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

[Saetrus]

Vasquez/ Gasgones
have Gedrosian, but not Caucasian admixture.

Slavs have Caucasian but no Gedrosian admixture

ANY POSIBLE CLUE?

There were two Indoeuropean expansions into Europe, one north that created EHG-CHG people in the Steppe, and one west that mixed with local farmers and spread R1b-L51, the Gedrosian component is related to the Indoeuropeans who expanded west.

 

[Angela]

Also,

""From seven thousand until five thousand years ago, we observed a steady influx into the steppe of a population whose ancestors traced their origins to the south- as it bore genetic affinity to ancient and present-day Armenia and Iran-eventually crystallizing in the Yamnaya, who were about a one-to-one ratio of ancestry of those two sources. A good guess is that the migration proceeded via the Caucasus isthmus between the Black and Caspian Seas."

@Yetos,
Those are clusters based on modern populations. Using them obscures more than enlightens.

 

[Ownstyler]

Can someone tell me why this issue is so controversial? Who is so sensitive to IE having started south of the Caucasus and why?

One more question from the discussion above. I understand Reich is suggesting Steppe IE had Iran/Armenian admixture. But does his model of IE spread involve two different waves, one that goes Iran/Armenia-->Anatolia-->Balkans and one that is basically the Bronze Age IE from the Steppe into the rest of Europe. If this is the case, should we not have two distinct IE groups? One would have Armenian, Anatolian, Greek and Albanian, and the other would have all the Slavic, Latin, Celtic and Germanic languages.

Or does his model suggest that it went from Armenia/Iran into the Steppe and then everywhere else from there?

 

[Ygorcs]

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?

Well, then ANI and Steppe Bronze Age were already very similar to each even in the absence of any big population replacement? By the way, when is the ANI admixture dated, is it just a mid Bronze Age phenomenon (~2,000 BC)? If that's the case, then is it really believable that the ENTIRE Indian subcontinent (virtually half of Europe) was simply ASI before the Bronze Age?

 

[Ygorcs]

Can someone tell me why this issue is so controversial? Who is so sensitive to IE having started south of the Caucasus and why?

Well, I presume some of them - not all, some are simply a bit "uncomfortable" with Early PIE not being reeeeally European - find it most hard to accept that PIE may have come with people who definitely did not fit their ideal "white man" with lily white skin (even though they were light skinned, they were probably light as most modern Iranians or Syrians, not like any present Northern European, but that we already knew and would be true even if PIE had arisen in the steppes, but of course among a steppe people with less 5,000 years of genetic evolution on skin pigmentation).

 

[IronSide]

Well, I presume some of them - not all, some are simply a bit "uncomfortable" with Early PIE not being reeeeally European - find it most hard to accept that PIE may have come with people who definitely did not fit their ideal "white man" with lily white skin (even though they were light skinned, they were probably light as most modern Iranians or Syrians, not like any present Northern European, but that we already knew and would be true even if PIE had arisen in the steppes, but of course among a steppe people with less 5,000 years of genetic evolution on skin pigmentation).

What is really European in their mindset ? Europeans could be modelled as a mixture of the Near Eastern cline + European HG cline. anyone who fits this model is European.

European hunter-gatherers aren't European in the same sense Near Easterners are not European.

 

[davef]

Just out of curiosity, are you folks getting anything out of the book and learning new things? Or is it geared towards people who haven't seen forums like ours or kept up with the latest research?

 

[Yetos]

Can someone tell me why this issue is so controversial? Who is so sensitive to IE having started south of the Caucasus and why?

One more question from the discussion above. I understand Reich is suggesting Steppe IE had Iran/Armenian admixture. But does his model of IE spread involve two different waves, one that goes Iran/Armenia-->Anatolia-->Balkans and one that is basically the Bronze Age IE from the Steppe into the rest of Europe. If this is the case, should we not have two distinct IE groups? One would have Armenian, Anatolian, Greek and Albanian, and the other would have all the Slavic, Latin, Celtic and Germanic languages.

Or does his model suggest that it went from Armenia/Iran into the Steppe and then everywhere else from there?

That is what I Believe years today in the forum,
but my first guess, Laz area was wrong, it seems it was the Caspian shores, and not the black sea shores.

Yes we have not 2 but 3 IE migrations to Europe,

the Steppe and the Anatolian and both.

in fact considering the Graeco-Aryan,
Steppe IE enter 2 waves in Europe
one as Early mixed with Caucas
and one pure that passed from Iran/aryan before.

 

[davef]

What is really European in their mindset ? Europeans could be modelled as a mixture of the Near Eastern cline + European HG cline. anyone who fits this model is European.

