steppe theory and western europe

[bicicleur 2]

how, for heavens sake does a thread re steppe and western europe end up quarreling about ancient Greeks and Romans?

 

[Ailchu]

@Ailchu,


I try to clarify what I wrote last week, hoping not to open up new controversies. But on some things I want to be direct.


When I refer to those who resent any Middle Eastern roots - including the more archaic, natural and widespread ones - I have in mind mainly the Nordicist groups who get hives just thinking about them.
You would find plenty of such examples in many blogs and other social media over the years. Some of the funniest ones I saw operating a few weeks ago on some amateur Facebook group, when someone posted renderings of the faces of some Yamnaya men from the kurgans of Boldyrevo and Berezhnovka, brought up after some recent studies had identified the people of the steppes as having not particularly rosy skin and un-Northern features. And from the deep North the queries and distinctions began.


I remember that even here on Eupedia these portraits were posted for discussion, perhaps by Jovialis himself if I remember correctly. Now it may be that the author of those renderings deliberately and provocatively accentuated those southern characters, I really don't know. The fact is - and I laugh thinking about it - that two of those Yamnayas remind me respectively of Antonio Bassolino - a former mayor of Naples - and Gigi Pistilli, a famous Italian actor known to the general public and famous for having starred in some of Sergio Leone's westerns. Neither of them is particularly hyperborean - on the contrary - and if all this were scientifically confirmed, I'm imagining the belly aches and despair of those who for years passed them off as ante litteram land Vikings swarming from the steppes. It can't be easy for them to discover or even to come to grips with the hypothesis that these supposed ancient masters of the world and of war (only some of them? or all of them?) didn't look like the powerful and famous He-Man of the Mattel puppets, but rather like some anonymous and rather humble Greek, Albanian, Italian peasant, shepherd or fisherman..., people who would be Europeans in a manner of speaking, according to the canons of the Nordicists. They don't like this fact and they have to be asked for the reasons.


For opposite reasons but with convergent results there are the Levantinists. Their motto is in practice "ex Oriente lux": if the Nordicists dream of expelling the South Europeans from the group of what would be genuinely European, the Levantinists expand their range of action and their genetic, cultural and historical influences to an unbelievable extent, practically watering down or eliminating the presence of any element proper to Southern Europe, which has matured and developed autonomously here. Certainly, in the Middle East there are the Neolithic Anatolian and CHG components and their original cores, but other components have also arrived that have made the history, genetics and culture of the current Middle Easterners very different from those of Southern Europeans. The vice of Levantinists is to tell things by halves, playing on the concept of the common ancestral geographical origin of what we call the Middle East and concealing all that has passed there in terms of mergers, ethnic changes, repopulation. This is not very scientific and belongs more to the armoury of sophistry and mystification.

i think noone really cares if someone is european or not, not even the nordicists. they care about the "northern european" phenotype or whatever. they hate near east because it simply doesn't fit in there and i'm sry but i just disagree that it makes sense to tell such people how different anatolia neolithic or CHG was from modern near eastern people. especially when we consider that the phenotype of those ancient people would probably not be considered much better or even worse by them.

that goes for northern european nordicists. you forgot another quite important group, the southern european "nordicists". they hate on near east for the same reason as northern european nordicists hate on southern europe. and they are just as numerous as the others.

Holding all these instances together is the ultra-progressive intelligentsia, which makes these pesudorgomentations its own in order to drive forward precise internationalist political agendas, which I have already written about and which southern Europeans should pay for in the near future, and even now.

what? so you're saying there is some kind of northern european plan to destroy southern europe?

 

[Jovialis]

i think noone really cares if someone is european or not, not even the nordicists. they care about the "northern european" phenotype or whatever. they hate near east because it simply doesn't fit in there and i'm sry but i just disagree that it makes sense to tell such people how different anatolia neolithic or CHG was from modern near eastern people.

that goes for northern european nordicists. you forgot another quite important group, the southern european "nordicists". they hate on near east for the same reason as northern european nordicists hate on southern europe. and they are just as numerous as the others.



what? so you're saying there is some kind of northern european plan to destroy southern europe?

Again, who cares what other racist people think? Also, everyone in Europe has Anatolian_N, so it must be really awkward for them to hate on it. Why do you assume people acknowledging admixture differences is to impress or denigrate others? Frankly, I find this notion to be very presumptuous and offensive, we have our own sense pride of who we are as a people! We have had it long before genetics as a science even existed. I find your comments to be utterly repugnant. Furthermore, it is a fact to say that Anatolian_N is more prevalent in Southern Europe than Turkey for example due to later mixing, and that Near easterners are different because of substantial Natufian and SSA, as well as different admixture rates. So why is saying a fact offensive to you, or make you think there is some kind of nefarious intention behind it? Also it is clear that a southern European nordicists is completely clueless, but again, who gives a damn what they think? We are speaking in facts.

