Does genetics prove Iran/Armenia is the original land of Indo-Europeans?

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The renown geneticist David Reich in his recently published book from the Oxford University press titled "Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past" (page 120) says:

The most likely location of the population that first spoke an Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus Mountains, perhaps in present-day Iran or Armenia, because ancient DNA from people who lived there matches what we would expect for a source population both for the Yamnaya and for ancient Anatolians.

First does it prove people who lived in the west of Iran in the 3rd millennium BC or even earlier were an Indo-European people?
 
Kind of. To my understanding, it proves that there was some sort of proto-Indo-European speaking people (as Reich calls them, the pre-proto Indo Europeans) in Armenia/western Iran. According to Reich, the Proto-Anatolians moved westward from there (I seem to recall reading somewhere that it's thought that the Proto-Anatolians might have been around Lake Van before moving westward, but I'm not sure why the reason for this is), and the rest moved northward and mixed with EEHG to become the Yamnaya, who then split and became all non-Anatolian Indo-Europeans.

I have a few issues with this, however. A) Arguably, this does prove that Armenia/Iran is the Indo-European homeland, and really, shouldn't Reich's Pre-Proto-Indo Europeans be called Proto-Indo-Europeans? The "pre-proto" part bothers me, especially because it's still commonly held that the Anatolians (Hittites, Luwians, etc) were Indo-Europeans, just a branch that split off very early. B) While they've found some skeletons in Armenia from the Middle/Late Bronze Age with European Steppe ancestry (which suggests that the people were Yamnaya-derived) there's 1) no reason to assume that these people were Armenian-speakers and not another group, such as Cimmerians and 2) there's a lack of Steppe-derived ancestry in your modern Armenian, which means that whoever these Steppe people were, if they were the ones to introduce the Armenian language to the region, they were either a very, very small group or somehow introduced their language without mixing with the native populations (who modern Armenians are descended from) and then died off/disappeared/migrated elsewhere. If they migrated elsewhere, you would assume that there would be an Armenian language or Armenian names appearing somewhere else than NE Turkey/modern Armenia. The only thing I can think of is perhaps these people moved slightly west to Cappodocia or SE Anatolia because there are some ancient names there that could potentially be of Armenian origin, such as Mount Erciyes (Mt. Argeus/Harkasos), Haria, Melia, Togarma, Armatanna, Aravanna, etc. But some/all of these names could also be from Anatolian IE or from some other IE language.

I just don't understand why we still call the Yamnaya the Proto-Indo Europeans and the European Pontics the Urhemeit, when clearly it had a preceding culture. Seems like it's kind of moving the goalposts a bit. In the case of Armenians and Iranians, it makes more sense to me that they just stayed in the same general region than went all the way around the Black and Caspian Seas, respectively. And as I said, I know that modern-Armenians are more similar to EBA samples that they've found in Armenia than they are to some MLBA samples, which have Steppe ancestry. I don't know much about Iranian genetics though.

Do you have any thoughts on Sergent's Zagros theory?
 
If the PIE population was roughly equal parts EHG/CHG, then terming the source of the CHG as the "Pre-PIE" would be illogical, in that at most it might be a Pre-PIE. On the other hand, EHG could be the source of the Uralic influence on PIE, with CHG possibly being the Caucasian influence.
 
On the other hand, EHG could be the source of the Uralic influence on PIE, with CHG possibly being the Caucasian influence.

That's my understanding, at least the South Caucasians were the speakers of pre-Proto Indo European (as suggested by Reich). The EHGs could have been Uralic or something else. The Yamnaya could have encountered Uralic speakers too, whether the EHG component of the Yamnaya were Uralic or not, right?
 
If the PIE population was roughly equal parts EHG/CHG, then terming the source of the CHG as the "Pre-PIE" would be illogical, in that at most it might be a Pre-PIE.

