David Reich Southern Arc Paper Abstract

[Anfänger]

Lecture by Prof. David Reich - "The Genetic History of the Southern Arc: A Bridge between West Asia & Europe" - "The lecture will be held at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies at 11am on Tuesday, 12 July 2022."

"We present an integrative genetic history of the Southern Arc, an area divided geographically between West Asia and Europe, but which we define as spanning the culturally entangled regions of Anatolia and its neighbors, in both Europe (Aegean and the Balkans), and in West Asia (Cyprus, Armenia, the Levant, Iraq and Iran). We employ a new analytical framework to analyze genome-wide data at the individual level from a total of 1,320 ancient individuals, 731 of which are newly reported and address major gaps in the archaeogenetic record. We report the first ancient DNA from the world’s earliest farming cultures of southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia, as well as the first Neolithic period data from Cyprus and Armenia, and discover that it was admixture of Natufian-related ancestry from the Levant—mediated by Mesopotamian and Levantine farmers, and marked by at least two expansions associated with dispersal of pre-pottery and pottery cultures—that generated a pan-West Asian Neolithic continuum. Our comprehensive sampling shows that Anatolia received hardly any genetic input from Europe or the Eurasian steppe from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Age; this contrasts with Southeastern Europe and Armenia that were impacted by major gene flow from Yamnaya steppe pastoralists.

In the Balkans, we reveal a patchwork of Bronze Age populations with diverse proportions of steppe ancestry in the aftermath of the ~3000 BCE Yamnaya migrations, paralleling the linguistic diversity of Paleo-Balkan speakers. We provide insights into the Mycenaean period of the Aegean by documenting variation in the proportion of steppe ancestry (including some individuals who lack it altogether), and finding no evidence for systematic differences in steppe ancestry among social strata, such as those of the elite buried at the Palace of Nestor in Pylos.

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. The demographic significance of Anatolia on a Mediterranean-wide scale is further documented by our finding that following the Roman conquest, the Anatolian population remained stable and became the geographic source for much of the ancestry of Imperial Rome itself."



Link: https://iias.huji.ac.il/event/david-reich-lecture

[kingjohn]

Huge!!!!!!

Indeed should be interesting paper
When it will be published
Anyway
Davidski is a fighter is going to attack mode
Already even before the lecture

https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2022/...eople.html?m=1

[Palermo Trapani]

Lecture by Prof. David Reich - "The Genetic History of the Southern Arc: A Bridge between West Asia & Europe" - "The lecture will be held at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies at 11am on Tuesday, 12 July 2022."

"We present an integrative genetic history of the Southern Arc, an area divided geographically between West Asia and Europe, but which we define as spanning the culturally entangled regions of Anatolia and its neighbors, in both Europe (Aegean and the Balkans), and in West Asia (Cyprus, Armenia, the Levant, Iraq and Iran). We employ a new analytical framework to analyze genome-wide data at the individual level from a total of 1,320 ancient individuals, 731 of which are newly reported and address major gaps in the archaeogenetic record. We report the first ancient DNA from the world’s earliest farming cultures of southeastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia, as well as the first Neolithic period data from Cyprus and Armenia, and discover that it was admixture of Natufian-related ancestry from the Levant—mediated by Mesopotamian and Levantine farmers, and marked by at least two expansions associated with dispersal of pre-pottery and pottery cultures—that generated a pan-West Asian Neolithic continuum. Our comprehensive sampling shows that Anatolia received hardly any genetic input from Europe or the Eurasian steppe from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Age; this contrasts with Southeastern Europe and Armenia that were impacted by major gene flow from Yamnaya steppe pastoralists.

In the Balkans, we reveal a patchwork of Bronze Age populations with diverse proportions of steppe ancestry in the aftermath of the ~3000 BCE Yamnaya migrations, paralleling the linguistic diversity of Paleo-Balkan speakers. We provide insights into the Mycenaean period of the Aegean by documenting variation in the proportion of steppe ancestry (including some individuals who lack it altogether), and finding no evidence for systematic differences in steppe ancestry among social strata, such as those of the elite buried at the Palace of Nestor in Pylos.

