David Reich Southern Arc Paper Abstract

This is probably going to upset you but the anger you display through your comments on the Steppe people reveals that you were kinda traumatized by Nordicism. Rest assured I don't claim the Romans nor the Etruscans since I'm not ashamed of my "Barbarian" ancestors and respect other people's heritage. However, I give credit where credit is due, regardless of whether the people are "civilized" or so-called "Barbarians".


Here's the thing these unskilled savages as you "affectionally" call them, are important and do matter to the extent that scholars are invested in searching out their origin and homeland. The truth of the matter is, that those steppe pastoralists spread out over much of Eurasia, and wherever they went – basically all of Europe, India, and plenty of the lands in between they conquered and assimilated the local populations. Whilst the customs, languages, and worldviews of the pre-Indo-European populations definitely exerted an influence on the hybrid societies that formed after this conquest, the basic template of these societies was solidly Indo-European.

Furthermore, language is essential and immanent to the expression of culture. Language is a fundamental aspect of cultural identity. It is the means by which we convey our innermost self from generation to generation. It is through language that we transmit and express our culture and its values. So, not only bloodline, DNA but language as well plays a very crucial role in human identity. The fact that the Etruscans didn't speak an Indo-European language in spite of being majority R1b-boys and having as much Steppe ancestry as the Romans indicates that they didn't have a firm Indo-European culture or society. In contrast, the Latins/Romans were solidly Indo-European culturally speaking which is reflected by their language. Maybe the Etruscans were mama’s boys and the Latins/Romans the daddy's boys. Who knows? Anyway, in contrast to the Romans, Etruscan women retained their maiden names and were not considered their father or husband’s possession. The Etruscan women, unlike Greek or Roman women, were able to participate in banquets as diners. According to the Greeks and the Romans this custom was not only strange but outright barbaric.

You don't make me angry.
Your archaic thin propaganda makes me laugh.

Etruscans and Latins shared the same Orientalised city-state culture from the East Med.

No language, IE or otherwise, makes a society any the more or less macho and fit for war.

It was the King of Rome, Servius Tullius in the 6th century, probably an Etruscan from Vulci also named Mastarna/Macstarna, who carried out crucial reforms.
All free residents in Rome were made liable to military service and were granted political rights.
This was the Centuriate where residents were divided into 6 classes according to wealth.
Instead of a system based on an existing hierarchy based on authority or clan or belief, Servius Tullius established a dynamic principle by which each man ranked according to his property.
True, all power still lay with the upper classes who provided the cavalry and could afford to supply themselves with the best equipment but everybody was free to get into a higher class if he could and gain greater voting rights.
 
Regarding Romulus and Remus:

"The founding of Rome is the Roman historicization of the Indo-European creation myth, both cosmogonic and anthropogonic, which involves the twins "Twin" and "Man" and the sacrificing of "Twin" in the process of creation. (…) The founding of Rome is quite literally a saga transposition of the act of creating the world, man, and society. Remus was thus the original "Twin," and Romulus was the "Man," and both were born of a primal female deity, Rea (Silvia). Remus was sacrificed as part of the act of creation, which led to the birth of the three Roman "tribes" and the accession of Romulus to his integral kingship (…) strangely enough, the "crude" version of the creation myth has also been surreptitiously preserved in the same Roman tradition. Parallel to the standard thunderstorm apotheosis of Romulus there is in many sources the alternative tradition that he was killed by the senators for being a tyrant; the perpetrators then cut up his body and carried away the pieces under their robes. That this tale of Romulus's death is to be connected with the Indo-European creation myth has been recognized by Walter Burkert. It is obviously what is left in a "historicized" version of the Roman mythical equivalent of the slaughter of Purusa, Ymir, and Gayomart (…)While the youth of Remus and Romulus may be "Asvinic," their role in the founding of the city transports us to a separate Indo-European myth complex, that of the primeval twins.”

