ancient Indo-Europeans the big mess about metrics, non-metrics, genetics and archeol

MOESAN

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I was very troubled when I had to choose a thread to place this - because it concerns all aspect of an historic question - sorry - this first post adresses rather to physical anthropology but not uniquely


Diverse scientists made their analysis concerning the anthropological origin of the Russian/Kazakstan Steppes populations, with divergent results:
concerning Scythes, someones, as Der Sarkissian, think the affinities of Scythians of Rostov/Don region are with the southern populations of central-western Asia, very close to the Pamir, Ferghana, Bactria Margiana populations East the Caspian Sea and South-East the Aral Sea – he seems extending this result to all ancient Iranian tribes, seeing the confirmation in the stronger percentages of autosomal 'south-asian' genes among today Iranians, Kurds compared to Armenians and Caucasians – He refuses the East-Europe origin of Iranians tribes – he takes support too upon the percentages of mt-U7, spite the fact U7 is present too among Vikings and western-siberian Oural populations – in archeology, no intrusion would be noticed between 4500 and 600 BC according to him (!) - ... we know all archeology does not always provide evident signs of demic penetration if progressive or pacific...
&: he seems taking as genuine Iranians (in the sense of nomadic I-Ean people) the sedentary populations of the mountains slopes where we can see only a the source of one element among I-Eans concretization...? perhaps denying the iranian identity to tribes as the Andronovo ones?
Der Sarkissian (Armenian?) speaks also of an intrusion in north-eastern Europe at the early Metals Age of remote asian population sending mt-C, mt-Z, mt-D before being almost entirely replaced there by (late) neolithic populations from western and central Europe – he cites the northern Finnland Aboo people very close to modern Buryats (Baikal lake) – he speaks too of a genetic shift at early Bronze Age in the North Pontic zone at the same time similar thing happened with Corded Ware and Bell Beakers people in central Europe (but in this extract it is not said what kind of populations or types were involved) -
&: other surveys on autosomals placed Scythians NOT among east-southern populations (Near-Eastern Caucasus South-Central Asia, BUT BETWEEN them and northern european populations – and apparently the Bronze Age population of Kazakhstan was of 'steppic' type ('cromagnoid' more or less pure, before Iron Age mongoloid progressive crossings) -


a german paper speaks about genetic transformations at bronze Age in the North Pontic zone: estimated that big changes occurred between Copper (Chalcolithic) and Middle Bronze – if the Yamnaya ('Pit Grave' culture) people differed but little from Copper Age other people, the Catacombs people introduced a different population, as lightskinned but darker eyed than current european population (not too precise!!! Sardinians have not the same percentage of blue eyed people than Germans or Poles) - spite the supposed eastern origin of Catacombs people they bore NO asiatic typical mt-DNA and were 'europoids' for the most – the same author considers Scythians were closer to the Catacombs people, farther from the Timber Graves people (Cimmerians?) -
&: me: the light skin concept is poorly informative: i'm not sure they visited all the possible markers responsible for light or lighter skin (as among blonds) – the principal markers are common among all 'caucasoid' types, from Ireland to Arabia and Pakistan -
&&: Catacombs people are considered by someones as very close to the western 'Corded Ware' people – so, not only typically southern types!


