David Reich Southern Arc Paper Abstract

I think it just relates to weather, for example compare the current weather in Zardkooh (Kuhrang county) in the south of Iran to Stockholm in Sweden, I just searched in google:

stock_o914.jpg


zardkooh_cihw.jpg
 
I think it just relates to weather, for example compare the current weather in Zardkooh (Kuhrang county) in the south of Iran to Stockholm in Sweden, I just searched in google:
stock_o914.jpg

zardkooh_cihw.jpg
Are you being serious?
 
That’s a valid point, and I understand what you're saying. However, the discussion about the PIE homeland is usually polarizing,

In my observation, there is a tendency in the archaeogenetic community, to react with shaming tactics to shut down those who don't believe in the Anatolian or Iran's origin of PIE. So according to some, anyone that doesn't believe that the pesky- Indo-Europeans, a bunch of unskilled savages as some call them, were from Anatolia or Iran, is a racist or white supremacist: This is SJW or Twitter niveau. I'm not saying that there aren't people who for ideological reasons or because of bias reject the Anatolian hypothesis (they definitely do exist), but to put every "Kurganist" or Steppe proponent under general suspicion it's a poor reflection of the debate culture. Shame-based conservation should have no room in a rational, nuanced, and scientific-based discourse.



What you describe is the actual reversal of what really happened. Most people don't spend their whole time researching the issue, they just follow the announcements made by academics and their peers.

As soon as Planck (remember the infamous Russel Gray documentary bit?) and Reich started to talk about the Armenian/Iranian homeland of PIE, as a result, people also started getting interested and inquiring about the subject on the anthroforums; the organised sect of the Kurganists barraged against such inquiries with posts that ranged from subtle irony all the way to vulgar ad homs, usually accompanied by an assortment of complicated mental gymnastics ("Iran/CHG in Steppe is not really Iran/CHG but 'native' and hence also 'pure Euro'", "CHG admixture was strictly female mediated so our glorious ancestors just shopped around for brides", etc) as well as "proof" mediated by dubious closed source PCA platforms that are supposed to be taken for granted against all other sources.
 
I personally have no strong opinion as to where the language was first spoken. I find it beyond bizarre that it's such an emotional issue for so many people.


I think the issue is so polarizing because if an Iranian Homeland is indeed proven beyond any shadow of doubt by Reich then that will be the nail on the coffin of the racist ideological discourse of the 18th-19th century and the absolute destruction of modern politics that try to base their narrative on such racial discourse, whether in a disguised manner or out in the open.

Reich will single handedly (in a manner of speech) be responsible for dismantling the foundation of all racial-ladder related politics, once and for all.

Not a small feat.

Will he deliver? That remains to be seen.
 
I personally don't have a bad impression of the Iranian people in spite of the image of Iran that has been painted by the media. Besides, I'm well aware of Iran's rich history, heritage and culture.

Iran is just a land where some people lived there in different periods, for many reasons a large number of these people migrated to other lands in the ancient times and it is still happening in the modern times.
 
I think the issue is so polarizing because if an Iranian Homeland is indeed proven beyond any shadow of doubt by Reich then that will be the nail on the coffin of the racist ideological discourse of the 18th-19th century and the absolute destruction of modern politics that try to base their narrative on such racial discourse, whether in a disguised manner or out in the open.

Reich will single handedly (in a manner of speech) be responsible for dismantling the foundation of all racial-ladder related politics, once and for all.

Right, for example racist justifications for slavery almost always hinged on whether Indo-European languages originated in Europe or Iran.
 
Of course I meant other than Genetic evidences, as you read about these Lurs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurs Considering their NRY variation, the Lurs are distinguished from other Iranian groups by their relatively elevated frequency of Y-DNA Haplogroup R1b (specifically, of subclade R1b1a2a-L23).
Thank you very much for bringing the Lurs to my attention.
Considering their NRY variation, the Lurs are distinguished from other Iranian groups by their relatively elevated frequency of Y-DNA Haplogroup R1b (specifically, of subclade R1b1a2a-L23).[14] Together with its other clades, the R1 group comprises the single most common haplogroup among the Lurs.[14][15] Haplogroup J2a (subclades J2a3a-M47, J2a3b-M67, J2a3h-M530, more specifically) is the second most commonly occurring patrilineage in the Lurs and is associated with the diffusion of agriculturalists from the Neolithic Near East c. 8000-4000 BCE.[15][16][17][18] Another haplogroup reaching a frequency above 10% is that of G2a, with subclade G2a3b accounting for most of this.[19] Also significant is haplogroup E1b1b1a1b, for which the Lurs display the highest frequency in Iran.[19] Lineages Q1b1 and Q1a3 present at 6%, and T at 4%.[19]
 
Right, for example racist justifications for slavery almost always hinged on whether Indo-European languages originated in Europe or Iran.