- Jaan Puhvel (1975), Remus et Frater

“Wolves and dogs were the principle symbols of a specific kind of Indo-European war-band: the youthful war-band composed of boys who had been initiated into a liminal introductory period of warrior status, an Indo-European institution that left many small and large traces in Indo-European myths, legends, and vocabulary. Youthful war-bands were represented symbolically as wolves and/or dogs, or were raised by wolves like Romulus and Remus, same-age boys evicted from their families and thrown into the wilderness. … References to this institution can be found in mythological and epic traditions in Germanic (where they are called Mannerbunde, a label often applied to all similar Indo-European institutions), Celtic (fian), (Italic (luperci or sodales), Greek (koryos, ephebes) and in Indo-Iranian particularly in Vedic sources (vratyas, Maruts).”

- Brown & Anthony (2018), Late Bronze Age midwinter dog sacrifices and warrior initiations at Krasnosamarskoe, Russia


The huge problem with circular argumentation-based approaches such as those just posted is that the myth of Romulus and Remus and the founding of Rome is first reported by authors who lived many centuries after the alleged founding (which contrasts in part with the archaeological record). Livy, Dionysius, Varro, Plutarch... It is most likely a story created a posteriori, the same creation that has added information that has no basis in fact, such as the arrival in Latium of the Trojan heroes Aeneas and Ascanius, introduced quite early into Latin mythology. More than 10 years ago some Italian archaeologists claimed to have found the Lupercal, a simple cave, under the house of Augustus on the Palatine, but there is absolutely no consensus among archaeologists. If the foundation of Rome is the Roman historicisation of the Indo-European creation myth, this may in fact have occurred later and reflect even recent influences.
 
This is probably going to upset you but the anger you display through your comments on the Steppe people reveals that you were kinda traumatized by Nordicism. Rest assured I don't claim the Romans nor the Etruscans since I'm not ashamed of my "Barbarian" ancestors and respect other people's heritage. However, I give credit where credit is due, regardless of whether the people are "civilized" or so-called "Barbarians".


Here's the thing these unskilled savages as you "affectionally" call them, are important and do matter to the extent that scholars are invested in searching out their origin and homeland. The truth of the matter is, that those steppe pastoralists spread out over much of Eurasia, and wherever they went – basically all of Europe, India, and plenty of the lands in between they conquered and assimilated the local populations. Whilst the customs, languages, and worldviews of the pre-Indo-European populations definitely exerted an influence on the hybrid societies that formed after this conquest, the basic template of these societies was solidly Indo-European.

Furthermore, language is essential and immanent to the expression of culture. Language is a fundamental aspect of cultural identity. It is the means by which we convey our innermost self from generation to generation. It is through language that we transmit and express our culture and its values. So, not only bloodline, DNA but language as well plays a very crucial role in human identity. The fact that the Etruscans didn't speak an Indo-European language in spite of being majority R1b-boys and having as much Steppe ancestry as the Romans indicates that they didn't have a firm Indo-European culture or society. In contrast, the Latins/Romans were solidly Indo-European culturally speaking which is reflected by their language. Maybe the Etruscans were mama’s boys and the Latins/Romans the daddy's boys. Who knows? Anyway, in contrast to the Romans, Etruscan women retained their maiden names and were not considered their father or husband’s possession. The Etruscan women, unlike Greek or Roman women, were able to participate in banquets as diners. According to the Greeks and the Romans this custom was not only strange but outright barbaric.

Sorry, but the first bolded comment is so broad a generalization and such an overstatement that to address it adequately would take pages of examples and citations. This is not the thread for it.

I'll just say that if the merged societies were a template of Indo-European culture then they would all be pastoralist societies where people carted their belongings with them as they trundled from place to place with their herds of sheep and cows, they would have no metallurgy, no pottery, no female goddesses and their associated fertility rites and on and on.

Are there in these societies elements of steppe culture such as the lionization of warfare and conquest, the host-client relationships, the training of young males, parts of the religion? Yes, there are, but to say the template of the societies was completely Indo-European is a fallacy. Nor, I would point out, is the lionization of war and conquest unique to the Indo-Europeans. I think the Assyrians would have something to say about that.

