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Early Russian Pottery in Cisbaikal Kitoi culture 7,500 years ago, Samara culture 7,000 years ago, and Yamnaya culture 5,600–4,600 years ago, as well as Proto-Indo-European emergence
“The area east of Lake Baikal in Siberia is one of the few regions in Eurasia where pottery was already used during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. Such early pottery complexes were identified in Ust’-Karenga XII, Studenoye 1, Ust’-Menza 1, and Ust’-Khyakhta 3, dated at about 12-000-11,000 years ago. While around 20,000 years ago East Asian hunter-gatherers were already making ceramic pots. (It seems to Damien) that ceramics spread continually from the earliest centers in China, then Japan, and next the Russian Far East, lastly towards the west, all the way to Europe.” ref
“Abstract: In the early Holocene, Mesolithic hunter-gatherer communities inhabiting the Cis-Baikal region of Eastern Siberia were participating in a series of important cultural changes. These included the establishment of large cemeteries in the Angara Valley and on the Southwest shores of Lake Baikal, culminating in the formation of the distinctive Early Neolithic Kitoi cultural pattern ca. 7,560 years ago. Around the same time, the appearance of clay pots in a few Kitoi graves and at some contemporary habitation sites marks the formal transition to the Early Neolithic, which is defined in Russian archaeology by the emergence of pottery (and not the transition to farming). Little is known about how this early pottery was used, and why it was first adopted into the region. This pilot-study presents lipid-residue analysis of a selection of sherds from the oldest and relatively well-dated pottery assemblage in the Cis-Baikal region, which was recovered from the Gorelyi Les habitation site. The results indicate that the pots had been used to process a broad spectrum of food resources, including ruminants, fish and plants, and possibly resin and other by-products derived from pine trees, suggesting that the vessels were being used as general-purpose cooking containers. We conclude that there is scope for a much larger-scale investigation of diversity and change in prehistoric pottery use in Cis-Baikal, and that this research would improve current understandings of the diet, health, and subsistence strategies of the Kitoi and other prehistoric populations.” ref
“The Cis-Baikal region of Eastern Siberia includes the Angara Valley, the western shores of Lake Baikal, and the upper Lena River. In warmer conditions of the early Holocene, this region was the scene of several major cultural transitions. While there is general continuity in bone and stone tool-making traditions throughout the Mesolithic, the transition from the Early Mesolithic (10,000–8,630 years ago) to the Late Mesolithic (8,630–7,560 years ago) is marked by the emergence of archaeologically visible mortuary practices, including isolated burials of individuals, and a few small cemeteries (e.g. Pad’ Khin’skaia, Pad’ Chastye and Ust’-Griaznaia in Angara Valley or Rytvinka in Upper Lena valleys. Evidence from these burials and from faunal evidence recovered from habitation sites suggest that aquatic resources were already contributing to Late Mesolithic diets.” ref
“At the end of the Late Mesolithic, during a period of further climatic warming and the expansion of forest cover, further changes gathered pace. The small mobile groups of the Mesolithic appear to coalesce into larger social units, as evidenced by the rather sudden formation of large cemeteries, especially along the Angara River and on the shores of Southwest Baikal. These complexes contain highly distinctive mortuary traditions, starting with the “Kitoi”, including corrections for freshwater reservoir effects. The “classic” Kitoi cemeteries include Shamanka II at the head of the Kultuk Bay, as well as other large burial grounds located at the mouths of the main tributaries of the Angara River, including Kitoi (Kitoi River) and Lokomotiv (Irkut River) or smaller ones such as Ust’ Belaia and Galashikha (Belaia River).” ref
“The Kitoi mortuary protocol is mainly defined by copious use of red ochre, plus a large number of other diagnostic traits, including distinctive composite fishhooks. More generally, analysis of grave goods from Shamanka II indicates that Kitoi populations appear to have acquired several important new technologies, including powerful composite hunting bows, and a range of new fishing implements that supported exploitation of aquatic resources. Notable disparities in the quantity and diversity of Kitoi grave goods may point to emerging social differentiation, while the deeper continuity in other bone and lithic artefact types suggests that it was essentially local Mesolithic populations who were central to these developments.” ref
“It is around this time that clay pots make their first appearance in Cis-Baikal, with isolated finds in a few Kitoi graves, and at some contemporaneous habitation sites. This is an important development, because in Russian archaeology the emergence of pottery among hunter-gatherers is used to define the onset of the Neolithic, unlike in Western archaeology, where the Neolithic is associated with the transition to agriculture. In Cis-Baikal, the shift from the aceramic Mesolithic into the pottery-using Early Neolithic (EN) takes place at around 7560 years ago. However, this early use of pottery appears to have been relatively limited in scale, and many campsites and Kitoi graves remain essentially aceramic. Very little is known about why pottery was first adopted by the Kitoi culture, or what kind of resources were processed in the vessels. Much older evidence of pottery, extending back into the Late Glacial, has been reported from archaeological sites further to the east, including Transbaikal, on the middle and lower sections of the Amur River in the Russian Far East, and in Japan. Knowledge of pottery may have dispersed into Cis-Baikal from these areas, though the precise timing and exact routes remain unclear.” ref
“Along the Angara River and in Southwest Baikal, two different early pottery styles appear at around the same time: net-impressed wares and cord-impressed “Khaita” wares. While both types have been recorded at habitation sites, only net-impressed vessels have been recovered from Kitoi graves. The oldest radiocarbon-dated pottery assemblage from Cis-Baikal was recovered from Layer VI at the Gorelyi Les habitation site, which is situated on the Belaia River that runs into the Angara River. This pottery-bearing cultural horizon yielded a radiocarbon date on charcoal of 7000 years ago (7,580–8,160 years ago), and while the date is derived from a highly-compressed occupation level, it suggests that pottery starts to appear at around the same time that Kitoi culture was emerging ca. 7560 years ago. The Gorelyi Les ceramic assemblage, therefore, offers important opportunities to investigate how the oldest pottery in the Cis-Baikal region was being used and also to explore what motivated the emerging Kitoi culture to adopt clay pots into their subsistence strategies and social life.” ref
Becoming Neolithic”: Kitoi motivations for adoption of pottery
“The formation of the Early Neolithic Kitoi cultural pattern can be viewed as a rather sudden socio-economic transition, underpinned by a series of important technological innovations. In many ways, the gradual intensification of fishing appears to define the trajectory of the Kitoi culture, and bioarchaeological analysis of skeletal remains indicates that the contribution of fish to Kitoi diets increased steadily over time. The rich fisheries of the Angara River, which remain open throughout the winter months, appear to have encouraged the emergence of a range of either new or more morphologically variable fishing devices, including nets and sinkers, new type of harpoons and leisters, as well as composite fish-hooks. Nephrite wood-working tools were also in widespread use at this time, and could have been used to construct range of mass capture facilities, including fish weirs, fences and basketry trap. Intensive fishing — practised either individually or in larger coordinated groups — could also have offered rich and reliable harvests. This surplus could then have been processed, stored and shared out during leaner months. Perhaps not surprisingly, all the main Kitoi cemeteries are located along the major water courses, and may have reflected regional aggregation sites, where funerary rites and feasting events may have been combined with cooperative fishing activities. While fishing was important, terrestrial hunting continued to play a significant role in Kitoi groups. The appearance of powerful composite hunting bows would have greatly improved return rates in hunting local game, including moose, red deer, roe deer, and boar. In contrast, the extent to which the Kitoi exploited local plant and nut resources is less well understood.” ref
“Motivations for Kitoi adoption of pottery remain uncertain. In general, clay pots offer an effective means for the slow simmering of resources to extract rich lipids and to combine diverse elements into nourishing stews. However, the fact that pottery comes into use at around the same time that Kitoi groups appear to be intensifying their fishing activities may indicate that the two phenomena are somehow associated with each other. For example, ceramic vessels are ideal for quickly processing fish, and for the slow rendering of oil. Moreover, pottery is a relatively “cheap” container technology in contrast to baskets and boxes because large numbers of pots can potentially be made and then fired together, offering “economies of scale”. It is therefore plausible to suggest that opportunities for increasing the harvests of fish could also have encouraged Kitoi groups to adopt and expand their use of pottery, as it could have allowed them to quickly process larger catches, and to render greater volumes of valuable fish oil. This in turn, may have further encouraged the intensification of fishing activities, as growing surpluses could be efficiently processed. More generally, early pottery also tends to be found in close association with fishing equipment across many other parts Eastern Siberia, suggesting that the two have some kind of specific relationship with each other.” ref
