Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past

[Ygorcs]

Hey, completely off topic, but I couldn't resist this doubt: why is WHG so distant from EHG? I thought I had read that EHG was basically a mix of something like WHG with (a minor percentage of, something ~30%) ANE. Isn't that right? If EHG and WHG shared a large percentage of their ancestry, why would they be so unlike each other in the PCA?

 

[IronSide]

Hey, completely off topic, but I couldn't resist this doubt: why is WHG so distant from EHG? I thought I had read that EHG was basically a mix of something like WHG with (a minor percentage of, something ~30%) ANE. Isn't that right? If EHG and WHG shared a large percentage of their ancestry, why would they be so unlike each other in the PCA?

No, the majority of the ancestry of EHG is ANE, which they share with Native Americans. about 75% ANE, the rest is WHG.

 

[Falco]

This is what I meant above about the modeling using "Iran Farmer":


Steppe:
Steppe pastorialist = Iran farmers + Steppe hunter gatheres (note distinction between Iran farmers with EEF and Anatolian below)

India:
ASI = Iran Farmers + Indian hunters
ANI = Steppe pastorialist + Iran farmers
Present India = ANI + ASI

Europe:
European farmers (EEF) = Anatolian farmer + European hunter gatherers
Northern European (Bronze age) =Eastern european farmer + Steppe pastorialist
South European Aegeans (Bronze age) =Iran farmers + European farmers
Present day Europeans = North + South european bronze age populations


I don't see anything there about steppe into Aegean Bronze Age. Is he going with the Greek from Anatolia scenario?

For ANI by Iranian farmers do they mean BMAC farmers?

How exactly can Iranian Farmer be modeled? Judging from the chart just above my post it looks like Neolithic Iranian is about half Basal Eurasian but what else? That chart doesn't specify.

 

[Yetos]

i posted in another thread,

I am repeating my shelf,
Sorry,

many times I even deny myshelf
many times I choose nearby areas,
passage through Caucasus

but seems new aproach suggests this model
for the listuistic term of IE,

and not this

Gush how many years to pass to crystalize our view?

@ Ironside

consider about Ballochi and caucasian in Yamnaa,
which model fits best you believe?

 

[Angela]

As one of those amateurs you quite legitimately incriminate, I confirm that those Caucasus and Gedrosia percentages have always baffled me. I have my own hypothesis about the rise of Caucasus and Gedrosia percentages in copper age Europe though. What I imagine is a rather massive wave of newcomers from the Kura-Araxes culture, distinct from and much posterior to the original Farmer migrations. A movement that would be somehow parallel (and perhaps simultaneous) to the migration from the steppe further north. They would have brought a lot of J to Greece, for example, but with Anatolia on the way, they would have been quite farmer-admixed by the time they got there - blending as much as replacing.
They could even have spoken an Anatolian IE language. Which would explain why Mycenians spoke IE without drastically altering the autosomal makeup of ancient Greece after their arrival. Let me repeat I am an amateur. If what's above is simply foolish, feel free to say so.

Well, I guess we're both foolish if that's wrong, because I've said something similar in the past, at least in so far as I've speculated that there might have been a sort of pincer like movement of "CHG like" ancestry, with one going onto the steppe and then from there into at least central and northern Europe, and one going more westward across Anatolia, hitting southeast Europe and Italy more heavily, but also filtering through into Iberia, and then moving north from those areas.

I've referred back to the old Dienekes idea of the Caucasus as a sort of "womb of nations", a continuation of what happened with the Neolithic farmers spreading north/northwest to other parts of West Asia and Europe, southeast to India, south to Egypt and Africa, and west, also along the southern coast of the Mediterranean, i.e. North Africa. Then the steppe component also radiated to far flung areas.

Where I differ is in holding that the Gedrosia component is the only one that tracks the movements from the steppe. If that were the case, why does the map of it show much less than the 25-30% of steppe we know is in Northern Italy and Tuscany, for example?

We're all amateurs, btw, even the famous bloggers. Some of us have just been at it for ten years and more.

 

[Angela]

This is the Johannes Krause (Max Planck Institute) model for the spread of IE. He presented it at a conference. When he introduced it, he said this is the model "we" came up with...I don't know the identity of the "we". Nor do I know if "they've" modified it.

I don't think this is precisely what Reich is talking about. He sees something coming from the steppe to India. The graphic above also doesn't show the "Iranian" farmer input into South Asia.

