set of EHG.
December 10, 2015 at 4:12 PM

Ryan said…

@David – not doubting the Steppe hypothesis. I think it’s core is pretty much case closed now. What’s in doubt (in my view) is exactly how far we can take it, it’s specifics, details, etc. And I was just curious as to why those weird results were there. If it’s just a work in progress then yah, fair enough.

„These people simply don’t have very much genome-wide ancestry from the earliest Indo-Europeans.”

If that’s the case and not just an artifact of the run, then these samples aren’t the Proto-Indo-Europeans, and the Karelians aren’t the ancestors of Proto-Indo-Europeans. They may be closely related sister groups though (Para-Proto-Indo-European?).

If that’s the case, it actually would tell us something very interesting – PIE didn’t just expand from the Pontic Steppe, but from a very small corner of it somewhere. Not all of the Steppe fully participated in this expansion.

December 10, 2015 at 4:17 PM

Krefter said…
@Romulus, „When Indigenous Europeans met these people they probably thought they were Gods because they were much more advanced, hence they became subservient to them and adopted their language and culture.”

I doubt that. The difference between Mesolithic Europeans and Neolithic Ageans wasn’t as great as between for example, various native people and Europeans in the 1500-1900s. There’s no rule that says ancient West Asia has to be the most advanced. Since the Middle Ages that has not been the case. Everything doesn’t have to come from West Asia. No one knew the other existed in ancient times. People lived ignorant of history and geography. There’s no reason why everything associated with civilization has to come from West Asia or Europeans were subordinate to West Asians. Does the fact Irish play the banjo make them subordinate to West Africans? No.

„My current theory is this: Indigenous peoples of Europe achieved behavioral modernity through contact with the cultures of Neolithic Farmers migrating from the Near East. These cultures served to deliver advanced Mesopotamian ideas to Indigenous Europeans.”

The earliest evidence of metal working comes from the Balkans not West Asia.

” Once the initial culture shock regressed and these ideas became fully integrated in to Indigenous European cultures, bigger Hunter Gatherer types killed off the original farmer males and took over.”

How do you know native Europeans were big, angry, stupid, rapist? We don’t know this.
December 10, 2015 at 5:41 PM

Davidski said…
Ryan, Genome-wide steppe admixture has practically disappeared in many Indo-European groups far away from the steppe simply because their most populous social strata never had that much Indo-European admixture from the steppe to begin with. Note that today when we compare a skeleton from a high-status grave from what is presumably the early Indo-European period in, say, Scandinavia or Germany, it shows more steppe admixture than the present-day locals. This can be seen in my latest ADMIXTURE runs, where EHG levels are generally lower in present-day Northern Europeans than among their Bronze Age predecessors, which is something that rk has noticed and commented on above.
However, this often isn’t the rule for Y-chromosome haplogroups derived from the Early Bronze Age steppe. They have penetrated much of Eurasia in a big way, even places where we would not be able to detect genome-wide steppe admixture.
December 10, 2015 at 6:06 PM

Arch Hades said…
„But the Bronze Age Armenians do show a lot more steppe admixture than present-day Armenians. If you disagree with what I said above, then what is your explanation for this difference between them?”

„Steppe ancestry” as in the Eastern Hunter Gatherer part of the steppe, yes. But I see in the Bronze Age Armenians more European Hunter Gatherer genes than modern Armenians, but less than modern Greeks. So its still not that large.

Bronze age Armenians sure don’t look anything like Andronovo or Sintashta.
December 11, 2015 at 6:52 AM

James said…
It’s so obvious that PIE comes from CHG and not EHG. Only someone desperately wishing for something advanced to originate in Eastern Europe could fail to see that. It’s the „teal” component. It’s Dienekes’ „West_Asian” component. It’s why western and southern Europeans have more CHG than EHG.

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2015/11/westasian-in-flesh-hunter-gatherers.html

It’s also why CHG stretches all the way to South Asia with no EHG. India’s ANI component shares the most drift with Georgians and other Caucasus groups, and Brahmins are high in J2.

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2013/08/major-admixture-in-india-took-place-42.html
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2005/11/more-on-r1a1-age-and-haplogroup-j2-in.html

The steppe was just one place that received IE languages thru CHG and then spread them further west thru Yamnaya, but many other places received them directly from West Asia with metal working.

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2012/07/a-physico-anthropological-study-of.html

This also would explain the proposed relationship between IE and AA languages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Semitic_languages
December 12, 2015 at 1:06 AM

Davidski said…
James, Nonsense. Most of the CHG and J in South Asia arrived there with Neolithic farmers, possibly Dravidian speakers. That kills your CHG = PIE theory, because Indo-Europeans move into West and South Asia from the steppe later. This matches historical linguistics evidence. Your theory is as loopy as Renfrew’s dead Anatolian hypothesis.
December 12, 2015 at 1:41 AM

FrankN said…
@epoch: „Mallory says otherwise and considers that a problem. Read about it here”

Mallory tends to be quite generous in assigning terms to Indoeuropean. Some examples:

– *grhₐnóm „grain” needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Not neccessary an agricultural term, and „corn” vs. „acorn” demonstrates possible Paleolithic use. Various parallels in „Nostratic” and beyond (c.f. Malay garam „(grain of) salt”).