Yeah, I suppose it depends on if PPIE was already relatively evolved/developed/on its way to PIE by the time it reached the Pontic Steppes or whether PPIE evolved significantly into PIE in the Pontic Steppes (meaning, was PPIE just an earlier dialect of PIE or was PIE some combination of PPIE and Uralic or something along those lines). To my understanding, new languages aren't really formed by combining two other languages. Something like 60% or 80% of Armenian is Iranian loans, 60% of English is from Greek/Latin loans, and a significant percentage of Albanian is from Latin/Greek/Slavic loans, but all these languages are still considered to be independent languages, and in the case of Armenian and Albanian, independent subfamilies.

If the Anatolian languages are PIE daughter languages and not PIE sister languages, and the Anatolians didn't come from the Yamnaya, then the PPIEs would have to have been the PIE.
 
PIE has nothing to do with EHG OR CHG originally. It was originally a farmer language from Western Anatolia (related to the originally Eastern Anatolian Kartvelian language family), spread to Cucuteni-Trypillia and subsequently picked up by Sredny Stog which beforehand would have spoken some form of Uralic (which was NOT spread by Y DNA N1c tribes). R1b L23-derived cultures like Yamnaya and that of the Bell Beakers spoke some form of Dene-Caucasian. Besides the Anatolian languages (which existed in Anatolia as a result of farmer folk and not Steppe pastoralists), all Indo-European languages were spread by the Corded Ware culture and its successors. This has nothing to do with Armenia. As far as I can see nothing else can explain the story of the Indo-European languages apart from this, and I’m also fairly confident on all the other assertions.
 
The renown geneticist David Reich in his recently published book from the Oxford University press titled "Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past" (page 120) says:
First does it prove people who lived in the west of Iran in the 3rd millennium BC or even earlier were an Indo-European people?
It's a reasonable possibility, but just because Reich says it, this doesn't represent proof. I don't think we know for sure which language/s the Yamnayans spoke, nor how widespread IE was in Anatolia, nor when it was first spoken there. My view is that this is a bit of a wild goose chase. We are all communicating in English, but this doesn't identify where each of our ancestors come from.
 
tyuiopman said:
If they migrated elsewhere, you would assume that there would be an Armenian language or Armenian names appearing somewhere else than NE Turkey/modern Armenia.

Iranian language originated in Iran, Armenian language originated in Armenia, Germanic language originated in Germania, ... but it doesn't mean that these languages were developed in the same lands, Armenian is certainly a Satem language, for example the Armenian word for "heart" is sirt from proto-IE *ḱerd, it means proto-IE has been changed to kʲ > c > tʃ > ts > ʃ > s, you should compare this Armenian word to other Satem words in the Corded Ware culture, like Latvian sirds "heart". We can't find Armenian names in other lands because Armenian sound changes, like devoicing, happened in Armenia (Final Satem *sird- > Armenian sirt), not other lands.
 
PIE has nothing to do with EHG OR CHG originally. It was originally a farmer language from Western Anatolia (related to the originally Eastern Anatolian Kartvelian language family), spread to Cucuteni-Trypillia and subsequently picked up by Sredny Stog which beforehand would have spoken some form of Uralic (which was NOT spread by Y DNA N1c tribes). R1b L23-derived cultures like Yamnaya and that of the Bell Beakers spoke some form of Dene-Caucasian. Besides the Anatolian languages (which existed in Anatolia as a result of farmer folk and not Steppe pastoralists), all Indo-European languages were spread by the Corded Ware culture and its successors. This has nothing to do with Armenia. As far as I can see nothing else can explain the story of the Indo-European languages apart from this, and I’m also fairly confident on all the other assertions.

While there seems to have been an early relationship with Kartvelian, there also seems to have been an early relationship with Semitic, Uralic, and possibly Hurrio-Urartian languages. An Armenian/Iranian urheimat (or proto-urheimat) makes more sense for these language contacts than a western Anatolian one (obviously Armenia's/Iran's close proximity to Kartvelian and Semitic languages--the former which may have even been spoken to the immediate NW at the time (i.e. NE Turkey), Uralic coming into contact with early IEs once they arrived in the Pontic Steppes). Plus, the genetic and archaeological records support groups moving northward from the South Caucasus into the Pontic Steppes. You seem to be equating the spread of Indo-European languages with the spread of farming into Europe, which is an attractive explanation but that's not what is supported by the current evidence, but rather a locus to the near east of Western Anatolia.
 
