New conference on Bronze Age mobility in Europe

Angela

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Very interesting. One abstract stopped me in my tracks.

See:
https://www.orea.oeaw.ac.at/veranstaltungen/event-detail/article/genes-isotopes-and-artefacts/

"The aim of the conference is to identify the different scales, patterns and societal impacts of mobility throughout Europe. This international event will bring together leading scholars from all parts of the continent and research fields tackling similar problems with different methods rooted in the humanities and natural sciences. As an inter-disciplinary forum, this event will provide room for networking and discussions to lay the theoretical and methodological foundations for future scientific advancement.

Participants include Morten Erik Allentoft, Andrea Cardarelli, Claudio Cavazzuti, Edward Caswell, Peter Clark, Karin Margarita Frei, Catherine Frieman, Mario Gavranović, Jelena Grujić, Wolfgang Haak, Johannes Krause, Anthony Harding, Barbara Horejs, Reinhard Jung, Viktória Kiss, Corina Knipper, John Koch, Kristian Kristiansen, Gabriella Kulcsár, Anne Lehoërff, Andrew Millard, Barry Molloy, Janet Montgomery, Ron Pinhasi, Miljana Radivojević, Katharina Rebay-Salisbury, David Reich, Martin Sikora, Philipp Stockhammer, Benjamin Roberts, Natalia Shishlina, Robin Skeates and Marc Vander Linden."

"Steppe and Iranian ancestry among Bronze Age Central and Western Mediterranean populations


Ron Pinhasi, Daniel Fernandes, David Reich

Steppe-related ancestry is known to have reached central Europe ca. 3000 BCE, while Iran-related ancestry reached Greece by 1500 BCE. However, the time course and extent of their spread into the central/western Mediterranean remains a mystery. We analysed 48 Neolithic and Bronze Age individuals from Sicily, Sardinia and the Balearic Islands aiming to investigate when and how continental European and Aegean influences affected these insular populations. Results show that the first Balearic settlers had substantial Steppe-related ancestry which was subsequently diluted by increasing proportions of farmer-related ancestry. In Sardinia, we identified the appearance of Iran-related ancestry from the Aegean as early as the Middle Bronze Age, with no genetic influences seen from populations carrying Steppe-related ancestry despite cultural or commercial exchanges with Bell Beaker populations. In SICILY, DURING THE BRONZE AGE AND POSSIBLY EARLIER, we found evidence for admixture with groups carrying both these ancestries. These results suggest that Steppe-related migrants had a crucial role in the settlement of the Balearic Islands and their ancestry reached as far south as Sicily, and that the population movements that brought Iran-related ancestry to the Aegean also impacted the Western Mediterranean around the same time the first civilizations started to develop."

I have lots and lots of questions. Can't wait to read this one when it comes out. More tomorrow.

 
Wow, this paper, at least from the conclusions in the abstract, looks really mindblowing. Pthe demographic and genetic history of each region of Europe was clearly much more complicated and nuanced than was thought even as recently as 2016. And steppe-like people really spread in an explosive and extremely mobile way after roughly the start of the Yamnaya (just figure that by the mid Bronze Age reasonably high ammounts of steppe ancestry were found from Iberia to Mongolia!).

But I wonder: when they say the first Balearic settlers were heavily steppe-related what time span are they really talking about? Even before the Early Bronze Age or, even more unbelievably, before the Chalcolithic?

EDIT: Oh I see, these earliest confirmed settlers probably date from the 3rd millennium BC and perhaps as late as circa 2000 BC. So roughly Bell Beaker times.
 
So there was an Anatolian migration after the " Yamnaya Package " into mainland Europe, wich i always say. But i'm a little bit confused on many points. How Iran_Neo pass through Anatolian_Neo for it to not be that important in this paper and the genetic makeup of BA Greece? I feel like they want to tell us that Steppe Ancestry brought something like Paleohispanic language or a " Vasconic " group, while Iran_Neo brought IE languages. We can see that their Greece Iran_Neo ancestry is dated for 1500 so Mycenaean, wich is the dream of Lazaridis. Hope they gonna clarify their idea of what they try to say for not being confused. Because you know that even if the paper is absolutely not about IE languages, it is totally about it in every interested person mind, them included.
 
Wow, this paper, at least from the conclusions in the abstract, looks really mindblowing. Pthe demographic and genetic history of each region of Europe was clearly much more complicated and nuanced than was thought even as recently as 2016. And steppe-like people really spread in an explosive and extremely mobile way after roughly the start of the Yamnaya (just figure that by the mid Bronze Age reasonably high ammounts of steppe ancestry were found from Iberia to Mongolia!).