Turning to the issue of language, yes, it's important to know the genesis of language, but it's largely a matter of intellectual interest for the specialized few. It's irrelevant to most people. Nor does it determine culture. The Amerindians of the New World had Indo-European languages imposed upon them. Do you think it was the language the "natives" and the mestizos of Mexico were forced to learn which made Mexico a basically European culture? It wasn't. It was the fact that Amerindians and Mestizos were herded into missions or haciendas and forced to learn farming, and indeed to accept the notion that land could be owned. I could go on and on with more examples. Immigrants to the U.S. from India, China, Africa, learn an Indo-European language. It doesn't make them Indo-European. I speak English with native fluency, but it isn't my "native" language, and speaking it most of the time and now even thinking in it most of the time doesn't make me English or give me an English cultural identity or personality. I still watch British film and television and marvel at the repression of emotion, the inability to express one's true thoughts and feelings to others, and on and on.

As to the Etruscans, and the position of women within their society, it's one of the reasons why Etruscan culture, and that of Minoan Crete, have been, since I can remember, my favorite ancient cultures.

Furthermore, in analyzing Roman culture one should be very aware of the fact many, many aspects of their culture which made Rome great were actually Etruscan in origin. Without the Etruscans there would have never been "the greatness which was Rome". Whole volumes and hundreds and hundreds of articles have been written on the subject. You should give them a read.

Now, I think it's time to put this to bed and go back to discussing the upcoming Reich paper on the Southern Arc.
 
The huge problem with circular argumentation-based approaches such as those just posted is that the myth of Romulus and Remus and the founding of Rome is first reported by authors who lived many centuries after the alleged founding (which contrasts in part with the archaeological record). Livy, Dionysius, Varro, Plutarch... It is most likely a story created a posteriori, the same creation that has added information that has no basis in fact, such as the arrival in Latium of the Trojan heroes Aeneas and Ascanius, introduced quite early into Latin mythology. More than 10 years ago some Italian archaeologists claimed to have found the Lupercal, a simple cave, under the house of Augustus on the Palatine, but there is absolutely no consensus among archaeologists. If the foundation of Rome is the Roman historicisation of the Indo-European creation myth, this may in fact have occurred later and reflect even recent influences.

It is quite amazing to me that people treat obvious myths as if they're historical fact. My favorite such case is the one where the kings of France claimed descent from Jesus Christ through Mary Magdalen to bolster their authority and try to make sure no one rebelled. The idea was regurgitated and vomited back out by Dan Brown to take money from the vulnerable, who think there's actual proof somewhere of such a thing.

Barnum of Barnum and Bailey had it right: "There's a fool born every minute, and two to take him." He made a fortune out of it.
 
We should know more soon. I think they may have discovered 2 different “Yamnaya” paternal lineages that originated south of the Caucasus and then moved on to the steppe. At least that’s how I interpret it. According to Reich:

“A striking signal of steppe migration into the Southern Arc is evident in Armenia and northwest Iran where admixture with Yamnaya patrilineal descendants occurred, coinciding with their 3rd millennium BCE displacement from the steppe itself. This ancestry, pervasive across numerous sites of Armenia of ~2000-600 BCE, was diluted during the ensuing centuries to only a third of its peak value, making no further western inroads from there into any part of Anatolia, including the geographically adjacent Lake Van center of the Iron Age Kingdom of Urartu. The impermeability of Anatolia to exogenous migration contrasts with our finding that the Yamnaya had two distinct gene flows, both from West Asia, suggesting that the Indo-Anatolian language family originated in the eastern wing of the Southern Arc and that the steppe served only as a secondary staging area of Indo-European language dispersal.”