“The adoption of clay pots may also have been motivated by the desire to stew lean meat or to produce bone grease, which would have enabled groups to extract maximum nutrition from hunted game, especially during leaner seasons. Extracting bone fats and marrow involves breaking open the long bones with simple hammer stones and anvils, and then the fragments are slowly heated in water to render the grease. Using direct heating of clay pots over a fire is less time consuming than using hot stones to maintain a constant heat, and would have freed up time for other activities. Seal fat could also have been rendered in the Kultuk Bay area.” ref
“The extent to which Kitoi may have processed plant resources in pottery is even less well-understood. Stands of Siberian pine nuts (Pinus sibirica) would also have been available to the Kitoi, and can easily be harvested, stored in the cones and consumed without any need for boiling. More usually, they are dry heated, and nut oil can be rendered by cold pressing. Other local plant resources such as berries, lichen and inner bark (e.g. pine, birch, or willow, which is rich in vitamin A and C and a well-known “starvation food”, could also have benefitted from boiling to remove bitter tannins). These plant foods could also have been added to mixed dishes to add flavor or thicken up stews. Finally, pots may also have been used by Kitoi people to produce tree resins, mastics, and pitch for the hafting of tools or other waterproof boxes, containers or even canoes. This process usually involves the slow heating of tree bark in a sealed container (e.g. a pot with a wooden lid); oil can also be thickened into pitch by slow simmering.” ref
“Several kinds of Kitoi social dynamics may also have encouraged pottery adoption, such as the use of pots to create rich and nutritious dishes (involving costly-to-produce oils, fats, and lipids) that could be prepared and shared out at aggregations, generating social debts, and perhaps leading to seasonal cycles of competitive feasting. The mortuary record of Kitoi society — which had already acquired the technological means to harvest abundant quantity of fish — also contains abundant evidence for emerging status inequalities, and such feasting events could potentially have served as a central socio-political strategy within these trans-egalitarian communities. On the other hand, pottery may simply have been attractive in more routine domestic contexts. It can be left unattended for long periods, generating efficiencies in time-management in hearth-side contexts, and can also be used for producing soft weaning foods.” ref
Case-study: Early Neolithic pottery at Gorelyi less
“The Gorelyi Les habitation site is situated on the Belaia River about 50 km from its confluence with the main Angara River. The site is located on the first terrace above the river, and is surrounded by forest and forest steppe, low hills and open plains. At the start of the Kitoi culture around 7,560 years ago, this area would already have been experiencing a slow warming trend since around 8,630 years ago, combined with increased precipitation, expansion of forest cover, and thicker, longer-lasting snow cover. The forest expansion would have peaked around 7,000–6,500 years ago. The landscapes around Gorelyi Les would have provided diverse game and plant resources, with the river providing transport links and also substantial fishing opportunities.” ref
“The Gorelyi Les site consensus is that the site was occupied throughout a period of at least three thousand years, consisting of five distinct occupation phases. The chronology of these periods is: Late Mesolithic (Layer VII; ca. 10,240 to 9,300 years ago); Early Neolithic (Layer VI; ca. 7,950 to 7,440 years ago); a Middle to Late Neolithic (Layer Vb, compression of MN and LN materials into one Layer; ca. 6,320 to 6,010 years ago); Late Neolithic (Layer Va; ca. 5,890 to 5,530 years ago); the Early Bronze Age (Layer IV; undated).” ref
“Pottery sherds have been recovered from some of these phases, though the earlier reports that 16 sherds, probably originating from a single pot, could be securely associated with Late Mesolithic Layer VIIa (ca. 10,240 to 9,300 years ago) have since controversial. If this interpretation is correct, then these sherds would be far older than the larger pottery assemblage from Early Neolithic Layer VI (ca. 7,950 to 7,440 years ago). However, most archaeologists, including the original excavators, now conclude that the sherds in the Late Mesolithic context are almost certainly intrusive, and were displaced down to this lower level by the action of burrowing animals, whose traces have been noted in several parts of the site.” ref
“This means that the pottery from the Early Neolithic Layer VI is now accepted as being the earliest and most-securely dated pottery assemblage in Cis-Baikal, with its date often reported as 7,870 years ago. It has also been suggested that Layer VI potentially forms a habitation site correlate of the earliest phase of the Kitoi mortuary tradition, as the occupation spans ca. 7,950 to 7,440 years ago, while the Kitoi tradition also starts at ca. 7,560 years ago but then extends through to 6,660 years ago when the dates are corrected for freshwater reservoir effects. While a further suite of radiocarbon dates would be useful to strengthen the chronology of Layer VI, the recovery of a highly-diagnostic Kitoi-type shank from a composite fishhook, combined with early finds of net-impressed pottery in both Kitoi graves and in Layer VI of this habitation site, can all be used to support the argument for general contemporaneity between Layer VI of the habitation site and the start of the Kitoi mortuary tradition.” ref
The layer VI Early Neolithic pottery assemblage
“Excavation efforts at Gorelyi Les have spanned three decades, producing a large pottery assemblage whose general details have recently been summarized. In total, 2339 “informative” sherds from at least 55 separate pots are associated with the entire Neolithic occupation. Of these, 1559 diagnostic sherds from a minimum of 42 pots are associated with the Early Neolithic, with almost all of them recovered from Layer VI. A further 599 diagnostic sherds, from at least 11 pots, are assigned to the Middle Neolithic.” ref
“As with other (undated) habitation sites across Cis-Baikal, the Layer VI Gorelyi Les assemblage consists of two distinctive types of pottery styles, which appear to have co-existed in the Early Neolithic: (a) net-impressed 1 pottery, which is “mitre-shaped” (the term given for paraboloid-shaped pottery, with an everted rim and decorated with net-impressions; (b) “Khaita” pottery, which is decorated with cord-impressions, with some examples having herringbone and other geometric motifs incised in the upper half of the vessels. The other non-diagnostic sherds recovered from Layer VI cannot be classed into either type, and are usually reported as being “plain-surface pottery” or “smooth-walled pottery”, generally with an everted rim and bearing no traces of ornamentation.” ref
“According to the faunal reports and lithic inventories, hunting activities appear to have been central to Gorelyi Les inhabitants’ subsistence strategy. Cervidae, including moose (Alces alces), red and roe deer (Cervus elaphus and Capreolus capreolus, respectively), were in the Early Neolithic Layer of this site, with a clear preference for roe deer. Traces of butchery, such as cut and chop marks mainly on the mandible, metatarsal, and long bone shafts, suggest marrow cracking. The site also had isolated finds of hare, bovid, and bear remains. Plant remains have not been recovered, although this may rather be related to a recovery bias as no flotation or wet screening was undertaken.” ref
“Fish bones (e.g. northern pike bones, Esox lucius) and a single shank from a composite fishhook were also recovered at Gorelyi Les. While this indicates that fish were present on site, the quantity of remains is very low (n = 8), suggesting that it was probably not a major economic activity. In contrast, the faunal assemblage is dominated by larger land animals. This may relate simply to preservation and recovery biases, but is more likely to result from differences in site function as large numbers of fish remains were recovered from the Ust’ Khaita habitation site, which is located only 2 km upstream from Gorelyi Les.” ref
On balance, it would appear that during the Early Neolithic, the Gorelyi Les habitation site was being used by Kitoi groups either as an active hunting camp or as a “gearing up” station used for readying hunting expeditions which returned to the site to process large game. The Early Neolithic pottery assemblage from Layer VI at Gorelyi Les appears to be one of very few assemblages that can be relatively securely-correlated with the Early Neolithic Kitoi culture in the wider Cis-Baikal region, offering a unique opportunity to explore how these vessels were being used, and also why they were first adopted into Kitoi society.” ref
Emergence of Kitoi culture and adoption of early pottery
“Although Kitoi groups were adopting a wide array of new technological innovations after ca. 7,500 years ago, including powerful hunting bows and new kinds of fishing equipment, it appears that exploitation of aquatic resources was probably the only branch of the economy amenable to intensification. In turn, the increasing economic surplus may also have supported larger social groups and the emergence of status differentiation. Other factors encouraging an increasing dietary focus on aquatic resources may have included the expansion and infilling of the boreal forest from about 7500–7000 cal. BP, which could have depressed local deer populations. Early pottery — signalling the onset of the Early Neolithic — also makes its first appearance in Cis-Baikal precisely within this dynamic social and ecological context, and it appears plausible to suggest that adoption was somehow linked to the growing reliance on aquatic resources. Moreover, the earliest well-dated pottery assemblage in Cis-Baikal is from the riverside Gorelyi Les habitation site.” ref
