Southern Neolithic route brought Megaliths from the Levant to Western Europe

[MarkoZ]

What 1,500 years gap? There are megaliths in Israel, the Straight of Sicily and southern Portugal around 7,000 BCE, then other megaliths in southern Portugal around 6,000 BCE. During the 6th millennium BCE we see megalithic sites popping up in the Levant (Rujm el-Hiri in Israel), Egypt, Malta (Skorba temples), Portugal, Andalusia (La Almagra), Galicia, Corsica, as well as southern, central and western France (including Poitou and Brittany). What we see is a coherent complex of megalithic cultures spanning from Israel to Portugal and to Brittany, following maritime routes along the southern and western coasts of the Mediterranean and going up to the Atlantic coast of Europe. For example, the oldest megaliths in Brittany are dated to 4,800 BCE, but other were built again around 4,000 BCE, 3,300 BCE, 2,500 BCE and 2,000 BCE. Likewise in Malta there are megaliths from 4,800 BCE, 3,600 BCE and 3,200 BCE. In southern Spain, they are dated from 5,000 BCE, 4,000 BCE, 3,500 BCE and 3,000 BCE. Obviously these people weren't building megalithic monuments every century, as they tend to last, but you can see the same pattern back and forth between Israel and Portugal and between Spain and Brittany. There seems to have been a lot of movements in both directions. It was not a simple east-west migration but more likely a trade route that was used for several millennia.

I didn't suggest that Megalithism originated with the Natufians (CT, E1b1b) but with the R1b-V88 cattle herders who came from southeastern Turkey and northern Syria. I think at first it might have been only R1b-V88 herders who colonised North Africa. If there was another haplogroup it would have been T1a, but I associate it more with goat herders. Nowadays Sub-Saharan Africans tend to have only R1b-V88 (mostly Sahel, like the Hausa, Fulani, Kirdi and Berbers) or T1a (Horn of Africa), but not both together, which suggests separate migrations. The Horn of Africa also has a lot of E1b1b, but there is too little data now to estimate how much of it is Palaeolithic (old clades like M281, V6 and V92) vs Neolithic. Interestingly G2a is not found in Sub-Saharan Africa, but only in North Africa, meaning that there were at least three distinct colonising events from the Near East during the Neolithic.

As I pointed out, there is a 1,500 year gap between the appearence of Megalithism and the arrival of the agricultural Neolithic in Western Europe. If there was a maritime excursion from the Levant to Europe in 7,000 B.C., I'm almost certain we'd see an early Neolithic revolution at these sites, considering that Europe was virgin territory for farmers. Instead, the spread of agriculture in Europe has a quite linear east-to-west trajectory starting in the Aegean, with an expected late arrival in far Western Europe.

The particular importance of the Levant in the development of Megalithism eludes me. The Rujm el-Hiri site in Israel, for example, is dated to the Bronze Age and post-dates the explosion of megalithic sites in Europe. Apart from Atlit Yam, Megalithism just looks like a more properly European phenomenon (well Europe plus Anatolia, but the distinction was likely to have been moot in the Mesolithic). With Atlit Yam submerged already in the pre-pottery Neolithic, there must have been an almost complete break from this tradition in the Levant for several millennia.

[Milan.M]

As I pointed out, there is a 1,500 year gap between the appearence of Megalithism and the arrival of the agricultural Neolithic in Western Europe. If there was a maritime excursion from the Levant to Europe in 7,000 B.C., I'm almost certain we'd see an early Neolithic revolution at these sites, considering that Europe was virgin territory for farmers. Instead, the spread of agriculture in Europe has a quite linear east-to-west trajectory starting in the Aegean, with an expected late arrival in far Western Europe.

Right and as genetics so far are telling us this are two separate routes the farming coming from Anatolia through the Balkans so far majority tested G2a,whereas E1b1b through north Africa-Iberia,the same route was probably for R1b-V88 too,we found them in Africa.They are missing from the Neolithic Balkans.
If they came the same route as the farmers did,we would have find their trace so far.

