MtDna from the Bronze Age Caucasus, including Maykop

Angela

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I wish we had yDna, and autosomal, but still, it's interesting, and it's based on whole mitochondria.

See: A.S. Sokolov et al

"Six complete mitochondrial genomes from Early Bronze Age humans in the North Caucasus"

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440316301091


"The North Caucasus region is rich in early Bronze Age sites, with burials yielding many artifacts, including those from the Chekon, Natukhaevskaya, Katusvina-Krivitsa kurgan groups (at Krasnodar Krai, Russia) and Klady kurgan (near Novosvobodnaya Village, Republic of Adygea, Russia). According to the mainstream archaeological hypothesis, these sites belong to the Maikop culture (3700–3000 years BC), with Novosvobodnaya communities representing an offshoot of Maikop ancestry. However, due to specific differences in Novosvobodnaya artifacts, the Maikop and Novosvobodnaya assemblages could represent two synchronous archaeological cultures living in almost sympatry but showing independent ancestry, from the Near East and Europe respectively. Here, we used target-enrichment together with high-throughput sequencing to characterize the complete mitochondrial sequence of three Maikop and three Novosvobodnaya individuals. We identified T2b, N1b1 and V7 haplogroups, all widely spread in Neolithic Europe. In addition, we identified the Paleolithic Eurasian U8b1a2 and M52 haplogroups, which are frequent in modern South Asia, particularly in modern India. Our data provide a deeper understanding of the diversity of Early Bronze Age North Caucasus communities and hypotheses of its origin. Analyzing non-human sequencing reads for microbial content, we found that one individual from the Klady kurgan was infected by the pathogen Brucella abortus that is responsible for zoonotic infections from cattle to humans. This finding is in agreement with Maikop/Novosvobodnaya livestock groups, mostly consisting of domestic pigs and cattle. This paper represents a first mitochondrial genome analysis of Maikop/Novosvobodnaya culture as well as the earliest brucellosis case in archaeological humans."

The site was previously studied and they also found mtDna V7. Here is the link:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4115223/

" The mtDNA haplogroup affiliation was determined as V7, suggesting a role of the TRB culture in the development of the Novosvobodnaya culture and supporting the model of sharing between Novosvobodnaya and early Indo-European cultures."

"One hypothesizes the existence of a single Maikop culture with two developmental phases [1-3], including finds discovered in Novosvobodnaya stanitsa (former Tsarskaya). The other hypothesis suggests that the archaeological collections assembled in Novosvobodnaya stanitsa should be treated individually, as independent artifacts (as a distinct culture). During the archaeological excavations of the kurgan grave “Klady” near Novosvobodnaya stanitsa in 1979–1991, which were supervised by A.D. Rezepkin, a total of 22 kurgans were uncovered with 93 well-stratified burial sites. These records allow one not only to establish the absolute chronology of the artifacts, but also to contribute to a better understanding of the origin of the Novosvobodnaya culture [4, 5]."

"Recently, archaeological evidence has emerged to argue against the opinion that the Novosvobodnaya culture shares links with the West Asian Maikop culture. The discovered artifacts support the hypothesis that the Baalberg phase of early periods of the Indo-European Funnel-Beaker culture played a significant role in the Novosvobodnaya archaeological culture, rather than the West Asian Maikop culture [5]. To prove or rule out this hypothesis, a DNA analysis is required as one of the definitive tools."

I can't say the results are exactly what I would have expected. I would have thought there would have been some U4/U5 in this group, although this is only three samples and those may show up if we get more samples.

As to Maykop, I expected south of Caucasus mtDna, but I didn't expect mtDna so affiliated with India.

I don't see how the Maykop women marrying into the steppe could be responsible for the "CHG" there, given we don't see much of this on the steppe.

If someone has access it would be great to get the results by date and specific site at least.

As for Brucella:
"
Brucellosis can affect any organ or organ system, and 90% of patients have a cyclical (undulant) fever. Though variable, symptoms can also include these clinical signs: headache, weakness, arthralgia, depression, weight loss, fatigue, and liver dysfunction. Foul-smelling perspiration is considered a classical sign. Between 20 and 60% of cases have osteoarticular complications - arthritis, spondylitis, or osteomyelitis. Hepatomegaly may occur, as can gastrointestinal complications.Up to 20% of cases can have genitourinary involvement; orchitis and epididymitis are most common. Neurological symptoms include depression and mental fatigue. Cardiovascular involvement can include endocarditis resulting in death."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brucella

Cows may be cleaner than chickens but they still harbor lots of nasty stuff.
If the "Indo-Europeans" had some degree of immunity to this, that, along with some immunity to plague, could explain some of their success as they moved into Europe and India.

