Could R1b have moved from the Black Sea to Portugal to found the Beaker Culture ?

[Mikewww]

Something I find against the theory of the Beaker culture being Indo-European is their practice of megalithism. In Scandinavia and the North European Plain, megalithism was thriving during the non-IE Funnelbeaker Culture, but quickly died out with the arrival of the IE Corded Ware complex (it reappeared in the form of "ship burials" in the Iron Age, but that is obviously an unrelated phenomenon to the Neolithic megalithism). On the other hand, megalithism only died out in western Europe around the Late Bronze age, long after the end of the Beaker culture.

I'm not completely following your logic. When the Bell Beakers came into areas, all pre-existing cultures were not destroyed. They appeared to have been elite incomers, part of a wide ranging trade network.

Are you familiar with the Amesbury Archer? He's a Bell Beaker found right next to Stone Henge. In fact, he's called the "King of Stone Henge" but Stone Henge was built long, long before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amesbury_Archer

Stone Henge wasn't built by the Archer's ancestors. He's probably from the continent.

Research using oxygen isotope analysis in his tooth enamel suggests that the man may have originated from an alpine region of central Europe.

He's an interloper. If he was a smart trader and leader he wouldn't exterminate all of the prior traditions.

 

[Mikewww]

Just thinking out loud, but the Bell Beaker folks were a maritime bunch and that most would say are enigmatic. Another enigmatic bunch was whom the Egyptians called the Sea Peoples. Aren't some of those people thought to be from Lycia, the SW coast of modern Turkey?

There's approximately 1300 years between Beaker-Bell and the appearance of the Sea Peoples in the eastern Mediterranean. Of course it's tempting to speculative if there was a connection, but it's pretty unlikely for obvious reasons. Unless you take Sardinia into consideration and assume that the Sherdana, one of the Sea People ethnicities, indeed came from Sardinia. But, that's too much speculation for my taste.

Taranis, I don't understand your point. Please read the below articles.

Bell Beakers have now been radiocarbon dated to 2900 to 1800/1700 BC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_culture

The earliest ethnic group later considered among the Sea Peoples is believed to be attested in Egyptian hieroglyphics on the Byblos obelisk found in the Obelisk Temple at Byblos in modern day Lebanon. The inscription mentions kwkwn son of rwqq-( or kukun son of luqq), transliterated as Kukunnis, son of Lukka, "the Lycian". The date is given variously as 2000 or 1700 BC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples

Lycia was a region in Anatolia in what are now the provinces of Antalya and Muğla on the southern coast of Turkey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycia

The people that Egypt called "Sea Peoples" were around in Bronze Age times, like the Bell Beakers, who were also maritime oriented. I'm not trying to say that the Bell Beakers were descendants of the Sea Peoples, just that they may have had a common source.

The reference to Lycia may be key. If you follow the R1b ht35 project conversations you'll see that some of the oldest forms of R1b may be in the northern Near East and parts of Anatolia.

My point is speculative. I agree. That doesn't mean it is not valid or not true.

 

[Asturrulumbo]

I'm not completely following your logic. When the Bell Beakers came into areas, all pre-existing cultures were not destroyed. They appeared to have been elite incomers, part of a wide ranging trade network.

Are you familiar with the Amesbury Archer? He's a Bell Beaker found right next to Stone Henge. In fact, he's called the "King of Stone Henge" but Stone Henge was built long, long before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amesbury_Archer

Stone Henge wasn't built by the Archer's ancestors. He's probably from the continent.

He's an interloper. If he was a smart trader and leader he wouldn't exterminate all of the prior traditions.

What I mean is that, although I agree that there was a population movement, I don't think the movement was cultural or linguistic, or that the Beaker folk were ethnolinguistically homogeneous. I think that for example, while the Central European beakers were probably Indo-European (R1b), the Beaker groups of Iberia were probably non-IE.