 

[ROS]

This map is more concordant in general lines with reality, I do not say that it is something definitive, but it can give an answer to:


- Centum vs satem
- R1b vs R1a main European haplogroups.


That I consider that the hypothesis of the steppe does not respond to any of these questions.


But of course it follows the incognita of Ibero, Vasco, Aquitano and its relationship with R1b.


- There will not also be a question:
a) Ibero, Basque, Aquitano, (Western R1b = Languages IE centum (anatolicas without steppe) + no IE) vs b) steppe (R1a = IE satem + other languages that being far from the classical Grego-Latin culture we do not know what they are)

Bell culture with steppe = a + b

I also observe that the Indo-European homeland is increasingly farther south, each time it is closer to the fertile half moon or the origin of agriculture, if this were confirmed it would be a colossal historical lesson.

Well colossal not because this had already been a hypothesis before the steppe

 

[hrvclv]

Where I differ is in holding that the Gedrosia component is the only one that tracks the movements from the steppe. If that were the case, why does the map of it show much less than the 25-30% of steppe we know is in Northern Italy and Tuscany, for example?

If Maciamo's map of R1b movements is right (and, as you often say, his intuitions are often right), R1b would have moved round the southern tip of the Caspian, then up towards the Caucasus, before crossing over to the steppe. Gedrosia is basically NW Iran, right. So the R1b could have picked up some Gedrosia on the way, around Lake Urmia or Lake Van, and taken it with them to the North.

So Gedrosia would be a percentage of the percentage of Steppe that Tuscans have - a fraction of a fraction. So the figures may not be irreconcilable after all.

Btw, thanks for your "encouragements". Sometimes I feel my hypotheses are based on such fragmentary knowledge that I should just... shut up ! What incites me to express them in spite of all is the fact that, when I speak nonsense, I learn so much from the responses you guys give to my nonsense !!

 

[ROS]

It also explains why Anatolia, Greece, Italy, most of France and Spain have so little steppe, Angela recalled that Afghanistan has more steppe than these countries, and if it has 50% more Afghanistan than most European countries.

 

[hrvclv]

This is the Johannes Krause (Max Planck Institute) model for the spread of IE. He presented it at a conference. When he introduced it, he said this is the model "we" came up with...I don't know the identity of the "we". Nor do I know if "they've" modified it.

I don't think this is precisely what Reich is talking about. He sees something coming from the steppe to India. The graphic above also doesn't show the "Iranian" farmer input into South Asia.

Sorry, but personally, I don't find this map very helpful. EHG in Estonia ? No-one further East ? No room made for ANE ? Natufians all packed together, all E, G, T haplos in the same bag ? The green arrows - supposedly showing the expansion of IE languages (?) - shooting away just the same from CHG and from Yamna ? It's not just simplistic, in my view ; it's downright misleading.

 

[ROS]

This map explains the greater number of contradictions that are currently being discussed, logically no map of these will explain the complex reality, but as a scheme it is quite interesting and revealing of certain issues.


The south of Europe is not clear enough and I start to think that the north is not, some hypothesis are loaded with nationalism and this should be avoided, I do not dedicate myself to these subjects and I have it as a hobby I observe some ways of describing the reality something tendencionsas, is a subject that is not less is trying to describe the linguistic and genetic origins of European peoples, we must be careful and prudent, are not minor issues, scientific objectivity must be imposed at all costs, the truth will always end Knowing itself next year or within 3000 years.

 

[Angela]

This map is more concordant in general lines with reality, I do not say that it is something definitive, but it can give an answer to:


- Centum vs satem
- R1b vs R1a main European haplogroups.


That I consider that the hypothesis of the steppe does not respond to any of these questions.


But of course it follows the incognita of Ibero, Vasco, Aquitano and its relationship with R1b.


- There will not also be a question:
a) Ibero, Basque, Aquitano, (Western R1b = Languages IE centum (anatolicas without steppe) + no IE) vs b) steppe (R1a = IE satem + other languages that being far from the classical Grego-Latin culture we do not know what they are)

Bell culture with steppe = a + b

I also observe that the Indo-European homeland is increasingly farther south, each time it is closer to the fertile half moon or the origin of agriculture, if this were confirmed it would be a colossal historical lesson.

Well colossal not because this had already been a hypothesis before the steppe

Actually, one of the problems with pushing the homeland of proto or pre-proto IE too far south is precisely agriculture, because the "steppe" people had only rudimentary farming and there's not much "farming" vocabulary in early IE, at least if we're going to give a lot of credence to "reconstructions" of the early forms.