European hunter-gatherers aren't European in the same sense Near Easterners are not European.

You hit the nail on the head!!

 

[Salento]

It’s not always easy to capture the vibe and mood of a post and at times it’s hard to tell if someone is been serious, joking, mocking, sarcastic, cruel, or agenda driven. Most of us (me included), should try to be more clear. [emoji846]

I’m not talking about Davef, Yetos, Ironside, Angela, Jovalis, and....... LOL

 

[Yetos]

Sorry, I can't resist but that rat is CUUUUUTE!!! Worthless post, but still..

I wonder how much is that still ..... to consider worthless,
something that even modern populations do not show.
I think you got the point.

 

[Yetos]

@Yetos,
Those are clusters based on modern populations. Using them obscures more than enlightens.

Yes Angela.
but if even modern populations do show the expected results of an ancient presence, .......
I passed, but I did not left a single mark?

 

[Ygorcs]

What is really European in their mindset ? Europeans could be modelled as a mixture of the Near Eastern cline + European HG cline. anyone who fits this model is European.

European hunter-gatherers aren't European in the same sense Near Easterners are not European.

Yes, definitely, I agree with you, but I wouldn't expect that reasonability and coherence from "them" if I were you. It's bound to be a disappointment.

 

[Balkanite]

Can someone tell me why this issue is so controversial? Who is so sensitive to IE having started south of the Caucasus and why?

One more question from the discussion above. I understand Reich is suggesting Steppe IE had Iran/Armenian admixture. But does his model of IE spread involve two different waves, one that goes Iran/Armenia-->Anatolia-->Balkans and one that is basically the Bronze Age IE from the Steppe into the rest of Europe. If this is the case, should we not have two distinct IE groups? One would have Armenian, Anatolian, Greek and Albanian, and the other would have all the Slavic, Latin, Celtic and Germanic languages.

Or does his model suggest that it went from Armenia/Iran into the Steppe and then everywhere else from there?

For scholars it is not really that controversial. Of course there are always some outliers, some nazis who want the urheimat to be i germany, some indian nationalists want it to be in India, and so on. But the majority of academics go with the steppe hypothesis or the anatolian hypothesis.

The main reason people on these blogs are so much against IE coming from south of the caucasus, is because it would totally debunk EHG as some übermensch group (which some eastern euros today are trying do make them look like). Because if IE came from the south, it probably means theres a good chance some kind of J2b, G2a, R1b (or all 3) went to the steppe and assimilated the EHG's into Indo europeans.

 

[IronSide]

2. question
still wonndering for the 2 bellow,
again I use Eupedia maps
A dilemma as i understood it following Macciamo logic and posts

Vasquez/ Gasgones
have Gedrosian, but not Caucasian admixture.

Slavs have Caucasian but no Gedrosian admixture

ANY POSIBLE CLUE?

These clusters are indeed based on moderns, but I think they do "correlate" with some ancient populations.

When you cluster people at K=3, you usually get West_Eurasian, East_Eurasian, and African clusters. at a higher K, West_Eurasian divides into a Baltic_Atlantic cluster and a Near Eastern cluster, these two ultimately divide into the four closely related clusters:

1-Southwest Asian.
2-Mediterranean.
3-North European.
4-West Asian.

4 is different from 1, 1 is high in Arabians, Levantines, and North Africans. While 4 is Caucasian, Iranian, and South_Central Asian.

When running ancient samples through calculators that employ this scheme, Iran_N and CHG score high levels of West Asian, European farmers have high Meditteranean, SHG are high in North European, and Natufians are high in Southwest Asian.

At higher K, West Asian separates into two clusters: Caucasian and Baloch/Gedrosia.

Abkhasians are a Caucasian people, they have about 50% West Asian and 25% Meditteranean, but when you have a Caucasus cluster they become 70% Caucasian, 20% Baloch, and 0% Meditteranean !! why ?

Caucasus cluster contains the Med Alleles that were previously assigned to Meditteranean, when you run ancient samples, European farmers are now 35+ Caucasian.

Look at this PCA, Abkhasians and Georgians, who are the modal populations for the Caucasus cluster, are closer to the Meditteranean than the Makrani and Baloch peoples, who are high in Gedrosia.

The reason why the Yamnaya had Baloch but not Caucasus is because they didn't have adequate EEF ancestry that would make it more Caucasian.

 

[hrvclv]

Well... the conclusion I draw from all your remarks above is a bit discouraging : when we run our data through the calculators, they refer to a number of "original populations". For the sake of clarity, we end up taking those categories for granted, as if they were "rock bottom", unique, clearly distinct populations.