Here Reich mentions not 1, but 2 distinct Yamnaya gene flows from west Asia. I’m assuming this is somewhere around Armenia or NW Iran. This would enable Indo Anatolian, the first IE branch, to be born in the southern Arc and then move out on to the Steppe, where the wheel, wagon, and domesticated horse were invented. We have the traditional Yamnaya who date back to about 3300 BC (largely R-Z2103) but there is definitely another Yamnaya group who branched off earlier, perhaps around 4200BC or earlier, because it has been mentioned over at Eurogenes that they have a bunch of Yamnaya rich samples from SW Ukraine dated 4000BC. These would be likely connected to Suvorovo Novodanilovka, Cernavoda, and Usatovo groups (pre Yamnaya steppe groups that led the charge west across the steppe). Traditionally it was thought that these groups spread the Anatolian language complex to western Turkey via the Balkans. Perhaps some even older samples belonging to lineages found in the NW Black Sea region have been discovered just south of the Caucasus. In this way, we don’t need Proto Anatolian to wrap around the Black Sea via the steppe if it already originated near or in eastern Turkey.

Not saying I agree or disagree with any of this, but that’s my interpretation of the above passage. I’ve always been a proponent of Indo Anatolian forming either on the steppe or in the NW Caucasus and moving into western Turkey via the steppe and then the Balkans. So I’m very very interested to see these 731 new samples.

When Reich said the Yamnaya had two distinct gene flows, he didn't say the two were paternal, he could be referring (it is more probable) to a paternal and a maternal one (paternal: EHG, matetrnal: CHG/Iran_N). It is the maternal (CHG/Iran_N) that we find in Bronze Age Anatolia mixed with the indigenous one (Barcin_N).
Google "Genomic History of Neolithic to Bronze Age Anatolia, Northern Levant, and Southern Caucasus".

However, let's wait to see.
 
XUsM0SP.png
I think it is a problem to connect R1b Z2103 culture in Pontic steppe to south Caucasus. EHG R1b M73 was already found in Samara region. When Wang paper was published, we already discussed the archaeological paper that Pontic steppe people was not mobile enough to contact north Caucasus people. For example, steppe people buried wagons while Caucasus people bulls. Recent horse paper also proved that yamna people was not mobile at all. At mid-bronze age, wagon burial culture appeared at south Caucasus area. Scholar said that mound culture and copper technology originated from south. However, there are thousand and thousand mounds in north America. Moreover, I don’t think yamna copper metallurgy could be from Maycop, b/c Maycob people did not mine at all.

Scholar tries to focus on yamna sunhead and animal culture to be connected to indra, neglecting American indian culture of sunhead and totem animal culture. Supine and flexed leg burial in SS/ yamna, not in Caucasus, is very important to be a connecting point to another z2103 at afanasievo. This burial type was also found in Neolithic Baikal and American indian mound.

See z2103 burials. I think Catacomb culture cannot be directly connected to yamna even if their ydna and admixture is similar. Catacomb grave structure is similar to ancient Mexican tomb. Under current situation that we don't have any clue of even cimmerian origin 8 century B.C, I think we need a long time to get an origin of z2103 tribes.
shaftThumb-300x124.jpg

https://mexicounexplained.com/the-mysterious-shaft-tombs-of-western-mexico/

Depiction-of-the-range-of-shaft-tomb-forms-found-within-the-Atemajac-valley-Modified.png

https://www.researchgate.net/figure...afe-Ollas-Modified-from-Galvan_fig2_231753737


[h=1]Depiction of the range of shaft tomb forms found within the Atemajac valley. Modified from Galván 1991:224, Figure 1.[/h]

Placement-of-burials-in-the-mound-1-burial-of-ancient-pit-culture-2-burial-of.png




Placement of burials in the mound: 1 -burial of ancient pit culture, 2 -burial of catacomb culture, 3 -burial of log culture (A -buried soil, B -continental faults, C -early embankment, D -medium embankment, E -wood) (by A Z Vinnikov).