Slavery has existed on every continent and every society in those continents; it didn't need Europeans to bring it there, whether they had 50% steppe related ancestry or 25-30%.

Regardless, I don't see how any objective overview of the history of the study of the Indo-Europeans can deny that much of it was "racist" in the sense that it divided Europeans into groups where those containing the most of that wonderful ancestry were "superior" to the rest, and, in fact, any group which attained "greatness" in their eyes, such as the Romans for one example, must have been majority "Indo-European" northerners. In their ignorance they also tied "fairness" to that part of their ancestry.

Ancient dna has dismantled many of the stupidities found in those "histories". We'll see what it has to say about the first place where pre-proto-whatever Indo-European was spoken and what those people were like.

As we already know that the actual Indo-Europeans of the steppe had Iranian like ancestry I don't see what it would change, but then I'm not emotionally invested in any of this.

Oh, by the way, it's quite interesting to look up the people who funded the Journal of Indo-European studies. Quite an eye opener.
 
What you describe is the actual reversal of what really happened. Most people don't spend their whole time researching the issue, they just follow the announcements made by academics and their peers.

As soon as Planck (remember the infamous Russel Gray documentary bit?) and Reich started to talk about the Armenian/Iranian homeland of PIE, as a result, people also started getting interested and inquiring about the subject on the anthroforums; the organised sect of the Kurganists barraged against such inquiries with posts that ranged from subtle irony all the way to vulgar ad homs, usually accompanied by an assortment of complicated mental gymnastics ("Iran/CHG in Steppe is not really Iran/CHG but 'native' and hence also 'pure Euro'", "CHG admixture was strictly female mediated so our glorious ancestors just shopped around for brides", etc) as well as "proof" mediated by dubious closed source PCA platforms that are supposed to be taken for granted against all other sources.

No Sir, I didn't reverse anything of what really happened but I rather didn't engage in selective perception. Moreover, I followed closely the debates and discussions here as well as in other forums, YT, to take a look at both sides of the story and to observe what's going on. Here's the thing, whether someone believes in the Anatolian, Iranian, or Steppe origin of the Indo-Europeans doesn‘t determine whether someone is a racist or not, or whether someone adheres to the scientific method, or not. Period. And what you also missed is that I made clear that in both camps there are people that are driven by bias and political motivation, so I did take this aspect into consideration. Hence, my point stands. Moreover, I was talking about how the discourse is becoming polarizing to a point where people who don‘t believe in the Anatolian hypothesis or are just skeptical are being put in a corner and under general suspicion albeit sometimes in a very subtle way. This is preposterous and has nothing to do with a rational debate. It's a matter of fact that the archaeological evidence, and linguistic and DNA evidence so far seemed to have been validating the Kurgan theory. Nevertheless, perhaps the coin will flip and prove Reich right. We don't know yet.

 
@real expert
@Riverman

I too agree that the discussion is rather polarising, so I am under no illusions and expect that Reich's forthcoming work may lend itself to interested levantineist readings, which in my eyes are just as worthwhile and puerile as the blatantly nordicist/kurganist ones.


Personally, I have nothing in my pocket in ascribing the ultimate origin of the Indo-Europeans to the Steppe or the Caucasus - I live well anyway - although from a purely speculative point of view at the moment and in the light of recent studies, it would seem more correct to speak of Indo-Europeans proper only when the intermingling of the two ancestral groups has been completed (assuming one accepts the proposed model, which is not obvious given the discussion). Before - taken separately - they constitute something else and should be treated as such.
This is not to say that the cultural and/or linguistic legacies of the predecessors did not flow back into the newly formed group, and it seems to me a little naive to think that any one side had total pre-eminence, even if - as happened with the Basques and Etruscans - it was the local language that prevailed, not that of the sub-entrant paternal lineages, and this is a scenario that I would not see as even that shocking in the formation of the first Indo-Europeans. Just as they replaced male lineages in Western Europe, their predecessors may have adopted the same methods at the dawn of their ethnogenesis, out there on the steppes.


