Pinhasi et al-Ancient dna recovery

[Angela]

I see no reason why the Gravettians could not have crossed from Anatolia directly into the Balkans, as many scholars maintain. At the time period in question, there was no Hellespont between Anatolia and the Balkans. It was all land. Much easier than traversing the Caucasus mountains.

I think it was the Augignacians, probably carrying yDna "C" who went into Europe from north of the Caucasus.

Neolithic people very much liked boats.

They were in Cyprus and Crete long before they were near the Hellespont:

If people are so interested in the precise difference between Stuttgart like people and their ancestors in the Near East, I would think a Neolithic genome either from the coastal Levant, Cyprus, or Crete might be a good idea.

This might be the way it moved...Druse like people (northern Levant), Cappadocia (southwestern Turkey), Dodecanese (Greek islands near Turkey), East Rumelia, Crete, Sicily and the Peleponnese, up the Balkans, by sea along the Mediterranean littorals, and on and on.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/25/9211.full

I'm not saying that the Near Eastern farmers were identical to these modern people, but I think we can trace the route through them.

Given that E-V13 has shown up all the way in Armenia, and we have one that traveled with Cardial, I still think they're a good bet for one of the founding y lines.

@Garrick,
By the time of the Bronze Age Indo-Europeans, crossing the Hellespont from the Balkans into Anatolia would have been child's play.

 

[bicicleur 2]

I see no reason why the Gravettians could not have crossed from Anatolia directly into the Balkans, as many scholars maintain. At the time period in question, there was no Hellespont between Anatolia and the Balkans. It was all land. Much easier than traversing the Caucasus mountains.


I think it was the Augignacians, probably carrying yDna "C" who went into Europe from north of the Caucasus.

this map is not correct
proto aurignacian entered Europe 45 ka, only in Mediterranean Europe
European aurignacian proper was an expansion upstream along the Danube into northern Europe 43.5 ka
then they spread east quickly +/- 39 ka till Kostenki area and even till northwestern Caucuasus
that is when Neanderthals went extinct in Europe

gravettian entered europe 33 ka and spread over central & east europe very quickly but came west to France & Italy only 28 ka
quite significant is the 'Sungir man' who was burried far more north than Aurignacians ever went : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sungir

 

[bicicleur 2]

Neolithic people very much liked boats.

They were in Cyprus and Crete long before they were near the Hellespont:

we know Balkan neolithic & LBK & Cardium people were G2a
we don't know about neolithic Crete or Cyprus
Cyprus was discovered +/- 12.5 ka by HG and abandonned again before farmers settled there +/- 10.8 ka
date of first farmers in Crete is very unclear : 8 or 9 ka?

 

[bicicleur 2]

If people are so interested in the precise difference between Stuttgart like people and their ancestors in the Near East, I would think a Neolithic genome either from the coastal Levant, Cyprus, or Crete might be a good idea.

This might be the way it moved...Druse like people (northern Levant), Cappadocia (southwestern Turkey), Dodecanese (Greek islands near Turkey), East Rumelia, Crete, Sicily and the Peleponnese, up the Balkans, by sea along the Mediterranean littorals, and on and on.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/25/9211.full

I'm not saying that the Near Eastern farmers were identical to these modern people, but I think we can trace the route through them.

Given that E-V13 has shown up all the way in Armenia, and we have one that traveled with Cardial, I still think they're a good bet for one of the founding y lines.

@Garrick,
By the time of the Bronze Age Indo-Europeans, crossing the Hellespont from the Balkans into Anatolia would have been child's play.

I don't know what to think of this PCA chart because I cannot date it :

e.g. : how old are Druse or Bedouin people ? probably post-neolithic

As far as bronze age Armenian E1b1b, according to Genetiker it was E-M123, not E-V13

About Cardial E-V13 in Avelaner Cave, Catalunia 7 ka, this is uncertain too : SNPs were not checked, it was on base of STR-analyses : Lacan says they were 'related to present day Balkan E-V13'

There was even R1b1 in Els Trocs, all sorts of people went along with G2a (both Cardial and LBK).

E-V13 is still a big mystery, TRMCA estimated 4400 year, so bronze age expansion?

 

[MOESAN]

This is almost as interesting as the 101 genomes from Allentoft et al. study. The Dodecad K12b is the one that particularly got my attention.

If the data is reliable, then it would appear that Near Eastern Neolithic farmers brought most of the Atlantic_Med admixture to Europe. This is important because it means that this admixture, which peaks in the Basques and Sardinians (70-75%), is therefore not native to Europe.

