Where did the Anatolian branch of Indo-European originate?

That's all a very nicely explained and true observation, but only if you're referring to the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age steppes, but it seems the original comment about IE steppe tribes being "primitive" was comparing them with Hittite culture and populations of the Hittite Empire, most of which we know from findings dated to the mid-late Bronze Age. By that time, we couldn't really say that steppe and steppe-derived ethnicities were "primitive" at all, even if they had mostly borrowed, adapted and in some cases improved technologies and techniques that were not created by them (but hey Japan also did the same in the late 1800s and early-mid 1900s and nobody will deny they became very advanced by current standards). The true fact is that that comment was completely misguided, based on a chronologically undefensible comparison of a ~1500-1200 BC Hittite civilization with a ~3500-2500 BC Yamnaya steppe culture, and a very weak assumption that Hittites would have simply brought their fully complete and consolidated culture and technology from their original homeland (so they just mustn't have come from those "primitive steppe tribes"), and not evolved, changed, borrowed and exchanged ideas with the surrounding (and possibly initially more civilized) societies they found along centuries or even milennia.

Also, I think IronSide was not talking about the plague, but about the sarcastic use of the term "virus" to refer to the spread of IE languages/cultures. That comment was not about the plague or other disease, but about the sarcastically defined "steppitis" or something like that, as if everyone who argues for a steppe origin for at least most IE branches is some sort of obsessive admirer of a sick culture or whatever. Indeed, I must say that comment that IronSide complained about did sound very uncalled for and arrogant.


What part of EARLY in MY statement did you not understand? Or CONTEMPORANEOUS cultures like "Old Europe"?

I don't give a damn about the ramblings of other people. The downvote was for MY post, which was completely accurate and correct.

Get it now?

Perhaps you would do well to read more carefully and stop addressing arguments I never made. No points for cleverness when you can't keep straight who said what.
 
What part of EARLY in MY statement did you not understand? Or CONTEMPORANEOUS cultures?

I don't give a damn about the ramblings of other people. The downvote was for MY post.

Get it now?

Perhaps you would do well to read more carefully and stop addressing arguments I never made.

Oh, I did understand your comment entirely, that's exactly why I began by saying it was correct and nicely explained, but I merely stressed it was only applicable exactly to the early development of steppe tribes, and what you correctly said couldn't be used to support what was previously discussed in this very topic about comparisons with the cultural advances of the Hittites. The rest of the comment is not about your arguments, so you shouldn't take any of that personally, they aren't even about anything you said nor about you as a person. But okay, it's all clarified to me now. Let's move on.
 
Please sometimes i feel you play double standards, when something is going on a IE origin south of the caucasus you play fair, say that we have to follow the studies and in the same time baiting a little on the steppe hypothesis. When something goes for a steppe hypothesis you start to talk about nazis, davidski, white supremacist and go on. It become completely hysterical to read anything about IE's on this site looking at how much people have double standards and in reality, they are bigoted and one-sided. How want you to discuss if in a sentence you say that we have to follow studies and in the others, " steppe people were barbarians undeveloped, i can't believe anything to do with them, even if i clearly dont say it ". I think at the end, Anthrogenica happenned to be way more open-minded than Eupedia.

It's hard for me to credit this is a serious post.

Since when is it "baiting" people to discuss a topic objectively?

As for the connection between the Indo-European theory and the Nazis, how can you possibly be unaware of it? Everyone who has studied this subject should know that it was fodder for the Nazi world view, although they placed the homeland in Germany, not the steppe. The Journal of Indo-European studies was founded and supported with money from a notorious Nazi. Where have you been? David Reich says in his book that some European scholars would not sign on to his first papers because of the horrific reputation in which these studies were held. Just because you never heard of something doesn't mean it's false.

Does that mean I believe this field shouldn't be studied? No, it doesn't. In fact, I've been on record for years as saying I think the general outline about the spread of the languages is correct. What do you want? An oath in blood?

Nothing is enough for people like you.

As for Davidski, he was notorious on Stormfront and Skadi for years, as well as forumbiodiversity. There are whole treasure troves of screenshots of his racist comments. That was his doing, not mine, and he's going to have to live with the consequences of his statements, as we all have to live with ours. Nothing, for good or ill, ever goes away on the internet.

Before you post, inform yourself: read a book once in a while, or some papers. You'd be amazed what you can learn if you don't go into everything with completely preconceived notions.

