Can we please bring these discussions somewhat back on topic?
Holderlin: Samara burials are Kurgans
Maykop "Kurgans" do not predate those on the steppe.
Everyone. This is false. Yet for some reason people prate it on these forums as if it's a widely accepted consensus. Again, it is quite false. Please stop saying it
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It all depends how you define a kurgan, doesn't it, and what kind of testing you use?
https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/view/16087
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2014/12/pit-grave-yamnaya-kurgans-are-as-old-as.html
The analysis of the paper is incorrect. The correct interpretation can be found in the comments section.
For the opposite point of view, that every "elite" burial, even if it's just a hole dug in a hill is a kurgan, see:
https://www.academia.edu/1870168/Ra...n_de_l_Orient_et_la_Méditerranée_Lyon_293-306
Tomenable: I'm not sure why do you consider Yamnaya as the "original Indoeuropeans". That culture was not the first stage of PIE, but the last one
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This isn't the first time we've discussed this issue. It all depends on how you are defining the term "Indo-Europeans", doesn't it? I was talking about the "Indo-European" culture which developed on the steppe per Anthony and Mallory in the period from about 4200 BC to 3000 BC. after they had adopted animal herding, agriculture, copper metallurgy etc. as the lexicon of their language would indicate.
The people to the north of them, who developed into the Corded Ware people, were not "Indo-Europeans" in that cultural sense even if they were related to them genetically. Certainly the forest steppe people didn't possess any of the hallmarks of that culture.
If you push the definition back in time to include fisher hunters living in some yurt or cave without any of those developments then the term loses all meaning, in my opinion.
These hunters contributed their genes to the "Indo-Europeans", but they were not yet Indo-Europeans. At least that's how I see it.
I also must ask, have you lost your sense of irony, Tomenable? All of your many posts could be interpreted to be an attempt to prove that the Indo-Europeans were "pure" EHG whose closest living descendants, and therefore the inheritors of their "glory", such as it is, are the Balto-Slavs. Of course, there's that bothersome "teal" component, but apparently if it was acquired through wife stealing it's acceptable, but if some R1b "teal" men brought it, it's not. Do I have that right?
Perhaps it would be more correct to say that a lot of people interested in and discussing this topic are influenced by some sort of "ethnic" agenda.
More worrisome for me is the fact that posters seem to be claiming as an authority on matters anthropological a notorious racist of who knows what academic background, if any, (is he in prison, btw?) and proudly claiming as well an eight year long association with him. Really? How disappointing.