In the same way, those Neolithic farmers carried 21% of Northwest_African admixture. Modern Maghrebans have 35-45% of Northwest_African and 20-25% of Atlantic_Med admixture, and all of it could ultimately have been inherited from Anatolian or Levantine Neolithic farmers (some of it via the Phoenicians and Arabs).

Genetic drift could explain why some genes, which now make up the Atlantic_Med admixture, ended up being present at higher frequencies in Southwest Europe, while another set of genes from Neolithic farmers survived at much higher frequencies in Northwest Africa. From a modern standpoint it could look like the two have different origins, but it may just be one big family whose genes got divided early between two continents then evolved separately for thousands of years.

I partially agree - but 'atlantic-MED' is not 'atlantic' of other poolings - the most of 'atlantic' is old - but I agree 'atlantic-MED' is for the most a first East mediterrnaea influx of Neolithic people, maybe even before Neolithic revlution, becoming later the 'west-mediteranean' , when more 'southwest-asian' or 'red-sea' bearers influenced Mediterranea.

 

[Sile]

I see no reason why the Gravettians could not have crossed from Anatolia directly into the Balkans, as many scholars maintain. At the time period in question, there was no Hellespont between Anatolia and the Balkans. It was all land. Much easier than traversing the Caucasus mountains.

I think it was the Augignacians, probably carrying yDna "C" who went into Europe from north of the Caucasus.

Neolithic people very much liked boats.

They were in Cyprus and Crete long before they were near the Hellespont:

If people are so interested in the precise difference between Stuttgart like people and their ancestors in the Near East, I would think a Neolithic genome either from the coastal Levant, Cyprus, or Crete might be a good idea.

This might be the way it moved...Druse like people (northern Levant), Cappadocia (southwestern Turkey), Dodecanese (Greek islands near Turkey), East Rumelia, Crete, Sicily and the Peleponnese, up the Balkans, by sea along the Mediterranean littorals, and on and on.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/25/9211.full

I'm not saying that the Near Eastern farmers were identical to these modern people, but I think we can trace the route through them.

Given that E-V13 has shown up all the way in Armenia, and we have one that traveled with Cardial, I still think they're a good bet for one of the founding y lines.

@Garrick,
By the time of the Bronze Age Indo-Europeans, crossing the Hellespont from the Balkans into Anatolia would have been child's play.

people would also transverse via the caucasus, there is a part along the drinkable black sea which was land and now underwater..............why do you think they would not go north?

 

[Angela]

Sile: people would also transverse via the caucasus, there is a part along the drinkable black sea which was land and now underwater..............why do you think they would not go north?

I thought by saying "if" the Gravettians" came into Europe via the Near East, I made it clear it was a hypothetical. Maybe from now on I should write, IF "X" happened then "Y".

I don't know which route they took. There are academics who seem to think that there are links with the eastern Mediterranean.
http://paleo.revues.org/607

Perhaps there are more recent papers, but I'm not aware of them. I gather this is a rather specialized field of research.

Since I'm not a practicing archaeologist/anthropologist specializing in the Aurignacian and/or the Gravettian, all I can do is read the experts and make an amateur's judgment based on what is the latest evidence. I really don't have a strong opinion either way.

As to your other question, the point wasnot whether they could have gone north along that coastal strip, the point was that contrary to an assertion made by another poster at the time in question there was no water separating Anatolia from the Balkans. So, if there are indeed ties to cultures in the eastern Med, the most logical as well as the easiest route might have been into the Balkans.

 

[Angela]

we know Balkan neolithic & LBK & Cardium people were G2a
we don't know about neolithic Crete or Cyprus
Cyprus was discovered +/- 12.5 ka by HG and abandonned again before farmers settled there +/- 10.8 ka
date of first farmers in Crete is very unclear : 8 or 9 ka?

These are the dates I have for Neolithic settlements. They come with a caveat...depending on the date of the study and the methods used, the dates are more or less reliable. With that said...

Cyprus: 8,000-7800 BCE
Crete: 7,000-6800 BCE
Sesklo in Thessaly: 6800 BCE
Barcin: 6500-6200 BCE (This comes from the site linked below.
Starcevo: Latest dating paper says 5500-4500 BCE, but older papers had it older.

This is the Barcin site:
http://opencontext.org/projects/74749949-4FD4-4C3E-C830-5AA75703E08E

Some more of what they have discovered:
http://www.nit-istanbul.org/projects/barc-n-hoyuk-excavations
"Although its location suggests easy access to the Balkans from Anatolia, Neolithic archaeological assemblages on either side of the Marmara region do not demonstrate the expected similarity that can result from intensive social interactions."

Maybe this suggests the gene flow and earliest technology went to both the Balkans and northwest Anatolia from the same source, but it didn't go from northwest Anatolia into the Balkans?

