147 Nowe dane genetyczne dotyczące tzw. Kimmerów, Scytów i Sarmatów i wnioski z tych „niesłusznych” danych wynikające, czyli kolejny ból głowy dla niektórych Turbo-Słowian

Approximate extent of the Eurasian Steppe grasslands ecoregion, and Eurasia cultural region. In northern Eastern and Central Asia, and westward into Eastern Europe, in areas of Russia, Ukraine, Moldavia, and Hungary.

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wielki_Step

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Blogger EastPole said…
It looks like these R1b Cimmerians, Scythians and Sarmatians originated from some Yamnaya-Caucasus tribes and were very fond of stealing wives from Greek, Celtic or some East Asian tribes. Just like Tatars were stealing Slavic women later on.

October 4, 2018 at 3:59 AM

Blogger Lukasz M said…
I remember some people dreaming that Pontic Scythians will be R1a and Slavic like:)
October 4, 2018 at 12:05 PM

Powrócę do tego jeszcze poniżej, a tymczasem przypomnę coś takiego:

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Rozmowę nt. definicji Sarmatów uważam tym samym za zakończoną.

Ochochocho… No proszzz… Może Pan uważać, co Pan sobie życzy. Niestety, szczerze obawiam się, że rozmowa o definicji tzw. Scytów i Sarmatów, itp., dopiero się na dobre rozpoczyna i nie będzie ona prowadzona TYLKO I WYŁĄCZNIE na podstawie jakichś kronik, niestety, albo może i stety… Poczekamy na więcej próbek, to okaże się więcej, ale już i tak widać, że Z93 idzie na zachód, patrz Srubna z rejonu Samary, Bułgarii… (…)

Proszę tylko o jedno: o powstrzymanie swoich negatywnych emocji. Pan i ja robimy ważną robotę – odkłamujemy naukę. Źle by było, abyśmy pokłócili się, zerwali ze sobą kontakt i przestali się wspierać. Nasza siła tkwi też w tym, że jest nas coraz więcej. Źle by było, abyśmy teraz, gdy z każdym dniem wzrasta nasza siła, abyśmy zaczęli się dzielić i walczyć ze sobą zamiast walczyć ze wspólnym hitlerowskim wrogiem – allochtonicznym okupantem umysłów Polaków.

Nie rozumiemy się. Ja podaję dowody, że podważające Pańskie twierdzenia co do rzekomej „słowiańskość” tzw. Scytów i Sarmatów, itp. Umie je Pan podważyć, czy nie? Co to ma wspólnego z naszym wspólnym wrogiem? Moim jedynym wrogiem jest NIEPRAWDA, a nie allo-allo, choć przyznaję, że służą jej bardzo dobrze…

Mi chodzi tylko o to, że drobne zmiany na przestrzeni wieków, nakładając się na siebie MUSZĄ DOPROWADZIĆ DO ZMIAN JĘZYKOWYCH, czyli np. do kreolizacji, czyli np. ubezdźwięcznienia, czyli do utraty dźwięczności, czyli do tzw. kentumizacji, czyli dr Jamroszko i dr Makuch nie mieli racji, a zatem i Pan, skoro powołuje się Pan na jednego z nich. Powtarzam, niech Pan poszuka tych przed-piastowskich tamg…

Te cytaty pochodzą stąd: https://skrbh.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/106-moje-dodatkowe-uwagi-do-artykulu-sarmaci-germanie-i-slowianie-autorstwa-adriana-leszczynskiego/

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Wychodzę właśnie z paskudnej 2 tygodniowej grypy żołądkowej. Jak może już było widać, nie miałem (i nadal nie mam) siły nawet na uzupełnienie tagów pod 2 poprzednimi artykułami. Jestem zmęczony tym kolorowym opisywaniem przekształceń dźwiękowych i potrzebuję odpoczynku, zwłaszcza intelektualnego. Praca z językiem to harówka, a ja teraz po tym czymś, co napadło Mię, czuję się jak pusty bezsilny balon. Teraz chcę igrzysk i odpoczynku… I oto bezwiednie i od niechcenia moje życzenie samo spełniło się…

Mam taki zwyczaj, że jak mam już wszystkiego dosyć, to wrzucam sobie jakieś zaległe teksty do czytania. Z zasady zaczynam od nowości na http://eurogenes.blogspot.com . Tak też zrobiłem i tym razem. Przeleciałem tylko trochę nowych wpisów i… BOOOM!

Mam gotowy nowy-stary temat genetyczny, który powinien bardzo „uszczęśliwić” wszystkich  wyznawców rzekomej słowiańskości tzw. Scytów i Sarmatów, zagubionych w ich własnych fantazjach, ale szczególnie pana Adriana Leszczyńskiego. Czy zprowokuje to w końcu jakąś normalną dyskusję, o niewygodnych dla nich faktach? Szczerze wontpiem i tradycyjnie nie oczekuję niczego innego, jak dumne i bohaterskie słofiańskie stepowe milczenie…

Zresztą, jak widzę ostatnio skupia się on (nie tylko on zresztą) raczej na upowszechnianiu ładnych obrazków, a nie na drążeniu zagadnień związanych z interpretacją jakichś kronik, czy genetyką lub językiem. No cóż… tak pewno bezpieczniej… Takie czasy, że wystarczy zamknąć oczy, żeby nie widzieć tego, co „nieładne”…

Jak już pisałem wielokrotnie, na żadną rozsądną dyskusje z tzw. Turbo-Słowianami wierzącymi w obecność Pra-Słowian wszędzie nie liczę. Oni zwyczajnie wolą rozprawiać o tych ich fantazjach, opierając się o jakieś tam kroniki i ich wybiórcze interpretacje. No cóż… Jako mój podarek dodaję jeszcze uzupełnienie o genetycznym pochodzeniu tzw. kultury jamowe / Yamna / Yamnaya, a to żeby było im „łatwiej” przełknąć i strawić tę rzekomą stepową słofiańską żabkę…

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kultura_grob%C3%B3w_jamowych_(IV/III_tys._p.n.e.)

