Ancient genomes reveal social and genetic structure of Late Neolithic Switzerland

[Riverman]

Kotova addressed these possible cultural influences from the South:
Nadezhda Kotova, The Neolithization of Northern Black Sea area in the context of climate changes. In: Documenta Praehistorica XXXVI (2009). p. 164-166:

Some traits of Rakushechny Yar culture are similar to Neolithic sites in Eastern Anatolia: rectangular houses with daub, flat-bottomed pots, clay figurines,
polished tools, animal husbandry with domestic cattle, ovicaprids and pigs, but no horses. This similarity, together with close radiocarbon dates, allows
me to assume a borrowing of some attainments, or even a penetration of small groups of population from Eastern Anatolia to the Azov Sea area around 6900 calBC.

This migration could be the result of aridity, which has been fixed at c. 7000 calBC in the Azov Sea steppe (Bezus?ko et al. 2000.105). It was not a short
arid period, nor a local event. The transition from the Pre-Pottery to the Ceramic Neolithic has been recorded for this period in southeastern Anatolia. It was accompanied by a collapse of the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic cultures. Many sites were deserted.

[...]

The migration of some small groups of the Anatolian population along the eastern shore of the Black Sea was also possible. The similarity of the pottery found at the Chokh site in the Northern
Caucasus to pottery in Northern Mesopotamia, as recorded by Shnirelman (Shnirelman 1989.85), has confirmed this migration. Triticum dicoccon, Triticum monococcum, Hordeum vulgare and
Hordeum vulgare var. Coeleste; the bones of cattle and ovicaprids were found at this site, which is dated to c. 6900 calBC (Amirkhanov 1987).

[...]

Thus, for the second stage, two secondary centers of neolithisation are known in the south of Eastern Europe: eastern (in the Northern Caucasus) and western (in the Low Don region).
They mainly coincide with two variants of the Neolithic tradition as distinguished by Shnirelman, i.e., western, to which ? in my opinion ? the Rakushechny Yar culture is close, and eastern, represented by Chokh (Shnirelman 1989.85). The influence of traditions of the eastern variant has been not traced in the steppes of Eastern Europe, probably because their bearers occupied mountain areas. The steppe population of the Northern Azov Sea area appeared to have been more interactive. It is probable that the Early Neolithic of eastern Europe was formed solely under its influence.

The Chokh culture itself was therefore not that influential for the formation of the steppe cultures.

 

[Olympus Mons]

Kotova addressed these possible cultural influences from the South:
Nadezhda Kotova, The Neolithization of Northern Black Sea area in the context of climate changes. In: Documenta Praehistorica XXXVI (2009). p. 164-166:

Riverman,
Everybody has their own perspective on the issue. However, some will be correct and others naturally WRONG. It will be that simple.
- As long as people admit they were wrong before, It will be also natural that many will be adapting their perspectives to the data regarding DNA that is being published.

From the top of my arrogance, I have been saying for long that David Anthony & co, and many others are wrong! I have been fighting what I regard as complete myopic an somewhat mind-boggling inability to recognize, just based on logic, the centrality of the Shulaveri-Shomu in the issues at stake. I follow all other papers and have an opinion, but do my best to be recognized solely by my stance on the Shulaveri.

I have read most (if not all) of Kotova and so many others have written … and If something we have learned so far is that Archeology printed in papers is too many times both nationalistic and regionalist and … Wrong!

The good part is that it looks like we will know the truth in years and not in decades.

The Chokh culture itself was therefore not that influential for the formation of the steppe cultures.

Its a good example. Why would the Chokh be influential at all? - A Mesolithic Hunter gatherer that got their neolithic from the shulaveri down bellow in the Kura river. But let me ask you this. Do you think the neolithization of the steppes has copper beads and copper awls (equal to the ones at Arukhlo in shulaveri) by a coincidence? Yes, some say that those copper awls and beads is copper from the Balkans... can you show me were they explain the tests they did to those copper ores? and to which samples?

Anyway, like I said, someone has to be right.