[Alpenjager]

The mutations defining T1a were not tested. AFAIK there is no SNP defining T1b. This clade was determined using STR variations only and is extremely rare. The PPNB sample in Jordan could have been T1a or T1b, or just T1*. In my opinion it doesn't matter much because statistically the chances of it being T1* or T1a are overwhelming. In any case, all T1 would have expanded from the same region. Most very ancient samples will turn out to be men who did not leave any descendants to this day and therefore belong to extinct clades, or just a clade with an asterisk (like T1*). The older the sample and the higher the statistical chance that an individual did not pass on his Y-DNA to posterity. That's why if you were to test 100 PPNB samples in Jordan (or anywhere else) I would bet that over half of them (perhaps more like 90% of them) would belong to extinct clades (i.e. a Y-DNA lineage not ancestral to anyone alive today). That's exactly what we see with Mesolithic Europeans or the Natufians (lots of extinct C1a2, F*, I*, CT, E1b1*). This is because of natural selection (men born with beneficial mutations in the coding region of the Y chromosome had increased fertility) and because in most human societies in history people with more wealth and power tended to have more children who reached adulthood.

All this to say that whether this sample was T1*, T1a*, T1a1* or whatever, there is a very high likelihood that that particular individual did not pass on his Y-DNA to modern T1a people. But someone else in his tribe, or the neighbouring tribe, would have.

Maciamo, This is not just T1* but also negative for: T1a1-Z526, T1a1a-CTS9163, T1a1a-CTS2607, T1a2-S11611, T1a2-Y6031, T1a2a1-P322, T1a3a-Y9189. This mean that the sample can't belong to T1a1, T1a2 and T1a3a. So with our actual knowledge, only fit T1a3b, T1b and T1*.
T1a3b: Rarest than T1b, found only in Iraq and North European Plain.
T1b (T1*(xM70)): Found in 1-Macedonia, 2.1-Berbers from Sejnane 2.2-Syria, Druzes from Lebanon, Upper Egypt and Iberian Peninsula (admixed population from Colombia). Actually one sample tested for BigY and waiting for YFull results.
T1*: There is only found T1b, we have no knowledge of the existance of any other branch.

Statistically the chances of it being T1b or T1* are higher.

All T1 would have expanded from the same region but this region is not where a PPNB sample have been found more than 15000 years after of T1-L206 first appeared. Natufians have 0% of T1, so the chances of coming from the north are higher.

[LeBrok]

I don't think it really matters as long as they are built by a settled community. Early farming was not a self-sufficient mode of subsistence. Almost all Early Neolithic farmers, even during the Linear Pottery culture in Central Europe 6000 years after the beginning of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent, complemented their diet by hunting and gathering. In a sense, we still do. There are still hunters, and many people go to the woods to collect mushrooms. In the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, when food couldn't be stored easily, hunting and gathering would have been about as important as farming.

Not necessarily. They could go hunting because of hunting instinct and not from real need. I have friends who still go hunting in 21 century, every time they can. They bring deer or wild boar and they eat the meat. Of course not from necessity. I have friends who go fishing, and I do it sometimes too, not from need for food, but from joy of the experience. We go pick mushrooms, again from joy doing it and taste for mushrooms alone, and not from need of extra nutrients. It can only be explained by h-g instinct still present in us. From efficiency point of view, all this time spend on walking and finding wild food, is more efficiently used when food is cultivated around the house, and animals tended close by.
Farming versus hunting is not about lifestyle, it is about survival of offspring.
Anyway my point is that, because they still hunted this doesn't mean that they didn't herd sheep, cows or pigs already. There many pig bones in Gobelki Tepe. How do we know they hunted them and not herded them? In this time period wild pig and domesticated one looked exactly the same and had same genome.

