Ancient genomes from Caucasus inc. Maykop

[Olympus Mons]

Isn't it strange that Caucasus ancestry expanded all over Anatolia, the Levant, and the Steppe at the same time ?

They weren't a single culture, othrwise we would see the same language family all over the place, who were these people ?

What?!! - Who were?
Shulaveri -Shomu. and they were the same people. Actually shy people that "landed" in that dotted circle you see in the picture and developed spectacularly. Reason for sucess? Luck and annoying people, because everybody seems to kicked them out!

 

[Olympus Mons]

If this is the case then Haplogroup L and J are good candidates of being among the Earliest IE populations.

L and J where not the earliest PIE speakers. R1b and J2 yes.
L is incoming population after 4900bc! PIE originals were already gone.

*L is incoming population from either a. beyond Kopet Dag, most likely very close to Jeitun Culture... b. an Iran south population moving up by zagros mountains.

*J2 is spectacular. this guys must be like the diplomats of pre-History. I know, makes no sense. Just a feeling.

 

[Ernekar]

So, which culture will it be then?

You mean what material culture maybe?
I don't know, and it doesn't really matter much. We will have to wait and see what samples they will bring us next, and then we can choose which ones seem to be the most likely ancestors of a people who went north to form the later IE language of the yamnaya, and west to form the anatolian branch.

Then we can pinpoint into which material culture those samples fit into.

Although i don't know why you focus that much on the material culture. Lets say those samples falls into Shulaveri-Shomu(which i find most probable). Then how can we know that all the people in the shulaveri-shomu complex spoke the same language? Maybe the core was PIE, and the periphery were other people who just traded with the PIEans and imitated their material style?
So the name of the material culture does not mean much. What means something is the geographical location and the timeframe.

 

[Ernekar]

L and J where not the earliest PIE speakers. R1b and J2 yes.
L is incoming population after 4900bc! PIE originals were already gone.

*L is incoming population from either a. beyond Kopet Dag, most likely very close to Jeitun Culture... b. an Iran south population moving up by zagros mountains.

*J2 is spectacular. this guys must be like the diplomats of pre-History. I know, makes no sense. Just a feeling.

R1b and J2's reason for success is our stubbornness and extremely hard heads hehe (joke of course)

 

[Olympus Mons]

Arrival in Anatolia

Already round 2400 BC can we trace the to Indo-European belonging Hittite in Anatolia. How it speakers came there remains enigmatic. Scientist suspect they came from the Caucasus, where a people ancestral to Yamnaya could have lived.

EDIT: So the usual innuendo without stating a proper theory or naming an actual culture.

Me, Me, Me....Shulaveri Shomu, Shulaveri-Shomu, Shulaveri-Shomu, Shulaveri-Shomu, Shulaveri-Shomu!

 

[Cpluskx]

IMO the earliest PIE might be from more southern place/culture, like Halaf-Hassuna/Samarra. Though as an amateur, i will defer to the professionals on this.

 

[Olympus Mons]

IMO the earliest PIE might be from more southern place/culture, like Halaf-Hassuna/Samarra. Though as an amateur, i will defer to the professionals on this.

Well...
You know I all about Shulaveri for so long and fought such hard fights that I will always instinctively say it has to be them.
However, don't give up on your theory. Halaf is troublesome. because they can be so many different things. Even R1b mixing up with J2 all over south caucasus and Anatolia, maybe descendents of Original Hogoshim r1bs, and even shulaveri just being being J2 or G2 or whatever.

but, nah - My shulaveri are it! - Have fun! https://shulaveri2bellbeaker.blogs.sapo.pt/

 

[Olympus Mons]

One thing missing on that Map arrows, shades and formats.
Kristiansen, like all others keep missing a huge chunk that is so obvious...
they are so hooked to steppe that they dont register that if PIE was following that CHG admix... then the line to Anatolia must not stop there. Actually the line to Anatolia drawn is the second one that must have happened much later (anatolian). The first line is Anatolia... then Hungary/Romania, then North Greece and Moldova (pre-cucuteni). there are so may signs that is chocking. Kum6 being the first with CHG, then Kei10 and pal7 north greece...

So, by 4000bc many spoke PIE/IE. and the Balkan and Steppe IE must be pretty close. Since we know that by 3800bc they, Steppe and Balkans were exchanging .... how do you know which IE got the upper hand ?

