Did the Chinese Bronze Age originate in the Eurasian Steppe ?

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The Bronze Age appears to have originated around the Caucasus circa 3500 BCE, with the Maykop culture (3700—2000 BCE) and the approximately contemporaneous Kura-Araxes culture (3500—2200 BCE). Older Bronze objects have been found in Serbia dating from 4500 BCE, but the practice was discontinued until the Steppe people invaded the region c. 3000 BCE.

The Chinese Bronze Age started relatively early, c. 3100 BCE with the Majiayao culture, located around the modern provinces of Gansu and Qinghai, roughly between Mongolia and Tibet. It is interesting that the Bronze Age should have appeared in such a remote north-western region, along what would become the Silk Road, and in direct continuity of the Tarim basin.

Archaeology shows that a group of early horse riders from the Repin culture (3700-3300 BCE) in the Don-Volga region migrated to the Altai mountains, establishing the Afanasevo culture (c. 3600-2400 BCE). I have postulated that those Afanasevo people, who most probably belonged to Y-haplogroup R1a and/or R1b, moved south to the Tarim Basin. So far the oldest evidence of the presence of R1a in the Tarim basin comes from the testing of 4000 year-old Y-DNA by Li et al. (2010). All the samples tested belonged to R1a1a.

Whether R1a or R1b people moved into Xinjiang (north-west China) as early as the 4th millennium BCE remains to be determined. Notwithstanding, the Afanasevo culture in the Altai was a Copper then Bronze Age culture and spread over a very wide region north of the Altai and into modern Mongolia. I doubt that it is a coincidence that Majiayao culture, just on the other side of the Altai and Gobi desert, suddenly developed bronze working on its own without any influence of the nearby Afanasevo culture.

Afanasevo people were horse riders who had journeyed thousands of kilometres from the Volga region until Mongolia. Surely they must have come into contact with the Chinese at one point or another, whether it is them who travelled to China, or Chinese traders who travelled to the Altai. Either way the Chinese could have imported copper and bronze artefacts and learned how to make some themselves.

Let us keep in mind that bronze technology has not emerged independently anywhere in western Eurasia, and was not properly developed at all in Africa, Papua, Australia or the Americas. All the Middle Eastern, South Asian, Central Asian and European bronze ages have their source in the North Caucasus, which was itself an offshoot of the Balkano-Anatolian Copper Age.

It would be an unmatched historical coincidence if the Chinese managed to invent the bronze alloy completely on their own exactly a few centuries after steppe nomads brought bronze technology to Mongolia. I don't believe is that kind of coincidences.

There is even genetic evidence to support that a small number of Proto-Indo-Europeans (R1a and/or R1b) infiltrated the whole East Asian gene pool. Haplogroup R1a and R1b are found at high percentages in the Altai (40% to 90% of male lineages), at relatively high percentages in Xinjiang (up to 20% in some Uyghur populations), and in small but substantial percentages in Mongolia (up to 10%). R1a has also been found at trace frequencies among Han Chinese.

More interestingly, autosomal DNA also shows that most East Asians (Chinese, Koreans, Japanese) have a traces of Northeast European DNA. The K12 data of the Dodecad Project shows, for example, that the East European admixture is found in 0.9% of Japanese, 0.8% of Chinese, and 0.6% of Korean people from the project. This admixture has been found to correlate extremely reliably with haplogroup R1a, and is completely absent from the Sardinian population, which was completely bypassed by the Indo-European migrations.

Therefore I would like to propose that the Bronze Age in China was introduced by a small number of R1a individuals from the Afanasevo culture shortly before 3100 BCE.

The main difference with western Eurasia is that this wasn't a conquest. The Indo-European language and culture did not replace or even visibly influence that the various Neolithic Chinese cultures of the time. The only possible Indo-European contribution is the concept of a supreme sky deity, which appears in China during the Bronze Age under the name of Shangdi, a Chinese equivalent of Zeus, Jupiter, Odin and other regional variants of the Proto-Indo-European sky god.
 
IMO copper age Afanasevo was R1b, and they were replaced by Iranians, derived from bronze and arsenical bronze age Sintashta some around 2000 BC
The 10-15 % R1b in the western Tarim basin may be descendants from Afanasevo, who spoke a Tocharian language. 6th century Tocharian writings have been found in a Budhist monastery in the western Tarim basin.
The Tarim mummies dating from 1800 BC were found in the eastern Tarim basin and were R1a, Iranians.
Afanesevo culture must have occupied very large steppe territories, but I don't think they went all the way to China.
The Afanasevo traded with neighbouring tribes, among which the Yingouzi (C-P53.1) in Mongolia and some other tribes, I suspect Q-M120.
Majiayao were millet farmers near the Gansu corridor, probably haplo N or O, coming from China. They got horses, copper and bronze from Q-M120.
When climate became more arid, Majiayao people abandonned the Gansu corridor, and Q-M120 made direct contact with China. This was the first discovery of the northern silkroad.
The R1a Iranians entered the Tarim basin 1800 BC. Q-M120 fled further east through the Gansu corridor to China. Their DNA has been found in northwest China, 3000 year ago among Han aristocrats and 2500 year ago in Pengyuan.
700 BC R1a Yuezhi were trading jade and other items with China through the Gansu corridor, till they were defeated by the Xiongnu, 200 BC. They didn't stay in China, they fled to Bactria.
 
Interresting. It is noteworthy mentionning the findings of West Eurasian mtDNA lineages among various East Asian populantions from Xinjiang to Japan. I even hypothesized that East Asian royalties (like the one in Japan) may carry R1a* or R1b* in their Y chromosomes in another thread. However it is ironic that in Japan such lineages appear in the Mongoloid/Yayoi type population rather than the Ainu/Jomon type one which was/is deemed Caucasoid by some outdated anthropologists and/or White nationalists.
 