 

[Mikewww]

Where did the ancient Eastern European P312 go? Offhand, I don't know of any evidence of ancient P312 in Eastern Europe (same with R1b-U106... and the R1b-P312 and R1b-U106 modals are very close, so we expect them to have arisen in about the same area).

We don't have much ancient evidence of R1b in Europe, period. I think 1000BC at the Lichenstein Cave is as a early as we have.

As far as P312 goes, Busby's study published this year has 9% frequency for Hungary and anywhere from 2% to 20% in different parts of Poland. Please keep in mind when you look at a P312 frequency map, there is usually is a scale much larger than shown typically side by side for other haplogroups. The high frequency of up to 75% in Ireland changes the scale of the graphics so relatively low frequencies seemingly disappear. In Busby's data, P312 is the same or greater in Poland than U106, and is greater in Hungary.

... At which point, Central Europe (probably post-Beaker) makes more sense to me as a launching point for R1b-L11+ in Europe.

I think it is possible that P312 and U106 arose in Central Europe. I don't know. However, STR diversity is much higher for R-L23* in SW Asia than in Europe so at some point the starting point for L11's phylogenetic trail was east.

Why would the R1b-L21 pick up and spread IE if R1b-Z196 didn't, and both represent the Beaker R1b's?

I don't think anyone is saying R-P312 was relegated to just Beaker movements. Who is saying Z196 didn't spread IE? We don't know what the first Z196 guys spoke, but it could easily have been IE.

Are the centers of diversity of R1b-L21 and R1b-Z196 actually in Iberia? (I have no clue, honestly).

Definitely not for L21. It has a light showing in Iberia and L21's highest diversity is in Northern France. Z196 has high frequency in Iberia, particularly since downstream SRY2627 is there, but Z196 is quite scattered going all the way up in to Scandinavia as L165 and North-South cluster and also east into Poland. I think our DNA project data is too limited to comment too much on Z196 diversity, but I wouldn't say it is highest in Iberia.

If we are talking about P312 origin, U152 may be the most important subclade. It easily has the highest diversity and is therefore probably oldest. It has high frequency in N. Italy, but highest diversity on the other side of the Alps in SE France. You will find U152 quite a ways east, Poland, Hungary and even Anatolia and among the Bashkirs.

 

[Maciamo]

Taranis pointed me to this paper, which raises new questions about the appearance of Indo-European culture, in this case the domestication of horses. All evidence so far was that horses were domesticated in the Eurasian steppes, somewhere between Ukraine and Kazakhstan, roughly 6000 years ago (so during the late Neolithic in that region). This paper (which I notice is already over 2 years old) basically says that modern horses of Iberian origin are directly descended from Neolithic and Bronze Age Iberian horses. If it was only Bronze Age horses that wouldn't be a problem, and indeed would be expected, since the Indo-Europeans are presumably the ones who introduced domesticated horses to Iberia in the Bronze Age. What doesn't fit is that the ancient DNA extracted from the horses from Neolithic Iberia apparently belonged to the same lineage as the Bronze Age ones. I see a few possible explanations :

1) An early migration of steppe people migrated across Europe soon after the domestication of horses, equipped only with Neolithic technologies. That would explain why Iberia has an usually high incidence of the "early" R1b-S116* subclade and developed unique R1b subclades like M153 and M167, which apparently didn't spread from Central Europe like the others but from Iberia. This explanation would also resolved the issues that I stated in the OP of this thread. It is the explanation that makes the most sense since the Bronze Age seems to have arrived fairly late in Iberia compared to the rest of Western Europe.

2) The steppe people only brought a few horses with them to Iberia and domesticated the local wild horses. This could have happened in parallel with the first hypothesis. One doesn't exclude the other. Wild horses lived all over Europe in the Palaeolithic and Neolithic, even though they were most common in the steppes. Unfortunately they didn't test the DNA of Palaeolithic Iberian horses, which is the only way to confirm or reject this hypothesis.