One possible explanation, if the "homeland" was as far south as the highlands of Armenia and the Iranian plateau, is that these people didn't find the steppe conducive at that time for farming, and so they relied on their domesticated animals instead.

I used to think that perhaps they left so early that all they had at that time were the animals and some pulses. I'd have to check, but I think that already by 6000 BC, before the movement onto the steppe if I'm understanding Reich correctly, groups like the Shuvaleri so beloved y Olympic Mons already were growing crops.

 

[Angela]

Sorry, but personally, I don't find this map very helpful. EHG in Estonia ? No-one further East ? No room made for ANE ? Natufians all packed together, all E, G, T haplos in the same bag ? The green arrows - supposedly showing the expansion of IE languages (?) - shooting away just the same from CHG and from Yamna ? It's not just simplistic, in my view ; it's downright misleading.

I've already said I don't think this is precisely what Reich had in mind, and I'm not necessarily a proponent of it, much less did I create it, so no need to be "sorry", but I must say I don't understand the issue with the things you cite.

Why would an ancient population like ANE be on this map? They're talking about a period around, at the earliest, maybe 10,000 years ago. Do you know how old the ANE sample is? Clearly, it's also not a map aiming to show every possible place where you could find EHG. SHG isn't there either. It's not about that.

Nor do I know what you mean about Natufians being "all packed together" with no distinction terms of ylineage. Again, this isn't a map about the yDna of the farmers. All it's trying to show is the spread of farmers from the Levant Neolithic north into both western and eastern Anatolia. There's absolutely nothing misleading about it.

Where have you ever seen a map of the spread of the Indo-European languages which shows the kind of detail you're talking about?

What they should have included, imo, is a line showing the spread of farmers into India, as I mentioned above.

I also believe, although I'm perfectly willing to change my mind if there is evidence to the contrary, that a steppe population, or steppe admixed population entered India bearing R1a and the Indo-European Indian languages, and if I'm understanding the Krause schematic, I don't see that depicted there.

 

[Ygorcs]

@Ygorcs
Why do you say steppe people and ANI were already very similar? They both had an "Iranian farmer" like component, to use Reich's terminology, heavily CHG, but the other half was wildly different: EHG vs. ASI

I don't know why it should be surprising if all of India was ASI before the arrival of the Iranian farmers and the steppe people. All of Europe was WHG. All of the New World was Amerindian, mostly from one migration pulse.

I said that - not that I believe it, I was actually surprised and suspicious about it - because the admixtures you cited, I presume ipsis litteris, from David Reich's book cited exactly this: Steppe pastoralists - Iranian farmers + EHG / ANI - Iranian farmers + Steppe pastoralists. I also thought that ANI had at least a good chunk of ASI, but unless that was a typo if it were actually just Iran_N + Steppe then it was just not much more than an Iranian-enriched steppe-like admixture. But I may have understood what you wrote incorrectly, of course.

 

[A. Papadimitriou]

I think I don't agree with Reich and the main reason is that the non-IE languages in Anatolia were found in Eastern (Hurrian, Urartian) and Central Northern (Hattic) parts of it.

That being said, I believed that that apart from the proto-Armenians, the Medes too were very much like Armenia MLBA. The difference between Armenia EBA (possibly NE? Caucasian speaking) and Armenia MLBA is the extra Anatolian 'Farmer' + EHG admixture that could have arrived there from Balkans. (That is certainly true about the 'farmer' admixture)

I have some problems with dates that make me not sure but we will see (and I understand that my view can be in some ways.. Eurocentric or... Euranatoliocentric, that's why I don't write often about it -- I find no need to place the proto-language anywhere though)

I still consider Indo-European a European/Anatolian 'farmer' language (I think though the movements of the 'farmers' were more complex than what is thought and only a subset of them is responsible for the morphology of reconstructed 'Late PIE')

 

[hrvclv]

I've already said I don't think this is precisely what Reich had in mind, and I'm not necessarily a proponent of it, much less did I create it, so no need to be "sorry", but I must say I don't understand the issue with the things you cite.

Why would an ancient population like ANE be on this map? They're talking about a period around, at the earliest, maybe 10,000 years ago. Do you know how old the ANE sample is? Clearly, it's also not a map aiming to show every possible place where you could find EHG. SHG isn't there either. It's not about that.