 
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Sorry, but the first bolded comment is so broad a generalization and such an overstatement that to address it adequately would take pages of examples and citations. This is not the thread for it.
I'll just say that if the merged societies were a template of Indo-European culture then they would all be pastoralist societies where people carted their belongings with them as they trundled from place to place with their herds of sheep and cows, they would have no metallurgy, no pottery, no female goddesses and their associated fertility rites and on and on.
Are there in these societies elements of steppe culture such as the lionization of warfare and conquest, the host-client relationships, the training of young males, parts of the religion? Yes, there are, but to say the template of the societies was completely Indo-European is a fallacy. Nor, I would point out, is the lionization of war and conquest unique to the Indo-Europeans. I think the Assyrians would have something to say about that.
Turning to the issue of language, yes, it's important to know the genesis of language, but it's largely a matter of intellectual interest for the specialized few. It's irrelevant to most people. Nor does it determine culture. The Amerindians of the New World had Indo-European languages imposed upon them. Do you think it was the language the "natives" and the mestizos of Mexico were forced to learn which made Mexico a basically European culture? It wasn't. It was the fact that Amerindians and Mestizos were herded into missions or haciendas and forced to learn farming, and indeed to accept the notion that land could be owned. I could go on and on with more examples. Immigrants to the U.S. from India, China, Africa, learn an Indo-European language. It doesn't make them Indo-European. I speak English with native fluency, but it isn't my "native" language, and speaking it most of the time and now even thinking in it most of the time doesn't make me English or give me an English cultural identity or personality. I still watch British film and television and marvel at the repression of emotion, the inability to express one's true thoughts and feelings to others, and on and on.
As to the Etruscans, and the position of women within their society, it's one of the reasons why Etruscan culture, and that of Minoan Crete, have been, since I can remember, my favorite ancient cultures.
Furthermore, in analyzing Roman culture one should be very aware of the fact many, many aspects of their culture which made Rome great were actually Etruscan in origin. Without the Etruscans there would have never been "the greatness which was Rome". Whole volumes and hundreds and hundreds of articles have been written on the subject. You should give them a read.
Now, I think it's time to put this to bed and go back to discussing the upcoming Reich paper on the Southern Arc.
Mesoamericans were Agriculturalists since 8000 BP. Most Native Mexicans lived in Cities or farmsteads in the 14th century.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenochtitlan
https://www.skyscrapercity.com/thre...f-mesoamerican-cities-and-structures.2078877/
Infact, Native Mexican help spread the Volumbian exchange
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange
I think you mixed up Native Mexicans with Spanish missionaries in the US SW or 19th century Anglo American BoIA agents in the Northern plains assimilation programs with Nomadic Northern Plains Natives (Arapaho, Chryenne, Sioux etc).
 
I think it is a problem to connect R1b Z2103 culture in Pontic steppe to south Caucasus. EHG R1b M73 was already found in Samara region. When Wang paper was published, we already discussed the archaeological paper that Pontic steppe people was not mobile enough to contact north Caucasus people. For example, steppe people buried wagons while Caucasus people bulls. Recent horse paper also proved that yamna people was not mobile at all. At mid-bronze age, wagon burial culture appeared at south Caucasus area. Scholar said that mound culture and copper technology originated from south. However, there are thousand and thousand mounds in north America. Moreover, I don’t think yamna copper metallurgy could be from Maycop, b/c Maycob people did not mine at all.

Scholar tries to focus on yamna sunhead and animal culture to be connected to indra, neglecting American indian culture of sunhead and totem animal culture. Supine and flexed leg burial in SS/ yamna, not in Caucasus, is very important to be a connecting point to another z2103 at afanasievo. This burial type was also found in Neolithic Baikal and American indian mound.

See z2103 burials. I think Catacomb culture cannot be directly connected to yamna even if their ydna and admixture is similar. Catacomb grave structure is similar to ancient Mexican tomb. Under current situation that we don't have any clue of even cimmerian origin 8 century B.C, I think we need a long time to get an origin of z2103 tribes.
shaftThumb-300x124.jpg

https://mexicounexplained.com/the-mysterious-shaft-tombs-of-western-mexico/

Placement-of-burials-in-the-mound-1-burial-of-ancient-pit-culture-2-burial-of.png




Placement of burials in the mound: 1 -burial of ancient pit culture, 2 -burial of catacomb culture, 3 -burial of log culture (A -buried soil, B -continental faults, C -early embankment, D -medium embankment, E -wood) (by A Z Vinnikov).