“Interestingly, however, the results of this pilot-study of the Early Neolithic pottery assemblage fail to demonstrate that the early pottery was used for the specialised processing of aquatic resources. This may be related to the site’s geographic location, which is some 50 km from the richest fisheries on the Angara River that are available throughout the year. In addition, the faunal and tool-kit evidence from Gorelyi Les suggest that it was more general-purpose site, perhaps serving as a stopping off point for groups moving up and down the Belaia River. Very few fish bones have been recovered here, whereas the abundant ruminant bones suggest a closer link to hunting activities. In contrast, excavations of the contemporaneous Early Neolithic occupation levels at the Ust’ Khaita site located further upstream did produce abundant evidence of fishing activities. This suggests that the two sites may have had different functions, and that pottery may have been used differently at each location, a question warranting further comparative research. However, despite the clear evidence of hunting activities at Gorelyi Les, there is also no indication in these results that the pottery was used for specialized processing of ruminant fats, or that they were part of the technology for operating a “grease station” at the site.” ref
“Overall, the results pointed to a much more generalized use of early pottery at Gorelyi Les, which may reflect the incorporation of general-purpose cooking pots into a flexible and broad-based subsistence strategy. In managing routine tasks around the hearth, these new kinds of containers may simply have offered practical advantages over the hot-stone boiling of foods in baskets and boxes, allowing the slow simmering of mixed foods and preparation of nutritious mixed dishes, while freeing up time for performance of other domestic tasks At the same time, there are hints at particular culinary practices, with a combination of fish and ruminant products being cooked in some pots, and more mixed dishes including non-ruminant animals cooked in others. While these patterns are difficult to interpret, there are no indications that the pottery was used for ritual activity, or to prepare or serve exotic or lavish foods at group feasting events.” ref
“The highly generalized pattern of early pottery use at Gorelyi Les contrasts strongly with the growing number of studies from across northern Eurasia that all point to a close and persistent association between early hunter-gatherer pottery and the specialized processing of aquatic resources. However, more variable patterns of pottery use are now starting to emerge in the northern part of European Russia, where Early Neolithic hunter-gatherers initially made generalized use of early pottery and only later used it for the more specialized processing of fish during the Middle Neolithic. A similar pattern may also emerge in Cis-Baikal. However, it may be useful to note that the dates of the Early Neolithic pottery from Gorelyi Les appear to fall at the start of the Kitoi cultural sequence, and that the dietary importance of aquatic resources increased only in later parts of the sequence.” ref
“The Late Mesolithic communities of Cis-Baikal were undergoing major changes, which culminated with the emergence of the distinctive Kitoi mortuary pattern at around 7,560 years ago. At around the same time, the Kitoi were also “becoming Neolithic” through their initial adoption of clay pots. This study has aimed to understand how this early pottery was being used, and to explore why it may have been adopted. Our initial expectation was that the pottery would have been adopted for the specialized processing of aquatic resources, as small-scale use of clay cooking vessels appeared at around the same time that the Kitoi were intensifying fishing activities and embarking on a gradual transition toward a more aquatic-based diet. Despite these expectations, the results indicated that the earliest use of pottery in Cis-Baikal involved more generalized patterns of use, with the vessels employed to prepare a wide range of foods, which perhaps mirrors the broad and more flexible foraging strategies that existed at the start of the Kitoi cultural pattern. Of course, patterns of pottery use may have shifted as fishing started to play a more substantial role in the Kitoi diet. Ironically, the combined impacts of improved fishing technologies — alongside new kinds of powerful hunting bows — may have had a far more substantial and transformative effect on early Kitoi subsistence and social life than the initial adoption of the pottery traditions that actually defines them as “being” Early Neolithic.” ref
“Beyond these more specific conclusions, this pilot study has demonstrated that recovery, analysis, and interpretation of lipid residues from archaeological pottery assemblages is viable at Cis-Baikal archaeological sites. Clearly, much more work still needs to be done on a wider selection of Kitoi pottery assemblages from different sites and micro-regions. Some of the most interesting patterns may well emerge via comparative analysis of residues from the net-impressed pottery that has been recovered from both Kitoi graves and from contemporary habitation sites. Combined with this, it would be useful to start to source the clays used in pottery manufacture in order to test whether pots were being moved around the landscape, or just made, used and cached at campsites or other hunting or fishing stations.” ref
“Finally, it is also important to bear in mind that the scale and stylistic diversity of pottery use undergoes significant expansion in the later periods of Cis-Baikal prehistory, and that in parallel with this, the function of pottery may also have evolved and diversified over time. To address these issues, comparative lipid-residue analysis of multiple assemblages could be used to generate better understanding of spatiotemporal variability in food processing and consumption activities. In turn, these insights would greatly complement the large bioarchaeological datasets that document the diet, health and mobility of individuals from the Kitoi and Cis-Baikal’s subsequent Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age mortuary traditions (i.e. the Isakovo, Serovo, and Glazkovo).” ref
“Approximately 7,000 years ago, the Indo-European linguistic lineage had already split into numerous distinct branches, according to the study published in Science. “This would rule out the steppe hypothesis,” said Heggarty. Around 8,120 years ago, the Proto-Indo-European language likely experienced its initial diversification event, give or take a few centuries. Recent studies of ancient DNA suggest that farmers from the Caucasus region — between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea — migrated towards Anatolia, which supports the Anatolian theory. Hittite, an extinct language spoken by the Anatolian civilization, is another significant branch of the Indo-European family. For decades, a large group of linguists argued that Hittite was the common ancestor of the other Indo-European languages, with some even considering it to be the direct heir of Proto-Indo-European.” ref
“Ancient DNA, on the other hand, has provided compelling evidence in support of the steppe hypothesis. Since 2015, it has become clear that individuals originating from the Pontic steppe, situated to the south and northeast of present-day Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, migrated to Central Europe approximately 6,000 to 4,500 years ago. Their genetic legacy is evident in both modern Europeans and the indigenous populations of that era. Notably, studies conducted in 2018 and 2019 revealed how these migrant eastern populations replaced a significant proportion of males on the Iberian Peninsula. Furthermore, they brought with them Italic, Germanic, and Celtic languages. It is important to note that when they departed from their original homeland, they likely spoke a common or closely related language descended from Proto-Indo-European. However, as their very slow journey progressed (the Celts took centuries to reach present-day Ireland) and they settled in new territories, language diversification began to emerge.” ref
“The Albanians, Greek-speaking Mycenaeans, and Hittites do not have a dominant genetic signal from the steppe.”
Paul Heggarty, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.
“Heggarty’s team made a significant contribution by shedding light on this question. By combining phylogenetic analysis of cognates with insights from ancient DNA, they found potentially two distinct origins. Expansion initially originated from the southern Caucasus region, resulting in the separation of five major language families approximately 7,000 years ago. “The Albanians, Greek-speaking Mycenaeans and Hittites do not have a dominant genetic signal from the steppe,” said Heggarty. Several millennia later, another wave emerged, led by nomadic steppe herders from the north. This wave not only influenced the development of western branches of the language tree, but it also possibly played a role in the evolution of Slavic and Baltic languages. It even extended its influence to the Indian subcontinent, while giving rise to the now-extinct Tocharian languages in what is present-day Tibet.” ref
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This art above explains my thinking from my life of investigation
I am an anarchist (Social anarchism, Left-wing anarchism, or Socialist anarchism) trying to explain prehistory as I see it after studying it on my own starting 2006. Anarchists are for truth and believe in teaching the plain truth; misinformation is against this, and we would and should fight misinformation and disinformation.
