The rise of PIEs in the steppes --- From the Ural or from the from the Caucasus?

bertrand

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In this post I wish to react to the excellent article of Maciamo on the origin of red haired people. I agree with everything that he wrote except on one point: the origin of R1b (and R1a).

Maciamo favors “The theory of middle east origin (a point which very few population geneticists disagree) followed by a migration to the north Caucasus and Pontic Steppe).”

My opinion is that R1a and R1b came much more likely from the Ural Mountains than from the Caucasus. Several hints guide me to this conclusion:

  • Ancestor/cousin clades of R1a and R1b: R1, R2, M73 show very clearly a pattern of migration starting in Pakistan and moving up north to the Urals (probably at the end of the ice age). The study of Myres et Al shows clearly that M73 is today present mostly in Pakistan and in the Urals. (google map: M73 marker)


  • The linguist David Anthony who studied the origin of IE languages clearly established in his book the “Wheel, the Horse and language” that the similarities between PIE and Uralic languages were greater than with the languages of the Caucasus. Similarities between PIE languages and semitic languages were on the other hand very few. Therefore ancient ties between semites and IEs are unlikely.


  • Around 8000BC there was a water stream between the Caspian and the Black see, due to the melting ice. Both seas were much wider than currently. Communication between the Steppes and the Caucausus was greatly hampered. On the other hand, Anthony shows clearly cultural migrations down the Volga.


  • Everyone agrees on the reverse migration of R1a toward the Urals and from there, down to Iran and India. If there was a clear flux of migrations across the Caucasus, the R1a people would have migrated directly across semitic land, the direct route. It much more likely that the exchanges and ties between the steppes and the middle east across the Caucasus were very few. On the other hand, the route up the Volga was natural for them since they had taken that route several times before. (Tarim mummies)


  • Turkey: I believe the fact that many R1bs were found in Turkey is a misleading factor. Anthony shows that the Anatolian R1bs migrated from the lower Danube around 4000BC. But their cultural heritage linked them very clearly back to the Steppes.
 
My opinion is that R1a and R1b came much more likely from the Ural Mountains than from the Caucasus.
the region east to the Volga for a long time was a waste land. Later, some Yamna tribes settled in the south-east Ural regions. It peaks during Arkhaim/Sintasta days. However the whole region became almost depopulated by the Andronovo migration to the south-east. It became populated later by some northern tribes (probably Uralians) and even more later by the migration of Iranians who left the south by 'political changes' there. Somewhat later these Iranian immigrants left the mentioned region together with some 'natives' either to the west or most to the south-east again. The Ural Mountains wasn't the IE origins, as well as the Caucasus wasn't. The IE originated from tribes who settled to the west of the Urals.
 
I agree but where did these tribes come from?
The region of Bashkortostan was not a wasteland. As a matter of fact the caves of Shulgan Tash and others in the region was a thriving center of human occupation after the ice age, around 10 000 BC.

Later, these men moved south.
The study of David Anthony shows clearly that the horse started to be domesticated before 5000 BC in the upper Volga.
Much of the evidence was later erased by the back-migration of r1a people, but the communication channels north of the Caspian have always remained open as shown by the migration of the people of the Tarim (Tarim mummies)



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I agree but where did these tribes come from?
The region of Bashkortostan was not a wasteland. As a matter of fact the caves of Shulgan Tash and others in the region was a thriving center of human occupation after the ice age, around 10 000 BC.

Later, these men moved south.
The study of David Anthony shows clearly that the horse started to be domesticated before 5000 BC in the upper Volga.
Much of the evidence was later erased by the back-migration of r1a people, but the communication channels north of the Caspian have always remained open as shown by the migration of the people of the Tarim (Tarim mummies)



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Search instead for bashtortostan

If I remember well, the cultures east of the Ural mountains (Botai, Kelterminar) in present day Kazakhstan had nothing in common with the cultures of the Volga Ural region.
While the Pontic steppe and Volga steppe cultures had adopted agriculture, the Kelterminar and Botai cultures remained at the mesolithic stage long after. We still don't know to which haplogroup belonged pre IE Central Asian cultures (R1b M-73?) .
 
