New Planck-Harvard Center for Study of Ancient Mediterranean

[berun]

No, Armenian wasn't there, Urartian place-names have not evolved along Armenian's phonetic characteristics.

 

[Angela]

the northern model is a possible explanation for the language shift in Mycenians, the eastern model not

I don't see why that's necessarily so. There are linguists who propose that some of the Indo-European languages came down through the Caucasus, including Hittite.

It wouldn't have been Armenian speakers who arrived. The Greek speakers would just have come from the same general area.
I could very well see them both carrying Z-2103.

I don't know if the eastern hypothesis for the Greeks is the correct one, but I certainly think it's possible given what we know so far.

People, I think the problem with the type is with our site. Go to settings and change from the highest setting to the third one down. I went looking for something in settings because my other output was fine even after the Windows upgrade.

 

[Angela]

Bicicleur, I don't think anyone has proposed that the bringing of plague was the only cause for the advance of the steppe people into Europe. I certainly haven't and wouldn't propose any such thing. It would be just one of many factors, as the bringing of measles, mumps, small pox and other diseases to the New World wasn't the only factor in the success of the Europeans. I don't think anyone could deny it was a huge factor however.

I also don't know why you would expect lots of remains from people who died of disease. Half of Europe died of plague in the Middle Ages but the remains in the known plague pits don't equal that number of victims, and many of the pits are only being discovered now. Plus, the same argument could be made if the farmers died of starvation caused by climate change or were killed by the newcomers. Where are those mounds of skeletons? Yet it's clear that something dire happened to a lot of the farmers, whatever the cause.

Furthermore, could you provide me with the dating you're using for the first contact between the farmers and the people of the steppe, and what particular group of farmers and the date you're using for the collapse?

From David Anthony:
" people from the steppes migrated to the fringes of and even into Old Europe, just before it collapsed. So there was a phase of intense interaction that involved people from the steppes immigrating into territories that had been occupied by Old European farmers. These steppe people seem to have been enriched by the contact, but we don’t know exactly how. They could have been looting; they could have been raiding. But the work has not really been done to answer that question in detail.

What has happened is that we’ve been accumulating radiocarbon dates, but we need a lot of radiocarbon dates to answer this question. The great mass of radiocarbon dates now available have clarified the suddenness of the shift. But an explanation for the shift is going to depend on whether it was a sudden change or whether there was a slow evolution toward a new pattern. Those two different possibilities have been unresolved and argued about until recently, when we’ve collected enough radiocarbon dates so that, at least as far as I’m concerned, we have the evidence to say it was a sudden collapse."

He's not mentioning the opposite movement, which was the movement of farmers onto the fringes of the steppe, which has been well documented.

This is just one such interface:
"Both hunter-gatherers and early farmers were attracted to the forest-steppe. They came face to face in the forest-steppe of the East Carpathian piedmont, northwest of the Black Sea, about 5800–5600 b.c.
It was a meeting that utterly changed both ways of life because it provided the means for humanity to profit from the Eurasian grasslands: domesticated cattle and sheep. Cattle and sheep were grass processors. They soon spread into plains that formerly were grazed only by wild horses and antelope, and they converted grass into leather, milk, yogurt, cheese, meat, marrow, and bone—the foundation for life and wealth. The steppe region began to witness the emergence of societies committed to stock-breeding while the forest-steppe northwest of the Black Sea remained the home of increasingly prosperous and productive mixed farmers. An economic-cultural frontier formed between them. It remained the most clearly defined and contrastive cultural frontier in prehistoric Europe for about twenty-three hundred years, 5600–3300 b.c."
http://www.encyclopedia.com/humanit...ts-and-maps/farming-frontier-southern-steppes

As for my comment about the steppe people fleeing from the disease, that was my speculation presented for discussion, not something proposed by Krause.
I do think, though, that it's more than possible that the steppe people carried this disease with them wherever they went. The map of spread of the forms and the dates make that rather incontrovertible. It may not have been as virulent for them. Again, the history of the New World is a parallel. The Europeans carried smallpox with them, for example. It was fatal for many of them, but it was far more fatal for the native peoples. In certain areas the latter were totally wiped out.

It's true we don't know how the earlier variant of plague was spread. That requires more research. If it was pneumonic, that is even worse than the bubonic version. Plus, even the bubonic form was present in the steppe by around 2000 BC.