 

[Jovialis]

Also, even Englishmen have more Anatolian_N-like ancestry than many people in the Near east; they also have CHG via Yamnaya-like ancestry. So your argument is completely ignorant.

 

[Ailchu]

Also, even Englishmen have more Anatolian_N-like ancestry than many people in the Near east; they also have CHG via Yamnaya-like ancestry. So your argument is completely ignorant.

can you explain what argument of mine you are referring to? again, i never made this exclusively about southern europeans so what is your point?

 

[Jovialis]

can you explain what argument of mine you are referring to? again, i never made this exclusively about southern europeans so what is your point?
and why should it matter who has more anatolian neoltihic?

The point is, racist people usually don't have a clue about what they are talking about, when it comes to stuff like population genetics. I think it is important that we are all truthful, and not gloss over facts. Regardless of what kind of inferences can be drawn from those facts. Otherwise, you create a vacuum that gets filled in by ignorance, and actual nefarious intentions. Because if people actually understood the grand picture of all of it, their racist beliefs do not carry much weight.

Also, nobody said it should matter, who has the most, other than for intellectual curiosity, and scientific and archeological purposes. The point I was making that you can't say Anatolian_N and CHG make exclusive to Southern Europeans and Near easterners, because it exists in Northern Europeans too, and there is even more Anatolian_N in some Northern Europeans, than Near easterners. Despite the fact that CHG and Anatolian_N originated thousands of years ago in the geographic/cultural designation of what we call today, the near east.

 

[Jovialis]

Most actual white power racist people don't even accept population genetics as a viable source, because it has many Jewish scientists, and an African origin for humanity. Real white power racists usually just rely on primary and secondary sources from ancient authors, and 19th and early 20th century anthropologists.

Why don't you go bother them?

 

[Ailchu]

Furthermore, it is a fact to say that Anatolian_N is more prevalent in Southern Europe than Turkey for example due to later mixing, and that Near easterners are different because of substantial Natufian and SSA, as well as different admixture rates. So why is saying a fact offensive to you, or make you think there is some kind of nefarious intention behind it?

even if it is more prevalent in southern europe than in turkey now, what's the difference? didn't you agree that it is ultimately a near eastern genetic group?

Also, nobody said it should matter, who has the most, other than for intellectual curiosity, and scientific and archeological purposes. The point I was making that you can't say Anatolian_N and CHG make exclusive to Southern Europeans and Near easterners, because it exists in Northern Europeans too, and there is even more Anatolian_N in some Northern Europeans, than Near easterners. Despite the fact that CHG and Anatolian_N originated thousands of years ago in the geographic/cultural designation of what we call today, the near east.

well, i never said it is exclusive to near east and southern europe.

 

[Jovialis]

even if it is more prevalent in southern europe than in turkey now, what's the difference? didn't you agree that it is ultimately a near eastern genetic group?

Yes, and what is near eastern? A geographic position? They didn't even have terms like that when these people existed.

 

[Ailchu]

Yes, and what is near eastern? A geographic position? They didn't even have terms like that when these people existed.

true. still, they originated there and as a result the people who live there now still have an affinity for those ancient populations. far more, than other ancient westeurasian populations had with those 2 groups from near east. also more affinity than many europeans. in case of the english, they might have more anatolian neolithic than people from levant in your graphic, but in terms of overall affinity the levant is probably still much closer to anatolian neoltithic than the english are.

 

[Jovialis]

The term Near East was coined in the 19th century when Westerners divided the “Orient” into three parts: the Near East, the Middle East, and the Far East. The Near East included the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans, while the Middle East ranged between the Persian Gulf and Southeast Asia—quite a small region compared with what we consider to be the Middle East today. (The Far East encompassed Asian countries facing the Pacific Ocean.) As Europe geared up for World War II, however, the term Middle East began to be used by the British military to refer to both regions. Middle East soon became the dominant term.

https://www.britannica.com/story/ar...Europe geared up for,to refer to both regions.

The "Near East" is a recent term, made by people who had no idea of genetics, or pre-historic migrations. It was primarily used to denote Ottoman territory, coined by Westerners, who lo and behold have more connection to the ancient people in that land (anatolian_n), than the Ottomans. This is all geo-political semantics, and has nothing to do with genetics.

