The Genetic Origin of the Indo-Europeans

[Anglesqueville]

Hi Ffoucart! Nice to see you on GA!

[alanarchae]

Anatolian from the east makes zero sense.  First of all, there are zero proven migrations of Indo-European people through the Caucasus, while the Greeks, Thracians, and Albanians migrated west from the homeland and into the South Balkans, from where it is just a hop, skip, and a jump to Anatolia.  Unless it can be proven that Armenian is a descendant of Anatolian, I will always choose the western route.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Mate, like was mentioned before, we have IBD sharing between CLVs and Mesopotomian like samples. This means within generations CLVs mixed with Mesopotomians.

I see people keep mentioning this like a hypothesis. This is not a hypothesis. It's fact. The paper proved gene flow through the Caucasus. 

We also have R1b-V1636 there... That's a dead giveaway of steppe people going south.

Regarding "Mesopotamian" ancestry in these samples the authors state on page 208 of the supplement:

"In conclusion it is possible that the Çayönü-related ancestry in TUR_C_BA could reflect populations on
the path from southeastern Anatolia to central Anatolia and future studies may clarify if the admixture
occurred in the east of the Hittite area followed by migration of the admixed population, or in Central
Anatolia itself."

That is, they clarify that the admixture could have occurred already in Central Anatolia, meaning an eastern route is not necessarily implied. Interestingly, the authors fail to qualify300 their findings in a similar way in the main body of the paper.

Yes that’s the key question. Was that Cayonu signal present in central Anatolia  prior to the Anatolian speakers arriving? The problem in answering this question is that very little definite facts are absolutely fixed and it’s hard to assess. Many linguists point to the common ancestor of the recorded Anatolian languages being around 3000BC. So if they are right then either it hadn’t entered Anatolia before then or it remained fairly confined and experienced a huge setback before recovering c. 3000BC.

[alanarchae]

I wonder if one arrival in Anatolia the IEs retained a steppe pastoralist way of life for their first centuries there? Hence v low visibility of settlements. However it’s also worth noting that they may well have been isolated from the core IEs when the full blown mobile pastoralism utilising wagons developed. So we can’t assume they were quite as hyper mobile as Yamnaya. Prior to the life on wagons development, it’s likely most settlement and seasonal movement would have depended more on river valleys. The vast areas of steppe pasture between the rivers would have been less accessible to groups prior to the development of wagons. It could be that the Anatolians retained more a pre-yamnaya steppe model.

On the other hand, it is far from impossible that they did know wheeled transport prior to entering Anatolia as several non IE groups west of the steppes did seem to have that knowledge and the Anatolians could have learjed about it from them rather than from Yamnaya. If you favour the eastern entry then you have early knowledge of the wheel in Maykop too. Just because they didn’t learn of the wheel directly from core IEs/Yamnaya doesn’t mean they had t already learned of the wheel from non IEs by 3300BC/prior to entering Anatolia, There were non IEs who knew the wheel on both routes to Anatolia. Perhaps why they didn’t get their wheel vocab from core IEs?west of the steppes shows a strong

And regardless, I still think it’s clear that pre Yamnaya Stog groups were capable of long distance migration and also running extremely long distance exchange networks. Id also imagine that even if you could use Wagons to access the pastures between the rivers, that would surely always be second best option to having control of river valleys with seasonal flood pastures etc. You only have to use the wagon system to access deep into the interfluvial pastures if you don’t have enough/control of enough riverine pastures. I bet they still had a preference for river valleys. Cattle in particular are thirsty animals and having to carry water for cattle would have been possible but not ideal. Even the distribution of Yamnaya overspill west of the steppes shows a big preference for river floodplains.

My guess (and that is all it is) is that the earliest IEs in Anatolia would have first tried to get hold of the rivers and perhaps used dry interfluvial areas mostly as exchange routes. One of the downsides of cultures that liked floodplains is how very deep their settlement remains can end up buried under layers of alluvium.

[alanarchae]

Having done a chunk of reading into the archaeology of Turkey in the c.3500-2000BC era over the last few days (and some from linguists) I still strongly favour a western entry by the Anatolian IEs. The evidence is very poor or we wouldn’t all still be debating it but there is now clear evidence of sudden great number of NE Balkans connected Kurgans in the Istanbul area from c3300BC or so and this coincides with a time where normal settlement disappears in that Turkish Thrace area. Indeed settlement levels drastically drop for a few centuries in west and central Turkey at this time and when settlement revived its different in location - more elevated and less floodplain. Although negative evidence of drop in population and disruption isn’t the safest to posit migration on, the fact that the build up of Kurgans in Turkish Thrace, the drop in settlement numbers and the estimated TMRCA of the known Anatolian languages all fall into that era around 3300-2900BC collectively create a coherent western entry scenario IMO. I’ll wait and see what abcirvt DNA tells us when the sampling is a lot better. By the way i’m not arguing their was no trickle of steppe DNA via movements from the Caucasus -there v likely was. I just doubt it’s the origin of the Anatolian IE speaking groups that we know about,