a russian scientist considers (autosomals of his analysis) the Caucasus received outside influences and possibly migrations: from Balkans (agricultors) and North Pont (maritime culture) the two linked to Central Europe, and Maykop (possibly from Southern Levant) and Kura-Araxes culture from South the Caucasus PLUS from Seima Turbino (Ouralic or I-E???) and other cultures from northern Asia!!! He said: Caucasus received more than it gave!
Two southern populations (what subtypes? What autsosomals? What HGs?) - Cucuteni Tripolje culture again here?)- what Balkans peasants? Y-E1b? Y-G2???
Other russian scholar wrote the 'mediterranean' affiliation of steppic human types made by someones is out of worth and that even the dolichomorphic longfaced types were closer to the eastern or northern late Neolithic-Chalcolithic Europeans than to the true southern ones -
&: me: all the way the 'gracile dolichomorphs' of the litterature are to be taken with caution: russian scholars gave these statures among the metals ages populations of the S-Central Asia slopes: Kara Depe, Gheoksiur: 1m71,3 – Djarkutan, Makonimor: 1m69,7 – Parkhai: 1m69,5 - Altyn Depe: 1m69,4 – Sumbar: 1m68,0 – exceptions: Sapalli-Tepa: 1m63,0 – Tigrovaya Balka: 1m60,5 !!! as a whole, tall enough people not too robust – the explanation of Sapalli-Tepa being smaller and lighter than neighbour Djarkutan is the well known «way of life» difference, but nothing in archeology give us the smallest element to think the smallest people were less well foden than the tallest ones! Today genuine Afghans (as Iranians) are less tall than the Pathans and the environmental factors seem absent to explain that – the most surprising is the mean given for Harappa people: 1m76,2 (BUT: the females stature compared to others places don't show a so evident «supremacy»: a 1m73-74 would fit better to reality, that said it remains high! + AND: what period? because immigration is proved in Harappa culture spite the eternal «homogenous local population evolving in situ with time...» - there again, the modifications among skeletons were attributed to a «neolithical evolution» upon neighbours incomers: in a survey about strontium isotopes they found that 50% of the people were come from elsewhere, principally the males when females were local for the most: I have not the datation of the sample but it can relativize the monolithical «local evolution», the religion of some scholars;)-
the 20°Century pigmentation in the Hindue Kush and Tadjikistan shows a bit more light and middle coloured haired or eyed than Iranians or Afghans or Pakistanians as a whole (except Lurs or Luri and some Kalashs), the plain Tadjik being yet a bit «fairer» and more dolichocephalic than the mountains ones (we know the majority of steppic peoples were seemingly light haired kight eyed and Y-R1a even if not blond all of them) – I know the today population could have received more mixture from the Steppes as time passed by a «reverse move» from North after the I-Eans birth, but what is clear is that even the sedentary inhabitants of these regions of S-Central Asia at the very beginning of metals ages were far enough from our 'west-mediterranens' and from the 'bedwins' types (1m60/1m65) for stature – even an other russian scholar speaking about the ancient Ferghana speak of a 'proto-europoid' element (typical fo the Steppes nomad people) present but less prominent among the Ferghana people (East-Uzbekistan) – confirmed by the weapons and some pottery of Steppes tribes among southern cultures artefacts – so: trade + mixture or acculturation?


The arbitrary aspect of analysis appears when scholars, in front of short-broad faces and low-broad orbits choose to speak of an «archaïc mediterranean type» when they found it in south-central Asia, and speak of «cro-manoid type» when they found it in Eastern Europe...perhaps have they some other traits to confirm that but I shall be glad to have these useful and pertinent details...


other russian scholars about Pit Grave-Comb Ceramic cultures people speak of two types: a well conserved robust 'cromagnoid' one and a less broad-faced types high statured and a bit less robust but considered as an evolved form of the former type – this last one is considered as the dominant (not unique) type among Andronovo people and other steppic people -
&: in fact, we have the picture of a crossing at diverse proportions between high statured dolichocephalic 'indo-afghan' types with 'cromagnoids' and others assimilated as 'evolved cromagnoid proto-european types', more and more of the southern-eastern types when runing from post-Samara Khvalysnk people to Timber Graves people (Cimmerians?) and then to Catacomb people (Proto-Scythes?) – I recall some brachycephal types among the remote steppic-siberian settlements, often of planoccipital brunet type ('dinaroid') that evocate more the carpathian influence (for me) than a southern Caucasus one (the first well evolved brachycephal types in Anatolia South Caucasus seem appearing about 2000 BC, during the strong age of the metals) and someones think in a balkanic origin – an opposite point of view is the brachycephals we find (later) in the Hindue Kush and Pamir region are 'eastern mediterraneans' evolved in place (always with the hypothesis of brachycephally conditioned by neolithic way of life, what is not proved at all: a lot of proofs undermines this theory everywhere, albeit in its simplistic mechanical form) -I think personally the famous 'touranid' type (Pamir) is a mix of diverse 'europoids' where the 'dinaroid' type is dominant, with some introgressions of 'east-asian' types, more on the side of the genuine large faced mongolic type (the first type among first Turcs? (confirmed by mt DNA)