Ed.

"
- Krasnodar Krai, Maikop burial, 4000-3000 BCE, mt-hg U8b1a2

- Krasnodar Krai, Maikop burial, 3700-3300 BCE mt-hg U8b1a2

- Republic of Adygea, Maikop burial, Russia, 3700-3300 BCE mt-hg M52

- Republic of Adygea, Novosvobodnaya burial, Russia, 3700-3300 BCE mt-hg V7

- Krasnodar Krai, unknown burial, Russia, 3700-3300 BCE mt-hg N1b1

- Republic of Adygea, unknown burial, Russia, 3700-3300 BCE mt-hg T2b"





 
It's great to finally have more Maykop and Novosvobodnaya samples. I had linked Maykop to R1b people and Novosvobodnaya probably more to R1a people. The article confirms that two distinct populations may have been living side by side in sympatry. Could it be the original sympatry between R1a and R1b that gave birth to the PIE language and culture?

The discovery of V7 made a lot of sense since I have linked this haplogroup to the Proto-Indo-European migrations, and particularly to haplogroup R1a.

I have also linked T2b (T2b2 and T2b4) to the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age spread of R1a. Unfortunately we don't know if this burial belongs to Maykop, Novosvobodnaya, or neither.

The other haplogroups are more mysterious.

U8b1 is a rare haplogroup that has been found in Italy, Turkey and Jordan and so appears to be more West Asian and possibly linked originally to Y-haplogroup J2a. It can't be excluded that early R1b cattle herders from Anatolia brought this mtDNA lineage with them when they migrated to the North Caucasus. The only other ancient U8b1 sample was a U8b1a1 from the Unetice culture. Although I have argued that R1b spread from Maykop to the Balkans then Central Europe, notably through the Unetice culture, it may be a bit early to link the two as the deep clades do not match and U8b1a2 is extremely rare in northern and western Europe today. But if Proto-Indo-European R1b men advanced by taking wives/concubines among the conquered populations, some of their original mtDNA lineages, especially the rare ones, would quickly have disappeared.

N1b1 was found in the Anatolian Neolithic and could prove that R1b-M269 crossed with cattle from Anatolia to the North Caucasus and the Pontic Steppe. N1b1 hasn't been found in any ancient sample from Europe or Central Asia to date, so it is also unlikely to be an original PIE lineage - unless it was also a rare one that was lost early and simply wasn't part of the female population that migrated to Europe and central Asia.

The presence of M52 is surprising, but could be linked to the Y-haplogroup L1a in Chalcolithic Armenia and to the 5% or so of Y-DNA L in the North Caucasus today.
 
Maciamo you're a good anthropologist and all, but leave the ludicrous mainstream theories out of this. (which may easily be proven wrong in a few weeks or years from now.)

Just because these findings are there, does not necessarily make them true. Another person, or that same person can do the same testing of this population, and these findings may be gone tomorrow. Stick with the findings that have the most proof to them.

Also, the Kurgan and Anatolian theories/hypothesizes are not necessarily true. They are just exactly that, theories. They can both be only partially true, or not true at all.

And personally, from my own analysis of the Basque language, and my experience with Basque people and culture, it has recently come to my attention that Basque and Vasconic are nothing more than isolated (old European) proto-languages. (just Like proto-Indo-European)

These proto-languages stopped evolving during the Indo-European invasion, and now we have Standard Basque. ​This explains why Basque has one of the least linguistic borrowings in Europe. This would explain why Basque is less developed or organized than say IE or Afro-Asiatic, as the words seem more Like "nonsensical gibberish, and the grammar has no official word order. (unless you count the common "SOV".)

(I am basically saying here, that Basque or Vasconic, is merely an isolated Western European language group, but stopped evolving due to the more prominent Indo-European language group. (during invasion) This may explain why it has so many different functions and complex grammar.

It is possible that proto-Indo-European and proto-Afro-Asiatic started off similar to Basque/Vasconic. Because Basque acts like a more nomadic language. (It has Ergative grammar. Kind of like the isolated Eskimo, or Amerindian languages)
 
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As in one of my earlier posts said I believe mtDNA m is ancient in Western Asia. This Haplogroup has been found in previous studies about ancient East Anatolia.