– The same applies to „grinding” terms. Grinding of nuts, acorn etc. is archeologically well attested from the Paleolithic onwards.
On PIE *melh² „to grind” see Uralic *molV „to break, crumble”, Altaic *móĺe „to bite, gnaw”.
*p(e)is „grind” has parallels in Uralic, Altaic, Korean, Kartvelian, Dravidian and AfroAsiatic with the general sense of „tear, cut, crumble, mince, squeeze” (c.f. Germ. beissen „to bite” on IE semantic variation).
The only European language knowing *h²el „grind” seems to be Greek. Considering the intensity of Greek-Armenian-Persian language contact during antiquity, this isn’t sufficient to convince me of that root’s „universal PIE” character.

– *pano „millet”: Millet was domesticated around 7.000 BC in China. We could have a Wanderwort here that entered IE from East Eurasia (c.f. Chin. pei „black millet”, Burush. *bay „millet”)̣
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millet#History

– *drhxweh² [*darǝw-] „grain”: Quite some twisting by Mallory – there is Engl. tare „weed, vetch (vicus sp.)”, lat. dravoca „bluegrass (lolium sp.)”, OInd. dū́rvā „bent grass, devil’s grass (Cynodon dactylon)”, derived from PIE *der- „to cut, split, tear”. Correspondences include Mong. *darki „brushwood”, Kor. *tār „reed”, Turk. *darig „millet”. This last one seems to be the only term related to agriculture, in a language family that isn’t prime suspect for being neolithic pioneers, and for a crop introduced from China. Hmm..

– *ses(i)ós „grain”: The PIE case is rather weak – aside from OInd. sasa „herb, grass, corn”, there is only a hypothetical Gaulish (s)asiam „rye” reconstructed from a Latin text, without parallels in living Celtic. The East Asian case is much stronger: NCauc *sū(l)sū(li) „a.k. of cereal”, Turkic *sɨs „grass”, Jap. *sása „small bamboo”, Sino-Tibet. *chuāH „grass”́ etc. Abayev (1979) suggests Central Asian origin.

– *seh „sow”: Well represented in European IE, but I miss the „Asian” parallels. Standard IE dictionnaries have Hitt. sai-/ sija „to press, imprint”, as cognate, which already requires quite some fantasy to be regarded as agricultural terminology. This holds even more true for OInd sā́yaka- „intended or fitted to be discharged or hurled, missile, arrow”.

– *ghel is one of those PIE roots that are good for almost everything – gold, glide, yellow/ green, gall/intestines, swallow (bird), tortoise, lip, etc. „plough” is also attested – for OIndian and Armenian, none of which I would call an European branch of IE (but Mallory may have a different understanding of ‚European’).

This isn’t to say that there are no common PIE roots for agricultural terms – maybe there are. But identifying them needs much more in-depth analysis than what Mallory has been providing. Was his presentation peer-reviewed?

For further reference, check out the database below, and search for „sow”, „ghel” etc.
http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/query.cgi?root=config&morpho=0&basename=\data\ie\piet
December 12, 2015 at 11:42 AM

Kristiina said…
This is to be read with FranN’s well-founded comments!

@epoch2013 I checked Mallory’s agricultural roots and there are several that fulfil the criteria I used when picking up the words onto my list. I also noticed that most of these words have a (possible) cognate word in Finnic languages.
*(s)palǝw-/-e ‘straw, chaff’- similar meaning in Balto-Slavic, Old Indian and Latin; cf. Finnish pala ‘bit’
*keres- ‘millet’, Hittite karash emmer wheat, Germanic hirse millet, Latin cerēs bread, grain, Kalasha karasha ‘millet’; cf. Finnish kyrsä ‘piece of bread’, Erzya kše ‘bread’
*aro ‘plough’ attested in a similar meaning in Tocharian, Armenian, Old Greek, Balto-Slavic, Germanic, Latin and Celtic but not in Indo-Aryan; cf. Finnish aura ‘plough’
*yewǝ- attested in Hittite, Old Indian, Avestan, Iranian, Old Greek, Balto-Slavic; cf. Finnish jyvä ‘grain’, Mokša juv ‘husks’, Udmurt ju ‘winnowed grain’
*ad- Hittite ’ein Getreide’, Tocharian aati ’grass, Armenian hat ’grain’, Latin ador ’spelt’; cf. Finnish itu, Estonian ido ‘germ’
*dhōn- cereals, bread, attested in a similar meaning in Tocharian B tāno ‚seed’, Old Indian dhānā́ ‚corn’, North Persian dān ‚korn’, Lithuanian dúona bread; cf. Japanese and Ainu tane ‚seed’

However, some of Mallory’s roots have a restricted distribution, so they may be local inventions or substrate words. According to Mallory and Starostin’s Tower of Babel:
*sarp- Old Greek, Balto-Slavic
*āl- ‘esculent root’ Old Indian ālu ‚esculent root’, Latin ālum ‚Symphytum petraeum’, Osk *allō ‚garlic
*gel- ‘plough’, attested only in Old Indian and Armenian
*g’er[a]n- ‘grain’ attested in this meaning only in Balto-Slavic, Germanic, Latin and Celtic
*bhars ‘grain, barley’ attested only in Slavic, Germanic, Latin, Italic and Celtic
*h2elbit- ‘barley’ attested only in Greek and perhaps in East Iranian *arbasyā
*g’herǝzdh- ‘barley’ attested in Hittite, Latin and Old Greek, Baltic, Germanic, Albanian
*ses(i)ós ‘grain’ attested in Sanskrit sasyám ‘grain’, Avestan hahya- ‘providing grain’ and Hittite sesa ‘fruit’
*ak- ear of cereals, Latin agna ‘ähre’, acus ‘granne’, Greek akostǟ́ ‘gerste’, OHG agana ‘spreu’, Baltic akúotas ‘Granne’, Tocharian B āk ‘ear of grain?’

