Quote:Was The Indian Sub-Continent The Original Genetic Homeland Of The Europeans?

Subhash Kak



16 Jan, 2016 12 Comments Ideas editor's pick / Indic Languages



[...]



The beginnings of this story go back to September 1991. Two tourists found the body of a person, now named Ötzi the Iceman, frozen at 10,000 feet on the Alps near the Austria-Italy border. A variety of medical tests showed that he died around 3300 BC. This is the oldest known natural human mummy in Europe that has provided much information on Chalcolithic (Copper and Bronze Age) Europeans.



DNA tests have shown that the Iceman has living relatives in Austria. Microevolution, as in the mutations of the mitochondrial DNA (inherited from the mother) and the Y chromosome (inherited from the father), makes it possible to trace and connect populations across time and region. When the random mutations are calibrated one has a genetic clock.



Other studies can complement the DNA evidence. Thus, even without historical evidence related to the spread of the potato plant, a scientist can deduce the Andean origin of the plant from the fact that there exist many varieties of it in Peru and just a few lines in Asia, Europe, and Africa.



Pathogens with distinct phylogeographic pattern can also be used to reconstruct recent and ancient human migrations. Researchers at the European Academy of Bolzano (EURAC) thought of doing so and they picked on the stomach bacterium ‘Helicobacter pylori’, which is found in all human populations, with two major strains that are Asian and African. The modern Europeans have ‘H. pylori’ that is a hybrid between Asian and African bacteria.



In research published in the 8 January, 2016 issue of the Science Magazine, the EURAC authors announced that the Iceman’s stomach has ‘H. pylori’ that is of Indian origin (but now extinct) and not related to the hybrid variety of the modern European “admixture.” This means that Indians as migrants were present in Europe in 3300 BC.



This is the earliest example of a pattern that has been repeated in history many a time. We have Mitanni kings with Sanskrit names who ruled in Syria for centuries in the second millennium BC. The Gundestrup cauldron found in a peat bog in Denmark and estimated to have been made about 2000 years ago has images of Indian deities on it (including, most strikingly, that of a goddess worshiped by two elephants, Gajalakshmi), and thus may have been done by craftsmen of Indian origin, perhaps in Thrace. Trade between India and the West has been traced back to the third millennium BC. Such continuing interaction must have led to diffusion of art and culture.



Now let’s go back to DNA evidence harnessed to reconstruct ancient migrations. An extensive genetic study of today’s Europeans, which was published in June 2015 by the journal Nature, shows that they descend from three groups. First of these are the hunter-gatherers who arrived about 45,000 years ago and then came farmers from the Near East about 8,000 years ago. Finally, nomadic sheepherders from western Russia, called the Yamnaya, arrived about 4,500 years ago. The authors of the study suggest that the Yamnaya language most likely gave rise to many of the languages spoken in Europe today. Apparently, Yamnaya were speakers of a Sanskritic (Indo-European) language, and the wave that came in 8,000 years ago might also have been Indo-European.



The Iceman findings appear to corroborate this study as well as the work of Stephen Oppenheimer, who in his book The Real Eve, synthesized the available genetic evidence together with climatology and archeology with conclusions which have bearing on the debate about the post-migration population of India.



Much of Oppenheimer’s theory is based on mitochondrial DNA, [...]

Quote:He who wishes, 'May a fair-complexioned [shuklaH] son be born to me, who will be versed in one Veda and attain full longevity', should have rice cooked in....



He who wishes, 'May a son be born to me with a tawny [kapilaH] or brown [pi~NgalaH] complexion, who will be versed in two Vedas and attain full longevity', should have rice cooked in....



He who wishes, 'May a son be born to me with a dark [shyAmaH] complexion and red eyes, who will be versed in three Vedas and attain full longevity', should have rice cooked in....



He who wishes, 'May a daughter be born to me, who will be a scholar and attain full longevity', should have rice and...



He who wishes, 'May a son be born to me, who will be a reputed scholar, attend assemblies, speak words that one likes to hear, be versed in all the Vedas and attain full longevity', should have rice cooked with... [Note, IndiaFacts concealed an important detail regarding this one - important to the very topic they were discussing. Question remains: Why did they so?]



(bRihadAraNyaka upaniShad, 6.4.14 - 6.4.18)

Quote:Giacomo Benedetti

[...]

About the Europe/Asia topic, the Kurgan area is normally defined as Eastern Europe, and Kuzmina and Mallory for instance insist on the white phenotype of the Kurgan people and they even try to demonstrate that this was the phenotype of the 'original' Indo-Iranians.

Quote:Saturday, 2 February 2013

Indo-Iranians: new perspectives

(Giacomo Benedetti)



There are some strange and quite funny ideas in the 'orthodox' academic theory about Indo-Europeans and Indo-Iranians. One of these is the idea that Indo-Iranians arrived from the steppes with their horses, substituting the local millenarian civilizations in a mysterious way, imposing a new Indo-European pantheon... If we compare the situation of the Hittites in Anatolia, where they are almost absorbed by the local Hattic and Hurrian and Mesopotamian religions, with many gods with non-Indo-European names, we should be amazed by the strength of Indo-Aryan culture in avoiding any contamination with local Dravidian or Munda gods... It is true that Åšiva is regarded as a Dravidian god adopted by the Aryans, but then why does he bear a Sanskrit name (and different Sanskrit epithets starting from the Vedas) and not even a trace of a Dravidian one? And where are non-Indo-European deities in the Avesta? Even the demons (the daevas) are Indo-Iranian there... Another strange idea is that Mitanni Aryans had already Vedic deities and were already Indo-Aryans without ever touching India, as if the Indo-Aryan language and the Vedic religion were not something developed in India, but brought ready-made from a totally different environment, and unchanged when transplanted in South Asia.

And when we look at archaeology, we find that the migrationist/invasionist believers try to forcedly see the arrival of the Aryans in every little trace of steppe pastoralists in Central and South Asia. But how these scanty traces, which just touch the Indus Valley and do not interrupt the continuity of settled civilizations of Margiana and Bactriana, can account for a total change of civilization? This reminds me of a cartoon about creationism compared with the scientific method:



(image of cartoon)



I have the impression that the Aryan Invasionism follows the same method as Creationism. The supporters of the Indo-Iranian invasion from the European steppes of Central and South Asia have no sacred text to defend, although sometimes they use the Vedas or the Avesta with biased (often racial) interpretations. They have a sort of preconceived faith, maybe based on a secret, obstinate Eurocentrism: Europeans must be the conquerors of the Indo-European world, and not the conquered or colonized, they must be the origin of the change, not the recipients.

So, they already firmly believe that the Indo-Aryans must have arrived there in the 2nd millennium BC, and so we have to find, in one way or another, the facts able to support that dogma.



[...]

Quote:The identification of these regions as India is probably due to political reasons, because they were part of an Indian kingdom, so that the Parthians used to call Arachosia 'White India' (see here). But it is also possible that the border between Indians and Iranians was not so clear, and the people of that region, that is, Pashtuns/Pathans and Balochis, were regarded as practically Indians. And it is true that their languages are Iranian (Balochi is even regarded as a Northwestern Iranian language, probably for a recent migration or Parthian influence), but genetically they are quite close to their Pakistani and Indian neighbours. According to Dienekes' table with 12 components of autosomal DNA, Balochis have 33.8% of South Asian component, Pathans 39.1%, and Tajiks (of Tajikistan?) 17.4%. And the study by Haber et al. about Afghanistan genetics reveals:

Quote:MDS and Barrier analysis have identified a significant affinity between Pashtun, Tajik, North Indian, and West Indian populations, creating an Afghan-Indian population structure that excludes the Hazaras, Uzbeks, and the South Indian Dravidian speakers. In addition, gene flow to Afghanistan from India marked by Indian lineages, L-M20, H-M69, and R2a-M124, also seems to mostly involve Pashtuns and Tajiks. This genetic affinity and gene flow suggests interactions that could have existed since at least the establishment of the region's first civilizations at the Indus Valley and the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex.



Furthermore, BATWING results indicate that the Afghan populations split from Iranians, Indians and East Europeans at about 10.6 kya (95% CI 7,100–15,825), which marks the start of the Neolithic revolution and the establishment of the farming communities. In addition, Pashtun split first from the rest of the Afghans around 4.7 kya (95% CI 2,775–7,725), which is a date marked by the rise of the Bronze Age civilizations of the region. These dates suggest that the differentiation of the social systems in Afghanistan could have been driven by the emergence of the first urban civilizations.

(image at link)

From this data, it appears that Afghans derive from a common ancestral population which split from the ancestors of Iranians, Indians and East Europeans during the Neolithic revolution, which was an age of diffusion of populations in different areas. According to the table S6, the split between Afghans and North Indians is dated 7525 years ago, which is also in the Neolithic period. The split between Afghan Tajiks and Pashtuns is dated 3950 years ago, which corresponds to the BMAC period, when northern Afghanistan, now inhabited by Tajiks, created the Bactrian civilization. Northwestern and Eastern Iranians (Sistan/Baluchistan), as seen above, seem to be separated 6000 years ago, during the Chalcolithic period. According to Tosi, Shahmirzadi and Joyenda (op. cit., pp.200-201), about 4000 BC three main cultural traditions can be seen: a northern tradition between Elburz, Kopet Dag (Jeitun) and Kashan (Sialk), a southern tradition in the southern Zagros, and another tradition in central-northern Baluchistan and the middle Helmand valley (Mundigak).



Dienekes also remarks that Iranians and Kurds have about 1/10 of South Asian component. And if we look in his aforementioned table at other ancient Iranian areas, we always find strong percentages of the same component: in Turkmens (ancient Margiana), is 13.3%, in Uzbeks (ancient Bactria and Sogdiana) 8.2%, and among Uyghurs (where Iranian languages like Khotanese and Sogdian were used) 8.4%. All this shows quite clearly that Iranians came from a population having strong genetic relations with South Asia. It is true that many Indians migrated or were deported to the Iranian regions during the Middle Ages, but the presence of South Asian DNA among the Uyghurs can hardly be explained in this way. Also North Ossetians, the descendants of the Sarmatians living in the Caucasus, have 4% of South Asian component.

It is also interesting that a study of DNA tribes reveals an 'Indus Valley' STR component (related to Burusho, Tajiks and Pathans) quite strong in the Urals (19.4% of the non-local components). This can be connected with the Sintashta culture of the Bronze Age (2100-1800 BC), typically identified with the Indo-Iranians, because of the chariots and horse sacrifices. There are some interesting remarks on the Wikipedia page about this culture:

Quote:Sintashta settlements are also remarkable for the intensity of copper mining and bronze metallurgy carried out there, which is unusual for a steppe culture. [...] Much of this metal was destined for export to the cities of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) in Central Asia. [...] The people of the Sintashta culture are thought to have spoken Proto-Indo-Iranian, the ancestor of the Indo-Iranian language family. This identification is based primarily on similarities between sections of the Rig Veda, [..] with the funerary rituals of the Sintashta culture as revealed by archaeology. There is however linguistic evidence of a list of common vocabulary between Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian languages. While its origin as a creole of different tribes in the Ural region may make it inaccurate to ascribe the Sintashta culture exclusively to Indo-Iranian ethnicity, interpreting this culture as a blend of two cultures with two distinct languages is a reasonable hypothesis based on the evidence.

About the contacts with the Finno-Ugric speakers, we can add that in the same study of DNA tribes the Finns, among the non-local components, have 6.3% of the 'Indus Valley' component.

(An image at link)



The fact that there was trade with BMAC suggests that Bactria-Margiana merchants and metallurgists went north in search of metal sources and maybe of a better climate, in that period of aridification at the end of the third millennium, and started to colonize that region with their fortified settlements with their perpendicular streets, inner square and concentric walls (see here). These fortresses remind of the late BMAC sites of Gonur Depe, Sapalli Tepe, Jarkutan and Dashly-3, which are now dated to the Middle and Late Bronze Age (2500-1700 BC, Sapalli and Dashly-3 are dated more precisely 2200-2000 BC), then are contemporary and even earlier than Sintashta. I remark this, because Kuzmina and Mallory (p.34) accept the parallelism between Jarkutan and Arkaim in the south Urals, and connect them with the Avestan vara, but in order to support the view that Arkaim is the model, showing the influence of the northern steppe cultures on the Bactrian farmers: an exemplary case of invasionist reversal, particularly strange since the Bactrian fortifications represent rather the northern outposts against the steppe warriors, who are not generally supposed to teach sedentary people how to make buildings! On the other hand, they recognize that BMAC objects are found in Sintashta-Petrovka sites (see here).