I see anarchism as a social justice issue not limited to some political issue or monetary persuasion. People own themselves, have self/human rights, and deserve freedoms. All humanity is owed respect for its dignity; we are all born equal in dignity and human rights, and no plot of dirt we currently reside on changes this.
I fully enjoy the value (axiology) of archaeology (empirical evidence from fact or artifacts at a site) is knowledge (epistemology) of the past, adding to our anthropology (evidence from cultures both the present and past) intellectual (rational) assumptions of the likely reality of actual events from time past.
I am an Axiological Atheist, Philosopher & Autodidact Pre-Historical Writer/Researcher, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Anarcho Humanist, LGBTQI, Race, & Class equality. I am not an academic, I am a revolutionary sharing education and reason to inspire more deep thinking. I do value and appreciate Academics, Archaeologists, Anthropologists, and Historians as they provide us with great knowledge, informing us about our shared humanity.
I am a servant leader, as I serve the people, not myself, not my ego, and not some desire for money, but rather a caring teacher’s heart to help all I can with all I am. From such thoughtfulness may we all see the need for humanism and secularism, respecting all as helpful servant leaders assisting others as often as we can to navigate truth and the beauty of reality.
‘Reality’ ie. real/external world things, facts/evidence such as that confirmed by science, or events taken as a whole documented understanding of what occurred/is likely to have occurred; the accurate state of affairs. “Reason” is not from a mind devoid of “unreason” but rather demonstrates the potential ability to overcome bad thinking. An honest mind, enjoys just correction. Nothing is a justified true belief without valid or reliable reason and evidence; just as everything believed must be open to question, leaving nothing above challenge.
I don’t believe in gods or ghosts, and nor souls either. I don’t believe in heavens or hells, nor any supernatural anything. I don’t believe in Aliens, Bigfoot, nor Atlantis. I strive to follow reason and be a rationalist. Reason is my only master and may we all master reason. Thinking can be random, but reason is organized and sound in its Thinking. Right thinking is reason, right reason is logic, and right logic can be used in math and other scientific methods. I don’t see religious terms Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, or Paganism as primitive but original or core elements that are different parts of world views and their supernatural/non-natural beliefs or thinking.
I am inspired by philosophy, enlightened by archaeology, and grounded by science that religion claims, on the whole, along with their magical gods, are but dogmatic propaganda, myths, and lies. To me, religions can be summed up as conspiracy theories about reality, a reality mind you is only natural and devoid of magic anything. And to me, when people talk as if Atlantis is anything real, I stop taking them seriously. Like asking about the reality of Superman or Batman just because they seem to involve metropolitan cities in their stores. Or if Mother Goose actually lived in a shoe? You got to be kidding.
We are made great in our many acts of kindness, because we rise by helping each other.
NE = Proto-North Eurasian/Ancient North Eurasian/Mal’ta–Buret’ culture/Mal’ta Boy “MA-1” 24,000 years old burial
A = Proto-Afroasiatic/Afroasiatic
S = Samara culture
ST = Proto-Sino-Tibetan/Sino-Tibetan
T = Proto-Transeurasian/Altaic
C = Proto-Northwest Caucasus language/Northwest Caucasian/Languages of the Caucasus
I = Proto-Indo-European/Indo-European
IB = Iberomaurusian Culture/Capsian culture
Natufian culture (15,000–11,500 years ago, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Negev desert)
Nganasan people/Nganasan language
Na-Dene languages/Dené–Yeniseian, Dené–Caucasian
Proto-Semitic/Semitic languages
24,000 years ago, Proto-North Eurasian Language (Ancient North Eurasian) migrations?
My thoughts:
Proto-North Eurasian Language (Ancient North Eurasian) With related Y-DNA R1a, R1b, R2a, and Q Haplogroups.
R1b 22,0000-15,000 years ago in the Middle east creates Proto-Afroasiatic languages moving into Africa around 15,000-10,000 years ago connecting with the Iberomaurusian Culture/Taforalt near the coasts of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.
R2a 10,000 years ago in Iran brings/creates Proto-Indo-European language and also a possibility is R1a in Russia around 9,000 years ago may have had a version of Proto-Indo-European language.
Around 14,000-10,000 years ago??? Proto-North Eurasian Language goes to the Yellow River basin (eventually relating with the Yangshao culture) in China creates Proto-Sino-Tibetan language.
Proto-Sino-Tibetan language then moves to the West Liao River valley (eventually relating with the Hongshan culture) in China creating Proto-Transeurasian (Altaic) language around 9,000 years ago.
N Haplogroups 9,000 years ago with Proto-Transeurasian language possibly moves north to Lake Baikal. Then after living with Proto-North Eurasian Language 24,000-9,000 years ago?/Pre-Proto-Yeniseian language 9,000-7,000 years ago Q Haplogroups (eventually relating with the Ket language and the Ket people) until around 5,500 years ago, then N Haplogroups move north to the Taymyr Peninsula in North Siberia (Nganasan homeland) brings/creates the Proto-Uralic language.
Q Haplogroups with Proto-Yeniseian language /Proto-Na-Dene language likely emerge 8,000/7,000 years ago or so and migrates to the Middle East (either following R2a to Iraq or R1a to Russia (Samara culture) then south to Iraq creates the Sumerian language. It may have also created the Proto-Caucasian languages along the way. And Q Haplogroups with Proto-Yeniseian language to a migration to North America that relates to Na-Dené (and maybe including Haida) languages, of which the first branch was Proto-Tlingit language 5,000 years ago, in the Pacific Northwest.
Sino-Tibetan language then moves more east in China to the Hemudu culture pre-Austronesian culture, next moved to Taiwan creating the Proto-Austronesian language around 6,000-5,500 years ago.
R1b comes to Russia from the Middle East around 7,500 years ago, bringing a version of Proto-Indo-European languages to the (Samara culture), then Q Y-DNA with Proto-Yeniseian language moves south from the (Samara culture) and may have been the language that created the Proto-Caucasian language. And R1b from the (Samara culture) becomes the 4,200 years or so R1b associated with the Basques and Basque language it was taken with R1b, but language similarities with the Proto-Caucasian language implies language ties to Proto-Yeniseian language.
ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
“A 2016 study found that the global maximum of Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) ancestry occurs in modern-day Kets, Mansi, Native Americans, and Selkups. ANE ancestry has spread throughout Eurasia and the Americas in various migrations since the Upper Paleolithic, and more than half of the world’s population today derives between 5 and 42% of their genomes from the Ancient North Eurasians. Significant ANE ancestry can be found in Native Americans, as well as in regions of northern Europe, South Asia, Central Asia, and Siberia. It has been suggested that their mythology may have featured narratives shared by both Indo-European and some Native American cultures, such as the existence of a metaphysical world tree and a fable in which a dog guards the path to the afterlife.” ref
Ancient Northern East Asian/ later became Ancient Northeast Asian
Ancient Paleo-Siberian
Mal’ta–Buret’ culture (Mal’ta boy MA-1)
The Kolyma Shaitans: Legends and Reality (I only use just a small part)
“A unique “shaitan” burial was discovered on the bank of Omuk-Kuel Lake in the Middle-Kolyma ulus in Yakutia. According to the legends, buried in it are mummified remains of a shaman woman who died during a devastating smallpox epidemics in the 18th c. In an attempt to overcome the deadly disease, the shaman’s relatives used her remains as an emeget fetish. The author believes that these legends reflect the real events of those far-away years. The Arabic word “shaitan” came to the Russian language from Turkic languages. According to Islamic tradition, a shaitan is a genie, an evil spirit, a demon. During Russian colonization and Christianization of Siberia, all sacred things used by the aborigines as fetishes, patron spirits of the family, and the tribe, grew to be called “shaitans.” There are various facts, dating to the 18th and 19th cc., confirming that this word also referred to the mummified remains of outstanding shamans.” ref
“In the 1740s, a member of the Second Kamchatka Expedition Yakov Lindenau wrote, “Meat is scratched off the [shaman’s] bones and the bones are put together to form a skeleton, which is dressed in human’s clothes and worshipped as a deity. The Yukagirs place such dressed bones…in their yurts, their number can sometimes reach 10 or 15. If somebody commits even a minor sacrilege with respect to these bones, he stirs up rancor on the part of the Yukagirs… While traveling and hunting, the Yukagirs carry these bones in their sledges, and moreover, in their best sledges pulled by their best deer. When the Yukagirs are going to undertake something really important, they tell fortune using these skeletons: lift a skeleton up, and if it seems light, it means that their enterprise will have a favorable outcome. The Yukagirs call these skeletons stariks (old men), endow them with their best furs, and sit them on beds covered with deer hides, in a circle, as though they are alive.” (Lindenau, 1983, p. 155)” ref
“In the late 19th c., a famous explorer of aboriginal culture V. I. Jochelson noted the changes that occurred in the ritual in the last century and a half. So, the Yukagirs divided among themselves the shaman’s meat dried in the sun and then put it in separate tents. The dead bodies of killed dogs were left there as well. “After that,” V. I. Jochelson writes, “they would divide the shaman’s bones, dry them and wrap in clothes. The skull was an object of worshipping. It was put on top of a trunk (body) cut out of wood. A caftan and two hats – a winter and a summer one – were sewn for the idol. The caftan was all embroidered. On the skull, a special mask was put, with holes for the eyes and the mouth… The figure was placed in the front corner of the home. Before a meal, a piece of food was thrown into the fire and the idol was held above it. This feeding of the idol… was committed before each meal.” (V. I. Jochelson, 2005, pp. 236—237)” ref
“The idol was kept by the children of the dead shaman. One of them was inducted into the shamanism mysteries while his father was still alive. The idol was carried in a wooden box. Sometimes, in line with the air burial ritual, the box was erected on poles or trees, and the idol was taken out only before hunting or a long journey so that the outcome of the enterprise planned could be predicted. With time, the Yukagirs began using wooden idols as charms. V. I. Jochelson notes that by the late 19th c. the Yukagirs had developed a skeptical attitude towards idols and referred to them as “shaitans.” In this way, under the influence of Christianity, the worshipped ancestor’s spirit turned into its opposite – an evil spirit, a devil, a Satan.” ref
Ancestral Native American, Ancient Beringian
14,000-year-old Ust-Kyakhta-3 (UKY) individual found near Lake Baikal
“Abstract: The North Eurasian forest and forest-steppe zones have sustained millennia of sociocultural connections among northern peoples. We present genome-wide ancient DNA data for 181 individuals from this region spanning the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age. We find that Early to Mid-Holocene hunter-gatherer populations from across the southern forest and forest-steppes of Northern Eurasia can be characterized by a continuous gradient of ancestry that remained stable for millennia, ranging from fully West Eurasian in the Baltic region to fully East Asian in the Transbaikal region. In contrast, cotemporaneous groups in far Northeast Siberia were genetically distinct, retaining high levels of continuity from a population that was the primary source of ancestry for Native Americans. By the mid-Holocene, admixture between this early Northeastern Siberian population and groups from Inland East Asia and the Amur River Basin produced two distinctive populations in eastern Siberia that played an important role in the genetic formation of later people. Ancestry from the first population, Cis-Baikal Late Neolithic–Bronze Age (Cisbaikal_LNBA), is found substantially only among Yeniseian-speaking groups and those known to have admixed with them.” ref
“Ancestry from the second, Yakutian Late Neolithic–Bronze Age (Yakutia_LNBA), is strongly associated with present-day Uralic speakers. We show how Yakutia_LNBA ancestry spread from an east Siberian origin ∼4,500 years ago, along with subclades of Y-chromosome haplogroup N occurring at high frequencies among present-day Uralic speakers, into Western and Central Siberia in communities associated with Seima-Turbino metallurgy: a suite of advanced bronze casting techniques that spread explosively across an enormous region of Northern Eurasia ∼4,000 years ago. However, the ancestry of the 16 Seima-Turbino-period individuals—the first reported from sites with this metallurgy—was otherwise extraordinarily diverse, with partial descent from Indo-Iranian-speaking pastoralists and multiple hunter-gatherer populations from widely separated regions of Eurasia. Our results provide support for theories suggesting that early Uralic speakers at the beginning of their westward dispersal where involved in the expansion of Seima-Turbino metallurgical traditions, and suggests that both cultural transmission and migration were important in the spread of Seima-Turbino material culture.” ref
“Long-distance similarities in language and shared material culture spanning thousands of kilometers across North Eurasia in the Early and Middle Holocene have been suggested to reflect a not only short-range neighbor-neighbor interactions, but also mobility in individuals’ lifetimes. These similarities across the forest zone of North Eurasia (also known as the taiga belt) have prompted diverse theories, ranging from extreme diffusionism (such as the “Circumpolar Stone Age”), to rapid longitudinal transmission of “ideas, materials, and peoples” through the taiga belt, to latitudinal contacts facilitated by major northward-flowing rivers such as the Irtysh, Ob’, Yenisei, and Lena.” ref
“Uralic languages—spoken today in Central Europe (Hungarian), around the Baltic Sea (Finnish, Estonian, and Saami), in Eastern Europe (Komi, Udmurt, Mari, and the Mordivinic languages Moksha and Erzya), and western, central, and far northern Siberia, including the Taimyr Peninsula (Khanty, Manis, Selkup, Nenets, Enets and Nganasan)—are one such Trans-continental connection. However, intense debate remains about the geographic location of the homeland of the Uralic languages, the time frame of their dispersals, and the extent to which their ancient speech communities are discernible in the archaeological record. Castrén, in the 19th century, proposed an origin in the Altai-Sayan mountains, but later scholars preferred locations further west: between the Ob’ and the Yenisei in West Siberia, in Eastern Europe near the confluence of the Volga and Kama Rivers, or even near the Baltic Sea 4. Genetic analysis has shown that all present-day Uralic-speaking populations (except for Hungarians) differ from their Indo-European speaking neighbors in having substantial Siberian-associated ancestry (ranging from ∼2% in Estonians to almost all the ancestry of Nganasans), mirrored in uniparental markers by a high frequency of Y-chromosome haplogroup N lineages originating in Siberia.” ref
“Time transects of ancient DNA showed that this ancestry was intrusive in Europe, arriving after ∼3,500 years ago in Karelia and ∼2,600 years ago in the Baltic region in the regions where Uralic languages are now spoken. However, while genome-wide ancestry from Yamnaya steppe pastoralists has been identified as a “tracer-dye” that can highlight population movements associated with the spread of the Indo-European languages, no corresponding ancestry (or ancestries) have been identified in the ancient DNA record that may a similar role to highlight an analogous set of movements for Uralic populations. Efforts to discern these patterns are made difficult by sampling gaps in ancient DNA, combined with the disruptive effects of migrations in the last few thousand years associated with the spread of Indo-European, Turkic, and Mongolic languages that have made it difficult to reconstruct reliable population histories based on patterns of variation in present-day people.” ref