 

[Angela]

There are some connections to Shulaveri Shomu and Lower Don but Shulaveri Shomu is fully neolithic while the Lower Don is not until the Eneolithic at least. Jena is still using IranNeolithic-related and so is the Reich Lab, Armenia is the thing of Lazaridis since 2016 but in the end all are taking about the South Caucasus. Davidskis idea that hunter fishers out of nowhere startet domesticating sheep and goat which were not home to the steppe at that time and some basic neolithic is possible but very very unlikely. Every paper about this topic I read mentions a possible migration from the south which brought this neolithic package to the Don but in my opinion Gobustan in Azerbaijan might be a better source for the neolithic on the Lower Don than Shulaveri Shomu(it is still my second guess though), but lets see what the experts say :

"Zu kaukasischen und vorderasiatischen Einflüssen bei der Neolithisierung im unteren Donbecken" Eng: "Caucasian and Middle Eastern influence in the Neolithization on the Don"

1.

2.

3.



Sure i have my own biases but at least there are some experts who give me enough arguments for a Northern Iran/Southern Caucasus migration into the Steppe region.

Wasn't it Dienekes who was speculating about it coming from Azerbaijan? It was so long ago maybe I've gotten it wrong.

 

[Riverman]

Its a good example. Why would the Chokh be influential at all? - A Mesolithic Hunter gatherer that got their neolithic from the shulaveri down bellow in the Kura river. But let me ask you this. Do you think the neolithization of the steppes has copper beads and copper awls (equal to the ones at Arukhlo in shulaveri) by a coincidence? Yes, some say that those copper awls and beads is copper from the Balkans... can you show me were they explain the tests they did to those copper ores? and to which samples?

I think you have to make some very basic distinctions first, like:
- Did people from South of the Caucasus reach the North Caucasus at different times? Yes, everybody says so.
- Did this migrations influence the culture of the steppe people, even in later periods? Yes, they did, especially with Maykop of course.

But if you ask about the formation of the steppe ancestral component and the PIE culture and people, from LDC -> SSC -> CWC, they could influence somewhat, especially culturally, but genetically only minimally, linguistically not at all.

So its important to not mix these issues, because its about two completely different things whether cultural influences were present from the Southern Black Sea region, or whether massive immigrations, replacements and language transfers took place. That's not the case, the core of the LDC and SSC was autochthonous. Question is when the majority CHG-rich people came and the most likely scenario is 8th-7th mil. BC with the new blade technologies. After that, there was no such big migration from the South.
Cultural material influences ≠ Genetic influences of significance on the later steppe people.
Most of the time there is migration if there is a cultural influence in the early periods, but not always and its not always a big impact migration, especially if there is no direct continuity between the initial spread of a new culture and some elements living on in a region - if its not the whole package which survives. In the case of the Southern North Pontic region, it was, even if present, no big impact migration after the initial dispersal of the CHG-rich people. I mean we don't know absolutely for sure, not yet, but its highly unlikely. Even if they would find some individuals in the earliest LDC settlements, you will see that this component will largely be attenuated and the indigenous groups take over.

 

[Olympus Mons]

Wasn't it Dienekes who was speculating about it coming from Azerbaijan? It was so long ago maybe I've gotten it wrong.

If Dienekes said Azerbaijan and wanting to mean Shulaveri-Shomu than it was really strange that he knew so little , since Shulaveri were mostly from what today is Georgia (and Armenia for the Aratashen region). So saying Azerbaijan he for sure meant something else. Referring to Azerbaijan people usually meant the flow of people in Caspian cost, which was mainly linked to northwest Iran.

 

[Olympus Mons]

I think you have to make some very basic distinctions first, like:
- Did people from South of the Caucasus reach the North Caucasus at different times? Yes, everybody says so.
- Did this migrations influence the culture of the steppe people, even in later periods? Yes, they did, especially with Maykop of course.

...
Cultural material influences ≠ Genetic influences of significance on the later steppe people.
.....

Riverman,
We’ve all, I suppose, been over this sort of discussions over and over again.