But I wonder: when they say the first Balearic settlers were heavily steppe-related what time span are they really talking about? Even before the Early Bronze Age or, even more unbelievably, before the Chalcolithic?

EDIT: Oh I see, these earliest confirmed settlers probably date from the 3rd millennium BC and perhaps as late as circa 2000 BC. So roughly Bell Beaker times.

I think in the case of the Balearic isles they're probably talking about Bell Beaker samples or closely related groups. Sicily & Sardinia are going to be interesting because there the population history seems to be more complex.
 
@Ygorcs, yes, for the Balearics the first dates are by about 2300 BC, BB artifacts are found in the islands. To provide "steppe" ancestry it must depart from south France as the Catalan BB were devoid of it.

By the way I'm happy to see a paper not lumping Iranian Neo with steppe ancestry.
 
iran related, is it iran-neo?
1500 BC? aren't Myceneans a few centuries older?
 
iran related, is it iran-neo?
1500 BC? aren't Myceneans a few centuries older?

You are right, i missread. It could be Iran anything, more likely Iran_Chl?
 
Wow, this paper, at least from the conclusions in the abstract, looks really mindblowing. Pthe demographic and genetic history of each region of Europe was clearly much more complicated and nuanced than was thought even as recently as 2016. And steppe-like people really spread in an explosive and extremely mobile way after roughly the start of the Yamnaya (just figure that by the mid Bronze Age reasonably high ammounts of steppe ancestry were found from Iberia to Mongolia!).

But I wonder: when they say the first Balearic settlers were heavily steppe-related what time span are they really talking about? Even before the Early Bronze Age or, even more unbelievably, before the Chalcolithic?

EDIT: Oh I see, these earliest confirmed settlers probably date from the 3rd millennium BC and perhaps as late as circa 2000 BC. So roughly Bell Beaker times.

Lots and lots of questions, right?

I'm particularly intrigued by the following: " In Sicily, during the Bronze Age and possibly EARLIER, we found evidence for admixture with groups carrying both these ancestries."

Both ancestries were present possibly earlier? Just the Iran related ancestry? One from the north, one from the southeast?

All very exciting.
 
Lots and lots of questions, right?

I'm particularly intrigued by the following: " In Sicily, during the Bronze Age and possibly EARLIER, we found evidence for admixture with groups carrying both these ancestries."

Both ancestries were present possibly earlier? Just the Iran related ancestry? One from the north, one from the southeast?

All very exciting.
I'm dying to know this as well. I had to read a lot of that abstract multiple times to ensure I wasn't misreading things.

So I guess that's where steppe and Iran Neolithic ancestry in Sicily is from
 
Two papers on Bronze Age Northern Italy also presented at this conference.

"Andrea Cardarelli*, Alberta Arena**Università degli studi di Roma, “La Sapienza”

From colonization to diaspora. Models of human mobility in the Terramare Culture between Europeand the Mediterranean

The Terramare represent one of the most renowned archaeological cultures in European Bronze Age, at leastsince the late 19th century.After a long period of decline that characterized most of the 20th century, the archaeological research hastaken new impulse and has constantly grown during the last three decades, largely confirming the intuitionsof the 19th century scholars.The Terramare are situated in the central Po River valley and date between the mid-17th and the first half ofthe 12th century BC (Middle Bronze Age and Recent Bronze Age). These villages were equipped with artificialfortifications and could reach 20 hectares in size.With the beginning of the historical cycle of the Terramare culture, this territory appears densely populatedreaching, and perhaps exceeding, 200,000 inhabitants, during the apogee.During these five centuries, the landscape drastically changed and became intensively anthropized, withhundreds of villages, cultivated and irrigated fields, roads and other kind of infrastructures.The intense demographic growth recorded for the early phases of the Terramare cycle does not seemto be explained only by an internal increase, but rather as the result of diverse forms of human mobility.After a long period of great economic and social success, the Terramare culture entered a deep crisis that ledto its collapse, a very complex phenomenon still not fully understood. Certainly, among the motivations thatcontributed to the disappearance of the Terramare, there were critical environmental and ecological conditions,but also the rigidity of the economic and socio-political model.Plausibly, the disappearance of the Terramare is correlated with the deep socio-economic transformationsthat occurred in continental Italy in the last centuries of the second millennium BC. The archaeological evidence suggests that more or less large groups of refugees from the collapsing Terramare moved also southwardsthroughout the Italian peninsula.The paper will focus on the possible role of the mobility in the rise and collapse of the Terramare, in thewider context of the Bronze Age Europe and Mediterranean."

Two migrations? One contributing to the rise and one to the fall of the Terramare?