Arkaim displays also the use of unburnt bricks and irrigation ditches.



Hints of a northward movement from the Southern Central Asian oases are also in Ferghana,

[...]



The Scythians are the historical Iranian speakers of the steppe. They should be seen not as the bearers of Indo-Iranian languages from the north to the south, but the opposite, as the nomadic pioneers of the Iranian languages (like the Tuiryas and Sairimas of the Avesta), who brought them up to Siberia in the east and Ukraine in the west. The influences of the pastoralists of the steppe reached the south, but they did not bring a radical change, rather the steppe peoples were influenced by the farmers, as recognized by Askarov about the Iron Age in Transoxiana (op.cit., p.441): "The cultural and economic tradition of the advanced southern communities gradually permeated the stockbreeding population of the steppes." Later on (p.451) he writes: "In the south, the economy and domestic architecture of the late decorated pottery culture were identical with those of Sapalli and late Namazga IV (VI?) cultures. The chief occupations were arable farming and stockbreeding, and domestic architecture was monumental - a marked contrast with the Chust culture. [...] an old tradition survived of wheel-thrown pottery, which was completely lacking in the Chust or similar cultures of northern Soviet Central Asia." At p.457 f.: "Cultural transformation in the main oases of Parthia, Margiana and Bactria occured within a clear-cut continuation of local traditions in an area of economics and, to a certain extent, culture. [...] While the settled oases of the south display an overall cultural unity, there are glimpses of original local features that anticipate the cultural features of such ancient people as the Parthians, the Khorezmians and the Bactrians."

So, the Indo-Iranian tradition continued, and was not introduced from the steppes. Indians and Iranians, in their different but contiguous regions, could carry on in evolved forms the civilization of the 'Noble Ones'...



Giacomo Benedetti, Impruneta (Florence), Italy, 2/2/2013

Quote:The speakers at this symposium can generally be seen to support one of the following three ‘solutions’ to the Indo-European homeland problem:



1. The Anatolian Neolithic model.

[...]

The spread of Indo-European languages into Central and Southern Asia was explained originally by way of two alternative models: a Plan A that saw the Neolithic economy spread eastward from Anatolia towards India (thus the In-dus Civilization might be regarded as Indo-European) or Plan B [...]

Quote:Harappan skeletons were both cremated — there is evidence at Sanauli at least — and buried, but true burials are very few compared to expected numbers. Many archaeologists believe that cremation must have been widely practised by Harappans. Also, at Dholavira and other sites, dozens of graves turned out to be without any bones which implies symbolic burials.

Quote:Near Eastern and Pontic-Caspian models (including Renfrew’s Plan B )

(Note Pontic Caspian models = Kurgan Thesis. I.e. the conventional - and rather full-blown - all-pervasively-invading and women-abducting, civilisation-destroying, male-replacing oryanism.)



The critical issue for these models is that while any and all of them could explain the distribu-tion of domestic animal names, there are serious problems involved with the spread of arable agriculture. As Anthony (could it be.... David Anthony?) remarks in this symposium, there is really no serious evidence for ar-able agriculture (domestic cereals) east of the Dnieper until after c 2000 BCE (see also Ryabo-gina & Ivanov 2011; Mallory, in press:a). This means that there is also no evidence for domes-tic cereals in the Asiatic steppe until the Late Bronze Age (Andronovo etc). From the perspec-tive of the Pontic-Caspian model, the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians and Tokharians should not cross the Ural before c 2000 BCE at the very earliest. Hypotheses linking the Tokharians to earlier eastward steppe expansions associated with the Afanasievo or Okunevo cultures of the Yenisei or Altai (Mallory and Mair 2000) become very difficult if not impossible to sustain (as long as there is no evidence of arable agriculture in these cultures) as Tokharian retains ele-ments of the Indo-European agricultural vocabulary. Of course, it should be emphasized that sites of the Afanasievo and Okunevo cultures are overwhelmingly burials that hardly provide the context in which one expects to recover the remains of domestic cereals; moreover, there is no evidence that any of these sites have been excavated in such a way that the recovery of seeds is likely. On the other hand, domestic cereals have been recovered from the site of Begash in the Jungghar mountains at dates of c 2300 BCE (Frachetti 2012) although this site is not connected (so far as we know) with the steppe trajectory of sites (Afanasievo, Okunevo).



If this were not bad enough, it is also difficult to map the agricultural vocabulary across a Pontic-Caspian homeland within Europe itself. Main elements of the scheme suggested by Nikolai Merpert in 1977 still appear to be valid in current models of the evolution of steppe cultures involving an east (Volga-Ural) to west (Dnieper) cultural trajectory but if there was little or no agriculture east of the Dnieper, then how can we describe the eastern archaeologi-cal cultures of the Don (Repin), Volga (Khvalynsk) or the entire Don-Ural region (Yamnaya) as Indo-European if they lacked arable agriculture?



That the steppe populations exploited wild plants such as Chenopodium and Amaranthus is well known and while this might explain the ambivalence of some of the cereal names to reflect a specific cereal type (rather than just ‘grain’) we would still need to explain why the semantic variance among cognate words is largely confined to ‘wheat’, ‘barley’ and ‘millet’ as if at least one of these was the original ref-erent (and not some wild grain). All of the above problems would also be inherent in Ren-frew’s revised version of the Anatolian homeland model that requires the eastern Indo-Europeans (Indo-Iranians, Tokharians) to pass through the Pontic-Caspian steppe.



Conversely, the Near Eastern model, that requires the ancestors of the ‘ancient European’ languages to wander through Central Asia, cannot place the ‘Europeans’ north of south Cen-tral Asia before c 2000 BCE at the earliest. This is going to render the Indo-Europeanization of most of Europe a far more recent phenomenon than most would expect or accept. It would detach the Indo-Europeanization of central and northern Europe from such cultures as the Corded Ware horizon that in almost every way imaginable would appear to be archaeologi-cally, spatially and culturally a part of the Indo-European world. More importantly, it creates a ‘bottle-neck’ for the Northwest (?) Indo-European languages dated to about 1500 BCE where they all should have passed from east to west across the Pontic-Caspian and on into Europe.



To propose a common secondary home and time depth for Balto-Slavic, Germanic, Celtic and Italic so late leaves hardly any time at all to explain the phylogeny of the European languages and how they arrived in their historical seats. If supporters of this model sought an escape route from the situation they seem to have created for themselves, one might possibly propose the route north through the Caucasus to explain not only Iranians (at Sintashta in Grigoriev’s account) but the rest of the Europeans. However, this is hardly without problems as well as one must also explain how the ancestors of most of the European languages managed to pass through the Caucasus without leaving a trail of European languages. If there are any lessons to be learned, it is that every model of Indo-European origins can be found to reveal serious deficiencies as we increase our scrutiny. One is reminded of Daniel Kahneman’s observation:

“It is the consistency of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness. Indeed, you will often find that knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know into a coherent pattern” (Kahneman 2011, 87).

The problem here, of course, is that over time we have come to know more and more and that our earlier, simpler and more alluring narratives of Indo-European origins and dispersals are all falling victim to our increasing knowledge.

('Nah man, oryanism/white supremacism/PIE urheimat will live forevah, like the Sith. You're just in denial. "See David Anthony".')



We have obviously moved on from the time when Nikolai Merpert first published his analyses of the role of the steppelands within the con-text of the Indo-European homeland but it is evident that we still have a very long way to go.

Quote:Similarly, Lal opposes a claim made by the late Gregory Possehl that a horse find in Bactria indicates a Vedic horse sacrifice, performed by Aryans on their way to India. He points out that the horse was beheaded and thus does not satisfy the Vedic prescriptions for a horse sacrifice.



We remark that there was no need for being so defensive: for argument’s sake, just let this horse be a Vedic sacrificial victim. Since the Rg-Veda was composed in the 3rd millennium (and not in 1200 BCE as Possehl assumed), earlier than this Bactrian horse, it only confirms an India-to-Bactria migration, not the other way around.

Quote:Similarly, Lal opposes the late Gregory Possehl’s claim that a horse find in Bactria indicates a Vedic horse sacrifice, performed by Aryans on their way to India. He points out that the horse was beheaded and does not satisfy the Vedic prescriptions for a horse sacrifice. But I would point out there is no need to refute Possehl. Since the Rig Veda was composed in the 3rd millennium (and not in 1200 bce as Possehl assumed), earlier than this Bactrian horse, as a sacrificial Vedic offering it would only confirm an India-to-Bactria migration, not the other way around.

Quote:Here are selected verses describing the Vedic horse sacrifices, translated from the Sanskrit by Prof. Wendy Doniger:

[....]

Quote:FURTHER READ1NGS ON TH1S SUBJECT



The Rig Veda; an Anthology One hundred and eight hymns, selected, translated, and annotated by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty. Published by Penguin Books, 1981.



The Religion and Philosophy of the I/eda and Upanishads. By Arthur Berriedale Keith. Published by Motilal Banarsidass in Delhi, Patna, and Varanasi, 1925. Authorized reprint as Volume Thirty-one of the Harvard Oriental Series in 1970.



"The Tale of the Indo-European Horse Sacrifices." By Wendy Doniger (at The University of Chicago) in Incognita (Leiden) 1:1-15, 1990.

Quote:One of the most intriguing myths in the Rig Veda concerns a man, Dadhyanc Atharvan, who learned from Tvastr, the maker god, the secret of making mead, an intoxicating honey drink. The Asvins, or the Divine Twins who are themselves occasionally represented poetically as a pair of young horses, insisted that Dadhyanc tell them the secret of the mead. He refused. They cut off his head and replaced it with the head of a horse, through which he became an oracle and told them the secret they desired. In other hymns in the Rig Veda horse heads flowed magically with honey.



These ritual themes have been investigated archaeologically by the IAES and its sister organization in Samara, Russia, the Institute for the History and Archaeology of the Volga. Excavations led by Dr. Igor Vasiliev have unearthed ritual deposits of horse heads at Syezh'ye, a Copper Age cemetery dated about 4500-5000 B.C. in the Samara River valley in Russia. On the ancient surface above a group of nine Copper Age graves, Vasiliev's team found two horse skulls lying with various ornaments, broken ceramic pots, and stone tools within a redstained patch of powdered red ochre. The horses obviously were part of a funerary offering, the oldest of its kind yet found. At Dereivka on the Dnieper River in Ukraine, the now-famous horse with bit wear on its premolar teeth was part of a head-and-hoof deposit at the edge of a settlement dated about 42003700 B.C. It was found with the remains of two dogs, which probably were part of the same ritual offering. In a grave in the Elista steppes, south of the lower Volga in Russia, excavators found the skulls of 40 horses deposited in a Catacomb-culture grave dated about 2500 B.C. But the most fascinating discovery of this kind was a find that could have been the grave of Dadhyanc himself.



At Potapovka, near Samara on the Sok River, excavations conducted from 1985-1988 exposed four burial mounds, or kurgans, dated about 2200-2000 B.C. Beneath kurgan 3, the central grave pit contained the remains of a man buried with at least two horse heads and the head of a sheep, in addition to pottery vessels and weapons. After the grave pit was filled, a human male was decapitated, his head was replaced with the head of a horse, and he was laid down over the filled grave shaft. This unique ritual deposit provides a convincing antecedent for the Vedic myth.

Quote: At Dereivka on the Dnieper River in Ukraine, the now-famous (now infamous, you mean) horse with bit wear on its premolar teeth was part of a head-and-hoof deposit at the edge of a settlement dated about 42003700 B.C. It was found with the remains of two dogs, which probably were part of the same ritual offering.