@Holderlin,

What a surprise.
 
The map for Anatolian languages is strange

main-qimg-c1cc8ba57adb6bd87ec0baa513348ffc-c


Why is it not spoken in the Northern half of Anatolia ? the answer could be in the Middle Bronze Age migration

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.

Even though Melaart is the one theorizing about it, and we know he fabricated stuff.

This migration and destruction was used as evidence for the Hittites, but other evidence suggests they could be older, but the destruction is still there, and so other people migrated, perhaps IE tribes like Phrygians, Armenians, and Greeks.

300px-Mass_migration_of_Greece_and_Turkey_in_1900BCE.svg.png
 
I will dump the rest of his commentary and quotes on this tangent because its relevant and serious:

^^ The personal names from "Armi" appear mixed together with names of Semitic origin and names of unclear derivation.

The "Assyrian colony" thing is also explained well. Interestingly the Assyrians never make a distinction between Nes and Hattics in their administration of the local population, the two groups were probably not that socially differentiated by this time.

I recommend everyone go and read the archaeological and linguistic supplements, they contain incredibly important pieces of information (I wonder why they were exiled to the supp mats??) and drop hints as to future papers (Maykop released v soon probably, "in preparation"). Also the names are also the leading lights in their fields.

The Northern European labs have really have assembled a superstar team in all respects... they seem to have moved to interdisciplinarity much faster than those from Havard have.

The authors themselves state that, since there is no "mass immigration or elite conquest" scenario for Anatolian really the hypothesis of Pontic-Caspain homeland of IE and ("EHG language") is still not ruled out, in fact they point to the dominance of this model among linguists as one reason why we should still remain unsure.

But the "Armi" thing definitely changes things quite a bit. I have to say, also, looking at the archaeological context and also the fact that all the languages are so diverged, and also that the Assyrians seem not to even be aware that an ethnic distinction between Anatolians and locals existed (but did classify people from different states, not different ethnicities) it really doesn't seem plausible that the social differentiation was as extreme as would be needed to enforce strict lack of gene flow from "Anatolian elites" and locals over more than a millenium.

the new linguistic evidence indicates that the Anatolians were not, in fact, an elite in Anatolia at their earliest attestation (from 'Armi', which is the first evidence of Anatolian speakers, ever, they were non-elite and an "ethnic" population ruled over by Semitics from the city of Ebla), and also the newest linguistic work indicates that the migration of the Anatolians themselves did not involve states or elite dominance (the linguistic evidence cited by Kroonen et al and Melchert etc. point out that it was far more of a 'folk' phenomenon) and by the time of the Assyrians there is no clear distinction between Anatolian-speaking "elites" and non-Anatolian speaking commoners, (they were referred to as a common population in Assyrian records), in fact disitinctions between states are far more relevant.

The 'endogamy' hypothesis makes very little sense, the newest evidence means that, by the time of these genomes, the Anatolians existed in Anatolia for at least 5 centuries (looking at the dating its more like 7 centuries), what is the chance that complete endogamy persisted till then?

We can agree that Anatolians may ultimately originate in the Pontic-Caspian (which the authors cautiously support) and also claim that the EHG got diluted over the 1.5 millenia that the authors give for the split between Anatolian and the rest of IE, but we cannot claim that the classical model of late Anatolian elite conquest into Turkey is in any way correct given the descriptions of the new archaeological contexts, records and the fact that the earliest attestation of Anatolians is ~5 centuries before their attestation elsewhere or as a Hittite state, and at that time they were an "ethnic" population ruled by the unambiguously Semitic city state of Ebla (meaning they probably were present "in the mass" as people in SE Anatolia at a very early date).

Well, we really need to focus less on the 'Hittite royal tombs'...

The problem now is that, because we know Anatolians existed in SE Anatolia up to 5-7 centuries before any 'Royal Hittite Tombs' could have existed, the 'Royal Hittite tombs' may not even tell us what we want to know (because they may and also may not be representatives of a recent migration from the Steppe because Anatolian speakers are attested in Turkey half a millenium before them already).

