Fair enough.
I had a few questions though.
1) Neolithic Europeans must've spoken SOME form of Semitic language seeing as they came from Mesopotamia which is right beside the Levant in modern day Iraq, which speaks Arabic. At the very least, Neolithic farmers had contact with Semitic speaking peoples and intermingled with them?
I honestly have no idea. When you go back 9,000 years you can't expect the people to have the same language and genes as the people living there today. Semetic languages existing there today isn't good evidence in my opinion that they were there 9,000 years ago.
2) What's the difference between people from Turkey and Neolithic Europe? Aren't they the same people or closely related?
The Neolithic age/Farming age was brought to Europe from Turkey. Neolithic Europeans were a mixture of newcomers from Turkey and indigenous Europeans. Most of their ancestry was from Turkey. After living in Europe for 2,000 years, most only had about 20% indigenous European admixture. So yeah Neolithic Turkish and Europeans were basically the same people, the only difference is indigenous European admixture in Neolithic Europe.
Modern Turkish though are a differnt story. We can see looking at ancient DNA that people from around the Caucasus/Iran were migrating into Turkey 6,000 year ago. Modern Turkish mostly look like a mixture of Neolithic Turkish and ancient Caucasus/Iran.
This means people with the J haplogroup period (J1 or J2) are closely related to Neolithic Europeans if not are Neolithic Europeans? Or are people with J1 not Europeans? I'm so confused. I thought Europeans were only descended from Neolithic Farmers and Hunter Gatherers, or are they descended from everybody in the Caucasus/Mesopotamian area?
Y DNA J came from their Caucasus/Iran ancestors not their ancestors who were closely related to Neolithic Europeans. The newcomers were mostly a mixture of ancient Caucasus/Iran(Y DNA J) and people similar to Neolithic Turkish/Europeans(Y DNA G2a or E1b or H2).
Or are people with J1 not Europeans?
I answered that in another thread.
I'm so confused. I thought Europeans were only descended from Neolithic Farmers and Hunter Gatherers, or are they descended from everybody in the Caucasus/Mesopotamian area?
"Native Hunter Gatherer+Middle Eastern Farmer" is the old model. Because of more ancient DNA we now know European origins are more complicated. Hunter Gatherer+Farmer is one part of European's ancestry the the next most important part is from the Bronze age Pontic Caspie Steppe(Russia).
So you had farmers from Neolithic migrate into Europe and gradually mix with indigenous hunter gatherers in 7000-5000 BC. By 3000 BC most Europeans were 80% Turkish Farmer and 20% Native European. On the other side of Europe, in Russia, was another world with its own story. There was no massive migration by Turkish farmers. It wasn't farmer+hunter gatherer. Instead there was gradual admixture with people from the Caucasus mountains(Y DNA J) and SouthEast Europe(100% Neolithic Turkish).
By 3000 BC people in Russia were roughly 60% Indigenous Russian(Y DNA R1b and R1a), 30% Ancient Caucasus, and 10% Neolithic Turkish. Then those people in Russia migrated en masse into Europe and contributed a huge chunk of ancestry to all Europeans except Sardinians. They're a big part of modern European's ancestry. So Europeans are not just Hunter gatherer+Farmer. For Southern Europeans it gets more complicated, because there was migration from Northern West Asia into Southern Europe after the Neolithic as well.
Ancient Caucasus/Iran is an important part of all European's ancestry via ancestry from those Bronze age Russians. It's more important for Southern Europeans, because there was migration from Northern West Asia with loads of Y DNA J and ancestry from the Ancient Caucasus/Iran. I hope I explained this well.
Also, Semitic is just a language, not some sort of DNA or ethnicity.
I agree.
"Neolithic" is a time period. Not an ethnicity. My ancestors, along with people with J2 were just Middle Eastern farmers.
You're right. I say "Neolithic" because that's the oldest time frame they lived in. I'm not saying the time frame defines their genes. They could have lived up until 2016 AD unadmixed, they almost did in Sardinia.