Kultura grobów jamowych – kultura archeologiczna datowana na około 3400–2700 p.n.e. Rozwijała się na terenie stepów wschodniej Europy.^{[potrzebny przypis]} Nazwa pochodzi od typowego pochówku szkieletowego pod kurhanem w jamie grobowej. Czasami kulturę tę utożsamia się z najstarszą fazą tzw.kultury grobów ze szkieletami pokrytymi ochrą (jej dalsze fazy to kultura grobów katakumbowych i kultura grobów zrębowych)^[1]. Gospodarka oparta głównie na hodowli, w mniejszym stopniu na rolnictwie.

Kluczowa rola w zasiedleniu Europy przez współczesnego człowieka

Według nowych badań DNA z zachowanych szkieletów, kultura grobów jamowych stanowi trzecią i ostatnią fazę inwazji współczesnego człowieka (Homo sapiens) na tereny Europy. 45000 lat temu w Europie pojawiły się pierwsze społeczności łowiecko-zbierackie, a około 8000 lat temu przybyli z Bliskiego Wschodu pierwsi rolnicy. 4500 lat temu z terenów dzisiejszej zachodniej Rosji i Ukrainy napłynęli przybysze reprezentujący kulturę grobów jamowych, skolonizowali Europę, głównie centralną i północną, i co jest prawdopodobne, wprowadzili na kontynencie europejskim protoplastę tutejszych języków indoeuropejskich (mogli być również drugą fazą przeniknięcia tej grupy językowej ze wschodu do Europy). Badacze uważają, że ślady kultury grobów jamowych świadczą także o jej wschodniej ekspansji, np. na tereny Syberii i zachodnich Chin^[2]. (…)

Przy okazji zwracam uwagę, że:

• przynajmniej polska wikipedia pisze o tym zupełnie przestarzałe pierdoły,
• im dalej na wschód od Góralu, tym jakoś tego R1a mni, czyli cała ta Tartaria i Khulestfo SiS, no to tylko kolejna fantasticzeska bajuszka dla chorych umysłów jest…

Wiele się zmieniło od Fielkiej Zmiany 2012-2014, ale raczej nie na jej korzyść… Ja tam bym raczej był ostrożny z wizjami Pra-Słowian wszędzie, od Bałkanów do Chińskiego Muru, bo to zaciąga Bieszkiem, Marsem, Orionem, a może nawet bardzo głębokim kasmasem… No ale co tam ja ruski szpion i troll mogiem fiedzieć, nieprawdaż?

A i pisze ten wpis też trochę dla annaM, żeby może trochę poprawić Jej humor, no bo przecież zahaczamy tu o Jej umiłowany Skałkaz… Wiem, wiem,.. świnka ze Mię… Najpierw trochę innych cytatów, a potem opisy całych artykułów, które czytam jednocześnie pisząc ten wpis. Robiem sobie taki mały experymencik, bo w sumie nie wiem, co tam jest dokładnie napisane…

A i zapomniałem dodać, że w dodatku wyznawcy południowej drogi R1a, też mają co nieco do przetrawienia. Alinei tego już nie strawi, więc muszą to przeżuć za niego… Miłego przeżuwania, więc… Ja na waszym miejscu zachlałbym to obficie, jakimś lotniczym spirytem. Przeżywanie tego przeżuwania będzie wtedy może odrobinę mni bolunce… 🙂

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Blogger Davidski said…
This time all of the Scythians belong to R1b, while one of the Sarmatians belongs to R1a.
Sarmatian chy002 R1a1a
Sarmatian tem002 R1b1a1a2
Sarmatian tem003 R1b1a1a2?
Scythian scy009* R1b1a1a2
Scythian scy193* R1b1a1a2?
Scythian scy197* R1b1a1a2
Scythian scy301 R1b1a1a2
Scythian scy304 R1b1a1a2
Scythian scy305* R1b1a1a2
Cimmerian cim357 R1b1a
Cimmerian cim358 Q1a1
Srubno-alakulskaya kzb002 R1a1a1
Srubno-alakulskaya kzb003 R1a1a1
Srubno-alakulskaya kzb005 R1a1a1
Srubno-alakulskaya kzb007 R1a1a1
Srubno-alakulskaya kzb008 R1a1a1
Srubno-alakulskaya mur003 R1a1a1?
October 3, 2018 at 8:16 PM

Blogger Davidski said…
Someone will probably try and check out the subclades from the BAM files soon. I guess most of these R1’s are Z2103 and Z93, but I’m hoping for a surprise like L51 or even U106.
October 3, 2018 at 8:26 PM

Blogger Bob Floy said…
@Davidski Yeah, it would be great to get an R1b that wasn’t Z2103 from one of these guys, especially in light of this business with the Hallstatt culture.
October 3, 2018 at 8:29 PM