 

[A. Papadimitriou]

I translated the texts and read the english version, and every time something in the translation didn't make sense, i read the sentence in the german version. So i was able to read it through pretty fast that way.

Its some kind of interview rather than an actual paper. So they will probably bring a theory when they release their maykop paper.

As i understand it Kristiansen seems to suspect that the caucasus was the earliest PIE homeland.
At least that is what i understood from this excerpt which i have taken the liberty of translating:

"(K. Kristiansen"Especially the first chapter of the (Indo-European)story needs to be rewritten." He (K. Kristiansen) suspects that there was a precursor to the Yamna culture, in which a kind of early Proto-Indo-European (Ur-Ur-Indo-Europäisch in German) was spoken. And he (K. Kristiansen) also has a suspicion, where this people could have been: The Caucasus, says Kristiansen, was their home."

The problem is that he takes for granted that Yamnaya was Indo-European.
What type of data can prove that a culture was Indoeuropean?
Even if we are certain about which ancestral component was associated with Proto-Indoeuropeans-proper (that is something which is debatable really), how can we be sure about cultures the populations of which were made by 3 or more ancestral components?

 

[Olympus Mons]

Epoch, from reading your hypothethical stuff on Anthrogenica, I can tell you that you are far away from knowing "what [we] all know". The scientific millieu is not supporting (almost nobody) the Kurgan hypothesis anymore. The PIE culture was not Yamnaya.

Below an interesting passage translated:
"Because exactly Hittite plays an important role in the "theorybuilding" of the linguists. On one hand this idiom is counted to that branch of the Indoeuropean languages which split as the first from the others. On the other hand Hittite does deliver the first written sources of that language family [...] And exactly here where Asia and Europe [Anatolia] meet geographically, every trace of the Yamnaya "genes" (this is an article for laymans that is why they use this undefining term) are missing. This wanderlusty people from the pontic-caspian Steppes did neither found, apparently, their way over the Balkans (as said by me for more than 2 years) nor over the Caucasus-mountains.[...] Archeolog Kristiansen however does not want to believe that. [...] He assumes that there must have been a predecessor of the the Yamnaya culture, in which a type of Pre-Proto-Indoeuruopean was spoken. And he also has an idea on where that people roved around: The Caucasus, means Kristiansen, was their homeland."

I always said: There will be a day when everybody "knew all along" that the Shulaveri where it! Marvelous human brain.

 

[A. Papadimitriou]

Pointing towards specific cultures has pretty much lost its value in processual and post-processual archaeology. Because as you know, we don't know the name of cultures that early on.
So all "cultures" we see in old litterature are constructs. We don't know if they were cultures at all, or if the similar archaeological findings over vast areas are just indications of trade or fashion.
The Bell beakers are a great example. They were not a culture, it was just fashion shared by different groups with different cultures.

So i wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them to name a culture, as most of archaeologists today don't believe that material culture equals actual cultures.

Can you post the names of some cultures that we know their names and how we came to know them?

 

[Olympus Mons]

Time to remember me in 2015.

"“Shulaveri-Shomu is the birth of the R1b expansion!

por Olympus Mons, em 09.01.16
*the European dominance of Y-dna Haplogroup R1b had its origin in a very specific culture of the Caucasus the Shulaveri-Shomu, Not Yamna, nor Maikop, nor Kura arexes… no! Places like Kwemo-Kartli and Mentesh tepe are the true Urheimat (homeland) of all western Europeans. And the spread of that cultural and genetic trait started in the Iberia peninsula, because after the immediate ending of the SSC not millennia but centuries later pure r1b (M269) inhabit the peninsula making the downstream clades that populate western world (L11 and M51).”


But it looks like I was wrong about the second part (bell beakers) .... or not.
Just amazingly how with just a week into the subject I knew this in my gut and not much later wrote the entry. As I said it then, just wanted to make the digital record associating Shulaveri to expansion of R1b...."



​

 

[Ernekar]

The problem is that he takes for granted that Yamnaya was Indo-European.
What type of data can prove that a culture was Indoeuropean?
Even if we are certain about which ancestral component was associated with Proto-Indoeuropeans-proper (that is something which is debatable really), how can we be sure about cultures the populations of which were made by 3 or more ancestral components?