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. The demographic significance of Anatolia on a Mediterranean-wide scale is further documented by our finding that following the Roman conquest, the Anatolian population remained stable and became the geographic source for much of the ancestry of Imperial Rome itself."



Link: https://iias.huji.ac.il/event/david-reich-lecture

Anfanger: Thanks for the the abstract. Wow as others have noted, this is going to be a really interesting paper using 1,320 ancient Genomes, 731 newly reported. Some questions I am "personally" interested in on different levels. 1) There is some ancient Mesopotamian Genomes. So, with these ancient individuals, hopefully some of them will be from the period around 3300-3000 BC to give us some insight on the Ancient Sumerians, since they are the first peoples with a written record/text and thus considered the first known civilization with writings dated as far back to 3,500 BC. So it is possible that this new paper will give us the first insight on what the genetics of the ancient Sumerians were. 2) The fact that there was no difference in Steppe ancestry among the elite and non-elite Myceneans. I remember when Lazaridis et al 2014 " Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans" was first published, the findings related to those 19 ancient Greeks were not well received by certain segments of the blogging and internet community. I personally get some "relatively" close distances from some of those ancient Greek samples and while I have a significant Steppe component, about 20.5% using Jovialis K8 model which I think is very accurate for modelling moderns who have 100% of their ancestry from what is today modern Italy, it is not my dominate component which is Minoan related per Jovialis K8 model (about 72%). The lack of Steppe ancestry in those ancient 19 Greek samples was attributed to the fact that it was likely the result of those 19 samples (the Mycenean ones in particular) being non-elite/commoners. This new Reich study seems to corroborate what Lazaridis et al 2014 found. I would think that the new Reich paper has a team of top notch researchers from a archeology to clearly identity the ancient individuals from elite and non-elite burial sites.

3) By extension, we don't see the Republican Romans having predominate Steppe ancestry either, they significant amounts yes (30-40%), but not majority, and Republican Romans do show some variation and approximate modern Mediterranean Europeans (Antonio et al 2019 Figure 1) ranging from Iberia to Southern France to Italy. For example, I am really close to R437 from Antonio et al 2019, the most Southern Italian Shifted Republican Roman. I saw some chatter among the Internet/blogging community similar to the chatter related to the Ancient Greeks regarding the Republican Romans reported in Antonio et al 2019 suggesting that the 11 Republicans might all be from among the non-elites.


Of course, there may be some who will argue that the lack of a significant difference between these new ancient genomes from Greece between elites and non-elites (related to Steppe ancestry) might not be the case in other archeological sites that have not yet been found or sites that have been dug but the samples have yet to be analyzed. That might be true, but the more evidence from ancient Genomes from ancient Greece that show no significant differences between ancient Greek elites and non-elites regarding Steppe ancestry makes it more and more likely that this is the case all over ancient Greece.

[Vallicanus]

Anfanger: Thanks for the the abstract. Wow as others have noted, this is going to be a really interesting paper using 1,320 ancient Genomes, 731 newly reported. Some questions I am "personally" interested in on different levels. 1) There is some ancient Mesopotamian Genomes. So, with these ancient individuals, hopefully some of them will be from the period around 3300-3000 BC to give us some insight on the Ancient Sumerians, since they are the first peoples with a written record/text and thus considered the first known civilization with writings dated as far back to 3,500 BC. So it is possible that this new paper will give us the first insight on what the genetics of the ancient Sumerians were. 2) The fact that there was no difference in Steppe ancestry among the elite and non-elite Myceneans. I remember when Lazaridis et al 2014 " Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans" was first published, the findings related to those 19 ancient Greeks were not well received by certain segments of the blogging and internet community. I personally get some "relatively" close distances from some of those ancient Greek samples and while I have a significant Steppe component, about 20.5% using Jovialis K8 model which I think is very accurate for modelling moderns who have 100% of their ancestry from what is today modern Italy, it is not my dominate component which is Minoan related per Jovialis K8 model (about 72%). The lack of Steppe ancestry in those ancient 19 Greek samples was attributed to the fact that it was likely the result of those 19 samples (the Mycenean ones in particular) being non-elite/commoners. This new Reich study seems to corroborate what Lazaridis et al 2014 found. I would think that the new Reich paper has a team of top notch researchers from a archeology to clearly identity the ancient individuals from elite and non-elite burial sites.

