Southern Neolithic route brought Megaliths from the Levant to Western Europe

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.
 
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
 
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/Menhirs_of_Portugal_All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front

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

PPNA Natufians didn't have domesticates nor dairy products.
They survived on cereals, pulses, fruits and nuts.
They were very low on proteins.
Some meat from the gazelle hunt was more than wellcome, allthough maybe only accessible to the elite.
In PPNB, when they had goats many tribes stopped hunting.
 
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.

Why a fourth brother lineage? What I was trying to explain was that 50 to 90% of Early Neolithic male lineages are now extinct. That's why there are lots of *. If all the know modern SNPs are tested, the * shows that there are no other mutations shared with modern people and therefore that this lineage is extinct. In living people the * only means that they didn't test all Y-chromosomal SNPs (e.g. through BigY or a full genomic test) and that that individual's deep clade hasn't been identified yet. Of course we could also find new branches among ancient samples, but if they didn't survive to the present they are meaningless. There would be thousands of extinct subclades.
 
PPNA Natufians didn't have domesticates nor dairy products.
They survived on cereals, pulses, fruits and nuts.
They were very low on proteins.
Some meat from the gazelle hunt was more than wellcome, allthough maybe only accessible to the elite.
In PPNB, when they had goats many tribes stopped hunting.

I doubt that in PPNA society meat was mainly reserved to the elite. They were closer to HG tribes than to agrarian civilisations. As you said, they only had a few crops, and those crops would have mostly complemented their ancestral hunter-gatherer diet, not the other way round. They were hunter-gatherers who did some basic cultivation on the side to diversify their diet, not farmers who hunted occasionally. Gazelles almost became extinct in the Middle East around 2500 BCE because Neolithic, Chalcolithic and EBA people kept hunting them regularly, despite having plenty of meat available from domesticated animals. PPBA Natufians who lacked domesticates would badly have needed meat from hunting. HG used to eating meat all the time cannot become vegetarian over a few generations.
 
I doubt that in PPNA society meat was mainly reserved to the elite. They were closer to HG tribes than to agrarian civilisations. As you said, they only had a few crops, and those crops would have mostly complemented their ancestral hunter-gatherer diet, not the other way round. They were hunter-gatherers who did some basic cultivation on the side to diversify their diet, not farmers who hunted occasionally. Gazelles almost became extinct in the Middle East around 2500 BCE because Neolithic, Chalcolithic and EBA people kept hunting them regularly, despite having plenty of meat available from domesticated animals. PPBA Natufians who lacked domesticates would badly have needed meat from hunting. HG used to eating meat all the time cannot become vegetarian over a few generations.

yes, but in the Jordan Valley, north of the Dead Sea (Jericho, Netiv Hagdud, Gilgal, ..) the situation may have reversed quite quickly
it is an area on the edge of the steppe, near the desert where probably supluses of cereals could be produced (there were storage facilities), and cereals probably became a commoditiy over there
it has been suggested that the first domesticated cereals in the Tepecik area, which exported obsidian, was not grown there, but got there through trade
it all depends on how these societies were organised and whether an elite emerged with control over the lower castes or not
 
Why a fourth brother lineage? What I was trying to explain was that 50 to 90% of Early Neolithic male lineages are now extinct. That's why there are lots of *. If all the know modern SNPs are tested, the * shows that there are no other mutations shared with modern people and therefore that this lineage is extinct. In living people the * only means that they didn't test all Y-chromosomal SNPs (e.g. through BigY or a full genomic test) and that that individual's deep clade hasn't been identified yet. Of course we could also find new branches among ancient samples, but if they didn't survive to the present they are meaningless. There would be thousands of extinct subclades.

Let's suppose E-V22 is an Early Neolithic marker which spread the neolithic from the Mediterranean to Northwestern Europe. Than indeed there is some full gnome evidence. Look at the latest Y-Full tree: https://www.yfull.com/tree/E-V22/
My specific deep clade is E-PH2818, my family shares this tree with a family from Wales and from Puerto Rico (=Iberian?).
So....
 
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There's a difference between plant (and animal) cultivation, and domestication. Certain sites in the southern Levant have shown that the people were storing large quantities of still wild cereals. The first actual domestication took place north of there.

"The earliest securely identified and dated examples of domestic emmer and einkorn come from sites in the Upper Euphrates valley such as Çayönü, Nevali Çori, and possibly Cafer Höyük (figure 2). These samples have been dated to about 10,500-10,200 cal BP during the Early PPNB, and indicate that emmer and einkorn domestication was well underway in the Fertile Crescent (Zohary et al, 2012: 42; Zeder, 2011: s224). The earliest domesticated barley was found in the Fertile Crescent and Anatolian Plateau from the Middle PPNB period at sites such as Tell Aswad (c. 10,200-9,550 cal BP) (Zohary, et al, 2012: 56). These discoveries have largely overturned previous acceptances that domesticated cereals first appeared in a core area in the southern Levant and subsequently spread out throughout the Near East (Zeder, 2011: s224)."

View attachment 8397
https://www.academia.edu/1529206/Ev..._and_Domestication_in_the_Neolithic_Near_East

As for how much hunting (and fishing, where appropriate) contributed to the diet of early Neolithic communities, it varied by time and place, but it's quite surprising to me how little hunting, or fishing, was done by some Neolithic groups. It's been proposed that it may have been(because domesticates acquired a quasi-religious or perhaps ritual significance.