3) The ancient horse remains were misdated and were actually from the Western European Bronze Age period (even if not bronze artefacts was found on those very sites).

4) Horse domestication happened independently in Neolithic Iberia. Alternatively, horse domestication could have happened only once, in Iberia, and spread from there to the rest of the world. This is the most unlikely hypothesis at the moment.

 

[razyn]

I alluded to this last summer on the "Lack of G2a in Basque" thread, but didn't cite the source. Didier Vernade suggested that the original R1b entry into Iberia might have been by seafaring men (from farther east) who knew how to domesticate horses; and they proceeded to domesticate the local ones (notably what are now called Pottock ponies). This model might apply to your theory whether or not it happens to coincide with the R1b haplogroup. Here is one thread on which Didier posted it, last July 20th:

http://dna-forums.org/index.php?/to...-campaniforme/page__view__findpost__p__266688

Such a theory, if correct, could account for a cultural introduction of well advanced horse technology from much farther east without necessarily involving horse DNA from the steppes, the Danube, etc.

 

[MOESAN]

And aslong as I'm making an ars of myself,lol, with this pronunciacion hypothesis, here is some more. I don't know Basque and not much Spanish either, so I can judge these languages by sounds and melody only. When I heard Basque for first time I though they were speaking Spanish. I can easily distinguish Portuguese from Spanish though they are very related, but I have problem doing the same with Basque and Spanish, though they are completely unrelated. Why is that?
I think Celtic in large scale was imposed on non Celtic speaking Iberians, Aquitanians, who took vocabulary and grammar, but retain their native pronunciation. Pronunciation is still similar to original Iberian language therefore to Basque too.

1- The castillan spoken now in Spain as a whole is not representative of the previous latin dialects of the peninsula - castillan was spred vy the 'reconquista' on the Muslims of Spain, and the first nucleus around of this language was around Burgos in a region close to the present Basque country - the evolution F- >> H- is an Aquitanian one (see Gascon of Aquitaine) - so some common phonetic traits are not so surprising for basque and castillan Spanish -
2- the partial similarity shared by portugues and slavic languages can be found too in mountainous north occitan dialects of France (Auvergnat, North Languedocian) - even modern french (litterary and other dialects) have some similarities with slavic languages: it's based on the hissings and palatizings - and the catalan language have some similarities also (no so far) to portugues
3- I agree that celtic was imposed on non-celtic speaking populations -and they retained their local habits of pronunciation, as proved by the numerous diverse phonetic evolutions in the neo-latine languages that impose themselves in the lands where celtic had been spoken before -

 

[Taranis]

I alluded to this last summer on the "Lack of G2a in Basque" thread, but didn't cite the source. Didier Vernade suggested that the original R1b entry into Iberia might have been by seafaring men (from farther east) who knew how to domesticate horses; and they proceeded to domesticate the local ones (notably what are now called Pottock ponies). This model might apply to your theory whether or not it happens to coincide with the R1b haplogroup. Here is one thread on which Didier posted it, last July 20th:

http://dna-forums.org/index.php?/to...-campaniforme/page__view__findpost__p__266688

Such a theory, if correct, could account for a cultural introduction of well advanced horse technology from much farther east without necessarily involving horse DNA from the steppes, the Danube, etc.

An interesting fact is that the Basque language has a native word for horse ("zaldi"), and this would be compatible with Neolithic (or Chalcolithic) domesticated horses in Iberia. I must say, however, don't see why the Beaker-Bell Culture should have been speakers of Celtic languages. In my opinion it's too ancient and too widespread (notably spreading into North Africa, southeastern Iberia, Sardinia and southern Scandinavia) to be genuinely considered Celtic.

