The kurgan was empty

berun

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In an scientific level, the steppe theory proposed by Gimbutas and thereafter reloaded by David Anthony is dead (the kurgan theory 2.0 was about Yamnayans delivering the Germainc languages to the CW culture through the Usatovo culture by a kind of cultural fashion).

The many red and orange alarms were never heard much, but now the final problem was settled by ancient genetics: a sure IE culture as the CW, from where it could split Germanic and Balto-Slavic, had a different Y-DNA than that found in Yamnaya (R1b-Z2105); moreover the steppe cultures possibly linked to the Indo-Iranian branch (Andronovo, Sintashta, Srubnaya) appear to be CW copies in the autosomal and Y-DNA level. The followers of the steppe theory had by some time the hope to find out the CW Y-DNA in the west steppes, along with the right Y-DNA of the Bell Beakers in West Europe, and all speaking the same language ...

Now with the new paper "The genomic history of southeastern Europe" the hope to find and confirm such hopes and theories vanishes. I think it is quite hard to read there:

One version of the Steppe Hypothesis of Indo-European language origins suggests that Proto-Indo European languages developed in the steppe north of the Black and Caspian seas ... our genetic data do not support this scenario

and

An alternative hypothesis is that the ultimate homeland of Proto-Indo European languages was in the Caucasus or in Iran. In this scenario, westward movement contributed to the dispersal of Anatolian languages, and northward movement and mixture with EHG was responsible for the formation of the population associated with the Yamnaya complex. These steppe pastoralists plausibly spoke a “Late Proto-Indo European” language that is ancestral to many of the non-Anatolian branches of the Indo-European language family

At the Y-DNA level the paper confirms that Yamna was R1b-Z2013 (along ancestor clades) in Samara (x7), Kalmukya (x4), and derived cultures of Staliningrad, Vucedol and Poltavka (x5). The case about Ukranian HGs speaking a form of proto-IE to become Yamnayans is not tenable: the paper states that Ukranian HGs had diverse origins (in Vasilevka there were R1b1a2, I2a1, R1a, I2a2) and had a 31% of WHG in autosomals, such 31% lowered to 1% in Yamnayans, so that only a strong colonization from elsewhere could explain this: even if Yamnayans were true IE speakers, the previous HG population could not be so... and then IE comes from elsewhere. Even in Samara the change is quite obvious: the HG was R1b1a1a (the most eastern R1b), but the Eneolithic samples were Q1a, R1a1 and R1a1a.

The paper suggest to follow the CHG component to Anatolia to find the IE urheimat, but this case is quite difficult to accept: Anatolian imposed over Hatti, Armenian was not local (Urartian placenames have not followed in such language it's own evolutions), and the Caucasus, a catch-all net, is not conserving some unique IE branch (Ossetian is derived from Scythian). The case would be to look further, to the Zagros (as the paper itself also points)... or even in Medieval Russia, if it's the Y-DNA what matters most.

So what is really IE at the end? by now the sure cultures related to such language family display high amounts of R1a and EHG ancestry. The other option left would be to follow the CHG ancestry, its spread, and the clades associated (by now J1, J2). What place would have the R1b-L51 clades is now more difficult to ascertain.
 
How Ironic that kurgan isn't even a "Indo-European" word lmao... it's Turkish or something. It's too easy to make fun of this stuff.
 
I think Krause and the Max Planck Institute, and Pagani and Cambridge, along with Harvard-Broad, seem to be getting on the CHG bandwagon. Future papers will tell us.

None of this, even if true, changes the fact that Indo-European speakers from the steppe brought most if not all of these languages to Europe.
 
I think Krause ....None of this, even if true, changes the fact that Indo-European speakers from the steppe brought most if not all of these languages to Europe.

How do you know that?
 
How do you know that?

It's emerging as the academic consensus for Balto-Slavic, Germanic, and probably Italo- Celtic, and makes sense.

We'll see about the others.
 
I
The many red and orange alarms were never heard much, but now the final problem was settled by ancient genetics: a sure IE culture as the CW, from where it could split Germanic and Balto-Slavic, had a different Y-DNA than that found in Yamnaya (R1b-Z2105); moreover the steppe cultures possibly linked to the Indo-Iranian branch (Andronovo, Sintashta, Srubnaya) appear to be CW copies in the autosomal and Y-DNA level. The followers of the steppe theory had by some time the hope to find out the CW Y-DNA in the west steppes, along with the right Y-DNA of the Bell Beakers in West Europe, and all speaking the same language ...