“Researchers screened samples from 209 individuals from across Northern Eurasia from the Mesolithic (∼11,00 years ago) to the Bronze Age (∼4.,000 years ago) using in-solution enrichment for more than 1.2 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and present genome-wide data from 181 of them that passed quality controls. We generated 76 new radiocarbon dates from these samples. However, North Eurasian forager remains are often strongly affected by freshwater reservoir effects that can cause dates to be overestimated by as much as a millennium; thus, chronological inferences must also be guided by archaeological context. These new data fill in key gaps in space and time from the Volga-Ural region to the Lena River Valley in Eastern Siberia. We highlight five major findings, and provide the detailed evidence for each claim in the next sections.” ref
Origins and Genetic Legacy of Ancient Paleosiberians
“To provide an overview of the genetic variation in this region through space and time, we performed unsupervised analyses using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and ADMIXTURE. These reveal that individuals from a broad belt of pottery-using foraging cultures in the forest-steppes and southern forest zone that stretched across Northern Eurasia from the Early-to-Middle Holocene (∼10,000-5,000 years ago) form a vast genetic gradient stretching over 7,000 km that no longer exists today, which we term the Forest-Steppe Hunter-Gatherer (FSHG) cline, linking genetically West Eurasian hunter-gatherers from the Eastern European plain to genetically East Asian hunter-gatherers of the Transbaikal region via a chain of genetically intermediate populations, the term East Asian to refer to the East Eurasian lineage in East and Southeast Asians but not Australasians or South Asians. However, many groups deviate from the cline. Populations from deeper into the forest zone of Northeast and Central Siberia (i.e, in a region bounded by the Yenisei River in the west, the Bering Straits in the east, and Lake Baikal in the south) are genetically similar to eastern FSHG populations in being intermediate between ANE (Ancient North Eurasians) and East Asian populations, but deviate away from the FSHG cline in being shifted towards present-day Native Americans and Arctic populations on both sides of the Bering Straits in PCAs. Individuals from the Cis-baikal region from later than ∼5.4kya (i.e., in the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age) also deviate from the cline in other dimensions.” ref
“To investigate these differences, we performed statistical analyses of population structure to infer a sequence of ancestry changes in Northeast and Central Siberia and the Baikal region (from ∼17,000 to ∼4,000 years ago) that strongly coincides with changes in material culture. We defined genetic groups across all 100 Holocene individuals (newly reported as well as previously-published) from Northeastern Siberia and adjacent parts of East Asia (Cis-Baikal and Transbaikal regions), by clustering them using f4-statistics with a procedure first used in, and then assigning labels using archaeological and geographic information. The procedure defined seven genetic cluster (five multi-member and two single individuals), which we call, in chronological order: MiddleLena_KhatystyrCave_M_10,200 years ago (a newly-reported early Holocene individual from Khatystyr Cave along the Middle Lena in Southern Yakutia, of unclear cultural affiliation; M stands for Mesolithic), MiddleVitim_Dzhilinda1_M_N_8.4kya (at the Mesolithic-Neolithic boundary, from the Dzhilinda-1 site along the Vitim river attributed to the Ust-Yumurchen culture; N stands for Neolithic), Transbaikal_EMN (individuals spanning ∼8,800-6,200 years ago from the Early and Middle Neolithic Kitoi culture east of the Baikal; EMN stands for Early/Middle Neolithic), Cisbaikal_EN (individuals spanning ∼8,000-6,600 years ago from the Early Neolithic Kitoi culture west of the Baikal), Syalakh-Belkachi (individuals spanning ∼6,800-6,200 years ago from the Early Neolithic Syalakh and Middle Neolithic Belkachi cultures in the Middle Lena Basin), Cisbaikal_LNBA (individuals spanning ∼5,100-3,700 years ago from the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age Serovo, Isakovo, and Glazkovo cultures west of the Baikal), and Yakutia_LNBA (∼4,500-3,200 years ago, associated chiefly but not exclusively with the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age Ymyyakhtakh culture).” ref
“The remaining individuals, which we excluded from the following analyses, were genetically intermediate between these seven population groupings and plausibly represent admixtures between the groups we analyzed. Of these genetically defined groupings, only the Cisbaikal_EN and Transbaikal_EMN populations from the Kitoi culture along the forest-steppe belt lie on the FSHG cline, but the other groups do not. By adding three older individuals from the region–MiddleLena_Khaiyrgas_16,700 years ago, Selenge_Ust-Kyakhta_14kya (∼14,000 years ago), and Kolyma_M_10.1kya (∼10,100 years ago)—to the seven populations defined by our procedure, we produce a ten-member temporal transect of genetic populations in Northeast Siberia and adjacent parts of East Asia, stretching from ∼17,000 to 4,000 years ago.” ref
“To investigate the deep population history of Eastern Siberia, we used qpAdm to model each target population in the ten-population transect as derived from ones preceding them or contemporary to them with an “outgroup rotation” technique (SI Section VI.A), whereby groups not used as sources for modeling are included as outgroups (i.e., included in the “right” set) to increase statistical leverage to reject models. The researchers found one or a small number of similar passing models for every target population in this ten-population transect (p>0.05). qpAdm analyses testing many hypotheses have the potential to produce false positives, so our qpAdm procedure should be treated as a model-rejection and not as a model-selection procedure. Nevertheless, the broad interpretation of the qpAdm results in the following section is supported by patterns in simple f4 statistics involving distal populations likely to be relevant to the peopling of Northeast Siberia, and we emphasize results at this level of precision.” ref
“The term “Ancient Paleosiberians” (APS) was used to designate the ancestry found in the Kolyma_M_10.1kya individual. Here we broaden this term to designate a pre-Holocene population, admixed between ANE and East Asian ancestries, which gave rise to Native Americans and which also played a key role in the formation of all later groups in Northeast Siberia and along the Bering Straits (including in the ancestry of Kolyma_M_10.1kya itself). We find that that the oldest individual from our transect, the previously-published MiddleLena_Khaiyrgas_16.7kya.SG (from a site along the Middle Lena in Yakutia, attributed to the Dyuktai culture) is a nearly unadmixed representative of APS ancestry.” ref
“When other pre-Holocene Eurasians are placed as outgroups in qpAdm, MiddleLena_Khaiyrgas_16.7kya and Native Americans (here proxied by high-coverage ancient Peruvians) are the best representatives of each other’s ancestry, and MiddleLena_Khaiyrgas_16.7kya may be modeled as descending completely from a Native American-related source (SI Section VI.A.ii.a, VI.A.iv.b)—making it the first individual sampled from the ancient DNA record of Eurasia to have this ancestry in near-unadmixed form. Such Native-American-related APS ancestry may have spread with the “Beringian tradition” of lithics rich in microblades and wedge-shaped cores in the Northeast Siberian Upper Paleolithic.” ref
“It admixed with East Asian ancestry but still persisted at a high levels in the later two individuals Selenge_Ust_Kyakhta_14kya (from just south of Lake Baikal on the Selenge River, from a site with lithics in this same tradition) and Kolyma_M_10.1kya (from a site close to the Bering Straits,; SI Sections VI.A.ii.b-c, VI.A.iii.b,VI.A.iv.c). However, these two individuals share even more drift with Native Americans when compared with Khaiyrgas, implying that the APS source in them was more closely related to Native Americans than the APS source in Khaiyrgas. Further west, admixture between APS and an ANE-related source formed the ANE-rich Altai_N population on the FSHG cline (associated with the Neolithic Kuznetsk-Altai culture of the Upper Ob and Altai foothills) by the early Holocene (∼9,000 years ago; SI VI.A.ii.d-e, VI.A.iii.c-d)—a population that may have mediated the spread of APS and ANE ancestries to groups further west in the FSHG cline, discussed in the next section.” ref
“Prior work has shown that “Neosiberian” ancestry related to East Asians increased at the expense of APS ancestry in Northeast Siberia over the Holocene, from ∼10kya to ∼3,000 years ago. We further infer that the East Asian ancestry in Northeast Siberians can be traced to at least two distinct sources: Inland Northeast Asian-related ancestry, which we proxy in our analyses by the Yumin individual (under the population label China_NEastAsia_Inland_EN) from Inner Mongolia (∼8,400 years ago), and Amur River-related ancestry, represented by pre-Holocene hunter-gatherers of the Amur Basin (∼14,000 years ago, under the population label China_AmurRiver_14K). The oldest sample in our Siberian transect with high East Asian and low APS ancestry, MiddleLena_KhatystyrCave_M_10.2kya, from a site along the Aldan tributary that empties into the Middle Lena, had extremely strong affinities to Amur River hunter-gatherers, but subsequent Early Holocene populations from further south (including the Kitoi-associated Transbaikal_EMN and Cisbaikal_EN fat ∼8,800-6,000 years ago, and Mongolia_N_North at ∼7,500 years ago from the Mongolian Plateau) have increasing affinities to the Inland Northeast Asian source.” ref