[Maciamo]

Maciamo, This is not just T1* but also negative for: T1a1-Z526, T1a1a-CTS9163, T1a1a-CTS2607, T1a2-S11611, T1a2-Y6031, T1a2a1-P322, T1a3a-Y9189. This mean that the sample can't belong to T1a1, T1a2 and T1a3a. So with our actual knowledge, only fit T1a3b, T1b and T1*.
T1a3b: Rarest than T1b, found only in Iraq and North European Plain.
T1b (T1*(xM70)): Found in 1-Macedonia, 2.1-Berbers from Sejnane 2.2-Syria, Druzes from Lebanon, Upper Egypt and Iberian Peninsula (admixed population from Colombia). Actually one sample tested for BigY and waiting for YFull results.
T1*: There is only found T1b, we have no knowledge of the existance of any other branch.

Statistically the chances of it being T1b or T1* are higher.

All T1 would have expanded from the same region but this region is not where a PPNB sample have been found more than 15000 years after of T1-L206 first appeared. Natufians have 0% of T1, so the chances of coming from the north are higher.

Why do you ignore T1a*? Surely if it can be T1a3b, it can also be T1a* and even T1a3*.

[Maciamo]

Not necessarily. They could go hunting because of hunting instinct and not from real need. I have friends who still go hunting in 21 century, every time they can. They bring deer or wild boar and they eat the meat. Of course not from necessity. I have friends who go fishing, and I do it sometimes too, not from need for food, but from joy of the experience. We go pick mushrooms, again from joy doing it and taste for mushrooms alone, and not from need of extra nutrients. It can only be explained by h-g instinct still present in us. From efficiency point of view, all this time spend on walking and finding wild food, is more efficiently used when food is cultivated around the house, and animals tended close by.

That just illustrates how strongly the hunting, fishing and gathering instincts are ingrained in our instincts.

Farming versus hunting is not about lifestyle, it is about survival of offspring.
Anyway my point is that, because they still hunted this doesn't mean that they didn't herd sheep, cows or pigs already. There many pig bones in Gobelki Tepe. How do we know they hunted them and not herded them? In this time period wild pig and domesticated one looked exactly the same and had same genome.

That's what I was trying to say. Any food production method is good for survival, and what we usually call farmers are people who can farm (at least a few crops) but can and do also gather, fish and hunt, and may keep domesticated animals.

[Maciamo]

As I pointed out, there is a 1,500 year gap between the appearence of Megalithism and the arrival of the agricultural Neolithic in Western Europe. If there was a maritime excursion from the Levant to Europe in 7,000 B.C., I'm almost certain we'd see an early Neolithic revolution at these sites, considering that Europe was virgin territory for farmers. Instead, the spread of agriculture in Europe has a quite linear east-to-west trajectory starting in the Aegean, with an expected late arrival in far Western Europe.

There could be hundreds of reasons why Levantine farmers didn't colonise Iberia from 7,000 BCE. At the time the Sahara was wet and green and could have been far more appealing, especially considering its vastness and direct connection with their ancestral Levant. There are almost certainly plenty of Neolithic sites lying deep under the Sahara desert now. Conditions in Iberia might not have been good a the time, perhaps due to the climate or because Mesolithic locals were too hostile. Why haven't the Vikings colonised North America after discovering it? They were the fiercest fighters in Europe at the time and surely it's not a bunch of thinly scattered Mesolithic Amerindians that would have deterred them. Were they just not interested? Was it too far from home? Not fertile enough? Did they have bad crops one year and decided to leave, never to return? It could have been any of those reasons for Neolithic farmers too.

Or maybe they did colonise southern Iberia from 7,000 BCE by we haven't uncovered or properly dated the sites yet. I haven't been able to find a lot of information about the dating of La Almagra Pottery. Why is that? Did archaeologists think it was too early to be credible and preferred to drop the dates rather than risk sounding ridiculous in they eyes of their colleagues? It wouldn't be a first. I am just getting started on the hypotheses that could explain it. I am not going to write an essay about it. Just use your imagination.

