Admixtures in civilisations

Farstar

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Current Europeans are not the "original" Europeans (WHG), but an admixture of WHG, Yamnaya and Anatolian farmers. It seems a similar process of admixture occurred in many other civilisations.

One of the conclusions is that the current people in an area do not need to be the same kind of people of a civilisation that happened in the same area, but in a previous time.

For example, is it known if current people in Anatolia are similar to the Anatolian farmers that constitute now the Europeans? (I assume the best proxy are the current Sardinians, but I am not sure).

Other questions: who were the Mesopotamians, who created the first civilisation? And who were the first agricultural people in the Fertile Crescent?

In other words, is it possible to say something like "30% of current group X, 45% of current group Y and 25% of current group Z" are the closest match to say the people that created the first civilisation in Mesopotamia? (so, the inverse process, in the time sense, of saying that current Europeans are a mixture of WHG, Yamnaya and Anatolian farmers).
 
@Farstar,

I agree as to the Mesopotamians.

We actually know a lot about the first agriculturalists of the Near East. Cereal farming began in the southwest, and animal husbandry near the Zagros mountains.

We have some good threads on the subject.

https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...-package-in-all-places?highlight=farming+East


https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...-the-Anatolian-plateau?highlight=farming+East

https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...-earlier-than-proposed?highlight=farming+East

https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...ic-Aegean-and-Anatolia?highlight=farming+East
 
Thank you for the answers.

Is it known what made this area, bordering the Fertile Crescent, the Zagros mountains on the East, the East Mediterranean on the West and the Nile on the South so fertile with new agricultural and herding methods?

The geographic area is not that large, but it seems the variety of vegetables and animals was staggering. This fact would require an explanation, I assume.

I also assume the climate, and the corresponding life, in the area was not like now (I have read about serious climatic change around 8ka BCE). And I also assume the people then was not like the people now (like in Europe or India, for example, according to David Reich's book).

I would really like to understand who these people were, and how their environment was.
 
Thank you for the answers.

Is it known what made this area, bordering the Fertile Crescent, the Zagros mountains on the East, the East Mediterranean on the West and the Nile on the South so fertile with new agricultural and herding methods?

The geographic area is not that large, but it seems the variety of vegetables and animals was staggering. This fact would require an explanation, I assume.

I also assume the climate, and the corresponding life, in the area was not like now (I have read about serious climatic change around 8ka BCE). And I also assume the people then was not like the people now (like in Europe or India, for example, according to David Reich's book).

I would really like to understand who these people were, and how their environment was.

The explanation is that this area between the Tigris and Euphrates flooded often, replenishing the soil and making it extremely fertile. Now what made it the cradle of agricultural innovation I do not know but maybe the lack of slaves. Necessity is the the mother of invention?
 
Now what made it the cradle of agricultural innovation I do not know but maybe the lack of slaves. Necessity is the the mother of invention?

or it was exactly because of those very favourable conditions. farming was also independently invented in other regions of the world. i think in a hunter gatherer society those who "produce" the food would probably not be the slaves so lack of slaves would not push them to farming.
 
Actually, the first cereal farming was not in the floodlands; it was in the foothills of the Levant.

Part of it was definitely that the area was blessed with both floral and fauna which was optimal for human survival. We can see that from the Natufians, who were sedentary hunter/foragers.

John Hawks talks about it in this nice clip.


I don't think it's enough to say that they had a beneficial climate and a great selection of fauna and flora. Imo, the take-away is that human innovation can happen with one person, but it can only spread in human communities, where cooperation leads to the passing on and perfection of innovations. The fact that they created actual communities was very important. Such communities also, of course, have need of a stable source of food stuffs. I do think, though, that some people and "peoples" are more "innovative" than others, even today. This area was the first in terms of this kind of innovation. Places with similar conditions took longer to develop these new technologies.


Gobekli Tepi is fascinating in that way. The people who built it were not yet agriculturists, but they became agriculturists, being the first to domesticate einkhorn wheat. It also provides the first evidences for "religion" as we would describe it. This archaeologist maintains that ritual and religious and communal imperatives drove them to sedentarism and only then to actual agriculture. What interests me is that I don't know of anything like that in, say, China.