“The researchers find that all populations of the FSHG cline East of the Altai, including Cisbaikal_EN, plausibly derive their East Asian ancestry from the Transbaikal_EMN population on which the cline terminates—a source intermediate in affinity between the Inland and Amur-related sources. But non-FSHG populations high in East Asian ancestry (such as Cisbaikal_LNBA or Holocene foragers from the Amur River Basin) deviate from this pattern. Thus, FSHGs and non-FSHGs may be differentiated by their mix of East Asian ancestries.” ref
“By the mid-Holocene in the Cis-Baikal region, ancestry from the Cisbaikal_LNBA cluster (∼5,100-3,700 years ago) replaced that of the Cisbaikal_EN cluster (8,000-6,600 years ago), in a population turnover coinciding with the transition from the Early Neolithic Kitoi culture to the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age Serovo, Isakovo and Glazkovo cultures. The incoming Cisbaikal_LNBA population is much higher in APS ancestry than Cisbaikal_EN and is distinctive in deriving its East Asian ancestry from a strongly Inland-related source. While the only fitting qpAdm models have the APS ancestry coming from an Ust-Kyakhta_14kya-related population, we caution against overinterpreting this result due to the time gap separating the two populations. Despite their elevated APS ancestry, Cisbaikal_LNBA does not have increased shared drift with populations in the Americas or the Bering Straits when compared to other groups with similar ratios of ANE to East Asian ancestry (such as Ust-Kyakhta_14kya itself, Khaiyrgas_16.7kya.SG or FSHG populations from the Upper Yenisei region. Instead, it has high shared drift with populations from Central Siberia and especially the Yenisei River Basin, and the analyses we present in upcoming sections show that ancestry from Cisbaikal_LNBA may be the first of two conduits by which APS ancestry persisted into present-day populations (i.e. it is a “Route 1” population).” ref
“North of the Baikal region, in Northeast Siberia and its adjacent regions, the strongly Amur-Basin-related individual MiddleLena_KhatystyrCave_M_10.2kya was followed by the strongly APS-related MiddleVitim_Dzhilinda1_M_N_8.4kya. The increase in APS ancestry possibly results from admixture from a Kolyma_M_10.1kya-related source. APS ancestry then declines with admixture from East Asian sources over the Early and Middle Holocene, in a set of population turnovers coinciding with transitions between archaeological cultures. The first turnover occurred with the appearance of the Syalakh-Belkachi population (∼6,800-6,200 years ago, with ∼20% admixture from an East Asian source from the Baikal region admixing into the preceding MiddleVitim_Dzhilinda1_M_N_8.4kya). This was followed by a second turnover with the appearance of the Ymyyakhtakh-associated Yakutia_LNBA population (∼4,500-3,200 years ago, with ∼50% admixture from Transbaikal_EMN admixing into the preceding Syalakh-Belkachi population). Strikingly, this sequence of four populations from the Lena and Kolyma River Valleys in far Northeast Siberia: Kolyma_M_10.1kya, MiddleVitim_Dzhilinda1_M_N_8.4kya, Syalakh-Belkachi, and Yakutia_LNBA—includes all the ancient Siberian individuals that are shifted towards Native Americans and Bering Straits populations in PCAs. This is corroborated by f4-statistics that show they share more drift with ancient and present-day Bering Straits populations than other groups with similar ratios of ANE to East Asian ancestry (e.g. Khaiyrgas_16.7kya, Ust_Kyakhta_14kya, all FSHG populations east of the Altai, or Cisbaikal_LNBA).” ref
“Using qpAdm, we infer that the third member of this sequence—the Syalakh-Belkachi population—made a major (∼70%) contribution to populations of the Arctic Small Tool Tradition of North America (e.g. the Paleo-Eskimo Greenland_Saqqaq); such Paleo-Eskimo-related ancestry (which is by extension Syalakh-Belkachi-related) then persisted into all later ancient and present-day groups such as Eskimo-Aleuts, Chukotko-Kamchatkans and Yukaghirs on both sides of the Bering Straits. This may account for these Northeast Siberians’ unique trans-Beringian genetic connections and may represent the second major route by which APS ancestry is mediated into present-day populations (i.e. they are “Route 2” populations). We also find that these affinities do not extend to ancient Athabaskans, an observation that is incompatible with earlier inferences from our group suggesting that Athabaskans and Paleo-Eskimos derive ancestry from the same migration from Eurasia. Instead, this supports suggestions of multiple late Holocene migratory movements into the Americas from Eurasia.” ref
An Early Holocene Forest-Steppe Hunter-Gatherer Cline
“From ∼10,000-4,000 years ago, all 150 newly reported and 81 previously published individuals from the North Eurasian forest-steppe and the Southern forest zone adjacent to it are part of the FSHG cline. This cline is visible in ADMIXTURE, and in PCA as an arc connecting pottery-using Eastern European foragers to their counterparts in the Transbaikal region through a chain of intermediate populations. The center of this cline lies close to the Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) individual Afontova-Gora 3 (AG3), and also Tarim_EMBA (an early Bronze Age population from the Tarim Basin that may descend from hunter-gatherers of Central Asia). To prepare FSHG individuals for formal genetic analyses, we grouped them, first by site, then (for those with direct radiocarbon dates) by time-period, and finally according to their genetic similarity in unsupervised analyses. In each site, those individuals for which we have no radiocarbon dates are merged into a generalized grouping that lacks a time-period designation in its group label.” ref
“The great majority of the resulting FSHG “genetic populations” can be modeled in qpAdm as admixtures of four ancestries (84 out of 93 populations P>0.01): Western Hunter-Gatherer ancestry (WHG, represented by hunter-gatherers from Serbia ∼10,000 years ago), EHG ancestry (represented by a newly-published individual, I6413, from ∼10,000 years ago from a site of the Elshanka culture, the oldest pottery-using culture in Eastern Europe), ANE ancestry (represented by AG3), and East Asian ancestry (represented by a ∼19,000 years ago individual from the Amur Basin. Starting from the western end of the FSHG cline, hunter-gatherers from the Baltic to the Urals, attributed to (in the west) the Early Neolithic Elshanka, Late Neolithic Pit-Comb Ware/Lyalovo, and Eneolithic Volosovo cultures, and (in the east) to the Samara Eneolithic, Kama Estuary Eneolithic, and Eneolithic Ural cultures, have mostly EHG-related ancestry, with low levels of WHG-related ancestry, in line with previous findings.” ref
“Eastwards across the Urals, in populations of the Tobol and Middle Irtysh Early Neolithic and of the succeeding circle of Eneolithic West Siberian cultures using Comb-Pit Ware pottery, EHG ancestry admixed with ANE ancestry and low levels of East Asian ancestry. These populations are genetically similar to adjacent Botai-attributed individuals from northern Kazakhstan (∼5,400-5,100 years ago). Further east, individuals from the Altai foothills and the upper Ob, from the Kuznetsk-Altai culture spanning the Early Neolithic and Eneolithic (from sites such as Firsovo-11, Tuzovskie-Bugry-1, and Ust’-Isha), can be modeled as two-way admixtures of ANE and East Asian ancestry. This continues into individuals from Neolithic sites of the Upper Yenisei and Kan River Basin from sites without clear cultural attribution, where ANE ancestry declines and East Asian ancestry increases. The gradient extends into the Kitoi culture of the Baikal region, through the previously discussed Cisbaikal_EN population, to terminate in the Transbaikal_EMN population that is almost completely East Asian in ancestry.” ref
“Because the latest individual in the archaeogenetic record that has near-unadmixed ANE ancestry (AG3 at ∼16,000 years ago) is much older than any individual or population comprising the FSHG cline, we attempted to find proximal sources for the ANE in ANE-rich FSHG populations (i.e., all FSHGs west of the Altai). We find that two potential proximal sources successfully account for all their ANE in qpAdm (even with AG3 in the references): first, a source comprised of the oldest individuals (∼9,000 years ago) from the Kuznetsk-Altai Neolithic (Altai_N_old); and second, the Tarim_EMBA population (∼4,000 years ago). Tarim_EMBA postdates FSHG populations, but ADMIXTURE and PCA suggest gene flow between a source related to them and FSHGs in West Siberia. Outgroup rotation also shows that models without a Tarim_EMBA-related source tend to fail for West Siberian FSHGs when Tarim_EMBA are placed in the references.” ref
“It has been suggested that populations genetically related to Tarim_EMBA lived in Central Asia before the arrival of pastoralism during the Bronze Age; ancestry from this source may have contributed to FSHG populations in West Siberia, explaining our results, a scenario made even more plaubsible by the recent discovery of an individual with this hypothesized profile from Mesolithic Tajikistan. Therefore, two sources may have admixed into the ANE-rich populations in the center of the FSHG cline: a Tarim_EMBA-like population from Central Asia, and a population like that of the later Kuznetsk-Altai Neolithic of the Altai region.” ref
