Ancient genomes from Caucasus inc. Maykop

Do these results support the hypothesis of R1b moving from Anatolia through the Caucasus and taking CHG women, and then further moving up and taking some EHG women, with the Kura-Araxes expansion resulting in mainly J2 taking the R1b women (yeah, I know, Y DNA is only found in men) from the stage of R1b taking women in the Caucasus?

Because that's what I think happened. It could be the other way round, with K-A forcing the R1b guys upwards instead of just expanding from the power vacuum left by R1b moving upwards.

I could also be completely wrong, but I'm just trying to model in two things I see as very likely: R1b coming from (Eastern) Anatolia, and the Kura-Araxes picking up R1b-like ancestry.

That isn't very likely because of dating. Even before 4000 BC (the rough time of Kura-Araxes and Maykop was began in the 4th milennium BC, so a bit later) the CHG component and the R1b haplogroup was already found in the steppes. That migration from the Caucasus to the steppes could've happened, but it would've happened in an earlier historic context (not with Kura-Araxes, Yamnaya and Maykop so on), and you'd have first to establish what autosomal ancestry was mainly found in those R1b males, because if they were autosomally different, then they took CHG women and mixed with them and then they arrived in the steppes and took EHG women, then we certainly wouldn't expect the Chalcolithic steppe to be almost entirely EHG+CHG, as if the autosomal contribution of those R1b men had simply vanished completely. Unless, of course, the "R1b men" were just a small minority (but if they were then why are almost all the steppe males R1b? Not very likely IMHO), or they were already fully CHG just like the CHG women they took before moving into the steppes. In any case, if I were you I'd look for earlier Neolithic cultures, not those of the Copper Age and Early Bronze Age. The real "boom" of CHG in the steppes doesn't look to be that comparatively recent.
 
To the one who found my post unhelpful, you can elaborate about what you found unhelpful and we can deliberate and have a conversation about it that we may both find helpful in the end.
 
Yes i know that Davidski have say that there would be EEF in steppe between a long time. Why change EEF for ANF so ? because as far as i know their ANF is the same to south caucasus, so why not say EEF = ANF + WHG ? For the graph its all over the topic, the green component ( CHG ? ) pop in Motala.

They didn't. EEF vs. ANF is a terminology that has been used for years, did you somehow miss that? ANF needs to be distinguished from EEF especially in an Asian or Europe-Asia border context. I think they don't say that EEF = ANF + WHG because, firstly, because everyone knows that by now, and secondly because WHG and ANF may theoretically have come to some place in different waves and not from the same genetic structure that created EEF (there was certainly genetic drift and differentiation by isolation between certain strands of WHG and other WHG absorbed by EEF, and ditto for ANF). They can and did test if that increase in ANF and WHG in the steppes fits better with separate routes than with an arrival together as part of EEF - and they confirm that it's much more likely that it came with EEF populations.

Also, as I said in other answer, I don't really think the green component is CHG. CHG looks like a mix of that green component with other admixtures, so by definition it can't be defined as that green component. It looks more like something ANE-related or a broadly North Eurasian ancient admixture - and I wouldn't be surprised at all that Motala had it.
 
To the one who found my post unhelpful, you can elaborate about what you found unhelpful and we can deliberate and have a conversation about it that we may both find helpful in the end.

Right, I also noticed that. Isn't it ludicrous that someone disagreed so strongly and absolutely with what you said that they felt they should give your post a negative rating, yet does not care to write anything even if just to enlighten other people about the "truth" and avoid people from believing wrong stuff? Or maybe, well, the negative rating means just "I didn't like it, this is so inconvenient to my stubbornly held beliefs", and there is not much else to say. LOL
 
Johane, agree.And most people do not seem to "get it" (mostly in other forums). this paper is about setting straight the record of who Maykop were. Nothing else. Now we know.So, the paper has nothing to do with PIE, or R1B, etc. Just look at the staggering number of Y dna L in there. Like the ones found in Kura araxes and pretty clear the NEW component that made the south caucasus mix AFTER 4.900B.C. , after the disappearance of the Shulaveri. - Its obvious, that the last chapter will be about the Shulaveri and their dispersal to Steppe and Southeastern Balkans.
Please, without rambling, why do you think Shulaveri went to the Balkans?
 
