New conference on Bronze Age mobility in Europe

[Saetrus]

while Iran-related ancestry reached Greece by 1500 BCE.

Did it jump Greece to reach Italy? Samples from 2500BC-1900BC:

Sicilian Bell Beaker
European_Early_Farmers 49.61
Caucasian 41.06
South_Central_Asian 5.16


North Italian Bell Beaker I1979
Anatolia_BA 39.8
Barcin_N 32.6
Beaker_Central_Europe 16.8
WHG 10.8

 

[Ygorcs]

Correct me if i'm wrong but linguistically the Greco-Armenian hypothesis fits quite strongly the ˜1500BC entry of Iran Neo/CHG does it not?

Linguistically I do not think it does. Grarco-Armenian, if such an intermediary language ever existed maybe together with Phrygian, should predate 1500 BC by much, as in 1500 BC Greek already existed in recognizable form and Mycenaean Greek culture was already established in Greece.

But maybe the whole story of conflicts with Troy in Anatolia tells us more than we had thought about increasing pressure from Anatolians of the Bronze Age, who were really rich in Iranian ancestry by then. And maybe Mycenaeans and their ancestors had already acquired some of that ancestry too in their previous homelands in southeastern Europe or Anatolia, spreading it to other parts of the Mediterranean. And there is also the case of the Etruscans and their mythological West Asian origin, though I do not think clear links with Asia Minor and cultural rupture were found in Italy (or am I wrong?).

 

[Ygorcs]

Did it jump Greece to reach Italy? Samples from 2500BC-1900BC:

Sicilian Bell Beaker
European_Early_Farmers 49.61
Caucasian 41.06
South_Central_Asian 5.16


North Italian Bell Beaker I1979
Anatolia_BA 39.8
Barcin_N 32.6
Beaker_Central_Europe 16.8
WHG 10.8

Did you use the right, sufficiently varied and contextually adequate proxy samples to calculate that? I do not think it is useful to make such analyses without considering that. For example, mixing Neolithic, Mesolithic and Bronze Age genetic structures, with lots of overlap, and using distant proxies instead of more proximate and thus more plausible ones. Also, were the fits really good for these results? Without the right populations to compare, the algorithm may assign parts of the autosomal DNA to the nearest similar population instead of the actual source of that ancestry.

 

[Ygorcs]

Vinca had Steppe? It just keeps getting better.

Balkan M269 -> West Asian L23 -> Western European L51 with the spread of copper smelting technology, I just love it.

I'm getting too Olympus Mons-like, my bad guys.

Yes, but only in some individuals and in small proportions AFAIK. And of course the vast majority of their genetic structure was EEF. And even more evidently their autosomal ancestry would be heavily diluted, with barely any steppe ancestry left, by the time they would have sailed from a new home in West Asia after M269 had become L23 and L23 turned into L51. I really doubt this hypothetical Asian L51 would not bring much more Iranian and Levantine admixtures than steppe (rich in EHG) to Western Europe. They would be nothing like the steppe genetic structure, not even like the EEF Vinca one.

 

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

Yes, but only in some individuals and in small proportions AFAIK. And of course the vast majority of their genetic structure was EEF. And even more evidently their autosomal ancestry would be heavily diluted, with barely any steppe ancestry left, by the time they would have sailed from a new home in West Asia after M269 had become L23 and L23 turned into L51. I really doubt this hypothetical Asian L51 would not bring much more Iranian and Levantine admixtures than steppe (rich in EHG) to Western Europe. They would be nothing like the steppe genetic structure, not even like the EEF Vinca one.

Well I think the L51 mutation was originally West European but I get your point, I do think it ultimately came from West Asia. In this theory, what would become L51 would split off around the modern-day Turkey-Syria region, then following the path of the previous Megalithic people across the Mediterranean, and introducing copper smelting technology and hierarchical systems (epitomised by Los Millares). So, the Asian ancestry you would expect to see among early carriers of L51 would be more Anatolian Chalcolithic (Cypriot-like if I'm not mistaken) than anything else - you wouldn't expect especially large amounts of Iranian or Levantine ancestry. Probably not by coincidence, the Beaker folk were Dinaric, which is a very modern phenotype that traces its origin likely back to the same Syro-Anatolian region.