What I know is that of all the samples they already have sequenced, covering 9th-7th millennium, covering late 5^th millennium to the end of bronze age…. South of Caucasus, north of Caucasus, steppe, Balkans, eastern Europe….where are we?
– Here:
"Laziridis (but all other are saying the same, even amateurs):Of all the samples we have so far, NONE IS THE SOURCE OF NEAR EASTERN ANCESTRY IN YAMNAYA."

So, not CHG, not IRAN_N, Not Iran or Anatolia Chalc, not Maykop, not kura-araxes. What is it missing? – South Caucasus Neolithic 6^th millennium BC. I.e. Shulaveri-Shomu.

 

[Olympus Mons]

There are some connections to Shulaveri Shomu and Lower Don but Shulaveri Shomu is fully neolithic while the Lower Don is not until the Eneolithic at least. Jena is still using IranNeolithic-related and so is the Reich Lab, Armenia is the thing of Lazaridis since 2016 but in the end all are taking about the South Caucasus....

Anfänger, In my mind this does not make much sense.
If people at reich and MPI-SHH say Iran Neolithic, they can not be meaning South Caucasus, wouldn't you agree? Do they have a severe problem with language or geography?

the Armenian Laziridis talked in 2016, believe me has absolutely nothing to do with Armenian Neolithic because there was no such entity either culturally or in any samples up to today (excluding Margarayan MtDna).

A fact to remember is that the samples used in Wang et al were from times when the shulaveri had vanished almost 1000 years before. The region was abandoned and later 4300 BC, the Sioni occupied some of those areas, but in different settlements. --- The point here is that there is no such thing as South Caucasus as a continuum in this issue. There was Anatolia - Iran neolithic, then The Shulaveri showed up in South Caucasus and from 6200BC-5000BC they where it. After them....nothing. then by 4300BC started the Sioni and Kura araxes of very different people (results from Ubaid and God knows what came from the east).

 

[Riverman]

You are right, they don't have the exact match. But we can already largely exclude later samples from Transcaucasia, because of the different ancestral components, as well as populations further East, which show simiarities to South and probably East Asians. This means we don't know for sure what kind of people might have lurked around in some valley not tested by now, but an old Caucasian origin is more likely and it must have been latest in the 6th mil. BC, so the ideal candidate is indeed the geometrical microliths industry.

One of the possible sources for this was the Zarzian Culture (middle period, related cultures) and the successor in the form of the early Mlefatian. I think Shulaveri-Shomu will not fit genetically and will be too late as well. That doesn't mean they couldn't have influenced here or there, but it was not them, they were not the CHG-rich people contributing the majority of the CHG-like ancestral component to the steppe people. These were earlier people from the Epipalaeolithic to earliest pre-ceramic Neolithic. I'm not saying they were the source, but that's a speculation out there based on some similarities of the material culture (see the research group). Anything later, after the 7th mil. BC, is much less likely I'd say. But these (Zarzian-related/early Mlefatian) are the best chances for something Transcaucasian in the 9th-7th mil. BC. I wouldn't exclude the possibilty of admixture in the CHG-rich population, so not just one, but different CHG-people contributing. Yet again the mentioned would be the last from South of the Caucasus to have a significant, larger scale impact - if at all.

 

[Olympus Mons]

You are right, they don't have the exact match. But we can already largely exclude later samples from Transcaucasia, because of the different ancestral components, as well as populations further East, which show simiarities to South and probably East Asians. This means we don't know for sure what kind of people might have lurked around in some valley not tested by now, but an old Caucasian origin is more likely and it must have been latest in the 6th mil. BC, so the ideal candidate is indeed the geometrical microliths industry.

This is my point above. There is NO continuum in transcaucasia! Hunter-gatheres lived in the Caucasus mountains, people lived in western georgia, in places like Chokh and all indicates they should be very much Kotias (KK). Then by 6200bc the Shulaveri arrived a fully developed Neolithic and highly pastoral people... then after 5000BC there was nothing there. Only by 4300BC (the samples of Wang et al) the Sioni appear in the region and then Kura araxes well over 1000 years after the Shulaveri vanished. So, Transcaucasia does not exist for this matters. it needs to be stated which culture/period we are talking about.