While we are on the subject, here is some information about La Almagra culture. They mention notably:

- "The Carbon 14 dates of the Andalusian sites, mostly caves, date back to the first half of the 6th millennium BCE, being therefore by far the oldest known Neolithic culture in Western Europe."

=> It predates the Cardium Pottery in Iberia and nobody knows where they came from if not the Levant. That may be because earlier Neolithic cultures in North Africa are now lost under the Sahara.

- "Its origins are uncertain. Cereals and legumes found on the sites are of an evolved agricultural form, but there are no signs of domesticated animals other than pigs and rabbits, both impossible to differentiate from their wild relatives. There are also an abundance of olive seeds in their settlements, in what may be the earliest archaeological reference to its use and consumption, though it seems we are still talking about the wild variety of this tree."

=> If there is no sign of domesticated cattle, then La Almagra was probably not established by R1b-V88 people. Anyway, if R1b-V88 herders left the Levant before 6,000 BCE, they wouldn't have had any pottery, which makes it much harder to find traces of them. The Neolithic R1b-V88 from Iberia was actually found in the Catalan Pyrenees, a region with no connection to La Almagra. Yet it was already so much north during the La Almagra period, so it must have arrived earlier.

- "If the people of southwestern Iberia adopted Neolithic techniques c. 5000 BCE, a few generations later (c. 4800 BCE, according to Portugese archaeologists) they start producing funerary architecture: dolmens. The first dolmens already had corridors at the entrance, the simple dolmen (without corridor) being a later development. It is thought that the first of these tombs were from Alentejo (Portugal), and soon expanded to nearby areas. Yet its great expansion into other parts of Atlantic Europe would only happen one thousand years later."

=> Same question here. Why did they wait 1,000 years before expanding?- Additionally, La Almagra Pottery is unrelated to other types of Neolithic ceramics in Europe, but there was a similar kind of pottery in the Levant at the time.

With Atlit Yam submerged already in the pre-pottery Neolithic, there must have been an almost complete break from this tradition in the Levant for several millennia.

Or most Megaliths were destroyed or re-used for later constructions. Even the superb Colosseum in Rome was pillaged by locals for marble during the Middle Ages. Look at what is happening at Palmyra now, with those moronic ISIS fighter destroying their World Heritage sites. If people have no respect even for the most grandiose aspect of their own heritage, even in the 21st century, what prevented people in the last 10,000 years from re-using some rough monoliths?

[Alpenjager]

Why do you ignore T1a*? Surely if it can be T1a3b, it can also be T1a* and even T1a3*.

Any T1* could be perfectly T1a* as well as T1a3b because of that I have not mentioned T1a*. Anyway, I believe that is very unlikely that a fourth brother lineage survived since 16000 ybp, even the three brothers known to have live descendants are miraculous. I think there is not too much haplogroups with 3 live brother branches dated of the same time.

[Alpenjager]

Any T1* could be perfectly T1a* as well as T1a3b because of that I have not mentioned T1a*. Anyway, I believe that is very unlikely that a fourth brother lineage survived since 16000 ybp, even the three brothers known to have live descendants are miraculous. I think there is not too much haplogroups with 3 live brother branches dated of the same time.

And If we go to think on possible upstream branch between T1a and T1a1/T1a2/T1a3, we should wait for T1b results in Yfull and see the time margin between M70 and their three branches.

[LeBrok]

That just illustrates how strongly the hunting, fishing and gathering instincts are ingrained in our instincts.



That's what I was trying to say. Any food production method is good for survival, and what we usually call farmers are people who can farm (at least a few crops) but can and do also gather, fish and hunt, and may keep domesticated animals.

Yep, it is hard to erase 2 million years of being h-g in 10 k years of farming.