It's then pretty confusing to see south caucasus 30% ANF and Yamnaya ANF too. if yamnaya is ANF and not EEF it means Anatolian_Neolithic came from south caucasus. EEF is anatolian_farmer + WHG = european farmer. ANF is just anatolian_neolithic, so if anatolian_neolithic is in steppe without WHG, why are they saying ANF with something WHG and not EEF ? And the green is CHG it's says in the graphics, i didn't understand first because iran_chalcolithic is like 80% CHG, but it says in the graph that this is CHG.
 
It would be convenient to take into account the ecosystem as to understand old migrations: EEF or ANF would'nt be much interested in bare lands with no possibility to grow crops, for farmers the steppe was a desert, instead, for herders the steppe was a wide land free to colonize. The line dividing steppe and Caucasus in the map is telling well what I'm suggesting, it was an invisible frontier.
 
That isn't very likely because of dating. Even before 4000 BC (the rough time of Kura-Araxes and Maykop was began in the 4th milennium BC, so a bit later) the CHG component and the R1b haplogroup was already found in the steppes. That migration from the Caucasus to the steppes could've happened, but it would've happened in an earlier historic context (not with Kura-Araxes, Yamnaya and Maykop so on), and you'd have first to establish what autosomal ancestry was mainly found in those R1b males, because if they were autosomally different, then they took CHG women and mixed with them and then they arrived in the steppes and took EHG women, then we certainly wouldn't expect the Chalcolithic steppe to be almost entirely EHG+CHG, as if the autosomal contribution of those R1b men had simply vanished completely. Unless, of course, the "R1b men" were just a small minority (but if they were then why are almost all the steppe males R1b? Not very likely IMHO), or they were already fully CHG just like the CHG women they took before moving into the steppes. In any case, if I were you I'd look for earlier Neolithic cultures, not those of the Copper Age and Early Bronze Age. The real "boom" of CHG in the steppes doesn't look to be that comparatively recent.

Why can’t there be two waves? If it’s of any relevance, I think the CWC is mostly separate from Yamnaya (phenotypically they are extremely different, but they also had a completely different Y DNA profile, lacking metallurgy skills etc.), so I agree that given CHG is found in abundance amongst the CWC, the migration bringing CHG to the Steppe must be pretty old. One thing of interest is that, according to Coon at least, the stone battle axes used by the CWC heavily resemble copper variants in Sumeria (I’m just taking that to mean roughly in the area, not enough information was given to pinpoint it to a culture (that I could find)). Then there’s also further links in the form of R1a originally (a long time ago though, even compared to the Chalcolithic) supposedly forming roughly in that region (according to Underhill), but also the clear parallels between the Corded and Iranid phenotypes - these parallels are too obvious for them not to have common origins.


What about a second wave though, from Maykop, bringing Z2103 and metallurgy? Why couldn’t it have happened around the time of Maykop? What about that Copper Age Iranian Z2103 that was mostly Anatolian + Iranian Neolithic (correct me if I’m wrong)? And what about other things to note, such as the clear parallels in things like Chalcolithic pottery between Mesopotamia and the Balkans, and also Swastikas found in both areas?

What really, REALLY puzzles me though, and I hope I’m misreading this, but how on Earth are the Maykop Steppe samples so EHG - far more than contemporary and even previous Steppe cultures (I think)? Also, one final thing - the paper shows similar mtDNA profiles between the Steppe and the Caucasus, but do they say where they’re getting their samples from for each? Is it just the Steppe (North) Maykop and the Caucasus (South) Maykop? Because if that is the case, we could learn a lot from comparing it to Yamnaya (and Corded Ware) mtDNA profiles...
 
R1b-Z2105 could be a clade of herders, they can colonize much more lands than farmers and much more faster. If coming from the south some pockets would be found in the Caucasian highlands.
 
It's then pretty confusing to see south caucasus 30% ANF and Yamnaya ANF too. if yamnaya is ANF and not EEF it means Anatolian_Neolithic came from south caucasus. EEF is anatolian_farmer + WHG = european farmer. ANF is just anatolian_neolithic, so if anatolian_neolithic is in steppe without WHG, why are they saying ANF with something WHG and not EEF ? And the green is CHG it's says in the graphics, i didn't understand first because iran_chalcolithic is like 80% CHG, but it says in the graph that this is CHG.