 

[MOESAN]

I take it as it is
firstable my thoughts for now, waiting more help from hazard:
B.B was traders but NOT ONLY traders: they seam have pushed sometimes ancient populations further in the inlands in Brittain, so they was not so pacific: neither a sort of rambling traders nor "exterminators" - suerley it was depending on their rapports of numbers
B.B. at the firsts time (Chalcolithic), coming from south Iberia or Eastern Europe, has a very well defined phenotype and every attempt to minimize that or even to make joke about metrics is of no worth: and this type was 'dinaric' , unknown before that in Western Europe - and for me the cradle of 'dinaric' is in S-E Europe, not in W-Europe (where metals were introduced through) - this type never took the majority in the Isles nor in France nor in Iberia, and with time he lost weight, on the contrary -
-I know the Y DNA can explode in density without correspond to a big flow of other genes in a population -but Y-R1b is the 'boss' in W-Europe and has not the 'dinaric' types - we can consider that this dinarics take on their account the transmission of a supposed S-W Iberia B.B. culture in areas of C and N-C Europe -
- But the dinarics had nothing to do in Western Europe and nevertheless they was the elite of people that occuped in a very short time coasts, rivers, moutains passes more as a part of a people that have its own decisions and agendas (prospection more than trade) and NOT a "dealers" population taking advantage of a S-W Iberian cultural eclosion - the center of his population was previously (I believe) betwen) in Bohem and Carpathes -
- THE PROBLEME OF HORSES is interesting: it appear that BB had horses (if I don't mistake) favouring quick movements -
Had the neolithic population of Spain horses?
-after that, what I think was an elite has accultured other people and lost it's previous genetic traits (except Y-DNA? but I believe their Y-DNA was Y-I2a2 (majority) and NOT Y-R1b...

the developpment of calcholithic in Spain seam have been an intrusion from the East (other phenotypes again: estern mediterraneans): Hellades ??? but the very beginning of it seam linked to dinarics types (they could have come as easy by Eastern Mediterranee as bu the Rhone valley : for instance from present Albania or Epire, come down from Donau bassin through Balkans?) - I have no response for now concerning the Y-DNA of the Eastern Mediterranean (various) phenotypes
hypothesis (one more): a neolithic well evolved population in South Iberia (producing the first beakers) with an accretion of metal workers (and so metal prospectors)from East who do this culture grow big and fast: these moving prospectors should have boosted the productions of the previous neolithic cultureand have helped to the propagation? thhat to explain the anteriority of the S-W potteries -

 

[MOESAN]

Really? I have a Basque friend and one from Barcelona, and i hear them exactly the same... Then again, maybe you develop a more expert ear for the different accents on the place one lives.

local accents had some value in the traditionnal Europe but we hear today young people from big towns linked by all sorts of media's and without any marked accent (or speaking with less numerous diverse accents) - so it's possible that aged people of different regions of Spain had very distinguishable accents previously even we don't hear them to often today... an acute accent could have been the mark of basque prononunciation some years ago yet, but I'm not a specialist on Spain local accents

 

[MOESAN]

Yes it is, but if it wasn't we wouldn't have all this fun here, hehe.

I don't think few clergy and civil workers can make a difference how language sounds. It might be the case that records of spoken language in spain are misleading. What I mean is that most records, from the past, of spoken language are from big cities where. This is the language of educated elite, which in spain case, was influenced a lot by germanic speaking tribes invading in middle ages. Mind that way back 90% people lived in villages. But the records how spanish was pronounced there are not existant.
Previous differences in f, v,b, j, might be of germanic way to speak spanish.
/.../
Here is a nice explanation about loss of sounds. What happens if english is imposed on Italians or French speakers? The sound H is dropped immediately, especially at the beginning of a word.
The sound shifts, the sound laws need big events to happen. People don't drop sounds or change them just because. Usually the big event is when two different languages are imposed on population, after invasion or migration for example. Make native Italians, Chinese, Indians, etc speak english and you will immediately see their local sound laws in action.

