Corded Ware / Iranic-Aryan split of IE?

[Silesian]

Very nice. I'm glad you find the tests useful.

Question. My ydna 23&me profile is R1b/R1a with I1 and I2[the 4 comprising roughly 85%] typical I presume for the region in southern Poland. Polish/Slavic ydna is dominated by R1a say roughly 60-65%. The question I have; what language existed among I1 and I2 before R1a PIE Slavic domination/expansion?

For example, Dravidian into Sanskrit as a rough example. Is there any evidence that you have studied, showing I1 and I2 language prior to R1a and PIE ?

A substantial body of loanwords has been identified in the earliest Indian texts. Non-Indo-Aryan elements (such as -s- following -u- in Rigvedic busa) are clearly in evidence. While some loanwords are from Dravidian, and other forms are traceable to Munda^[2] or Proto-Burushaski, the bulk have no sensible basis^{[according to whom?]} in any of these families, suggesting a source in one or more lost languages. The discovery that some loan words from one of these lost sources had also been preserved in the earliest Iranian texts, and also in Tocharian convinced Michael Witzel and Alexander Lubotsky that the source lay in Central Asia and could be associated with the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC).^[3] Another lost language is that of the Indus Valley Civilization, which Witzel initially labelled Para-Munda, but later the Kubhā-Vipāś substrate.^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substratum_in_Vedic_Sanskrit

 

[polako]

What do you mean by not being projected onto the plot?

In academic studies the PC loadings are computed with modern samples only and then the ancient samples are projected onto the plots based on these loadings. But this results in projection bias, with the ancient samples being dragged towards the middle of the PCA plots. I hope they fix this problem soon.

R1a spent so much time in South/Central Asia that it must have been spread throughout the region as hunter gatherer communities. Somehow it missed the Early Farmer revolution, and only came to substance once Z93 clade became herders in central Asia and Z282 farmers in eastern Europe. Before that R1a was small in numbers and lived in secluded hunter communities.

I doubt that there was any R1a in Central Asia until the Bronze Age, and South Asia until the Iron Age. I'd say it arrived there from the southern Urals with the Indo-Europeans, and most of it belonged to R1a-Z93. But there were probably some less common R1a lineages in that mix too, and perhaps that's what Underhill et al. 2014 picked up in Iran and surrounds.

I think the genuinely basal R1a lineages will have to be dug out from under the ground, because I doubt they managed to survive the multitude of expansions that have taken place on the steppe since the Copper Age.

I'm not sure what you meant, could you elaborate?

I mean that many academic studies aren't worth the bandwidth they take up.

Question. My ydna 23&me profile is R1b/R1a with I1 and I2[the 4 comprising roughly 85%] typical I presume for the region in southern Poland. Polish/Slavic ydna is dominated by R1a say roughly 60-65%. The question I have; what language existed among I1 and I2 before R1a PIE Slavic domination/expansion?

For example, Dravidian into Sanskrit as a rough example. Is there any evidence that you have studied, showing I1 and I2 language prior to R1a and PIE ?

I've never seen any studies attempting to reconstruct hunter-gatherer words from pre-Neolithic or Neolithic Europe, although I know that linguists have managed to reconstruct non-Indo-European words related to farming that probably came from Neolithic farmer languages. But no one really knows what languages these words came from. Maybe Vasconic, as Maju suggests, but I have no idea how he worked that out?

 

[Grubbe]

R1a-Z284 seems very scandinavian today but I wonder if it could not be a trace of Corded Ware people coming from Germany?
R1a-M458 checks more a Balto-Slavic proto-population (in fact baltic could be the older form) these clans being the descendants of war-axes Fatyanovo culture (I'm not sure of the name), cousins it is true of the Corded...? I have to look for some thread about R1a in today Germany -
have a good brainstorm night all of you - keep cool and drink fresh! the game is the salt of life, and life is short -

We now have Y2395 as "father" of Z284 and "brother" of M458 and Z280. https://www.familytreedna.com/public/R1a/default.aspx?section=results

As of today, only one Norwegian is Y2395* (Z284-), but quite a few English and Poles are Y2395*. I find it probable that Y2395 originated somewhere in Central Europe, but that Z284 probably originated in Scandinavia. If also Z284 originated in Central Europe (Germany), I find it strange that few if any Z284 are found there today.