Another one:

"Claudio Cavazzuti1,2, Robin Skeates1, Andrew Millard11Durham University, Department of Archaeology2Istituto Centrale per la Demnoetnoantropologia, Roma"

"Mobility of people in Northern Italy Bronze Age communities investigated through isotope analyses"

"How did people move across the landscape during the Bronze Age in Northern Italy? To what extent weredifferent categories of people mobile? How did mobility patterns change during the second millennium? Canwe observe differences between small villages and large centres?

The Ex-SPACE project (Exploring Social Permeability in Ancient Communities of Europe) has addressedthese questions, applying strontium, oxygen and carbon isotope analyses to a sample of 160 individuals (and40 baseline samples) from four cemeteries situated in the Po plain. The sites, which represent various culturalcontexts and chronological phases of the Bronze Age, were selected in order to understand how mobilitychanged in relation to the socio-political development from the small kinship-based communities of the Early Bronze Age to the Terramare system of the Middle and Late Bronze Age, and finally, to the complex societiesof the Final Bronze Age.The sampling strategy was conceived so as to explore mobility patterns among different categories ofindividuals, differentiated by sex, age, burial chronology/topography and grave goods.

We found that, regardless of long-term trends, the central place of a polity played a crucial role in determiningthe characteristics of mobility and the permeability to non-local components. Moreover, as also highlighted byother studies in Europe (notably Knipper et al.’s 2017 study on Bell Beaker and EBA in Bavaria), the movementof female individuals appears to have been of primary importance in defining a system of alliances, powerrelations and trade networks.A further element of interest is the relation between mobility and social inequalities. At Frattesina -theimportant port of trade which emerged as the Terramare system declined, commoners appear almostcompletely indigenous, while elites moved extensively across the hinterland, plausibly as part of the processof establishing and reinforcing power relations. Among them we distinguished a warrior chief, who was anoutsider and may have contributed to the overcome of the traditional isonomy of the Terramare and to theinstitution of a more hierarchical structure of society."

I don't understand what they mean by the importance of "Polity". We'll have to wait and see.

Could this movement of Terramare people "south" explain the arrival of "steppe" ancestry in Sicily?
 
First settlers in the Balearic were Bell Beaker that's why they had high steppe..

The other study said that steppe in Ancient Sardinia was almost completely absent, not totally absent...strange considering that Bell Beaker there were of the same physical type of those in Continental Europe

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In addition to these Bronze Age papers on Northern Italy and the OP one, there are lots of others on the Northern Bronze Age etc., and another one on the Caucasus. They're not revealing very much in the abstract. Hope we get it soon.

"Svend Hansen1, Sabine Reinhold1, Wolfgang Haak2, Chuan-Chao Wang21Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Eurasien Abteilung2Max Planck Institut für Menschheitsgeschichte, Department of Archaeogenetics"

"At the interface of culture and biology – First results from a paleogenetic transect through BronzeAge populations of the Caucasus"

"The Caucasus is one of the most important geographical joints in Western Eurasia. Linking Europe, Western Asiaand the Eurasian steppe zone, this region today is one of the genetically and linguistically most diverse spotsof Eurasia. It is easy to imagine that repeated population influx and drain, but similarly compartmentalisationin the remote mountain valley is behind this modern situation.Eneolithic and Bronze Age populations play an important role in this scenario, as they represent thefirst epochs of formations, which can be regarded either as associated ‘cultures’ and/or coherent biologicalpopulations. A first study on the paleogenetic background of 50 individuals from the 5th to the 2nd millenniumBC, which represent all cultural formations of Bronze Age Caucasia, give a first insight into highly complexscenarios of interaction. The paleogenetic perspective could proof the presence of populations with differentgenetic-make ups and different biological vectors of formation among these individuals. Affiliation bymaterial cultural and other archaeological attributes, however, revealed epochs of interaction, where culturaland biological borders were crossed, and those, where no population exchange seemed to have happenedamong the neighbouring inhabitants of one area. This region thus allows to study in detail the mixing andinterdigitation of people, their materiality and cultural systems and challenge many of the too simple modelsdeveloped for another interface of the Eurasian steppe zone those directed towards Europe."
 
Two papers on Bronze Age Northern Italy also presented at this conference.

"Andrea Cardarelli*, Alberta Arena**Università degli studi di Roma, “La Sapienza”

(...)

Two migrations? One contributing to the rise and one to the fall of the Terramare?

Andrea Cardarelli is an archeologist who teaches at La Sapienza. His past papers are usually very much based on trying to give credence to ancient Greek sources, rather than based on objective archaeological data. Let's see if now he has really found archaeological evidence on what he is trying to prove.
 