 

[bicicleur 2]

Bicicleur, I don't think anyone has proposed that the bringing of plague was the only cause for the advance of the steppe people into Europe. I certainly haven't and wouldn't propose any such thing. It would be just one of many factors, as the bringing of measles, mumps, small pox and other diseases to the New World wasn't the only factor in the success of the Europeans. I don't think anyone could deny it was a huge factor however. I also don't know why you would expect lots of remains from people who died of disease. Half of Europe died of plague in the Middle Ages but the remains in the known plague pits don't equal that number of victims, and many of the pits are only being discovered now. Plus, the same argument could be made if the farmers died of starvation caused by climate change or were killed by the newcomers. Where are those mounds of skeletons? Yet it's clear that something dire happened to a lot of the farmers, whatever the cause. Furthermore, could you provide me with the dating you're using for the first contact between the farmers and the people of the steppe, and what particular group of farmers and the date you're using for the collapse?From David Anthony:" people from the steppes migrated to the fringes of and even into Old Europe, just before it collapsed. So there was a phase of intense interaction that involved people from the steppes immigrating into territories that had been occupied by Old European farmers. These steppe people seem to have been enriched by the contact, but we don’t know exactly how. They could have been looting; they could have been raiding. But the work has not really been done to answer that question in detail. What has happened is that we’ve been accumulating radiocarbon dates, but we need a lot of radiocarbon dates to answer this question. The great mass of radiocarbon dates now available have clarified the suddenness of the shift. But an explanation for the shift is going to depend on whether it was a sudden change or whether there was a slow evolution toward a new pattern. Those two different possibilities have been unresolved and argued about until recently, when we’ve collected enough radiocarbon dates so that, at least as far as I’m concerned, we have the evidence to say it was a sudden collapse."He's not mentioning the opposite movement, which was the movement of farmers onto the fringes of the steppe, which has been well documented. This is just one such interface:"Both hunter-gatherers and early farmers were attracted to the forest-steppe. They came face to face in the forest-steppe of the East Carpathian piedmont, northwest of the Black Sea, about 5800–5600 b.c.It was a meeting that utterly changed both ways of life because it provided the means for humanity to profit from the Eurasian grasslands: domesticated cattle and sheep. Cattle and sheep were grass processors. They soon spread into plains that formerly were grazed only by wild horses and antelope, and they converted grass into leather, milk, yogurt, cheese, meat, marrow, and bone—the foundation for life and wealth. The steppe region began to witness the emergence of societies committed to stock-breeding while the forest-steppe northwest of the Black Sea remained the home of increasingly prosperous and productive mixed farmers. An economic-cultural frontier formed between them. It remained the most clearly defined and contrastive cultural frontier in prehistoric Europe for about twenty-three hundred years, 5600–3300 b.c."http://www.encyclopedia.com/humanit...ts-and-maps/farming-frontier-southern-steppesAs for my comment about the steppe people fleeing from the disease, that was my speculation presented for discussion, not something proposed by Krause.I do think, though, that it's more than possible that the steppe people carried this disease with them wherever they went. The map of spread of the forms and the dates make that rather incontrovertible. It may not have been as virulent for them. Again, the history of the New World is a parallel. The Europeans carried smallpox with them, for example. It was fatal for many of them, but it was far more fatal for the native peoples. In certain areas the latter were totally wiped out. It's true we don't know how the earlier variant of plague was spread. That requires more research. If it was pneumonic, that is even worse than the bubonic version. Plus, even the bubonic form was present in the steppe by around 2000 BC.

collapse of neolithic northwestern and central Europehttps://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3486that would have been some 5.3 ka, some 500 years before corded ware expanded into eastern and central Europe, and also before the plague was reported in this areaI think it is worthwile to do more research on the spread of this prehistoric plague, but what we know now is based upon this 1 study and is very little.The Mongols are sometimes acused to have brought the plague to Europe in the 13th century. But it was certainly not noticable while they were conquering and slaughtering and burning down all these cities.