  • The linguist David Anthony who studied the origin of IE languages clearly established in his book the “Wheel, the Horse and language” that the similarities between PIE and Uralic languages were greater than with the languages of the Caucasus. Similarities between PIE languages and semitic languages were on the other hand very few. Therefore ancient ties between semites and IEs are unlikely.
well the work of Joseph Yehunda proves the opposite, it seems like IE are very connected with Elamitic,

the later of Leyla teppe culture archaiological findings simmilar to Maykop but older, send us to North-West as homeland of IE and surely connects them with Gedrosian,

All the linguistic methods have results like Greco-Aryan, Indo-Hettite etc which also send us to south of Caucas and not Ural mountains.



  • Around 8000BC there was a water stream between the Caspian and the Black see, due to the melting ice. Both seas were much wider than currently. Communication between the Steppes and the Caucausus was greatly hampered. On the other hand, Anthony shows clearly cultural migrations down the Volga.
the earliest IE theory starts at 6000 BC with G2 Hg, the Farming Anatolian Hypothsesis

the Kurgans and arsenic Bronze theory starts at about 4000 BC



  • Everyone agrees on the reverse migration of R1a toward the Urals and from there, down to Iran and India. If there was a clear flux of migrations across the Caucasus, the R1a people would have migrated directly across semitic land, the direct route. It much more likely that the exchanges and ties between the steppes and the middle east across the Caucasus were very few. On the other hand, the route up the Volga was natural for them since they had taken that route several times before. (Tarim mummies)
Chariots and horses how usefull are in Volga mud?
Hettits were running fast as Gods in minor Asia with chariots, could they do the same in Volga lands where the soil is near sea lvl, no rocky underground, and mud is over 9 months per year?
mud is killing Horses, makes them sick, chariots stuck in mud,
but what about Balkans and minor Asia, land is dry, and stones are everywhere,
Balkans have big diversity of R1a to be a start point of R1a, yet by the today search we consider it as a sink phenomena diversity, but is it?


  • Turkey: I believe the fact that many R1bs were found in Turkey is a misleading factor. Anthony shows that the Anatolian R1bs migrated from the lower Danube around 4000BC. But their cultural heritage linked them very clearly back to the Steppes.

hmmm what about the Gedrosian component in R1b's HG? and the role of J2 Hg?
 
Thanks for your analysis, Bertrand.

You've raised some interesting points. But I have thought about all this in depth over the years. I am not the kind of person who leaves anything to chance.

There are three problems with an Uralic origin of R1b :

1) Haplogroup R1b is estimated to be at least 20,000 years old, while R1 would be around 25,000 years old. This time frame straddles the Last Glacial Maximum, when living conditions around the Urals would have been extremely difficult to say the least. I am not even sure that human remains from this period have been unearthed around the Urals. Besides, these people were nomadic hunter-gatherers, so even if they did occasionally travel to the Urals region, they probably chose to spend most of their time in warmer climates farther south, probably around modern Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan, if not further south.

2) If R1b originated in the Urals, how do you suggest that R1b-V88 ended up in the Levant and throughout most of Africa, and that the oldest subclades (notably R1b1* or P25) are found mostly in the Middle East (+ a bit in Europe), but never in Siberia ? The subclades of R1b found in Russia, Ukraine or even among the Uyghurs are all R1b1a1 (M73) or R1b1a2 (M269), or downstream of these subclades.

3) How could the Steppe cultures have acquired the whole Neolithic package (tools, pottery, agriculture, and most importantly domesticated animals like cows and sheep) if there was no migration from the Middle East to the steppes ? The Kurgan and Yamna cultures were based on stock-breeding. Horses were almost certainly domesticated (c. 4000 BCE) because these people already had the experience of herding cows and sheep. Once domesticated, horses were quickly ridden out of necessity, when it became obvious that it conferred a tremendous advantage to monitor the herds over the vat open steppes, and that it made it easier to travel long distances.


betrand said:
Around 8000BC there was a water stream between the Caspian and the Black see, due to the melting ice. Both seas were much wider than currently. Communication between the Steppes and the Caucausus was greatly hampered. On the other hand, Anthony shows clearly cultural migrations down the Volga.