@Riverman I have the impression that we are starting from two different assumptions. Assuming that there is a CHG to be sorted and classified, arrived and present there (in mediated or unmediated form), you cite some samples whose core is not significantly mixed with southern components. It seems to me, therefore, that you are inclined to consider the Indo-European ethnos already formed in a manner that is substantially independent of the Caucasian share. So it's back to the drawing board in the end: have Indo-Europeans - linguistically and culturally - already formed almost exclusively within the EHG (and so the CHG component is somewhat secondary and incidental), or are Indo-Europeans that stabilised mixture of EHG and CHG (for which, as I said, I would be more inclined)? It is ultimately a matter of accepting or not accepting what has been elaborated in recent years by Haak, Lazaridis, Reich himself etc. etc.


The first hypothesis - all encompassed in the steppes - might also work, were it not for the fact that one cannot fully account for the Anatolian Indo-European world, which seems to be able to develop its 'Indo-European' characters without being indebted to any particular genetic influences from the north. However, I can see the buck still going back to the CHG, which remains the only relevant element in common between the two groups.
I may be wrong, but if I had to make a bet what Reich's team will propose could be a revisiting or updating - this time on a genetic basis - of what used to be the "Indo-Hittite" linguistic theory, where a local branch of this archaic super-group develops substantially autonomously in the South Caucasian-Iranian arc. A spin-off or sister branch of it is the one that reaches the steppes, being reworked by the local EHGs and giving rise to the Yamnaya, who would later explode mainly in the northern continental belt, but in some cases also leading to minor counter-migrations towards the Caucasus.


The alternative to maintain the steppe model as it is now proposed is to expunge peoples such as Hittites and related from the Indo-European bloc and consider them a separate phenomenon (a peripheral and/or superficially Indo-European group). However, I see this as equally difficult and full of aporias.
 
I think the issue is so polarizing because if an Iranian Homeland is indeed proven beyond any shadow of doubt by Reich then that will be the nail on the coffin of the racist ideological discourse of the 18th-19th century and the absolute destruction of modern politics that try to base their narrative on such racial discourse, whether in a disguised manner or out in the open.

Reich will single handedly (in a manner of speech) be responsible for dismantling the foundation of all racial-ladder related politics, once and for all.

Not a small feat.

Will he deliver? That remains to be seen.

Your comment totally proves my point. According to you, Reich and the Anatolian/Iran hypothesis proponents, are the noble anti-racist Robin Hoods and Crusaders who will cure the world from the ill of racism by proving that the Indo-Europeans were Anatolian or Iranian folks instead of the darlings of evil white supremacists- Steppe herders. And now after Reich proved that PIE's homeland wasn't in Eastern Europe the white supremacist hell of Europe and the USA can finally be healed from its original sin- racism. Yeah right, the evil Kurganists versus the noble Anatolian/Iran team and heroes. And you say I'm reversing what really happened while you demonstrate with your comment exactly what I was talking about.

Besides, you should stop being stuck in the 18th or 19th century. And even the 19th-century scholars that were dealing with the PIE homeland were not all racists. Furthermore, we are in the year 2022 and there is no Kurgan Theory-based, racist policy in Europe or USA whatsoever. On the contrary, for the past years, liberal leftists unleashed on the West an avalanche of ideological nonsense, coupled with tremendous pressure to conform to. Not 18-19th-century ideology but PC is hindering and stifling science.

There is the fallacious thinking that racism, nationalistic thinking, and supremacist ideology are only restricted to Europe or America as if non-whites can‘t be racist. Others think that reverse racism is fine cause it‘s a reaction to the wrongdoings of the past, etc.

Mind you, not only Europeans aka white people abuse the Indo-Europeans for pushing their racial supremacist beliefs and nationalistic ideas. Hence some people reject the Kurgan Theory for racist reasons too. For instance, there are comments from Indocentrists who triumphally declare that they are the original Indo-Europeans and mock and call Europeans the Aryan/Indo-European Larpers.