 

[bicicleur 2]

If I recall well David Anthony claims the 1st invasion into the Balkans was 6.2-6 ka. It would have been a period of cold and drought and IE tribes tried to find shelter for their cattle in the Danube delta. Also the crops of the farmers would have been affected by the climate change.This would have caused disputes between the IE and the local farmers which over time led to the burning down of 600 neolithic villages. After that lifestyle in the Balkans would have changed with more emphasis on herding compared to farming. (Cernavoda culture)The common ancestor of the prehistoric plague is only 5.5 ka.I can imagine that those sedentary isolated farming communities who had to be self-sufficient could be very vulnerable even to small climate changes which happened very often. We tend to think that climate is stable, but it isn't.

 

[bicicleur 2]

No, Armenian wasn't there, Urartian place-names have not evolved along Armenian's phonetic characteristics.

That would mean that the Armenians arrived in Armenia only in the sixth century BC, with the Orontid Dynasty. All the kings before were Hurrite Urartian. That seems unlikely to me as R1b-Z2103 was already found in LBA Armenia.

 

[bicicleur 2]

People, I think the problem with the type is with our site. Go to settings and change from the highest setting to the third one down. I went looking for something in settings because my other output was fine even after the Windows upgrade.Angela, can you explain a bit more? It is very annoying and I don't have a clue how to solve it.

 

[Angela]

Bicicleur, Maciamo posted he's aware of the problem and trying to fix it. In the meantime you can at least fix the paragraphing by clicking on forum actions in the blue header above. Then go to general setting. Scroll all the way down to messaging interface. Click on standard editor. It's not perfect as you can't quote or put in attachments, but it's better than nothing while we wait for Maciamo to fix it.

 

[bicicleur 2]

let's see
line 1
line 2
that's better indeed

 

[Angela]

Bicicleur,
I have no problem with the proposal that climate change might have severely weakened farming cultures in central Europe. I just don't understand why you are so adamant that disease might not also have been a factor.

As for David Anthony, not that I think he is the be all and end all, his latest statement, which I posted above, certainly doesn't sound as if he necessarily sees this as an abrupt change brought about by invasion. He's very cautious about it.

These are some screen shots from the talk. From the samples they've tested, these are some of the dates and locations. Now that they know what to look for, I think it would be very beneficial to test all the ancient samples we have for that general period and see what it shows.

https://ibb.co/jxwPFb

This is the tree branching.
https://ibb.co/jytt8w

 

[IronSide]

That would mean that the Armenians arrived in Armenia only in the sixth century BC, with the Orontid Dynasty. All the kings before were Hurrite Urartian. That seems unlikely to me as R1b-Z2103 was already found in LBA Armenia.

Two posts by me and Aramu on how proto-Armenians migrated to the Armenian Highlands, and two different theories:

1- https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...bution-of-R1b-Z2103/page2?p=502609#post502609 Aramu's idea.

2- https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...dern-Armenians?p=517165&viewfull=1#post517165 mine.

There was a king of Urartu with an IE (actually Armenian) etymology for his name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argishti_I_of_Urartu

 

[Jovialis]

Great video, it certainly helped to clarify much of the nuances. I find it astonishing that 83% of 3,238 samples are yet to be publish; which means there's a lot more exciting revelations coming down the pike.

Also, it's great they confirmed the south Italian sample was result of genetic drift.

In regards to the Northern model, or Eastern Model; isn't it possible that it could be both to some degree? Moreover Iosif Lazaridis said it could have come in drips and drabs, and not a large scale movement. @ https://youtu.be/c-vqlWhAPs8?t=1h16m19s

 

[bicicleur 2]

Bicicleur,
I have no problem with the proposal that climate change might have severely weakened farming cultures in central Europe. I just don't understand why you are so adamant that disease might not also have been a factor.
As for David Anthony, not that I think he is the be all and end all, his latest statement, which I posted above, certainly doesn't sound as if he necessarily sees this as an abrupt change brought about by invasion. He's very cautious about it.
These are some screen shots from the talk. From the samples they've tested, these are some of the dates and locations. Now that they know what to look for, I think it would be very beneficial to test all the ancient samples we have for that general period and see what it shows.
https://ibb.co/jxwPFb
This is the tree branching.
https://ibb.co/jytt8w

I don't know, very little is known yet about how this plague spread and what were the effects.
If you asume IE people were immune and affected local populations, how do you explain the shift from R1b-Z2103 Yamna to R1a-Z283 Corded Ware and R1a-Z93 Sintashta/Catacomb. The latter replaced the first, while the first are asumed immune to the plague.
You see, a lot of questions remain.
We even don't know how the historical plagues spread. We just now all of a sudden they appeared.

