Unmasking AIT

[Husky]

Like post 472 further up - from which this one follows - this is also an important post. So is the next one.

Post 1/2



On the subject of Harvard trying to trace PIE to Caucasus. Specifically trying to trace "late PIE" to Maykop in the zone where the Caucasus at last meets the steppe.



1. Note Maykop is 3700 BCE-3000 BCE. It's to have influenced Yamna.

2. Since they're claiming Indians and Armenians can't be derived from Yamna or Yamna's partial-genetic derivatives (Sintashta 2100-1800 BCE etc, since Sintashta has 60% of the Yamna genetic component which 60% includes that euro component that they can't convincingly trace in Armenians or Indians), they're now hoping to find evidence in Maykop that will allow them to derive Armenians and Indians (invasions by Indo-Aryan-speakers into S and C Asia) directly from Maykop at Caucasus.

3. But Maykop ended 3000 BCE.

- Either they're positing a direct outflow from Maykop into C-Asian "IndoAryan cultures" that would then eventually lead into "S Asia" - i.e. a trail of IA from Maykop through C Asia into the subcontinent reaching India by 1800 BCE for standard AIT.

- Or they're positing an immediate outflow directly from Maykop into India/S Asia and C Asia. In which case they're contemplating "Indo-Aryan" languages reaching India before standard AIT dates.

[4. Meanwhile, Maykop related-Novosvobodnaja already attested to "Indian-specific" M52 not attested in Maykop-"influenced" Yamna.**]

5. Either way, no route from Maykop to (Yamna to) Sintastha to Indian subcontinent and C Asia is being argued: Yamna, and hence Yamna's genetically derived steppe cultures like Sintashta, are not considered as possibilities at present for explaining either 1. Indo-Aryan languages or 2. Indian genetics.





** It's all based on the aDNA found in the steppes so far. Also:

a. Yamna has been modelled as 50% Caucasus Hunter Gatherer (CHG) and 50% E-Euro Hunter Gatherer (EHG) genetic components. (CHG is specifically said to be 48-58% of Yamna.)

b. Yamna is R1b dominated

c. But Sintashta is dominated by R1a, specifically "Asian-specific" R1az93 (relatively rare in Euro-space).

d. Note: Mathieson et al 2015 seems to be ruling out Central Europe's Corded Ware culture (rich in some R1a) having travelled E and become the source of Sintashta's R1a. Rather, they posited an influx of R1az93 into Sintashta from some other direction:

biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2015/10/10/016477.full.pdf

"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."

e. Again: Yamna = modelled as 50% CHG and 50% EHG. Since Steppists insist that Yamna's heavy R1b Y haplogroup - which they tie to PIE - is native to Steppes and insist that it is not remotely Caucasus-derived, they - geneticists among them - develop stories arguing that R1b males went off to the Caucasus and got themselves wives from the Caucasus to explain the 50% CHG component. Problems with this argument as noted by others:

- there is in fact some non-Caucasus mtDMA in Yamna (implying that it's from the EHG component, and implying also that at least some of the Yamna Y haplogroups are from the CHG component)

- yet because Steppists want to associate PIE with R1b and claim that R1b is exclusively from EHG and absent in CHG, they're essentially arguing 100% native EHG female replacement by CHG women, including replacement of all native EHG sisters of R1b (and no trace of their mothers either).

- There's something very awkward about the 48%-58% CHG component being attributed to imported women ("wife-stealing, female exogamy" are all arguments that have been advanced by these Steppeist geneticists). Considering for the moment that R1b males went off to the Caucasus, genocided the males and dragged in their females as sex-slaves*** - or even secretly kidnapped Caucasus females unbeknownst to Caucasus males - and brought these females back to form Yamna PIE steppe kultur, it still does not explain what happened to the native women (since EHG mtDNA is being ignored or denied being EHG).

- Considering 100% female replacement, there may be other explanations too (not sure how it works with the model of genetic components they have): 1. that the R1b that would significantly make up Yamna were migrants who didn't bring their own women (could explain why the M52 "Indian-specific" mtDNA of Maykop is absent in Yamna?) or 2. that their women kept dying at childbirth. (C.f. how Conquistador types in some upland part of S/C America ended up marrying local women a lot because Mediterranean women did not survive childbirth at that altitude, whereas the local women were adapted to it.) But both my examples require R1b to be migrants to the area. I think the former happened rather than the latter.



*** A la the genocides that ancient Greek epics state as being perpetrated by the Greeks against Troy as per Iliad (but some of the aristocratic males were IIRC sold into slavery), and against IIRC some place in Egypt as per Odyssey: the men were mostly all killed when the Greeks were victorious, sometimes children too (like Hector's son), but usually the women and children were taken to Greece or sold into slavery. Another example from some centuries later was Euripedes' play about the plight of the Trojan women after Greek victory, which was indirect and conscientious self-criticism of his own era's genocide by Athens of the males of Melos, with the women and kids sold into slavery. But three points to be noted: 1. This behaviour was not limited to IE-speaking males, so not IE-specific. Nor even exclusive to humans. Lion males will kill off existing alphas, kill all its offspring and mate with the females of the pride. 2. Even in Homeric times - and more so thereafter - the Greeks were self-critical about Troy (in an authentic depiction of Odysseus' tale, Odysseus is clearly pained to narrate how his men genocided some place in Egypt on the trip home. Also: his men never made it home - which IIRC he was foretold - whereas he did); 3. Even if all the women of the nation that lost (say in the case of Troy) were abducted into Greece - instead of any being sold into slavery - that doesn't mean that Greek males killed off all their own women and mated only with the kidnapped foreign women, i.e. 100% female replacement.