Blogger rozenfag said…
Important: the samples that they call Cimmerians are actually belong to Chernogorovka culture. Not everyone agrees with identification of that culture with Cimmerians: http://www.academia.edu/1084093/The_Current_State_of_the_Cimmerian_Problem_Ancient_Civilizations_from_Scythia_to_Siberia_7_2001_307-340
October 3, 2018 at 10:15 PM

Blogger EastPole said…
They don’t even mention Iranians or Indo-Iranians with respect to Scythians and Sarmatians here as they don’t seem to be descendent from Srubnaya/Sintashta tribes.
October 3, 2018 at 11:18 PM

Blogger EastPole said…
It looks like these R1b Cimmerians, Scythians and Sarmatians originated from some Yamnaya-Caucasus tribes and were very fond of stealing wives from Greek, Celtic or some East Asian tribes. Just like Tatars were stealing Slavic women later on.

October 4, 2018 at 3:59 AM

Blogger Lukasz M said…
I remember some people dreaming that Pontic Scythians will be R1a and Slavic like:)
October 4, 2018 at 12:05 PM

Blogger Nirjhar007 said…
Lol Dave everyone is Polish! .BTW Thanks Dave.
October 5, 2018 at 3:20 AM

Blogger twój stary said…
Mlukas has some real issues with slavic people. Not only here, but on Polish sites as well. Anyway, any chance od Z282 popping up among Sarmatians?
October 5, 2018 at 12:42 PM

Blogger EastPole said…
Because Scythians were so diverse genetically the question should be asked if all Scythians were indeed Iranians as some, for example Carlos, assume. A very interesting article by Constantine Borissoff

“It is difficult to imagine that the Scythians, which was for the Greek a generic name applied to any ‘barbaric’ (in their opinion) people living north of their confines, had remained a single ethnos speaking a uniform ‘Scythian’ language over the vast territory for a thousand of years.
…
In his analysis Abaev completely ignored any possibility that on the vast territory of what the Greeks referred to as ‘Scythia’ could also live numerous IE tribes who never migrated to Iran and, therefore, never returned from there bringing with them the already changed ‘Iranian’ dialects.”

https://borissoff.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/was-scythian-an-iranian-language/
October 6, 2018 at 12:17 AM

Blogger Ric Hern said…
With those R1bs in mind I wonder how the Scythian Language affinities will look….
October 6, 2018 at 12:55 AM

Blogger Davidski said…
These Scythians are from the western edge of the steppe, so probably mostly acculturated Scythians. And, in fact, it looks like only three of them belong to R1b, with one being R1b-P312, which might have something to do with the contacts between Hallstatt and steppe peoples.
October 6, 2018 at 1:16 AM

Blogger EastPole said…
Article in ‘Science Direct’: “The genetic makings of South Asia”by Mait Metspalu, Mayukh Mondal and Gyaneshwer Chaubey.

“ANI in turn forms when IP admixes with the incoming Middle and Late Bronze Age Steppe (Steppe_MLBA) component, (rather than the Steppe_EMBA groups suggested earlier)”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959437X17301752?via%3Dihub
So they confirm that there was a migration to India from Steppe_MLBA (i.e. Andronovo) and not from Steppe_EMBA (i.e. Yamanaya) as many claim even now. On the maps they show that there was a migration from CWC to Central Asia which participated in the formation of Steppe_MLBA.

October 6, 2018 at 3:36 AM

Blogger Fanty said…
” Scythians, which was for the Greek a generic name applied to any ‘barbaric’ (in their opinion) ” Right. I recall that the Greeks believed there are only 2 types of Barbarians in the north: The Celts in the west and the Scythians in the East. No knowledge of Slavs or Germans.
October 13, 2018 at 7:15 PM

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Powyższe cytaty pochodzą z komentarzy pod tym artykułem, patrz:

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/10/cimmerians-scythians-and-sarmatians.html

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Cimmerians, Scythians and Sarmatians came from…

Apparently they all came from the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe. There’s a new paper about that at Science Advances (see here). Below is the abstract, emphasis is mine:

For millennia, the Pontic-Caspian steppe was a connector between the Eurasian steppe and Europe. In this scene, multidirectional and sequential movements of different populations may have occurred, including those of the Eurasian steppe nomads. We sequenced 35 genomes (low to medium coverage) of Bronze Age individuals (Srubnaya-Alakulskaya) and Iron Age nomads (Cimmerians, Scythians, and Sarmatians) that represent four distinct cultural entities corresponding to the chronological sequence of cultural complexes in the region. Our results suggest that, despite genetic links among these peoples, no group can be considered a direct ancestor of the subsequent group. The nomadic populations were heterogeneous and carried genetic affinities with populations from several other regions including the Far East and the southern Urals. We found evidence of a stable shared genetic signature, making the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe a likely source of western nomadic groups.

Krzewinska et al., Ancient genomes suggest the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe as the source of western Iron Age nomads, Science Advances, 03 Oct 2018: Vol. 4, no. 10, eaat4457, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aat4457

Update 04/10/2018: Twenty four of the ancient nomad samples made it into the Global25 datasheets. Look for the following population codes: Cimmerian_Moldova, Sarmatian_Urals, Scythian_Moldova, Scythian_Ukraine and Srubnaya-Alakulskaya_MLBA. Feel free to put them through their paces and share the results with us in the comments below.