3) By extension, we don't see the Republican Romans having predominate Steppe ancestry either, they significant amounts yes (30-40%), but not majority, and Republican Romans do show some variation and approximate modern Mediterranean Europeans (Antonio et al 2019 Figure 1) ranging from Iberia to Southern France to Italy. For example, I am really close to R437 from Antonio et al 2019, the most Southern Italian Shifted Republican Roman. I saw some chatter among the Internet/blogging community similar to the chatter related to the Ancient Greeks regarding the Republican Romans reported in Antonio et al 2019 suggesting that the 11 Republicans might all be from among the non-elites.


Of course, there may be some who will argue that the lack of a significant difference between these new ancient genomes from Greece between elites and non-elites (related to Steppe ancestry) might not be the case in other archeological sites that have not yet been found or sites that have been dug but the samples have yet to be analyzed. That might be true, but the more evidence from ancient Genomes from ancient Greece that show no significant differences between ancient Greek elites and non-elites regarding Steppe ancestry makes it more and more likely that this is the case all over ancient Greece.

Any academic work that puts a stake through the heart of the Nordicist monster is OK by me.

[billyh]

“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.”

This argument does not seem to be good news for those who’ve invested so much emotional energy and time in the Steppe IE homeland theory.

Reich and his colleagues are the ones with “emotional investment” or more accurately, political investment in the destruction of the steppe hypothesis. As were those ages ago who propped up the Anatolian Hypothesis. CHG introgression happened long before Anatolian split from IA, and Anatolians in general were probably the most strongly assimilated group of Indo-Europeans, with most of their deities (at least among the Hittites) being non-IE. Anatolian likely came in from the west and moved east based on linguistic diversity, Steppe Y-Haplogroups are predominantly European which I would find very unlikely if their language wasn’t, and I’m pretty sure Minoans and Helladic Greeks who also received the CHG DNA injection were not indo-european speakers because the pre-Greek substrate exists (although I’m not sure about that). As far as I see, the simplest explanation would be the existence of all the other linguistic groups in and entering Anatolia.

Any academic work that puts a stake through the heart of the Nordicist monster is OK by me.

See what I mean? Obviously your first thought when seeing a paper shouldn’t be “I will accept this if it says group x is less close to Northern Europeans”

[Ralphie Boy]

Reich and his colleagues are the ones with “emotional investment” or more accurately, political investment in the destruction of the steppe hypothesis. As were those ages ago who propped up the Anatolian Hypothesis. CHG introgression happened long before Anatolian split from IA, and Anatolians in general were probably the most strongly assimilated group of Indo-Europeans, with most of their deities (at least among the Hittites) being non-IE. Anatolian likely came in from the west and moved east based on linguistic diversity, Steppe Y-Haplogroups are predominantly European which I would find very unlikely if their language wasn’t, and I’m pretty sure Minoans and Helladic Greeks who also received the CHG DNA injection were not indo-european speakers because the pre-Greek substrate exists (although I’m not sure about that). As far as I see, the simplest explanation would be the existence of all the other linguistic groups in and entering Anatolia.



See what I mean? Obviously your first thought when seeing a paper shouldn’t be “I will accept this if it says group x is less close to Northern Europeans”

Argument is too strong a word perhaps, the author is making a suggestion that IE started in the eastern “Southern Arc” (Iran or thereabout). Via incoming gene flow, IE gathered and spread later, from the Steppe. Looks like a major study, can’t wait to see it and the samples, whether they reinforce the suggestion or conclusion.