My argument for that was, we find M in North Africa and we find M in SOuth Asia. What scenario might be responsible for this Haplogroup reaching both regions?

I am also not aware of U8 being actually typical for South Asia either. All I know is that U7 is frequent in South Asia and Iran but also found in a Scythian sample of Rostov.
 
As in one of my earlier posts said I believe mtDNA m is ancient in Western Asia. This Haplogroup has been found in previous studies about ancient East Anatolia.

My argument for that was, we find M in North Africa and we find M in SOuth Asia. What scenario might be responsible for this Haplogroup reaching both regions?

I am also not aware of U8 being actually typical for South Asia either. All I know is that U7 is frequent in South Asia and Iran but also found in a Scythian sample of Rostov.
Actually, you may be looking in the wrong area. The oldest clade of U6 was unbelievably found recently in Romania as far back as 35,000 ybp-

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2016/05/35000-year-old-mtdna-haplogroup-u6-from.html

So this could explain with M and U6, that possibly there was a Back-migration from Europe into Africa. As evident from the indigenous lineages the Canary Islander females. Perhaps a pre-Afro-Asiatic speaking European population came from Southern Europe (Italy or Balkans) and then migrated into Northern Africa.
 
It's great to finally have more Maykop and Novosvobodnaya samples. I had linked Maykop to R1b people and Novosvobodnaya probably more to R1a people. The article confirms that two distinct populations may have been living side by side in sympatry. Could it be the original sympatry between R1a and R1b that gave birth to the PIE language and culture?

The discovery of V7 made a lot of sense since I have linked this haplogroup to the Proto-Indo-European migrations, and particularly to haplogroup R1a.

I have also linked T2b (T2b2 and T2b4) to the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age spread of R1a. Unfortunately we don't know if this burial belongs to Maykop, Novosvobodnaya, or neither.

The other haplogroups are more mysterious.

U8b1 is a rare haplogroup that has been found in Italy, Turkey and Jordan and so appears to be more West Asian and possibly linked originally to Y-haplogroup J2a. It can't be excluded that early R1b cattle herders from Anatolia brought this mtDNA lineage with them when they migrated to the North Caucasus. The only other ancient U8b1 sample was a U8b1a1 from the Unetice culture. Although I have argued that R1b spread from Maykop to the Balkans then Central Europe, notably through the Unetice culture, it may be a bit early to link the two as the deep clades do not match and U8b1a2 is extremely rare in northern and western Europe today. But if Proto-Indo-European R1b men advanced by taking wives/concubines among the conquered populations, some of their original mtDNA lineages, especially the rare ones, would quickly have disappeared.

N1b1 was found in the Anatolian Neolithic and could prove that R1b-M269 crossed with cattle from Anatolia to the North Caucasus and the Pontic Steppe. N1b1 hasn't been found in any ancient sample from Europe or Central Asia to date, so it is also unlikely to be an original PIE lineage - unless it was also a rare one that was lost early and simply wasn't part of the female population that migrated to Europe and central Asia.

The presence of M52 is surprising, but could be linked to the Y-haplogroup L1a in Chalcolithic Armenia and to the 5% or so of Y-DNA L in the North Caucasus today.
Also, while I am on the subject. There is actually an Out-of-India theory that I believe makes more sense than Kurgan or Anatolian hypothesis-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Aryans#Indo-Aryan_migration_theory

To me it is possible, just like that Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, and Karl Schlegel suggested, that the Indo-European urheimat may be somewhere in India or near-

[h=4]Indian homeland[/h]Most scholars assumed a homeland either in Europe or in Western Asia, and Sanskrit must in this case have reached India by a language transfer from west to east.[29][30] Some Europeans and Indians believed that the Proto-Indo-European language must be Sanskrit, or something very close to it. A few early Indo-Europeanists, such as Enlightenment pioneersVoltaire,[31] Immanuel Kant,[31] and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel[32] had a firm belief in this and essentially created the idea that India was the Urheimat (origin) of all Indo-European languages. In a 1775 letter, Voltaire expressed his belief that the "dynasty of the Brahmins" taught the rest of the world: "I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges."[31] The idea intrigued Kant who "suggested that mankind together with all science must have originated on the roof of the world [the Himalayas ]."[31]




I would say that Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, and Karl Schlegel were onto something, and give the (non-mainstream) Out-of-India theory much merit.
 