Global 25 datasheet
Global 25 datasheet (scaled)
Global 25 pop averages
Global 25 pop averages (scaled)

See also…

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

Posted by Davidski at 8:02:00 PM 51 comments

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A oto uzupełnienie i nawiązanie do początku…

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/11/big-deal-of-2018-yamnaya-not-related-to.html

Thursday, November 1, 2018

Big deal of 2018: Yamnaya not related to Maykop

I was going to write this post after the genotype data from the Wang et al. preprint on the genetic prehistory of the Greater Caucasus became available, because I wanted to demonstrate a few key points with analyses of my own. But I’ve got a hunch that the formal publication of the manuscript, and thus also the release of the data, has been indefinitely delayed for one reason or another. So here goes anyway, the big deal of 2018…

This year, ancient DNA has revealed that the populations associated with the Maykop and Yamnaya archeological cultures were genetically distinct from each other, and, in all likelihood, didn’t mix to any significant degree. Case in point: an ADMIXTURE analysis from Wang et al. 2018.

No doubt, this is quite a shock for many people, especially those of you who consider Maykop to have been a Proto-Indo-European-speaking culture that either gave rise to Yamnaya or at least Indo-Europeanized it. So now, if you still want to see Maykop as the Indo-Europeanizing agent in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, you’ll have to rely solely on archeological and linguistics data, and also keep in mind that ancient DNA has slapped you in the face.

In just a few years, ancient DNA has provided us with plenty of shocks, but this is arguably among the biggest.

However, I honestly can’t say that it was a huge surprise for me, because I tentatively predicted this outcome more than two years ago based on a handful of mitochondrial (mtDNA) haplotypes (see here). Certainly, analyzing genome-wide genetic data is what I thrive on, but if that’s off limits, then eyeballing even a few mtDNA markers can also be very useful.

Wang et al. easily demonstrate the lack of any meaningful genetic relationship between Maykop (including Steppe Maykop, which shows an unusual eastern influence) and Yamnaya using a range of methods. But, judging by their conclusion, in which they still seem to want to see Maykop as the said Indo-Europeanizing agent in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, they’re not exactly enthused by their own results. And they also make the following claim (emphasis is mine):

Based on PCA and ADMIXTURE plots we observe two distinct genetic clusters: one cluster falls with previously published ancient individuals from the West Eurasian steppe (hence termed ‘Steppe’), and the second clusters with present-day southern Caucasian populations and ancient Bronze Age individuals from today’s Armenia (henceforth called ‘Caucasus’), while a few individuals take on intermediate positions between the two. The stark distinction seen in our temporal transect is also visible in the Y-chromosome haplogroup distribution, with R1/R1b1 and Q1a2 types in the Steppe and L, J, and G2 types in the Caucasus cluster (Fig. 3A, Supplementary Data 1). In contrast, the mitochondrial haplogroup distribution is more diverse and almost identical in both groups (Fig. 3B, Supplementary Data 1).

I’d say that what they’re almost suggesting there is that the Caucasus and Steppe clusters, hence also the Maykop and Yamnaya populations, shared significant maternal ancestry. If this were true, then perhaps it might mean that the Pontic-Caspian steppe was Indo-Europeanized via female-biased migrations from Maykop? Yes, perhaps, if this were true. However, it’s not.

To be sure, Yamnaya does show a close genome-wide genetic relationship with an earlier group from the North Caucasus region: the so called Eneolithic steppe people. But they can’t be linked to Maykop or even the roughly contemporaneous nearby Eneolithic Caucasus population, and seem to have vanished, at least as a coherent genetic unit, just as Maykop got going. Wang et al. managed to sequence three Eneolithic steppe samples with the following mtDNA haplogroups: H2, I3a and T2a1b.

H2 is too broad a haplogroup to bother with, but here are the results for I3a and T2a1b from the recently launched AmtDB, the first database of ancient human mitochondrial genomes (see here).

In a database of 1,131 ancient samples, I3a shows up in just five individuals, all of them associated with Yamnaya-related archeological cultures and populations: Poltavka (BARu), Unetice (UNC), Corded Ware (CWC), and Bell Beaker (BBC). Similarly, T2a1b shows up in just four individuals, all of them associated with Corded Ware (CWC) and Bell Beaker-derived Bronze Age Britons (BABI). And if I go back a step to T2a1, then the list reveals two Yamnaya individuals from what is now Kalmykia, Russia.

Thus, using just two mtDNA haplotypes I’m able to corroborate the results from genome-wide genetic data showing a close relationship between Eneolithic steppe and Yamnaya. So like I said, useful stuff.

This obviously begs the question: what does the AmtDB reveal about Maykop mtDNA haplotypes, especially in the context of the genetic relationship, or rather lack of, between Yamnaya and Maykop? Yep, again, the AmtDB basically corroborates the results from genome-wide genetic data.

But don’t take my word for it. Stick the currently available Maykop mtDNA haplogroups into the AmtDB and see what happens (for your convenience I’ve made a list available here). Considering the close geographic and temporal proximity of Maykop to Yamnaya, you won’t see an overly high sharing rate with Yamnaya and closely related populations. Moreover, Maykop shows several haplogroups that appear highly unusual in the context of the Eneolithic and Bronze Age steppe mtDNA gene pool, and, instead, link its maternal ancestry to those of the early European farmers, West Asians or even Central Asians, such as HV, M52, U1b, U7b and X2f.

See also…

Steppe Maykop: a buffer zone?