[Angela]

Anfanger: Thanks for the the abstract. Wow as others have noted, this is going to be a really interesting paper using 1,320 ancient Genomes, 731 newly reported. Some questions I am "personally" interested in on different levels. 1) There is some ancient Mesopotamian Genomes. So, with these ancient individuals, hopefully some of them will be from the period around 3300-3000 BC to give us some insight on the Ancient Sumerians, since they are the first peoples with a written record/text and thus considered the first known civilization with writings dated as far back to 3,500 BC. So it is possible that this new paper will give us the first insight on what the genetics of the ancient Sumerians were. 2) The fact that there was no difference in Steppe ancestry among the elite and non-elite Myceneans. I remember when Lazaridis et al 2014 " Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans" was first published, the findings related to those 19 ancient Greeks were not well received by certain segments of the blogging and internet community. I personally get some "relatively" close distances from some of those ancient Greek samples and while I have a significant Steppe component, about 20.5% using Jovialis K8 model which I think is very accurate for modelling moderns who have 100% of their ancestry from what is today modern Italy, it is not my dominate component which is Minoan related per Jovialis K8 model (about 72%). The lack of Steppe ancestry in those ancient 19 Greek samples was attributed to the fact that it was likely the result of those 19 samples (the Mycenean ones in particular) being non-elite/commoners. This new Reich study seems to corroborate what Lazaridis et al 2014 found. I would think that the new Reich paper has a team of top notch researchers from a archeology to clearly identity the ancient individuals from elite and non-elite burial sites.

3) By extension, we don't see the Republican Romans having predominate Steppe ancestry either, they significant amounts yes (30-40%), but not majority, and Republican Romans do show some variation and approximate modern Mediterranean Europeans (Antonio et al 2019 Figure 1) ranging from Iberia to Southern France to Italy. For example, I am really close to R437 from Antonio et al 2019, the most Southern Italian Shifted Republican Roman. I saw some chatter among the Internet/blogging community similar to the chatter related to the Ancient Greeks regarding the Republican Romans reported in Antonio et al 2019 suggesting that the 11 Republicans might all be from among the non-elites.


Of course, there may be some who will argue that the lack of a significant difference between these new ancient genomes from Greece between elites and non-elites (related to Steppe ancestry) might not be the case in other archeological sites that have not yet been found or sites that have been dug but the samples have yet to be analyzed. That might be true, but the more evidence from ancient Genomes from ancient Greece that show no significant differences between ancient Greek elites and non-elites regarding Steppe ancestry makes it more and more likely that this is the case all over ancient Greece.

Palermo, to the best of my recollection, the Mycenaean samples which Lazaridis analyzed did have steppe ancestry, ranging from 7% to some number in the teens. The problem was that a week before the paper came out Eurogenes went on record saying that the "ELITE" Mycenaeans would be just like Polish Corded Ware. When they clearly weren't, the fall back position was that they were commoners. In actuality, one of the samples was of an elite woman, and she also didn't have high percentages of steppe.

I've said for about ten years now that it was a mistake to expect the people in the Southern European countries to have the same kind of percentages of steppe as did those of northwestern, northern, central and eastern Europe. The farmers of Britain were almost wiped out, those in Central Europe had their numbers dwindle because of crop failures and the newly introduced plague. Much of northern Europe and eastern Europe were empty of settlers. The admixed steppe/farmer groups (almost 50% steppe), became the dominant group.

This was not the case in the south, which seems to always have been more densely populated. If the findings for Greece hold true elsewhere, it may have been that steppe men, in particular, filtered in, perhaps as mercenaries, perhaps as guards, etc. It's all speculation, but it does not seem to have been a folk migration taking the reins of power and subjugating the locals, as was the case, for example, with the Langobards.

At any rate, until we have the samples, it's difficult to be certain of anything.

I too, btw, can't wait to see what the Sumerians were like. From the clues in the article, they may have been high in Natufian, like Levant Neolithic.