 

[MOESAN]

we now have y2395 as "father" of z284 and "brother" of m458 and z280. https://www.familytreedna.com/public/r1a/default.aspx?section=results

as of today, only one norwegian is y2395* (z284-), but quite a few english and poles are y2395*. I find it probable that y2395 originated somewhere in central europe, but that z284 probably originated in scandinavia. If also z284 originated in central europe (germany), i find it strange that few if any z284 are found there today.

interesting - thanks for kind answer

 

[Silesian]

I doubt that there was any R1a in Central Asia until the Bronze Age, and South Asia until the Iron Age. I'd say it arrived there from the southern Urals with the Indo-Europeans, and most of it belonged to R1a-Z93. But there were probably some less common R1a lineages in that mix too, and perhaps that's what Underhill et al. 2014 picked up in Iran and surrounds.

I was looking at the new R1b-snp tree for our branches. I think Anatolia and Balkans are going to give a good challenge/support for Collin Renfrew and Gray and Atkinson. .
A little lower than 45 +/- degrees, latitude many of the Eastern R1b are in cluster found L584/L277/CTS7763/PF7558/CTS7822. Along with Underhill et al. basal R1a study in Eastern Anatolia and Western Iran. The new R1b snps and R1a snps could prove to be very interesting where they cluster together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pa7SPns8fQ

 

[LeBrok]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pa7SPns8fQ

This model has hell of a time to explain why Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian, Ukrainian and Russian are Indo-European. I'm not even mentioning the IE colonies in the New World!

 

[Silesian]

This model has hell of a time to explain why Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian, Ukrainian and Russian are Indo-European. I'm not even mentioning the IE colonies in the New World!

Once the data is parsed with the refinement of snp's and R1b branching[Eastern branches] are sorted we will have a much better idea. However it would not surprise me if Anatolia and adjoining region samples of R1b [Eastern branches R1b-M269[L23] -R1b-L23[51]]has the greatest variance. This would be in the same neighborhood as the study in R1a showing basal clade variance in Eastern Anatolia in original study. In my opinion more than just co-incidence, that Anatolian languages[Hittite]/Phrygian/Greek Linear B/Armenian/[Mede-mostly unkown?][Mitanni-unknown?]] are in this same region and roughly same lattitude.

Time will tell who is right.

 

[LeBrok]

Once the data is parsed with the refinement of snp's and R1b branching[Eastern branches] are sorted we will have a much better idea. However it would not surprise me if Anatolia and adjoining region samples of R1b [Eastern branches R1b-M269[L23] -R1b-L23[51]]has the greatest variance. This would be in the same neighborhood as the study in R1a showing basal clade variance in Eastern Anatolia in original study. In my opinion more than just co-incidence, that Anatolian languages[Hittite]/Phrygian/Greek Linear B/Armenian/[Mede-mostly unkown?][Mitanni-unknown?]] are in this same region and roughly same lattitude.

Time will tell who is right.

Looks like these admixture maps with strong centers in West Asia don't agree with IE R1a starting in Anatolia. As you can see Northern Slavs region Poland and Russia, and also Baltic states create hollow places in these admixtures. And these places are extremely high in R1a. Unfortunately we don't have any admixture center in Western Ukraine to see the reverse population movement, or admixture centered in Andronovo Culture to do the same.
If these admixtures are older than 4-5 thousand years we can, with big dose of certainty, say that IE rich in R1a didn't make a trip from Anatolia to Poland or Lithuania.

