Are you now talking about yourself and your own group (whatever group you identify with), Angela ???
Because you seem to be claiming that Italians have a closer connection to PIE than Balto-Slavs. Though back in times when it was believed that there is Paleolithic Continuity of R1b in Western Europe, superiority was claimed on the basis on Continuity. So it just shows that if someone wants to claim some sort of superiority, he/she can use any, even just moderately good, excuse to do so.
Another thing is that Indo-Europeans have been romanticized and mythologized to make them look like some supermen. The same applies to Vikings etc., but not to some other conquerors (for example Arabs of Khalid ibn Valid, Turkic warriors or Mongols of Genghis Khan have not been romanticized, at least not in Western Europe - perhaps in Mongolia, Arab countries and in Turkic countries they have been romanticized - you know people want their ancestors to be perceived in a good light, but not ancestors of others).
Yes that's quite enjoyable indeed - for example new findings about CHG or Khvalynsk are enjoyable to me. And by the way, it wasn't me who was certain about anything until recently. I lost my irony because I got convinced about certain things only recently.
I try to work with evidence, not with presumptions. Of course I use my own interpretations, but IMO they are logically coherent.
And please show me which of my claims are not backed up with evidence. Then I will gladly revise them. I noticed that some other people instead are twisting evidence to fit their agenda, for example by claiming that Yamnaya autosomal admixture in Corded Ware is not really from Yamnaya, or that Teal people were not really CHG (even though Lazaridis thinks they were), and so on.
And you haven't answered my question about Teal people and why do you think they were R1b (and not for example J or R1a).
As for "blonde cowboys" - that Samara EHG (pre-Teal admixture times) with R1b was actually blonde. That's a fact.
That's rather irrelevant but you started to drag hair colours, racism and modern politics into this discussion, not me.
BTW - Yamnaya and Catacomb were mostly dark-haired (in a sample of 17 there were 2 blondes - so 12%). Karelian hunter was dark-haired, but various predominantly R1a steppe groups had high frequencies of blonde. Hair colour is not inherited with Y-DNA.
Anyway, there is no (and probably never was) any population that was 100% blonde, or even majority blonde.
I'm sorry to see a poster for whom I've felt a great deal of respect go down this path. I actually wasn't including you in that third group although perhaps I was mistaken.
For the last time, I don't have a dog in this fight. My interest is intellectual, not emotional. I'm interested in the history and pre-history of Europe. I've been following this interest since university and graduate school. It was at that time that I discovered Luigi Cavalli-Sforza and realized that his and similar researches might be used to answer some of those questions.
What could have led you to believe that I give a darn about the relationship of Italians to PIE? I've already told you that I don't identify with any of these ancient groups. It's all too long ago, and we're all too mixed by now. Plus, everything I've seen in terms of autosomal analyses indicates that Italians in fact have a lot less Yamnaya ancestry than people in northern and eastern Europe. So how could I possibly think that Italians are closer to PIE than Balto Slavs even if I had such a bizarre view of the world?
It's apparently difficult for you and your side kick Rethel to understand it, but this isn't personal for me. I just try to follow the papers, and I also try not to get too far ahead of the data. So, sometimes I agree with your interpretation of the data, and sometimes I agree with the interpretation of the data of other posters like Alan. I often agree with Bicicleur or Maciamo or Le Brok, but sometimes not. I call it as I see it in each individual case, and not to fit any "side".
As to "substance", if you're now "certain" about all of this, good for you. I'm not. I don't see why that should be such a problem for you and throw you into this emotional turmoil. You claim to KNOW that Corded Ware represents a movement of Yamnaya people into later Corded Ware areas. I don't believe the academics made that claim, nor do I think there's any proof for that in the archaeology. Rather the opposite. The genetics also show that they were not identical to Yamnaya people. But hey, if you want to go with that, fine with me.
In that same vein, I'd like to direct your attention to your post number 238 in this thread where you have a statement in quotes presumably by me to the effect that:
"And Angela's idea that Balto-Slavs in terms of Y-DNA are "direct descendants of EHGs, not Indo-Europeans" is wrong."
I don't remember saying that, although I might have in a moment of carelessness, so if you can direct me to the thread and post where I said that I would appreciate it as I would like to edit the post. If you can't do that I would appreciate it if you could edit
your post to more clearly reflect my opinion on the matter.
What I said in this thread and what
is my opinion, is the following:
"I believe, as I said at the time, that the people who helped to form Corded Ware, in particular, could have been a "related" population to Yamnaya and not a descendent of Yamnaya, and therefore an "Indo-Europeanized" population. In either case, however, they were heavier in EHG, and with some EEF, and therefore carrying less "CHG". Further north, some of the Indo-Europeanized groups might have been very heavily EHG. Further south the Indo-European groups might have been more heavily CHG."
As to your comments about the CHG, I'm not sure if you're addressing me. Almost everything I've posted in this thread has been in the form of a question, so I don't understand what you could possibly find that is so upsetting in my comments. I haven't actually made up my mind about some of the implications of this paper. Is that ok with you? When I have, which will probably be after Thanksgiving as I'm cooking for eighteen, I'll undoubtedly post about it.
Fwiw I also don't see what's so upsetting about the comments others have made about it, but I'm beginning to realize that there is sub-text to some of these discussions of which I'm not aware.