This is exactly why I have always placed the migration of R1b from Anatolia to the North Caucasus-Pontic Steppe between 7000 and 5000 BCE. This is what is explained in my R1b history and what has been shown on the R1b migration map I created in 2008. The Kurgan culture actually starts from 7000 BCE. I don't think it is a coincidence. This corresponds to the arrival of R1b in the steppes, with Neolithic technologies and domesticated animals from the Middle East.

bertrand said:
The linguist David Anthony who studied the origin of IE languages clearly established in his book the “Wheel, the Horse and language” that the similarities between PIE and Uralic languages were greater than with the languages of the Caucasus. Similarities between PIE languages and semitic languages were on the other hand very few. Therefore ancient ties between semites and IEs are unlikely.

This is only natural since PIE languages emerged in the Pontic Steppe, not in Anatolia. Whatever language the original Middle-Eastern R1b spoke, it evolved quickly after they migrated north of the Caucasus, probably because of the contact with the indigenous R1a people. In fact, the Proto-Indo-European language is estimated to have arisen only in 3700 BCE, over 3000 years after the start of the Kurgan culture (the presumed arrival of R1b in the steppes). Their closest neighbours were Uralic people, who were partly overrun by the Indo-European expansion, and have lived side-by-side to IE speakers for the last 5,500 years. It's hardly surprising that there should have been borrowings (in both directions) between these language groups.

The Caucasus on the other hand has always been extremely secluded, which explains why so many minor languages have survived undisturbed for millennia.

Note Fournet and Bomhard identified striking similarities between the roots of Proto-Indo-European and Hurrian, the ancient language of northern Mesopotamia. This, I believe, is further evidence that R1b originated in eastern Anatolia. However it would be wrong to assume that R1b people were the only source of PIE. I have long insisted that PIE was born from the merger of the native R1b and R1a languages. That is the only solid explanation as to why both R1a and R1b were responsible for the spread of IE languages.

I also want to make it clear that the Kurgan and Yamna people were nomadic pastoralists living in small tribes. So, although this 'confederacy' of tribes lived side-by-side, traded together, intermarried, and spoke a common language (or more likely similar dialects), they didn't form a unified society. I imagine that the R1b tribes must have lived in the south, closer to the Black Sea, as they migrated to the Balkans and went up the Danube, which only fits the time frame of R1b migration. The R1a tribes lived separately in the north and east, and expanded to the Baltic and Central Asia. A few R1b tribes might have ended up in Siberia and Central Asia too, explaining the occasional appearance of a few R1b among the R1a populations (this is the case virtually everywhere, in Tukmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, India and even Nepal).


bertrand said:
Turkey: I believe the fact that many R1bs were found in Turkey is a misleading factor. Anthony shows that the Anatolian R1bs migrated from the lower Danube around 4000BC. But their cultural heritage linked them very clearly back to the Steppes.

If you can understand that (unlike Dienekes, Davidski, and quite a few "professional" population geneticists like Balaresque, King, Adams et al., who still think that R1b and PIE spread with agriculture directly from Anatolia), I think you can understand the rest of my reasoning.
 
My opinion is that R1a and R1b came much more likely from the Ural Mountains than from the Caucasus. Several hints guide me to this conclusion:

  • Everyone agrees on the reverse migration of R1a toward the Urals and from there, down to Iran and India. If there was a clear flux of migrations across the Caucasus, the R1a people would have migrated directly across semitic land, the direct route. It much more likely that the exchanges and ties between the steppes and the middle east across the Caucasus were very few. On the other hand, the route up the Volga was natural for them since they had taken that route several times before. (Tarim mummies)
There was no back migration of hg. R1a into Central Asia. There's a difference between the East European R1a and R1a native to Central Asian.
 