the dominant 'Corded Ware' people type is very tall, dolichocephalic, high and narrow enough faced, with a longiligne constitution not without a certain robusticity – when we go the details, we find some variations according to the authors – sometimes big and high orbits, sometines broad but low orbits, more or less «brutal» lien of the frontal etc...Coon thought it was a component among modern 'nordic' types and 'indo-afghan-eurafrican' types , and that it was the dominant type among first indo-Iranians tribes – I personally see no typically 'cromagnoid' trait among them (always the 'brünn-capelloid' qualified of 'cromagnoid'): maybe a prototype of the genuine 'nordic' type (from what phylum?) with partially gracilized 'brünn-capelloid' plus 'indo-afghan' : all were tall: I 'm sure I can recognize some 'indo-afghan' bony traits among Germany, England, The Netherlands and Poland people: the problem is the Neolithic peasants could have had a small proportion of this type too...
the important fact is that the 3 types had very high faces (what is not always the case among South-Central Asia well evolved «oasis» population of the mountains slopes) and were not confused with true broad faced 'cromagnoid' more typical (at that time) of the northwestern part of the Steppes in East Europa -
the relatively gracile skeletons and the dolichocephally associated to narrower faces confused us: even if an ancient phylum links the 3 long faced people one to another, their later evolution surely took place in different place and imagining a same recent and reduced place of birth to them leads to simplify the problem of the I-E 'urheimat' from the anthropologic aspect -
some russian scholars too indentified a highfaced type mixed with broadfaced 'cromagnoids' in the post-'Ahrenburg' 'Swiderian' culture preceding the 'Pit Graves' one, in the regions East and North-East to Moscow, culture non-I-E non-Ouralic (they believed the Y-I1 HG was a significative part of this culture people and that at least some elements were coming from Denmark-Germany at Mesolithic: these today populations have 10% to 15% of Y-I1 + 3% to 6% of Y-I2a2 exI2b) – whatever this high faced type, it proves this kind of features was not absent in N-E Europe at Mesolithic times and doesn't need a recent South-Eastern introgression into the Steppes -


an Armenian scholar found the Bronze North Pontic people but also the North and North-West and Central Europe AND Russian Steppes populations had a significant amount of Highlands Armenia people of the period! (based on upon Skulls and non-metric traits, teeth and cranial)- his work about Armenian people continuity and quasi-purity push me to have some doubts


You can see here the contradictions and imprecisions born by these diverses scholars and their «schools» - an almost complete southern mediterranean origin for steppic I-Eans for someones opposed to an almost complete proto-north-europid origin for the same steppic people – and I 'don't speak about the thesis assessing a turkic origin to a lot of these same people (Scythians by instance)!!!
I 'm longing to the old typologic metric surveys whatever their defects, sometimes -
 
he cites the northern Finnland Aboo people very close to modern Buryats (Baikal lake)

sorry, thats nonsense. Discussions about that make no sende.
 
sorry, thats nonsense. Discussions about that make no sende.

highly marginal but maybe linked to I-E remote past (Uralic+ ???)
don't be sorry - explain us why it's nonsense - maybe I had mistaken you: the Aboo population in discussion was the mesolithic one, not the present day one
 
why no sense?
The Aboo people of that time is not 100% identical to the present day region population - what is your point, more precisely (your post was very very short!)
no offense, by the way -
 
Moesan, all this leads to only one possible conclusion: there never were any "Indoeruopeans". We have many Protoindoeuropeans (many different genetic cultural and linguistic groups) which mixed together creating what we call today "Indoeuropean" cultural and linguistic continuum. There never was one "PIE" language. There were many "PIE" languages which mixed together and formed today's Indoeuropean languages. The reason why we ever arrived to the PIE theory is because we have people carrying R1a haplogroup from Ireland to India, which probably carried the same neolithic or even paleolithic root language and culture. Due to huge distances in time and space and mixing of these people in Evro Asia with other non R1a people, we ended up with a Indoeruopean linguistic continuum. But R1a people are not the only wide spread population in Evroasia. We also have I1 and I2 people, R1b, E, G....people who all contributed to the mix with their languages and cultures. Today when we have a look at the Evroasian population, we can see many common linguistic and cultural traits which people in the past attributed to the single PIE population. But today with all the new genetic, archaeological and ethnographic data a new picture emerges:


languages.jpg
 

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