Maykop culture has its origin somewhere South of the Caspian Sea (Leyla Tepe), maybe even in the Zagros Mountains. Later those folks moved to the Steppes (Yamna) and Indo-Europized the folks in the Yamna Horizon. R1a or R1b people did not move into Xinjiang at the same time. R1a in that area is very Iranic (and not the European type) and migrated there with the several Iranic migration waves from South-Central Asia. That’s why you find a lot West Asian Y-DNA and also Caucaso-Gedrosia auDNA in that area. Ancient Iranic people were like their current modern descendants for a great part Caucaso-Gedrosia folks.
 
From wiki about the Leyla-Tepe culture:


The Leyla-Tepe culture is a culture ofarchaeological interest from the Chalcolithic era. Its population was distributed on the southern slopes of the Central Caucasus (modern Azerbaijan, Agdam District), from 4350 until 4000 B.C.

Monuments ofthe Leyla-Tepe were first located in the 1980s by I.G. Narimanov, a Soviet archaeologist.


Characteristics and influences

The Leyla-Tepe culture includes asettlement in the lower layer of the settlements Poilu I, Poilu II, Boyuk-KesikI and Boyuk-Kesik II. They apparently buried their dead in ceramic vessels. Similar amphora burials in the South Caucasus are found in the Western Georgian Jar-Burial Culture. The culture has also been linked to the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements in the Eastern Anatolia Region (Arslan-tepe, Coruchu-tepe, Tepechik, etc.). The settlement is of a typical Western-Asian variety, with the dwellings packed closely together and made of mud bricks withs moke outlets. It has been suggested that the Leyla-Tepe were the founders of the Maykop culture. An expedition to Syria by the Russian Academy of Sciences revealed the similarity of the Maykop and Leyla-Tepe artifacts with those found recently while excavating the ancient city of Tel Khazneh I, from the 4th millennium BC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leyla-Tepe_culture
 
From wiki about the Leyla-Tepe culture:


The Leyla-Tepe culture is a culture ofarchaeological interest from the Chalcolithic era. Its population was distributed on the southern slopes of the Central Caucasus (modern Azerbaijan, Agdam District), from 4350 until 4000 B.C.

Monuments ofthe Leyla-Tepe were first located in the 1980s by I.G. Narimanov, a Soviet archaeologist.


Characteristics and influences

The Leyla-Tepe culture includes asettlement in the lower layer of the settlements Poilu I, Poilu II, Boyuk-KesikI and Boyuk-Kesik II. They apparently buried their dead in ceramic vessels. Similar amphora burials in the South Caucasus are found in the Western Georgian Jar-Burial Culture. The culture has also been linked to the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements in the Eastern Anatolia Region (Arslan-tepe, Coruchu-tepe, Tepechik, etc.). The settlement is of a typical Western-Asian variety, with the dwellings packed closely together and made of mud bricks withs moke outlets. It has been suggested that the Leyla-Tepe were the founders of the Maykop culture. An expedition to Syria by the Russian Academy of Sciences revealed the similarity of the Maykop and Leyla-Tepe artifacts with those found recently while excavating the ancient city of Tel Khazneh I, from the 4th millennium BC.

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


I now about that,
in fact I believe that around of Leyla teppe is the homeland of all IE languages,
 
I now about that,
in fact I believe that around of Leyla teppe is the homeland of all IE languages,
Yeah, I believe that the Indo-European J2, R1b etc. in Europe are from this area. That's why carriers of R1b have some Caucaso-Gedrosia in them. But due to assimilation with native Europeans, that auDNA heavily diluted. The original R1a* (ancestor of the East European R1a types) lived also not far from here. It is possible that R1b in North-East Asia came from Maykop/Leyla Tepe via Yamna Horizon. But R1a in that area is 'Iranic' R1a-Z93 which is most likely originally from the Iranian Plateau and entered that area with many 'EAST Iranic' (Bactrians, Sogdians, Parthians, Saka etc.) migrations from the South-Central Asia, BMAC, Yaz cultures.
 
There are some archeological "facts" that i want share with you.
First of all:
The Afanasevo Culture was a chalcolithic culture with a strong link to the "Cucuteni Tripolye Culture".

The diffusion of the Black Sea fertility symbols towards China :
It seems, by the comparison of the pottery patterns, that the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in Central Europe (ca 5000-3500 bc) is to be disseminated to the east during the 4 thmillennium bc. and has provided the Lajja Gauri attitude design and the marker Swastika to the neolithic cultures of Western China.


But not only the swastika it also "provided" the "Ying Yang Symbol".
229659_483709021701756_1895460862_n.jpg

In this link you can see the heavy influence of balkan neolithic pottery art in neolithic china:
http://de.scribd.com/doc/201868951/Phallic-Cult-in-the-Chinese-Bronze-Age-Shang-and-Zhou-dynasties

The chinese Yangshao and Longshan cultures were the first that had contact with the "Steppe/Balkan" Cultures.
The spread of these cultures overlap the spread of the Afanasevo Culture.

BC3500_AndronovoAfanasevo_culture.gif

earlychinamap03.jpg


So what are the Indo Europeans? How can it be that we find a strong link thousands of kilometers between chinas and eastern europe neolithic cultures? isn't this a strong proof that the earlist Indo Europeans were a part "of" the neolihic east/european/anatolian complex? and that there wasn't an agressive conquest of IE from the steppes, but rather a peaceful mixing between people from the steppes and the balkan.
 

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