Quote:The much widely publicized story of the horse domestication at Dereivka (horse-and-dog burial, Ukraine) at 4200-3700 BCE, which is generally believed even today, proved wrong in 2000. The dates claimed were of the soil layer, not of the skull. The Dereivka horse was never accepted as domestic horse by a large number of scholars (like Levine, Hausler etc). To silence the opposition, the skull bone was directly radiocarbon dated and found to be from 3000 BCE (Anthony 1997). However it became soon obvious that this report was wrong as a bone not actually belonging to the horse had been tested by mistake. Still later, by actual radiocarbon dating of the horse skull, it came out that the horse-burial had been made by a much later settlement, settled over the same place (Scythian era 800-200 BCE), digging deep into the lower layers. David Anthony, author of the Dereivka story was left with no choice. He quickly retracted his earlier claim (Anthony:2000, 2009:215).

Quote:One of the mysteries of Rig Veda that puzzled the westerners is the Story of Dadhyanc Atharvan, a Rishi with a horse head. Until the year 2000, they wrote that they have discovered his grave in Potapovka near Samara in Russia. By 2010 they have changed their view!



Excavations of 1985-86 of a kurgan burial dated 2200 BCE at Potapovka revealed in grave shaft of kurgan no.3, a decapitated man with a horse skull replacing his head. In simple terms, the man’s head was removed and a horse head was fixed. They thought that it was the grave of Rig Vedic seer Dadhyanc. Later research showed that the skeleton of both the horse and the human being were not of male, but of female. They also found the horse head was fixed 1000 years after the human being’s death. This shows that we can’t jump to conclusion by listening to archaeologists! They only “interpret” it and confirm in what they have already believed. In this case they started talking Aryan migration from the Steppes.



Still some questions remain unanswered: Why did they put horse head there after 1000 years? Why did someone behead the man or woman?

(Why? Well, considering they lie compulsively to oryanise history - and not just Victor Mair but every IE-ists apparently, see 2 cases involving "Vedic" burials in the steppes above, both of which Anthony bragged about and which are *still* repeated all over the web as "proof" of bronze age steppe origins of the Veda -

considering they lie compulsively, I have no reason to assume that the horse head was added 1000 years later: it may have been inserted by oryanist archaeologists, and they just happened to get caught. When they lie/tell stories and try to get away with it, what's stopping them from outright forgery? Wasn't it IIRC Victor Mair who attempted forging archaeological "evidence" of oryanism too?)

Quote:Let Them Eat Horses

by Dr. David Anthony

(Original print at NEWSLETTER - Institute For Ancient Equestrian Studies, No. 4/Summer 1997



Why do most Americans and Europeans find the idea of eating horses so unappetizing! Horseflesh is, after all, extremely nutritious--it is particularly rich in vitamins, iron, and abbumnnodds-and can be very tasty. It is eaten enthusiastically in Kazakstan and other Central Asian countries, as well as in some parts of Europe and French-speaking Canada.

Quote:Let Them Eat Horses

by Dr. David Anthony

(Original print at NEWSLETTER - Institute For Ancient Equestrian Studies, No. 4/Summer 1997



[...]

But the most fascinating discovery of this kind was a find that could have been the grave of Dadhyanc himself.



At Potapovka, near Samara on the Sok River, excavations conducted from 1985-1988 exposed four burial mounds, or kurgans, dated about 2200-2000 B.C. Beneath kurgan 3, the central grave pit contained the remains of a man buried with at least two horse heads and the head of a sheep, in addition to pottery vessels and weapons. After the grave pit was filled, a human male was decapitated, his head was replaced with the head of a horse, and he was laid down over the filled grave shaft. This unique ritual deposit provides a convincing antecedent for the Vedic myth.

Quote:One of the mysteries of Rig Veda that puzzled the westerners is the Story of Dadhyanc Atharvan, a Rishi with a horse head. Until the year 2000, they wrote that they have discovered his grave in Potapovka near Samara in Russia. By 2010 they have changed their view!



Excavations of 1985-86 of a kurgan burial dated 2200 BCE at Potapovka revealed in grave shaft of kurgan no.3, a decapitated man with a horse skull replacing his head. In simple terms, the man’s head was removed and a horse head was fixed. They thought that it was the grave of Rig Vedic seer Dadhyanc. Later research showed that the skeleton of both the horse and the human being were not of male, but of female. They also found the horse head was fixed 1000 years after the human being’s death. This shows that we can’t jump to conclusion by listening to archaeologists! They only “interpret” it and confirm in what they have already believed. In this case they started talking Aryan migration from the Steppes.

Quote:One burial has the corpse's head replaced with that of a horse,

Quote:reminiscent of the Vedic account of how the Asvíns replace the head of the priest Dadhyañc Artharvana with that of a horse so that he could reveal the secret of the sacred drink. —EIEC "Potapovka Culture"

Quote:The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and the Indus Civilization

By Asko Parpola

Published: 9 June 2015



p.122-124



[...]

The Dadhya~nc legend also speaks of providing a human sage with a horse's head. ... It is tempting to see this Ashvin-related revival rite revealed in a human skeleton with the skull of a horse, which was excavated in a unique grave near Samara in the Mid-Volga region of Russia; it belongs to the Potapovka culture, dated to c.2100-1700 BCE, and was very probably the skeleton of a Proto-Indo-Aryan speaker (chapter 7) (Fig. 11.2).

(Q: how do they even know what he spoke? For instance, even assuming PIE for the moment, why not consider he spoke PIE?

A: because they need to herald an oryan invasion into India, duh.)

[...]

FIGURE 11.2 A human skeleton with a horse's skull. Potapovka kurgan burial, grave 1, near Samara on the mid-Volga in Russia, c.2100-1700 BCE. The arrow points to the north ©. After Vasil'ev et al. 1994:115, fig. 11. Courtesy Pavel V. Kuzetsov.



It must be noted, however, that the evidence of the Potapovka grave has been questioned, because of a suspected mixing of the archaeological layers. Moreover, some molded tablets from Harappa show anthropomorphic deities with animal heads: a dancer resembling later Shiva NaTarAja has the head of the water buffalo (CISI 1:207 H-175) and a long-armed deity within a fig tree has a ram's head (Fig.21.16a) like the later god NaigameSha (chapter 21).

Quote:Interestingly, Russian archaeologists claimed that such a chimeric form, a man with a horse’s head, was found in a kurgan of the Potapovka culture [A sister of the more famous Sintashta culture] near the Samara Bend on the Volga steppes – a place close the original homeland of the Aryans. However, subsequent dating showed that the human and horse skeletons belong to different ages and the superimposition of two separate burials human and horse at the same site separated by several hundreds of years had accidentally created the impression of a chimera.

Quote:Archaeological chimeras have nevertheless re-emerged recently. An Iron Age site from Dorset, UK has provided extensive evidence for chimeric creations by Britonic Celts. These include chimeras between horses and cows as well as burial of multiple heads of sacrificed animals. It is uncertain if these were purely Celtic innovations or have earlier Indo-European precedents. The human sacrifice at the site seems to have placed the human remains on various animals remains with a correspondence of the parts.

[...]

Irrespective of whether the chimeras and sacrificed animal heads at the Celtic site had any earlier Indo-European connection, we find references to both such animal heads and the chimeras in the Vedic ritual.

Quote:Moreover, some molded tablets from Harappa show anthropomorphic deities with animal heads: a dancer resembling later Shiva NaTarAja has the head of the water buffalo (CISI 1:207 H-175) and a long-armed deity within a fig tree has a ram's head (Fig.21.16a) like the later god NaigameSha (chapter 21).

Quote:In Hinduism, Naigamesha is associated with Kartikeya, the god of war. Naigamesha is an epithet and a form of Kartikeya, where he is generally depicted goat-headed. In other instances, Naigamesha is described as the son or brother of the war god. Hindu texts like the Brahmanas, the Grihya sutras and medicinal texts mention a similar deity with a ram head.[1] As a fearsome follower of Kartikeya, Naigamesha was feared and worshipped to ward off evil. later, he evolved into the patron of childbirth.[3]



[1] Roshen Dalal. Hinduism: An Alphabetical Guide. Penguin Books Limited. p. 797. ISBN 978-81-8475-277-9.

Quote:The Vedas have been divided into four styles of texts – the Samhitas (mantras and benedictions), the Aranyakas (text on rituals, ceremonies, sacrifices and symbolic-sacrifices), the Brahmanas (commentaries on rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices), and the Upanishads (text discussing meditation, philosophy and spiritual knowledge).[4][5][6] The Samhitas are sometimes identified as karma-kanda (कर्म खण्ड, action/ritual-related section), while the Upanishads are identified as jnana-kanda (ज्ञान खण्ड, knowledge/spirituality-related section).[7][8] The Aranyakas and Brahmanas are variously classified, sometimes as the ceremonial karma-kanda, other times (or parts of them) as the jnana-kanda.

Quote:[For versions of IVC "chimera" iconography that doesn't involve humanoid body parts, here's a famous IVC seal with individual-animal parts identified: harappa.com/content/harappan-chimaeras-%E2%80%98symbolic-hypertexts%E2%80%99-some-thoughts-plato-chimaera-and-indus-civilization

PDF: "Harappan Chimaeras as ‘Symbolic Hypertexts’. Some Thoughts on Plato, Chimaera and the Indus Civilization"]

Quote:Harappan Chimaeras as ‘Symbolic Hypertexts’. Some Thoughts on Plato, Chimaera and the Indus Civilization



Dennys Frenez & Massimo Vidale

Department of Archaeology, University of Bologna, Casa Traversari, Via San Vitale 28/30,

48121, Ravenna, Italy

Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Padua, Palazzo del Liviano, Piazza

Capitaniato 7, 35139, Padova, Italy

Version of record first published: 11 Oct 2012



Dennys Frenez & Massimo Vidale (2012): Harappan Chimaeras as 'Symbolic Hypertexts'. Some Thoughts on Plato, Chimaera and the Indus Civilization, South Asian Studies, 28:2, 107-130



dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2012.725578



[...]

(Paragraphs discussing why 'unicorn' IVC depictions were of unicorns and not of 2 horned animals in profile.) This indisputably demonstrates that this creature was conceived by the Indus people as an actual unicorn at least during the second half of the third millennium BCE, when it was also depicted on the stamp seals.

Furthermore, as stressed by J. M. Kenoyer, the Indus unicorn was not the only case of prominent fantastic animals used as powerful symbols during the Bronze Age; 'these figurines and the seals motifs demonstrate that the Indus people believe in this one-horned animal [...] perhaps this animal was like the mythical animals carved onto the Shang bronzes in early China that guided and protected the owner in the real world as well as in the spirit world'.15



Harappan chimaeras and their relationship with Greek myth



One of the most intriguing aspects of the Indus seals iconography is the creation and frequent use of composite images made by assembling with remarkable arbitrariness anatomic portions of different animals and human body parts.

[...]

We will call this imaginary being the 'Harappan chimaera'.17

[...]

In ancient Greece chimaera was a rather popular monster, but even classical writers, two thousand years ago, wondered about its features and name and tried to justify rationally its odd nature with erudite explanations, for example linking it to natural volcanic phenomena. Besides Plato, chimaera was mentioned by poets and historians like Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Pseudo-Apollodorus, Strabo, Pausanias, Diodorus Siculus, and others as a fierce, fire-breathing beast who lived in the East, possibly in Anatolia, until it was killed by the hero Bellerophon.20 The creature had a snake or dragon for a tail, the central part of the body of a goat, a goat-like head emerging from its back, and a lion head crowned by a thick mane, even if the ancient texts always refer to the creature as female.



The Indus creature (Figures 3, 4, and 5) was composed of three major animal parts (plus other secondary parts as detained in the following paragraph), respectively, from the rear: snake (cobra), feline (tiger), and goat (markhor).21 Even though the order of the two latter parts is sometimes switched and there are - as we shall see - other animal elements and more complex combinations, this is enough to consider this early Indian composite creature in the imposing and very mysterious evolutionary tree of chimaeras, although at a good branching distance from its later Greek versions.

[...]

Quote:During the late fourth to early third millennium B.C. in Elam (southwestern Iran), craftspeople created remarkable depictions of animals behaving like humans—a theme that may have related to early myths or fables, now lost (66.173).