See:
https://www.academia.edu/4124374/An...y_Neolithic_of_the_Balkans_and_Central_Europe

"Yet, despite a strong correlation between the LBK and the northwestward spread of domestic animals,there is regional and temporal variation in the relative frequencies of the key economic animal taxa (i.e., cattle, sheep, goat, pigs and wild game). These differences have been well documented at the regional scale of zooarchaeological analyses and a number of likely causal factors, including ecology, climate and culture, have been implicated."
Meat consumption by type in certain EN cultures.PNG

Animal consumption in the Neolithic.jpg


Fishing seems to have been particularly eschewed, as John Robb notes in his book "The Mediterranean Village".
https://books.google.com/books?id=0HeNr9h56uEC&q=fish#v=snippet&q=fish&f=false

In some European areas there was more hunting/gathering than in others. The local landscape probably had something to do with it, how successful the crops were, how much game was actually available, how quickly it was depleted. I also wonder if it was dependent on how many local h-gs were absorbed. For example, the communities around the Iron Gates seem to have fished quite extensively, and that's also where it has been proposed that some local h-gs were incorporated into the community.
 
There's a difference between plant (and animal) cultivation, and domestication. Certain sites in the southern Levant have shown that the people were storing large quantities of still wild cereals. The first actual domestication took place north of there.

"The earliest securely identified and dated examples of domestic emmer and einkorn come from sites in the Upper Euphrates valley such as Çayönü, Nevali Çori, and possibly Cafer Höyük (figure 2). These samples have been dated to about 10,500-10,200 cal BP during the Early PPNB, and indicate that emmer and einkorn domestication was well underway in the Fertile Crescent (Zohary et al, 2012: 42; Zeder, 2011: s224). The earliest domesticated barley was found in the Fertile Crescent and Anatolian Plateau from the Middle PPNB period at sites such as Tell Aswad (c. 10,200-9,550 cal BP) (Zohary, et al, 2012: 56). These discoveries have largely overturned previous acceptances that domesticated cereals first appeared in a core area in the southern Levant and subsequently spread out throughout the Near East (Zeder, 2011: s224)."

Seems like an apology to LeBrok is in order. I was genuinely ignorant and stuck in the 'Jordan valley paradigm'.
 
There's a difference between plant (and animal) cultivation, and domestication. Certain sites in the southern Levant have shown that the people were storing large quantities of still wild cereals. The first actual domestication took place north of there.

"The earliest securely identified and dated examples of domestic emmer and einkorn come from sites in the Upper Euphrates valley such as Çayönü, Nevali Çori, and possibly Cafer Höyük (figure 2). These samples have been dated to about 10,500-10,200 cal BP during the Early PPNB, and indicate that emmer and einkorn domestication was well underway in the Fertile Crescent (Zohary et al, 2012: 42; Zeder, 2011: s224). The earliest domesticated barley was found in the Fertile Crescent and Anatolian Plateau from the Middle PPNB period at sites such as Tell Aswad (c. 10,200-9,550 cal BP) (Zohary, et al, 2012: 56). These discoveries have largely overturned previous acceptances that domesticated cereals first appeared in a core area in the southern Levant and subsequently spread out throughout the Near East (Zeder, 2011: s224)."

View attachment 8397
https://www.academia.edu/1529206/Ev..._and_Domestication_in_the_Neolithic_Near_East

As for how much hunting (and fishing, where appropriate) contributed to the diet of early Neolithic communities, it varied by time and place, but it's quite surprising to me how little hunting, or fishing, was done by some Neolithic groups. It's been proposed that it may have been(because domesticates acquired a quasi-religious or perhaps ritual significance.

See:
https://www.academia.edu/4124374/An...y_Neolithic_of_the_Balkans_and_Central_Europe

"Yet, despite a strong correlation between the LBK and the northwestward spread of domestic animals,there is regional and temporal variation in the relative frequencies of the key economic animal taxa (i.e., cattle, sheep, goat, pigs and wild game). These differences have been well documented at the regional scale of zooarchaeological analyses and a number of likely causal factors, including ecology, climate and culture, have been implicated."
View attachment 8398

View attachment 8399


Fishing seems to have been particularly eschewed, as John Robb notes in his book "The Mediterranean Village".
https://books.google.com/books?id=0HeNr9h56uEC&q=fish#v=snippet&q=fish&f=false

In some European areas there was more hunting/gathering than in others. The local landscape probably had something to do with it, how successful the crops were, how much game was actually available, how quickly it was depleted. I also wonder if it was dependent on how many local h-gs were absorbed. For example, the communities around the Iron Gates seem to have fished quite extensively, and that's also where it has been proposed that some local h-gs were incorporated into the community.

I guess there are more ways leading to Rome. Maciamo is sketching the neolithic route from the Levant through the Mediterranean via the Atlantic coast upwards. There is also the possibility of an inland route through the Balkan, by the grand rivers, to central Europe and further. When I zoom out you can see in the different spread of E-V13 and E-V22. E-V13 more, Balkan, inland and his far nephew E-V22 the sea route (sublclade E-PH2818 Iberia and than to Wales and Frisia)!?
 
Seems like an apology to LeBrok is in order. I was genuinely ignorant and stuck in the 'Jordan valley paradigm'.

This is just the latest research of which I'm aware, Marko. There may be something more recent that changes the picture. Archaeology isn't a static discipline after all.

If someone knows of any such studies which contradict the above, please correct the record.

One of the most important take aways for me about the early Neolithic is, as I said above, the difference between cultivation and domestication. The people of the southern Levant, for example, were living in settled villages, transplanting plants and tending fields of cereals, harvesting and storing hundreds and thousands of seeds, making bread etc. for hundreds and thousands of years before the first actual domestication took place. Grain stores have been found at Ohala that date to 23,000 years ago.

So, they did have a certain amount of social organization and cooperation. Their took kit was still pretty primitive however. The housing in the Natufian was built of brush in a lot of cases. It was only in the next period that clay was used.

Gobekli Tepe is still a puzzle to me.
 

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