Alas not.

[billyh]

Palermo, to the best of my recollection, the Mycenaean samples which Lazaridis analyzed did have steppe ancestry, ranging from 7% to some number in the teens. The problem was that a week before the paper came out Eurogenes went on record saying that the "ELITE" Mycenaeans would be just like Polish Corded Ware. When they clearly weren't, the fall back position was that they were commoners. In actuality, one of the samples was of an elite woman, and she also didn't have high percentages of steppe.

I've said for about ten years now that it was a mistake to expect the people in the Southern European countries to have the same kind of percentages of steppe as did those of northwestern, northern, central and eastern Europe. The farmers of Britain were almost wiped out, those in Central Europe had their numbers dwindle because of crop failures and the newly introduced plague. Much of northern Europe and eastern Europe were empty of settlers. The admixed steppe/farmer groups (almost 50% steppe), became the dominant group.

This was not the case in the south, which seems to always have been more densely populated. If the findings for Greece hold true elsewhere, it may have been that steppe men, in particular, filtered in, perhaps as mercenaries, perhaps as guards, etc. It's all speculation, but it does not seem to have been a folk migration taking the reins of power and subjugating the locals, as was the case, for example, with the Langobards.

At any rate, until we have the samples, it's difficult to be certain of anything.

I too, btw, can't wait to see what the Sumerians were like. From the clues in the article, they may have been high in Natufian, like Levant Neolithic.

Alas not.

A lot of people care taking what he said to mean “Every Mycenaean had the current profile” even though in the article says there was significant variation. This clearly means some people with no steppe, but it could also mean some people with much higher steppe than what we’ve seen. I’d also like to see the dating and location (north-south) of the samples, as maybe there’s a trend there

[Angela]

A lot of people care taking what he said to mean “Every Mycenaean had the current profile” even though in the article says there was significant variation. This clearly means some people with no steppe, but it could also mean some people with much higher steppe than what we’ve seen. I’d also like to see the dating and location (north-south) of the samples, as maybe there’s a trend there

Perhaps, but the important thing from my point of view is that it wasn't stratified by class, with those with more steppe being in the highest caste, etc.

That does seem to have been the case in India, although even there, the warrior caste has more steppe than the Brahmins if I remember correctly.

So, each area had, perhaps its own dyamics.

[Palermo Trapani]

A lot of people care taking what he said to mean “Every Mycenaean had the current profile” even though in the article says there was significant variation. This clearly means some people with no steppe, but it could also mean some people with much higher steppe than what we’ve seen. I’d also like to see the dating and location (north-south) of the samples, as maybe there’s a trend there

The Lazaradis et al 2014 paper indicates that the 4 Myceneans and the 10 Minoans were genetically similar (5 other ancients were in the paper). All had 3 major source populations, with Anatolian Early European Farmer DNA accounting for about 75% of the admixture, with CHG and Iran Neolithic also present and accounting for most of the remaining admixture (per abstract of paper). The Myceneans were the ones that had Steppe ancestry, ranging from 4% to 16%.

"The Minoans could be modelled as a mixture of the Anatolia Neolithic-related substratum with additional ‘eastern’ ancestry, but the other two groups had additional ancestry: the Mycenaeans had
approximately 4–16% ancestry from a ‘northern’ ultimate source related to the hunter–gatherers of eastern Europe and Siberia (Table 1), while the Bronze Age southwestern Anatolians may have had ~6% ancestry related to Neolithic Levantine populations. The elite Mycenaean individual from the ‘royal’ tomb at Peristeria in the western Peloponnese did not differ genetically from the other three Mycenaean individuals buried in common graves" [p.216].

[Palermo Trapani]

Palermo, to the best of my recollection, the Mycenaean samples which Lazaridis analyzed did have steppe ancestry, ranging from 7% to some number in the teens. The problem was that a week before the paper came out Eurogenes went on record saying that the "ELITE" Mycenaeans would be just like Polish Corded Ware. When they clearly weren't, the fall back position was that they were commoners. In actuality, one of the samples was of an elite woman, and she also didn't have high percentages of steppe.