In case you don't know Indocentrism or the Indigenous Aryans theory, here's the definition from WIKI:


Indocentrism is any ethnocentric perspective that regards India to be central or unique relative to other countries and holds that the "host" culture i.e. of India, is superior to others.


According to Indologist Michael Witzel, there is a recent tendency of indigenously-minded historical revisionism and rewriting of India's history and archaeology in scholarly publications, media, the Internet and government publications. This Indocentric rewriting includes claims that the first human civilization in the world formed in India in c. 10,000 BC, that there is an uninterrupted continuity of the Indian civilization from 7500 BC to present, and that Indo-European speaking Europe was populated by the immigrant people from the Indo-Gangetic Plain


Indigenous Aryanism, also known as the Indigenous Aryans theory (IAT) and the Out of India theory (OIT), is the conviction that the Aryans are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, and that the Indo-European languages radiated out from a homeland in India into their present locations. It is a "religio-nationalistic" view on Indian history, and propagated as an alternative to the established migration model, which considers the Pontic–Caspian steppe to be the area of origin of the Indo-European languages.
 
Now I really think this thread is being sidetracked. Can we please keep it scientific? Ideology-free?
 
Your comment totally proves my point.



My commentary is derived from a cynical viewpoint, I don't share your passion nor care about Europeans' or Indians' ultimate ancestors, least of all I don't care about the current ideological warfare between the "new left" and the "alt right" in the West, I don't think it concerns me or my part of the world, or at least it shouldn't concern us. However, that doesn't mean I cannot provide a third party viewpoint on the issue as it affects relating discourse on a global scale.

My keen interest on the matter stems from another angle that I'd rather not share in fear of derailing the thread towards other directions and igniting other passions (not political) in people.
 
Personally, I have nothing in my pocket in ascribing the ultimate origin of the Indo-Europeans to the Steppe or the Caucasus - I live well anyway - although from a purely speculative point of view at the moment and in the light of recent studies....


What do you make out of the fact, that India doesn't show any genetic influence from Anatolia?
 
It shouldn't be to real researchers, only those who phish for highlight they think may support agendas.

I don't want to go off-topic, and I reply that in the perfect and ideal world it should certainly work like that. But we must be concrete and realistic.


Already in the last century Kuhn had explained to us very well how the so-called scientific revolutions work: irruption of a new paradigm that undermines an old scientific tradition, then 'normalisation' of science for more or less prolonged periods of time (one could also call these periods 'scientific conformism'), while waiting for the new revolution and the collapse of the model that has now become old. Notwithstanding the new objective knowledge that may have been acquired in the meantime, it is equally true that there are often - too often - power games going on around it. The freedom of science, while always desirable, is often a chimera, the phoenix of our times.


Having said that, I personally believe that Reich and his staff have provided both insiders and the general public with some pretty convincing tools and results, and I think this also applies to this thread... But that Reich too may or may have to reckon with a more or less politically oriented agenda is a real possibility in these dark times of 'woke culture' and other politically correct nonsense, not to be ruled out a priori, so - though I hope it doesn't happen - I wouldn't be surprised if he and his staff were also pulled by the bootstraps by others to support more or less crackpot theories. Not so much by his own will, but by external pressures.


He will have to reckon with both the nostalgics of the steppes (of course, it spoils a narrative they are fond of) and those of the Middle Eastern/Mesopotamian civilisations (who make the same mistake as the previous ones, in a mirror-image fashion), but above all in the academic sphere - should his results be ascertained and confirmed - he will force thousands of professors and researchers to revisit their theories and works. It is above all those who worry me: do you think they are willing to do it lightly, as if nothing happened?
I'm more likely to take a trip to the planet Mars in the evening and marry Claudia Schiffer there ;)
 
What do you make out of the fact, that India doesn't show any genetic influence from Anatolia?