Catalhoyuk is two thousand years later, so 9,000 years ago, not 11,000 years ago. There's extensive ritual and symbolism, but it's not a ritual center in the same way. We do see an incredibly close community, with houses jammed together, no streets. They moved from house to house over the rooftops.

It starts about 2 minutes in...


Gobekli: Site animation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsFejyE7Tj8

Catalhoyuk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRGkxNwq5kM

reconstruction_westmound.jpg
 
Fascinating, thank you, Angela.

Are these people (the Natufians, and the peoples at Gobekli and Catalhoyuk) related in some way to current Middle Eastern or European populations? For sure there has been a lot of admixture since them, and probably they do not survive in "modern terms", but for example:

1. Is the EEF component in Europe related in some way to these people, especially I assume (for geographical reasons) to Catalhoyuk?
2. Are current Middle Eastern populations having a proportion of these peoples (plus some SSA and some Iranian component, if I understand correctly)?
 
Fascinating, thank you, Angela.

Are these people (the Natufians, and the peoples at Gobekli and Catalhoyuk) related in some way to current Middle Eastern or European populations? For sure there has been a lot of admixture since them, and probably they do not survive in "modern terms", but for example:

1. Is the EEF component in Europe related in some way to these people, especially I assume (for geographical reasons) to Catalhoyuk?
2. Are current Middle Eastern populations having a proportion of these peoples (plus some SSA and some Iranian component, if I understand correctly)?

The original EEF who were tested (from LBK) were extremely similar to early Anatolian farmers, with only a few percentage points of additional WHG. Slowly, over time, the farmers of Europe absorbed about 20-25% WHG, depending on the area.

The closest modern populations to these people are Southern Europeans, because they have the most of this ancestry, but it's a very significant portion of Northern and Eastern Europeans as well.

Indeed, this type of ancestry made it all the way to the Horn of Africa, and all the way across North Africa.

Near Easterners have a lot of additional "Iran Neo", and yes, in some areas like the southern Levant some additional SSA. There's very little SSA in Turkey or the Caucasus, and in Iran it's extremely localized to one area. Turkey, of course, has, in some areas, up to 20% Turkic ancestry, which has a minority Central Asian component.

Of course, Europe also received some Caucasus ancestry through steppe "Indo-European" migrations, some of whom were up to 40-50% Caucasus like, and southern Europe received additional Caucasus/Iran Neo through later movements of people of admixed Anatolian Neo and Iran Neo ancestry.

It's complicated. :)

Suffice it to say, however, that this ancestry is extremely significant in both Europe and the Near East, and, I suppose you could add North Africa and the Horn of Africa, more or less depending on the area.
 
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Very interesting, thank you, Angela.

So, is it correct to state the following?:

After the Last Glacial Period, in West and Central Eurasia there were some defined human groups (all of them hunter gatherers): Western Hunter Gatherers (located mostly in current Europe), Natufians (current Syria, Lebanon, Israel), EEF (current West Turkey), Iran Neo (in current Iran?), Caucasian Hunter Gatherers (current Georgia) and Eastern Hunter Gatherers (above the Caucasus; question: are EHG and ANE the same?).

Note: I assume there is something missing, especially around the north of Mesopotamia and south-east Asia Minor (where Gobekli was located): did they also have their own name? Or were they a combination of Natufian and EEF?
 
Very interesting, thank you, Angela.

So, is it correct to state the following?:

After the Last Glacial Period, in West and Central Eurasia there were some defined human groups (all of them hunter gatherers): Western Hunter Gatherers (located mostly in current Europe), Natufians (current Syria, Lebanon, Israel), EEF (current West Turkey), Iran Neo (in current Iran?), Caucasian Hunter Gatherers (current Georgia) and Eastern Hunter Gatherers (above the Caucasus; question: are EHG and ANE the same?).

Note: I assume there is something missing, especially around the north of Mesopotamia and south-east Asia Minor (where Gobekli was located): did they also have their own name? Or were they a combination of Natufian and EEF?