Possibly because using the abbrevation EEF you'd suggest an European origin and ANF + WHG is more neutral. However, considering the fact that some of the first signs of pastoralism on the Pontic steppe is by a culture - Usatovo - associated with Cucuteni-Tripoli you can make the guess where it came from.

https://www.academia.edu/11290674/Der_Übergang_zur_Rinderzucht_im_nördlichen_Schwarzmeerraum
 
I think we can all agree that this era in the Caucasus/South Steppe was not one of great migrations of people, but rather of great ideas. Novel technologies such as wagons and knowledge of sophisticated metallurgy were being transported quite rapidly by intrepid individuals, but they were few and did not influence the genetic composition of the steppe as we can see in Steppe and Caucasus samples who do not even share a single y-dna haplogroup and the stability of the autosomal admixture in the steppe. Different cultures of close proximity were also interpreting this technology through separate lenses with steppe people focusing on the wagons and Maykop focusing on the animals that pulled them, interestingly enough neither saw them as status markers at first. We can assume this migration of ideas did not usurp the original language of the steppe either as this technology was spread over the middle east and we still see a rich diversity of languages there centuries later. Maykop has been hypothesized to be both Kartvelian and Northwest Caucasian, considering the NW Caucasians supposed relationship with IE and the distribution of modern NW Caucasian speakers I'd say the latter is more likely. Everyone here has the right idea and looking further back in time to the original source of CHG (and cattle) in the steppe as the progenitors of what would eventually become PIE/LPIE or whatever term you wish to call it, this also gives more time for Anatolian languages if the Indo-Hittite theory is correct.

This is also what I'm seeing and concluding from the data of this coupled with previous recent studies. No doubt Pre-PIE could've (possibility, no hard proof until now) come from the Caucasus of Transcaucasia with CHG-majority people, but it looks like the IE expansion, probably even including the Anatolian branch, would've begun not with this CHG northward migration, but only with a language already firmly consolidated in the Pontic-Caspian region (in the steppe or in the since centuries earlier (and possibly significantly changed by an EHG substrate and phonological influence, as well as simple internal dynamics - remember the Kortlandt hypothesis of a "mixed" Eurasian language imposed onto a Caucasian one?).

If the scientists managed to find a profound CHG vs. EHG cline in the steppes, with some region concentrating much more CHG and less EHG than others, then I think the apparent lack of EHG in the few samples of arguably Hittite-dominated lands in BA Anatolia can be explained (as I demonstrated above, even an original Pre-Anatolian PIE tribe with a full 40% EHG could easily yield just 2.5% of EHG in BA Anatolia), without needing to resort to an unlikely scenario where PIE was spoken south and north of the Caucasus in the Copper Age circa 4000-3500 BC, but there was no significant autosomal and Y-DNA exchange between the two regions in the same period.
 
It's then pretty confusing to see south caucasus 30% ANF and Yamnaya ANF too. if yamnaya is ANF and not EEF it means Anatolian_Neolithic came from south caucasus. EEF is anatolian_farmer + WHG = european farmer. ANF is just anatolian_neolithic, so if anatolian_neolithic is in steppe without WHG, why are they saying ANF with something WHG and not EEF ? And the green is CHG it's says in the graphics, i didn't understand first because iran_chalcolithic is like 80% CHG, but it says in the graph that this is CHG.

I had missed those labels, but then I agree it's really confusing, because even their samples labeled "CHG" are not completely green. And Iran_Neolithic and CHG are usually considered to be related, not one descending from the other. Weird terminology, indeed.
 
What about a second wave though, from Maykop, bringing Z2103 and metallurgy? Why couldn’t it have happened around the time of Maykop? What about that Copper Age Iranian Z2103 that was mostly Anatolian + Iranian Neolithic (correct me if I’m wrong)? And what about other things to note, such as the clear parallels in things like Chalcolithic pottery between Mesopotamia and the Balkans, and also Swastikas found in both areas?

Well, it COULD, but we can't say that it is LIKELY that that happened until we find an appreciable amount of Z2103 in Maykop, and if later studies prove that there was indeed a 2nd heavy genetic impact from CHG-majority Caucasian populations onto the steppes. That isn't clear in this study, what we see is actually that by the Copper Age and afterwards, in Yamnaya, there was no sign of any major change either in the Y-DNA distribution or in the autosomal admixtures mainly found in the steppe populations. An important migration of a more advanced and powerful people, but leaving very few genetic impact? Not very likely. But you could still be right. We just need more data that fit this hypothesis.