Staying with Reich's work, in particular 'Who We Are and How We Got Here', Chapter 6 does not mention Anatolia for the Indian case, but a direct contribution of ancient Iranian farmers, who expanded eastwards from 9,000 years ago to which were added waves of Yamnaya pastoralists from 5,000 years ago.
Anatolia proper is more about the agricultural and Neolithic base of Europe
 
I may be wrong, but if I had to make a bet what Reich's team will propose could be a revisiting or updating - this time on a genetic basis - of what used to be the "Indo-Hittite" linguistic theory, where a local branch of this archaic super-group develops substantially autonomously in the South Caucasian-Iranian arc. A spin-off or sister branch of it is the one that reaches the steppes, being reworked by the local EHGs and giving rise to the Yamnaya, who would later explode mainly in the northern continental belt, but in some cases also leading to minor counter-migrations towards the Caucasus.

There was a very early migration from the Steppe to the Southern Arc as shown by the Areni samples from Armenia almost to the Iranian border. These however also had Levant_PPN/Natufian-like admixture which is missing in Yamnaya, so I doubt that the latter were influenced by Areni. On the contrary, it is more likely Areni-like people influenced Anatolia.

Target: ARM_Areni_C___BC_4206-3925
Distance: 3.4176% / 0.03417649
39.6 TUR_Boncuklu_N:ZHAG_BON004___BC_7950
21.6 GEO_CHG:KK1___BC_7728
18.2 IRN_Ganj_Dareh_N:I1954___BC_8212
7.6 RUS_AfontovaGora3:AfontovaGora3___BC_16086
6.8 Levant_PPNC:I1699___BC_6750
4.4 Levant_PPNB:BAJ001___BC_6900

1.8 RUS_Veretye_Meso:pES001___BC_10761

Target: Yamnaya_RUS_Samara___BC_3124-2835
Distance: 5.9363% / 0.05936292
34.2 GEO_CHG:KK1___BC_7728
28.0 RUS_Sidelkino_HG:Sidelkino___BC_9371
25.0 UKR_Meso:I1763___BC_8131
5.8 RUS_AfontovaGora3:AfontovaGora3___BC_16086
3.6 IRN_Ganj_Dareh_N:I1954___BC_8212
3.4 TUR_Boncuklu_N:ZMOJ_BON014___BC_7950

There is one (only) sample from Anatolia that has Steppe admixture (I1584) and it really seems to suggest a recent origin from the east and more distantly from the north as well.

Target: TUR_Barcin_C:I1584___BC_3820
Distance: 0.0277% / 0.02765814 | R2P
56.2 TUR_Buyukkaya_EC:CBT018___BC_5566
43.8 ARM_Areni_C:I1407___BC_3925

Target: TUR_Barcin_C:I1584___BC_3820
Distance: 0.0198% / 0.01977544 | R4P
47.1 HRV_Sopot_MN:I5077___BC_5051
25.0 IRN_Seh_Gabi_C:I1674___BC_3881
20.1 RUS_Darkveti-Meshoko_En:I2056___BC_4516
7.8 RUS_Progress_En: PG2001___BC_4900
 
There was a very early migration from the Steppe to the Southern Arc as shown by the Areni samples from Armenia almost to the Iranian border. These however also had Levant_PPN/Natufian-like admixture which is missing in Yamnaya, so I doubt that the latter were influenced by Areni. On the contrary, it is more likely Areni-like people influenced Anatolia.

I think that the steppe migration could be related with WSHG. We still don’t know WSHG’s Phenotype. However we know that they reached IVC, hence, they could easily enter Iran. I think this people makes altai language people like turk, Japanese and Korean have too much tamil words. I also think that WSHG plus CHG people could speak like EHG plus CHG people. Another big question is whether they did not land on europe at all.

Ernest Mackay, who published the mask from Harappa
and the “priest” figure from Mohenjo-daro, pointed out
that they in no way correspond to the local small plastic art
traditions and held them as imports. Of the Harappan
terracottas proper, a minutely developed canon is
characteristic: these are female statuettes with luxuriant
locks and round eyes rendered with appliqués or pits.
Against such a background, the maskoids and “priests” are
noteworthy precisely because of their peculiarity.
According to Mackay, these statuettes are of a distinctly
Mongoloid appearance and differ sharply in their facial
type from the ordinary examples. They were retrieved from
one of the lowest strata of the city and suggest that its
population may have had an admixture of Mongoloid blood
introduced, possibly, by newcomers from the North-West,
or perhaps from the Iranian Plateau where, during
excavations in Tepe Hissar, several very ancient Mongoloid
skulls were found (Mackay 1951:133).


iir_mfa6ns5v.png
 

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