Some IE roots are related to agriculture only in Europe:
*sēy- meaning in Old Indian is missile, arrow and in Hittite festdrücken
*mol(w)ǝ- ‘grind’ is not found in Indo-Iranian and in Tocharian it means “crush, oppress” and ‘wound, damage’.

Some are dubious:
*h2ekstí- ‘awn’, NWelsh eithin ‘furze’ Lithuanian akstìs ‘spit for roasting’, Russian osti ‘awn, bristle’, Tocharian āśce ‘head’
*wers- ‘thresh’, Hittite wars ‚abwischen, Old Greek érrō (weg)gehen, untergehen, Latin verrō ‘schleifen’
*meigh ‘grain’, Old Irish miiach ‘measure of grain’, Lithuanian miežis ‘barley’, Khotanese mässa ‘feld’
*drhxweh ‘grain’ Gaulish dravoca ‘darnel’, NDutch tarwe ‘wheat’, Sanskrit durva ‘panic grass’
*kāpos ‘field’, Greek kêpos ‘garden’, Roshani kāpos ‘cultivated field’
*pano- ‘millet’, Latin pānicum, Shughni piinj ‘millet’
*peis- ‘grind’
*haéireh- ‘ryegrass’, Greek aírai ‘ryegrass’, Sanskrit erakā ‘sedge’

Moreover, the picture is very complex if we take into account the similar roots in non-IE languages (Caucasian languages, Turkic and Uralic languages, Burusho language and Sumerian language and in East Eurasian languages – which were referred to by FranN – , which I have not done here as it would take too much time.
December 13, 2015 at 9:19 AM

FrankN said…
@Kristina: Thank you for your compliments.A few more remarks on Mallory’s roots:
*(s)palǝw-/-e ‘straw, chaff’ Possibly a reflex of PIE *pel(ew) „skin, hide”. Non-IE parallels are rare: Mandekan *gbolo, Cush. West Rift *fala, both „skin”.
But when allowing for „r”-„l” sound change, the root has parallels in Uralic (e.g. Hung. bör „skin, fur”, Khany pĕr „birch bark”), AfrAs *pVr(w) (Heb. parwa „fur”, EChad *pir „to shell, bark”, Berber *fur „bark” etc.), Dravidian (e.g. Telugu beraḍu „bark, rind, shell”), Ijoid *opara „skin” and, intriguingly, Tupi-Guarani *pir-, Guahiban *perabo „skin”.
Mallory’s „PIE neolithic root” may in fact be a reflex of a paleolithic word with global distribution.

*keres- ‘millet’: c.f. Kor. *kắràč „wild foxtail millet (Setaria vir.), darnel ryegrass (Lolium temul.)”, Tungus-Manchu *kara(~x-) „darnel ryegrass”, Mong. *karaɣu „darnel ryegrass, elymus”. A Wanderwort. From East Asia, for a cereal domesticated in East Asia. I think, the PIE case is closed.

*g’herǝzdh- ‘barley’ sounds suspiciously close to *keres- ‘millet’ discussed above. Hitt. karas and Baltic *girsa should rather go there. That leaves us with Alb. drith, OGrk kritha, Lat. hordeum, Germ *girsto, united by the meaning „barley”, but not via common IE sound laws. This is hardly a shared PIE root, at best parallel borrowing from a yet unknown substrate [Note, however, that Germ. *girsto has a straightforward etymology from garstig „spiky”.]

*aro ‘plough’: Obviously related to PIE *er- „earth, soil, arable land” [Celt/Germ/Grk, Arm/Hitt/Toch w. sem. shift]. Parallels hereto are Altaic *ā́rV „open space”, Ural *arV „grass-covered lowland”, NCauc *ʔārV „plain”, Basque *haran „valley”, Burush. har „river bed”, SDrav *ar- „rivermouth”. Looks like a West Eurasian HG term.
Anyway – first archeological evidence of the plough is from Northern Germany, ca. 3400 BC. Its predecessor, the ard (sic!), is documented somewhat earler from CT. So, we are dealing with a MN invention, probably in an area that is today IE speaking. So far, so good. Basque *arhe should be borrowed.
Somehow irritating, for the absence of this PIE root in Indo-Aryan, is Burush. har, Drav. *ar- „plough”, Tibet. adru „to dig”, Chin. r(h)ǝ „shovel”.

*ad- Tocharian aati ’grass’.: That’s indeed a quite strong one. But note Turkic *ot „grass”, Mong. otul „(cut) reed”. Both borrowed from PIE? Or are we dealing with an ancient „steppe” term?