Kind of. To my understanding, it proves that there was some sort of proto-Indo-European speaking people (as Reich calls them, the pre-proto Indo Europeans) in Armenia/western Iran.

Could the Armenian language be a direct descendant of pre-proto Indo-European?

edit: i see you already talked about this in your post. so then could the language of Yamnaya have been a mix of a form of proto-Armenian and the language of the Sredny Stog people?
 
PIE has nothing to do with EHG OR CHG originally. It was originally a farmer language from Western Anatolia (related to the originally Eastern Anatolian Kartvelian language family), spread to Cucuteni-Trypillia and subsequently picked up by Sredny Stog which beforehand would have spoken some form of Uralic (which was NOT spread by Y DNA N1c tribes). R1b L23-derived cultures like Yamnaya and that of the Bell Beakers spoke some form of Dene-Caucasian. Besides the Anatolian languages (which existed in Anatolia as a result of farmer folk and not Steppe pastoralists), all Indo-European languages were spread by the Corded Ware culture and its successors. This has nothing to do with Armenia. As far as I can see nothing else can explain the story of the Indo-European languages apart from this, and I’m also fairly confident on all the other assertions.

Without any doubt Indo-European was initially divided into two different branches: Satem and Centum, this is the basic thing that we know about this language, a Centum language like Anatolian can never be changed to a Satem language like Indo-Iranian and vice versa, I don't see this very important division in your theory.
 
Without any doubt Indo-European was initially divided into two different branches: Satem and Centum, this is the basic thing that we know about this language, a Centum language like Anatolian can never be changed to a Satem language like Indo-Iranian and vice versa, I don't see this very important division in your theory.

Luwian, and Albanian, are non-Centum, but not Satem either:

"?Thus, the three-way IE reconstructed voiced ~ voiceless ~ voiced aspirated system of obstruents has been reduced, as in many IE dialects, to a double opposition: voiced ~ voiceless; and the outcomes of the three dorsal series suggest that Albanian, like Luwian, may have originally retained this three-way opposition intact and therefore is neither centum nor satem, despite the clear satem-like outcome of its palatal dorsals in most instances.The evidence for this is the palatalization of original PIE labiovelars, but not plain velars, before front vowels.?
Bardhyl Demiraj
2018 De Gruyter ?Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics
 
Anatolian lacks the wheel/wagon terms that are present, to one degree or another, in all other PIE-derived languages. It does possess a word for "harness-pole" with a PIE-root, but which might refer to a "plow shaft" (not requiring wheels or wagon) rather than to a wagon-till. In other words, Anatolian likely either 1) split off early from PIE, before the adoption of the wheel/wagon technology, or 2) evolved from a precedent language that contributed to PIE, but not from PIE itself.

See Horse, Wheel, and Language, pp. 63-65.
 
Iranian language originated in Iran, Armenian language originated in Armenia, Germanic language originated in Germania, ... but it doesn't mean that these languages were developed in the same lands, Armenian is certainly a Satem language, for example the Armenian word for "heart" is sirt from proto-IE *ḱerd, it means proto-IE has been changed to kʲ > c > tʃ > ts > ʃ > s, you should compare this Armenian word to other Satem words in the Corded Ware culture, like Latvian sirds "heart". We can't find Armenian names in other lands because Armenian sound changes, like devoicing, happened in Armenia (Final Satem *sird- > Armenian sirt), not other lands.

Again, Armenian is not totally a Satem language and the Satemization is based on only a small numbers of words. Remember too, Armenian rests between Indo-Iranian and Greek languages, so it would make sense that it's a mostly-but-not-quite Satem language. Balto-Slavic languages (including Latvian) are also Satem but also still have some Centemized words, which some have suggested means that Satemization wasn't complete in Balto-Slavic languages, for whatever reason. So perhaps Armenian features a similar phenomenon, a Satemization process that was incomplete or interrupted for whatever reason.