One of the possible sources for this was the Zarzian Culture (middle period) and the successor in the form of the early Mlefatian. I think Shulaveri-Shomu will not fit genetically and will be too late as well. That doesn't mean they couldn't have influenced here or there, but it was not them, they were not the CHG-rich people contributing the majority of the CHG-like ancestral component to the steppe people. These were earlier people from the Epipalaeolithic to earliest pre-ceramic Neolithic. I'm not saying they were the source, but that's a speculation out there based on some similarities of the material culture (see the research group). Anything later, after the 7th mil. BC, is much less likely I'd say. But these (Zarzian/early Mlefatian) are the best chances for something Transcaucasian in the 9th-7th mil. BC. I wouldn't exclude the possibilty of admixture in the CHG-rich population, so not just one, but different CHG-people contributing. Yet again the mentioned would be the last from South of the Caucasus to have a significant, larger scale impact - if at all.

Can be possible. Everyone have the right to have a perspective on the subject.
Sampling Sredny Stog and orlovka culture will definitely give us more data.
... as well as the Humongous, mammoth paper from Laziridis about the neolithic near eastern ancestry (including as far as I know Shulaveri) everyone is talking about that will supposedly settle the issue once and for all. - So be very attentive to the twitters coming out of Reich in the next 12 month or so...

 

[Riverman]

To me Sredny Stog, which is quite diverse in itself, is already too late, the Lower Don Culture is what really matters, because that's when and where the homogenisation is supposed to have taken place, of whatever ingredients beside EHG and small Western Neolithic ancestry came in of CHG-like people. But if they have a Shu-Shlo sample, it will be nice to have for a comparison

 

[Anfänger]

Wasn't it Dienekes who was speculating about it coming from Azerbaijan? It was so long ago maybe I've gotten it wrong.

Did he ? So there is another one that thinks the best place for south to north migration is the eastern caucasus. There are very few people who crossed the Western Caucasus south to north because there are huge mountians along the coast and north. It's a wonder that Maykop did but this was way later. In contrast the eastern caucasus was crossed by basically any culture that was located there. The best route is along the Caspian coast. Here is also the place where a CHG-like population would have enough Hotu/IranN that we see in the Eneolithic Piedmont samples and even more than 15% EHG admixture is possible above the EHG levels we see in Hotu and Kotias.

Anfänger, In my mind this does not make much sense.
If people at reich and MPI-SHH say Iran Neolithic, they can not be meaning South Caucasus, wouldn't you agree? Do they have a severe problem with language or geography?

the Armenian Laziridis talked in 2016, believe me has absolutely nothing to do with Armenian Neolithic because there was no such entity either culturally or in any samples up to today (excluding Margarayan MtDna).

A fact to remember is that the samples used in Wang et al were from times when the shulaveri had vanished almost 1000 years before. The region was abandoned and later 4300 BC, the Sioni occupied some of those areas, but in different settlements. --- The point here is that there is no such thing as South Caucasus as a continuum in this issue. There was Anatolia - Iran neolithic, then The Shulaveri showed up in South Caucasus and from 6200BC-5000BC they where it. After them....nothing. then by 4300BC started the Sioni and Kura araxes of very different people (results from Ubaid and God knows what came from the east).

They are using Iran-Neolithic-related and there is actually pure IranN/Hotu in Vonyuchka and Progress and even in the Q1a Khvalynsk sample (about 10-15%). You tell me how did IranN/Hotu reach Khvalynsk ? Shulaveri is too late to be in the game but we will see. We are just speculating, it is better we wait till Orlovka samples come out and when come back to this discussion.