[Angela]

Right and as genetics so far are telling us this are two separate routes the farming coming from Anatolia through the Balkans so far majority tested G2a,whereas E1b1b through north Africa-Iberia,the same route was probably for R1b-V88 too,we found them in Africa.They are missing from the Neolithic Balkans.
If they came the same route as the farmers did,we would have find their trace so far.

So far as I'm aware, what genetics is showing us is that the Early Neolithic spread from the junction of Anatolia/northern Syria to the islands. At some point the stream bifurcated, with some continuing by sea in a series of hops to the western Mediterranean, and others continuing on into the Balkans and further. All the early farmer genomes, no matter the yDna, are, from autosomal analysis, extremely similar. The differences start to appear in Europe, depending on how much local h-g they absorbed, and of what sub-types.

The Neolithic did indeed also spread west along the southern coast of the Med, but I'm unaware of any samples indicating that E-V13 took that route. Indeed, the immediate pre-cursor of E-V13, E-M78 according to some people, was found in a Cardial site in Europe, which is part of the westward movement of the Neolithic along the northern Mediterranean coast, nothing to do with North Africa. We then find E-M78 in Lengyel just north of the Balkans, along with J2, perhaps having arrived with a later stream of the Neolithic from the Near East. I don't see any difficulty with some R1b-V88 also being caught up in that stream, although time will tell. Ancient dna trumps everything.

As for hunting and gathering in Neolithic cultures, it's very much dependent on the region and time. Some Neolithic communities continued to hunt and gather to supplement their diets, while some did almost none* of it. A lot of factors seem to have been at play, including climate, landscape, crop failures, sociological and ritual developments etc. Perhaps, when farmers first arrived, and before farming was fully established, they may have needed more hunting to supplement their diets. There would also have been more game at that time. Once farming was well established, game would become more scarce. Or, on the other hand, it may be that the earliest farmers to arrive in Europe hunted less because domesticated crops and animals had a very strong ritual significance, and they hunted and fished only with the absorption of some local h-gs.

In that regard, in some areas they totally eschewed freshwater fish, which you would think would have been a primary resource when crops failed. In "A Mediterranean Village", John Robb opines that perhaps the eating of grain and domesticated animals had a religious connotation and wild game did not.* Given all we've read about Mesolithic peoples in Europe eating large quantities of fish, perhaps it was associated with them. In other areas, instead, including near the Iron Gates, where the farmers did apparently absorb some h-g's, they did consume fish.

*See:
https://books.google.com/books?id=0H...q=fish&f=false

On the other hand, the climate crisis at the end of the Neolithic in the Balkans means that, according to some scholars, some farming groups moved east and incorporated a lot more hunting into their subsistence strategies.

One size doesn't fit all.

(Oh, there apparently isn't very much difficulty at all in distinguishing domestic from wild pig.)

See:
https://www.academia.edu/4124374/Ani...Central_Europe
Attachment 8392

https://www.academia.edu/203832/Fals...ogical_context

So far as I know, no domesticated plant or animal remains have yet been found at Gobekli Tepe.
https://tepetelegrams.wordpress.com/...-gobekli-tepe/

Ed. * above

[Valerius]

That is what I've been told about my haplogroup E-M123* that it came from the Levant trough the med. road to Northwestern Iberia where its still present there. Seems plausible explanation that this movemnt of people was connected to this culture.

[Milan.M]

So far as I'm aware, what genetics is showing us is that the Early Neolithic spread from the junction of Anatolia/northern Syria to the islands. At some point the stream bifurcated, with some continuing by sea in a series of hops to the western Mediterranean, and others continuing on into the Balkans and further. All the early farmer genomes, no matter the yDna, are, from autosomal analysis, extremely similar. The differences start to appear in Europe, depending on how much local h-g they absorbed, and of what sub-types.