 

[kingjohn]

full central anatolian turkish
mdlp k11


afcorse the neolithic component ( used anatolian neolithic individuals as refernce) was diluted by turkic migrations to anatolia

Population
African	0.43 Pct
Amerindian	1.72 Pct
ASI	1.38 Pct
Basal	21.15 Pct
Iran-Mesolithic	6.21 Pct
Neolithic	25.7 Pct
Oceanic	0.17 Pct
EHG	28.97 Pct
SEA	3.57 Pct
Siberian	5.16 Pct
WHG	5.54 Pc

 

[Angela]

yes. modern middle easterners are not anatolian neolithic but you CAN NOT simply disconnect those 2 from each other to calm down for example nordicists who do not like modern near eastern people. it is wrong simple as that. what facts are you talking about that would justify this and make this a reasonable thing to do?


yes, southern europeans are not near easterners. why do you guys keep repeating this eventhough i never claimed the opposite? i never even talked about southern europeans specifically.

I HAVEN'T DISCONNECTED ANYTHING FROM ANYONE. I have said, ad nauseam, that all West Eurasians have DIFFERENT PROPORTIONS of similar groups. PERIOD. END OF STORY.

Do we all have to keep saying that a lot of European ancestors originated in what is now called the Middle East. like we have a damn verbal tick or something? WE KNOW. EVERYONE KNOWS. Even the WHG and EHG came from elsewhere. Europe was a SINK, not an ORIGIN.

Just DROP this obsessive need to make everyone here keep saying it like a mantra.

What the hell is bugging you? Be honest about it so we can all move on and discuss how steppe admixed people (up to 50% CHG/Iran Neo like) brought about a dark age. That's more on topic than this nonsense you bring up on every thread. It's like spamming. All this jabbering is not going to change the fact that modern Near Easterners and Europeans, even the most Southern of Europeans, are NOT the same.

If your concern is attitudes in Europe about immigration from the Near East, take it to a politics thread. That is more about the availability of jobs, the spending on social welfare programs, and a completely different culture. Telling people we share ancient ancestry is NOT going to change people's minds about it. Like I said, stop spamming this on every thread and go to the many threads here on immigration.

Talking to you is a complete waste of time because you are incapable of logic. Like most people with an agenda everything comes from a place of emotion, not reason.

Everyone can, of course, do as they wish, but as for me this guy is going on permanent ignore. If no one answers him maybe eventually he'll get the message.

 

[Jovialis]

I HAVEN'T DISCONNECTED ANYTHING FROM ANYONE. I have said, ad nauseam, that all West Eurasians have DIFFERENT PROPORTIONS of similar groups. PERIOD. END OF STORY.

Do we all have to keep saying that a lot of European ancestors originated in what is now called the Middle East. like we have a damn verbal tick or something? WE KNOW. EVERYONE KNOWS. Even the WHG and EHG came from elsewhere. Europe was a SINK, not an ORIGIN.

Just DROP this obsessive need to make everyone here keep saying it like a mantra.

What the hell is bugging you? Be honest about it so we can all move on and discuss how steppe admixed people (up to 50% CHG/Iran Neo like) brought about a dark age. That's more on topic than this nonsense you bring up on every thread. It's like spamming. All this jabbering is not going to change the fact that modern Near Easterners and Europeans, even the most Southern of Europeans, are NOT the same.

If your concern is attitudes in Europe about immigration from the Near East, take it to a politics thread. That is more about the availability of jobs, the spending on social welfare programs, and a completely different culture. Telling people we share ancient ancestry is NOT going to change people's minds about it. Like I said, stop spamming this on every thread and go to the many threads here on immigration.

Talking to you is a complete waste of time because you are incapable of logic. Like most people with an agenda everything comes from a place of emotion, not reason.

Everyone can, of course, do as they wish, but as for me this guy is going on permanent ignore. If no one answers him maybe eventually he'll get the message.

Sounds like a good idea, there is only so much I can say, to someone that doesn't want to hear me.

 

[Ailchu]

I HAVEN'T DISCONNECTED ANYTHING FROM ANYONE. I have said, ad nauseam, that all West Eurasians have DIFFERENT PROPORTIONS of similar groups. PERIOD. END OF STORY.

Do we all have to keep saying that a lot of European ancestors originated in what is now called the Middle East. like we have a damn verbal tick or something? WE KNOW. EVERYONE KNOWS. Even the WHG and EHG came from elsewhere. Europe was a SINK, not an ORIGIN.

Just DROP this obsessive need to make everyone here keep saying it like a mantra.