[targaryen]

Having done a chunk of reading into the archaeology of Turkey in the c.3500-2000BC era  over the last few days (and some from linguists) I still strongly favour a western entry by the Anatolian IEs. The evidence is very poor or we wouldn’t all still be debating it but there is now clear evidence of sudden great number of NE Balkans connected Kurgans in the Istanbul area from c3300BC or so and this coincides with a time where normal settlement disappears in that Turkish Thrace area. Indeed settlement levels drastically drop for a few centuries in west and central Turkey at this time and when settlement revived its different in location - more elevated and less floodplain. Although negative evidence of drop in population and disruption isn’t the safest to posit migration on, the fact that the build up of Kurgans in Turkish Thrace, the drop in settlement numbers and the estimated TMRCA of the known Anatolian languages all fall into that era around 3300-2900BC collectively create a coherent western entry scenario IMO. I’ll wait and see what abcirvt DNA tells us when the sampling is a lot better.  By the way i’m not arguing their was no trickle of steppe DNA via movements from the Caucasus -there v likely was. I just doubt it’s the origin of the Anatolian IE speaking groups that we know about,

Kurgans are Yamnaya... Anatolian is pre-Yamnaya by at least 1000 years. You might have some primitive form of it, but that wasn't a defining a characteristic of Proto-Anatolians.

[Ffoucart]

Kurgans are Yamnaya... Anatolian is pre-Yamnaya by at least 1000 years. You might have some primitive form of it, but that wasn't a defining a characteristic of Proto-Anatolians.

No, Kurgans are not Yamna. Pit graves/Kurgan are not specific of Yamna.

Among others, it is also a common practice for Cernavoda, an early steppe expansion in the Balkans, and very likely ancestors of the Anatolian branch of PIE.

Finding kurgans before and around 3000 BC in Thrace and around the Bosphorus is pointing to the Proto-Anatolians very clearly.

BTW you don't seem to understand that linguistic split is not equal to arrival in Anatolia (confusion is also made by others). 1000 years is a rough estimate and there is no real difficulty here. Cernavoda is dated from 4000 to 3200, and Yamna from 3200 to 2500. One possibility is that Yamna "pushed" Proto Anatolians (Cernavoda) in Anatolia.

[alanarchae]

Kurgans are Yamnaya... Anatolian is pre-Yamnaya by at least 1000 years. You might have some primitive form of it, but that wasn't a defining a characteristic of Proto-Anatolians.

No, Kurgans are not Yamna. Pit graves/Kurgan are not specific of Yamna.

Among others, it is also a common practice for Cernavoda, an early steppe expansion in the Balkans, and very likely ancestors of the Anatolian branch of PIE.

Finding kurgans before and around 3000 BC in Thrace and around the Bosphorus is pointing to the Proto-Anatolians very clearly.

BTW you don't seem to understand that linguistic split is not equal to arrival in Anatolia (confusion is also made by others). 1000 years is a rough estimate and there is no real difficulty he is dated from 4000 to 3200, and Yamna from 3200 to 2500. One possibility is that Yamna "pushed" Proto Anatolians (Cernavoda) in Anatolia.

yes the split of ancestral core IE and the ancestor of Anatolian is much older than the TMRCA of the known Anatolian languages. Likely 500-1000 years older. It seems v likely to me that is because there was a wave into the Balkans in the later 4000s. It seems likely to me that these pre Yamnaya (likely genetically diluted) groups were isolated there from the development core IEs given the many many centuries between that early wave and yamnaya pushing west into the Balkans c.3000BC. That the kurgans in east Thrace date back as early as 3300BC and only seem to have been built there for a couple of centuries suggests to me that they migrated south in 3?steps - from the Dnieper area to north-east Balkans c.4000BC then into Turkish Thrace from there about 3300BC and into Anatolia around 3000BC when’re  the linguistic MRCA is placed. It is possible that the arrival of Yamnaya in the Balkans c. 3000BC did create the final shove or domino effect that pushed them into Anatolia proper. Also if environmental factors were behind Yamnaya’s big push west c.3000BC then it’s possible the same environmental issue at that time was a push factor for the older kurgan builders in Turkish Thrace too because it is also endemic steppe. 

As for the lack of archaeological traces of invading Anatolians in Anatolia proper, we would do well to recall that a fairly large number of Kurgans now known in Turkish Thrace were totally unknown a decade ago and were buried under urban development. The issue of most archaeology being buried under urban development is well known in western Anatolia. 

For me there are too many things that fit well a western entry c.3000BC to be coincidence. And I accept there may have been some gene flow by an eastern route too but there is just not that alignment of different strands of evidence that the western route has IMO.