These observations you made above are really very interesting and relevant. Thank you. I think people should sometimes listen more to linguistic arguments and evidences provided by reknown professionals. If we are discussing the expansion of a language family, the evidences that linguistics provide should never be discounted or known only superficially. Of course they can be interpreted wrongly, but in general you can find many clues that can help the interpretation of the genetic findings more than almost anything else, among other reasons because material culture (which archaeology finda) and language do not always correlate perfectly well especially in times of huge absorption of foreign cultural and technological elements.
 
Clearly non-elite Anatolian names in North Syria in 2500 BC almost certainly kills the steppe homeland of PIE theory. Dienekes must be smiling right now.

I think Indo-Hittite hypothesis looks increasingly more promising, reviving from the abode of the dead: there was very possibly a culturally, geographically and chronologically distinct Indo-Hittite (or Early PIE, whatever it is named) period, which resulted in a relevant but minor expansion, and a later Indo-European proper period which resulted in a much larger expansion. I won't say this Indo-Hittite phase was necessarily in the South Caucasus (but it is increasingly plausible), but it probably involved a different time where a different (autosomally and culturally) population existed who were the (partial) ancestors of a later Late Common PIE that finally split into various independent IE branches only in the Bronze Age.
 
These observations you made above are really very interesting and relevant. Thank you. I think people should sometimes listen more to linguistic arguments and evidences provided by reknown professionals. If we are discussing the expansion of a language family, the evidences that linguistics provide should never be discounted or known only superficially. Of course they can be interpreted wrongly, but in general you can find many clues that can help the interpretation of the genetic findings more than almost anything else, among other reasons because material culture (which archaeology finda) and language do not always correlate perfectly well especially in times of huge absorption of foreign cultural and technological elements.

I agree with you : ) but i didnt make these observations i just dumped them here because i also thought they were interesting. They belong to user "Ryukendo" on anthrogenica.
 
Depends if you think Hurrian is related to Hatti
we know Hatti is related to Carian, Lydian, Lycian, Luwian, Palaic .................but hurrian I doubt it

Hattic is not even IE, it is not related to those Anatolian languages. It is just a substate that was the source for a lot of loanwords, and in later times there was also borrowing of words from Hurro-Urartian languages in Anatolia.
 
The map for Anatolian languages is strange
main-qimg-c1cc8ba57adb6bd87ec0baa513348ffc-c

Why is it not spoken in the Northern half of Anatolia ? the answer could be in the Middle Bronze Age migration
Even though Melaart is the one theorizing about it, and we know he fabricated stuff.
This migration and destruction was used as evidence for the Hittites, but other evidence suggests they could be older, but the destruction is still there, and so other people migrated, perhaps IE tribes like Phrygians, Armenians, and Greeks.
300px-Mass_migration_of_Greece_and_Turkey_in_1900BCE.svg.png
to me it looks more and more like metallurgy in Iran was not developped and introduced by Iran Neo, but by CHG, and that Iran Neo expansions into Anatolia and the Levant were followed by multiple CHG expansions during chalcolithic and bronze age
that is what should be investigated now, and afterwards we can see how and whether the Anatolian branch fits in
View attachment 10125
attachment.php

I also see CHG correlated with haplo J
 
The map for Anatolian languages is strange

main-qimg-c1cc8ba57adb6bd87ec0baa513348ffc-c


Why is it not spoken in the Northern half of Anatolia ? the answer could be in the Middle Bronze Age migration



Even though Melaart is the one theorizing about it, and we know he fabricated stuff.

This migration and destruction was used as evidence for the Hittites, but other evidence suggests they could be older, but the destruction is still there, and so other people migrated, perhaps IE tribes like Phrygians, Armenians, and Greeks.

300px-Mass_migration_of_Greece_and_Turkey_in_1900BCE.svg.png

There are different opinions on where Palaic speakers should be placed. (I have seen scholars support a more western or northwestern position, next to Alys river but outside the bend.
Also, some support that Lydians originated outside the ultimate Lydian homeland, in a more northern (?) position, where Phrygian speakers are found later (?) I don't remember exactly.
Also there are different opinions about when Phrygians moved to Anatolia. The traditional view was that this happened after the Trojan War but some scholars have different views.
And then there are the Trojans too. Some believe they were Luwians. I personally think they were speaking a 'non-Anatolian' IE language. Possibly a language that had similarities with one, some or all of the following: Phrygian, Thracian and Greek. Possibly partly similar to Latin too, if the myth of Aeneas was based on real events. (a language that influenced Latin without being proto-Latin itself?)