 

[Goga]

Looks like these admixture maps with strong centers in West Asia don't agree with IE R1a starting in Anatolia. As you can see Northern Slavs region Poland and Russia, and also Baltic states create hollow places in these admixtures. And these places are extremely high in R1a. Unfortunately we don't have any admixture center in Western Ukraine to see the reverse population movement, or admixture centered in Andronovo Culture to do the same.
If these admixtures are older than 4-5 thousand years we can, with big dose of certainty, say that IE rich in R1a didn't make a trip from Anatolia to Poland or Lithuania.

There's still lots of Gedrosia component around the Maykop and Yamna Horizon in the Steppes around the Caspian Sea (what is nowadays modern Kazakhstan & Southern Russia). Even after the genocide of local people by the Russians (mixed with Siberians/Mongoloids and native Europeans). R1a in the Eastern Europe is very young and it arrived not so long time ago. Also there not so much diversity. Therefore I'm almost certain R1a in the Eastern Europe has been bottlenecked. R1a folks were heavily mixed with people who were N1c1, Q, and I2*. North Eastern Europe was very uncrowded. For a place like that it makes possible for a fast bottleneck.
Or do you really believe that 10 people from Lithuania who are heavily mixed with Siberians and have also lots of N1c1 in them influenced such a huge area what we call Eurasia? If that was the case, there would be lots of N1c1 in Central, Western and Southern Europe.

 

[Goga]

Also proto-IE were not the same as ancient (, but already evolved) Indo-Europeans. And modern day Indo-Europeans are not the same as ancient Indo-Europeans, let alone proto-Indo-Europeans. Proto-Indo-Europeans vanished a long time ago. And people who founded great civilizations in Eurasia, like the Roman Empire, Median Empire and some empires in SouthCentral Asia were not proto-Indo-European at all, but evolved people and already very different from proto-Indo Europeans.

 

[Goga]

But I'm very sure that the native Northern Europeans who belonged to haplogroups like N1c1, and I1* or I2* were totally different people than proto-Indo-Europeans. Haplogroups like ancient R1*, R1b*, R1a* or even Indo-European J2a* are 'Asian' haplogroups and never evolved and took shape inside Europe. So ancient people who belonged to those haplogroups were not ethnic native (Northern) Europeans at the first place...

 

[Salbrox]

Looks like these admixture maps with strong centers in West Asia don't agree with IE R1a starting in Anatolia. As you can see Northern Slavs region Poland and Russia, and also Baltic states create hollow places in these admixtures. And these places are extremely high in R1a. Unfortunately we don't have any admixture center in Western Ukraine to see the reverse population movement, or admixture centered in Andronovo Culture to do the same.
If these admixtures are older than 4-5 thousand years we can, with big dose of certainty, say that IE rich in R1a didn't make a trip from Anatolia to Poland or Lithuania.

Arent the regions with no West Asian admixture better distinguished by high N than by R1a?

N is as common or more common than R1a in Baltic countries, Northern Russia and Finland, and these show no West Asian in that map. R1a peaks in Poland, Ukraine and Southern Russia, which have small amounts of West Asian component, like Northwest Europeans.

 

[FrankN]

I know I am entering this discussion late, but I would like to comment on several issues discussed a few pages ago. For a start, there was the question of (proto-)Kartvelian - IE connections. Now, during the one-and-a-half year I lived in Georgia, I never managed to really decipher the script, not even speaking of learning the language. I furthermore gained a clear impression that Georgian is quite different from IE languages in many respects. Having said that, there were a few Georgian terms that obviously appeared somewhat IE to me and were thus easy to learn (I use a Latn transcript here- as I said, I never fully deciphered Georgian script):

"Ar wizi Kartulad" - "(I) don't speak / know Georgian" ("wizi" - to know <> German "wissen" - to know)
"Me minda .." - "I want .." (I wouldn't mind; French: je démande)
"Dabsandit"/ "Mobsandit" - "Sit down"/ "Sit with us" (-> Lat. sedere: to sit)
"achal" - old (>archaic)
"ts'q'ali" - water (>German "Quelle", Engl. "well")
"mts'queli" - quail
"kurka" - core
"dzé" - son
"dghe" - day
"mta" - mountain
"maghali" - large (Lat. magnus)
"patara" - small (French: petit)
"sopeli" - village (Lat. villa)
"laparaki" - to speak (Lat. loqui)
"dena"-- to flow, "mdinari"- river, stream; this is similar to celtic "Danu" (river), a root found in names like Danube, Dniester, Dniepr and Don.
"spilendsi" - copper (>splendid? In that case we might get a hint where the material was first extracted..)
"Okro" - Gold (lat. Aurum)
"puri" - bread (as in India, and prepared traditionally in a kind of tandoori, see picture below, so the technology and name should be quite ancient.
​