Quote:Sunday, April 19, 2015

How Little We Know About Ancient DNA



I've frequented several of the Ancient DNA discussion boards lately, and have been flummoxed by the self-important, self-promoted, self-described "experts," who proclaim to know precise migration patterns of Ancient Europeans.



These same "experts" even go so far as to claim to be able to tie specific haplogroups to languages, tribes, and epochs. They will make broad statements, like, "all of Europe was populated by [this haplogroup or that], which represented the [Cro-Magnons or whatever], until they were replaced, en masse, by the [new Haplogroup.]"



(Often the dominant invader haplogroup in their theories tends to be the one of the posting "expert," but that's just coincidence, I'm sure.)



Contrasting these experts are some bona fide theoreticians, who point out that we have less than 100 samples of Caucasian Ancient DNA, and that a simple cultural fact, for example, if one tribe cremated their dead and another tribe buried their dead, could contribute to the number of ancient skeletons that make it to the present day.



So, what I decided to do was to plot the confirmed ancient NR Y Chromosome haplogroup samples on a map, to show whatever it shows.



What I discovered was a complete lack of any real patterns. In other words, it's too early to tell. We need way more aDNA.

[...]

Quote:However, the same group of people turn to the aDNA evidence (blindly) to express 100% confidence in other theories, for example, everything from the notion that R1b xV88 couldn't be found west of modern Poland until the Indo-European expansions. (I find this notion laughable.)



They also rely on the aDNA evidence to express 100% confidence in wild notions of sex selection that have more in common with dimestore novels than anything scientific. The proponents of said theories also happen to be mostly males bearing R1b. Yes folks, in a world where racial identity is taboo, any sense of ingroup-outgroup dynamics for Western Europeans has simply been transferred to tiny markers on one chromosome.



I've also posted repeatedly on how difference in culture and hyperlocal topography can affect what aDNA survives into modern times. The easiest example is one tribe burying their dead, while another tribe cremates it. Anyone who knows anything about written history understands that the reason why we don't have m(any) ethnic Roman skeletons is because they cremated their dead. To those who don't grasp this concept, it would be as if the Romans, a powerful, numerous, colonizing, widespread, important society -- didn't exist.



I can just see Anthrogenica in the year 2515: "but there are no Roman samples in aDNA," they would maintain adamantly. Yes, you would reply. But the Romans existed.



(Same concerns I have surrounding Harappa/IVC, where people are said to have been cremated generally.

E.g. consider modern India: monotheists in India have mixed more with Europeans and islamic world, and they're the ones burying their dead. Hindus cremate. Same for European colonists who died in India and were buried on Indian soil. If dug up, monotheists/European colonists do not give a good picture of the native Indian genetics of the last few centuries of the subcontinent.)

Quote:Thomas Alan

December 21, 2015 at 11:52 PM



This is all so true, and not only of commenters in Anthrogenica. Haak et al found that the handful of known corded ware specimens were more similar to Siberian Yamna than to their limited sample of European specimens and concluded that the bearers of corded ware culture MUST be steppe pastoralist immigrants. They simply assumed that Ukrainian Yamna must have the same profile and that nobody anywhere else outside Europe at that time or earlier could. And so, big surprise, at the same time they make it to print, so does new evidence disproving their conclusion, revealing that at least on the mtDNA side the modern European profile was present in Romania two millennia earlier: journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0128810



But of course, fans of the Kurgan theory only reported the Haak paper and ignored the Hervella paper.



And it goes on and on. It's astonishing how many illiterate prehistoric cultures are allegedly known to be Indo-European or Iranian, or how certainly Phrygian language is categorized with Thracian when we know extremely little about Phrygian and practically nothing about any Thracian languages.



Re: R1b and related, you may need to add one: since the R1b marker is clearly associated with superior abilities to fake historical evidence, they cleverly wrote all the other Europeans out of history.

Quote:These same "experts" even go so far as to claim to be able to tie specific haplogroups to languages, tribes, and epochs. They will make broad statements, like, "all of Europe was populated by [this haplogroup or that], which represented the [Cro-Magnons or whatever], until they were replaced, en masse, by the [new Haplogroup.]"



(Often the dominant invader haplogroup in their theories tends to be the one of the posting "expert," but that's just coincidence, I'm sure.)

Quote:Abstract



The importance of the process of Neolithization for the genetic make-up of European populations has been hotly debated, with shifting hypotheses from a demic diffusion (DD) to a cultural diffusion (CD) model. In this regard, ancient DNA data from the Balkan Peninsula, which is an important source of information to assess the process of Neolithization in Europe, is however missing. In the present study we show genetic information on ancient populations of the South-East of Europe. We assessed mtDNA from ten sites from the current territory of Romania, spanning a time-period from the Early Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age. mtDNA data from Early Neolithic farmers of the Starčevo Criş culture in Romania (Cârcea, Gura Baciului and Negrileşti sites), confirm their genetic relationship with those of the LBK culture (Linienbandkeramik Kultur) in Central Europe, and they show little genetic continuity with modern European populations. On the other hand, populations of the Middle-Late Neolithic (Boian, Zau and Gumelniţa cultures), supposedly a second wave of Neolithic migration from Anatolia, had a much stronger effect on the genetic heritage of the European populations. In contrast, we find a smaller contribution of Late Bronze Age migrations to the genetic composition of Europeans. Based on these findings, we propose that permeation of mtDNA lineages from a second wave of Middle-Late Neolithic migration from North-West Anatolia into the Balkan Peninsula and Central Europe represent an important contribution to the genetic shift between Early and Late Neolithic populations in Europe, and consequently to the genetic make-up of modern European populations.

Quote:Friday, 29 January 2016

Harappan Interments at Rakhigarhi, Haryana

This is a nice study on Rakhigarhi, it has also given some intriguing parallels of funeral customs which are found in the Vedic texts.

Quote:Harappan Interments at Rakhigarhi, Haryana

Abstract :



The excavations at Rakhigarhi ( 29° 17' 30" N ; 76° 06' 50'' E ) have reported skeletal series of the Harappans both from cemetery and habitation area. Interment archaeology is quite unique as it unfolds a distinct funerary mechanism for highlighting gender, besides other mortuary features commonly recorded at Kalibangan and Farmana.

Yog. academia.edu/20195157/Harappan_Interments_at_Rakhigarhi_Haryana

Quote:Another point is regarding the burial; after 2000 BCE, burial was uncommon except for some special cases like infants and spiritual people. Harappan skeletons were both cremated — there is evidence at Sanauli at least — and buried, but true burials are very few compared to expected numbers. Many archaeologists believe that cremation must have been widely practised by Harappans. Also, at Dholavira and other sites, dozens of graves turned out to be without any bones which implies symbolic burials.

Quote:Leyla-Tepe culture

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



The Leyla-Tepe culture of ancient Azerbaijan belongs to the Chalcolithic era. It got its name from the site in the Agdam district. Its settlements were distributed on the southern slopes of Central Caucasus, mostly in Agdam District, from 4350 until 4000 B.C.



Monuments of the Leyla-Tepe were first located in the 1980s by I.G. Narimanov, a Soviet archaeologist. Recent attention to the monuments has been inspired by the risk of their damage due to the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the South Caucasus pipeline.



Characteristics and influences



The Leyla-Tepe culture is also attested at Boyuk Kesik, and Poylu, Agstafa (in the lower layers of these settlements). The inhabitants apparently buried their dead in ceramic vessels.[1] Similar amphora burials in the South Caucasus are found in the Western Georgian Jar-Burial Culture, that is mostly of much later date.



Among the sites associated with this culture, the Soyugbulag kurgans or barrows are of special importance.[2] The excavation of these kurgans demonstrated an unexpectedly early date of such structures on the territory of Azerbaijan. They were dated to the beginning of the 4th millennium BC.[3]



The culture has also been linked to the north Ubaid period monuments,[4] in particular, with the settlements in the Eastern Anatolia Region (Arslantepe, Coruchu-tepe, Tepechik, etc.).



Other sites belonging to the same culture in the Karabakh valley of Azerbaijan are Chinar-Tepe, Shomulu-Tepe, and Abdal-Aziz-Tepe.



The settlement is of a typical Western-Asian variety, with the dwellings packed closely together and made of mud bricks with smoke outlets.



It has been suggested that the Leyla-Tepe were the founders of the Maykop culture.



An expedition to Syria by the Russian Academy of Sciences revealed the similarity of the Maykop and Leyla-Tepe artifacts with those found recently while excavating the ancient city of Tel Khazneh I, from the 4th millennium BC.[5]





Metalwork



The appearance of Leilatepe tradition’s carriers in the Caucasus marked the appearance of the first local Caucasian metallurgy. This is attributed to migrants from Uruk, arriving around 4500 BCE.[6]



Leilatepe metalwork tradition was very sophisticated right from the beginning, and featured many bronze items. Yet later, the quality of metallurgy declined with the Kura–Araxes culture.[7]

Quote:Culture



Its inhumation practices were characteristically Indo-European, typically in a pit, sometimes stone-lined, topped with a kurgan (or tumulus). Stone cairns replace kurgans in later interments.



The Maykop kurgan was extremely rich in gold and silver artifacts; unusual for the time.



The Maykop culture (also spelled Maikop, Majkop), ca. 3700 BC—3000 BC,[1] was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the Western Caucasus region of Southern Russia.



[...]

Iranian Origins



A more recent suggestion, by Mariya Ivanova, [8] is the Maikop origins were on the Iranian Plateau:



"Graves and settlements of the 5th millennium BC in North Caucasus attest to a material culture that was related to contemporaneous archaeological complexes in the northern and western Black Sea region. Yet it was replaced, suddenly as it seems, around the middle of the 4th millennium BC by a “high culture” whose origin is still quite unclear. This archaeological culture named after the great Maikop kurgan showed innovations in all areas which have no local archetypes and which cannot be assigned to the tradition of the Balkan-Anatolian Copper Age. The favoured theory of Russian researchers is a migration from the south originating in the Syro-Anatolian area, which is often mentioned in connection with the socalled “Uruk expansion”. However, serious doubts have arisen about a connection between Maikop and the Syro-Anatolian region. The foreign objects in the North Caucasus reveal no connection to the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris or to the floodplains of Mesopotamia, but rather seem to have ties to the Iranian plateau and to South Central Asia. Recent excavations in the Southwest Caspian Sea region are enabling a new perspective about the interactions between the “Orient” and Continental Europe. On the one hand, it is becoming gradually apparent that a gigantic area of interaction evolved already in the early 4th millennium BC which extended far beyond Mesopotamia; on the other hand, these findings relativise the traditional importance given to Mesopotamia, because innovations originating in Iran and Central Asia obviously spread throughout the Syro-Anatolian region independently thereof"

Quote:The surprising origins of Europeans

Researchers discuss new theories on human migration revealed by sophisticated DNA tests

December 3, 2014 | Editor's Pick



[...]

On Tuesday, geneticists from Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT highlighted those evolving techniques and talked about recent findings that revealed that a previously unknown group made a major contribution to the gene pool of modern Europeans and Native Americans. They also discussed the result of preliminary investigations that suggest that an ancient civilization located between the Black and Caspian seas (which geography implies Caucasus region, in my understanding) may have created a major group of modern languages, spanning English, German, Russian, Urdu, Punjabi, and Hindi.



[...]



Patterson said that linguistic evidence has tracked the ancestral language, called “late proto-Indo-European” to about 3,500 years ago in the Caucasus, among a people who had wheeled vehicles at a time when they were just being put into use.



Genetic evidence ruled out one likely related group in the region, the Yamnaya, because their DNA showed the group had hunter-gatherer ancestry, which is inconsistent with the fact that two Indo-European groups, Armenians and Indians, don’t share it, Patterson said. That made Patterson look south, to the Maikop civilization, which likely had significant contact with the Yamnaya, as a plausible culture where Indo-European languages originated. Samples have been obtained from Maikop burial sites, but the DNA work to test that proposal is pending, Patterson said.