If I understand well the DNA was not taken from the human remains but gathered from the soil in burial places by means of a DNA 'glueing agent'.

 

[bicicleur 2]

Angela, the extract you quote from David Anthony, what period is he talking about? There is no date in the extract.

 

[Angela]

Angela, the extract you quote from David Anthony, what period is he talking about? There is no date in the extract.

Sorry, Bicicleur, that's all I have in the folder where I saved it.

He does say this, though: "people from the steppes migrated to the fringes of and even into Old Europe, just before it collapsed."

I did find an article from him that talks about the collapse of "Old Europe" and in that one he says that there was not one collapse. Different cultures "collapsed" at different times.

Unfortunately I can't copy it, but you can find it here.
https://books.google.com/books?id=g...I#v=onepage&q=Collapse of "Old Europe&f=false

He rather downplays the role of climate change, since it wouldn't have made the area unlivable, and anyway the peak was after the abandonment of some of the tells. I actually just read a paper that said the same thing and proposed it was soil degradation instead, which Anthony also mentions.

Plus, it was a hit or miss affair, with agriculture continuing in many other areas of southeastern Europe.

The areas that were abandoned were the tightly packed tell settlements, the precise kinds of places where disease would spread quickly it seems to me. Anthony in this article seems to be favoring warfare with steppe peoples as the cause but I think it would fit both warfare and accompanying disease.

I'm not saying the disease was brought deliberately, if indeed it was a factor, although that's indeed what happened with the Black Death. The Genovese outpost in the Crimea was being besieged. During the course of the siege the plague appeared in the attackers. To even the playing field they catapulted bodies of people who had died of the plague into the settlement. The Genovese fled to their ships and the ships carried it all over the trade routes. The rest is history.

Anyway, Cucuteni-Tripolite survived until about 3500 BC.

Because the oldest sample we've found so far of the plague bacterium dates to 3200 BC doesn't mean it wasn't present three hundred years earlier.

Also, I think central Europe is a different subject with different time lines, many after 3200 BC, and those are the areas which saw the most replacement. Interesting in that light that Krause found it so far north.

I do agree that a lot more study has to be done.

 

[IronSide]

@bicicleurI explained it in the link I provided.

Destruction

Archaeological evidence shows that the cities of Erzerum, Sivas, Pulur Huyuk near Baiburt, Kultepe near Hafik, and Maltepe near Sivas were destroyed during the Middle Bronze Age. The great trading city of Kanesh (Level II) was also destroyed. From there in the hill country between Halys the destruction layers from this time tell the same story. Karaoglan, Bitik, Polatli and Gordion were burnt, as well as Etiyokusu and Cerkes. Further west near the Dardanelles the two large mounds of Korpruoren and Tavsanli, west of Kutahya,
show the same signs of being destroyed.

The destruction even crossed into Europe in what is now Bulgaria. The migration brought an end to Bulgaria's Early Bronze Age, with archaeological evidence showing that the Yunacite, Salcutza, and Esero centers had a sudden mass desertion during this time.[1]

Into Greece

From the Dardanelles, the refugee invaders moved into mainland Greece, and the Peloponnese saw burnt and abandoned cities on par with the much later Dorian invasion which destroyed the Mycenaean civilization.[1] At this time, 1900 BC, destruction layers can be found at southern Greek sites like Orchomenos, Eutresis (de), Hagios Kosmas, Raphina, Apesokari, Korakou, Zygouries, Tiryns, Asine, Malthi and Asea. Many other sites are deserted, e.g. Yiriza, Synoro, Ayios Gerasimos, Kophovouni, Makrovouni, Palaiopyrgos, etc. This destruction across Greece also coincided with the arrival of a new culture that had no connection with the Early Helladic civilization, who were the original inhabitants.[1] Northern Greece escaped destruction, as well as southern Anatolia, which during this time showed no disturbances.[1]

Some thoughts:

Let's assume that this Middle BA migration of the Mycenaeans did come from the Caucasus, and with that in mind lets ask what Y-haplogroups this migration should have brought with it, by age and frequency the most probable is E-V13 but of course it hasn't been detected from the Mycenaean paper, another probable haplogroup is J2b-Z597, as well as R1b-Z2013, but probably not all its subclades.