And then, there is of course the Georgian national dish - Khachapuri, bread filled with white buffalo cheese ("Khacha"), a cheese quite similar to Italian Mozarella.

So, there are obvious signs of linguistic contact between Georgian and IE languages. OTOH, considering that Georgians have Armenians to their SW, and Ossetians to their north, such contact is to be expected and doesn't help much in identifying possible expansion paths of IE languages.

The Georgians claim "hvino" to be an original Georgian word that has been borrowed by IE languages. I was aware of 4,000 year old wine found in amphora (and reported to still be drinkable), though it was new to me that viticulture in the area of today's Georgia has now been traced back another 4,000 years further. In any case, the country has an extremely long wine-making tradition that is archeologically well attested.
Georgians also claim various types of prunus, including apricots and cherries, to have originated in Transcaucasia. Judged by specific local processing traditions (certain plums, e.g., are harvested unripe and processed into a kind of chutney that is traditionally used as relish for shashliks/ kebabs), they at least appear to have a quite long-standing tradition in cultivating and processing the fruit.

Let me finally add that I have noted some cultural similarities between Georgia and the Pakistani Punjab. In both regions, e.g., traditional restaurants comprise a main dinning room that is reserved to men only, and separées that are used for family events where women and children are present. The Georgian rationale was that men's parties can get drunk quite heavily, so woman and children should be seated separately to avoid them being molested. If a similar rationale also existed in Pakistan, it must have arrived their prior to Islamisation.

 

[FrankN]

Indo-Europeans and chariots (1)

Somehow, quite a lot of posts dealt with chariots. The following might be useful to consider in this context:

1. The Wheel: Current archaeological knowledge suggests that the wheel was invented sometimes between the 35th and 34th century BC. Early depictions of wheeled carts, or archaeological traces of them, are currently known from four places, namely Uruk, Southern Poland, Holstein, and the Ljubljana marshes.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/29574-When-did-humans-first?p=432577&viewfull=1#post432577
Of these places, one, namely Southern Poland, may with a bit of goodwill be tied to Indo-Europeans, more specifically the Globular Amphora Culture that developed from 3.400 BC between Elbe an Vistula, with a southward extension towards the middle Dnieper and Dniester. I say "with a bit of goodwill", because the depiction is from a pot that was found in a Funnelbeaker grave, and is slightly pre-dating the assumed arrival of the Globular Amphora Culture in the area. The other two Central European locations are outside the area covered by the Globular Amphora Culture - one is also Funnelbeaker (Flintbek near, Kiel, Germany), the other one Baden Culture (Ljubljana marshes). Both Funnelbeaker and Baden cultures have interacted with the Globular Amphora Culture, and are thus regarded as stepping-stones of Indo-Europeanization, but here again the timelines don't fully match - the wheels appear a few centuries too early. As concerns Uruk, it was clearly not IE, but Sumerian.

There are also indications for early wheel use by the North Caucasian, proto-IE Maykop culture, which, however, yet await exact dating. Maykop, and neighbouring Yanna culture north of the Black Sea, might provide a geographical link between Northern Germany and Uruk in Southern Mesopotamia. But such a geographical link requires at least one more elements - a culture south of the Caucasus (Georgia/ Armenia), extending into Eastern Anatolia, the area that is today inhabited by Kurds.
It may also be that wheeled cars were developed independently in several locations from the flywheel. The emergence of the pottery wheel in Uruk is largely contemporary to first depictions of wheeled vehicles there, while Neolithic Europe has a well documented tradition of using flywheels with spindles and drilling devices (see the reconstruction of a 5th millennium spindle from the Sesklo culture below).