Such testing is dependent on sophisticated techniques, Reich said. When DNA can be extracted from bones found at burial sites, most of it actually is microbial DNA from the organisms that have colonized the bones since its owners’ death. In addition, researchers have to be careful that samples aren’t contaminated by handling after they are unearthed.



Reich’s lab uses a technique that targets 390,000 sites of variation on the human genome, extracts them from background DNA, and allows them to generate genome-wide data.



“A lot of it is microbial. Typically only 1 percent comes from the individual whose bone it was,” Reich said.

Quote:Jones et al, "Upper Palaeolithic genomes reveal deep roots of modern Eurasians" (dated as "Received 20 July 2015")



We extend the scope of European palaeogenomics by sequencing the genomes of Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,300 years old, 1.4-fold coverage) and Mesolithic (9,700 years old, 15.4-fold) males from western Georgia in the Caucasus and a Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,700 years old, 9.5-fold) male from Switzerland. While we detect Late Palaeolithic–Mesolithic genomic continuity in both regions, we find that Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHG) belong to a distinct ancient clade that split from western hunter-gatherers ~45 kya, shortly after the expansion of anatomically modern humans into Europe and from the ancestors of Neolithic farmers ~25 kya, around the Last Glacial Maximum. CHG genomes significantly contributed to the Yamnaya steppe herders who migrated into Europe ~3,000 BC, supporting a formative Caucasus influence on this important Early Bronze age culture. CHG left their imprint on modern populations from the Caucasus and also central and south Asia possibly marking the arrival of Indo-Aryan languages.

Quote:Majkop verfügen sowohl über eine «paläolithische» Haplogruppe (U8) als auch über «neolithische» Haplogruppen: V (Недолужко u. a. 2014), T2, N1. Bei einem Objekt aus einem Grab bei der Staniza Novosvobodnaja fanden wir auch die Haplogruppe М52. Die gewonnenen Daten sprechen für eine (auf dem Niveau der mitochondrialen DNA) mögliche genetische Gemeinschaft der archäologischen Kulturen von Majkop und Novosvobodnaja.

Quote:Maykop possesses a paleolithic haplogroup (U8) as well as neolithic haplogroups: V (Недолужко u. a. 2014), T2, N1. At/near an object from a grave at Staniza Novosvobodnaya, we also found the Haplogroup M52. The information obtained speaks of a (at the level of mitochondrial DNA) possible genetic community of the archaeological cultures of Maykop and Novosbodnaya.

Quote:Such testing is dependent on sophisticated techniques, Reich said. When DNA can be extracted from bones found at burial sites, most of it actually is microbial DNA from the organisms that have colonized the bones since its owners’ death. In addition, researchers have to be careful that samples aren’t contaminated by handling after they are unearthed.



Reich’s lab uses a technique that targets 390,000 sites of variation on the human genome, extracts them from background DNA, and allows them to generate genome-wide data.



“A lot of it is microbial. Typically only 1 percent comes from the individual whose bone it was,” Reich said.

Quote:EDITED: Although this article is from DEC 2014, while Haak et al (submitted end DEC 2014, pub Feb 2015) and more importantly Mathieson et al were published in 2015 with sampled aDNAs from the steppes including Sintashta,

the argument is still that that there's no EHG (Eastern European Hunter Gatherer or something) genetic component in Indians and Armenians.



news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/12/the-surprising-origins-of-europeans/

Quote:The surprising origins of Europeans

Researchers discuss new theories on human migration revealed by sophisticated DNA tests

December 3, 2014 | Editor's Pick



[...]



Patterson said that linguistic evidence has tracked the ancestral language, called “late proto-Indo-European” to about 3,500 years ago in the Caucasus, among a people who had wheeled vehicles at a time when they were just being put into use.



Genetic evidence ruled out one likely related group in the region, the Yamnaya, because their DNA showed the group had hunter-gatherer ancestry, which is inconsistent with the fact that two Indo-European groups, Armenians and Indians, don’t share it, Patterson said. That made Patterson look south, to the Maikop civilization, which likely had significant contact with the Yamnaya, as a plausible culture where Indo-European languages originated. Samples have been obtained from Maikop burial sites, but the DNA work to test that proposal is pending, Patterson said.

Quote:[Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo ...

www.nature.com/nature/journal/v522/n7555/abs/nature14317.html

by W Haak - ‎2015 - ‎Cited by 64 - ‎Related articles

Jun 11, 2015 - Received: 29 December 2014; Accepted: 12 February 2015 .... Preprint at bioRxiv http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/008664 (2014); Haak, W. et al.]

Quote:Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ~4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ~3/4 of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ~3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for the theory of a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe.

Quote:Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses



Hypotheses



There are three main competing basic models (with variations) that have academic credibility (Mallory (1997:106)):



* the Kurgan hypothesis (Pontic-Caspian area): Chalcolithic (5th to 4th millennia BCE)

* the Anatolian hypothesis (Anatolia in Asia Minor): Early Neolithic (7th to 5th millennia BCE)

* the Balkan hypothesis, excluding the Anatolian languages (a variant of the Anatolian hypothesis): Neolithic (5th millennium BCE)



As mentioned above, the Kurgan hypothesis is currently dominant in Indo-European studies. The Anatolian hypothesis, primarily associated with Colin Renfrew, is the main competitor.



A number of other opposing hypotheses also exist, for example:



* the Armenian hypothesis (proposed in the context of Glottalic theory), with a homeland in Armenia in the 4th millennium BCE (excluding the Anatolian branch);

* a 6th millennium BCE or later origin in Northern Europe, according to Lothar Kilian's and, especially, Marek Zvelebil's[3] models of a broader homeland;

* The Out of India theory, with a homeland in India in the 6th millennium BCE;[4]

* The Paleolithic Continuity Theory, with an origin before the 10th millennium BCE

* Nikolai Trubetzkoy's theory of Sprachbund** origin of Indo-European traits.

Quote:A sprachbund (/ˈsprɑːkbʊnd/; German: [ˈʃpʁaːxbʊnt], "federation of languages") – also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, diffusion area or language crossroads – is a group of languages that have common features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. They may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related. Where genetic affiliations are unclear, the sprachbund characteristics might give a false appearance of relatedness. Areal features are common features of a group of languages in a sprachbund.

Quote:Thomas Alan

December 21, 2015 at 11:52 PM

Re: R1b and related, you may need to add one: since the R1b marker is clearly associated with superior abilities to fake historical evidence, they cleverly wrote all the other Europeans out of history.

Quote:(Maciamo)

...

The paper brings additional evidence regarding the origins of the Early Bronze Age Maykop culture in Mesopotamia, confirming my theory that R1b people from the Middle East migrated across the Caucasus and established the Maykop culture, before expanding throughout the Pontic-Caspian Steppes and mixing with the indigenous R1a steppe people.



The author also argues that the tradition of burial mounds did not originated in the Pit-Grave culture from the steppes because new radiocarbon dating seemingly points that the burial mounds from the Maykop culture actually predate those found in the steppes. Those of Maykop could trace their origins back to the Levant and Mesopotamia, two regions with relatively high levels of R1b, where the oldest subclades of R1b are to be found. This is new. Although I had always thought that R1b migrated from the Middle East to the North Caucasus, founded the Maykop culture and spread the Bronze Age to the steppes then to Europe, I had previously assumed too that burial mounds (i.e. kurgan or tumulus) was a practice that they picked up from the R1a people in the steppes, because that is what the archaeological data was saying so far.



This doesn't change anything to the R1b migration path or chronology though. I had thought that a two-way exchange took place between R1b and R1a people during the Yamna period. I imagined that R1b brought bronze working, while R1a provided the burial customs. If this new radiocarbon dating is correct, then it would seem that R1b brought both. In that case, it becomes increasingly likely that the Proto-Indo-European language itself was also brought by the more advanced and dominant partner (R1b), and adopted by the R1a population at the same time as the rest of the cultural package from Maykop.



I still maintain though that the Satem branch of Indo-European languages (associated with R1a) diverged from the original Centum (R1b) because of the influence of the original R1a languages, which altered the pronunciation of IE words (namely, the sound change by which palatovelars became fricatives and affricates in satem languages). Obviously Centum languages were later influenced by, and adopted words from the Chalcolithic people of Southeast Europe, then of Central and Western Europe. I strongly believe that languages evolve faster when new people are integrated into a linguistic community, bringing their own idioms with them.

Quote:(kamani)

The paper does not mention R1b. If the pre-Maykop civilization came from Mesopotamia, then they probably had a lot of E1b1b and J. I think you're taking the most common western european gene and trying to prove that it was a dominant marker of the first ancient advanced civilizations, but it doesn't work because they're all in Levant/Anatolia/Middle East.

Quote:(nordicwarbler, haplogroup I1)

"Quote Originally Posted by ebAmerican View Post

...and it would be interesting if R1b was the dominate haplogroup in the middle east during the Mesolithic and early Neolithic (before J1-J2 pushed them out), and were responsible for stone monuments like Gobekli Tepe."

Those of you who have followed my ramblings for awhile may remember that I stated it was only a matter of time before R1b would claim Gobekli Tepe.

[...]

My comment about R1b "claiming" Gobekli Tepe have more to do with this haplogroup's tendencies to grab ahold of the good stuff no matter what science has to say of the matter. For example-- Spencer Wells and his R1b first into Europe comments, his tale of R1b being the group that founded Cro-Magnon, even R1b garnering the "highest" spot on the alphabetic nomenclature. I said my earlier comment on this thread tongue-in-cheek, but only partially so.



While it is possible that R1b had outposts at the start of Gobekli Tepe (which was over 11,000 years ago)... it's far more likely the groups laying the foundation of this settlement where members of hg. I, J1, J2, or G2a. I would think branches of hg. E would have a greater chance of being present during the construction than either R1b or R1a.

Quote:3) An autosomal DNA test provides information from the great majority of your DNA (the autosomes are the chromosomes other than the X, Y and mtDNA). Although full genome-sequencing is not far away, it remains unaffordable for most and autosomal DNA tests usually examine up to around 1 million genetic markers (SNPs) spread across the genome. These give information about all your ancestors in recent generations, but once you go beyond about 10 generations back into the past (roughly 300 years) only a small fraction of your ancestors have contributed directly to your DNA: so even if William Shakespeare were your ancestor (born ~450 years ago), you almost certainly inherited no DNA from him.[/b] This can be a bit confusing: you did inherit almost all your DNA from ancestors alive at that time, but because there are so many of them (very roughly 30,000 thousand ancestors), you only actually inherited your DNA from a small fraction of them. The unilineal Y and mtDNA are exceptions: you inherited them from all your patrilineal and matrilineal ancestors respectively (the former only if you are male), and so in a sense they can provide a link with very remote ancestors, but they represent only a small fraction of your genes, they provide little information about your ancestors and with only limited inferences about time depth.

Quote:"Previous work documented that such ancestry appeared east of the Urals beginning at least by the time of the Sintashta culture, and suggested that it reflected an eastward migration from the Corded Ware peoples of central Europe5. However, the fact that the Srubnaya also harbored such ancestry indicates that the Anatolian Neolithic or EEF ancestry could have come into the steppe from a more eastern source. Further evidence that migrations originating as far west as central Europe may not have had an important impact on the Late Bronze Age steppe comes from the fact that the Srubnaya possess exclusively (n=6) R1a Y-chromosomes (Extended Data Table 1), and four of them (and one Poltavka male) belonged to haplogroup R1a-Z93 which is common in central/south Asians12, very rare in present-day Europeans, and absent in all ancient central Europeans studied to date."

Quote:The surprising origins of Europeans

Researchers discuss new theories on human migration revealed by sophisticated DNA tests

December 3, 2014 | Editor's Pick

[...]

Patterson said that linguistic evidence has tracked the ancestral language, called “late proto-Indo-European” to about 3,500 years ago in the Caucasus, among a people who had wheeled vehicles at a time when they were just being put into use.



Genetic evidence ruled out one likely related group in the region, the Yamnaya, because their DNA showed the group had hunter-gatherer ancestry [EHG, East-European Hunter Gatherer genetic component], which is inconsistent with the fact that two Indo-European groups, Armenians and Indians, don’t share it, Patterson said. That made Patterson look south, to the Maikop civilization, which likely had significant contact with the Yamnaya, as a plausible culture where Indo-European languages originated. Samples have been obtained from Maikop burial sites, but the DNA work to test that proposal is pending, Patterson said.