But Anatolian Farmers were, to varying degrees, Natufian + Caucasus + NW Iran.
Steppe were EHG + WHG + Caucasus + NW Iran, but not all of them, if I get it right. And EHG themselves were WHG + ANE.

At the end of the day, it becomes simply impossible for a western European to trace what share of his "Caucasus" came with EEF, what share came with Steppe. The same goes for SW Asia. And what about that WHG the calculators assign to me ? Was it here in western Europe 20,000 years ago ? How much of it was picked on the way during migrations ? How much of it was already part of the Steppe admixture ?

Can we reasonably hope that over time geneticists will be able to refine their analyses precisely enough for such questions to be cleared ?

PS : How does the Kura-Araxes culture fit into the patterns described upthread ? If they did speak some form of IE (of which I have no idea), they could be a link in the NW Iran > Anatolia > Balkans > Graeco-Thracian hypothesis (?).

 

[bicicleur 2]

for those who think R1b-M269 crossed the Caucasus to get to the Pontic steppe, I think it is strange we don't find any in early Armenian
afaik the earliest is the Yamna R1b-Z2103 and it postdates Yamna

if the PIE was in Transkaukasia, it is not sure they were R1b-M269

as for the Hittites, bear in mind that it was a multilinqual, multi-ethnical empire under IE leadership
proof of that is to be found in the multilingual library of Hatussa
it was not a solid block like Egypt, it was more a confederacy of semi-autonomous tribes paying tribute to the Hittite kings
every time the Hittite king went to war, he had to ask a military contingency from each of these tribes
that made the empire weak every time there was a dispute over succession

the Hittite empire came to existence when a small IE tribe conquered the land of the Hatti, who were non-IE
before that the Assyrians had their own free-trade zone in the land of the Hatti, maybe even a colony

but weren't there other languages of the 'Anatolian branch' like e.g. Luwian?

 

[IronSide]

for those who think R1b-M269 crossed the Caucasus to get to the Pontic steppe, I think it is strange we don't find any in early Armenian
afaik the earliest is the Yamna R1b-Z2103 and it postdates Yamna
if the PIE was in Transkaukasia, it is not sure they were R1b-M269
as for the Hittites, bear in mind that it was a multilinqual, multi-ethnical empire under IE leadership
proof of that is to be found in the multilingual library of Hatussa
it was not a solid block like Egypt, it was more a confederacy of semi-autonomous tribes paying tribute to the Hittite kings
every time the Hittite king went to war, he had to ask a military contingency from each of these tribes
that made the empire weak every time there was a dispute over succession
the Hittite empire came to existence when a small IE tribe conquered the land of the Hatti, who were non-IE
before that the Assyrians had their own free-trade zone in the land of the Hatti, maybe even a colony
but weren't there other languages of the 'Anatolian branch' like e.g. Luwian?

How did you determine they were a small tribe ? There are many Anatolian languages in Anatolia, that to me doesn't suggest they were a small tribe.

 

[bicicleur 2]

How did you determine they were a small tribe ? There are many Anatolian languages in Anatolia, that to me doesn't suggest they were a small tribe.

The Hittite language was a distinct member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family, and along with the related Luwian language, is the oldest historically attested Indo-European language.[2] Hittites referred to their native land as Hatti. The conventional name "Hittites" is due to their initial identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Despite their use of the name Hatti for their core territory, the Hittites should be distinguished from the Hattians, an earlier people who inhabited the same region (until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC) and spoke an unrelated language known as Hattic.[3]

They were not Luwian, they were another tribe.
The Assyrians don't mention them, they mention the Hatti, whose land all of a sudden is conquered by the Hittites, and it becomes the core area of the new empire. It is speculated that the Hittites were a herding tribe, to the southeast of the land of the Hatti.
The Hatti were not displaced, they became part of the empire, and probably most of them kept speaking the Hattian language.
Hittite was the language of the ruling elite though and became the official language of the empire.

 

[IronSide]

The Hittite language was a distinct member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family, and along with the related Luwian language, is the oldest historically attested Indo-European language.[2] Hittites referred to their native land as Hatti. The conventional name "Hittites" is due to their initial identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Despite their use of the name Hatti for their core territory, the Hittites should be distinguished from the Hattians, an earlier people who inhabited the same region (until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC) and spoke an unrelated language known as Hattic.[3]
They were not Luwian, they were another tribe.
The Assyrians don't mention them, they mention the Hatti, whose land all of a sudden is conquered by the Hittites, and it becomes the core area of the new empire. It is speculated that the Hittites were a herding tribe, to the southeast of the land of the Hatti.

Given that their name didn't pass to their city, ok, granted.

But were the Luwians, Palaians, and Lydians small tribes too ? if they weren't then some admixture should have accompanied their arrival.