Yes, maybe he does take it for granted. Most geneticists and archaeologists are starting to do that. Although i think Kristiansen has the right to do it, as he has been arguing for an Indo-European yamnaya all his life. So he is not just taking other peoples word for it, but he has actually thought it through himself, and through theoretical considerations come to the conclusion that yamna is IE.

But this doesn't mean that other theories won't be constructed during the next couple of years.
I even think the anatolian hypothesis has great chances of a renewal. You have to take into consideration that most archaeologists don't even know about these genetic findings yet, they are still in 2013-2015 DNA-knowledge-wise. When they find out, they will see things in other perspectives.
Personally i could even think of plenty of ways to attribute PIE to the ANF or IranChl if i was to write a paper. Anything is still possible. (although right now i think Caucasus(south or north of it) sounds reasonable and least problematic. Probably south because of the anatolian samples.)

The reason that anything is still possible is exactly because of the problem that you address: That no type of data(except for written sources) can prove if the people of a specific material culture was IE or not. So the PIE question will go on for years, maybe even decades or centuries.
So unless they discover some new scientific method, then IMO the only way of settling the PIE question forever would be to find tablets with a written language, ancestral to all surviving IE languages+the anatolian branch. And that is probably not going to happen. Until then we will have varying hypothesis'.

 

[Ernekar]

Can you post the names of some cultures that we know their names and how we came to know them?

Well that depends on if you want the emic or etic identifications of cultures.

Either way, we need written sources to do it.

The Illyrians can be an example of an culture we know of. But as they did not write themselves, we don't know their emic identification(how they saw themselves from an inside perspective).
But we have an etic identification of their culture(identification from an outside perspective - in this case the greek or roman perspective)
There are even text that tell us exactly how long and how wide the area inhabited by the Illyrians was.
But all of it etic. All of it from an outside perspective.

I wont list all cultures ever identified through ancient text, as that is probably a huge task on its own which requires me to spend time on something i don't need to know right now. But you get the picture.

And broad questions like that also have to be narrowed down a bit. Or else its hard for me to answer. First you have to tell me exactly what you mean by culture, then i can give you examples of cultures. Or else i have to guess what you mean by culture(as i just did above).

 

[Johane Derite]

Time to remember me in 2015.

"“Shulaveri-Shomu is the birth of the R1b expansion!

por Olympus Mons, em 09.01.16
*the European dominance of Y-dna Haplogroup R1b had its origin in a very specific culture of the Caucasus the Shulaveri-Shomu, Not Yamna, nor Maikop, nor Kura arexes… no! Places like Kwemo-Kartli and Mentesh tepe are the true Urheimat (homeland) of all western Europeans. And the spread of that cultural and genetic trait started in the Iberia peninsula, because after the immediate ending of the SSC not millennia but centuries later pure r1b (M269) inhabit the peninsula making the downstream clades that populate western world (L11 and M51).”


But it looks like I was wrong about the second part (bell beakers) .... or not.
Just amazingly how with just a week into the subject I knew this in my gut and not much later wrote the entry. As I said it then, just wanted to make the digital record associating Shulaveri to expansion of R1b...."



​

I don't really care either way, so I hope you're right just for the sake of the underdog winning : )

 

[Ygorcs]

Found an article by the Copenhagen group. It's in German, looks like they think Caucasus is the home of Early PIE: https://www.academia.edu/36689289/Invasion_aus_der_Steppe

What a strange use of the terms, don't you guys think so? They name Hittite, which was actually a Mid-Late Bronze Age language and not the whole Anatolian family, and Proto-Indo-European as two distinct entities. Are they supporters of the "pure" Indo-Hittite hypothesis, i.e. Anatolian as a sister language family and not part of the Indo-European family "per se"? That's what it sounds like. Also, it seems to me that they're clearly leaning toward the "middle ground" hypothesis that I've talked about above: PIE as a Pontic-Caspian steppe language, and pre-PIE, possibly a very distinct language before the heavy mixing with EHG populations, in the Caucasus/Transcausus region. If that is so, then we will just refine and fix the steppe hypothesis, not reject it, because it will still be the direct source and cause of the expansion of all the IE branches except for Anatolian.

 

[Ygorcs]

Epoch, from reading your hypothethical stuff on Anthrogenica, I can tell you that you are far away from knowing "what [we] all know". The scientific millieu is not supporting (almost nobody) the Kurgan hypothesis anymore. The PIE culture was not Yamnaya.