Quote:Jones et al, "Upper Palaeolithic genomes reveal deep roots of modern Eurasians" (dated as "Received 20 July 2015")



We extend the scope of European palaeogenomics by sequencing the genomes of Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,300 years old, 1.4-fold coverage) and Mesolithic (9,700 years old, 15.4-fold) males from western Georgia in the Caucasus and a Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,700 years old, 9.5-fold) male from Switzerland. While we detect Late Palaeolithic–Mesolithic genomic continuity in both regions, we find that Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHG) belong to a distinct ancient clade that split from western hunter-gatherers ~45 kya, shortly after the expansion of anatomically modern humans into Europe and from the ancestors of Neolithic farmers ~25 kya, around the Last Glacial Maximum. CHG genomes significantly contributed to the Yamnaya steppe herders who migrated into Europe ~3,000 BC, supporting a formative Caucasus influence on this important Early Bronze age culture. CHG left their imprint on modern populations from the Caucasus and also central and south Asia possibly marking the arrival of Indo-Aryan languages.

Quote:CHG origins of migrating Early Bronze Age herders. We investigated the temporal stratigraphy of CHG influence by comparing these data to previously published ancient genomes. We find that CHG, or a population close to them, contributed to the genetic makeup of individuals from the Yamnaya culture, which have been implicated as vectors for the profound influx of Pontic steppe ancestry that spread westwards into Europe and east into central Asia with metallurgy, horseriding and probably Indo-European languages in the third millenium BC 5,7. CHG ancestry in these groups is supported by ADMIXTURE analysis (Fig. 1b) and admixture f3-statistics 14,25 (Fig. 5), which best describe the Yamnaya as a mix of CHG and Eastern European hunter-gatherers. The Yamnaya were semi-nomadic pastoralists, mainly dependent on stock-keeping but with some evidence for agriculture, including incorporation of a plow into one burial. As such it is interesting that they lack an ancestral coefficient of the EF genome (Fig. 1b), which permeates through western European Neolithic and subsequent agricultural populations. During the Early Bronze Age, the Caucasus was in communication with the steppe, particularly via the Maikop culture, which emerged in the first-half of the fourth millennium BC. The Maikop culture predated and, possibly with earlier southern influences, contributed to the formation of the adjacent Yamnaya culture that emerged further to the north and may be a candidate for the transmission of CHG ancestry. In the ADMIXTURE analysis of later ancient genomes (Fig. 1b) the Caucasus component gives a marker for the extension of Yamnaya admixture, with substantial contribution to both western and eastern Bronze Age samples. However, this is not completely coincident with metallurgy; Copper Age genomes from Northern Italy and Hungary show no contribution; neither does the earlier of two Hungarian Bronze Age individuals.

Quote:CHG left their imprint on modern populations from the Caucasus and also central and south Asia possibly marking the arrival of Indo-Aryan languages.



[...]

It has been proposed that modern Indians are a mixture of two ancestral components, an Ancestral North Indian component related to modern West Eurasians and an Ancestral South Indian component related more distantly to the Onge [25]; here Kotias proves the majority best surrogate for the former [28,29] (Supplementary Table 10). It is estimated that this admixture in the ancestors of Indian populations occurred relatively recently, 1,900–4,200 years BP, and is possibly linked with migrations introducing Indo-European languages and Vedic religion to the region (28).

[...]

Finally, we found that CHG ancestry was also carried east to become a major contributor to the Ancestral North Indian component found in the Indian subcontinent. Exactly when the eastwards movement occurred is unknown, but it likely included migration around the same time as their contribution to the western European gene pool and may be linked with the spread of Indo-European languages. However, earlier movements associated with other developments such as that of cereal farming and herding are also plausible.





[28] Moorjani, P. et al. Genetic evidence for recent population mixture in India. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 93, 422–438 (2013).

Quote:Moorjani, P. et al. Genetic evidence for recent population mixture in India. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 93, 422–438 (2013).

[...]

Our analysis documents major mixture between populations in India that occurred 1,900–4,200 years BP, well after the establishment of agriculture in the subcontinent. We have further shown that groups with unmixed ANI and ASI ancestry were plausibly living in India until this time. This contrasts with the situation today in which all groups in mainland India are admixed. These results are striking in light of the endogamy that has characterized many groups in India since the time of mixture. For example, genetic analysis suggests that the Vysya from Andhra Pradesh have experienced negligible gene flow from neighboring groups in India for an estimated 3,000 years.1 Thus, India experienced a demographic transformation during this time, shifting from a region where major mixture between groups was common and affected even isolated tribes such as the Palliyar and Bhil to a region in which mixture was rare.



Our estimated dates of mixture correlate to geography and language, with northern groups that speak Indo-European languages having significantly younger admixture dates than southern groups that speak Dravidian languages. This shows that at least some of the history of population mixture in India is related to the spread of languages in the subcontinent. One possible explanation for the generally younger dates in northern Indians is that after an original mixture event of ANI and ASI that contributed to all present-day Indians, some northern groups received additional gene flow from groups with high proportions of West Eurasian ancestry, bringing down their average mixture date. This hypothesis would also explain the nonexponential decays of LD in many northern groups and their higher proportions of ANI ancestry. A prediction of this model is that some northern Indians will have genomes consisting of long stretches of ANI ancestry interspersed with stretches that are mosaics of both ANI and ASI ancestry (inherited from the initial mixture). Although we have not been able to test the predictions of this hypothesis, it may become possible to do so in future by developing a method to infer the ancestry at each locus in the genome of Indians that can provide accurate estimates even in the absence of data from ancestral populations.



The dates we report have significant implications for Indian history in the sense that they document a period of demographic and cultural change in which mixture between highly differentiated populations became pervasive before it eventually became uncommon. The period of around 1,900–4,200 years BP was a time of profound change in India, characterized by the deurbanization of the Indus civilization,39 increasing population density in the central and downstream portions of the Gangetic system,40 shifts in burial practices,41 and the likely first appearance of Indo-European languages and Vedic religion in the subcontinent.18,19 The shift from widespread mixture to strict endogamy that we document is mirrored in ancient Indian texts. The Rig Veda, the oldest text in India, has sections that are believed to have been composed at different times. The older parts do not mention the caste system at all, and in fact suggest that there was substantial social movement across groups as reflected in the acceptance of people with non-Indo-European names as kings (or chieftains) and poets.42 The four-class (varna) system, comprised of Brahmanas, Ksatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras, is mentioned only in the part of the Rig Veda that was likely to have been composed later (the appendix: book 10).42 The caste (jati) system of endogamous groups having specific social or occupational roles is not mentioned in the Rig Veda at all and is referred to only in texts composed centuries after the Rig Veda, for example, the law code of Manu that forbade intermarriage between castes.43 Thus, the evolution of Indian texts during this period provides confirmatory support as well as context for our genetic findings.



It is also important to emphasize what our study has not shown. Although we have documented evidence for mixture in India between about 1,900 and 4,200 years BP, this does not imply migration from West Eurasia into India during this time. On the contrary, a recent study that searched for West Eurasian groups most closely related to the ANI ancestors of Indians failed to find any evidence for shared ancestry between the ANI and groups in West Eurasia within the past 12,500 years3 (although it is possible that with further sampling and new methods such relatedness might be detected). An alternative possibility that is also consistent with our data is that the ANI and ASI were both living in or near South Asia for a substantial period prior to their mixture. Such a pattern has been documented elsewhere; for example, ancient DNA studies of northern Europeans have shown that Neolithic farmers originating in Western Asia migrated to Europe about 7,500 years BP but did not mix with local hunter gatherers until thousands of years later to form the present-day populations of northern Europe.15,16,44,45



The most remarkable aspect of the ANI-ASI mixture is how pervasive it was, in the sense that it has left its mark on nearly every group in India. It has affected not just traditionally upper-caste groups, but also traditionally lower-caste and isolated tribal groups, all of whom are united in their history of mixture in the past few thousand years. It may be possible to gain further insight into the history that brought the ANI and ASI together by studying DNA from ancient human remains (such studies need to overcome the challenge of a tropical environment not conducive to DNA preservation). Ancient DNA studies could be particularly revealing about Indian history because they have the potential to directly reveal the geographic distribution of the ANI and ASI prior to their admixture.

Quote:The period of around 1,900–4,200 years BP was a time of profound change in India, characterized by the deurbanization of the Indus civilization,39

increasing population density in the central and downstream portions of the Gangetic system,40

shifts in burial practices,41

and the likely first appearance of Indo-European languages and Vedic religion in the subcontinent.18,19

Quote:(1. Jones et al 2015 It is estimated that this admixture in the ancestors of Indian populations occurred relatively recently, 1,900–4,200 years BP, and is possibly linked with migrations introducing Indo-European languages and Vedic religion to the region (28).

(where the ref is

(28) Moorjani, P. et al. Genetic evidence for recent population mixture in India. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 93, 422–438 (2013).

Quote:(2. Moorjani Reich et al 2013 It is also important to emphasize what our study has not shown. Although we have documented evidence for mixture in India between about 1,900 and 4,200 years BP, this does not imply migration from West Eurasia into India during this time.

Quote:There was a movement from Iran to North of Central Asia in Neolithic times and maybe later also. It was the G1 haplogroup.

Quote:Deep Phylogenetic Analysis of Haplogroup G1 Provides Estimates of SNP and STR Mutation Rates on the Human Y-Chromosome and Reveals Migrations of Iranic Speakers

Balanovsky et al April 7, 2015





Abstract



Y-chromosomal haplogroup G1 is a minor component of the overall gene pool of South-West and Central Asia but reaches up to 80% frequency in some populations scattered within this area. We have genotyped the G1-defining marker M285 in 27 Eurasian populations (n= 5,346), analyzed 367 M285-positive samples using 17 Y-STRs, and sequenced ~11 Mb of the Y-chromosome in 20 of these samples to an average coverage of 67X. This allowed detailed phylogenetic reconstruction. We identified five branches, all with high geographical specificity: G1-L1323 in Kazakhs, the closely related G1-GG1 in Mongols, G1-GG265 in Armenians and its distant brother clade G1-GG162 in Bashkirs, and G1-GG362 in West Indians. The haplotype diversity, which decreased from West Iran to Central Asia, allows us to hypothesize that this rare haplogroup could have been carried by the expansion of Iranic speakers northwards to the Eurasian steppe and via founder effects became a predominant genetic component of some populations, including the Argyn tribe of the Kazakhs. The remarkable agreement between genetic and genealogical trees of Argyns allowed us to calibrate the molecular clock using a historical date (1405 AD) of the most recent common genealogical ancestor. The mutation rate for Y-chromosomal sequence data obtained was 0.78×10-9 per bp per year, falling within the range of published rates. The mutation rate for Y-chromosomal STRs was 0.0022 per locus per generation, very close to the so-called genealogical rate. The “clan-based” approach to estimating the mutation rate provides a third, middle way between direct farther-to-son comparisons and using archeologically known migrations, whose dates are subject to revision and of uncertain relationship to genetic events.



Introduction



Despite multiple studies of the phylogeography of individual Y-chromosomal haplogroups, haplogroup G1-M285 has not received attention so far. This is partly explained by its relatively low frequency in its main area of distribution in South-West Asia [10,42], and partly by its uneven geographic distribution with a maximum frequency in the Madjar population in Kazakhstan [5]. For this reason, study of the phylogeography of haplogroup G [44] dealt mainly with the G2 sub-branch, and the only statement about G1 is an estimate of its age from Y-STR markers (19,000 ± 6,000 years). However, newly accumulated data indicate that G1 is present over a wider area in the Eurasian steppe than in Madjars only [10], and it also reaches very high frequencies in geographically distant populations of the Armenian plateau (Table 1). Thus, haplogroup G1 might mark an ancient genetic link between Iranic speakers of South-West Asia and populations of the Central Asian steppes where Iranian speech predominated in the second and first millennia BC (Fig 1A). However, the place of origin of this haplogroup remains unclear, and it is unknown whether South-West Asians and Madjars have the same or different subbranches of haplogroup G1, what the age of the branch(es) are, and which ancient migrations contributed to the contemporary distribution and diversity of this haplogroup.