*dhōn- cereals, bread: Possibly, the Tan(d)ur belongs here. In that case, we would be dealing with a neolithic root (tandurs have been found in LBK settlements in Hesse), though one shared by IE with Semitic, Georgian, Dravidian and Turkic. However, there are alternative etymologies for the tanur, e.g. Akkad. tin „mud” + nuro/nura „fire”. Note that the „-d-” was added in Turkic, and then spread into India
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandoor

*āl- ‘esculent root’: c.f. Altaic *ŭĺa „hemp”, Lushai (ST)hlo „a weed, a drug, medicine”, Proto-Nakh *jōl (obl. ela, alo) „hay”.̀ German Alraune „Mandrake (Mandragora off.)” may also belong here (on the second part see „rune”, i.e. mystic, magic). Anyway, the term is more horti- than agricultural.

*bhars ‘grain, barley’: c.f. Georgian puri „bread”
December 13, 2015 at 7:44 PM

Davidski said…
J2 can’t be a marker of the Indo-European expansions, not into India or anywhere, because it shows long branches with deep rooted-nodes, which are characteristic of haplogroups that began expanding during the Neolithic, like G2a.

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/large-scale-recent-expansion-of.html

Typically Indo-European markers have much shallower genealogies, and in India R1a has a very shallow genealogy, dating back to around 1700 BC when the Vedic Aryans appeared there.

There may have been an expansion of a local J2 variant in India on the back of the Aryan expansion, but that’s not important. Not a single J has been found in any Andronovo, Sintashta or Srubnaya burial, and if you actually care to pull your head out of your ass, there’s basically a consensus among linguists that these people were the early Indo-Iranians.

When the Harappan Y-DNA is announced, it’ll probably be J2, which will fit with a Neolithic expansion of CHG and J2 into India.

You and the Dienekes crowd have now been reduced to claiming that the Indo-Europeans crawled out of a valley in the Caucasus, spread their language to the steppe via their women, and then let the steppe people do all the work. It’s not even funny.
December 14, 2015 at 2:27 AM

Karl_K said…
„Indo-Europeans crawled out of a valley in the Caucasus, spread their language to the steppe via their women, and then let the steppe people do all the work.”

This actually seems pretty reasonable. There are lots of caves in the Caucasus. If I were a pre-proto-Indo-European, that’s where I would be living for sure.
December 14, 2015 at 4:14 AM

FrankN said…
Kristina: I hope you are still reading this and haven’t moved on to the Scythians.. I have a few question you as a Finno-Ugrian speaking linguist might be able to answer:

1. Georgian doesn’t have a grammatical gender distinction, but uses prefixed qualifiers instead. One of respective pairs is khari-” „bull” vs. phuri- „cow”. The concept has obviously been taken over for the North Germanic karldyr „male deer, animal”. Charlemagne demonstrates sound continuity of the „Kh-„/”Ch-” initial. Russ. жеребец (zherebets) „stallion” is another example of that Georgian masculine marker being applied within IE, however, in this case on a Mordvinian root, so we might have a borrowing instead of a generic „Slavic” construction.
I suspect Georgian phuri- „cow” behind German Färse „(young) cow”. Speculatively, „whore”, and also German Frau „woman”, might be further reflexes of phuri-.

Do you think Uralic *korya „male (animal)” might belong here as well? Are there Finnish (Finno-ugrian) terms for female animals which might be derived as phuri-constructions?
In that case we would have an interesting Kartvelian-Uralic-Germanic (-Slavic?) isogloss indicative of geographically extended language contact (when?).
[Compare also SDrav. *gūḷi „ox”. Distant Kartvelian-Dravidian relation is hinted at by Jäger’s automated lexical analysis placing both on the same branch, albeit at a low significance level.]

2. There seems to be a proto-Uralic *el(o) „alive, being, animal”, present a.o. in Hung. lo „horse”. The root seems to be present in the „elk”, which would indicate an early Germanic borrowing fom Uralic.
To me, Lat. equus „horse” always looked suspiciously close to an elk encountering a cow (PIE *gwou). Is this just overinterpreting accidental sound correspondence, or could PIE h²ekwos, Lat. equus „horse” in fact reflect a proto-Uralic *el(o) applied to *gwou „cow”.
[That root is of unknown origin. Comp., aside from PIE, AfrAs *kaw „bull”, PNC *qɦwĕɫV- „cow, mare”, ST *chu „cow, bull, Yak-cow crossbreed”, Burush *chao „to milk”, Tai-Kadai *gwai „water buffalo”, Khoe *góɛ „cow”. Apparently, and not surprising for a pastoralist term, a Wanderwort].
C.f Mari üšküž, Turkic *öküz „ox” (but also see below on these terms!).́

3. Returning to Mallory’s list: I have always been wondering whether PIE *uks- „ox” wasn’t somehow related to the Tibetan Yak, which has left its genetic and linguistic trace across East and South East Asia, but also seems to have provided some 10% non-Anatolian admixture into Holstein-Frisian cows (link on request, haven’t bookmarked it).
Suspiciously, we have a second PIE root *ag’h- „cow, ox”, present in Indoaryan and Armenian, which displays obvious semantic and phonetic parallels to *uks-, but cannot be combined with it via IE sound laws. Usually, this indicates parallel borrowing from the same, non-IE source. What’s your take on this?
C.f. Jap. ‚usi „cow, bull”, Kartv. *usxo „sacrificial bull”, AustrAs *r(i)ak „buffalo”
December 14, 2015 at 8:21 AM