Yamnaya isn’t from Iran just like R1a isn’t from India

Big deal of 2016: the territory of present-day Iran cannot be the Indo-European homeland

Posted by Davidski at 4:06:00 PM 56 comments:

Blogger rozenfag said…
So, what then the following remark from linguistic supplement to Damgaard et al 2018 means: „The EHG ancestry detected in individuals associated with both Yamnaya (3000–2400 BCE) and the Maykop culture (3700–3000 BCE) (in prep.) is absent from our Anatolian specimens, suggesting that neither archaeological horizon constitutes a suitable candidate for a “homeland” or “stepping stone” for the origin or spread of Anatolian Indo-European speakers to Anatolia.”?
November 1, 2018 at 6:22 PM

Blogger Davidski said…
@rozenfag I’m not sure what you mean? Yamnaya and some (maybe most?) Maykop samples share the EHG component, but this doesn’t mean they’re related, certainly not within any reasonable time frame. As for steppe ancestry in Bronze Age Anatolia, I’m pretty sure that at least two of the Anatolia_MLBA samples from Damgaard et al. do have it, and I’m also certain that when many more Bronze Age Anatolians are sampled some of them will clearly show steppe ancestry.
November 1, 2018 at 6:27 PM

Blogger Davidski said…
See also…
Focus on Hittite Anatolia
November 1, 2018 at 6:34 PM

Blogger Synome said…
I eagerly await dense Anatolian and SE European samples. I’m getting Urheimat fatigue. Let’s wrap this up and move on to more fascinating questions! Anatolian languages are the final frontier for anyone looking to dispute the PC Steppe Urheimat. So let’s get something definitive from the area.
November 1, 2018 at 7:04 PM

Blogger Folker said…
@Rozenfag Problem is: IE expansion in Anatolia is correlated to Hittite kingdom. There is no doubt among hittitologists that Hittite language was an administrative language adopted by people without any Hittite ancestry. Same story as Latin in Western Europe.
By the way, nobody is defending a diffusion from Maykop to Anatolia, for obvious reasons (IE were in Western Anatolia, and Esstern Anatolia was dominated by non IE). And another point must be taken into consideration: the CHG-like admixture found in Maykop and Yamnaya is not the same (and both probably different from the one found in Anatolia). So, in any case, we don’t have any sign of admixture from the South which could explain demic diffusion of PIE. This is very problematic for a South of Caucasus Urheimat. On the other hand, it is easy to a low level of EHG in Anatolia, as it is postulated that only small bands of IE moved in Anatolia during the IIId millenium.
November 1, 2018 at 7:18 PM

Blogger Unknown said…
What is it, five guys from diverse Hattusa lack Steppe ancestry…? pssspp hahahahahaha. Hardly anything for Damgaard to hang their hat on.
November 1, 2018 at 7:44 PM

Blogger Unknown said…
Big deal from 2018? Facts are slapping new archaeology across the face on an almost daily basis.
November 1, 2018 at 8:14 PM

Blogger Santosh Rajan said…
Clearly the urheimat is north of yamnaya territory. Khvalinsk or sredny stog?
November 2, 2018 at 5:16 AM

Blogger PF said…
@Synome Some more fascinating stuff — and it does relate to the present topic — is what the hell was going on between CHG / EHG / ANE way back in the day? In the recent Siberia paper (Sikora et al) one model shows a 12% input into proto-Malta from something on the branch towards CHG, but *before* a Basal input into CHG proper. I don’t even know if we can call this something CHG-related.

In the same model EHG = 76% (78% Malta-like + 22% CHG-like) + 24% (WHG).

It’s just one model, but the point is CHG-like groups and ANE-like groups were likely interacting for a long, long time. This makes it a bit challenging to get clear results using the usual methods… indeed it makes sense to go old school and use high quality uniparental data, and perhaps something like rare haplotype analysis. So, for example, when did the CHG and EHG portions of Eneolithihc_Steppe combine? Or is it not even a one-time event? All that said about very ancient interactions, the sheer amount of CHG in Yamnaya seems unique, likely more recent, and needs to be explained…

RE: PIE. I just don’t see any Steppe in the current Anatolian samples. Sure, let’s wait for more. But what is the exact route and archeological evidence people are proposing that works with the early branching date? Mathieson (2017) makes a pretty good case against the Balkan route (again, based on the currently available samples). Generally it just doesn’t make sense. It’s Chinatown.
November 2, 2018 at 9:17 AM

Blogger Synome said…
@PF RE: IE
I don’t find Mathieson 2017’s case against the Balkan route to be all that convincing. They set an arbitrarily high standard by saying only a „high level” of steppe ancestry in Chalcolithic Balkans will support the Balkan theory and fail to find this. What they do find however, is significant amounts of steppe ancestry even in the handful of samples they present, e.g. the Varna outlier. The fact that there’s an outlier even suggests recent migrations from the steppe rather than a long term diffusion.

I actually think the lack of substantial steppe in the BA Anatolians is a bigger issue for the Steppe theory, but not by any means insurmountable.
November 2, 2018 at 3:22 PM

Blogger Davidski said…
@PF Part of the argument by Mathieson et al. is that they couldn’t find „large amounts” of steppe-related ancestry in the Copper Age Balkans.

But there’s no need for that if the proto-Anatolians zipped through the Balkans on their way to Anatolia. In fact, I think that the „sporadic steppe-related ancestry” that was admittedly found by Mathieson et al. in the Copper Age Balkans seems just about right for that scenario to appear correct.