I agree as a whole, but :

germanic languages or people seam have had very light influence on spanish, castillan or other -
castillan :
V >> B /b/,/[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]β[/FONT]/ evolution found in France too (basque, gascon, languedoc → south auvergant + south limousin → Rhone valley eastward AND north corsican !
Ancient C /k/>>/tch/>>/sh/, J /y/>>/dj/,/zh/ gave /[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]χ[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]/ ? jota ? in castillan, close to germanic 'ch' – the Spanisuh court had the french or catalan pronounciation /sh/zh/ about the XV/XVI centuries as believe, turning into only /sh/ after, [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]but in the North Central of Spain I think the evolution → /[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]χ[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]/ was begun already[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] – in Western France we find a similar one : CH /sh/ >> /?h/ the palatal taking a more back position, between the germanic ichlaut '?' and a more low velar /[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]χ[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]/ - it took place in south Poitou, Aunis, Saintonge and Guyenne (P?rigord)-North Gascogne (Bordeaux surroundings) in a previous Wascon and territory & after the Aquitanian province - [/FONT]

F- > H- is an evolution we find in France in gascon dialect – it was pronounced /h/ or /[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]χ[/FONT]/ yet not long ago in N-E leones dialect (Cantabria) and N-W aragones -

S pronounced in various ways going closer to SH without influence of the phonetical environment – it 's /sh/ in basque -
when people learn a new language they very often simplify it (for there are some ? strange ? sounds for them) – they do stronger yet for grammar – articulation habits are very strong and can operate centuries after if the population don't change too much – there are based on collective habits for the most but maybe in some way to genetic heritage (contradicting the ? pure ? structuralists ?) - so in pronounciation things aren't always turning simpler : strange sounds can be dropped out but substrate evolution can work at last on the kept ones (even already transformed) according to the local habits -
here we can differenciate 'accent' and 'dialect' – accent plays on phonating execution of sounds when it don't change the PHONOLOGIC value or when this pronounciation don't create too much lexical confusion – it's the case with the various spanish 'S' and 'V'/'B'-
but when by instance we consider F >> H/- the learners take the new pronounciation as they learn it and will no more pronounce back F because this result: /h/ or /-/ is too far from /f/ in their mind – 'F' phonologically is very different from ? nothing ? or even /h/ - (etymology isn' t the favourite sport among folks) -
to go back to the topic, it's almost sure that a common factor played on basque language and castillan latin language (and S-W France romance languages), and the North Castile people passed NOT ALL ITS HABITS but gave some acquired deformations to the people of Central and South Spain when they swept the Muslims out (Reconquista) – Castillan dialects and others romance dialects of Iberia seam showing complicated crossed influences I find very uneasy to untangle – but Portugues differenciates very well from the region surroundings Vasconia and get closer to catalan and “normal” occitan spite of the distance -

 

[Maciamo]

An interesting fact is that the Basque language has a native word for horse ("zaldi"), and this would be compatible with Neolithic (or Chalcolithic) domesticated horses in Iberia.

Not necessarily. There were wild horses in Iberia (and indeed all over Europe) during the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. Thus there is no reason to believe that the pre-Neolithic ancestors of the Basques didn't have a name for the animal (that they almost certainly hunted and ate, like deer).

 

[Maciamo]

An interesting fact is that the Basque language has a native word for horse ("zaldi"), and this would be compatible with Neolithic (or Chalcolithic) domesticated horses in Iberia.

Not necessarily. There were wild horses in Iberia (and indeed all over Europe) during the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. Thus there is no reason to believe that the pre-Neolithic ancestors of the Basques didn't have a name for the animal (that they almost certainly hunted and ate, like deer).

 

[Segia2]

"F" was also absent in old celtic languages. Even some of them showed a tendence towards "betacism". It's undeniable that linguistic strata play a role on pronunciation, but basque language isn't excluded form this "rule".

F-H shift is also found in dialects of Calabria, Brescia and Romania.