In short:

1. So far, there is no archaeological proof that IEs invented the wheel. If they did so, the invention quickly spread to Non-IE cultures, especially Sumerian Uruk.
2. IEs may nevertheless have assumed an important role in disseminating wheeled vehicles. Such a role, however, would imply (proto-)IE cultures in the Pontic steppes (Yanna), the North Caucasus (Maykop), and Transcaucasia & the Anatolian highland (Kura-Araxes?). In other words - a possible IE role in the dissemination of the wheel does not bring us any further in the discussion about a Steppe or Anatolian origin of IEs.
3. The estimated coalescence age for the R1a Z282 <> Z93 split of 5,800 BP, i.e. 3,850 BC, is quite close, for my taste a bit too close, to the invention of the wheel, and the Indo-Europeanization of Central Europe (Globular Amphora Culture). This lets me doubt that R!a already played a major role during the initial phase of Indo-Europeanization.

 

[Alan]

Looks like these admixture maps with strong centers in West Asia don't agree with IE R1a starting in Anatolia. As you can see Northern Slavs region Poland and Russia, and also Baltic states create hollow places in these admixtures. And these places are extremely high in R1a. Unfortunately we don't have any admixture center in Western Ukraine to see the reverse population movement, or admixture centered in Andronovo Culture to do the same.
If these admixtures are older than 4-5 thousand years we can, with big dose of certainty, say that IE rich in R1a didn't make a trip from Anatolia to Poland or Lithuania.

These maps are only usefull to get a picture of modern genetic relationship, but with our current knowledge of ancient DNA, they are useless to determine an Indo_European signal because "West Asian or Gedrosia" as such didn't exist back than. The new admixture results of Lazaridis are much better for this question and in those, all Northeast Europeans have a significant percentage of Caucasus_Gedrosia_Kalash like component.

 

[Salbrox]

These maps are only usefull to get a picture of modern genetic relationship, but with our current knowledge of ancient DNA, they are useless to determine an Indo_European signal because "West Asian or Gedrosia" as such didn't exist back than. The new admixture results of Lazaridis are much better for this question and in those, all Northeast Europeans have a significant percentage of Caucasus_Gedrosia_Kalash like component.

Those descriptions are funny - and not in the Lazaridis paper.

Kalash is not pure ANE or closest relative of ANE - far from it. R has not much to do with Loschbour either, and N is as common or more common in its closest modern relatives.

 

[Nobody1]

These maps are only usefull to get a picture of modern genetic relationship, but with our current knowledge of ancient DNA, they are useless to determine an Indo_European signal because "West Asian or Gedrosia" as such didn't exist back than. The new admixture results of Lazaridis are much better for this question and in those, all Northeast Europeans have a significant percentage of Caucasus_Gedrosia_Kalash like component.

something like that

 

[Sile]

These maps are only usefull to get a picture of modern genetic relationship, but with our current knowledge of ancient DNA, they are useless to determine an Indo_European signal because "West Asian or Gedrosia" as such didn't exist back than. The new admixture results of Lazaridis are much better for this question and in those, all Northeast Europeans have a significant percentage of Caucasus_Gedrosia_Kalash like component.

why is 192.1 excluded from the ancient list?

I know K8 is contaminated and should never be used

Isn't Karafet lastest paper from a month ago state the P and later R group frpm P formed in south-east asia ?