As for that Chalcolithic Iranian Z2103, I think we should wait the final publication, because the Y-DNA in that preprint were all over the place, including some very obvious and virtually unbelievable mistakes. In any case, if that Z2103 in Hajji Firuz had a lot of Anatolian and Iranian Neolithic, then they can't be the best source of Z2103, because by the Chalcolithic there were already a lot of R1b-Z2103 in the steppes and they were associated with an almost entirely EHG+CHG autosomal ancestry.

As for swastikas, as I already told you in another topic I don't think we can connect the spread of a symbol with a genetic expansion, especially when we know that that symbol was found in EEF-majority Balkans, ANF/Levant-majority Mesopotamia, EHG/CHG-majority steppes and so on. It doesn't look like it came inside a coherent and exclusive package together with just one specific expansive population.
 
Johane, agree.
And most people do not seem to "get it" (mostly in other forums). this paper is about setting straight the record of who Maykop were. Nothing else. Now we know.

So, the paper has nothing to do with PIE, or R1B, etc. Just look at the staggering number of Y dna L in there. Like the ones found in Kura araxes and pretty clear the NEW component that made the south caucasus mix AFTER 4.900B.C. , after the disappearance of the Shulaveri. - Its obvious, that the last chapter will be about the Shulaveri and their dispersal to Steppe and Southeastern Balkans.

What Balkanic culture do you think was associated with this later dispersal to Southeastern Balkans contemporary to the dispersal to Steppe? Your hypothesis at least has the big advantage of having a credible dating to before the Eneolithic ~4500 BC, so probably when CHG was still entering massively into the steppes and when PIE was still (probably) one common, undivided language.
 
To the one who found my post unhelpful, you can elaborate about what you found unhelpful and we can deliberate and have a conversation about it that we may both find helpful in the end.

Yes, I'd like to see an explanation. It was a good post which I would have given an upvote if I had any "juice" left.
 
It's interesting that some of our commenters here are reaching a different conclusion than the authors of the paper. I think we will have to wait for more papers and data.
 
It would be convenient to take into account the ecosystem as to understand old migrations: EEF or ANF would'nt be much interested in bare lands with no possibility to grow crops, for farmers the steppe was a desert, instead, for herders the steppe was a wide land free to colonize. The line dividing steppe and Caucasus in the map is telling well what I'm suggesting, it was an invisible frontier.

I agree as a whole, but can we really make it a sort of "historical rule"? Weren't the Cucuteni-Tripolye very successful occupying a large part of the westernmost Pontic-Casian steppe and forest-steppe between the Bug and Dniester?

Cucuteni-Tripol%27ye_Culture_Outline_Map.png

BruceByersConsulting-Ukraine20.jpg
 
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.
4u7kYAf.png
 
Possibly because using the abbrevation EEF you'd suggest an European origin and ANF + WHG is more neutral. However, considering the fact that some of the first signs of pastoralism on the Pontic steppe is by a culture - Usatovo - associated with Cucuteni-Tripoli you can make the guess where it came from.

https://www.academia.edu/11290674/Der_Übergang_zur_Rinderzucht_im_nördlichen_Schwarzmeerraum
I dont feel it's the case, nobody a part amateur interested in those studies are aware of all we are talking here, there is no mass sensitivity applied, there is no need to be neutral. I think they know exactly what they are saying, but that's the point what are they saying ? It's an amazing paper, the Caucasus paper, i waited it for so many months, but the semi-conclusion and the fact that this study let more questions than answers about the genetic history of europe is frustrating. Like a lot of people have said, i think they have way more samples and they have constructed a story about PIE before publishing this paper and certainly many other papers. I feel they should give their analysis to how they percieve CHG and genetic interactions, because this study is very different than the previous in their results, i mean CHG in Motala, this is not random, this is not nothing, i believe the result, but i can't believe some guys from south caucasus roaming into scandinavia in mesolithic, so CHG have to have more secrets, what are those secrets ?
 
well we have 2 different genetic entities living next to each other without a barrier that seperates them (frontiers are even shifting), but no substantial admixture between both for at least 3000 years

isn't that amazing?

Almost like WHG and farmers, although those admixted far more. And what's even more amazing is that they are considered to be part of the same culture/horizon.
 

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