I don't have strong opinions about the dispersal of haplogroups from or to the steppe. Rather, my motivation to create the graphic was to demonstrate the non-steppe related CHG pulse into the Mediterranean.
 
The huge problem with circular argumentation-based approaches such as those just posted is that the myth of Romulus and Remus and the founding of Rome is first reported by authors who lived many centuries after the alleged founding (which contrasts in part with the archaeological record). Livy, Dionysius, Varro, Plutarch... It is most likely a story created a posteriori, the same creation that has added information that has no basis in fact, such as the arrival in Latium of the Trojan heroes Aeneas and Ascanius, introduced quite early into Latin mythology. More than 10 years ago some Italian archaeologists claimed to have found the Lupercal, a simple cave, under the house of Augustus on the Palatine, but there is absolutely no consensus among archaeologists. If the foundation of Rome is the Roman historicisation of the Indo-European creation myth, this may in fact have occurred later and reflect even recent influences.

Why is it circular?
 
Sorry, but the first bolded comment is so broad a generalization and such an overstatement that to address it adequately would take pages of examples and citations. This is not the thread for it.

I'll just say that if the merged societies were a template of Indo-European culture then they would all be pastoralist societies where people carted their belongings with them as they trundled from place to place with their herds of sheep and cows, they would have no metallurgy, no pottery, no female goddesses and their associated fertility rites and on and on.

Are there in these societies elements of steppe culture such as the lionization of warfare and conquest, the host-client relationships, the training of young males, parts of the religion? Yes, there are, but to say the template of the societies was completely Indo-European is a fallacy. Nor, I would point out, is the lionization of war and conquest unique to the Indo-Europeans. I think the Assyrians would have something to say about that.

Turning to the issue of language, yes, it's important to know the genesis of language, but it's largely a matter of intellectual interest for the specialized few. It's irrelevant to most people. Nor does it determine culture. The Amerindians of the New World had Indo-European languages imposed upon them. Do you think it was the language the "natives" and the mestizos of Mexico were forced to learn which made Mexico a basically European culture? It wasn't. It was the fact that Amerindians and Mestizos were herded into missions or haciendas and forced to learn farming, and indeed to accept the notion that land could be owned. I could go on and on with more examples. Immigrants to the U.S. from India, China, Africa, learn an Indo-European language. It doesn't make them Indo-European. I speak English with native fluency, but it isn't my "native" language, and speaking it most of the time and now even thinking in it most of the time doesn't make me English or give me an English cultural identity or personality. I still watch British film and television and marvel at the repression of emotion, the inability to express one's true thoughts and feelings to others, and on and on.

As to the Etruscans, and the position of women within their society, it's one of the reasons why Etruscan culture, and that of Minoan Crete, have been, since I can remember, my favorite ancient cultures.

Furthermore, in analyzing Roman culture one should be very aware of the fact many, many aspects of their culture which made Rome great were actually Etruscan in origin. Without the Etruscans there would have never been "the greatness which was Rome". Whole volumes and hundreds and hundreds of articles have been written on the subject. You should give them a read.

Now, I think it's time to put this to bed and go back to discussing the upcoming Reich paper on the Southern Arc.

Also, in regard to the Ancient Greeks, I'd propose they are more influenced by the farmers in terms of culture. Particularly given their primacy of the city-state/polis to their culture. This seems more like a natural evolution from a sedentary society, rather than a nomadic one. The primacy of being autochthonous which was important to the Greeks and Romans too is more becoming of a farmer society who had lived in the same place for many thousands of years. Rather than a nomadic invader lifestyle that promoted the rape and miscegenation with the conquered. It is also important to note that both the Greeks and Romans mostly are descended from local farming populations, with Steppe being about 25%-30% in Latins, and only about 15% max in Ancient Mycenaeans.
 