Just so we have an idea where it is geographically:

For the Near Eastern Neolithic, this is the latest data I have in my files.It's pretty recent. I don't know if it's been contradicted in the last few years. By this account, the Cypriot Neolithic is even older than the figure I posted above.
View attachment 7326

It comes from this paper:
http://anthropology.si.edu/archaeobio/images/zeder_ca_2011.pdf

We do indeed not know the ydna of the earliest Neolithic settlers in Crete or Cyprus. I'm always prepared to be surprised.

Ed. So, to correct myself, the farmers didn't arrive in Crete long before they arrived around the Sea of Marmara, but unless the dates are all wrong, they did get to Cyprus long before, and Crete some time before they got to Marmara.

Of course that doesn't prove that each group was identical. We need more and better coverage samples.

 

[Angela]

I don't know what to think of this PCA chart because I cannot date it :

e.g. : how old are Druse or Bedouin people ? probably post-neolithic

As far as bronze age Armenian E1b1b, according to Genetiker it was E-M123, not E-V13

About Cardial E-V13 in Avelaner Cave, Catalunia 7 ka, this is uncertain too : SNPs were not checked, it was on base of STR-analyses : Lacan says they were 'related to present day Balkan E-V13'

There was even R1b1 in Els Trocs, all sorts of people went along with G2a (both Cardial and LBK).

E-V13 is still a big mystery, TRMCA estimated 4400 year, so bronze age expansion?

From the paper:
"To obtain insights on the question of migrations to Europe, we analyzed genome-wide autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from a dataset of 32 populations. This dataset includes population samples from the islands of Crete and Dodecanese, one from Cappadocia in Central Anatolia, three subpopulations from different regions of mainland Greece, 14 other populations from Southern and Northern Europe, five populations from the Near East, and seven from North Africa. In addition to established methods for genetics analysis, we use a population genetics network approach that can define pathways of gene flow between populations. Our data are compatible with the hypothesis that a maritime route connecting Anatolia and Southern Europe through Dodecanese and Crete was the main route used by the Neolithic migrants to reach Europe."

The PCA is based on that pathway of gene flow. You can read about the specific method in the paper.

Am I totally persuaded that it went specifically from Anatolia/northern Levant to Cyprus, then Crete, then other places? No, I'm not, but I think the general parameters fit not only the archaeology but the genetics.

OK, I stand corrected. In Armenia, it's E-M123, and the Cardial "E" is "related" to E-V13. To me that is very suggestive that E-M123 and E-V13 were part of the early Neolithic populations. When E-V13 had its mass expansion is a different matter. I think that happened in the Bronze Age.

 

[LeBrok]

I always preferred route via the Caucasus, in different epochs. Because this path is natural. Between Anatolia and Balkans is sea and most people didn't want cross the sea.

This is interesting site about first boats:

The oldest recovered boat in the world is the 3 meter long Pesse canoe constructed around 8,000 BCE [ Wikipedia ]; but more elaborate craft existed even earlier.

http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~vaucher/History/Prehistoric_Craft/

Does someone knows if it is easy to walk from south to north of Black and Caspian Sea through the beaches? I imagine there might be sections where mountains come straight to the seas creating natural barrier.

 

[Garrick]

Does someone knows if it is easy to walk from south to north of Black and Caspian Sea through the beaches? I imagine there might be sections where mountains come straight to the seas creating natural barrier.

It is not so hard. There were two passes through which peoples moved: Darial pass and Derbent pass.

Darial (Dariel) pass (gorge, gate):

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

Another pass, Derbent, is gateway between Caspian sea and Caucasus.

 

[Yetos]

Crete and Cyprus where inhabited from what time?

 

[bicicleur 2]

Does someone knows if it is easy to walk from south to north of Black and Caspian Sea through the beaches? I imagine there might be sections where mountains come straight to the seas creating natural barrier.

yes 2 easy passes through the Caucasus in historical times and today as Garrick pointed out
with lower sea levels along the eastern shore of the Black Sea was probably possible too

along the seashore was allways depending on the sea level, which for Caspian Sea fluctuated very much because it is actually a lake
Black Sea was a lake too several times

the sea levels are stable now since 8000 years, before they changed much more
expected sea level rise is peanuts compared to what happened in anciant times

the eastern shores of Caspian was impossible to walk as it is a desert without freshwater
but maybe with a horse and a capacity to carry a small amount of water it was possible

 

[Alan]

It is also confirmed that CW and Yamnya people are further apart that what was thought before. much further apart. Some say CW came from EEF.

The split of I and J could have been the the pontic Trabzon area of eastern anatolia

My tendency is rather towards the Iranian plateau, since IJ was found there and the diversity of J is higher there than the Pontic Trabzon.