The Neolithic did indeed also spread west along the southern coast of the Med, but I'm unaware of any samples indicating that E-V13 took that route. Indeed, the immediate pre-cursor of E-V13, E-M78 according to some people, was found in a Cardial site in Europe, which is part of the westward movement of the Neolithic along the northern Mediterranean coast, nothing to do with North Africa. We then find E-M78 in Lengyel just north of the Balkans, along with J2, perhaps having arrived with a later stream of the Neolithic from the Near East. I don't see any difficulty with some R1b-V88 also being caught up in that stream, although time will tell. Ancient dna trumps everything.

Without genetic finds i really found nothing conclusive that this haplogroups are responsible for Cardial culture and westward spread from northern Syria,i can choose any other haplogroup and say the same.I know that E1b1b was found in Iberia but not in Balkans and Lengyel is really north of Balkans and have nothing with Mediteranean coast or westward movement could as well be eastward in my opinion.
It has to do with north Africa because this haplogroup is most frequent there,also R1b-V88 is present in Africa.

[Angela]

Without genetic finds i really found nothing conclusive that this haplogroups are responsible for Cardial culture and westward spread from northern Syria,i can choose any other haplogroup and say the same.I know that E1b1b was found in Iberia but not in Balkans and Lengyel is really north of Balkans and have nothing with Mediteranean coast or westward movement in my opinion.

Milan, I didn't say that this branch of "E" was "responsible" for Cardial, but, as a sample related to E-M13 was found in that Cardial site in Spain, the most parsimonious explanation is that it moved to western Europe along the northern Mediterranean with Cardial groups, which themselves came from the Near East. We have no similar proof that it moved along the southern Mediterranean coast and then into Spain. If you had a pre-E-V13 sample from North Africa, from a culture that shows movement into Spain, that would be a different thing.

As for Lengyel, it is an outgrowth of the Balkan cultures to its south, which themselves stem from the Near Eastern Neolithic, and would have reached the Lengyel area through the Balkans. Again, nothing to do with North Africa. It was accompanied by J2.

[Sile]

As far as I can recall, the earliest farming in the fertile Crescent was ~9000BC

R1-v88 passed by at the same time as farming began...........T1 passed by 4000 years before ..........clearly any marker/haplogroup earlier than 9000BC was a pure 100% hunter

As for herders, what use are they without farmers being around?

[Milan.M]

Milan, I didn't say that this branch of "E" was "responsible" for Cardial, but, as a sample related to E-M13 was found in that Cardial site in Spain, the most parsimonious explanation is that it moved to western Europe along the northern Mediterranean with Cardial groups, which themselves came from the Near East. We have no similar proof that it moved along the southern Mediterranean coast and then into Spain. If you had a pre-E-V13 sample from North Africa, from a culture that shows movement into Spain, that would be a different thing.

As for Lengyel, it is an outgrowth of the Balkan cultures to its south, which themselves stem from the Near Eastern Neolithic, and would have reached the Lengyel area through the Balkans. Again, nothing to do with North Africa. It was accompanied by J2.

What i thought is that this haplogroup entered Iberia from north Africa and moved eastward,along Mediterranean,rather different hypothesis.Still i can make this hypothesis as long we don't find it's presence in the Adriatic or Greece for example in early stage or earlier than as found in Iberia if they went this route.The case could be similar with R1b V88 because we found it in Africa,likewise E is most frequent in north Africa.
For example this is about Cardial

So the first Cardial settlers in the Adriatic may have come directly from the Levant. Of course it might equally well have come directly from North Africa, and impressed-pottery also appears in Egypt. Along the East Mediterranean coast Impressed Ware has been found in North Syria, Palestine and Lebanon

Also i think that culture can influence another culture without much genetic change,but rather groups adopting their way of life.

[LeBrok]

If early megaliths were confined to Anatolia and the Levante I'd be inclined to agree. In Europe however there is a significant gap. The Sicilian megalith became submerged in uncal. 9350 ± 200 year B.P., Impressed Ware and agriculture arrive in 6000 B.C.E. . The Portuguese megalith is dated to uncal. 9097 ± 445 year B.P., while the first traces of agriculture appear in 5600 - 5000 B.C.E. .