Arch Hades said…
So Indians have a shit ton of young/shallow R1a, but no EHG autosomally? That doesnt make much sense. Do not even the Kalash have EHG?
December 14, 2015 at 10:28 PM

Davidski said…
How are these D-stats possible if there’s no EHG among upper caste Indo-Aryans?
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/caucasus-hunter-gatherers-chg-and-indo.html
December 15, 2015 at 12:20 AM

Davidski said…

What you still don’t want to understand is that Yamnaya doesn’t have Armenian ancestry. It has Caucasus hunter-gatherer ancestry, which was probably hanging around the northern slopes of the Caucasus in EASTERN EUROPE for a very long time. And all that crap in the Haak paper about the Armenian Plateau hypothesis looking more plausible was there to make the paper look more objective and nuanced. Already at that time they knew that Yamnaya was not part Armenian. Note the bolded parts in the text you quoted. The Armenian plateau hypothesis gains in plausibility by the fact that we have discovered evidence of admixture in the ancestry of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists, including gene flow from a population of Near Eastern ancestry for which Armenians today appear to be a reasonable surrogate. So just barely reasonable at that time, but they knew the CHG genomes were coming. Get over it. The Armenian Plateau hypothesis isn’t that good or even interesting. And it even fails your own Occam’s razor test, because there was fuck all in Armenia and surrounds at the time compared to the ancient cities and temples in Ukraine.
http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/science-temple-trypillian-culture-nebelivka-ukraine-02223.html

December 19, 2015 at 3:36 AM

Davidski said…

Caucasus hunter-gatherers aren’t from the Armenian Plateau, they’re from a refuge near the western coast of the Black Sea, which lies very close to the steppe. If you believe that during the 3-4th Millennium BC Caucasus hunter-gatherers speaking Proto-Indo-European migrated in a massive wave to the steppe, then all the best with that. Considering that we have ancient DNA from Middle Bronze Age Armenians, and they’re nowhere near being pure Caucasus hunter-gatherers, I don’t believe it. You’d have to show me a Caucasus hunter-gatherer genome from 4th Millennium BC Armenia buried in a way that suggests something proto-Kurgan about him for me to believe it. Otherwise, I’m just going to keep believing that the Proto-Indo-Europeans formed from the Khvalynsk and Srdeny Stog Cultures on the steppe, and acquired their Caucasus hunter-gatherer admixture via both hostile and friendly contacts with various groups from the North Caucasus. See, this fits the DNA evidence we have, and also the linguistic and archaeological evidence, which show the pre-Proto-Indo-European language and people to be of North Eurasian origin, but with strong influences from the Caucasus. James’ „Occams razor everything comes from the Near East and nothing from Eastern Europe” theory simply looks like the ramblings of a twisted mind to me.

December 20, 2015 at 1:56 AM

Davidski said…
I never said that CHG wasn’t present in Armenia during the Neolithic. What I said was that there’s no evidence that the CHG on the steppe comes from Early Bronze Age Armenia. The discovery of CHG in Upper Paleolithic / Mesolithic Satsurblia and its presence already in the North Caspian Khvalynsk remains does not help the Armenian hypothesis.
December 21, 2015 at 4:09 PM

Davidski said…
CHG was in the western Caucasus right near the steppe 12,000 years ago. There’s no reason to believe it entered the steppe from Central Asia or Armenia, and there’s no reason to believe it brought R1a or R1b to the steppe.
Like I said, the discovery of CHG in Upper Paleolithic Satsurblia doesn’t help any hypothesis except the steppe hypothesis.
December 21, 2015 at 9:58 PM

Davidski said…
We do have evidence that CHG was mixing into Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog steppe populations from the onset of the Eneolithic via mixed marriages with groups from the North Caucasus. Again, this doesn’t support any hypothesis except the steppe hypothesis. What evidence do you have that there was an invasion of the steppe from Armenia at any stage?
December 21, 2015 at 10:23 PM

Davidski said…
@James, It’s much more likely it came from farther south with the spread of metal working technology.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Huw43FBUPdw/UAxcBjHKs1I/AAAAAAAAFEg/ppbvEuHJyf0

The early steppe groups don’t have admixture from this region on the map. PIE didn’t come from the Near East or the Caucasus. You’re delusional.

@Rob, Yes, the mixed marriages increased as mobility and wealth increased on the steppe during the late PIE period.

Either that, or there was an invasion of the steppe by CHG PIE women, because there’s not a single Y-HG J in any of the Bronze Age elite Kurgans. Haha.
December 22, 2015 at 1:55 AM

jv said…
Agree, yes the Sredny Stog ( pre Yamnaya) could have mixed with the CHG. My MtDNA H6 expanded with the Pontic Steppe Yamnaya Culture but my ancient Grandmother may have come up through the Caucasus and expanded with YDNA R1b and R1a. MtDNA H6a1b has been found in a male Samara Russia male, R1b Yannaya Culture. Her line H6a1a is associated with the Corded Ware Culture. Also, H6a1a was obtained from a Srubnaya Culture site in Russia. I’m wondering if H6a1 may have had origins in the Maykop culture VIA the Iranian Plateau as H6a1a has matches in current Ossetian populations and other Iranian populations. jv
December 28, 2015 at 5:18 PM

jv said…
Also, as I reread some of the comments, Samara Russian DNA is VERY similar to German Corded Ware. MtDNA H6a1b is from Samara. MtDNA H6a1a from Esperstedt Germany. My ggg Grandmother was from Northern Bavaria. Our MtDNA is H6a1a2b1. jv
December 30, 2015 at 7:49 AM

Kristiina said…
Frank, true, I have not been reading that post any more, so I had not noticed your questions.