If E-V13 and J2b-Z597 did come from the Caucasus, then we should expect that the Caucasian admixture in Europe should resemble
their frequency map.

Another "Theoritical" prediction we can make is a migration from the Blakans to the east coast of Italy, E-V13 and J2b-Z597 already have that on their frequency maps, another interesting case is the Caucasian subclades of haplogroup G, G2a-L293 (most common in Georgians) and G2a-U1, have "relatively" high frequency in eastern Italy.

These cases of haplogroup G (and many subclades of J2a) were carried by the Indo-European migrations from the Caucasus to Europe, their presence in Italy is from the western Blakans, we expect they had a higher frequency there before the Slavic migrations that brought I2a and R1a.

summary:

From their Steppe homeland, late PIE speakers moved south to the Caucasus and East Anatolia in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC, Haplogroups R1b-Z2013, E-V13, J2b-Z597 were the major components in their male line, they quickly separated into two groups:

1-The ones who stayed in Transcaucasia, Z2013 was more common in this group, but E-V13 in modern Kurds and J2b throughout the Caucasus are also included in this group. The Armenian language and other lost languages (Mushki/Cappadocian) formed in this group.

2-Migrants to Western Anatolia and Europe, E-V13 and J2b had a higher frequency in this group, responsible for the Middle Bronze Age migration and the destruction of towns in northern Anatolia, Bulgaria and southern Greece. This migration is associated with Caucasian admixture in southeastern Europe and the other small Caucasian subclades of G2a and J2a, who were assimilated by the Indo-Europeans.

Languages that formed in this group should have been Greek, Phrygian, Macedonian, Paeonian (in theory), Illyrian (in theory), Messapic (also in theory :embarassed, I don't think the Satem languages Thracian and Dacian belong to this group, more lexical parallels with Balto-Slavic and Satemization may be considered as arguments, a migration directly from the Steppe with mostly R1b-Z2013 --> CTS9219 may be the case, We don't know much about these languages.

 

[Messier 67]

Well, that changed my perspective on the spread of IE languages, learned something.

Then there is my theory that the "IE languages" are in fact not from Indo-Europeans, but from Caucasians (GHIJK xK2). If IE languages are heavily related to ancient Celtic and Slavic languages, then I withdraw my theory.

 

[Angela]

There are other trees; this is just one of them, but they're not all that different from one another.

 

[Messier 67]

There are other trees; this is just one of them, but they're not all that different from one another.

Thank you, but Germanic has Haplogroup I influence, we have no idea of which people were dominant and which created the words, the Is or the Rs. And this tree is of modern languages (with references to Proto languages) influenced heavily by Greek and Latin, if the Greek Language falls to the Mycenaeans and the Mycenaeans were Js and Js created Greek, Houston we have a major problem. How did the J1as invent a language that was Indo-European. That is why I claused it with ancient celtic and ancient slavic, not modern languages influenced by Greek and Latin and other possibly Caucasian languages. In the next 50 years, the release of ancient DNA, particularly Y-DNA, will help reveal who created these languages and civilizations. I hold out the possibility of the tree to be inaccurate. The tree may loose some branches, particularly Greek. And there was Js in India predating the Indo-Aryan invasion. Is Sanskrit and Greek related? If the Greek branch goes, Sanskrit may be determined to be a language older than the Indo-Aryans. The whole aryano-greco-armenic branch may fall.

If the Ancient Greeks came up with the tree, it may look much different. Biases can be cast aside with finding of ancient DNA.

Follow the links below to examine some of the evidence for the past existence of the Proto Indo-European language, based on common words in the languages found in and around Europe and India.

Are they kidding, they group together languages that may not all be Indo-European and create themselves a proto-Indo-European language not based on archeological evidence but on biased guesswork. Like I said if Greek goes, their whole house of cards fall too. Too much influence the Greek world had on other languages.

 

[Sile]

Then there is my theory that the "IE languages" are in fact not from Indo-Europeans, but from Caucasians (GHIJK xK2). If IE languages are heavily related to ancient Celtic and Slavic languages, then I withdraw my theory.

interesting that you are excluding the R haplogroup family as well as P, M, S