By definition, the EEF (Early European Farmers), were not hunter-gatherers, they were farmers, and they were in Europe, not Anatolia. In the Near East we had, among others, the ANF, or Anatolian Neolithic Farmers. The farmers of Anatolia, not just western Anatolia (Catalhoyuk, for example, is not in western Turkey, and nor is Boncuklu or Tepecek), were, however, descended from Anatolian hunter-gatherers, and same goes for Iran Neo, who were farmers, as their name indicates, either descended from CHG or a hunter-gatherer very similar to CHG. No, EHG and ANE are not the same. Some researchers even see EHG as WHG "with" ANE ancestry. Of course, Anatolian hunter-gatherers also have WHG "like" ancestry.

neolithicSitesTurkey.jpg


gr1.jpg


130705101629-large.jpg




1200px-Neolithic_expansion.svg.png


What I couldn't make some people understand for what seemed like aeons is that no group was "born" farming. "All" humans were first hunter-gatherers. "Some" of the hunter-gatherers "created" or invented farming, with, as I said, most of the cereal agriculture coming from the Levant and southeastern present day Turkey, and animal domestication coming from near the Zagros mountains. By the time the first boats set sail for Cyprus, however, the "Neolithic package", with cereals, pulses, and animals, was complete, even to domesticated dogs.

As someone already mentioned, we don't yet have ancient dna from Ancient Mesopotamia.

It all gets very complicated.

I think it would help if you read the Broushaki paper to which I linked above and also Lazaridis' work on the topic.

You can find the papers here.
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/34850-Important-papers-for-newbies-to-Population-Genetics

I have to update it, but the period we're discussing is already covered.
 
Fascinating, thank you, Angela.

Are these people (the Natufians, and the peoples at Gobekli and Catalhoyuk) related in some way to current Middle Eastern or European populations? For sure there has been a lot of admixture since them, and probably they do not survive in "modern terms", but for example:

1. Is the EEF component in Europe related in some way to these people, especially I assume (for geographical reasons) to Catalhoyuk?
2. Are current Middle Eastern populations having a proportion of these peoples (plus some SSA and some Iranian component, if I understand correctly)?

looking at these pca it seems like modern populations in near east are closest to the natufians who invented farming. i think they plot with saudis here. neolithic levant then was somehow pulled towards WHG. could this be tied to the less sedentary lifestyle of late neolithic levant people that is mentioned in Angelas video?
bronze age was then pulled towards iran neo but still very close to natufians.
i think the SSA component is not significant or not even existing in most regions of near east. except in yemen.

Eurogenes%20Lazaridis%20(2016)%20aDNA%20PCA%20showing%20the%20African%20origin%20of%20the%20Natufians%20(closeup%20with%20annotations).png

2fdrZf8.png
 
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looking at these pca it seems like modern populations in near east are closest to the natufians who invented farming. i think they plot with saudis here. neolithic levant then was somehow pulled towards WHG. could this be tied to the less sedentary lifestyle of late neolithic levant people that is mentioned in Angelas video?
bronze age was then pulled towards iran neo but still very close to natufians.
i think the SSA component is not significant or not even existing in most regions of near east. except in yemen.

Eurogenes%20Lazaridis%20(2016)%20aDNA%20PCA%20showing%20the%20African%20origin%20of%20the%20Natufians%20(closeup%20with%20annotations).png

2fdrZf8.png

Could you provide the paper and page from which the first graphic was taken?

There is SSA in the Saudis, the Palestinians, the Jordanians, and even in the Christian Lebanese, about equally divided between East and West Africans. The amounts are small, however. There is also an isolated area in southern Iran where it appears.

There have been a lot of changes in the Levant since the days of the Natufians, among which is the movement of Arabic tribes into the area before and after the arrival of Islam.

Natufians did not invent farming. We discussed this at length upthread. Plant "agriculture" was first developed in what is "now" southeastern Turkey, in the foothills. Animal husbandry was developed in the Zagros Mountains, nowhere near Natufian territory.

Natufians are pretty close to one of the Bedouin groups.