Hattic is not even IE, it is not related to those Anatolian languages. It is just a substate that was the source for a lot of loanwords, and in later times there was also borrowing of words from Hurro-Urartian languages in Anatolia.

How many are the Hattic loanwords in Anatolian languages?
 
This migration and destruction was used as evidence for the Hittites, but other evidence suggests they could be older, but the destruction is still there, and so other people migrated, perhaps IE tribes like Phrygians, Armenians, and Greeks.

Based on historic and linguistic evidences, Diakonoff posited that the earliest origins of the Armenians were as a part of some "Thraco-Phrygian" invasion of Anatolia in the late Bronze Age, possibly associated with the Bronze Age collapse, and which brought Phrygian and Proto-Armenian languages to Asia Minor. However, I'm not sure these two hypotheses can be reconciled, because if I understood you correctly you're talking about a Middle Bronze Age event before the decline of Hittites, so it seems to be about an earlier migration.
 
Please sometimes i feel you play double standards, when something is going on a IE origin south of the caucasus you play fair, say that we have to follow the studies and in the same time baiting a little on the steppe hypothesis. When something goes for a steppe hypothesis you start to talk about nazis, davidski, white supremacist and go on. It become completely hysterical to read anything about IE's on this site looking at how much people have double standards and in reality, they are bigoted and one-sided. How want you to discuss if in a sentence you say that we have to follow studies and in the others, " steppe people were barbarians undeveloped, i can't believe anything to do with them, even if i clearly dont say it ". I think at the end, Anthrogenica happenned to be way more open-minded than Eupedia.

That is not her at all. She supports the southern Caucasus idea because thats what's being suggested through academic research done by leading geneticists and anthropologists. If these same researchers change their minds and support the Steppe origins, i can never for the life of me imagine her calling them out as neo Nazis who shave their heads and read Mein Kampf to wind down after a stressful day before going to bed.

ps I really don't care where the IE's originated, if they came from the Caucasus, Norway, or a distant galaxy, I'll still be fine.

ps2: Holdrin, I was drinking vodka ;).
 
Let's review some history on the origin of the Hittite imperial dynasty. Before they were emperors, they were the kings of Kussara:

Kussara (Kushshar) was a kingdom of the Bronze Age in Anatolia. The kingdom, though apparently important at one time, is mostly remembered as the origin of the dynasty that would form the Old Hittite Kingdom. The Kussaran king Pithana, with his son Anitta, forerunners of the later Hittite kings, conquered Kanesh (Nesa) and its important trade centrum in roughly 1780 BC. The seat of the Kussaran dynasty was then moved to Kanesh, though Kussara appears to have retained ceremonial importance. Anitta took the title of 'Great King' when he defeated the polities of Zalpuwa and Hattum. Pithana and Anitta are the only two recorded kings of Kussara, and their exploits are known chiefly from the so-called 'Anitta Text,' one of the earliest inscriptions in the Hittite language yet discovered. A further king, Labarna I is accepted as a king of Kussara by most scholars. Hattusili I, recognized as one of the first Hittite kings, referred to himself as 'man of Kussara,' but moved his capital from there to Hattusa (from which he likely took his name). It is clear, however, that even after the capital was moved, Kussara retained some importance, as it was there that Hattusili would call a council on his own succession.


576px-KarumKanis.svg.png


Kussara, bottom right, shown in the context of the Black Sea Region of modern Turkey

So they came from the south of the Hattians, not very helpful, but we can reason that the northern areas of Anatolia didn't speak Indo European languages ?
 
to me it looks more and more like metallurgy in Iran was not developped and introduced by Iran Neo, but by CHG, and that Iran Neo expansions into Anatolia and the Levant were followed by multiple CHG expansions during chalcolithic and bronze age
that is what should be investigated now, and afterwards we can see how and whether the Anatolian branch fits in
View attachment 10125
attachment.php

I also see CHG correlated with haplo J
this is the Damgaard model for Yamna :
not Iran Chl + EHG, but CHG + ANE :
View attachment 10126
attachment.php

is Yamna 54 % PIE ?

according to Laziridis 2016 Armenia MLBA = Anatolia Neo + EHG + CHG
according to Damgaard there was mixing of EHG and CHG on both sides of the Caucasus
 
It's hard for me to credit this is a serious post.

Since when is it "baiting" people to discuss a topic objectively?