"The prevailing Y-chromosome lineage in Pashtun and Tajik (R1a1a-M17), has the highest observed diversity among populations of the Indus Valley [46]. R1a1a-M17 diversity declines toward the Pontic-Caspian steppe where the mid-Holocene R1a1a7-M458 sublineage is dominant [46]. R1a1a7-M458 was absent in Afghanistan, suggesting that R1a1a-M17 does not support, as previously thought [47], expansions from the Pontic Steppe [3], bringing the Indo-European languages to Central Asia and India."


from: Afghanistan's Ethnic Groups Share a Y-Chromosomal Heritage Structured by Historical Events

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0034288
 
If I remember well, the cultures east of the Ural mountains (Botai, Kelterminar) in present day Kazakhstan had nothing in common with the cultures of the Volga Ural region.

Interestingly, Wikipedia cites two old articles from 2004 and 2005 which claim that the Kelteminar people were belonging to both, Finno-ugric peoples and the Pit-Comb Ware culture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelteminar_culture). The Pit-Comb core area overlapped with the northern Volga-Ural area, and today there are living Udmurts, Moksha, Erzya and turcic Tatars and Bashkirs. It is not so far from the Aral sea anymore.
 
1) Haplogroup R1b is estimated to be at least 20,000 years old, while R1 would be around 25,000 years old. This time frame straddles the Last Glacial Maximum, when living conditions around the Urals would have been extremely difficult to say the least. I am not even sure that human remains from this period have been unearthed around the Urals. .

Maciamo, as i have argued in my article on the topic (in French at bertrandjost.com/Francais/Monog-famille/Jost/Steppes/conquete-steppes.html) the ancestors of the R1b and R1a emigrated to the Ural from northern Pakistan AFTER the end of the ice age. They followed the retreating ice to the Urals around the Caspian.
If you study the distribution of R1, R2 and the Marker M73, you will see that they originate in Northern Pakistan and M73 (sister clade of M269) clearly shows a pattern of migration from Pakistan to the Urals.


2) If R1b originated in the Urals, how do you suggest that R1b-V88 ended up in the Levant and throughout most of Africa, and that the oldest subclades (notably R1b1* or P25) are found mostly in the Middle East (+ a bit in Europe), but never in Siberia ? The subclades of R1b found in Russia, Ukraine or even among the Uyghurs are all R1b1a1 (M73) or R1b1a2 (M269), or downstream of these subclades.


As I said R1, R1b and R1a probably originated in Northern Pakistan. The majority went up north toward the Urals while a minority went toward Iran, and Africa. But this minority is not the ancestors of European R1bs.


3) How could the Steppe cultures have acquired the whole Neolithic package (tools, pottery, agriculture, and most importantly domesticated animals like cows and sheep) if there was no migration from the Middle East to the steppes ? The Kurgan and Yamna cultures were based on stock-breeding. Horses were almost certainly domesticated (c. 4000 BCE) because these people already had the experience of herding cows and sheep. Once domesticated, horses were quickly ridden out of necessity, when it became obvious that it conferred a tremendous advantage to monitor the herds over the vat open steppes, and that it made it easier to travel long distances.

As Anthony clearly shows, the Neolitic package was acquired from the Tell settlements of eastern Europe, NOT from the middle east. The Farming technology spread from Anatolia, to Eastern Europe and then only to the Steppes. the PIE culture arised in the Steppes once the neolitic package reached them from Europe. But what made them more efficient eventually was their domestication of the Horse which was a native animal of the Steppes and the mutation that made their adults tolerent to milk.


Again there are two phases: the arrival of indigenous people of the steppes (long before 5000BC) and the rise of the PIE culture around 4500BC due to the assimilation and transformation of the neolitic package.


Note Fournet and Bomhard identified striking similarities between the roots of Proto-Indo-European and Hurrian, the ancient language of northern Mesopotamia. This, I believe, is further evidence that R1b originated in eastern Anatolia. However it would be wrong to assume that R1b people were the only source of PIE.

IEs spread in Anatolia after 4000BC from the Steppes. Hittites, Urrians might be descendants of this emigration wave, but i do not think that they are ancestors of the PIEs of the Steppes.


I also want to make it clear that the Kurgan and Yamna people were nomadic pastoralists living in small tribes. So, although this 'confederacy' of tribes lived side-by-side, traded together, intermarried, and spoke a common language (or more likely similar dialects), they didn't form a unified society. I imagine that the R1b tribes must have lived in the south, closer to the Black Sea, as they migrated to the Balkans and went up the Danube, which only fits the time frame of R1b migration. The R1a tribes lived separately in the north and east, and expanded to the Baltic and Central Asia. A few R1b tribes might have ended up in Siberia and Central Asia too, explaining the occasional appearance of a few R1b among the R1a populations (this is the case virtually everywhere, in Tukmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, India and even Nepal)."