What the hell is bugging you? Be honest about it so we can all move on and discuss how steppe admixed people (up to 50% CHG/Iran Neo like) brought about a dark age. That's more on topic than this nonsense you bring up on every thread. It's like spamming. All this jabbering is not going to change the fact that modern Near Easterners and Europeans, even the most Southern of Europeans, are NOT the same.

If your concern is attitudes in Europe about immigration from the Near East, take it to a politics thread. That is more about the availability of jobs, the spending on social welfare programs, and a completely different culture. Telling people we share ancient ancestry is NOT going to change people's minds about it. Like I said, stop spamming this on every thread and go to the many threads here on immigration.

Talking to you is a complete waste of time because you are incapable of logic. Like most people with an agenda everything comes from a place of emotion, not reason.

Everyone can, of course, do as they wish, but as for me this guy is going on permanent ignore. If no one answers him maybe eventually he'll get the message.

it is really hard to have a discussion with someone who doesn't even listen to what i am saying. once again i never said that southern europeans are near eastern.
i said that DISCONNECTING is the wrong kind of coping to which YOU replied that FACTS ARE NEVER THE WRONG KIND OF COPING.
so i asked for those facts. and you didn't answer. instead you come with accusations.

That is more about the availability of jobs, the spending on social welfare programs, and a completely different culture. Telling people we share ancient ancestry is NOT going to change people's minds about it.

and once again text, that should not be directed at me, if you actually read what i've been writing in this thread before. i already told something similar to Stuvane, because he thought otherwise.

"first and foremost, in Italy, is that of denying and devaluing ethnic and cultural differences and specificities in order to please radical pro-unregulated immigration positions, uncritical globalism and similar instances..."

that strongly implies for some people ethnic differences/similarities do matter enough so that they are used to influence immigration politics or people just fear that it might influence immigration politics.

 

[Leopoldo Leone]

true. still, they originated there and as a result the people who live there now still have an affinity for those ancient populations. far more, than other ancient westeurasian populations had with those 2 groups from near east. also more affinity than many europeans. in case of the english, they might have more anatolian neolithic than people from levant in your graphic, but in terms of overall affinity the levant is probably still much closer to anatolian neoltithic than the english are.

I had remained outside because in my eyes it is just useless bickering if one doesn't state exactly what one is claiming, and I had the impression that the discussion was around empty referential terms, but this comment here makes one claim clear enough: since Anatolian_N originated in the near east and it is the majority component in southern Europeans, plus CHG/Iran_N, hence we must state both that the ancient "old Europeans" (pre-steppe that is) were genetically more akin to modern day's middle easteners and that southern Europeans are genetically more similar to modern day middle easteners than to north Europeans.
Both are simple statements that are to be answered according to the available evidence, and the answer is precisely "no" for the majority of Europe: maybe a far north Russian is more distant from EEF than some modern day middle easteners but even Englishmen seem to be closer than any middle eastener, at least from what appears in the classical western eurasia PCA (I have seen no FST on the matter), and surely any south european is closer to EEF than any middle eastener.
As for the second statement, from the FSTs I've seen and some papers, Europe seems a subgroup in the western eurasian cluster, so it does seem that your average north European is genetically more similar to your average south european than even the most european-shifted near eastener (barring individuals with recent european ancestry); this was a point I raised when in another time Ailchu was defending Taleb's fantasies that Lebanon has more right to ancient Greece heritage than north Europe, grounding his claim on the idea that genetically near easteners are closer to ancient Greeks than north Europeans, which, if one accepts to play according to these very rules, is false for the majority of Europe ( By the FST I've seen the average German and "eastern european"[ I assume poles or something similar] by FST is closer to south Italians, who are an optimal proxy for ancient Greeks, than the latter are to any near eastern group, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730349/ ).

If the aforementioned claims are not the kernel of the discussion, what else is being debated? "Agriculture in Europe was brought by people from Anatolia", we already knew that, but how from that one goes to the statement "we must remind people that look down on near easteners' genetics that Europe was peopled by the near east" is just ideologically driven, since, strictly speaking, one could look down on near easteners' genetics and still know that the first European farmers came from Anatolia, and stress the fact that there is a significant (at the intra-caucasoid level) between modern near easteners and ancient Anatolians.
Would be such a person morally wrong? Yes, we all agree, but he wouldn't be upholding a false belief. If one wants to approach the question from a genetic perspective it would make much more sense to stress the overall similarity between all western eurasians (minus south asians), so while it is a matter of fact that Europeans make up a subcluster in the caucasoid cluster and there's a not trivial (at the intra-caucasoid level) gap between them and other western eurasians yet overall this gap is not, on the global level, much significant on a genetic level, and a fortiori it would apply to near easterns given that compared to other western eurasiasn, north africans for example, are significantly closer to Europe than the latter are to Europe.