However, there is a great resource in one of Lazaridis' papers which provides FST values between the ancient people and each other and the ancient people in moderns. I think some of the figures may surprise you.

Closest to Anatolia Neolithic are the Adygei, then the Albanians, and neck and neck with them Southern Europeans like the Spaniards, Italians, and Greeks. Northern Europeans are also pretty close to them, as are Turks and Lebanese.

You can find it in Data Table 3 of this paper:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/059311v1.supplementary-material

People in anthrofora are so busy looking for and magnifying the differences that they often forget the closeness between all West Eurasians, with the possible exception of some North Africans, whose 20% or so SSA pulls them away a bit.
 
Could you provide the paper and page from which the first graphic was taken?

the first graphic isn't from a paper. it's a 2D picture of a 3D model of lazaridis samples made by an amateur. but i guess you know that already and i must admit i should not have posted it. i realised it is from the infamous eurogenes a bit too late and only after you asked.

There is SSA in the Saudis, the Palestinians, the Jordanians, and even in the Christian Lebanese. There is also an isolated area in southern Iran where it appears.

There have been a lot of changes in the Levant since the days of the Natufians, among which is the movement of Arabic tribes into the area before and after the arrival of Islam.


i didn't say there is no SSA admixture but it is non existent in many regions and when it is there it is almost always only very little amounts. also these arabs migrating into the levant would not have pulled the population away from natufians but rather back to the natufians based on the second pca.

about the question who were the first farmers, it doesn't seem that easy to answer. planting cereals for food seems to have been quite common in the region and agriculture developed seperated from each othe in different regions. however where can i read about the "first" agriculturalists in south eastern turkey?
 
the first graphic isn't from a paper. it's a 2D picture of a 3D model of lazaridis samples made by an amateur. but i guess you know that already and i must admit i should not have posted it. i realised it is from the infamous eurogenes a bit too late and only after you asked.




i didn't say there is no SSA admixture but it is non existent in many regions and when it is there it is almost always only very little amounts. also these arabs migrating into the levant would not have pulled the population away from natufians but rather back to the natufians based on the second pca.

about the question who were the first farmers, it doesn't seem that easy to answer. planting cereals for food seems to have been quite common in the region and agriculture developed seperated from each othe in different regions. however where can i read about the "first" agriculturalists in south eastern turkey?

Harvesting wild grain is different from figuring out that the plants come from the seeds and saving some wild grain seeds and planting them near your settlement, and which conditions are best for them, which is again different from actually "domesticating" grain, by "selecting" the wild grains for certain characteristics and doing that over and over again for generations until you get a "better" grain for human harvesting and consumption. This is all discussed by the archaeologist in the google talk to which I linked above.

The earliest clear evidence of the domestication of einkorn dates from 10,600 to 9,900 years before present from Canyonu and Cafer Hoyuk, two Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B sites in southern/southeastern Turkey.

zy4f354bc5.jpg


The genetics is all in the papers, to which I provided a link. You can read, for example, about the hunter-gatherers of Boncuklu, who became the agriculturists of Boncuklu, and the people of Tepecik, who had already a bit of ancestry from the Caucasus. Just read all the ones about the Neolithic in the Levant, Anatolia etc. However, it's also not enough to read the papers. You have to read every word in the Supplement and look at all the tables. That's how I found the fst table.

As for the amount of SSA in the Near East I quantified it in my first comment, so there was no need to say there wasn't much of it. So, I basically repeated what I said to start with. There's no need to "correct" a comment with a point which has already been made at the outset.

Btw, if you only look at grains, you're missing a lot of the story. Pulses were very important, first domesticated, if my memory serves, in the Levant. Chickpeas have been found in the earliest levels of Jericho and also beans. If memory serves, again, I think lentils were Anatolia.

Also, animal husbandry was incredibly important.
Map_of_Early_Neolithic_animal_and_crop_domestication_in_the_Near_East.jpg


The development of the entire "package" was done in various areas of the Near East, broadly speaking, and took thousands of years to become complete, with people spreading the methods to one another. By the time the first explorers set sail for Cyprus it was complete.

ed. typo in the date for the earliest "clear" evidence of domesticated einkorn wheat, now corrected.
 