 

[FrankN]

R1a movement and tin trade

I am envisaging quite a number of further write-ups (on chariots, horses, etc.), which I will eventually post, but, to cut a long story short, here the answer to the key question: Why would R1a move from Eastern Anatolia / Northern Iran to Eastern Europe via BMAC (Afghanistan/ Turkmenistan), instead of taking a shortcut through the Caucasus and the Pontic steppes? The answer is simple:

Bronze age Mesopotamia and Eastern Mediterranean needed tin, which is scarce in the region. There are a few smaller tin mines in the Taurus mountains in Eastern Anatolia that appear to have been exploited during the early Bronze Age (http://www.academia.edu/1581326/Strategic_Industries_and_Tin_in_the_Ancient_NE_Anatolia_Updated), but they are unlikely to have covered more than a fraction of the demand. Consequently, archaeologists have for a long time been looking at Central Asia as possible tin supply source (http://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/25-1/Cleuziou.pdf) Finds of Lapis Lazuli from NE Afghanistan in Mesopotamia and Egypt evidence trade links that most likely already commenced during the Mesolithic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapis_lazuli).

Aside from Western and NE Afghanistan, relevant tin concentrations that are supposed to have been exploited during the Bronze Age occur on the northern rim of the Kopet Dag range, which runs along today's border between Iran and Turkmenistan. We are roughly talking a north-westerly line from Herat (West Afghanistan) via Ashgabat to Türkmenbashi on the Caspian Sea shore here. At the centre of this belt is the site of Namazga-Tepe, whose culture is sometimes regarded as a predecessor, sometimes as integral part of the BMAC complex. There are clear archaeological traces of chalcolithic cultural and population incursion from north-central Iran into the area, while the nature of this incursion (violent or peaceful-assimilative) is still being disputed. Somewhat later, around 2,100 BC, the Kopet Dag (western BMAC) culture develops links with the Andronovo culture in the Southern Ural, but possibly not only to there. The following maps, extracted from this excellent presentation http://www.archatlas.org/workshop09/works09-wilkinson.php display cost-distance maps for Namazga/ BMAC tin exports. The mines themselves are indicated by red dots. The whiter an area, the more likely it is to have been importing tin from Namazga / BMAC. Note especially the south-eastern expansion through the Hindukush, with the addition of new tin mines in Central/ Southern Afghanistan and the Punjab.
View attachment 6502
View attachment 6503

While I am at tin: There are 3-4 major European tin regions that are known or supposed to have been exploited during the Bronze Age: Cornwall, Britanny, NW Iberia (Galicia), and the Erzgebirge / Sudetian mountains. The Celtic link to the first three regions is obvious; the fourth region is in the area where the Globular Amphora Culture, possibly Central Europe's first IE culture, developed.
That leaves us with the Tocharians in the Tarim basin. Strabo mentions tin import from the Tarim, and the issue is briefly discussed here http://books.google.de/books?id=c9U...CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Tin mine Tarim&f=false. An in-depth geological study notes http://www.mantleplumes.org/WebDocuments/DeBoorder2013.pdf

The Early Permian Muruntau district and the other prominent gold deposits in the South Tianshan are clear examples because with their dominating arsenic and tungsten contents they compare directly with the gold deposits of the French Massif Central. With their tungsten, tin and copper both districts compare with the tin-copper deposits in Cornwall.

There is another major tin belt that is known to have been exploited in antiquity, and is accounting for most of today's tin production. It runs from Yunnan in SW China through the Malaysian peninsula down to Eastern Sumatra. If you would like to get control over these mines, or at least their possible export routes towards the Middle East and the Mediterrenean, where would you go? Down the Ganges, and then further along the North-Eastern tributaries, especially the Brahmaputra, doesn't seem a bad idea. Now, check the R1a-M780 distribution map ... For R1a-Z2125, note how the largest concentration occurs between the tin and Lapis Lazuli mines in NE Afghanistan, the Muruntau ore district in central Uzbekistan that is mentioned in the quote above, and along the Tianshan mountains in Uzbekistan and southern Kasachstan.