Personally I never accepted the 'kurgan theory' but I don't think I would agree with you either or with what that paper says exactly. Either way, my opinion is not very important but I want to ask something about the bold part. What makes a culture sure to be IE?
First of all I'm asking just to see what the criteria are in your opinion and to check how they can be applied to other cultures. But also, to me it's just an assertion by itself. Personally I wouldn't take even that for granted.

I would dare to argue (for the sake of argument first of all) that CW was not 'IE' but Globular Amphora Culture was. What argument can you/they use againist that?
 
The one thing I'd like to see resolved is the origin of L-51. If the pattern detected in the Martiniano & Cassidy paper holds, and S116 came to Iberia with an influx of eastern-shifted Mesolithic aDNA sans CHG at pre-Celtic times I'd think that would point to the lineage being non-Indo-European in its early affiliation. I'm reminded of Vennemann, Mailhammer & Trask insisting that Basque is a Mesolithic remnant language and emphatically not a language spoken by Neolithic farmers. This would make Eastern Europe and not Franco-Cantabria the most likely homeland of Proto-Basque :grin:
 
Even if these people are right about origin of modern European languages, why do they keep using "steppes" as a name for the geographical area? These steppes are in eastern Europe so why they keep avoiding using the term eastern Europe or even less Russia? It's a little suspicious to me.
 
The one thing I'd like to see resolved is the origin of L-51. If the pattern detected in the Martiniano & Cassidy paper holds, and S116 came to Iberia with an influx of eastern-shifted Mesolithic aDNA sans CHG at pre-Celtic times I'd think that would point to the lineage being non-Indo-European in its early affiliation. I'm reminded of Vennemann, Mailhammer & Trask insisting that Basque is a Mesolithic language and emphatically not a language spoken by Neolithic farmers. This would make Eastern Europe and not Franco-Cantabria the most likely homeland of Proto-Basque :grin:
I want popcorn and a front row seat if that's ever seriously proposed. :)

I hate to be obnoxious, but I did also say that Corded Ware, and M417, might be Indo-Europeanized, not Indo- European. What if it were to turn out that even Yamnaya was Indo- Europeanized? The internet world might shift on it's axis.: )

Good Lord, if CHG is the real IE marker, do I suddenly get a lot more IE? Would I be suddenly expected to like militarized, highly unequal, patriarchal, societies? I'm telling you right now it won't happen. :)

Seriously, if that were the case, Celtic would arrive very late to Iberia, and without bringing very much change genetically. Oh, to be a fly on the wall at Drac's if this is ever seriously proposed!
 
It's emerging as the academic consensus for Balto-Slavic, Germanic, and probably Italo- Celtic, and makes sense.

We'll see about the others.
Exactly how I see it too.
 
I want popcorn and a front row seat if that's ever seriously proposed. :)

I hate to be obnoxious, but I did also say that Corded Ware, and M417, might be Indo-Europeanized, not Indo- European. What if it were to turn out that even Yamnaya was Indo- Europeanized? The internet world might shift on it's axis.: )

Good Lord, if CHG is the real IE marker, do I suddenly get a lot more IE? Would I be suddenly expected to like militarized, highly unequal, patriarchal, societies? I'm telling you right now it won't happen. :)

Seriously, if that were the case, Celtic would arrive very late to Iberia, and without bringing very much change genetically. Oh, to be a fly on the wall at Drac's if this is ever seriously proposed!
We also should mention that today's nations with highest Caucasian/CHG admixtures, Georgia and many others, don't speak IE. IE language in Caucasus is a minority language. It is quite different story when it comes to gedrosia/baloch/NE Euro/Steppe admixtures. Just on this ground it is more probable that proto IE language came with spread of Iranian Farmers, or was one of languages of steppe h-gs.
 
I just thought of how Japanese could be an IE language!
Example: the word Samurai
in Bosnian Sam(alone) u (into, inside) rai or raj pronounced the same (heaven) Sam-u-raj = Alone-to-Heaven
Telling you, Japanese might be an IE language too.
 
I think Krause and the Max Planck Institute, and Pagani and Cambridge, along with Harvard-Broad, seem to be getting on the CHG bandwagon. Future papers will tell us.