 

[Olympus Mons]

To me Sredny Stog, which is quite diverse in itself, is already too late, the Lower Don Culture is what really matters, because that's when and where the homogenisation is supposed to have taken place, of whatever ingredients beside EHG and small Western Neolithic ancestry came in of CHG-like people. But if they have a Shu-Shlo sample, it will be nice to have for a comparison

Yes, the question will be if it will be the LDC or the Sredny Stog that is going to be relevant. You believe the earlier LDC I keep my mantra of the vanishing Shulaveri that flew to north from Ubaid (or most likely climate change ) taking a more robust neolithic to the region with its very shulaveri combination of pastoral way of life. So from 5200BC - 4800BC between the Kuban rivers, the terek, the don and Volga...I atribute it to the shulaveri running. Maybe wrong, who knows.

However,

Davidski is so very excited with the leaks e gets from the labs... and he says that in Sredny stog, by as early as near 5000BC (so? 4900bc? 4700bc?) there is a very close to Yamnaya admixture... I am telling you. Its the Shulaveri.

 

[Riverman]

They are using Iran-Neolithic-related and there is actually pure IranN/Hotu in Vonyuchka and Progress and even in the Q1a Khvalynsk sample (about 10-15%). You tell me how did IranN/Hotu reach Khvalynsk ? Shulaveri is too late to be in the game but we will see. We are just speculating, it is better we wait till Orlovka samples come out and when come back to this discussion.

Khvalynsk had Orlovka and Pricaspian admixture according to Kotova, see above. But as discussed above, Khvalynsk is the offshot up the Volga from the LDC/early SSC. That was, for the crucial time of the steppe people's formation and therefore the PIE, largely a one-way street up the rivers, rarely back (after the Mesolithic). This is also evident in the flow of materials and cultural innovations:

Thus, some elements in the Low Don, Pricaspiy, Samara and Orlovka cultures are interpreted as imitations of Hamangia pottery, which could penetrate to the steppe Don and Volga regions together with first metal and marine shells about 5300?5000 BC.

[...]

These imports and imitations reflect the contacts of the steppe people with the Balkans population, namely with the Hamangia culture. Those contacts created a base for formation of the Sredniy Stog and Khalynsk Early Eneolithic cultures with radical changes of the burial rites. The cultural transformation was initiated with an aridity of climate between 5400?5330 ВС with a maximum about 5360 BC, which created an ecological and economic crises in the dry southern regions of steppe. Destruction of traditional way of life of the Surskaja and Low Don populations near the Sea of Azov and their close contacts during previous times gave an impulse for the formation of the new Sredniy Stog culture on the base of their traditions located in the Sea of Azov area. The first period of this culture is dated about 5250?4800 BC. Pottery with shells in clay, linear and comb decoration, flintheads of spear and arrows, bone plates, pendants from red deer teeth and shell beads are typical for this culture. Their ceramics can be seen as a heritage of the Surskaja tradition, but the set of tools, weapons and adornments copied the Low Don complex (Kotova 2008).

Nadja S. Kotova, The contacts of the Eastern European steppe people with the Balkan population during the transition period from Neolithic to Eneolithic. In: PR?HISTORISCHEARCH?OLOGIE IN S?DOSTEUROPA BAND 30. p. 314-315.

I doubt Orlovka is praticularly important, but rather some (Anthony?) try to reconcile with the idea, that Khvalynsk was all that important? So Orlovka is the last straw for finding the right CHG-rich ancestry that far up the Volga, in the North East? I think Orlovka might be fairly exotic in comparison to the Southern steppe, but like expressed, I don't think its particularly important at all. But let's test Orlovka and Pricaspian culture. Good to have them too, just in case

 

[Riverman]

Yes, the question will be if it will be the LDC or the Sredny Stog that is going to be relevant.

The difference between Shulaveri Shomu and the LDC in this respect is, that Shu-Sho could have had some sort of influence, probably, but LDC is (at least one of) the direct ancestor(s) and predecessor of the SSC. Its not some possible influence, its hard to explain anything we see in SSC without LDC being (at least among) its ancestor(s). That's like Romans without Italics. Doesn't work. Shu-Shlo could be more like the Greeks, having influenced the Italics and Etruscans culturally, but little genetically in ancient Latium. Like the Etruscans? Hmm...rather not, but who knows for sure.