Below an interesting passage translated:
"Because exactly Hittite plays an important role in the "theorybuilding" of the linguists. On one hand this idiom is counted to that branch of the Indoeuropean languages which split as the first from the others. On the other hand Hittite does deliver the first written sources of that language family [...] And exactly here where Asia and Europe [Anatolia] meet geographically, every trace of the Yamnaya "genes" (this is an article for laymans that is why they use this undefining term) are missing. This wanderlusty people from the pontic-caspian Steppes did neither found, apparently, their way over the Balkans (as said by me for more than 2 years) nor over the Caucasus-mountains.[... some absurd "Kurgan" explanations are mentioned here... followed by Kristiansens opinion] Archaeologist Kristiansen however does not want to believe that. [...] He assumes that there must have been a predecessor of the the Yamnaya culture, in which a type of Pre-Proto-Indoeuruopean was spoken. And he also has an idea on where that people roved around: The Caucasus, means Kristiansen, was their homeland."

Well, the text you're quoting actually assumes that PIE was the language spoken by the Yamnaya culture, and it explicitly states that, according to Kristiansen, PRE-PIE was spoken by a predecessor language probably in the Caucasus. PIE, let's remember, does not the ultimate, most ancient form of the language family from which PIE arose (yes, PIE was also once just one language belonging to a larger family, as all other tongues except for strict isolates). It means "the last stage of the common ancestor of IE language families". The text you mention seems to indicate that Kristiansen is a supporter of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, separating Hittite and the Anatolian languages from the rest and considering it a sister family to PIE and its descendants.

 

[Ygorcs]

The reason that anything is still possible is exactly because of the problem that you address: That no type of data(except for written sources) can prove if the people of a specific material culture was IE or not. So the PIE question will go on for years, maybe even decades or centuries.
So unless they discover some new scientific method, then IMO the only way of settling the PIE question forever would be to find tablets with a written language, ancestral to all surviving IE languages+the anatolian branch. And that is probably not going to happen. Until then we will have varying hypothesis'.

Honestly, I think no one interested in this kind of very ancient pre-history (before literate civilizations, especially if we're talking of anywhere outside the Fertil Crescent) should expect any objective, empirical and hard proof linking this or that archaeological culture with a certain language or even with a certain genetic component. The best we can do, even for later periods of history, but especially for this one, is to expect to settle in a "high probability" scenario. Even if (or when) we have thousands of multidisciplinary evidences, the conclusions will still depend on interpretation based on probabilities and plausibilities. I won't hold my breath waiting for "proofs" that either Yamnaya or any other culture spoke PIE (including those of the Caucasus, none of which still seems to be named by scientists as a possible source of the CHG and supposedly PIE influx into the Neolithic/Eneolithic steppes). That won't happen.

 

[Aaron1981]

I might be wrong at end of the day but looking at the graphic, orange is ANF, blue is EHG and green is CHG. I might read the graphic completely wrong but even EHG have substantial part of CHG, even Mal'ta have CHG, so has a said in previous post, CHG have now to be defined because it looks really like a combination of a lot of origin and not just Iran_Neolithic and CHG.

This is because of the way they are modeling the data. There is deeper, shared ancestry between the ancestors of J, and K descendants L (possibly T) and MP(R and maybe Q too).

I wouldn't read this graph as "Ma'lta having CHG ancestry" because it just suggests there is an even older ancestor >24,000 ybp that contributed ancestry to both populations. That said, there is probably genuine "CHG" ancestry that was donated to the foragers with the arrival of domesticated goats, sheep and cattle. I don't see any evidence that this arrived with a R1b rich population at this time. Even in the even the 1 R1b sample from the chalcolithic period in Iran were correct, it appears to be an outlier.

 

[berun]

The picture now seems like steppitis archaeologists and genetists see that they don't find EHG in Hittites and India, but that is by biased data (by incineration), so as to save their asses seated in the steppes by so many years they try to provide a first Urheimat for PIE taking CHG as watermark. Problem there is the Dolmen guy 90% CHG in an area with Circassian languages now, or that CHG spread eastwards so that Indic would be spoken in India from the Neolithic and it has no sense... other to make room in a region full of non IE languages (Hurrian, Hattian, Gutian, Elimian, Georgian, Caucasian Albanian and so on).