As for my comment about IE migration into Armenia, I meant specifically the people that introduced the (proto) Armenian language. Theoretically, they would have been a Steppe-derived population, but, to my understanding, they left almost no traces of Steppe-derived ancestry in modern Armenians. In other words, modern Armenians are more similar to the EBA, pre-IE/non-Steppe people of the region. So if there were Steppe Armenians (i.e. a Yamnaya-derived population who brought the proto-Armenian language to Armenia), where did they go? They were either a) an extremely small number of people/elite class who didn't really mix in at all with the native population, which is certainly possible, and then died off or b) they didn't die off, but migrated elsewhere from Armenia. But if they migrated elsewhere, regardless of sound changes, if we can recognize that Greek and Indo-Iranian languages are closest to Armenian, and theoretically these branches split off from one another before proto-Armenian was fully developed (and proto-Greek and proto-Indo Iranian) we should be able to identify another Armenian language that derives from the Steppe Armenians and is closer to Armenian than Greek or Indo-Iranian. Meaning, a sister language to Armenian (AKA another daughter of the proto-Armenian). But obviously there is no evidence of this, so it suggests that the Steppe Armenians died off. Unless it was Phrygian (which is now thought to be closer to Greek than Armenian, so it might not be a good candidate) or some unattested language.
 
Luwian, and Albanian, are non-Centum, but not Satem either:

"�Thus, the three-way IE reconstructed voiced ~ voiceless ~ voiced aspirated system of obstruents has been reduced, as in many IE dialects, to a double opposition: voiced ~ voiceless; and the outcomes of the three dorsal series suggest that Albanian, like Luwian, may have originally retained this three-way opposition intact and therefore is neither centum nor satem, despite the clear satem-like outcome of its palatal dorsals in most instances.The evidence for this is the palatalization of original PIE labiovelars, but not plain velars, before front vowels.�
Bardhyl Demiraj
2018 De Gruyter �Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics

Yep. And Tocharian might not have been either. And Balto-Slavic are Satem but it is incomplete.
 
Could the Armenian language be a direct descendant of pre-proto Indo-European?

edit: i see you already talked about this in your post. so then could the language of Yamnaya have been a mix of a form of proto-Armenian and the language of the Sredny Stog people?

That's what I am wondering. Because Armenian is really all over the place with its relationships to other languages. For a long time it was thought to be closest to Iranian (to the point where it was originally categorized as an Iranian language), and then Greek or Phrygian, then Thracian/Balkanic languages, and now Greek and Iranian again. But it shares some unique morpheme developments with Balto-Slavic languages, and in some ways apparently it is closer to Indic languages than Iranian languages. Then there is some relationship with Celtic languages and possibly Tocharian, and loans from Luwian and possibly Hittite, as well as a very long relationship with Kartvelian and Hurrio-Urartian.

Part of the issue with studying Armenian is a) most of the native Armenian vocabulary has been replaced with Iranian words b) there are no other Armenian languages, just some divergent dialects and c) although we know Armenian is ancient, there is only about 1500 years of written Armenian...and by that time there had already been long influence by Iranian and Greek (as well as other languages like Syriac).
 
Anatolian lacks the wheel/wagon terms that are present, to one degree or another, in all other PIE-derived languages. It does possess a word for "harness-pole" with a PIE-root, but which might refer to a "plow shaft" (not requiring wheels or wagon) rather than to a wagon-till. In other words, Anatolian likely either 1) split off early from PIE, before the adoption of the wheel/wagon technology, or 2) evolved from a precedent language that contributed to PIE, but not from PIE itself.

See Horse, Wheel, and Language, pp. 63-65.

The Armenian word for "wheel" is aniv, which apparently comes from PIE *h₃nebʰ- ("nave, naval") from which words like "naval" and "umbilical" derive from, rather than the PIE word *kʷel- ("to turn") from which most IE "wheel" words come from. So make of that what you will.
 