As we see later, the early SSC and early Khvalynsk already have the steppe ancestry, Yamnaya of course too. So its within the LDC horizon that changes, hybridisation and homogenisation took place. SSC and KhvC are the results of these processes. So for making Shu-Sho important, genetically, not just as a more distant cultural influence, you have to prove how Shu-Sho could have formed the LDC or participated in the formation of its later stages at least. Like Anf?nger and me were saying, that's also a problem for the chronology, but probably you have a solution for the time schedule problem.

Davidski is so very excited with the leaks e gets from the labs... and he says that in Sredny stog, by as early as near 5000BC (so? 4900bc? 4700bc?) there is a very close to Yamnaya admixture... I am telling you. Its the Shulaveri.

:wink:

 

[Olympus Mons]

The difference between Shulaveri Shomu and the LDC in this respect is, that Shu-Sho could have had some sort of influence, probably, but LDC is (at least one of) the direct ancestor(s) and predecessor of the SSC. Its not some possible influence, its hard to explain anything we see in SSC without LDC being (at least among) its ancestor(s). That's like Romans without Italics. Doesn't work. Shu-Shlo could be more like the Greeks, having influenced the Italics and Etruscan culturally, but little genetically in ancient Latium. Like the Etruscans? Hmm...rather not, but who knows for sure.

I always struggle that sort of view. No time and space .
Well if anything, from LDC to Sredni there was a change of crania from robust, large skulls, to gracile and median width. So someone came from somewhere don't you think?
I always try to see what happens in real life events - From 5200BC onwards in that region lots of people got together for come reason. from LDC to i guess what I think i was the Shulaveri people. They for sure all clearly got more gracile like the shulaveri and also taller like the LDC people. the locals brought the stature but suddenly the region went from foxes, reed dear, bears to became full of cattle, goats, sheep, pigs and dogs... and copper beads and copper awls... and even others from east (like Orlovka) seem to join.... and now what we really need is a lot of Dna to figure it out.

As we see later, the early SSC and early Khvalynsk already have the steppe ancestry, Yamnaya of course too. .....

The same problem of time and space. People move.
We know that up to very late this steppe places had no, none, CHG or near eastern component. however during 5th millenium, suddenly...
Shulaveri A was born, at 16 years old had a son from a LDC women EHG, at 32 was a grandfather with 10 grand children that had "steppe" ancestry. And that was one guy...so 100 years later lots of them have already EHG in them. If A moves to the region of B , 100 years later they all have ancestry from B as well as from A. because whatever happened in the steppe eneolithic does not seem to have been violent until the Yamnaya.

 

[Riverman]

Well if anything, from LDC to Sredni there was a change of crania from robust, large skulls, to gracile and median width. So someone came from somewhere don't you think?

How many skulls from the early LDC do we really have? Also, there seem to have been two influences of more Mediterranean variants into the region, one possibly from the East, the other from the West. The latter was associated with the Western Neolithic contacts I spoke about. If you look carefully, different variants persist in different groups at different times and new phenotypes emerge, both due mixture and selection. But how the phenotypical shifts relate to ancestral shifts is difficult to tell. Remind you, phenotypical interpretations are prone to underestimate other factors, like drift and selection. You can find different trends among different steppe people, all descending from the original core group. They don't look particularly close actually.

From 5200BC onwards in that region lots of people got together for come reason. from LDC to i guess what I think i was the Shulaveri people. They for sure all clearly got more gracile like the shulaveri and also taller like the LDC people. the locals brought the stature but suddenly the region went from foxes, reed dear, bears to became full of cattle, goats, sheep, pigs and dogs... and copper beads and copper awls... and even others from east (like Orlovka) seem to join....

The main theory of Kotova et al. on this issue is that they had contacts to Neolithic people before, that they had parts of the technology before, but they only shifted when the climate deteriorated and the contacts especially to the Western neighbours intensified.

We know that up to very late this steppe places had no, none, CHG or near eastern component. however during 5th millenium, suddenly...