As for the Steppe genetic signature being different to the Vinca one - if I'm honest, I have no idea about this, as I just take Steppe to mean Steppe, though I understand it is a hybrid population reference and not "pure". All I know is, the Balkans had a very large presence of R1b just before the Neolithic incursions of farmers from Anatolia (so far though, only the presence of V88 has been shown, but the rest can be inferred), the Vinca culture had the swastika and copper smelting technology (both of which it later spread to West Asia, amongst other things like unmistakably distinctive figurines and perhaps proto-writing (although I doubt proto-writing and the figurines have anything to do with these R1b guys, but rather the farmer population that made up the bulk of this theoretical population migration)), the more "archaic" branches of R1b-M269 are Balkan, the Areni-1 Armenian Chalcolithic samples (with red hair, blue eyes and pale skin - surely a sign of links with R1b folk despite being of typical Caucaso-Zagrosian Y DNA) showed unmistakeable European Hunter-Gatherer ancestry etc. - I've said it more to you than any other person so you get the idea of why I believe in a Late Neolithic-Early Chalcolithic migration from the Balkans to West Asia.

If Iron Gates is used as a proxy for what these original Balkan M269 folk would have been like, then there would be a relatively high WHG:EHG ratio amongst the obviously much later Beaker folk - higher than can be explained easily by a simple mixing of Bronze Age Steppe with European Neolithic types. I think this is the case, which is nice, but don't quote me on that.

 

[Angela]

Until we have the paper, instead of using amateur produced models of perhaps questionable accuracy I think we'd be better served to wait for the genetic analysis of the actual ancient dna, and in the meantime to review the Sicilian Bronze Age.

See:
https://www.ancient.eu/article/1190/bronze-age-sicily/

This is just a starting point. There are more recent papers, and, of course, the upcoming paper will hopefully address all of this.

"The three main phases of the period take their name from the most important centres at the time in question: Castelluccio (Early Bronze Age), Thapsos (Middle Bronze Age) and Pantalica (Late Bronze Age). There was a marked increase in cultural and commercial trade between regions near and far, particularly with Cornwall, across the Atlantic coasts of France, Spain, Sardinia, the Tyrrhenian coast to the Strait of Messina, and from here to the Aegean-Anatolian area."

"In Sicily the oldest phases of prehistory were overcome at the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, when it received a new cultural wave, probably from the Middle East, today labelled with the name of the Castelluccio culture, from the homonymous prehistoric site near the city of Noto. This cultural facies (segmentation), rather unusual compared to those of the Copper Age, is verified in the south-east and south of the island, up to the provinces of Agrigento and Caltanissetta (in the west and in the middle of the island), and constitutes the “starting line” of the Sicilian bronze age. It is certainly dated to 2169±120 BCE (calibrated value) thanks to radiometric dating performed on 18 coal samples which proved to be the oldest of this culture and which were found at the archaeological site of "Muculufa", a few kilometres north-east of Licata town."

"At this early stage of the Bronze Age, Sicily was divided into four macro-regions, each one of them with their own culture: northern Sicily with the Rodì-Tindari-Vallelunga culture, the western one, with the Naro/Partanna culture, the south-east with the Castelluccio culture and the Capo Graziano culture of the Aeolian Islands. Of these, that of Castelluccio seems to be the most homogeneous culture in this period, perhaps because it spread over a larger area and, consequently, it is much better known today.[FONT=&quot]The prehistoric settlement of Castelluccio was built on a rather isolated but defensible rocky spur. The archaeologist Paolo Orsi, who identified it between the late-19th and early-20th century CE, found large quantities of ceramic fragments among the refuse and explored the artificial cave tombs. These tombs are oven-shaped and dug into the rocks. There are small oval-shaped rooms with a diameter of between 1.5-2.0 metres, sometimes preceded by an ante-cella and still containing grave goods. The Castelluccian villages, sometimes fortified, showed a rather interesting agricultural and pastoral reality. Their ceramics have been classified as "matt-painted ware" and have close ties with an Anatolian culture of the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, so-called "Cappadocia"."

"In some of these graves carved globule bones have been found that are reminiscent of examples elsewhere (southeastern Italy, Malta, southern Greece and Troy II and III). "

Interesting that...Were the Mycenaeans and Trojans cousins of a sort? Were they all cousins?

Anyway, it seems to me that it will be well nigh impossible to detail all the movements back and forth between all these regions. On the face of it there was migration from the Aegean/Anatolian to both Italy and Greece (as we can tell not only from the Mycenaean genomes but from the modern levels of "Caucasian" in Greeks). There was also migration from the area of Greece to Italy. Later on, there seems to be migration from Italy to Greece.