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Harvesting wild grain is different from figuring out that the plants come from the seeds and saving some wild grain seeds and planting them near your settlement, and which conditions are best for them, which is again different from actually "domesticating" grain, by "selecting" the wild grains for certain characteristics and doing that over and over again for generations until you get a "better" grain for human harvesting and consumption. This is all discussed by the archaeologist in the google talk to which I linked above.

The earliest clear evidence of the domestication of einkorn dates from 10,600 to 9,900 years before present from Canyonu and Cafer Hoyuk, two Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B sites in southern/southeastern Turkey.

zy4f354bc5.jpg


The genetics is all in the papers, to which I provided a link. You can read, for example, about the hunter-gatherers of Boncuklu, who became the agriculturists of Boncuklu, and the people of Tepecik, who had already a bit of ancestry from the Caucasus. Just read all the ones about the Neolithic in the Levant, Anatolia etc. However, it's also not enough to read the papers. You have to read every word in the Supplement and look at all the tables. That's how I found the fst table.

As for the amount of SSA in the Near East I quantified it in my first comment, so there was no need to say there wasn't much of it. So, I basically repeated what I said to start with. There's no need to "correct" a comment with a point which has already been made at the outset.

Btw, if you only look at grains, you're missing a lot of the story. Pulses were very important, first domesticated, if my memory serves, in the Levant. Chickpeas have been found in the earliest levels of Jericho and also beans. If memory serves, again, I think lentils were Anatolia.

Also, animal husbandry was incredibly important.
Map_of_Early_Neolithic_animal_and_crop_domestication_in_the_Near_East.jpg


The development of the entire "package" was done in various areas of the Near East, broadly speaking, and took thousands of years to become complete, with people spreading the methods to one another. By the time the first explorers set sail for Cyprus it was complete.

My oversight: I forgot the other domesticated wheat, emmer wheat, which was domesticated in the Levant around 9600 years ago. As I'm sure you realize, these dates are approximations because they are based on what scientists have found in various sites. They may be, and probably are, older. If you look at the map of the distribution of the wild grains you can see why perhaps einkorn was domesticated in one area and emmer in another area.

Interesting paper on the domestication of emmer wheat:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-019-0534-5


 
The earliest clear evidence of the domestication of einkorn dates from 10,600 to 9,900 years before present from Canyonu and Cafer Hoyuk, two Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B sites in southern/southeastern Turkey.

but is this evidence that they were the first agruculturalists in the region? as you also pointed out the levant has a lot of evidence from the same time period.

As for the amount of SSA in the Near East I quantified it in my first comment, so there was no need to say there wasn't much of it. So, I basically repeated what I said to start with. There's no need to "correct" a comment with a point which has already been made at the outset.

could it be that you added the quantification after posting your initial reply? i saw you added lots of other additional info there.

However, there is a great resource in one of Lazaridis' papers which provides FST values between the ancient people and each other and the ancient people in moderns. I think some of the figures may surprise you.

Closest to Anatolia Neolithic are the Adygei, then the Albanians, and neck and neck with them Southern Europeans like the Spaniards, Italians, and Greeks. Northern Europeans are also pretty close to them, as are Turks and Lebanese.

that's a nice table thanks for telling me about it. Adygei aren't closest to anatolia neolithic based on these numbers though, it's southern europe. i'm not sure how accurate Fst-values are and if they actually measure differentiation, but based on the available numbers closest to anatolia neolithic seems to be southern europe, then whole levant plus turkey armenia, then western/central europe/rest of near east and then northeastern europe. adygei are relatively far away.

concerning levant neolithic, closest to them are saudis then bedouins, modern levantine populations.
 
but is this evidence that they were the first agruculturalists in the region? as you also pointed out the levant has a lot of evidence from the same time period.



could it be that you added the quantification after posting your initial reply? i saw you added lots of other additional info there.



that's a nice table thanks for telling me about it. Adygei aren't closest to anatolia neolithic based on these numbers though, it's southern europe. i'm not sure how accurate Fst-values are and if they actually measure differentiation, but based on the available numbers closest to anatolia neolithic seems to be southern europe, then whole levant plus turkey armenia, then western/central europe/rest of near east and then northeastern europe. adygei are relatively far away.

concerning levant neolithic, closest to them are saudis then bedouins, modern levantine populations.

