The indo-europeanization of Yamnaya

[Balkanite]

Is there anyone until now who has proposed that the steppe people were indo-europeanized by the Cucuteni-trypilian culture before they entered Europe?
That would sure explain why the balkans doesn't have as much steppe input as northern europe, and why the balkans seem to have older branches of indo-european languages than northern europe.

What do people think? Could this have happened in your opinion?

After all, no one seems to be able to explain the archaic nature of greek and albanian (two peoples with minimal steppe input compared to northern europeans)

Or maybe indo-european was born out of a fusion between balkan farmers languages and ukranian steppe people languages?
After all, we can't seem to make proto-IE fit on any bigger tree(like afro-asiatic or something),so maybe it is plausible that is is a mix between two languages which as a start were on two different language trees.

 

[LeBrok]

I mentioned it few times:

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/31324-Where-did-proto-IE-language-start

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/31383-Indo-European-package

 

[MarkoZ]

It's not really a novel position (see for example Diakonoff and more recently Wiik), though if Lazaridis contention that Yamnaya has no European farmer input would make this rather unlikely. Granted languages can be transferred without significant gene flow, but conversely that could also have been the case for the Indo-Europeanization of the Balkans.

 

[Balkanite]

It's not really a novel position (see for example Diakonoff and more recently Wiik), though if Lazaridis contention that Yamnaya has no European farmer input would make this rather unlikely. Granted languages can be transferred without significant gene flow, but conversely that could also have been the case for the Indo-Europeanization of the Balkans.

Yes, but in the end it doesn't matter if yamnaya had farmer autosomal DNA. Because we really don't know if they spoke indo-european yet at that time. The peoples that speak IE today are all mix between different farmers and yamnaya it seems.

I don't know of any pure steppe DNA people of today who speak an indo-european language. They all seem to be finno-ugric or turkic.

 

[Balkanite]

Maybe some mix between finno/ugric and afroasiatic created a whole new language which would later form the indo-european language tree.

 

[Balkanite]

I mentioned it few times:

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/31324-Where-did-proto-IE-language-start

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/31383-Indo-European-package

Those are actually some very nice thoughts you have made on the subject.

 

[MarkoZ]

Yes, but in the end it doesn't matter if yamnaya had farmer autosomal DNA. Because we really don't know if they spoke indo-european yet at that time. The peoples that speak IE today are all mix between different farmers and yamnaya it seems.

I don't know of any pure steppe DNA people of today who speak an indo-european language. They all seem to be finno-ugric or turkic.

I think Lazaridis mentioned online that European WHG-EEF input in contemporary Indo-Iranian groups can be ruled out.

 

[Balkanite]

I think Lazaridis mentioned online that European WHG-EEF input in contemporary Indo-Iranian groups can be ruled out.

Yea okay i did not know that.
But they have some kind of other farmer input don't they? But maybe that is not related to cucuteni?

 

[MarkoZ]

Yea okay i did not know that.
But they have some kind of other farmer input don't they? But maybe that is not related to cucuteni?

Yes, their farmer ancestry is related to the ancient samples from highland West Asia. Unfortunately there are no genomes from farther east than Western - those might provide an even better fit.

 

[Balkanite]

Yes, their farmer ancestry is related to the ancient samples from highland West Asia. Unfortunately there are no genomes from farther east than Western - those might provide an even better fit.

Interesting. Seems theres a great chance that those farmers had a say too in the ethnogenesis of the first IE people then.
Do we know which haplogroups those west asian highlanders belonged to, or hasn't any intact y-chromosomal Dna been retrieved from them yet?

 

[MarkoZ]

Interesting. Seems theres a great chance that those farmers had a say too in the ethnogenesis of the first IE people then.
Do we know which haplogroups those west asian highlanders belonged to, or hasn't any intact y-chromosomal Dna been retrieved from them yet?

Good chance, but hardly good evidence. The same problem you mentioned regarding Uralic and Turkic exists in the south: aforementioned highland West Asian associated aDNA also peaks in speakers of the Caucasian isolates, Burushaski & perhaps Dravidian.

I believe J2a and P1 or something under it was found thus far.

 

[Balkanite]

Good chance, but hardly good evidence. The same problem you mentioned regarding Uralic and Turkic exists in the south: aforementioned highland West Asian associated aDNA also peaks in speakers of the Caucasian isolates, Burushaski & perhaps Dravidian.

I believe J2a and P1 or something under it was found thus far.

No of course not. I do not see it as evidence either, as i do not know very much about the caucasus region genetically.
But of course those west asian farmers could linguistically as well have been an language isolate sitting next to the other isolates.
But as we know, they either mixed with highly mobile steppe people, or were highly mobile themselves. And that would make them able to spread to far and wide so quickly, that even if the other isolates of west asia wanted to expand afterwards, it would be a problem for them.
But of course these are just speculations i am presenting. We have to wait for a lot more ancient DNA of the steppe, caucasus and southwestern asia before any conclusions can be favored or ruled out.