"[/FONT]
[h=3]MIDDLE BRONZE AGE[/h][FONT=&quot]From the end of 1500 to c. 1200 BCE in Sicily, important coastal settlements developed and the island began to acquire strategic-commercial importance thanks to the intense exchanges with Mycenaean Greece. The find of a large number of Aegean vases in the Sicilian tombs of this period proves a phenomenon that caused the birth of real emporia in which the transmarine trades were practised, as had happened in the Aeolian islands. This was just the age that the Milazzese culture flourished in the Aeolian Islands. In Sicily, for its part, a culture closely related to the Aeolian arose, called Thapsos."

"[/FONT]
[h=3]MIDDLE BRONZE AGE[/h][FONT=&quot]From the end of 1500 to c. 1200 BCE in Sicily, important coastal settlements developed and the island began to acquire strategic-commercial importance thanks to the intense exchanges with Mycenaean Greece. The find of a large number of Aegean vases in the Sicilian tombs of this period proves a phenomenon that caused the birth of real emporia in which the transmarine trades were practised, as had happened in the Aeolian islands. This was just the age that the Milazzese culture flourished in the Aeolian Islands. In Sicily, for its part, a culture closely related to the Aeolian arose, called Thapsos."

"[/FONT]
[h=3]LATE BRONZE AGE[/h][FONT=&quot]In the 13th century BCE everything suddenly changed. This period would seem to have been ruled by fear: the ancient coastal settlements were moved to higher sites, difficult to access but easily defendable, such as Pantalica, Montagna di Caltagirone, Dessueri, Sabucina and, later, Cassibile (all areas between south-eastern and central Sicily). While in the Aeolian Islands the Ausoni flourished, a civilization which came from the Italian peninsula, in Sicily a civilization strongly influenced by the Mycenaean one still persisted."

As I said, there is a movement from Italy to Greece at that time. If some of the Sea Peoples were also from the Italian peninsula or even Sicily that would be another movement.

We'll see if the following is still correct:

"The historical sources (Hellanicus of Mytilene, Fylistus of Syracuse) assert this was the Sicels' time for Sicily, who also came from the Italian peninsula between the 13th and 12th century BCE. However, the archaeological layers following the Thapsos age do not confirm the presence of an Italic civilization. On the contrary, dating to this period is a monumental building made up of several rectangular rooms, the so-called Anaktoron or prince' palace. Built with megalithic techniques using gigantic stone blocks, it is a smaller imitation of the Mycenaean palaces. It also lacks the cremation of the deceased, which, in contrast, was widespread in the Italian peninsula of that era. The ritual will remain unknown in Sicily for a few more centuries yet. The Sicels, therefore, landed a few centuries later in eastern Sicily and drove away the Sicanians to the western part of the island, the dominant population who had lived on most of the island since time immemorial."

You can read about the rest of the Bronze Age in the article, which was then followed by the Iron Age and more settlement from Greece.

I'll be very interested to see if the steppe arrived only with some Bell Beaker or in other movements.
[/FONT]

 

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

If Steppe ancestry predates Bronze smelting technology in Sicily, to me, that is as sure a sign as any that it isn't from Yamnaya. They wouldn't have migrated to Sicily and not brought with them Bronze tools given how useful they are for things like combat - it would be like European colonists leaving their guns back home.

And if that is the case, then this Mediterranean route for Copper Age L51 looks a whole lot more likely to me.

 

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

God I seriously cannot wait for the West Med Steppe and Copper-Bronze Age Caucasus papers - if they cover enough of a time span and a wide enough area each, it should give more answers than questions.

 

[Ygorcs]

Well I think the L51 mutation was originally West European but I get your point, I do think it ultimately came from West Asia. In this theory, what would become L51 would split off around the modern-day Turkey-Syria region, then following the path of the previous Megalithic people across the Mediterranean, and introducing copper smelting technology and hierarchical systems (epitomised by Los Millares). So, the Asian ancestry you would expect to see among early carriers of L51 would be more Anatolian Chalcolithic (Cypriot-like if I'm not mistaken) than anything else - you wouldn't expect especially large amounts of Iranian or Levantine ancestry. Probably not by coincidence, the Beaker folk were Dinaric, which is a very modern phenotype that traces its origin likely back to the same Syro-Anatolian region.