I believe Basal Eurasian may have originated in India and there may have been an expansion from India before LGM, but that has nothing to do with IE.
Geometric microliths were invented in India 35 ka, and Kebara culture in the Levant had it right after LGM.

The trouble with mtDNA is there are no sources with TMRCA available for every subclade like you can find on YFull for Y-DNA.
 
This old mtDNA and the actual Y-DNA is pointing that the neolitization of the area was done by Anatolians: T2b, U8b1b1 and N1b1a were found in the Barcin samples. For the Y-DNA, being the most spread among Anatolians G2a, nowadays 77/162 Abkhazians are G2a, 57/126 Circassians, and 72/154 Shapsugs (speaking NW Caucasian languages), 92/132 north Ossetians are G2a (talking Iranic language), 13/17 Svans, 8/16 Mengrelians (speaking Georgian dialects). The CHG or Iran_Neolithic that spread northwards must come from the "Indian" side.

caucasusY.jpgcaucasusY.jpg

Languages-and-genes-in-North-Caucasus.jpg
 
I believe Basal Eurasian may have originated in India and there may have been an expansion from India before LGM, but that has nothing to do with IE.
Geometric microliths were invented in India 35 ka, and Kebara culture in the Levant had it right after LGM.

The trouble with mtDNA is there are no sources with TMRCA available for every subclade like you can find on YFull for Y-DNA.
Leave the mainstream theories out of the picture and do your own independent research.

Continue to go with my own interpretation- which is their wise interpretation- Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, and Karl Schlegel believed in the Out-of-India theory.

All you people do is go with the theories of Marija Gimbutas and Colin Renfrew. (Kurgan and Anatolian hypothesis.) as if it's literal fact...

For some reason I managed to rake a 3 thumbs down in terms of "helpfulness" when I stated nothing but the truth. Go back to those three people I mentioned, they have a better credibility than some feminist Anthropologist named Marija Gimbutas. (an amateur whom nobody truly intellectual knows or cares about...) Take the idea from far better minds- Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, and Karl Schlegel. All intellectuals, Indo-Europeanists, all of them being progenitors of the Out-of-India theory (which makes more sense than the "Kurgan hypothesis"...) credible people with far better achievements. Not some Lithuanian feminist...
 
Science has been a joke ever since the Guggenheim Fellowship altered it in the early 20th century.

You guys know Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, and Karl Schlegel were the original Indo-Europeanists and believed the IE urheimat was in India? Yep, That's the stuff. Stick with those guys, that know their stuff. And the Basque people (whom speak a "proto-language", not a "language".)

Jewish people to
ld me personally. Of course this is a joke and I am totally crazy, and nobody would ever believe me.
 
I believe Basal Eurasian may have originated in India and there may have been an expansion from India before LGM, but that has nothing to do with IE.
Geometric microliths were invented in India 35 ka, and Kebara culture in the Levant had it right after LGM.

The trouble with mtDNA is there are no sources with TMRCA available for every subclade like you can find on YFull for Y-DNA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Schlegel

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

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

The problem with anthropologists these days, is that they are afraid of Losing their careers by becoming a maverick.

These 3 people^^^ had it figured out in the 18th century. And it's the 21st century and people are fixated on some poor Kurgan hypothesis which has almost no scientific background or merit...Voltaire, Kant and Schlegel are turning in their graves.
 
This old mtDNA and the actual Y-DNA is pointing that the neolitization of the area was done by Anatolians: T2b, U8b1b1 and N1b1a were found in the Barcin samples. For the Y-DNA, being the most spread among Anatolians G2a, nowadays 77/162 Abkhazians are G2a, 57/126 Circassians, and 72/154 Shapsugs (speaking NW Caucasian languages), 92/132 north Ossetians are G2a (talking Iranic language), 13/17 Svans, 8/16 Mengrelians (speaking Georgian dialects). The CHG or Iran_Neolithic that spread northwards must come from the "Indian" side.

View attachment 7950View attachment 7950

View attachment 7949

once I thought the same and now I start thinking again : the black spot on the map, could it be Maykop?

Haplogroup_G2a.gif


On the other hand, Maykop culture ended 4500 years ago.
Could these people have stayed in the same area that long?
Well, they probably did in Sardegna too.
 
once I thought the same and now I start thinking again : the black spot on the map, could it be Maykop?