Now to return to the subject of Harvard trying to trace PIE to Caucasus. Specifically trying to trace "late PIE" to Maykop in the zone where the Caucasus at last meets the steppe.



This bit yet again:



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

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.

MODIFIED (chronology of papers clarified): Even steppist supremacist geneticists complain disapprovingly (=admission) that the above is still being implied in Jones et al 2015 submitted July published Nov 2015 (much after Haak et al's "Massive Migration" from the steppes into Eurozone Feb 2015 paper, and some months after the Mathieson et al 2015 paper was submitted. Note that Jones herself had worked on Mathieson et al 2015, so she was aware of its conclusions and suggestions. Both the latter papers were coincidentally published at the same time, but there's a definite chronology and ordering of ideas between the two, with Mathieson et al's findings coming first and Jones et al following on from it and coming afterward). First, repeating the abstract:



nature.com/ncomms/2015/151116/ncomms9912/full/ncomms9912.html

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.

Now a part relevant to Indics from the main body of Jones et al article:



nature.com/ncomms/2015/151116/ncomms9912/pdf/ncomms9912.pdf



E.R. Jones et. al. ‘Upper Palaeolithic genomes reveal deep roots of modern Eurasians.’ Nature Communications (2015). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9912

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.

"The Maikop culture predated and, possibly with earlier southern influences, contributed to the formation of the adjacent Yamnaya culture"

-> i.e. Maikop itself derived from further south in the Caucasus. In any case, origins of "PIE" - and certainly wheels, kurgans and bronze smelting and fashioning - is NOT Yamna.

Yamna only pinpointed as source of many European IE languages. Nothing more.

Yamna is a derivative steppe kultur.

And as per the paper Yamna (and hence its derived [partially genetically-related] cultures like Sintashta) does not seem to concern origins of 1. Indians or C-Asians (and Armenians); nor 2. "Indo-Aryan languages":



Another excerpt from Jones et 2015 -

nature.com/ncomms/2015/151116/ncomms9912/pdf/ncomms9912.pdf

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).

Footnote 28 "Moorjani et al" is a paper by Reich (=IE supremacist), Moorjani et al.



Footnote 28 is cited as the source for Jones et al stating:

"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)."



BUT:

contrary to Jones et al - deliberately? - misrepresenting what the Reich/Moorjani paper actually had to say, look at the red bit in the following - taken from the Moorjani/Reich paper - on what their data ACTUALLY had to say (or rather: didn't have to say) about AIT/AMT. The only statement in this excerpt about AIT/AMT are suppositions made by other papers as cited. (The references to the Rig Veda - and which traces the caste system to post-Rig veda and post-admixture events postulated by Reich/Moorjani et al's model - are from Witzel too IIRC.)





ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3769933/

Genetic Evidence for Recent Population Mixture in India

Moorjani et al 2013

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.

So, even with their mathematical modelling of the genetics data to show up mixing between N and S in India as recent as 4200 to 1900 years BP (in order to hereafter dismiss the R1a (and even R2) in the southern Chenchu Vanavasis etc as 'derivative' followed by founder effect; and to pre-emptively deny much more than that),

they still can't pinpoint AIT.



Instead, the only time that Reich/Moorjani mention the AIT/AMT - though they're careful to not link it with the 4200-1900 years before present admixture event(s) - is when they cite some other paper on AIT/AMT as having occurred:

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

Moorjani/Reich et al said NOTHING about the 4200-1900 year admixture being attributed to anything related to any AIT/AMT (though they'd have loved to state it - that much is clear from the paper - they couldn't).



YET Jones et al brazenly tell us that Moorjani et al said that AIT could be the cause of the 4200-1900 years BP -



Compare again, what Jones et al said that Moorjani/Reich et al said (1), with what Moorjani-Reich et al REALLY said (2):

(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).

(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.

The difference between the two statements above is so stark that no one could equate the two meanings. Which means Jones at el deliberately inserted that falsehood.

And so, one can conclude how Jones et al are not only infested with IE-ism/Invasionism too, but are actually liars.



This seems to be the sum total of all IE-related genetics now.





Anyway, the Moorjani/Reich paper specifically admitted it made no claims about AIT/AMT.

- the paper was rather, I suspect, for the purpose of explaining away the R1a etc. Y haplogroups in ancient southern Hindoo Vanavasis as being "merely" an early "Indo-Aryan" input into said southern tribes.

- Can't recollect if the Reich/Moorjani paper was working with merely re-modelling older genetic data from other papers to draw their conclusions, or working with new data that they collected. I think the former.

- The Reich/Moorjani paper certainly wanted to conclude AIT/Indo-Aryan migrations etc - and assumed this was true, though it stated that was not the conclusion of the paper and not attested by the data the paper worked with.

- On the other hand, the Reich/Moorjani paper was waxing eloquent on how the caste system was to have come about: as a result of ANI-ASI sporadic mixing even after IA invasions. This old "caste system as an eventual product of IA invasions" - resurrected now - has been echoed by ideologicals such as in the Payanichamy paper (=dravoodianist [christian?] working with appointed Chinese).





Like post 472 further up, this is also an important post. So is the next one.