Sorry, but the first bolded comment is so broad a generalization and such an overstatement that to address it adequately would take pages of examples and citations. This is not the thread for it.

I'll just say that if the merged societies were a template of Indo-European culture then they would all be pastoralist societies where people carted their belongings with them as they trundled from place to place with their herds of sheep and cows, they would have no metallurgy, no pottery, no female goddesses and their associated fertility rites and on and on.

Are there in these societies elements of steppe culture such as the lionization of warfare and conquest, the host-client relationships, the training of young males, parts of the religion? Yes, there are, but to say the template of the societies was completely Indo-European is a fallacy. Nor, I would point out, is the lionization of war and conquest unique to the Indo-Europeans. I think the Assyrians would have something to say about that.

Turning to the issue of language, yes, it's important to know the genesis of language, but it's largely a matter of intellectual interest for the specialized few. It's irrelevant to most people. Nor does it determine culture. The Amerindians of the New World had Indo-European languages imposed upon them. Do you think it was the language the "natives" and the mestizos of Mexico were forced to learn which made Mexico a basically European culture? It wasn't. It was the fact that Amerindians and Mestizos were herded into missions or haciendas and forced to learn farming, and indeed to accept the notion that land could be owned. I could go on and on with more examples. Immigrants to the U.S. from India, China, Africa, learn an Indo-European language. It doesn't make them Indo-European. I speak English with native fluency, but it isn't my "native" language, and speaking it most of the time and now even thinking in it most of the time doesn't make me English or give me an English cultural identity or personality. I still watch British film and television and marvel at the repression of emotion, the inability to express one's true thoughts and feelings to others, and on and on.

As to the Etruscans, and the position of women within their society, it's one of the reasons why Etruscan culture, and that of Minoan Crete, have been, since I can remember, my favorite ancient cultures.

Furthermore, in analyzing Roman culture one should be very aware of the fact many, many aspects of their culture which made Rome great were actually Etruscan in origin. Without the Etruscans there would have never been "the greatness which was Rome". Whole volumes and hundreds and hundreds of articles have been written on the subject. You should give them a read.

Now, I think it's time to put this to bed and go back to discussing the upcoming Reich paper on the Southern Arc.

Minoan and Etruscan are my favorite ancient European cultures too. Regardless of language (at least as far as the Etruscans are concerned, Minoan language has not yet been deciphered) it was they who introduced civilized societies to Europe, without them there would not be Greek or Roman civilizations.
 
Minoan and Etruscan are my favorite ancient European cultures too. Regardless of language (at least as far as the Etruscans are concerned, Minoan language has not yet been deciphered) it was they who introduced civilized societies to Europe, without them there would not be Greek or Roman civilizations.

Nah there was civilisation in Europe thousands of years before then.
 
I'll just say that if the merged societies were a template of Indo-European culture then they would all be pastoralist societies where people carted their belongings with them as they trundled from place to place with their herds of sheep and cows, they would have no metallurgy, no pottery, no female goddesses and their associated fertility rites and on and on.
Societies don't have to focus on the same values all the time, you can be Yamnaya European and don't neccessarily follow that exact way of life.

Nor, I would point out, is the lionization of war and conquest unique to the Indo-Europeans. I think the Assyrians would have something to say about that.
I once saw a graph that said Assyrians are R1b. And also that they follow ancestral traditions that may be resemblant of Christianity. They're said to be lighter skinned.
 
Also, when the Germanic tribes took down Rome, and with it all its advancements, setting civilization back for hundreds of years

How you can say the barbarians took down Rome, what about all the people that lived in Imperial Rome???
The years of intellectual and physical indolence, as well as "progress" of the 2nd century and what THEIR CITIZENS (and people and slaves) did in the next centuries with the social cohesion of Rome...(III century crisis...)