We have zero from the LDC and now we might get early SSC with CHG, so, let DNA sort it out, but I don't see that sudden change in the 5th mil. in this respect. But its not like I know everything :cool-v:

Shulaveri A was born, at 16 years old had a son from a LDC women EHG, at 32 was a grandfather with 10 grand children that had "steppe" ancestry. And that was one guy...so 100 years later lots of them have already EHG in them.

The problem is just, that R1a+b seem to have been EHG lineages, so paternally the foragers seem to have dominated.

If A moves to the region of B , 100 years later they all have ancestry from B as well as from A. because whatever happened in the steppe eneolithic does not seem to have been violent until the Yamnaya.

Violence in prehistory can be a tricky thing, very tricky. Whether there was such a drastic increase of violence with Yamnaya is open to debate. Rather they were among the first of the steppe people to do a real big expansion with their clan's exclusive paternal heritage, over huge stretches of land. But I'd say that's rather because their package was so good and ruled supreme, rather than them being generally more or less violent. There are even people which don't show off how violent they are, yet they are quite brutal and vice versa.

But let the DNA god sort it out.

 

[Anfänger]

Yes, the question will be if it will be the LDC or the Sredny Stog that is going to be relevant. You believe the earlier LDC I keep my mantra of the vanishing Shulaveri that flew to north from Ubaid (or most likely climate change ) taking a more robust neolithic to the region with its very shulaveri combination of pastoral way of life. So from 5200BC - 4800BC between the Kuban rivers, the terek, the don and Volga...I atribute it to the shulaveri running. Maybe wrong, who knows.

However,

Davidski is so very excited with the leaks e gets from the labs... and he says that in Sredny stog, by as early as near 5000BC (so? 4900bc? 4700bc?) there is a very close to Yamnaya admixture... I am telling you. Its the Shulaveri.

My prediction: They will be just like Eneolithic Steppe and they are West of Samara (according to Davidski) that's way north of the LDC not a good candidate for anything because if the location is correct this is Forest region not steppe. Yamnaya was formed after 4000BC not earlier. We are looking for CHG-rich people the ancestor of Yamnaya/CWC spreading the neolithic package north and Shulaveri Shomu isn't a good candidate for this in my opnion. LDC gets probaly the basic neolithic package 6500BC if the dates are going to be correct it is the earliest on the steppe with this package. Here is migration possible. 5000BC is just people with southern gracile skull type pushing and admixing with the local (E)HGs north I have sources for this for Khvalynsk and you probably for SSC, but i am not 100% sure where they come from and if two populations with this gracile type were involved or just one.

Riverman, If Khvalynsk is an offshoot of LDC and has Orlovka and Pricaspian admixture. Orlovka is at least going to have some LDC admixture. This is better than having nothing from this time period on the steppe.

 

[torzio]

oldest sample

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2259-z

Supplementary Discussion 5: Palaeogenetics (Supplementary information)

...
The reconstructed mtDNAs of Bacho Kiro Cave specimens were aligned to 54 present-day
humans, 12 ancient H. sapiens (SI Tab. 9), 22 Neanderthals, four Denisovans, one Sima de los
Huesos individual and a chimpanzee to determine to which hominin group they belong. All of the
six Bacho Kiro Cave mitochondrial genomes fall within the variation of H. sapiens. The
haplogroups of the reconstructed mtDNAs were identified using HaploGrep and the Phylotree
database (build 17). Bacho Kiro Cave molar (F6-620) and specimen AA7-738 carry the
substitutions that define the M haplogroup with 0.98 posterior support (73G, 263G, 489C, 750G,
1438G, 2706G, 4769G, 7028T, 8701G, 8860G, 9540C, 10398G, 10400T, 10873C, 11719A,
12705T, 14766T, 14783C, 15043A, 15301A, 15326G, 16223T), along with two substitutions
(4730T and 5315G) not seen in any present-day human population. The specimens BB7-240 and
CC7-335 carry the substitutions characteristic of the N haplogroup (73G, 263G, 750G, 1438G,
2706G, 4769G, 7028T, 8860G, 9456G, 11719A, 12705T, 14766T, 15326G, 16223T) with 0.93 and
0.92 posterior support, respectively. Both of them share two mutations (4113A, 8155A) not
detected in any present-day human population along with one specific mutation for each of them
(194T in BB7-240 and 14790G in CC7-335) and fall basal to the other individuals of the
macrohaplogroup N, with the smallest number of differences to Oase1. Specimen CC7-2289
carries the substitutions defining the R haplogroup (73G, 263G, 750G, 1438G, 2706G, 4769G,
7028T, 8860G, 11719A, 14766T, 15326G) with no private mutations and no additional
substitutions that define sub-clades of haplogroup R, suggesting a relationship to the mtDNA
ancestral to present-day haplogroup R. The mitochondrial genome of the specimen BK-1653
belongs to haplogroup U8, commonly found in other Upper Palaeolithic humans in Europe,
and shows the smallest number of differences to the mtDNA genome of Kostenki 14.
​