Kor-root is found in all Uralic languages except for Mari, Mordvin and Udmurt: all Finnic languages, e.g. Finnish ‘koira’, dog, ‘koiras’, male animal; Komi ‘ki̮r’, male dog; Mansi ‘kēr’, Khanty ‘kar’, male animal, Hungarian ‘here, drone (bee), testicle; Nenets ‘xora’, Taugi ‘kuru’, Selkup ‘qor’, Kamas ‘kora’, male animal. However, I see that on the IE side, there are the following words: Armenia ‘aru’, ‘vord͡z’, male animal; Persian ‘xorus’, male animal; Breton ‘gour’, Welsh ‘gwryw’, male animal; Greek ‘arren’, male animal; Lithuanian ‘vyras’, Latin ‘vir’, Spanish ‘varón’, Sanskrit ‘vṛṣa’ man. On the other side, there are also the following words: Basque ‘hor’, dog, ‘ar’, ‘orots’, male animal; ingush ‘ärh’, Chechen ‘ēra’, not castrated; Hunza burusho ‘hir’, man. To my surprise, I notice that a construction for the Proto-Chinese word ‘dog’ is ‘kkhwirʔ’. On the Turkic side, we have the Mongol word ‘er’, male animal and pan-Turkic ar/ir/er for man, and the Turkic word ‘erkek’, male. So, apart from the root ‘kVr’, we have the root ‘Vr’, which is also attested in Uralic languages: Finnish ‘uros’, male, N Saami ‘varres’, male; Udmurt ‘vorgoron’, man; Komi ‘verös’, man Hungarian ‘úr’, lord (cfr. Turkic ‘urï’ young man). Moreover, the Urartuan word for man seems to be ‘ayr=s’ and there is even the Sumerian word ‘ur’, young man, dog. Therefore, this root is incredibly widespread in Western Eurasia, and to me it looks like it has been going around in several waves in many areas.

I could not find any root for ‘woman’ or ‘female’ resembling ‘pur’ in Uralic languages. However, in the Tower of Babel Georgian root is grouped with the following IE roots:
Old Indian: pŕ̥thuka- m. `boy, young of any animal’
Armenian: orth, -u `Kalb des Rindes od. Hirsches’
Old Greek: póri-s, -ios f., pórti-s, -ios f. `Kalb, Färse’
Here, we can find a similar Finnic root: Karelian ‘petra’, deer, reindeer; Estonian ‘põder’ reindeer; Finnish ‘peura’, deer, ‘poro’, reindeer; North Saami ‘bärtoš’, trap for hunting deer. The widespread Uralic root for young deer is ‘*poča’.

The corrispondences I coul find for ‘elk’ are the following: Mansi ‘low’, Khanty ‘loɣ’, horse, KhantyO ‘kɒlȧŋ’, reindeer; Tuvan ‘elik’, Bashkir ‘ilek’, wild goat, Evenk ‘elkēn’, deer; Ingush ‘ghala’ deer; Koryak ?əlwan, Chukchi ‘əlwelu’, deer; Chinese ‘(mǔ)lù’ deer; Nuosu (Tibeto-Burman) ‘lɯ³³’ cow. On the IE side, a similar root is *elen- , e.g. Slavic *elenь, Irish ‘eile’, elk. Therefore, I am not sure if Hungarian ‘lo’ can be derived from the Uralic root ‘to live’ and if the Germanic form could be derived from a Uralic source.
January 9, 2016 at 1:04 AM

Kristiina said…
Frank, I agree that roots similar to PIE *uks- are also abundant. Apart from what you listen, there are also Hungarian ‘ökör’, ox; Khanty ūgəs pl uksət, bull; Udmurt ‘oš’, Komi ‘öš’, bull, ox; Mongol ‘üxer’, ox; Abkhaz ‘ážw’, cow Nivkh ‘eӽaŋ’ cow. The Khanty word reminds me of Finnic ‘ukko’, old man, which is usually considered as derived from ‘uros’, male.

It is not an easy task to put all these words in a nice ‚tree’ that corrisponds to their lines of expansion.
January 9, 2016 at 1:53 AM

FrankN said…
Kristina, thx for the answer!
„It is not an easy task to put all these words in a nice ‚tree’ that corrisponds to their lines of expansion.”
Indeed! In all likelyhood, a network should be more appropriate than a tree. Whether genetic relation, Sprachbund or whatever else – evidence of long and quite intensive trans-Eurasian exchange, via the Steppe, but also forest and tundra (AFAIK, elks aren’t really Steppe animals…). The Altaic roots of the „mare”, OHG marcos (as in Marcomanni) are present to you, I assume.