[...]

Migration of Iranic-speaking populations between the Central Asian steppes and South-West Asian uplands is an important issue in human population history, directly related to the much-debated problem of the homeland and early migrations of Indo-Europeans. Followers of the Kurgan theory propose that the carriers of Iranic languages expanded from the Eurasian steppe southward to present-day Iran, from which region these languages received their name (Fig 1B). The competing theory locating the Indo-European homeland in Eastern Anatolia proposes that the Iranic branch migrated from the Iranian plateau northward to the steppes (Fig 1B). Thus, both theories agree on the area populated by ancient Iranic-speakers (both the Iranian-Armenian plateau and Central Asia steppes) and later replacement of Iranic languages in the steppes by the Turkic ones. But these theories suggested opposite directions of the population movements between the steppes and uplands [34].



[...]

It is notable that the area of haplogroup G1, including the Eurasian steppes from the North Black Sea region to the Mongolian Altai and South-Western Asian uplands (Iran and historical Great Armenia), corresponds well with the area populated by Iranic speakers in the second and first millennia BC (Fig 1A). This correspondence was statistically confirmed by AMOVA (S3 Table).



[...]

The phylogenetic trees created by parsimony (S2 Fig) and Bayesian approaches (S3 Fig) coincided fully—not surprisingly, since the full-Y-chromosomal dataset allows robust reconstruction of phylogenetic events. The trees reveal three principal clusters: Kazakh, Armenian and Bashkir, with 100% specificity of the cluster members to the corresponding populations. The Armenian and Bashkir clusters have a shared ancestor on the tree, while the Kazakh cluster and an Indian cluster (described below) form independent branches. The Mongol sample forms a branch on its own, although this Mongolian branch then joins the Kazakh cluster in agreement with common geographical and historical background of the two groups.



This tree corresponds in general with the pattern revealed by the STR-based network (Fig 3). Kazakh, Armenian and Bashkir clusters are clearly visible on both plots. However, Armenians, which seemed to have two clusters and multiple single-haplotype mini-branches from the STR data, all turned out to belong to one single and compact cluster when complete Y-chromosomal resequencing was performed. Similarly, the Mongolian sample, which seemed to form a separate branch on the STR-based plot, actually joins the Kazakh cluster. We conclude that haplogroup G1 lineages actually form a restricted number of clusters, in contrast to the impression one can get from STR-data, with the caveat that the number of sequences examined thus far is limited.



The presence of additional clusters was confirmed when we included two GIH (Gujarat Indians from Houston) samples from the 1000 Genomes Project, which are the only publicly available data on haplogroup G1. Including the low coverage sequences halved the number of SNPs called in all samples (S4 Table), but tree revealed the same topology, and the Indian G1s formed their own cluster (Fig 5). One technical point is notable: the lengths of all the branches on the tree are similar, as they should be if the mutation rate is constant. The only exception is the very long branches of the samples from the 1000 Genomes Project, which is likely caused by the filtering criteria not being optimized for low coverage datasets. However, 26 SNPs were independently called in both samples, thus confirming the reality of the Indian-specific branch of haplogroup G1.



The Kazakh cluster fits the previously described G-L1323 branch (www.isogg.org), while the Bashkir, Armenian, Mongolian and Indian branches were not previously reported. Fig 5 approximates the phylogenetic relations between five branches found in our study and three previously known ones.



(Note they estimated the mutation rate based on a 14th-15th century ancestor of Kazakhs)



Discussion



The pattern of geographic distribution of haplogroup G1-M285 is to some degree exceptional, as it cannot be called either a West-Eurasian or an East-Eurasian lineage (Fig 2). Instead, its spread zone corresponds well with the area of ancient Iranic-speaking groups who dwelled both on the Iranian plateau (and neighboring uplands) and Eurasian steppe. The increased dataset on G1 frequencies and STR-variation leaves little doubt that G1 is partitioned into a small number of clusters (branches), each frequent in a particular population. It became very clear from the phylogenetic tree based on full Y-chromosomal sequences that the geographic specificity of G1 branches is virtually absolute, as all five branches are specific, respectively, to West Indians, Kazakhs, Mongols, Bashkirs, and Armenians, although further sampling in Iran and Central Asian countries may reveal additional minor branches.



The question arises of whether the homeland of G1 was in steppe or mountains. Much higher STR variation in the west part of the Iranian-Armenian plateau makes the mountain homeland a more probable candidate. This conclusion fits the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origins, and the pattern of STR diversity (Fig 4) fits especially well. Migrations from Iran to Central Asia are also clear from paleoanthropological data [19,29]. Though haplogroup G1 certainly cannot serve as a marker for the Indo-European expansion in general, this haplogroup might be a genetic component carried by a wave of Iranic-speaker migration and brought northward to the Eurasian steppe. The genetic dates suggest that all principal branches already existed when this migration started. Indeed, even the last split into the Bashkir and Armenian clusters is dated back to 8000 YBP (S5 Table), while the Armenian linguistic branch separated around 4600 YBP and Indo-Iranian languages separated around 4200 YBP (starling.rinet.ru/new100/eurasia_long.jpg). Haplogroup G1 might remain a minor genetic component among many Eurasian and particularly Iranic-speaking populations (as it is now rare, for example, in Italy and West India, though more frequent in its possible homeland in Iran/Armenia). When Turkic languages replaced Iranic ones in the steppes (perhaps starting from the middle of the 1st millennium AD) the G1-carriers were probably assimilated into expanding Turkic and then Mongolian-speaking populations. In more recent times, haplogroup G1 has undergone three independent expansions in different geographic regions, shown by the full-Y-chromosomal analysis (Fig 5).

(That final prediction is worth investigating.)



The expansion in Kazakhs is genetically dated to an interval of 470–750 YBP, using the range of published mutation rate point estimates [17,37,41,50]. The genealogical ancestor of the Argyn Kazakh (the main carriers of this haplogroup) lived 600 years ago, which lies in the middle of this range. Expansion from a single man to half a million descendants within 500 years (20 generations) is not really surprising. Indeed, having two surviving sons in every generation gives half a million descendants in the 19th generation and Kazakh families had 3.5 children on average [36]. Also, an even more impressive expansion up to 16 million descendants was suggested for the same medieval steppe societies [53]. Note that the traditional genealogical partitioning of Argyns into three clans corresponds well with the Y-STR data (S4 Fig). This finding also questions the hypothesis [5] about the relationship between the Argyn subclan Madjars and Magyars (Hungarians), because haplogroup G1 (comprising 82% of the Madjar gene pool) finds its place within other Argyn Kazakh (S4 Fig) while no G1 samples have been reported in Hungarians so far.



The expansion in the Hemsheni Armenian is genetically dated to 1150 YBP using our rate (S5 Table). It corresponds well with the historical evidence [30,48] that the Hemsheni originated from relatives and servants of Prince Shapuh Amatuni, who migrated in 791 from the Abbasid Persian state.



The expansion in the Kangly tribe of Bashkirs is genetically dated to the 15th century AD (S5 Table). This tribe originated from the Pechenegs around the 8th century AD, then joined the Bashkirs, and later expansion in a restricted part of the tribe might have been caused by demographic changes when it became part of the Golden Horde in the 14th century and part of the Russian state in 16th century.



We note that despite geographic proximity, the ancestor of the G1 cluster in Bashkirs had no close genetic relationship to the corresponding ancestor in Kazakhs. These branches (and the third branch detected in Mongolians) have survived in the Eurasian steppe perhaps since the Scythian epoch.



The remarkable coincidence between the genealogical tree of the Argyn Kazakh clan (Fig 6B) and the genetic tree obtained from full Y-chromosomal sequences (Fig 6A) allowed us to suggest an independent calibration of the mutation rate of Y-chromosomal SNPs. This “clan” rate has been tested only within the time frame in which it was obtained (a few centuries), and in cases when it is reasonable to suppose expansion of a single paternal line rather than multiple lineages in the founding population, and by applying the “gold standard” portion of the Y-chromosome (that included in the BigY technology used in our study). Provided these limitations are taken into account, this “clan-based” calibration might be at least as reliable as calibrations based on archeological evidence, because archeological dates are subject to revision and of uncertain relationship to genetic events. For example, the calibration of the Y-chromosomal mutation rate in [41] is based on “archeological evidence that humans first colonized America around 15 kya” while the study that provides the commonly-used calibration of the mitochondrial DNA control region [15] relies on a “major wave of migration [which] brought one population ancestral to Amerinds from north-eastern Siberia to America 20,000–25,000 years ago”. Fortunately, despite differences in approaches, all mutation rates suggested for the “full” sequences of the Y-chromosome fall within the interval 0.6–1.0 ×10-9 per bp per year, and this uncertainty may be further narrowed, as we demonstrated for the haplogroup G1.

Quote:Culture



Its inhumation practices were characteristically Indo-European, typically in a pit, sometimes stone-lined, topped with a kurgan (or tumulus). Stone cairns replace kurgans in later interments.



The Maykop kurgan was extremely rich in gold and silver artifacts; unusual for the time.

(Note discussion of "foreign objects" further below.)



The Maykop culture (also spelled Maikop, Majkop), ca. 3700 BC—3000 BC,[1] was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the Western Caucasus region of Southern Russia.



[...]

Iranian Origins



A more recent suggestion, by Mariya Ivanova, [8] is the Maikop origins were on the Iranian Plateau:



"Graves and settlements of the 5th millennium BC in North Caucasus attest to a material culture that was related to contemporaneous archaeological complexes in the northern and western Black Sea region. Yet it was replaced, suddenly as it seems, around the middle of the 4th millennium BC by a “high culture” whose origin is still quite unclear. This archaeological culture named after the great Maikop kurgan showed innovations in all areas which have no local archetypes and which cannot be assigned to the tradition of the Balkan-Anatolian Copper Age. The favoured theory of Russian researchers is a migration from the south originating in the Syro-Anatolian area, which is often mentioned in connection with the socalled “Uruk expansion”. However, serious doubts have arisen about a connection between Maikop and the Syro-Anatolian region. The foreign objects in the North Caucasus reveal no connection to the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris or to the floodplains of Mesopotamia, but rather seem to have ties to the Iranian plateau and to South Central Asia. Recent excavations in the Southwest Caspian Sea region are enabling a new perspective about the interactions between the “Orient” and Continental Europe. On the one hand, it is becoming gradually apparent that a gigantic area of interaction evolved already in the early 4th millennium BC which extended far beyond Mesopotamia; on the other hand, these findings relativise the traditional importance given to Mesopotamia, because innovations originating in Iran and Central Asia obviously spread throughout the Syro-Anatolian region independently thereof"

Quote:Expansion



Two-wave models of Indo-Iranian expansion have been proposed by [11] and Parpola (1999). The Indo-Iranians and their expansion are strongly associated with the Proto-Indo-European invention of the chariot. It is assumed that this expansion spread from the Proto-Indo-European homeland north of the Caspian sea south to the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Iranian plateau, and Northern India. They also expanded into Mesopotamia and Syria and introduced the horse and chariot culture to this part of the world. Sumerian texts from EDIIIb Girsu (2500–2350 BC) already mention the '[b]chariot' (gigir) and Ur III texts (2150–2000 BC) mention the horse (anshe-zi-zi).[/b]



First wave - Indo-Aryans

[...]