As for the Steppe genetic signature being different to the Vinca one - if I'm honest, I have no idea about this, as I just take Steppe to mean Steppe, though I understand it is a hybrid population reference and not "pure". All I know is, the Balkans had a very large presence of R1b just before the Neolithic incursions of farmers from Anatolia (so far though, only the presence of V88 has been shown, but the rest can be inferred), the Vinca culture had the swastika and copper smelting technology (both of which it later spread to West Asia, amongst other things like unmistakably distinctive figurines and perhaps proto-writing (although I doubt proto-writing and the figurines have anything to do with these R1b guys, but rather the farmer population that made up the bulk of this theoretical population migration)), the more "archaic" branches of R1b-M269 are Balkan, the Areni-1 Armenian Chalcolithic samples (with red hair, blue eyes and pale skin - surely a sign of links with R1b folk despite being of typical Caucaso-Zagrosian Y DNA) showed unmistakeable European Hunter-Gatherer ancestry etc. - I've said it more to you than any other person so you get the idea of why I believe in a Late Neolithic-Early Chalcolithic migration from the Balkans to West Asia.

If Iron Gates is used as a proxy for what these original Balkan M269 folk would have been like, then there would be a relatively high WHG:EHG ratio amongst the obviously much later Beaker folk - higher than can be explained easily by a simple mixing of Bronze Age Steppe with European Neolithic types. I think this is the case, which is nice, but don't quote me on that.

Your hypothesis looks plausible, it has verosimilitude at least (which is already much better than some things I read here and elsewhere among amateur fans of population genetics, lol), but let me just point out two things: 1) if those pre-L51 people were really mostly Anatolian Chalcolithic then, well, they definitely should have brought some good chunks of Iranian and Levantine Neolithic ancestry, because Chalcolithic Anatolia was already much more mixed IIRC; 2) Sorry you misunderstood what I said, I did not mean to imply the genetic signature of the Steppe was different from the Vinca steppe-like ancestry, what I was trying to say was that the L23 West Asians would certainly be totally different from the mainly EEF plus small amounts of Steppe EBA-like that the Vinca people had (anyway I think the Vinca would be too late to be a proxy for your hypothetical M269 Balkanic population, since you assume that by the Chalcolithic the L23 would already be starting its expansion to Europe).

 

[Ygorcs]

If Steppe ancestry predates Bronze smelting technology in Sicily, to me, that is as sure a sign as any that it isn't from Yamnaya. They wouldn't have migrated to Sicily and not brought with them Bronze tools given how useful they are for things like combat - it would be like European colonists leaving their guns back home.

And if that is the case, then this Mediterranean route for Copper Age L51 looks a whole lot more likely to me.

The steppe people's expansion did not start with Yamnaya though. Novodanilovka-Suvorovo people (possibly with some assimilated Sredy Stog and Khvalynsk) had already expanded to and caused havoc in the Balkans before 4000 BC, in early Chalcolithic times. Anatolian IE also seems to have split and become reasonably isolated from later innovations in the IE linguistic area since the Chalcolithic also around 4000 BC. And steppe people spread to Northern Europe to form CWC and to Central Siberia to form Afanasievo also virtually lacking bronze weapons IIRC. I think we should not assume that appearance of Western Steppe ancestry is necessarily from the Yamnaya horizon's spread. It was more like wave after wave involving different cultural stages on the steppe.

 

[Olympus Mons]

Actually just out of pure excitement, if they find either South Caucasian L23 older than Yamnaya or Western European L51 older than Yamnaya, I'll give the first person to quote this $10 via PayPal.

This is so ridiculously pointless, but god I would literally feel so vindicated.

Yes. And like I have been saying for years now, once L23 is found in shulaveri South Caucasus, EVERYBODY knew all along that it was the case. You included.
It's the plague of the hindsight.

Where are your comments about it before end 2016? Before johannes Krause Russian presentation that made heads turn.... My direction. Lol

 

[markod]

Yes. And like I have been saying for years now, once L23 is found in shulaveri South Caucasus, EVERYBODY knew all along that it was the case. You included.
It's the plague of the hindsight.

Where are your comments about it before end 2016? Before johannes Krause Russian presentation that made heads turn.... My direction. Lol

I mean none of the abstracts said anything about haplogroups - how are you so sure?

 

[halfalp]

The big odds about Shulaveri Shomu is that they had J2a1 or L1a1 as paternal parental marker. I also bet that an increase of Iran ancestry in Mediterranean or Southeast Europe gonna be linked with J2a1. My questions are focused on J2b history and the potential implications into the ancestry of Late Yamnaya -> Early Bell Beaker / Vucedol. Did J2b existed in the Steppe earlier and participate into the southern ancestry or did it independantly came from a southern road at the same time of the Yamnaya expansion and gived ancestry in the Balkans.