And that is if one wanted to approach the question on a strictly genetic perspective: there's more to man than blood, so political discussions about "Europeanness" that ONLY bring up genetics are misplaced, though the decision whether it is relevant or not is a matter that isn't to be discussed on a archeogenetic section of a forum. What I do not like though is when one makes false genetic statements to back up his political stance.

 

[Ailchu]

I had remained outside because in my eyes it is just useless bickering if one doesn't state exactly what one is claiming, and I had the impression that the discussion was around empty referential terms, but this comment here makes one claim clear enough: since Anatolian_N originated in the near east and it is the majority component in southern Europeans, plus CHG/Iran_N, hence we must state both that the ancient "old Europeans" (pre-steppe that is) were genetically more akin to modern day's middle easteners and that southern Europeans are genetically more similar to modern day middle easteners than to north Europeans.

that statement has nothing to do with what i said. Anatolia_N/CHG are not "old europeans". old europeans aka european farmers were also not all the same.

Both are simple statements that are to be answered according to the available evidence, and the answer is precisely "no" for the majority of Europe: maybe a far north Russian is more distant from EEF than some modern day middle easteners but even Englishmen seem to be closer than any middle eastener, at least from what appears in the classical western eurasia PCA (I have seen no FST on the matter),

here are some FST values.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/059311v1

some examples from the table

english/anatolia_N:0.026
palestinian/anatolia_N:0.022
turkish/anatolia_N:0.021
lebanese/anatolia_N:0.019

and surely any south european is closer to EEF than any middle eastener.

i'm going to assume you ment anatolia_N and not EEF. with EEF that is clear i think. with anatolian_N it is probably the case for most southern europeans. but looking at the table, spanish north seem to be drifted away further already.

As for the second statement, from the FSTs I've seen and some papers, Europe seems a subgroup in the western eurasian cluster, so it does seem that your average north European is genetically more similar to your average south european than even the most european-shifted near eastener (barring individuals with recent european ancestry)

looking at the Fst table your statement isn't true. though it is hard to say what your average southern european is or your average northern european.

this was a point I raised when in another time Ailchu was defending Taleb's fantasies that Lebanon has more right to ancient Greece heritage than north Europe, grounding his claim on the idea that genetically near easteners are closer to ancient Greeks than north Europeans, which, if one accepts to play according to these very rules, is false for the majority of Europe ( By the FST I've seen the average German and "eastern european"[ I assume poles or something similar] by FST is closer to south Italians, who are an optimal proxy for ancient Greeks, than the latter are to any near eastern group, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730349/ ).

did i defend this? i just defended the assumption that ancient levant was genetically closer to ancient greeks than the steppe people were, but i don't remember that well anymore.

What I do not like though is when one makes false genetic statements to back up his political stance.

totally agree with that. but i didn't do that. that was rather you.

 

[ThirdTerm]

2-There is no L51 in the steppes, it does not matter, surely it is because Z2013 was the elite and the poor L51 were simply not buried in Kurgans, or maybe we are talking about a single L51 man so that it is practically impossible to locate him, or maybe patrilinearity and exogamy are responsible for having concealed this lineage and therefore for preventing male genetic continuity between Yamnaya CWC and BBC.

The founder of the R1b-L23 haplogroup (R1b1a1a2a) was born on the Western Steppe (Pontic-Caspian Steppe) around 4,400 BC (6.4 kya). R1b-L51 (R1b1a1a2a1) is its descendant founded in Central Europe around 5,000 years ago, which is why a L51 sample has not been found among the steppe herders. Z2013 is another descendant of R1b-L23.

 

[bicicleur 2]

The founder of the R1b-L23 haplogroup (R1b1a1a2a) was born on the Western Steppe (Pontic-Caspian Steppe) around 4,400 BC (6.4 kya). R1b-L51 (R1b1a1a2a1) is its descendant founded in Central Europe around 5,000 years ago, which is why a L51 sample has not been found among the steppe herders. Z2013 is another descendant of R1b-L23.

correct
there were probably many pré-L51 in many place between 6,4 and 5 ka, but that doesn't matter
only the one that founded his tribe in central Europe ca 5 ka counts

 

[Jovialis]

how, for heavens sake does a thread re steppe and western europe end up quarreling about ancient Greeks and Romans?

Ironically, threads about ancient Greeks and Romans tend to be taken over by discussions about the steppe, despite the fact it was a minority component.