I've said for about ten years now that it was a mistake to expect the people in the Southern European countries to have the same kind of percentages of steppe as did those of northwestern, northern, central and eastern Europe. The farmers of Britain were almost wiped out, those in Central Europe had their numbers dwindle because of crop failures and the newly introduced plague. Much of northern Europe and eastern Europe were empty of settlers. The admixed steppe/farmer groups (almost 50% steppe), became the dominant group.

This was not the case in the south, which seems to always have been more densely populated. If the findings for Greece hold true elsewhere, it may have been that steppe men, in particular, filtered in, perhaps as mercenaries, perhaps as guards, etc. It's all speculation, but it does not seem to have been a folk migration taking the reins of power and subjugating the locals, as was the case, for example, with the Langobards.

At any rate, until we have the samples, it's difficult to be certain of anything.

I too, btw, can't wait to see what the Sumerians were like. From the clues in the article, they may have been high in Natufian, like Levant Neolithic.

Alas not.

Angela, yes your memory is correct (it usually is). Yes, the Myceneans in the Laz et al 2014 paper were not high Steppe in admixture, which as you note some over at the Eurogenes blog (I have read some of the stuff there in the past) but other sites as well, based on comments I have seen here (Anthrogenica) and that I have read myself, attributed to the samples likely being from non-elites. Going by the new Reich research project and based on the abstract, I was admittedly drawn to the statement of the no significant difference in Steppe admixture between the elites and non-elites. However, you are correct 100% to be cautious. It could be these new Mycenean samples may have > Steppe admixture than the ones in the Lazaridis paper and still the differences between the Mycenean elites and non-elites are statistically not significant. So I sort of have a assumption built in that the Myceneans in this new Reich project have similar admixture as the ones in the Lazaradis et al 2014 paper, which of course might be an incorrect assumption.

So thanks again for suggesting caution on my part.

Yes, the ancient Mesopotamian samples is really going to be interesting. In fact, there has been some really interesting discussions here regarding them just recently, of which I think I chimed in with a few of my own thoughts.

[Angela]

Angela, yes your memory is correct (it usually is). Yes, the Myceneans in the Laz et al 2014 paper were not high Steppe in admixture, which as you note some over at the Eurogenes blog (I have read some of the stuff there in the past) but other sites as well, based on comments I have seen here (Anthrogenica) and that I have read myself, attributed to the samples likely being from non-elites. Going by the new Reich research project and based on the abstract, I was admittedly drawn to the statement of the no significant difference in Steppe admixture between the elites and non-elites. However, you are correct 100% to be cautious. It could be these new Mycenean samples may have > Steppe admixture than the ones in the Lazaridis paper and still the differences between the Mycenean elites and non-elites are statistically not significant. So I sort of have a assumption built in that the Myceneans in this new Reich project have similar admixture as the ones in the Lazaradis et al 2014 paper, which of course might be an incorrect assumption.

So thanks again for suggesting caution on my part.

Yes, the ancient Mesopotamian samples is really going to be interesting. In fact, there has been some really interesting discussions here regarding them just recently, of which I think I chimed in with a few of my own thoughts.

It will really be quite extraordinary if populations high in Natufian ancestry turn out not only to have "invented" farming, but writing, irrigation, and the first large city-states and empires, as well as monotheistic religions.

Yet Nazism held that a population believed to largely derive from those Levantines was "inferior", i.e. untermenchen, to those of "Aryan" Northern European ancestry heavy with steppe ancestry.

The ironies of history never, ever, end.

[real expert]

It will really be quite extraordinary if populations high in Natufian ancestry turn out not only to have "invented" farming, but writing, irrigation, and the first large city-states and empires, as well as monotheistic religions.............