In galician, asturian, leonese, navarro-aragonese (nota bene), catalan, valencian, and Extremadura dialects "f" isn't lost. Castilian is today the most spoken language in Spain, but the linguistic situation in the Middle Ages was different. It's not clear to atribute that shift in castilian exclusively to a basque substratum, but giving a basque substratum to the whole peninsula based on this is simply nosense.

 

[Segia2]

Not necessarily. There were wild horses in Iberia (and indeed all over Europe) during the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. Thus there is no reason to believe that the pre-Neolithic ancestors of the Basques didn't have a name for the animal (that they almost certainly hunted and ate, like deer).

And what about some basque-patronimical terms related to horse-riding and charriot technology?

 

[Maciamo]

And what about some basque-patronimical terms related to horse-riding and charriot technology?

Well, are they pre-Indo-European ? Could you provide some examples.

 

[Kardu]

Not necessarily. There were wild horses in Iberia (and indeed all over Europe) during the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. Thus there is no reason to believe that the pre-Neolithic ancestors of the Basques didn't have a name for the animal (that they almost certainly hunted and ate, like deer).

Good point. Just like the ancestors of Georgians who lived in immediate vicinity of proto-indoeuropean speakers be it Pontic steppes or Anatolia, but we still have our Kartvelian word for a horse - ცხენ-ი/tskhen-i. Indoeuropean root is attested only in a kids' rhyme, and as an encouraging shout of rider to his/her horse in a form of - Achu.

 

[MOESAN]

"F" was also absent in old celtic languages. Even some of them showed a tendence towards "betacism". It's undeniable that linguistic strata play a role on pronunciation, but basque language isn't excluded form this "rule".

F-H shift is also found in dialects of Calabria, Brescia and Romania.

In galician, asturian, leonese, navarro-aragonese (nota bene), catalan, valencian, and Extremadura dialects "f" isn't lost. Castilian is today the most spoken language in Spain, but the linguistic situation in the Middle Ages was different. It's not clear to atribute that shift in castilian exclusively to a basque substratum, but giving a basque substratum to the whole peninsula based on this is simply nosense.

Thanks for the treatment of F in italian dialects - i learn something here -
what is interesting is that the F>> H is not common in all Iberia but that was clear enough: what is interesting is that castillan begun the dominant dialect by the way of the 'Reconquista' in the center of Iberia, and after in the South, carried by North central Spanish men from the Basque country surroundings - I believe F- remainded inchanged in South, West and East during the muslim domination

 

[MOESAN]

"F" was also absent in old celtic languages. Even some of them showed a tendence towards "betacism". It's undeniable that linguistic strata play a role on pronunciation, but basque language isn't excluded form this "rule". F-H shift is also found in dialects of Calabria, Brescia and Romania. In galician, asturian, leonese, navarro-aragonese (nota bene), catalan, valencian, and Extremadura dialects "f" isn't lost. Castilian is today the most spoken language in Spain, but the linguistic situation in the Middle Ages was different. It's not clear to atribute that shift in castilian exclusively to a basque substratum, but giving a basque substratum to the whole peninsula based on this is simply nosense.

I come back, be carefull (but don't fear!) 1- for absence of F- in previous celtic, it seams to me that it don't prove anything about local tendancies because F- was almost or totally absent of first I-E (Taranis could tell us?) - in occident it seams being an italic evolution on I-E *BH-, *DH(W)- et *GwH- or late germanic evolution on I-E *P- my first post was not an attempt to affirm than all the Iberia peninisula languages and dialects have the same sbstrate: it was the contrary if you read the part concerning french and latin iberian dialects - again, but look at French Gascons and South Poitevins: partly old Aquitania... good evening

 

[Kardu]

Not exactly to the topic but we've just got results of a new member of our project and he has a rare R1b haplotype. He is a descendant of an old noble family (at least XIV century). According historiographical tradition they are a cadet branch of the first royal house of Georgia (4th century BC).
R1b project wasn't able to assign him a cluster so far, but haplotype comparison funny enough groups him with French and German. Surname: Javakhishvili.