And in regards to „large amounts” of steppe-related ancestry being necessary in Bronze Age Anatolia, well, they didn’t really test that because they only had three Anatolian samples apparently from jar burials, which are a Near Eastern burial tradition.

However, the most widely accepted version of the steppe hypothesis doesn’t actually posit that there were large waves of migrations from the steppes into Anatolia. Rather, the idea is generally that small bands of Anatolian speakers moved to Anatolia, mixed with the indigenous peoples there, and only then their languages made an impact in the region.

Now, this might seem like a fail safe design feature contrived to ensure that the steppe hypothesis is always going to work no matter if there is any steppe-related ancestry found in Bronze Age Anatolia or not, but nevertheless, that is the hypothesis, and it was devised before anyone knew that it would ever be possible to extract ancient DNA from Bronze Age Anatolians.

So I don’t know what Mathieson et al. were testing exactly, but it to me it doesn’t look like they were testing this version of the said hypothesis.

The only way to corroborate or contradict the real steppe hypothesis in this context is with fairly dense sampling of remains from the Copper Age Balkans and Bronze Age Anatolia. This hasn’t happened yet.
November 2, 2018 at 7:52 PM

Blogger epoch said…
@PF „Mathieson (2017) makes a pretty good case against the Balkan route (again, based on the currently available samples).”

Mathieson is actually delivering proof of the theory put forward that the Suvorovo culture, a clearly invasive kurgan culture with very clear ties to the steppe (crouched burial, ochre, horse headed scepters), was the vector that brought IE to anatolia. Everybody states there were two Chalcolithic outliers in that paper without trying to think what they were. The Varna culture is the immediate predecessor to Suvorovo so a female outliers in a Varna grave could be the first contact. The other one (male, R1) was found in Smyadova, contemporaneous to Suvorovo and less than 100 km west of it. Those two samples get meaningful once you see its spacial and temporal characteristics. Early bronze age all had a steppe admixture. It’s all there, in Mathiesons S.E. Europe paper.
November 3, 2018 at 12:09 AM

Blogger Arch Hades said…
Doesnt look like Yamnaya is derived from Maykop, or the Vice Versa. BUT, it looks to me they both derive significantly from a common source. The dark green component in the ADMIXTURE run is huge in both of them.
November 5, 2018 at 8:32 AM

…..

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/10/steppe-maykop-buffer-zone.html

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Steppe Maykop: a buffer zone?

Unfortunately, the ancient data from the Wang et al. preprint still haven’t been released online. As I’ve already pointed out many times, the manuscript conclusion looks horribly contrived (for instance, see here), but the data are awesome, and most of the preprint is quite solid.

One thing that I’d really like to do is to compare in detail each of the ancient populations from the preprint to groups of present-day and ancient speakers of Indo-European and Caucasian languages. What’s the bet that, by and large, Eneolithic steppe will show strong links to Indo-Europeans, while Eneolithic Caucasus and Maykop to Caucasians?

But pending the release of the data, all I can do is look at what the authors have done with it.

Intriguingly, their analyses suggest that the Eneolithic steppe genotype may have vanished from the steppes abutting the Caucasus by at least 3500 BC. It seems to have been replaced there by a more heterogeneous gene pool, with both more easterly and southerly genetic affinities, associated with the Steppe Maykop archeological culture.

So who were the Steppe Maykop people and why did they show up, rather suddenly, in the North Caucasus steppes to seemingly clear out the Eneolithic steppe population from the region? I have a theory about that.

Both archeological and ancient DNA data show that the North Caucasus was being colonized by groups from Transcaucasia during the Eneolithic. But apparently this wasn’t an entirely smooth and safe process, because these southern settlers were forced to build elaborate fortifications to keep the natives at bay. Indeed, at the site of Meshoko, in the Northwest Caucasus, there is evidence of such a fort being overrun and its community replaced, probably by a nearby indigenous group (see here).

On the other hand, during the Bronze Age Maykop period, the relations between the settlers from the south and the steppe peoples were apparently much more peaceful. So much so, in fact, that Maykop settlements weren’t fortified. However, this was also the period when the North Caucasus steppes were home to the Steppe Maykop people.

So here’s my theory: either by chance or design, Steppe Maykop territory was a buffer zone between Maykop and the potentially aggressive natives of the steppes to the north. I’m not necessarily suggesting that the Steppe Maykop people were foreign mercenaries hired by Maykop chiefs, but, in any case, they may have benefited economically in a variety of ways by keeping Maykop settlements safe.

Around 3000 BC, both Maykop and Steppe Maykop disappeared. The latter was replaced by the Yamnaya culture. I don’t know much about this process. It may have been mostly driven by environmental impacts from climate change. But the fact that the Steppe Maykop population didn’t contribute much, if any, ancestry to the Yamnaya people in the region suggests to me that it was a hostile takeover by Yamnaya.

Interestingly, the spread of Yamnaya into the North Caucasus steppes saw the return of the Eneolithic steppe genotype to the region, albeit in a modified form, with admixture from Middle Neolithic European farmers (see here).

See also…

A potentially violent end to the Kura-Araxes Culture (Alizadeh et al. 2018)

Posted by Davidski at 1:04:00 AM 90 comments

Blogger EastPole said…
It is OT but it interests me very much because ritualistic use of drugs can tell us something about the culture and religion and maybe language of the people. There is an article in Science:“Cannabis, opium use part of ancient Near Eastern cultures”by Andrew Lawler

“Digs in the Caucasus have uncovered braziers containing seeds and charred remains of cannabis dating to about
3000 B.C.E.”