I think the genetic makeout of Bashkortostan where many M73 are found (sister clade of M269) are a sign of something more than simply "a few R1bs" moving north.
 
Also the latest DNA Tribes article suggests that PROTO-Indo-European came from West Asia (Anatolia/South Caucasus) and settled down in the Balkan Peninsula and from there on they spread Indo-European languages (or dialects at that point of time) to other parts of Europe.

"This suggests that the Anatolia-South Caucasus components might (in part) reflect genetic traces of Indo-European expansions since the Neolithic period. These expansions might have involved the mixed Neolithic buffer societies that expanded and dispersed from the Balkan Peninsula, who would have carried their Neolithic technologies and Indo-European languages into other parts of Europe."

http://www.dnatribes.com/dnatribes-...30_2012_-_1&campaigner=1&utm_medium=HTMLEmail

indoeuropeans.jpg


indoeuropeans2.jpg


Happy 2013!
 
The steppes model is outdated and pretty much dead because of the rise of the modern DNA technologies and computers.
 
The steppes model is outdated and pretty much dead because of the rise of the modern DNA technologies and computers.

I don't get why they call the supposed IE-component "Anatolia-South Caucasus" when it peaks in Poland, Scandinavia, Scythians, Belgium while it is almost minimal in Greece and Sicily (low score of Finland is a surprise though). Even Uralics have similar scores. They even claim in the text that it is a mixed component. The neolithic expansion is possible of course, but not more than it was already before. The Anatolia-South Caucasus Component actually fits well to our known Northern European Component, just with the new exception of Finnic (31% only).
Actually it pretty much supports the steppe theory, which also assumes a very early origin in the Near East (R1b). It just says that the neolithic proto-IE mixed buffer population formed in the steppes instead of the balkans. I don't get why the peaks in Poland, Scythians, Norse and Germanic suggest a neolithic expansion to europe (neolithic for the european steppes only maybe yes).

The isolated composition of Albanians within the Balkan population and their possible ties with Ireland or Egypt and Balochistan is actually a much bigger surprise.
 
The steppes model is outdated and pretty much dead because of the rise of the modern DNA technologies and computers.

Computers are useful tools, but they don't replace thinking. :wink:

My main objection to the Anatolian / Neolithic model, from the genetic perspective, is that we now know that substantial demographic changes occured in Europe during the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age - I don't see how IE could have been preserved despite such an influx of newcomers.

Also, you would have to assume that the people of Treilles, Derenburg as well as Ötzi would have all been speakers of Proto-Indo-European.
 
I don't get why they call the supposed IE-component "Anatolia-South Caucasus" when it peaks in Poland, Scandinavia, Scythians, Belgium while it is almost minimal in Greece and Sicily (low score of Finland is a surprise though). Even Uralics have similar scores. They even claim in the text that it is a mixed component. The neolithic expansion is possible of course, but not more than it was already before. The Anatolia-South Caucasus Component actually fits well to our known Northern European Component, just with the new exception of Finnic (31% only).
Actually it pretty much supports the steppe theory, which also assumes a very early origin in the Near East (R1b). It just says that the neolithic proto-IE mixed buffer population formed in the steppes instead of the balkans. I don't get why the peaks in Poland, Scythians, Norse and Germanic suggest a neolithic expansion to europe (neolithic for the european steppes only maybe yes).

The isolated composition of Albanians within the Balkan population and their possible ties with Ireland or Egypt and Balochistan is actually a much bigger surprise.