As for the connection between the Indo-European theory and the Nazis, how can you possibly be unaware of it? Everyone who has studied this subject should know that it was fodder for the Nazi world view, although they placed the homeland in Germany, not the steppe. The Journal of Indo-European studies was founded and supported with money from a notorious Nazi. Where have you been? David Reich says in his book that some European scholars would not sign on to his first papers because of the horrific reputation in which these studies were held. Just because you never heard of something doesn't mean it's false.

Does that mean I believe this field shouldn't be studied? No, it doesn't. In fact, I've been on record for years as saying I think the general outline about the spread of the languages is correct. What do you want? An oath in blood?

Nothing is enough for people like you.

As for Davidski, he was notorious on Stormfront and Skadi for years, as well as forumbiodiversity. There are whole treasure troves of screenshots of his racist comments. That was his doing, not mine, and he's going to have to live with the consequences of his statements, as we all have to live with ours. Nothing, for good or ill, ever goes away on the internet.

Before you post, inform yourself: read a book once in a while, or some papers. You'd be amazed what you can learn if you don't go into everything with completely preconceived notions.

@Holderlin,

What a surprise.
I think you dont question yourself too often, but let's fact respond to me and i'm not talking about previous post of you, but let's see, when Lazaridis and Reich gonna clearly say " PIE came from South Caucasus " your reaction about " steppisist ". " I always knew nothing could came from the north, those nazis can't win " would be the real response that never gonna come.
 
If we put ourself in the " South Caucasus hypothesis " CHG is a ridiculous question. CHG in Khvalynsk, but IE might be start with CHG in Maikop and Hittites were CHG IE's never came from the steppe. It means basically the steppe hypothesis from south of caucasus. So CHG linked with non-IE came very early to the steppe and 2000 years later a second CHG population came from south caucasus but with PIE or LIE and others stayed south to became Hittites, but wait ! there's more. + Hittites it looks like Iranic speakers could also be from that third CHG population. In the overall steppe dna is everywhere were IE languages are, but they are not related to IE speakers, maybe some early proto-turkish or proto-basques, they were barbarians, they could not survive. Is that make sense ? I feel like Lazaridis et all willingly complicate everything just to fit a scenario. Mathiesen doesn't do that... Hey btw do you know that the steppe origin for IE languages doesn't date from Gimbutas but already 200 years ago, indianists have intuitvely linked that dispersion with the eurasian steppe, and know people are acting like a south caucasus origin was always the natural response to the IE hypothesis. Bunch of hypocrisy and double standards if you ask me.
 
That is not her at all. She supports the southern Caucasus idea because thats what's being suggested through academic research done by leading geneticists and anthropologists. If these same researchers change their minds and support the Steppe origins, i can never for the life of me imagine her calling them out as neo Nazis who shave their heads and read Mein Kampf to wind down after a stressful day before going to bed.

ps I really don't care where the IE's originated, if they came from the Caucasus, Norway, or a distant galaxy, I'll still be fine.

ps2: Holdrin, I was drinking vodka ;).
Apparently we dont have the same memory, but maybe it's just me you makes things up.
 
I am person X, I hold the following belief:

Hittites will have higher EHG than Anatolia Chalcolithic and Bronze Age, if a future sample doesn't have that, then it is a Hatti person, not Hittite, as long as we don't find EHG, we don't find the Hittites.

My position is unfalsifiable. because I believe ...

You're misrepresenting the actual position, which is: If we detect EHG ancestry at the proposed language shift you have evidence for the Steppe Hypothesis yet if you don't you don't have evidence against it. It's a form of this rule: Absence of proof isn't proof of absence.
 
Even finding a little EHG admixture in the region is not a strong argument imo. It's like we could guarante that EHG admixture never reached the South before the Indo Europeans. As we can read from the paper. They seem to have found some EHG even in Maykop. What if there is some in Leyla Tepe too?

But there being a lack of EHG in Hittite samples is indeed a very strong argument against Steppes being their homeland. Indeed I have heard many times that Hittite is so different from the other Indo European groups that it could even be considered it's own branch. Almost like a sister language to Indo European.

Is the lack of foreign admixture in the Abusir mummies, as demonstrated by Jonathan Krause (2017), a very strong argument that the Ptolemeics in Egypt were local? Or proof of absence of Greek colonization of Egypt? Or proof that Greek originated in Alexandria?
 

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