[Gabru77]

It's clear that the Anatolian branch is not from Pontic-Caspian Steppe whether the Balkan or the Caucasus route

[Gabru77]

The "CLV" people have their linguistic origins in the Early Aratashan-Aknashen Culture of "South of Caucasus"

Target: RUS_Progress-Vonyuchka_LN
P-Value: 0.246
37.6±3.1 RUS_Samara_Meso
24.3±4.3 ARM_Aknashen_LN
23.6±4.0 GEO_Kotias_Klde_Meso
14.5±2.9 RUS_Tyumen_HG

https://pastebin.com/4Si4Zmtn

> right = c('Mbuti', 'LUX_Loschbour', 'RUS_Karelia_HG', 'TUR_Pinarbasi_Epipaleolithic', 'JOR_PPNB', 'RUS_MA1', 'GEO_Satsurblia_HG', 'SRB_Iron_Gates_Meso', 'RUS_Shamanka_En, 'IRQ_PPNA_high_res')

[alanarchae]

It's clear that the Anatolian branch is not from Pontic-Caspian Steppe whether the Balkan or the Caucasus route

The Anatolian languages of Turkey only ha a TMRCA of c. 3000BC according to most linguists. So there is no reason to try and place them in Anatolia before that.

[targaryen]

Kurgans are Yamnaya... Anatolian is pre-Yamnaya by at least 1000 years. You might have some primitive form of it, but that wasn't a defining a characteristic of Proto-Anatolians.

No, Kurgans are not Yamna. Pit graves/Kurgan are not specific of Yamna.

Among others, it is also a common practice for Cernavoda, an early steppe expansion in the Balkans, and very likely ancestors of the Anatolian branch of PIE.

Finding kurgans before and around 3000 BC in Thrace and around the Bosphorus is pointing to the Proto-Anatolians very clearly.

BTW you don't seem to understand that linguistic split is not equal to arrival in Anatolia (confusion is also made by others). 1000 years is a rough estimate and there is no real difficulty here. Cernavoda is dated from 4000 to 3200, and Yamna from 3200 to 2500. One possibility is that Yamna "pushed" Proto Anatolians (Cernavoda) in Anatolia.

Yamnaya literally means "Pit Grave". If this type of burial was not distinctive to them, they would not use that name. And the earliest types are in the CLV region.

And please don't lecture me about linguistics, as I've held the belief that Proto-Anatolians lived next to Yamnaya for a long time as a parallel population. I never said they were in Anatolia in 4500 BC.

[Jaska]

For me there are too many things that fit well a western entry c.3000BC to be coincidence. And I accept there may have been some gene flow by an eastern route too but there is just not that alignment of different strands of evidence that the western route has IMO.

True, it seems possible. But cautiousness is still needed: just like the eastern gene flow is not necessarily related to the spread of the Anatolian language via the eastern route, the western cultural influence is not necessarily related to the spread of the Anatolian language via the western route. Both are possible scenarios, but neither factor can be tied to the Anatolian language beyond doubt. When there appear more than one equally possible match, there is no need to choose between them. It is better to wait for possible conclusive evidence, which can only be linguistic. We will never be able to see the language directly from the material culture or from the DNA.

[Jaska]

The "CLV" people have their linguistic origins in the Early Aratashan-Aknashen Culture of "South of Caucasus"

Target: RUS_Progress-Vonyuchka_LN
P-Value: 0.246
37.6±3.1 RUS_Samara_Meso
24.3±4.3 ARM_Aknashen_LN
23.6±4.0 GEO_Kotias_Klde_Meso
14.5±2.9 RUS_Tyumen_HG

https://pastebin.com/4Si4Zmtn

> right = c('Mbuti', 'LUX_Loschbour', 'RUS_Karelia_HG', 'TUR_Pinarbasi_Epipaleolithic', 'JOR_PPNB', 'RUS_MA1',  'GEO_Satsurblia_HG', 'SRB_Iron_Gates_Meso', 'RUS_Shamanka_En, 'IRQ_PPNA_high_res')

First, you cannot claim that, because we have no reliable method for seeing the language from the DNA.
Second, why did you just pick up the second largest ancestry and not the largest?

[Jaska]

Yamnaya literally means "Pit Grave". If this type of burial was not distinctive to them, they would not use that name.

No, the logic does not go like that. Naming the culture also depends on in which order cultures have been found and named and how well they were known at the time. The Yamnaya grave developed from earlier grave types, the pit and the mound being present already in the Samara Culture:

"The graves found are shallow pits for single individuals, but two or three individuals might be placed there. Some of the graves are covered with a stone cairn or a low earthen mound, the very first predecessor of the kurgan."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samara_culture

[targaryen]

Yamnaya literally means "Pit Grave". If this type of burial was not distinctive to them, they would not use that name.

No, the logic does not go like that. Naming the culture also depends on in which order cultures have been found and named and how well they were known at the time. The Yamnaya grave developed from earlier grave types, the pit and the mound being present already in the Samara Culture:

"The graves found are shallow pits for single individuals, but two or three individuals might be placed there. Some of the graves are covered with a stone cairn or a low earthen mound, the very first predecessor of the kurgan."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samara_culture

Yes, the logic goes exactly like that. Cultures are named so for a certain reason. Corded Ware is named Corded Ware because they found Corded Ware.