 

[Garrick]

yes 2 easy passes through the Caucasus in historical times and today as Garrick pointed out
with lower sea levels along the eastern shore of the Black Sea was probably possible too

along the seashore was allways depending on the sea level, which for Caspian Sea fluctuated very much because it is actually a lake
Black Sea was a lake too several times

the sea levels are stable now since 8000 years, before they changed much more
expected sea level rise is peanuts compared to what happened in anciant times

the eastern shores of Caspian was impossible to walk as it is a desert without freshwater
but maybe with a horse and a capacity to carry a small amount of water it was possible

Near East, including Mesopotamia, Anatolia and surrounding areas, were home many tribes who moved to mountains Caucasus and further over these two passes to steppes and European lands.

It is interesting, if we read the Bible from Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, descendants of Japheth migrated in Europe and parts of Central Asia.

http://freepages.folklore.rootsweb....Table of Nations and Genealogy of Mankind.htm

Japhetic families of nations include:

1) Gomer (Celts, Germans, etc., mostly Western Europeans)
2) Magog (Slavs, Ugrofinns, etc., mostly Eastern Europeans)
3) Madai (Persians, Pathans, etc., mostly Iranian and Indian people)
4) Javan (Greeks, Italians, etc., mostly South Europeans)
5) Tubal (Georgians, Albanians, etc., mostly Caucasus people)
6) Meschech (Latvians, Romanians, mostly Eastern Europeans)
7) Tiras (Swedes, Danes, etc. mostly North Europeans)

(Of course someone can says Bible is not science but if he or she thinks that there is no value in this can simply skip.)

Caucasian passes were gateway of different tribes and people through the mountains Caucasus range into Europe in ancient times.

 

[arvistro]

Why Latvians are Mescech? If Slavs and Finns are Magog?

 

[Angela]

Are we seriously going to have posts like this on a genetics and archaeology site? Documents written during the Babylonian Captivity by Hebrew scribes in the 7th century BC are going to be relied on to tell us about ancient population gene flows? You do realize that there were no fully formed west Europeans or northern Europeans living in the Near East at that time, don't you?

Indeed, I'm sure this is just as reliable as what the OT tells us about geology and astronomy and evolution. So, yeah, I'll pass.

 

[Garrick]

Are we seriously going to have posts like this on a genetics and archaeology site? Documents written during the Babylonian Captivity by Hebrew scribes in the 7th century BC are going to be relied on to tell us about ancient population gene flows? You do realize that there were no fully formed west Europeans or northern Europeans living in the Near East at that time, don't you?

Indeed, I'm sure this is just as reliable as what the OT tells us about geology and astronomy and evolution. So, yeah, I'll pass.

Angela, it is clear that this story I gave as illustration that "Dariel Pass" is known to those who study Bible and "the lost" tribes of Israel.

Who likes he or she can reads more about it, but of course you're right about scientific foundation:

http://www.israelite.info/research/sourcedocumentsfiles/dariel-pass.html

 

[Angela]

If we go by this recent Zeder paper, the old view that cereals developed in the southern Levant, then the newer view that cereals developed in the hilly flanks of the Euphrates, along with the proposed long delay between cereal domestication and animal domestication, have all been proved to be incorrect:

View attachment 7327

http://anthropology.si.edu/archaeobio/images/zeder_ca_2011.pdf


Given this kind of intense cultural exchange over thousands of years it would seem odd that there would have been a large amount of substructure in the actual "fertile crescent" area, although perhaps far northern Anatolia and far eastern Anatolia leading to the Caucasus were different. As I said, the ancient dna will be the most important piece of evidence.

I also thought this was interesting in terms of Cyprus:


View attachment 7328

The "more" domesticated animals doubtless came later by way of the same established sea routes, as did pottery. Were they accompanied by some slightly different genes as well?

The paper points out that they didn't just take domesticated plants and "managed" animals with them. They even took things like foxes. It's as if they were transporting their entire home environment with them. Those boats were like miniature Noah's Arks! I'd love to know the entire motivation. It's 160 kilometers by sea to Cyprus from the mainland, as the author pointed out. It must have taken tremendous courage given the state of shipping and navigation at that time. The question for me is why? Was it just to get new land? Wasn't there enough suitable land in the Levant and Anatolia? They couldn't have depleted it all, because newer settlements continued to be built. That's still a mystery.


Well, maybe I answered my own question...this is a map of the most fertile land:

Oh, and I think Maciamo's diffusion of agriculture map still holds up very well as to relative chronology:

 

[Alan]

3) Madai (Persians, Pathans, etc., mostly Iranian and Indian people)
4)

Madai= Medes and their descend the Parthians. Medes are the most mentioned group in the Bible.