Nor do I know what you mean about Natufians being "all packed together" with no distinction terms of ylineage. Again, this isn't a map about the yDna of the farmers. All it's trying to show is the spread of farmers from the Levant Neolithic north into both western and eastern Anatolia. There's absolutely nothing misleading about it.

Where have you ever seen a map of the spread of the Indo-European languages which shows the kind of detail you're talking about?

What they should have included, imo, is a line showing the spread of farmers into India, as I mentioned above.

I also believe, although I'm perfectly willing to change my mind if there is evidence to the contrary, that a steppe population, or steppe admixed population entered India bearing R1a and the Indo-European Indian languages, and if I'm understanding the Krause schematic, I don't see that depicted there.

What I find confusing about "your" map (I am quite aware you didn't make it) is that we don't know for sure what we are talking about. One green arrow starts from Yamna, which is a cultural horizon. This one apparently has to do with language (?). Another leaves from CHG, which is a genetic pool. The red arrows refer to farming, which is neither of the above.

Linguistically, my hunch is that PIE owes a lot to the central siberian ANE part of the EHG, so their absence is regrettable if what we are talking about is language. Also, as you point out, no R1a arrow eastwards. So we end up wondering whether we are talking about economic models (farming), genes ("chg"), or languages (Yamna / IE).

 

[Angela]

What I find confusing about "your" map (I am quite aware you didn't make it) is that we don't know for sure what we are talking about. One green arrow starts from Yamna, which is a cultural horizon. This one apparently has to do with language (?). Another leaves from CHG, which is a genetic pool. The red arrows refer to farming, which is neither of the above.
Linguistically, my hunch is that PIE owes a lot to the central siberian ANE part of the EHG, so their absence is regrettable if what we are talking about is language. Also, as you point out, no R1a arrow eastwards. So we end up wondering whether we are talking about economic models (farming), genes ("chg"), or languages (Yamna / IE).

The point is that in terms of the spread of the Indo-European languages, every extant theory, including the preferred PC Steppe origin and spread theory, is that genes are languages, even if we're only talking about the genes of the elite.

@Ygorcs,
There are no typos so far as I know. That's the admixture as Reich, and I presume his Lab, sees it. As I said upthread, looking only at the genes, it was a radiating movement out of the general area of the Caucasus, both onto the steppe and then into Europe (and west into the Aegean and then Europe), south into the rest of the Near East, and into India. India in effect would get a double "dose", if you will, because it was the primary component of the farmers who migrated there and 50% of the steppe pastoralists. Imho it's obvious by just looking at them.

The only thing that is new here is that Reich seems to believe that there's a good chance that the language went with this component in its later movements.

@
Papadimitriou,

The Anatolian languages weren't only in eastern Anatolia. Also, not even Renfrew believes any longer in his own theory of the spread of the Indo-European languages with the early farmers.

 

[A. Papadimitriou]

@Papadimitriou,The Anatolian languages weren't only in eastern Anatolia. Also, not even Renfrew believes any longer in his own theory of the spread of the Indo-European languages with the early farmers.[/IMG]

Yes, the originally non-Indoeuropean speaking area was in the Eastern and Central-Northern Anatolia. That's why I believe Reich is wrong, although that region certainly played a role for Armenian and Indo-Iranian (at least Western Iranian) .Luwians were in the west and south.What Renfrew believes is irrelevant for me. I was never a fan.

 

[Angela]

@Papdimitiriou,
That's a very flimsy reason for not giving credence to this theory, imo. This is where the languages are attested much later in history, at a time when it was old enough to have differentiated.

There's absolutely nothing to say that the original proto-language wasn't further to the east.

As for IE or even proto-IE spreading with farmers, that's much too early for that language, and the original vocabulary is not "agricultural" in nature.

 

[Ailchu]

Hey, completely off topic, but I couldn't resist this doubt: why is WHG so distant from EHG? I thought I had read that EHG was basically a mix of something like WHG with (a minor percentage of, something ~30%) ANE. Isn't that right? If EHG and WHG shared a large percentage of their ancestry, why would they be so unlike each other in the PCA?

seems like you shoudln't take pca's too serious. yamna should be 50/50 and according to that graphic from kraus more like 45%EHG and 55% CHG. it doesn't look like this on your pca either.


though i do nnot trust the max planck institute that much. they wrote in one of their magazines last year that all neanderthals and all european hunter gatherers were dark skinned and that the first mutations for lighter skin were found in early european farrmers.
i think that is all wrong.