You have some FREAKING nerve. I edited post number 9 hours before you posted about that issue.

Don't EVER question my integrity again, you little twerp.

READ the FREAKING papers by archaeologists, to which I helpfully presented one link at least. THERE WASN'T ONE PLACE IN THE MIDDLE/NEAR EAST WHICH WE COULD SAY IS "THE" PLACE WHERE IT WAS DEVELOPED.

Didn't I point out einkorn was first domesticated in one place, emmer another, lentils one place, broad beans another, or at least the earliest places where domesticated versions are found are different, not to mention domesticated animals?

If you lack the ability to understand written English, or at least to comprehend the subtleties of these kinds of papers, you have no business posting.
 
You have some FREAKING nerve. I edited post number 9 hours before you posted about that issue.

Don't EVER question my integrity again, you little twerp.

READ the freaking papers by archaeologists, to which I helpfully presented one link at least. THERE WASN'T ONE PLACE IN THE MIDDLE/NEAR EAST WHICH WE COULD SAY IS "THE" PLACE WHERE IT WAS DEVELOPED.

Didn't I point out einkorn was in one place, emmer another, lentil beans one place, broad beans another, barley somewhere else, figs almost everywhere.

If you lack the ability to understand written English, you don't belong here.

i did not mean post number 9. but post number 13, which you wrote in response to mine, which i wrote as a response to Farstar.

also i citate post number 13 from you:
"Natufians did not invent farming. We discussed this at length upthread. Plant "agriculture" was first developed in what is "now" southeastern Turkey, in the foothills. Animal husbandry was developed in the Zagros Mountains, nowhere near Natufian territory."

it was not clear for me, after reading your following posts, that you changed your opinion.
 
Let it go, buddy, or there will be serious consequences. YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT SSA.

This was the exchange.

quote_icon.png
Originally Posted by Angela
As for the amount of SSA in the Near East I quantified it in my first comment, so there was no need to say there wasn't much of it. So, I basically repeated what I said to start with. There's no need to "correct" a comment with a point which has already been made at the outset.



could it be that you added the quantification after posting your initial reply?

The bolded question was directly in reply to my comment about SSA.

Learn to read carefully.
 
Let it go, buddy, or there will be serious consequences. YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT SSA.

This was the exchange.

quote_icon.png
Originally Posted by Angela
As for the amount of SSA in the Near East I quantified it in my first comment, so there was no need to say there wasn't much of it. So, I basically repeated what I said to start with. There's no need to "correct" a comment with a point which has already been made at the outset.



could it be that you added the quantification after posting your initial reply?

The bolded question was directly in reply to my comment about SSA.

Learn to read carefully.

let me just explain my standpoint and my confusion.

first of all, with "initial reply" i ment your initial reply to me, number 13. your first comment to this thread isn't about genetics. this and also you writing that i had no reason to write about SSA didn't make me realize you ment 9 because i never replied to that comment and i saw nothing repeating in 12 or if it was repeating i thought it wouldn't matter because it was ,again, not a direct reply to 9. it was a response to Farstar.

also, what you wrote in 9 is not what you wrote in 13 imo but lets move this aside for now.

you replied to me in 13 about SSA. and did you change that comment or not? you say i repeated what you said, then why write a reply with a third repeat?

you say there was no need for me to "correct" you in 14, because what you wrote in 13 is a repeat of what you wrote in 9. at the same time you imply that i repeated you in 12. but while i didn't adress you directly in 12 and wrote my comment to Farstar, you "correct" me in a direct reply. and if 12 really was a repeat of what you already wrote why correct me about SSA?

why did you "correct" me in a direct reply, number 13, when, after the additions, you wrote essentially the same as i did?
 

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