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6386/249

So the use of cannabis in Yamnaya culture was probably related to Caucasus.

They also write about opium use in ancient Near Eastern cultures:

“For example, “hard scientific evidence” shows that ancient people extracted opium from poppies, says David Collard, senior archaeologist at Jacobs, an engineering firm in Melbourne, Australia, who found signs of ritual opium
use on Cyprus dating back more than 3000 years.
[…}
Residue analyses show that between 1600 and 1000 B.C.E., people poured opium alkaloids into pots crafted in the shape of the seed capsule of the opium poppy, in what Collard calls “prehistoric commodity branding.” All the jugs were found in temples and tombs, suggesting a role in ritual. Opium jugs made on Cyprus have been found in Egypt and the Levant— the first clear example of the international drug trade”

It confirms archeologists’ claims that Minoans were worshiping “Poppy Goddess” and used opium:

http://albertis-window.com/2013/10/minoans-the-poppy-goddess-and-opium/

So in the Neolithic/Bronze Age we have different zones using different drugs for ritualistic purposes.
1. In the north we have EHG shamanic cultures using magic mushrooms.
2. In the forest and forest steppe of CE Europe EHG +CHG +EEF R1a Hyperboreans or Indo-Slavic CWC populations used alcohol, mead or beer (and hops-haoma/soma).
3. Caucasus and dry steppe EHG+CHG R1b Yamnaya people used cannabis.
4. Near East EEF used opium.

Plus the use of wine in the south. Early Bell Beakers probably used wine as Iberia, France, Italy, South Germany, Hungary were wine countries.

So we have different populations using different drugs for ritualistic purposes. It would be interesting to investigate how it all correlates with religions, languages, cultures and genes and how it can be tracked in migrations and influences.
October 26, 2018 at 1:01 AM

Blogger EastPole said…
@André de Vasconcelos

“The Corded Ware people had many offspring who spread rapidly across Europe. They were among the ancestors of the Bell Beaker culture of central Europe, known by the vessels they used to drink wine, according to a study by Kristiansen and Reich published this month.”

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6339/678.summary

So Corded Ware influenced Bell Beakers but Beakers used to drink wine. Which is natural because everywhere in the south where wine was available mead or beer were replaced by wine. Indo-Aryan Kalash in Central Asia were drinking wine:

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-kho-people-archaic-indo-aryans.html?showComment=1516795236915#c8505964353792957184

Thracian/Phrygian Sabazios was originally a beer god, but later was identified with Dionysus the god of wine.
October 26, 2018 at 3:44 AM

Blogger André de Vasconcelos said…
@EastPole

That isn’t a study on Iberian Beaker drinking habits, Reich has nothing to do with early Iberian beaker content

http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2015/03/cerveza-for-your-cimepozuelos.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236893116_Beer_and_Bell_Beakers_Drinking_Rituals_in_Copper_Age_Inner_Iberia

„Beer and Bell Beakers: Drinking Rituals in Copper Age Inner Iberia

Manuel Ángel Rojo-Guerra (a1), Rafael Garrido-Pena (a2), Íñigo García-Martínez-de-Lagrán (a3), Jordi Juan-Treserras (a4) …
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00000840
Published online: 01 February 2014

Abstract

This article provides a summary of the archaeological context of Bell Beaker pottery from two Ambrona Valley (Soria, Spain) tombs whose chemical analysis identifies the existence of a primitive wheat beer. This is compared with other new analyses in Iberia, from both Neolithic and Copper Age sites, which also demonstrate the use of alcoholic beverages. The two Ambrona examples are Copper Age Bell Beaker intrusions into earlier Middle Neolithic Monumental graves. The archaeological features of both discoveries are described, and an interpretation is offered concerning the social and symbolic context in which these Bell Beaker inhumations were deposited, and the role that alcoholic beverages such as beer might have played in this social context.”

https://www.academia.edu/1491069/The_Bell_Beaker_Phenomenon_and_the_interaction_spheres_of_the_Early_Bronze_Age_East_Mediterranean_similarities_and_differences

„New residue analyses from six Bell Beaker sites in Spain support now strongly their function as vessels for drinking beer.”

„He proposed that the Bell Beakers demonstrate the spread of alcoholic beverages,possibly beer or mead, to western Europe which existed in East Europe since the Baden Culture (nowdated to the middle and later fourth millenniumBC) and than the Globular Amphorae and Cordedware culture and whose ultimate origin must be searched in the Near East.”

Maybe some drank wine, but the trend seems to be beer and mead. Even in the iron age wine seems to be mostly associated with more sophisticated cultures who were in contact with Pheonician traders and colonies, at least in west Iberia. You cannot equate Iberian Beakers with wine and completely discard the fact that beer was actually proven to be consumed locally, even before „proper Beaker folk” got to Iberia around 2500BC.
Copper/Bronze Age Iberia wasn’t a „wine country” by any means
October 26, 2018 at 5:10 AM

Blogger EastPole said…
@André de Vasconcelos

“This period of Vitis dominance has been dated to approximately 4480 B.P., and demonstrates that cultivation of the vine was occurring in Spain at least 1000 years before what most authors regard as the date of introduction, and corresponds to early Bronze age cultivation of the vine.”

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2844863?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

So wine was cultivated in Spain in Bronze age.