I don't have time to check everything, though it is very interesting subject which I never learned in detail, but a quick search into Portuguese megalith brings different point of you than yours. It seems to be a Neolithic creation.

The construction of these structures date back to the 6th millennium BC, though they were only rediscovered in 1966 by Henrique Leonor Pina, who was proceeding with field work relating to the country's geological charts.^[1][3][4][5] The excavation of the site unearthed a series of both megalithic and neolithic construction phases; Almendres I 6000 BC (Early Neolithic), Almendres II 5000 BC (Middle Neolithic), Almendres III 4000 BC (Late Neolithic). The relative chronology of the cromlech and menhirs is extremely complex and covers a period from the Neolithic to Chalcolithic, and it is believed that the monument had a religious/ceremonial purpose, or functioned as a primitive astronomical observatory

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

[MarkoZ]

I don't have time to check everything, though it is very interesting subject which I never learned in detail, but a quick search into Portuguese megalith brings different point of you than yours. It seems to be a Neolithic creation.

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

It's not like I have a particular narrative to sell with regards to pre-Neolithic megaliths - there's no reason whatsoever for me to try to mislead people.

The megalith in question is the Quinta da Queimada menir. For your convenience:

For the OSL date (David Calado et al. 2003)obtained from the socket of a menhir at Quinta daQueimada in the western Algarve, the biggest problem is the great antiquity of the sample. The result was an age of 9095 ± 445 years BT (Shfd 02014), suggesting that, with 95.4 % probability, the soil that filled the implantation pit was last exposed to light between 7983 and 6203 BCE, a period that ought to be relatedto the original erection of the standing stone.” (Caladoet al. 2010 : 7)This age raises interpretive problems that are difficult to accommodate within the model whichrelates the origin of megaliths in Europe to the Neolithic transition.

https://www.academia.edu/17114876/Me..._Western_Front

This was published before the discovery of the Sicilian megalith that was dated to the same period.

[Northener]

I have hypothesised for several years that the wave of Neolithic farmers who came from the southern Levant through North Africa brought a quite different set of haplogroups and autosomal admixture than the Anatolian farmers that colonised the Balkans and Central Europe.


I noticed that samples from the Funnelbeaker culture in Scandinavia, which was a Megalithic culture, had an inordinate amount of Sub-Saharan African autosomal DNA. That made me wonder how it could have got there. My explanation was that it came from Iberian Megalithic people, who in turn got it from Neolithic farmers from North Africa.
....
Haplogroup E1b1b was the main lineage of the Natufians (Mesolithic southern Levant). They might have carried a mix of E-V123, E-Z827 and E-M78. Levantine Neolithic farmers would undoubtedly have carried this lineage when they colonised North and East Africa, although it very likely that E1b1b was already present on both sides of the Red Sea before the Neolithic. A small minority of Western Europeans carry E-V12 and E-V22 lineages (under M78), which could be of Neolithic origin. Likewise, E-M123 could have spread through North Africa to Western Europe, as well as again later (Bronze and Iron Ages) from the Near East to Greece and Italy.

Nice thesis!

About E-M78/E-V22, you draw the line further which Wim Penninx and I supposed a year ago:
http://e-v22.net/descendants/

Otherwise still much doubt, in the Netherlands above the Rhine, indeed megalith territory, only two known cases of E-V22 in 'indigenous families'. But I must say that E-V22 is also found (sporadic) in megalith southern England, Ireland....

[LeBrok]

It's not like I have a particular narrative to sell with regards to pre-Neolithic megaliths - there's no reason whatsoever for me to try to mislead people.