Search the Varna Necropolis to understand how many oxymoron produce,
both theories have missing links today,

for example Gibutas theory is oudated and droped, Steppe people did not have or build kurgans,
the anatolia theory as clear neolithic farmic also drops, cause of vocabulary that is common after the discovery of metals, (it was expressed and analyzed by Taranis in another post)

genetics still need more samples to me, alone they can not explain language, must be in combo,
for example the combo arsenic bronze + R1 is a good candidate for IE language expand explanation,
but what about gold mettalurgy? and burial customs, can not combine.
the key to IE is Summerian and Akkadian and Altai languages,
Summerian has connection with Altai as Nostradic, but also has connection with Akkadian as Ur-Urartian.

just look why R1b Basques are not IE
why R1a Turks are not IE,
and why J1a Nakhs are not IE,
the case of Finnland is a strong arque that IE last frontier might be Baltic, and not so early as Urnfield,

to make a theory strong must have many strong arguement and less oponent arguements,
both theories are collapsed,
meaning that we must search for possible alternative or other waves to create combo that can can stand,

Tocharians culture is not steppe culture, it is also minor-Asian middle East culture.
Steppe people did not had kurgans cause if they had, we would see them from steppe to India, which we do not.
 
Computers are useful tools, but they don't replace thinking. :wink:

My main objection to the Anatolian / Neolithic model, from the genetic perspective, is that we now know that substantial demographic changes occured in Europe during the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age - I don't see how IE could have been preserved despite such an influx of newcomers.

Also, you would have to assume that the people of Treilles, Derenburg as well as Ötzi would have all been speakers of Proto-Indo-European.

the case of Otzi been IE speaker is limited, but although possible,
the problem with Anatolian-farming theory is the commonality about war machines, weapons, etc,
if these words were spread by producers, means they spread fast.
although we may have a common borrowing, like the word 'computer' today,
all languages have a word to describe computer, but there are people that did know how it is in their language,

on the other hand, how you explained the balkanic Varna necropolis burial custom and gold mettalurgy?
how from Balkans went to Steppe gold mettalurgy? by invasion?
reject the sink phenomena in balkans, and you have another theory of R1a homeland and spread of IE,

the point is that the most ancient connection with IE is Summerian,
but does not provide solution cause its combined with both Altai and Akkadian languages,
in these cases only αφαιρετικες θεωριες, (reject or minus one's data and rebuild until a stable ) can help in a possble sollution
except if Varna Necropolis reveals its secrets,
and again we might have a language of cross roads,
a neolithic IE and a warriors-sachs class language that mix,
 
Computers are useful tools, but they don't replace thinking. :wink:

My main objection to the Anatolian / Neolithic model, from the genetic perspective, is that we now know that substantial demographic changes occured in Europe during the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age - I don't see how IE could have been preserved despite such an influx of newcomers.

Also, you would have to assume that the people of Treilles, Derenburg as well as Ötzi would have all been speakers of Proto-Indo-European.
No, you don't understand. According to this article there were different waves from the Middle East. At least one (Semitic-Hamitic) wave came from the Levant and other from South Caucasus. The Levant and the Arabian peninsula was and is the homeland of Semitic nations, from Jews to Assyrians & Arabs. While South Caucasus region was never urheimat of the Semites (, Semites were the invaders there).

It's also possible that PROTO-Indo-European dialect was born in the Balkans and that it's was a hybrid language between languages from West Asia and Balkan Peninsula.
 
although we may have a common borrowing, like the word 'computer' today,
all languages have a word to describe computer, but there are people that did know how it is in their language
Kurgan theory doesn't make any sense. To much anachronic and chronologic mistakes and ploteholes that it's look like a fantasy fairtale or a bad sciense-fiction story. It's a product of the last 20th century.

Also the word 'computer' existed many centuries before computer was ever invented!
 
Would the shift from Kurgan Theory (Russian Steppes) to Anatolia have anything to do with the discovery Gobekli Tepe? I've been drawn to Gobekli Tepe for some time now, and knew immediately it was a game changer. It predates the Neolithic Revolution and has aspects that could go back to Mesolithic. I've been waiting for the establishment gears to re-orient to GT (And I've been expecting Spencer Wells to claim Anatolia as R's new launching site--just kidding. Kind of.)

Only 15% of the site has been uncovered so far. Photos don't do justice to how large the area is--if you have a chance watch a video to get a better idea of scale.

And I have the builders of Gobekli Tepe as I and J. Total gut feeling, but a strong one.
 
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