Maybe the use of beer by Bell Beakers in Spain had some religious significance?
For example Greece was a wine country, but during Eleusinian Mysteries the initiates were forbidden to drink wine, were undergoing series of purifications and at the end participated in a ritual during which they were told some secrets, were given kykeon to drink and were singing and dancing around fire. Kykeon was an alcoholic drink made mainly of water, barley and naturally occurring substances. But there was some religious poetry and music added to it which made people very happy. The high point of the celebration was „an ear of grain cut in silence”, which represented the force of the new life.
We know that mystery cults like that influenced Greek philosophy very much, from Pythagoras to Plato and Plotinus. We also see similar influences in Vedic religion and philosophy. These mystery cults arrived to Greece from the north, from Eastern Europe. Vedic India was also influenced by some migrations from Eastern Europe. There are also elements in Slavic rituals and believes which explain some of common elements in Vedic and Greek traditions.
Maybe Bell Beakers were also influenced by the same religion, from CWC for example.
I think of Bell Beakers as coming from Yamnaya. But Yamnaya were cannabis smoking and wine drinking steppe herders from the North of Caucasus and their religion was for sure very different from beer and mead drinking Indo-Slavonic Hyperboreans who had some links with magic mushroom eating shamanic cultures of EHG.
October 26, 2018 at 9:21 AM

Blogger PF said…
@Eastpole It’s a very interesting topic; I’ve thought about it before. Other agricultural products are used to trace migrations but I believe using drugs has been understudied and could provide some extra insight.

Wild cannabis from which most domesticates evolved seems to have come from around the Altai. Cannabis use (for hemp and/or drugs) was almost definitely a steppe thing.

”…early inhabitants of the Eurasian steppes, such as people belonging to the Sredni Stog culture, which flourished from about 4300 to 3500 BCE, used Cannabis to make a “socially approved intoxicant,” celebrating its significance “by imprinting it on their pottery.” Sherratt argued that the ingestion of Cannabis was a fundamental aspect of Eastern European mysticism. We believe that Cannabis, along with cord-marked pottery and domesticated horses, were dispersed together as parts of a general cultural complex that developed in the Eurasian steppes during the Copper Age and Early Bronze Age (ca. 6000 to 5000 BP).”

“In the late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age (ca. 3500 to 2300 BCE), people associated with what archeologists refer to as the “Yamnaya Horizon,” essentially a pastoralist kurgan culture, developed out of eastern origins in the steppes of the Don and Volga River regions. The herding people or societies of this culture were most likely speakers of “classic Proto-Indo-European” and were the first in the Eurasian steppes to generate a pastoral economy requiring regular seasonal migrations to fresh grazing land. They used wagons pulled by cattle to carry their tents and supplies far into the steppes of Central Asia when necessary to graze their animals. They also used horses to survey huge amounts of territory and to drive their large herds of domesticated animals. Beginning about 3100 BCE, people associated with the Yamnaya herding culture spread swiftly across the steppes carrying Cannabis and its use with them, eventually broadening their range to include areas to the west in the Danube Valley and then into other areas of Eastern Europe including Serbia and Hungary, where they encountered settled farmers.”

“…in Eastern Europe there are two sites that have yielded hemp seeds more than 4,000 years old. One is a grave at Gurbanesti, east of Bucharest in the Danube Valley region of Romania where a clay vessel (brazier or “pipe-cup”) with carbonized hemp seeds was discovered, perhaps the earliest evidence for the burning of Cannabis. The second site where Early Bronze Age seeds of Cannabis have been found is located in the northern Caucasus region where a similar “smoking vessel” with charred hemp seeds was discovered in a burial…these charred seeds are the earliest evidence for intentional burning of Cannabis and suggest ritualistic, perhaps psychoactive use. Sherratt proposed that smoking or inhaling Cannabis fumes was introduced into the Danube Valley by immigrants of the Yamnaya culture dating back approximately 5,000 years. Indeed the relationship between Cannabis and the Yamnaya culture is important in understanding major aspects of the origin and spread of Cannabis into and throughout much of Europe.”

“we suggest that hemp was not growing in northwestern India, or anywhere else in South Asia, until the influx of migrating Indo-European speaking tribes from the north approximately 3,500 years ago.”

“The notion that Cannabis had a connection with early horse exploitation and eventual domestication of horses is admittedly speculative. However, this idea is supported by the fact that hemp has a propensity to grow around Central Asian nomad camps, even today, especially where there is nutrient-rich soil…”

All quotes from „Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany” by Mark Merlin and Robert Clarke. LOTS more discussion in the book.

So yeah, tons of evidence that cannabis was spread by the early steppe cultures. I think a hearty thank you is in order. 😉
October 26, 2018 at 5:41 PM

Blogger EastPole said…
@Ric Hern “I doubt that Herders had the time to invest in a Vineyard…or anything that takes more than half a year to cultivate and harvest…”

We know from Herodotus that Scythians were smoking cannabis and drinking a lot of wine. There was the stereotype of drunkenness among the Scythians. Yamnaya steppe herders were getting wine from the farmers in the south. Caucasus was a wine producing area very early in history. Those far away from wine producing areas were probably drinking kumis, a fermented dairy product traditionally made from mare’s milk. Herodotus describes the Scythians processing of mare’s milk which is widely believed to be the first description of ancient kumis-making. The possibility is high that kumis was produced in Botai culture.
October 27, 2018 at 1:19 AM