Again, Armenian is not totally a Satem language and the Satemization is based on only a small numbers of words. Remember too, Armenian rests between Indo-Iranian and Greek languages, so it would make sense that it's a mostly-but-not-quite Satem language. Balto-Slavic languages (including Latvian) are also Satem but also still have some Centemized words, which some have suggested means that Satemization wasn't complete in Balto-Slavic languages, for whatever reason. So perhaps Armenian features a similar phenomenon, a Satemization process that was incomplete or interrupted for whatever reason.
The common factor between Armenia and the Baltic is that each appears to have hosted one successful steppic lineage, followed by a different later one. Regarding Armenian lineages, R1b-Z2103 developed first and R1a-Z94 later. For Baltic lineages, R1a-M417 developed first and R1b-U106 later. This might explain the only partly-satemised language in each region.

As for my comment about IE migration into Armenia, I meant specifically the people that introduced the (proto) Armenian language. Theoretically, they would have been a Steppe-derived population, but, to my understanding, they left almost no traces of Steppe-derived ancestry in modern Armenians. In other words, modern Armenians are more similar to the EBA, pre-IE/non-Steppe people of the region. So if there were Steppe Armenians (i.e. a Yamnaya-derived population who brought the proto-Armenian language to Armenia), where did they go? They were either a) an extremely small number of people/elite class who didn't really mix in at all with the native population, which is certainly possible, and then died off or b) they didn't die off, but migrated elsewhere from Armenia. But if they migrated elsewhere, regardless of sound changes, if we can recognize that Greek and Indo-Iranian languages are closest to Armenian, and theoretically these branches split off from one another before proto-Armenian was fully developed (and proto-Greek and proto-Indo Iranian) we should be able to identify another Armenian language that derives from the Steppe Armenians and is closer to Armenian than Greek or Indo-Iranian. Meaning, a sister language to Armenian (AKA another daughter of the proto-Armenian). But obviously there is no evidence of this, so it suggests that the Steppe Armenians died off.
The alternative is that the Steppe Armenians were pre-Yamnayan (as phylogenic analysis would suggest), and either (i) there had been a substantial dilution of their DNA (over a longer time period), or (ii) their DNA was not as heavily steppic when it arrived there in the first place (being derived from the North Caucasus, rather than the Northern Pontic-Caspian Steppe).
 
The common factor between Armenia and the Baltic is that each appears to have hosted one successful steppic lineage, followed by a different later one. Regarding Armenian lineages, R1b-Z2103 developed first and R1a-Z94 later. For Baltic lineages, R1a-M417 developed first and R1b-U106 later. This might explain the only partly-satemised language in each region.

These are both from modern samples, right? But R1b is far more prevalent in Armenians than R1a. I was under the impression that the R1b found in Armenians was an earlier and/or separate mutation than other European R1b...either Z2103 or L584.

The alternative is that the Steppe Armenians were pre-Yamnayan (as phylogenic analysis would suggest), and either (i) there had been a substantial dilution of their DNA (over a longer time period), or (ii) their DNA was not as heavily steppic when it arrived there in the first place (being derived from the North Caucasus, rather than the Northern Pontic-Caspian Steppe).

Yeah, that could make sense. What is the current research telling us about Maykop? Last I read, there was a theory that they had significant Siberian or Central Asian ancestry.

I'm wondering if the proto-Armenians every made it up to Yamnaya, but rather made it as far north as Georgia or Daghestan and then decided to go back southward? Does this sound possible to you?

EDIT: I just re-read your comment. That is what you're suggesting right, that the Steppe Armenians/Proto-Armenians never made it as far north as the Pontic Steppe)?
 
Yamnaya = Khvalynx (EHG) + CHG

The question is where does PIE, assuming it was not a creole, predominantly trace back to - north of the Caucasus (Khvalynx/Repin) or south? Arguing for the first would be continuity between late Khvalynx/Repin and early Yamnaya pottery. (Anthony, pp. 274-277, 317-323.)
 

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