 

[Olympus Mons]

My prediction: They will be just like Eneolithic Steppe and they are West of Samara (according to Davidski) that's way north of the LDC not a good candidate for anything because if the location is correct this is Forest region not steppe. Yamnaya was formed after 4000BC not earlier. We are looking for CHG-rich people the ancestor of Yamnaya/CWC spreading the neolithic package north and Shulaveri Shomu isn't a good candidate for this in my opnion. LDC gets probaly the basic neolithic package 6500BC if the dates are going to be correct it is the earliest on the steppe with this package. Here is migration possible. 5000BC is just people with southern gracile skull type pushing and admixing with the local (E)HGs north I have sources for this for Khvalynsk and you probably for SSC, but i am not 100% sure where they come from and if two populations with this gracile type were involved or just one.

Riverman, If Khvalynsk is an offshoot of LDC and has Orlovka and Pricaspian admixture. Orlovka is at least going to have some LDC admixture. This is better than having nothing from this time period on the steppe.

@Anfänger
If something I know is that what the future holds will probably be a surprise.

Yet, what I cannot fathom is this idea that suddenly, out of the blue because usually the strata has well defined layers, the Huntergatheres of a region become totally, very complex and multi species, diverse in techniques, fully Neolithic, Agro-pastoral… without the influx of people that dominate the environment. Its not pots anymore is it?


From the LDC to the Sredni stog its several types of cereals, its peas and legumes, its sheep and pigs, its dogs all at once?… enough to survive as vestiges over millennia. that is not how I perceive the world. Its takes lots of people and people that have those skills. But we will see , I suppose.

 

[Riverman]

From the LDC to the Sredni stog its several types of cereals, its peas and legumes, its sheep and pigs, its dogs all at once?… enough to survive as vestiges over millennia. that is not how I perceive the world. Its takes lots of people and people that have those skills. But we will see , I suppose.

Some highly developed farmer cultures lived directdly West of them. Its the other way around, the question is why didn't they adopt these techniques for so long? And the answer is, that they needed a more pastoralist leaning package, adapted to their conditions on the steppe and in the river valleys AND that they needed the motivation to use it, e.g. because of new social norms, new cults and ideology (metal objects, prestigious contacts, larger social units etc.), but especially environmental pressure to give up on their forager life. Whatever the motivation was, it was not happening without admixture.

I predict that you will find in the LDC area a group of EHG:CHG people first in one spot, which eventually start mixing with Western farmers (wives). These Neolithic women will appear among them, like in the Northern European context too, and their culture changes during this time as well, once more, to the full Neolithic package. They had intensive contacts with the West, exemplified by an increased proportion of farmer admixture from East to West, from one regional culture to the next. Remember the farmers tested in the later SSC/Dereivka area? A lot of EEF ancestry! Its just that here, like in the East, the core steppe people prevailed and replaced or assimilated the more farmer-shifted groups. So its not like they were isolated at all, they had direct, intensive contacts to the farmers with Carpatho-Balkan roots to their West and contacts to the East also.
But while we have the increase of EEF ancestry, most likely as a new shift, I don't think a migration from the East of demographic significance took place at that time, but was happening earlier already.