By the way, I reccomend you this video.
https://youtu.be/okuRN1Wijlw
It says that the end of the Empire was mostly a formality, and the state of the city didn't change that much(taking into account it already was a declining Empire) until the destruction by the Byzantines during the Gothic Wars.
 
@Polska

Nice move trying to squeeze into that long post of yours the notion that the wheel was a Steppe invention.

Actually it was a Sumerian invention from Uruk.

The earliest evidence for wheeled vehicles is in Europe, the earliest of all in the area of the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture:

XY3uial.jpg



- Klimsha (2017), Wheeled vehicles

“The present evidence for early wheeled transport does not support the traditional belief in the oriental invention of wheel and wagon. Full-size wheels and axles from central and eastern Europe clearly pre-date the earliest wheels from the Near East, and the indirect evidence (models, depictions) does not allow for a temporal gradient indicating diffusion ex oriente. Two alternative hypotheses remain. Innovation could have happened roughly simultaneously, but independently, in several regions (the polycentric model). … Alternatively, there was only one innovation centre. Following Maran (2004b), the late Tripolye culture (around 3700-3500 BC) in the steppe area north-west of the Pontic Sea is the most likely candidate for inventing wheeled transport”

- Schier 2015, Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe, p.113
 
Assyrians have a lot of R1b lineages, mostly Z2103, like Iranians/South Caucasians/Iraqis.

Modern or ancient Assyrians?


Why is it circular?

Because in the premises it contains statements, on which the conclusions depend, that first should be proved.


Minoan and Etruscan are my favorite ancient European cultures too. Regardless of language (at least as far as the Etruscans are concerned, Minoan language has not yet been deciphered) it was they who introduced civilized societies to Europe, without them there would not be Greek or Roman civilizations.


In any case, there is a weak relationship between Etruscan and Minoan civilisation. As others have already written, the Etruscans emerged from a material culture that has parallels in the Urnfields of Central Europe (although DNA suggests that the prehistoric migrations that gave rise to the Etruscans were earlier and that those of the late Bronze Age had less impact). Certain Etruscan art is reminiscent of Minoan art only by chance of the Orientalisation (and the presence of so many Ionian Greek artists in Etruria in the Archaic period). Attempts to relate Etruscan to Minoan are considered inconclusive. It is true that in Etruscan civilisation women had a few more rights than in Greek or Roman civilisation, but archaeologists have repeatedly stressed that the Etruscans were still a patriarchal and warrior society.
 
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One problem with the scenario presented in the image is that for example we have genomes from Azerbaijan (almost in the center of the circle) and they do not seem to have affected Yamnaya. AZE_Caucasus_lowlands_LN has too little CHG, too much Iran_N and also has Natufian/PPN which is missing in Yamnaya.

Target: AZE_Caucasus_lowlands_LN
Distance: 4.1573% / 0.04157312
34.4 TUR_Boncuklu_N:ZHAG_BON004___BC_7950___Coverage_67.13%
25.4 GEO_CHG:KK1___BC_7728___Coverage_99.87%
22.4 IRN_Wezmeh_N:WC1___BC_7264___Coverage_99.82%
10.8 Levant_Natufian_contam:I1072___BC_10750___Coverage_38.21%
7.0 TUR_Boncuklu_N:ZMOJ_BON014___BC_7950___Coverage_45.31%

Target: Yamnaya_RUS_Samara
Distance: 5.9363% / 0.05936292
34.2 GEO_CHG:KK1___BC_7728___Coverage_99.87%
28.0 RUS_Sidelkino_HG:Sidelkino___BC_9371___Coverage_84.07%
25.0 UKR_Meso:I1763___BC_8131___Coverage_70.73%
5.8 RUS_AfontovaGora3:AfontovaGora3___BC_16086___Coverage_23.08%
3.6 IRN_Ganj_Dareh_N:I1954___BC_8212___Coverage_79.77%
3.4 TUR_Boncuklu_N:ZMOJ_BON014___BC_7950___Coverage_45.31%
 

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