Terramare influences in Sicily only touched the eastern part and the Aeolian Islands (Ausonio I and II)

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So there was an Anatolian migration after the " Yamnaya Package " into mainland Europe, wich i always say. But i'm a little bit confused on many points. How Iran_Neo pass through Anatolian_Neo for it to not be that important in this paper and the genetic makeup of BA Greece? I feel like they want to tell us that Steppe Ancestry brought something like Paleohispanic language or a " Vasconic " group, while Iran_Neo brought IE languages. We can see that their Greece Iran_Neo ancestry is dated for 1500 so Mycenaean, wich is the dream of Lazaridis. Hope they gonna clarify their idea of what they try to say for not being confused. Because you know that even if the paper is absolutely not about IE languages, it is totally about it in every interested person mind, them included.

This made me curious and I would love for you to explain what makes you think this, also what you mean by the dream of Lazaridis?
 
This made me curious and I would love for you to explain what makes you think this, also what you mean by the dream of Lazaridis?

I think it's easy to explain a " big " story with " few " samples. And obviously 3000BC Bell Beaker doesn't equal 1500BC Mycenaean Greece in terms of IE studies, because we dont know the hell what BB people spoked, but we know what Mycenaean people spoked. So it's easy to deduce their idea " if we see an imput of Iran Related ancestry in Mycenaean Greece, wich is the first Greek speaker, so IE languages in Greece came with Iran related ancestry and not with Steppe related ancestry. "
I think it's the same story as the " CHG " in Yamnaya that Reich is pushing for being an " Iran_Neolithic " ancestry. As for Lazaridis, i just follow his Twitter for years now, and i read things, and the conclusion is: He loves Greece, like he really loves Greece. And anything coming from Greece can be see maybe not personal, but important for him. I'm going way further with that " IE conclusion " in this paper, because i know it's a general big deal. Once Bronze Age Europe is involve, everything is about IE languages, and i'm cautious in the way few samples are used to wright a story that might come later. But to be fair, an Anatolian ( where else? the sea? ) migration in mainland Europe after the Bell Beaker ( i roughly told to myself from 2200 to 1200 before Jesus Christ ), was always one of my expectation.
 
I think it's easy to explain a " big " story with " few " samples. And obviously 3000BC Bell Beaker doesn't equal 1500BC Mycenaean Greece in terms of IE studies, because we dont know the hell what BB people spoked, but we know what Mycenaean people spoked. So it's easy to deduce their idea " if we see an imput of Iran Related ancestry in Mycenaean Greece, wich is the first Greek speaker, so IE languages in Greece came with Iran related ancestry and not with Steppe related ancestry. "
I think it's the same story as the " CHG " in Yamnaya that Reich is pushing for being an " Iran_Neolithic " ancestry. As for Lazaridis, i just follow his Twitter for years now, and i read things, and the conclusion is: He loves Greece, like he really loves Greece. And anything coming from Greece can be see maybe not personal, but important for him. I'm going way further with that " IE conclusion " in this paper, because i know it's a general big deal. Once Bronze Age Europe is involve, everything is about IE languages, and i'm cautious in the way few samples are used to wright a story that might come later. But to be fair, an Anatolian ( where else? the sea? ) migration in mainland Europe after the Bell Beaker ( i roughly told to myself from 2200 to 1200 before Jesus Christ ), was always one of my expectation.
This is why there can never be a purely objective geneticist.
 
As far as i know there arent archaeological traces of Anatolians moving into Europe in the bronze age, at least in Western Europe....

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Who am I kidding I'm not quitting this forum after seeing this post - wow is all I have to say.

Perhaps, this is actually legitimate evidence for my theories of (pre-)L51 ancestors of the Beaker metallurgical elite coming over from West Asia to Spain via the Mediterranean before spreading to the Rhineland.

I can't believe it - Steppe pre-Bronze Age changes everything. If this turns out to be Chalcolithic (pre-)L51, I think it's safe to say they didn't come from the Steppe, but rather following the previous Megalithic sea route.

Down with Yamnaya, and long live the Southern Caucasus, homeland of L23!

And also, screw Davidski - that guy hates West Asians.
 
This is why there can never be a purely objective geneticist.

The community is extremely inbred to be honest, don't you think it's odd that all of these guys hold the exact same basic viewpoint despite the lack of current evidence? It reminds of the narrow-mindedness of far-left and far-right circles, or at least it does to me - there really is basically no diversity of opinion, unlike these forums.

Also, I have seen Lazaridis's Twitter, and it amazes me how someone that seemingly stupid can get as far as he has. Maybe it's a language barrier thing though, who knows.
 

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