„On the IE side, a similar root is *elen- , e.g. Slavic *elenь, Irish ‘eile’, elk. Therefore, I am not sure if Hungarian ‘lo’ can be derived from the Uralic root ‘to live’ and if the Germanic form could be derived from a Uralic source.”
OHG Elen is an alternative word for the elk, which is one of the reasons why the Elk is so suspicious of being an Uralic (Tuvan, Bashkir, Evenk) borrowing. How it entered Germanic, I don’t know (Skyths, Huns?).
Chinese ‘(mǔ)lù’ deer; Nuosu (Tibeto-Burman) ‘lɯ³³’ cow, Mansi ‘low’ elk, Hung. lo „horse” seems to point at an ancient meaning of „animated being”, applied to each culture’s predominant hunting game / domesticated animal. In Germanic, the relation „to be”->”being” (c.f. Germ. „[Lebe-]Wesen”) is quite straight-forward. Finn. elo „to live”, elain „animal” seems to represent the same relation (and is actually providing a nice potential source for PIE *elen-). As such, I do not fully understand your hesitation to see Hung. lo „horse” etc. as being derived from PUR *elä-.

On the *Vr- root, let me add Dutch Varken, LowGerm Barch „boar”, possibly also the Aurochs. Osset. wyrs, dial. urs, MHG urs/ors „stallion” [Ross] should belong here as well. There are furthermore a couple of Sanskrit constructions with preceding *var- that denote male animals.

When it comes to *kVr- vs. *Vr-, it is tempting to think about contamination by Old Egyptian Ka „bull”. In that case, it should have taken place somewhere between Egypt and Sumer, some time during the 3rd mill BC. However, c.f. for „man”: Bambara ke, Beng (E. Mande) go, Mundari kora, Roviana (AN) koreo, Quechua kari(!). Ket ket „(Hu-)man” is another possible contamination source.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_(ka_hieroglyph)

ur/wur/yur etc., btw, seems a pretty widespread term for „person” (male?) in NC languages. Maybe we should start to take yDNA E admix in SE Europe serious also from a linguistic perspective…

In any case, it is interesting to see so many IE cases of gender prefixing in a language family supposed to work by gender suffixing. Actually, there are a couple more of such instances: Aside from the Englisch he/she-goat, and fa-ther/mo-ther/bro-ther, we have lat. ho-mo/fe-mina, which could actually reflect a khori-phuri construction. The *por- „mother, infant” construction comprises, aside from your examples, also Lat. porcus, Germ Ferkel „piglet”, and Lat. puer „boy” (note the *Vr- root here). Particularly intriguing is Lat. caballus „stallion” in relation to Udmurt val „horse”.

As we are often dealing with agricultural terms, one might think about EHG substrate. However, the pattern extends to wild animals and horses, domesticated after the EN. Gender prefixing seems most common in the Caucasus, including now often fossilised nominal class systems in NWC, so I assume the Caucasus to be the source of the atypical gender-prefixed terms found in IE.
January 9, 2016 at 2:37 PM

Kristiina said…
Frank, thank you for your interesting comments! I also believe in a network as a way of distribution of words, but I also believe in waves that arrive in different times and affect different areas.

I noticed that ‘iēlken’ is not an Evenk but Even word, so it was my bad!

“Elk is so suspicious of being a Uralic (Tuvan, Bashkir, Evenk) borrowing. How it entered Germanic, I don’t know (Skyths, Huns?)”

Tuvan and Bashkir are Turkic languages and Evenk/Even are Tungusic languages, and Scythians and Huns share common elements with Turkic groups. Grammatically, Uralic and Turkic languages are very similar and both groups have yDNA N, so there is surely a connection, but if the roots ‘elk’ and ‘el’ are not present in any Uralic language, I do not think that we can claim that the word ‘elk’ is a Uralic loanword. Moreover, there is no ‘k’ in the Uralic root *elä. There are also other possibilities, cf. Latvian ‘elpot’, to breathe, Ket ‘ilbet’, ‘elingbet’, to breathe, Nanai ‘ergë’ breath, Manchu ‘ergen’, breath, Yukaghir ‘ílbe’, reindeer. The sound change from velars to labials is attested e.g. in IE languages, cf. Old Irish búachaill < *gwou-kwolos and the sound change from ‘l’ to ‘r’ is common.

The Estonian word for animal is ‘loom’ and it looks like being derived form the verb ‘luua’’, create (i.e. ‘creature’). Maybe the Ugric word for horse has a similar etymology. For example, in the Saami language there is the word ‘lågŋit’, to lift, and in Tremjugan Khanty ‘λŏụɣtˁāɣe’, to create.
January 10, 2016 at 2:19 AM

Kristiina said…
In the end, I could find some Uralic correspondences: Estonian ‘uluk’, wild game, deer, Saami ‘ealga’, elk. However, the distribution pattern (Germanic, Saami, Estonian, Bashkir, Tuvan, Even, Koryak/Chukchi) points to a pre-Uralic North Eurasian root. Maybe this word belonged to the vocabulary of the Samara hunter-gatherer or the Karelian hunter-gatherer.
January 10, 2016 at 7:18 AM

FrankN said…
Maybe this word belonged to the vocabulary of the Samara hunter-gatherer or the Karelian hunter-gatherer
Probably. What kind of language did he use, in your opinion?
January 10, 2016 at 12:29 PM

Kristiina said…
„Maybe this word belonged to the vocabulary of the Samara hunter-gatherer or the Karelian hunter-gatherer Probably. What kind of language did he use, in your opinion?”