 

[Johane Derite]

Linguistically I do not think it does. Grarco-Armenian, if such an intermediary language ever existed maybe together with Phrygian, should predate 1500 BC by much, as in 1500 BC Greek already existed in recognizable form and Mycenaean Greek culture was already established in Greece.

Yes that was my point. The hypothetical Proto-Graeco-Armenian stage dates to the 3rd millennium BC and would be placed somewhere around Armenia. Placing the proto mycanean speakers in a place where they would have ampl Iran_neo/chg but possibly also EHG from contact with caucauses. But you are right the paper says that the Iran_neo
has reached Europe BY 1500BC.

But ill be honest i never quite understood the supposed northern route of greeks entry into southern europe.

 

[bicicleur 2]

I think that's right, but of what was "steppe" composed?

it is male-centered Yamna watered down with MN Euro, because most of the women they took were local
the same goes for the Iran expansion, it was centered around Y-DNA J and by the time it reached the Aegean it was already heavy in EEF (it is hard to tell whether the EEF is Anatolian or local Aegean)

 

[markod]

I would also bet that in the Balkans the confluence of Iran_Neo and EHG/WHG ancestries led to the formation of small ghost-Yamnaya components everywhere. I think it would be exceedingly difficult to tell those apart from direct steppe ancestry with f3, f4 & D-statistics.

 

[halfalp]

Btw, what is Iranian related? Is it not some kind of bias? How do you make a Greek sample shifted towards more Iran_Chl than to CHG? Are they trying to label CHG, Iran_Neolithic, Iran_Chl and Anatolian + Iran all Iran related? Peloponnese Neolithic was shifted towards CHG more than WHG too, is it also " Iran related "? Is this the new Eden? What can really distinguish Iran_Neo and Iran_Chl from CHG? on what ancestry shifted towards, make it more likely to be Hotu Cave related than Kotias related?

 

[bicicleur 2]

"The three main phases of the period take their name from the most important centres at the time in question: Castelluccio (Early Bronze Age), Thapsos (Middle Bronze Age) and Pantalica (Late Bronze Age). There was a marked increase in cultural and commercial trade between regions near and far, particularly with Cornwall, across the Atlantic coasts of France, Spain, Sardinia, the Tyrrhenian coast to the Strait of Messina, and from here to the Aegean-Anatolian area."

I think this is a bold statement.
Is there proof Sicily or the eastern Mediterranean was using ores from Cornwall?
Was there regular trade along the Atlantic and Meditterranean coasts all the way between Cornwall and Sicily? And if so, how many middle men were involved?

It looks like Cornwall was the most important European source for tin ores and it must have been traded all around Europe.
But probably there were a few local sources which got depleted early and there was tin from Central Asia reaching the Eastern Mediterranean.
And later, Iberian tin ores were mined.

 

[markod]

Btw, what is Iranian related? Is it not some kind of bias? How do you make a Greek sample shifted towards more Iran_Chl than to CHG? Are they trying to label CHG, Iran_Neolithic, Iran_Chl and Anatolian + Iran all Iran related? Peloponnese Neolithic was shifted towards CHG more than WHG too, is it also " Iran related "? Is this the new Eden? What can really distinguish Iran_Neo and Iran_Chl from CHG? on what ancestry shifted towards, make it more likely to be Hotu Cave related than Kotias related?

Generally what seems to define Neolithic Iranians is both the comparatively strong Basal Eurasian shift and a significant East Eurasian shift. That's why it's always so far away from other Eurasians in PCA plots. It's a very strange population, and causes all kinds of weirdness in models like Andaman Islanders modelled as 30% Neolithic Iranian in the Central Asian paper.

Neolithic Iranians become Kotias-like with additional WHG/EHG.

 

[halfalp]

Generally what seems to define Neolithic Iranians is both the comparatively strong Basal Eurasian shift and a significant East Eurasian shift. That's why it's always so far away from other Eurasians in PCA plots. It's a very strange population, and causes all kinds of weirdness in models like Andaman Islanders modelled as 30% Neolithic Iranian in the Central Asian paper.

Neolithic Iranians become Kotias-like with additional WHG/EHG.

I understand that for the Source Samples, but how do you make a Mycenaean Greek sample being " Iranian related "? Is it more Basal Eurasian shifted or less WHG/EHG? It have to be CHG no? So there is a Kotias-like CHG wich have WHG/EHG and an Iranian-like CHG wich have more Basal Eurasian? Also, how is Basal Eurasian Iranian related itself? It's way older than Hotu. If we put away Iran, what is the main ancestry of that Mycenaean sample?