The megalith in question is the Quinta da Queimada menir. For your convenience:



https://www.academia.edu/17114876/Me..._Western_Front

This was published before the discovery of the Sicilian megalith that was dated to the same period.

I guess we can agree that dating stone erection is a bit fuzzy business. In this case, when I look at this problem from other angles, like needed manpower, technological advance, domestication of animals (like oxen to pull heavy rocks possibly), specialisation of needed trades, caloric/energy need and supply (starch/sugar) in food to do labour intensive work, massive stone tools and ropes production, need for a calendar for farmers, sophistication of religion, first stone structures in fertile crescent and prime farmlands of Neolithic, this all tells me farmer, farmer, farmer.

[MarkoZ]

I guess we can agree that dating stone erection is a bit fuzzy business. In this case, when I look at this problem from other angles, like needed manpower, technological advance, domestication of animals (like oxen to pull heavy rocks possibly), specialisation of needed trades, caloric/energy need and supply (starch/sugar) in food to do labour intensive work, massive stone tools and ropes production, need for a calendar for farmers, sophistication of religion, first stone structures in fertile crescent and prime farmlands of Neolithic, this all tells me farmer, farmer, farmer.

I don't think it's more contentious than, say, the dating of metal objects. Keep in mind that in this particular case we have the Portuguese menir that was dated the traditional way and the Sicilian menir that must have been submerged around 9,000 B. P. based on the development of sea levels, yielding a terminus ante quem for the erection that predates agriculture by a good margin.

As for Göbeklitepe, I guess the problem is that the fertile crescent has developed into a sort of myth of its own. In the relevant time period the inhabitants of this site must have still been unfamiliar with agricultural methods. Wheat and barley was first to domesticated in the southern Levant - the inhabitants of the northern fertile crescent and, by extension, the people who spread agriculture into Europe weren't the same as those who 'invented' agriculture.

[MOESAN]

Nice thesis!

About E-M78/E-V22, you draw the line further which Wim Penninx and I supposed a year ago:
http://e-v22.net/descendants/


Otherwise still much doubt, in the Netherlands above the Rhine, indeed megalith territory, only two known cases of E-V22 in 'indigenous families'. But I must say that E-V22 is also found (sporadic) in megalith southern England, Ireland....

I lack haplos and auDNA for megalithers in diverse parts of Europe - could you please give me some data it you have them? It's a very important question. THanks in advance.

[LeBrok]

I don't think it's more contentious than, say, the dating of metal objects. Keep in mind that in this particular case we have the Portuguese menir that was dated the traditional way and the Sicilian menir that must have been submerged around 9,000 B. P. based on the development of sea levels, yielding a terminus ante quem for the erection that predates agriculture by a good margin.

Any less enigmatic stones to prove your point? Anything more conclusive that it was the work of h-gs?
Besides, one stone in the ground can be work of h-gs, tens or hundreds stones or elaborate stone temple definitely not.

As for Göbeklitepe, I guess the problem is that the fertile crescent has developed into a sort of myth of its own. In the relevant time period the inhabitants of this site must have still been unfamiliar with agricultural methods. Wheat and barley was first to domesticated in the southern Levant - the inhabitants of the northern fertile crescent and, by extension, the people who spread agriculture into Europe weren't the same as those who 'invented' agriculture.

Really? 20km from Gobekli they found domesticated wheat dated at 10.5 kya, only 500 years later than beginning of building Gobekli stones. Is this not relevant?
If we have domesticated grain from this area at 10.5 kya, does it mean that domestication had to start much earlier? Before 11kya, when Gobekli barely started?

[MarkoZ]

Any less enigmatic stones to prove your point? Anything more conclusive that it was the work of h-gs?

Well, all of this is by defintion all about enigmatic stones. No need to get into a heated argument though.

[LeBrok]

Well, all of this is by defintion all about enigmatic stones. No need to get into a heated argument though.

One stone in the ground can be work of h-gs, tens or hundreds stones or elaborate stone temple definitely not.