Some people would probably refuse to answer to this question due to the lack of data, but I give a try. 🙂

In genetic terms the Karelian hunter gatherer was mostly EHG with some Teal and Native American input. On the basis of this, his language should not be very far from the proposed „Nostratic structure” as constructed using IE, Turkic, Uralic and Kartvelian languages as reference. This means that this language should be of nominative-accusative pattern and not of ergative pattern. It should also be an agglutinative language, and it should have several noun cases and a rich verbal morphology. I suppose that this language did not make any major gender distinctions. On the basis of the Native American element, I would presume that this language contained some polysynthetic features, maybe along the lines of Eskimo-Aleut languages.

West Caucasian languages have a very unique structure, but I do not think that EHG-rich people in the Mesolithic Karelia spoke a language structurally close to the West Caucasian languages. To date, I have noticed very few lexical parallels between West Caucasian and North Eurasian languages, and West Caucasian lexicon looks very unique. However, I admit that Caucasian mtDNA H2a2b and yDNA J have been found in Oleni Ostrov. The language of the Samara hunter gatherer may have been more Caucasian, i.e. East Caucasian like (as Nakh and Daghestani languages) and may have contained gender/class distinctions, maybe with ablaut, and be even of some ergative pattern. Here, the question boils down to the origin of R1a1 and R1b, respectively. We need more Mesolithic yDNA in order to be more specific and to be on a firmer ground.
January 11, 2016 at 7:17 AM

…..

Dodatkowo:

https://www.academia.edu/19575239/Early_Eneolithic_in_the_Pontic_Steppe

http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/btn_Archeology/Mallory/JMalloryEneolothBronzeAgeEn.htm

http://ehrafarchaeology.yale.edu/ehrafa/citation.do?method=citation&forward=browseAuthorsFullContext&id=e075-031
Dereivka: a settlement and cemetery of Copper Age horse keepers on the middle Dnieper
Telehin, D. IA. Mallory, J. P. Pyatkovskiy, V. K.

Abstract: Telegin discusses the excavations and findings from the settlement and cemetery at the site of Dereivka in the Ukraine. Dereivka is a major site of the Sredny Stog culture and has some of the earliest evidence of domestic horse. The entire settlement was uncovered. ‚The dwellings and other…domestic features of the habitation site constitute a single … household unit. The settlement was laid out as a…rectangular courtyard surrounded by various structures. The settlement was…enclosed by a fence … as] marked by the area of shell accumulation.’ (page 35). Artifacts found at the settlement site include ceramics, clay sculptures, tools such as hammers and mattocks of antler, early bridle cheekpieces, stone tools, and faunal remains. Fourteen internments have been uncovered at the Eneolithic cemetery.

http://journals.ku.lt/index.php/AB/article/view/812

Kliknij, aby uzyskać dostęp 20_136-149_Motuzaite_Matuzeviciute.pdf

NEOLITHIC UKRAINE : A REVIEW OF THEORETICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS
GIEDRĖ MOTUZAITĖ MATUZEVIČIŪTĖ
Vol 20 (2013)

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=80&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjaxqGtlKbTAhUpIsAKHbw6CDs4RhAWCFswCQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fer.ceres.rub.de%2Findex.php%2FER%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F441%2F394&usg=AFQjCNE5GP48rzD3cxnRQgzpkDrjs9aJZw
Proto-Indo-European Roots of the Vedic Aryans
TRAVIS D. WEBSTER

Kliknij, aby uzyskać dostęp 91c9411c4f682ec1b9aad33b9ec2f74aa2cd.pdf

Multiregional Emergence of Mobile Pastoralism and Nonuniform Institutional Complexity across Eurasia
Michael D. Frachetti

http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1878&context=edissertations
The Horse in Pre-Imperial China
Xiang Wan

http://factsanddetails.com/asian/cat65/sub422/entry-5236.html
BOTAI CULTURE AND EARLY HORSE DOMESTICATION

http://www.angelfire.com/va/virdainas/etymology.html
The BALTIC In VEDIC

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bSxHgej4tKMC&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=Sredny+Stog+culture&source=bl&ots=v9Vz1gCc4P&sig=l2lZNfXcDao8KG9xAHl9ePmkG8s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihydum86TTAhXCIsAKHeG_DC84ChDoAQhTMA4#v=onepage&q=Sredny%20Stog%20culture&f=false
Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction
Benjamin W. Fortson, IV

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nKNOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=Sredny+Stog+culture&source=bl&ots=BVp7PudMMt&sig=IcVFrNAhbl5Bbav7mybfpg6n9HA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihydum86TTAhXCIsAKHeG_DC84ChDoAQhQMA0#v=onepage&q=Sredny%20Stog%20culture&f=false
Ancient Metallurgy in the USSR: The Early Metal Age
Evgenil Nikolaevich Chernykh

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5FzANyya1BEC&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=Sredny+Stog+culture&source=bl&ots=s2ayIDyb2y&sig=KC7vM9tv3zyZ81Ki2LTjatzWuYM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihydum86TTAhXCIsAKHeG_DC84ChDoAQg5MAc#v=onepage&q=Sredny%20Stog%20culture&f=false
The Prehistory of the Silk Road
E. E. Kuzmina