None of this, even if true, changes the fact that Indo-European speakers from the steppe brought most if not all of these languages to Europe.

Could be so, but now we know that the CHG component roamed in the Balkans before Yamnaya popped up, so there is the possibility to have a band of such people taking control over much of Europe (somehow as the Rus in Russia) directly from there. Of course the route could be through the steppes, but you might realize that the difference within Yamnaya start and CW start (in Russia I think it was older) is some two or three centuries, so to think that IE branches came from the steppes would be similar to say that English in Oregon comes from New England, true but the real origin is not taken into account then.
 
Personally I never accepted the 'kurgan theory' but I don't think I would agree with you either or with what that paper says exactly. Either way, my opinion is not very important but I want to ask something about the bold part. What makes a culture sure to be IE?
First of all I'm asking just to see what the criteria are in your opinion and to check how they can be applied to other cultures. But also, to me it's just an assertion by itself. Personally I wouldn't take even that for granted.

I would dare to argue (for the sake of argument first of all) that CW was not 'IE' but Globular Amphora Culture was. What argument can you/they use againist that?

The Y-DNA and autosomal profile of CW and posterior steppe cultures display the demic and territorial expansion that would allow to recognize there the expansion of the IE family, as the area covered keeps the origin if Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Indoiranian, Celtic... or the posterior cultures attached to such branches. Only it's left the Balkan languages (Greek, Illyrian, Thracian, Armenian/Phrygian, Italic?), the Anatolian Branch and Tocharian. It could be developed further but no time for that.
 
I am not a geneticist, linguist etc, therefore what I may say below might sound very ignorant. Angela, why do you argue that languages in Europe came from the steppes of Asia? Weren't there are any people in the European continent? If people existed in Europe, I expect them to have been speaking some kind of language.
None of this, even if true, changes the fact that Indo-European speakers from the steppe brought most if not all of these languages to Europe.
 
I am not a geneticist, linguist etc, therefore what I may say below might sound very ignorant. Angela, why do you argue that languages in Europe came from the steppes of Asia? Weren't there are any people in the European continent? If people existed in Europe, I expect them to have been speaking some kind of language.

Because they just know, ok? It's a sexy theory. Although nothing new, it's been around since the 19th century. The arguments are far-fetched and downright laughable but they'll work hard on spinning it every which way possible to make it seem like it makes some kind of sense. It's good entertainment (y)
 
you're very victourious but it is not so that the whole theory is destroyed

the fact that PIE ex Anatolian was on the steppe 5.5 ka still stands
and that Poltavka and Sintashta were not Yamna-derived but Fatyanovo-Bulyanovo CW, it was already suggested by Anthony

how the languages spread from the steppe to Europe, there was no consensus, only some short suggestions in a conditional way

now for Anatolian many options remain open
I'm eager to find the truth, but I'll read a lot of theories and nonsense till then

oh, and about the horses, I'd like to know also
I think Anthony sometimes exaggerated in the riding skills
those steppe folks had something with horses from early on, that is certain
but it isn't clear what it was exactly

the whole thing was a theory, not the truth
will we ever get beyond theories on these subjects?

P.S. I wouldn't be surprised if the Anatolians would turn out not to be R1.
 
berun
I agree with many of your theses. Yes, you were the first to notice that the eastern Yamnaya is quite strange and is not ancestral for existing IE.

Nevertheless,

Or even in Medieval Russia, if it's the Y-DNA what matters most.
It's hard to imagine. Yes, in those places probably were PIE, but it was in the Mesolithic and early Neolithic. Then a part of that population descended to the south and formed the Dniepro-Donetsk - Sredniy Stog. The remaining PIE/Paleo-Europeans in north-east were swept/assimilated by the population of pit-comb ceramics. Thus, besides Sredniy Stog and Khvalynsk, nothing remains as a source of Corded Ware. All that is more North - is the Pit-Comb ceramic.

Also, someone had to bring autosomal Corded Ware makeup and light pigmentation genes to Western Europe. R1a is obviously not enough for this, if we consider, for example, Britain.

Most likely, all Europeans come from one small source, such as, for example, the Sredniy Stog settlements.
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There is no such thing as CHG was the IE!
There is Shulavei Shomu was the IE!

So all, cut it out! - We don't say EHG was IE, or WHG was IE, why the hell use CHG.
4900bc saw the dispersal of the Shulaveri Shomu from south caucasus, and they were PIE!
 

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