The Z93* cluster in the Altai, finally, seems to compare well to the late 3rd/ early 2nd millennium BC tin & copper mines that have recently been discovered there (http://www.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/?page_id=76357, in German) .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_sources_and_trade_in_ancient_times

 

[LeBrok]

I am envisaging quite a number of further write-ups (on chariots, horses, etc.), which I will eventually post, but, to cut a long story short, here the answer to the key question: Why would R1a move from Eastern Anatolia / Northern Iran to Eastern Europe via BMAC (Afghanistan/ Turkmenistan), instead of taking a shortcut through the Caucasus and the Pontic steppes? The answer is simple:

Bronze age Mesopotamia and Eastern Mediterranean needed tin, which is scarce in the region. There are a few smaller tin mines in the Taurus mountains in Eastern Anatolia that appear to have been exploited during the early Bronze Age (http://www.academia.edu/1581326/Strategic_Industries_and_Tin_in_the_Ancient_NE_Anatolia_Updated), but they are unlikely to have covered more than a fraction of the demand. Consequently, archaeologists have for a long time been looking at Central Asia as possible tin supply source (http://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/25-1/Cleuziou.pdf) Finds of Lapis Lazuli from NE Afghanistan in Mesopotamia and Egypt evidence trade links that most likely already commenced during the Mesolithic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapis_lazuli).

Aside from Western and NE Afghanistan, relevant tin concentrations that are supposed to have been exploited during the Bronze Age occur on the northern rim of the Kopet Dag range, which runs along today's border between Iran and Turkmenistan. We are roughly talking a north-westerly line from Herat (West Afghanistan) via Ashgabat to Türkmenbashi on the Caspian Sea shore here. At the centre of this belt is the site of Namazga-Tepe, whose culture is sometimes regarded as a predecessor, sometimes as integral part of the BMAC complex. There are clear archaeological traces of chalcolithic cultural and population incursion from north-central Iran into the area, while the nature of this incursion (violent or peaceful-assimilative) is still being disputed. Somewhat later, around 2,100 BC, the Kopet Dag (western BMAC) culture develops links with the Andronovo culture in the Southern Ural, but possibly not only to there. The following maps, extracted from this excellent presentation http://www.archatlas.org/workshop09/works09-wilkinson.php display cost-distance maps for Namazga/ BMAC tin exports. The mines themselves are indicated by red dots. The whiter an area, the more likely it is to have been importing tin from Namazga / BMAC. Note especially the south-eastern expansion through the Hindukush, with the addition of new tin mines in Central/ Southern Afghanistan and the Punjab.
View attachment 6501
View attachment 6500

While I am at tin: There are 3-4 major European tin regions that are known or supposed to have been exploited during the Bronze Age: Cornwall, Britanny, NW Iberia (Galicia), and the Erzgebirge / Sudetian mountains. The Celtic link to the first three regions is obvious; the fourth region is in the area where the Globular Amphora Culture, possibly Central Europe's first IE culture, developed.
That leaves us with the Tocharians in the Tarim basin. Strabo mentions tin import from the Tarim, and the issue is briefly discussed here http://books.google.de/books?id=c9U...CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Tin mine Tarim&f=false. An in-depth geological study notes http://www.mantleplumes.org/WebDocuments/DeBoorder2013.pdf

There is another major tin belt that is known to have been exploited in antiquity, and is accounting for most of today's tin production. It runs from Yunnan in SW China through the Malaysian peninsula down to Eastern Sumatra. If you would like to get control over these mines, or at least their possible export routes towards the Middle East and the Mediterrenean, where would you go? Down the Ganges, and then further along the North-Eastern tributaries, especially the Brahmaputra, doesn't seem a bad idea. Now, check the R1a-M780 distribution map ... For R1a-Z2125, note how the largest concentration occurs between the tin and Lapis Lazuli mines in NE Afghanistan, the Muruntau ore district in central Uzbekistan that is mentioned in the quote above, and along the Tianshan mountains in Uzbekistan and southern Kasachstan.


The Z93* cluster in the Altai, finally, seems to compare well to the late 3rd/ early 2nd millennium BC tin & copper mines that have recently been discovered there (http://www.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/?page_id=76357, in German) .


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_sources_and_trade_in_ancient_times

Interesting point of view. Migrations and settlements of people dictated by need for bronze, and not necessary by need for food and land. I'm not sure if I entirely agree, I must say, but definitely something to consider strongly.