I was suspecting Mesopotamians/Sumerians to turn out to be very rich in Iran Neo or Zagros farmer ancestry. But it is possible that Northern Mesopotamians were more Natufian-rich than Southerners. Who knows? Besides, it was long believed that Natufians were the first or oldest farmers. Nevertheless, according to more recent research, it seems that the Natufians were not the world’s oldest farmers.However, they were likely the earliest domesticators of dogs and other animals.

Upon closer inspection however, it is clear that the Natufians were not fully developed agriculturalists.It is true they domesticated and cultivated species of grass and cereal, but this was due to environmental shifts. Evidence from their social structure and anatomy suggest they practiced subsistence patterns other than only farming.

http://www.academia.edu/9358532/Natufians_A_proto_agriculturalist_society_from_th

No clear evidence that the Natufians cultivated or domesticated cereals in the Southern Levant Natufians were hunter-gatherers,not farmers…….

https://www.chegg.com/flashcards/natufians-and-agricultural-origins-in-the-east-4c2ff5ad-101d-4b40-800b-f3dc2bb66b42/deck

Anyway, the Middle East was one of the earliest cultural powerhouses.

[enter_tain]

Palermo, to the best of my recollection, the Mycenaean samples which Lazaridis analyzed did have steppe ancestry, ranging from 7% to some number in the teens. The problem was that a week before the paper came out Eurogenes went on record saying that the "ELITE" Mycenaeans would be just like Polish Corded Ware. When they clearly weren't, the fall back position was that they were commoners. In actuality, one of the samples was of an elite woman, and she also didn't have high percentages of steppe.

I've said for about ten years now that it was a mistake to expect the people in the Southern European countries to have the same kind of percentages of steppe as did those of northwestern, northern, central and eastern Europe. The farmers of Britain were almost wiped out, those in Central Europe had their numbers dwindle because of crop failures and the newly introduced plague. Much of northern Europe and eastern Europe were empty of settlers. The admixed steppe/farmer groups (almost 50% steppe), became the dominant group.

This was not the case in the south, which seems to always have been more densely populated. If the findings for Greece hold true elsewhere, it may have been that steppe men, in particular, filtered in, perhaps as mercenaries, perhaps as guards, etc. It's all speculation, but it does not seem to have been a folk migration taking the reins of power and subjugating the locals, as was the case, for example, with the Langobards.

At any rate, until we have the samples, it's difficult to be certain of anything.

I too, btw, can't wait to see what the Sumerians were like. From the clues in the article, they may have been high in Natufian, like Levant Neolithic.

Alas not.

Mercenaries don't change the languages/cultures of the native population. The population density thing is true, but it's because it happened in multiple waves and not one fell swoop.

From Y-DNA we can tell the EEF paternal lineages were almost completely wiped out, even in Southern Europe. The hope that J2B2/EV13 were farmer lineages has all but disappeared. Their TMRCA is in early Bronze Age just like other IE lineages, and they are entirely absent from EEF communities. We have hundreds, if not thousands, of samples so far from Neolithic Europe and even the "EV-13" in Spain turned out to be fake. So there is subjugation of the locals 100%. The only holdout that we know of were the Minoans, who eventually fell as well.

There is nothing new here however. You go to Central/South America and you see the same thing. In some places you have more European DNA, in some other more Native American DNA. But they all speak Spanish.

[peloponnesian]

From Y-DNA we can tell the EEF paternal lineages were almost completely wiped out, even in Southern Europe. The hope that J2B2/EV13 were farmer lineages has all but disappeared. Their TMRCA is in early Bronze Age just like other IE lineages, and they are entirely absent from EEF communities. We have hundreds, if not thousands, of samples so far from Neolithic Europe and even the "EV-13" in Spain turned out to be fake. So there is subjugation of the locals 100%. The only holdout that we know of were the Minoans, who eventually fell as well.