The black spot in the Northwest Caucasus represents Adyghe people. The modern city of Maykop, after which the ancient culture was named, is indeed in Adyghea, but the modern people have probably little to do with the Bronze Age inhabitants.
 
once I thought the same and now I start thinking again : the black spot on the map, could it be Maykop?

Haplogroup_G2a.gif


On the other hand, Maykop culture ended 4500 years ago.
Could these people have stayed in the same area that long?
Well, they probably did in Sardegna too.

Except for the "Indian" M52, which I think is more like "Paskistani" or central Asian M52, the rest of those mtDna lineages are still present in that area today. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them never left.

Some of them did leave, though, like V7, which we find a lot of in northern Europe, and the U8 lineage.

I'm more interested in where they came from...

If Maykop descends from Leyla Tepe, I think some of it came from there, perhaps the M52 and the U8? However, although the rest could roughly be called "Neolithic" lineages, they're not really Cucuteni Tripolyte lineages, are they?

Anyone know where they are the most common...the specific types, I mean?
 
Most of those people in the Caucasus have unusually homogeneous Y-DNA on the male side, for their tribe (i.e. G2a for Georgians), but for a neighboring tribe it will be something like (J1) for Chechens or Ingush. How did these non-IE speaking Caucasoids survive the Indo-European invasion?
 
@Maciamo, clearly the Ossetians are not so old in their mountains, but Circassians and Kartvelians if they were not protected from IE invaders by their mountains, then from where they would come? The Kartvelian case could be much or less discussed as the protolanguage dates around 2000 BC, but as far as I remember the NW Caucasian languages are old as 5000 BC and I have no hints to think that they migrated from elsewhere, and they are known from old, per example the abasgoi around 50 BC. By the way the half-pagan half-Christian Abkazians were buring the deceased under kurgans in the XVI century.
 
The black spot in the Northwest Caucasus represents Adyghe people. The modern city of Maykop, after which the ancient culture was named, is indeed in Adyghea, but the modern people have probably little to do with the Bronze Age inhabitants.

Indeed, What is also interesting almost non of these mtDNA in Maykop are found in Yamnaya. There goes the kidnapped Caucasus wifes theory.
 
In the supp info of "West Eurasian mtDNA lineages in India: an insight into the spread of the Dravidian language and the origins of the caste system" there is an excel with 1180 Indian mtDNA, but I haven't found any M52 or U8, so I don't understand this statement:

In addition, we identified the Paleolithic Eurasian U8b1a2 and M52 haplogroups, which are frequent in modern South Asia, particularly in modern India.
 
On mtDna M52:


"We completely sequenced the mtDNA genome of
nine M* samples, which harbor 16223–16275 substitutions in hypervariable
segment I (HVS-I), to determine their potential source region.
All nine samples were found to share common coding region variants,
which enabled us to define a new autochthonous South Asian-specific
haplogroup M52, which turned out to share a common origin with
one of its sister branches, labeled here as M52a (Figure 3), detected
among Indian non-Muslims. The same haplogroup has been recently
reported in the Tharus of Nepal and in the Andhra Pradesh population.
50 All nine sequences of Muslims are nested within the M52
lineage (Figure 3). Considering this phylogenetic structuring, the
newly characterized haplogroup M52 is most likely to have an Indian
rather than West Asian or Arabian origin. AMOVA yielded no
statistically significant results for any group distinctions on the basis
of religion (Indian Muslims and non-Muslims), geography (North
India, South India and West India) or other criteria investigated
(Supplementary Table 3)."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2859343/


 
Thank you Angela for the ref; even so, as the 2015 paper with 1180 mtDNA didn't found any M52 I looked at the sources of the paper that you add; the paper finds 9 cases of M52 among 472 Indian Muslims (2%), but everybody will guess that this pop is not the best to know ancient mtDNA... and such high number is in fact more an orange alarm than other thing; for the Indian non-Musliams they have got 796 mtDNA samples from a 2004 paper, 752 from a 2003 paper and 550 from a 1999 paper (total 2098), they don't give the numbers of Indian M52 found neither Tharu M52, but the M52 Tharus are... one case among 472 samples. So it's a big deal to say that M52 is "frequent"... what would be the case if per example we would sample 3000 Iranians? I think that the biased data by the number of samples taken in each pop could point another history.
 

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