Second wave



The second wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave.[9]:42–43 The first Iranians to reach the Black Sea may have been the Cimmerians in the 8th century BC,

Quote:mtDNA from the Early Bronze Age to the Roman Period Suggests a Genetic Link between the Indian Subcontinent and Mesopotamian Cradle of Civilization

Abstract



Ancient DNA methodology was applied to analyse sequences extracted from freshly unearthed remains (teeth) of 4 individuals deeply deposited in slightly alkaline soil of the Tell Ashara (ancient Terqa) and Tell Masaikh (ancient Kar-Assurnasirpal) Syrian archaeological sites, both in the middle Euphrates valley. Dated to the period between 2.5 Kyrs BC and 0.5 Kyrs AD the studied individuals carried mtDNA haplotypes corresponding to the M4b1, M49 and/or M61 haplogroups, which are believed to have arisen in the area of the Indian subcontinent during the Upper Paleolithic and are absent in people living today in Syria. However, they are present in people inhabiting today’s Tibet, Himalayas, India and Pakistan. We anticipate that the analysed remains from Mesopotamia belonged to people with genetic affinity to the Indian subcontinent since the distribution of identified ancient haplotypes indicates solid link with populations from the region of South Asia-Tibet (Trans-Himalaya). They may have been descendants of migrants from much earlier times, spreading the clades of the macrohaplogroup M throughout Eurasia and founding regional Mesopotamian groups like that of Terqa or just merchants moving along trade routes passing near or through the region. None of the successfully identified nuclear alleles turned out to be ΔF508 CFTR, LCT-13910T or Δ32 CCR5.



[...]

For instance, it is commonly accepted that the founders of Sumerian civilization came from the outside of the region, their exact origin is, however, still a matter of debate. It is suggested that migrants of Iranian, Indian [32], [33] or even Tibetan affinity [34] founded the Sumerian civilization, which suggestion can be supported by comparing the Tibeto-Burman and Sumerian languages [35]. The migrants could have entered Mesopotamia earlier than 45 centuries ago, during the lifetime of the oldest studied individual, as the Tibetan Plateau was peopled more than 20 Kyrs ago [21], [36].**

[...]

Using median joining network [28] we attempted to draw the four observed haplotypes from those of the extant neighbouring populations (Tab.S3) which confirmed their restriction to the South, East and Southeast Asia regions (Fig. 4). They belong mostly to subclades of South Asian-Tibet specific haplogroups absent today in Mesopotamia [26], [27] (Fig. 3). Only complete sequencing will help to narrow down the geography and indicate precise origin of the studied individuals. However, at this step of the analysis a continuity between Trans-Himalaya and Mesopotamia regions in ancient time is likely which has been broken down as a result of recent population movements. Probably, significant depopulation resulting from the Mongolian invasions of the late 13th century AD [29], followed by repopulation by Bedouin tribes in the 17th century [30] and farmers from southern Anatolia and western Syria during the 19th and 20th century [31] are among the possible factors which may have shifted the gene pool profile of the region.

Quote:Modern humans first inhabited the Tibetan Plateau at least twenty-one thousand years ago.[2] This population was largely replaced around 3,000 BC by Neolithic immigrants from northern China. However, there is a "partial genetic continuity between the Paleolithic inhabitants and the contemporary Tibetan populations".[2]

Quote:AGRICULTURE has traditionally been the foundation of the Tibetan economy. The three major forms of occupation in Tibet are pastoral nomadism (drokpa), grain farming (shingpa) and semi-nomadism (sama-drok). Over 80 per cent of the total population of Tibet is still engaged in primary sector agriculture (TIN 1999a). Farmers are mainly concentrated in valleys where they utilise fertile soil for crop cultivation, while pastoral and semi-nomads are found on plateaus and mountains suitable for raising animals.

Quote:["Indo-Iranians"] also expanded into Mesopotamia and Syria and introduced the horse and chariot culture to this part of the world. Sumerian texts from EDIIIb Girsu (2500–2350 BC) already mention the 'chariot' (gigir) and Ur III texts (2150–2000 BC) mention the horse (anshe-zi-zi).

Quote:A later development in Mesopotamia was a type of two-wheeled vehicle whose solitary occupant sat astride a central beam as if riding an animal. However, it is likely that the first true chariots were developed on the Eurasian steppes, as shown by the burials discovered along the border between Russia and Kazakhstan, although this is still the subject of scholarly debate.



[Image selection copies this text as caption:] A burial with warrior, horses and chariot... from China!

(Note: Oh so it's not a picture of Sintashta chariot burial. Can't find a single picture of the "true" chariot - i.e. with spoked wheels - from Sintashta. ***)



Radio-carbon dating of horse remains interred with chariots now indicates that this ancient grassland culture, called by archaeologists the Sintashta-Petrovka people, began using chariots around the beginning of the Middle Bronze period, two hundred years before the first evidence of Middle Eastern chariots. (Based on the style of the artifacts found at the burial sites, Russian researchers previous dated the Sintasta chariots to two centuries after the first evidence of chariot use in the Middle East. More accurate radio-carbon testing is required to settle this dispute.)

Quote:Trip to the Zhou: Remains of horses and chariots unearthed from tomb dating back to 3,000-year-old Chinese dynasty



By Daily Mail Reporter

Updated: 10:48 GMT, 2 September 2011

Quote:The famous Sumerian "Standard of Ur" depicts this earliest form of military wagon with four wheels drawn by four asses or ass/onager hybrids, together with a driver and a warrior armed with spears and axes riding into battle over the corpses of the slain. In fact, Sir Leonard Woodlley uncovered several burials among the Royal Tombs of Ur where warriors and the kings were buried not only with their carts and wagons, but also with the draft animals and the driver!

Quote:History

Chariots are the culmination of a natural technical evolution. In the Middle East, no sooner do we find evidence of utility wagons drawn by donkeys, mules, oxen and even goats, than we find these same primitive vehicles used in warfare. It was on the fertile plains of Mesopotamia and Anatolia that the precursor to the chariot was created.

Quote:The historians have constantly denied the existence of chariot in India before 1500 BCE. A re-examination of the excavation (1920-21 and 1933-34) report of Harappa published by the British Government of India in 1940 reveals that the chariot appears in India at 3000 BCE at Harappa (Vats 1940:452), and may have been made for the first time there itself. Many chariot toys including a covered copper chariot model were found from that date (see figures below). The original uncovered chariot must have been made at least a thousand years earlier.

Quote:Radio-carbon dating of horse remains interred with chariots now indicates that this ancient grassland culture, called by archaeologists the Sintashta-Petrovka people, began using chariots around the beginning of the Middle Bronze period, two hundred years before the first evidence of Middle Eastern chariots. (Based on the style of the artifacts found at the burial sites, Russian researchers previous dated the Sintasta chariots to two centuries after the first evidence of chariot use in the Middle East. More accurate radio-carbon testing is required to settle this dispute.)

Quote:On one of the sites (Crooked Lake) found chariots, dated the bones of a horse in 2026 year BC. e. Thus, Sintashta culture media used the first-preserved chariot in history (picture chariots Sumerian artifact known as The Standard Urschi, date from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. E. [2]).

Quote:People have doubted the “AIT date” of onset of riding (4200 BCE) and charioteering (2100 BCE). Archaeologist Renfrew (2000:44; quoted by Drews) wrote, “The mounted warrior nomad horseman does not make his appearance until the end of the second millennium”. Another prominent archaeologist who has been persistently researching the subject for long Kuzmina (2000:122, quoted by Drews:132) wrote “warrior-horsemen appear in the steppe not in the fourth millennium BC but at the end of the second millennium BC”.

Quote:17. In Table 1, sample AA 47803, dated ca. 2900-2600 BCE, was from a human skeleton of the Poltavka period that was later cut through and decapitated by a much deeper Potapovka grave pit. A horse sacrifice above the Potapovka grave is dated by sample AA 47802 to about 1900-1800 BCE. Although they were almost a thousand years apart, they looked, on excavation, like they were deposited together, with the Potapovka horse skull lying above the shoulders of the decapitated Poltavka human. Before dates were obtained on both the horse and the skeleton this deposit was interpreted as a "centaur"—a decapitated human with his head replaced by the head of a horse, an important combination in Indo-Iranian mythology. But Nerissa Russell and Eileen Murphy found that both the horse and the human were female, and the dates show that they were buried a thousand years apart. Similarly sample AA-12569 was from an older Poltavka period dog sacrifice found on the ancient ground surface at the edge of Potapovka grave 6 under kurgan 5 at the same cemetery. Older Poltavka sacrifices and graves were discovered under both kurgans 3 and 5 at Potapovka cemetery I. The Poltavka funeral deposits were so disturbed by the Potapovka grave diggers that they remained unrecognized until the radiocarbon dates made us take a second look. The "centaur" possibility was mentioned in Anthony and Vinogradov 1995, five or six years before the two pieces were dated. Of course, it now must be abandoned.

Quote:It must be noted, however, that the evidence of the Potapovka grave has been questioned, because of a suspected mixing of the archaeological layers.

Quote:... Potapovka graves were occasionally situated directly on top of older Poltavka monuments. Some Potapovka graves were dug right through preexisting Poltavka graves, destroying them, as some Sintashta strongholds were built on top of and incorporated older Poltavka settlements. 17

Quote:...

[Skipping Edwin Bryant retreading the Dadhyan~ch narrative in the Veda. Immediately thereupon, he refers to Anthony and Vinogradov 1995's claims concerning the Potapovka burial site as being related to the Rig Vedic Dadhyanch:]



The Vedic tradition seems to have a predecessor in the mid-Volga region in the beginning of the second millennium BC: a grave belonging to the Potapovka culture (Figure 4.10), which succeeded the Abashevo culture (Figure 4.9) and possessed the horse-drawn chariot, was found to contain a skeleton, which was otherwise human except for the skull which belonged to a horse (cf. Vasil'ev et al. 1994: 115, Fig. 11; cf. Anthony and Vinogradov 1995).

Quote:One burial has the corpse's head replaced with that of a horse,

Quote:reminiscent of the Vedic account of how the Asvíns replace the head of the priest Dadhyañc Artharvana with that of a horse so that he could reveal the secret of the sacred drink. —EIEC "Potapovka Culture"

Quote:Based on its use by Indo-Aryans in Mitanni and Vedic India, its prior absence in the Near East and Harappan India, and its 16th–17th century BCE attestation at the Andronovo site of Sintashta, Kuzmina (1994) argues that the chariot corroborates the identification of Andronovo as Indo-Iranian. Klejn (1974) and Brentjes (1981) find the Andronovo culture much too late for an Indo-Iranian identification since chariot-using Aryans appear in Mitanni by the 15th to 16th century BCE. However, Anthony & Vinogradov (1995) dated a chariot burial at Krivoye Lake to around 2000 BCE.[17]

Quote:The people of the Sintashta culture are thought to have spoken Proto-Indo-Iranian, the ancestor of the Indo-Iranian language family. This identification is based primarily on similarities between sections of the Rig Veda, an Indian religious text which includes ancient Indo-Iranian hymns recorded in Vedic Sanskrit, with the funerary rituals of the Sintashta culture as revealed by archaeology.[15]

[15] Anthony 2007, pp. 408–411.

Quote:Similarities between rituals excavated at Sintashta and Arkaim and those described later in the RV have solved, for many, the problem of Indo-Iranian origins.46 The parallels include a reference in RV 10.18 to a kurgan ("let them....bury death in this hill"), a roofed burial chamber supported with posts ("let the fathers hold up this pillar for you"), and with shored walls ("I shore up the earth all around you; let me not injure you as I lay down this clod of earth"). This is a precise description of Sintashta and Potapovka-Filatovka grave pits, which had wooden plank roofs supported by timber posts and plank shoring walls.

The horse sacrifice at a royal funeral is described in RV 1.162: "Keep the limbs undamaged and place them in the proper pattern. Cut them apart, calling out piece by piece." The horse sacrifices in Sintashta, Potapovka, and Filatovka graves match this description, with the lower legs of horses carefully cut apart at the joints and placed in and over the grave. The preference for horses as sacrificial animals in Sintashta funeral rituals, a species choice setting Sintashta apart from earlier steppe cultures, was again paralleled in the RV.

Quote:At least four sub-cultures of the Andronovo horizon have been distinguished, during which the culture expands towards the south and the east:



Sintashta-Petrovka-Arkaim (Southern Urals, northern Kazakhstan, 2200–1600 BCE)

the Sintashta fortification of ca. 1800 BCE in Chelyabinsk Oblast



[...]

Fedorovo (1500–1300 BCE) in southern Siberia (earliest evidence of cremation and fire cult[4])

Beshkent-Vakhsh (1000–800 BCE)