Where did E-L618 come from? Saying "E-V13 is a BA lineage" is a tautology, by default any lineage that exists today must have an ancestor lineage in the BA. Saying "E-V13 is an IE lineage" is also a tautology because by default every lineage that was present in most of BA Europe would have been part of an IE-speaking population. Not sure what you mean by Minoans but rest assured that J2a was a big player in ancient Greece. Or is J2a an "IE lineage" as well?

[bicicleur]

Where did E-L618 come from? Saying "E-V13 is a BA lineage" is a tautology, by default any lineage that exists today must have an ancestor lineage in the BA. Saying "E-V13 is an IE lineage" is also a tautology because by default every lineage that was present in most of BA Europe would have been part of an IE-speaking population. Not sure what you mean by Minoans but rest assured that J2a was a big player in ancient Greece. Or is J2a an "IE lineage" as well?

E-L618 was detected along the Croatian coast amongst Cardial Ware farmers.
E-V13 was confirmed in 7 ka Cardial Ware in Catalonia, but they were probably pré-E-V13, that is E-L618.

Some of these E-L618 Cardial Ware farmers were probably the ancestors of E-V13.

[Archetype0ne]

Where did E-L618 come from? Saying "E-V13 is a BA lineage" is a tautology, by default any lineage that exists today must have an ancestor lineage in the BA. Saying "E-V13 is an IE lineage" is also a tautology because by default every lineage that was present in most of BA Europe would have been part of an IE-speaking population. Not sure what you mean by Minoans but rest assured that J2a was a big player in ancient Greece. Or is J2a an "IE lineage" as well?

Particular J2a branches IMO do have connection to early IE, including in Myceneans(need to re-read that Lazaridis paper, since I might be miss-recalling). Others however could have been of non IE origin. So only autosomal, and wider timeframe studies such as this one can clear that up.

[bigsnake49]

Where did E-L618 come from? Saying "E-V13 is a BA lineage" is a tautology, by default any lineage that exists today must have an ancestor lineage in the BA. Saying "E-V13 is an IE lineage" is also a tautology because by default every lineage that was present in most of BA Europe would have been part of an IE-speaking population. Not sure what you mean by Minoans but rest assured that J2a was a big player in ancient Greece. Or is J2a an "IE lineage" as well?

G2a is also a big player in Ancient Greece and it's not IE.

[Jovialis]

Highly interested in hearing the lecture.

But what does this mean for Paleolithic Georgia samples?

[kingjohn]

A striking signal of steppe migration into the Southern Arc is evident in Armenia and northwest Iran where admixture with Yamnaya patrilineal descendants occurredcoinciding with their 3rd millennium BCE displacement from the steppe itself.
I think we are going to see some r1b-z2103
(The yamnaya r1b version if i am not wrong here)
In north west iran and armenian sites

P.s
Jovialis i hope there will be some leaks
About this lecture at least in twitter

[Ralphie Boy]

“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.”

This argument does not seem to be good news for those who’ve invested so much emotional energy and time in the Steppe IE homeland theory.

[real expert]

“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.”

This argument does not seem to be good news for those who’ve invested so much emotional energy and time in the Steppe IE homeland theory.

Well,Yamnaya had some EEF admixture and was part CHG, thus the reference to West Asia. Sometimes the abstract doesn't tell the whole story. We have to wait for the raw data.

Nothing is clear cut here and Eastern Europe as the PIE homeland still holds water and can't be written off yet.

[Angela]

I think it would behoove us to wait and see what the samples show.

[Jovialis]

"The demographic significance of Anatolia on a Mediterranean-wide scale is further documented by our finding that following the Roman conquest, the Anatolian population remained stable and became the geographic source for much of the ancestry of Imperial Rome itself."

Krause now knows where Reich thinks the Imperial era immigrants came from.

[torzio]

"The demographic significance of Anatolia on a Mediterranean-wide scale is further documented by our finding that following the Roman conquest, the Anatolian population remained stable and became the geographic source for much of the ancestry of Imperial Rome itself."
Krause now knows where Reich thinks the Imperial era immigrants came from.

I said long ago........that Republican Rome had nearly zero Anatolian/Middle East markers