“The FSHG cline was marked by genetic stability from ∼10kya to ∼5kya, providing evidence for continued genetic exchange between neighboring populations along the cline during this period. However, the archaeogenetic record shows that it fragmented in the Mid-Holocene following migrations from both West and East. From the West, these migrations brought Steppe_EMBA ancestry associated with Yamnaya pastoralists, followed by Europe_LNBA ancestry associated with the expansion of the Fatyanovo culture into the Volga basin, and then the closely-related Steppe_MLBA ancestry in populations of the Sintashta culture and of the Andronovo area. From the East, these migrations introduced Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry at ∼5,400 years ago. Subsequently, admixture between Steppe_MLBA and East Asian ancestries gave rise to admixed groups across much of Northern Eurasia and Central Asia, culminating in the multiple genetic clines found among present-day Turkic-, Mongolic-, Tungusic, Uralic- and Yeniseian-speaking populations, who retain little ancestry from the FSHG cline.” ref
“To evaluate the contribution that FSHG and East Siberian populations made to the genetic formation of later populations across Northern Eurasia, we genetically analyzed a set of AIEA (Admixed Inner Eurasian) populations—our term for ancient and present-day Uralic, Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic and Yeniseian-speaking populations plus pastoralists of the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age, including Scythians, Sarmatians, and Xiongnu. We replicate the finding that FSHG populations contribute little to the genetic formation of later AIEA populations. Instead, the two latest populations of our East Siberian transect, Cisbaikal_LNBA, and Yakutia_LNBA, played an important role in the genetic formation of Yeniseian- and Uralic-speaking populations, respectively.” ref
Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry is a tracer-dye for prehistoric mobility associated with the spread of Yeniseian languages
“The Cisbaikal_LNBA population (∼5,100-3,600 years ago) is very rich in APS ancestry, occupies a distinct position in PCA, and has a uniquely strong affinity to Inland Northeast Asians. While other APS-rich groups from Northeast Siberia are more closely related to Arctic populations on both sides of the Bering Straits (i.e., “Route 2” populations), Cisbaikal_LNBA is unique among APS-rich groups in sharing more genetic drift with present-day populations of the Yenisei Basin, suggesting that it may be a conduit by which APS ancestry persisted into present-day populations of that region (“Route 1”).” ref
“In ADMIXTURE, the Cisbaikal_LNBA component appears at significant levels only in the Yeniseian-speaking Kets, in Samoyeds, and in Siberian Turkic-speaking populations all from the Yenisei Basin. In a PCA of f4-statistics designed to be sensitive to different types of East Asian ancestry, Yeniseian-, Samoyedic- and South Siberian Turkic-speakers are shifted systematically in the direction produced by increased shared drift with Cisbaikal_LNBA over other East Asian ancestries. In qpAdm, models for all Yeniseian, Samoyedic, and Siberian Turkic populations consistently fail when Cisbaikal_LNBA is retained in the references; for them, Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry is required as a source in all passing models—a link not found among other ethnolinguistic groupings. This link is also reflected in Y-chromosomal haplogroups: sequences ancestral to the haplogroup Q-YP1691, found at very high frequencies in Kets and at lower frequencies in neighboring Samoyedic and Siberian Turkic populations such as Selkups and Tuvans have been recovered in the archaeogenetic record thus far only from male members of the Glazkovo culture that belong to the Cisbaikal_LNBA population.” ref
“Ethnolinguistic and historical data indicate that South Siberian Turks have assimilated Yeniseian speakers, beginning with the arrival of the Yenisei Kyrgyz to the southern Yenisei Basin in the 6th century CE and continuing through the Russian colonization. The remaining Siberian Turkic languages—Yakut and Dolgan—are spoken today by populations whose ancestors migrated within the last two millennia from the region where South Siberian Turks live today, providing a plausible explanation for why these groups also carry Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry. Further north, ethnographic records indicate that Samoyedic-speaking groups have had cordial relationships with Yeniseian speakers, with much intermarriage.” ref
“In our analysis of AIEA, we unexpectedly found that two previously-published East Asian outliers (RISE497.SG or Russia_Karasuk_o1.SG, & RISE554.SG or Russia_UpperYenisei_Krasnoyarsk_LBA_o1.SG) from the Late Bronze Age (∼3,000-2,900 years ago) in the Minusinsk Basin along the Upper Yenisei, can be modeled in qpAdm with very high Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry (∼85-95%). f4-statistics and ADMIXTURE suggest that they have by far the strongest genetic affinity to Cisbaikal_LNBA among all modern or ancient AIEAs. These genetic outliers (labeled as being from the Karasuk culture in the original publication, but which our archaeological research indicates may instead be assigned to the Lugavskaya culture), show that people with very high levels of Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry were present along the Upper Yenisei by the Late Bronze Age ∼3,000 years ago, near the geographic region where Cisbaikal_LNBA is maximized in populations today —a geographic distribution which may be explained by partial genetic persistence of such groups into the Iron Age and Medieval period.” ref
“Furthermore, the Ket themselves are known to have reached their current position along the Middle Yenisei in a recent Northward expansion, while all six other documented (and now extinct) Yeniseian languages were found in regions further south along the Yenisei River, in regions that are now occupied by South Siberian Turkic populations where Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry peaks in the present day . These results suggest that, at least within the last three millennia, Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry has come to be strongly correlated with the movements of Yeniseian speakers and their closest ethnic contacts.” ref
“Individuals of the Cisbaikal_LNBA population first appeared in the Late Neolithic Serovo and Isakovo cultures in the Cis-Baikal region ∼5,400 years ago. Virtually all individuals from the succeeding Glazkovo culture as late as ∼3,800 years ago also fall into this genetic cluster. This ancestry subsequently appeared among individuals in the forest zone of the Middle Angara (which drains out of Lake Baikal and leads into the Yenisei) in the Early Bronze Age ∼4,800 years ago, around when Glazkovo pottery appeared in the region. It has been suggested that the distribution of Yeniseian hydronyms points to a Yeniseian homeland in the Cis-Baikal region several millennia before present, an inference compatible with our results. Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry may thus trace the movements and contacts of Yeniseian speakers even further into prehistory.” ref
Yakutia_LNBA ancestry is a tracer-dye for prehistoric mobility associated with the spread of Uralic languages
“The researchers next characterized a group of individuals we term Yakutia_LNBA, who have a distinct position on PCAs and are among the APS-rich populations sharing elevated drift with Arctic populations on either side of the Bering Straits. The oldest Yakutia_LNBA individual dates to ∼4,500 years ago in the Lena River Valley, and individuals from this group persist to at least ∼3,200 years ago in that region. Yakutia_LNBA can be modeled as a product of admixture between the preceding local Syalakh-Belkachi population with admixture from populations of the Kitoi culture of the Transbaikal (∼50% Syalakh-Belkachi + ∼50% Transbaikal_EMN; SI VI.A.ii.f); all males of Yakutia_LNBA carry subclades of haplogroup N also found in the Transbaikal_EMN population (SI VIII).” ref
“Such genetic links are consistent with theories of the origin of the Ymyyakhtakh culture, to which all individuals in the Yakuta_LNBA cluster are assigned—except a single individual recovered from the Krasnoyarsk-Kansk forest-steppe far to the southwest of the Lena River Valley (Kra001.SG from the Nefteprovod-2 site ∼4,200 years ago), in a location otherwise dominated by populations from the FSHG cline. The existence of this individual suggests that populations with Yakutia_LNBA ancestry had dispersed from Northeast Siberia to the forest-steppes North of the Altai-Sayan region shortly before the start of the second millennium BC, paralleled by the appearance of Ymyakhtakh pottery in this region at that time.” ref
“The researchers show that Yakutia_LNBA-related ancestry is strongly associated with all ancient and present-day Uralic-speaking populations. In ADMIXTURE at K = 18, a component maximized in Yakutia_LNBA appears that peaks in Nganasans among present-day populations and accounts for almost all the East Asian ancestry in Uralic-speaking populations. Non-Uralic AIEAs have either no Yakutia_LNBA, or other East Asian components in addition to Yakutia_LNBA, such as those maximized in Mongolia_N_North, China_Yellow_River_MN, or Amur Basin foragers.” ref
“In a PCA of f4-statistics, we find that Uralic speakers are consistently shifted in a direction indicating increased affinity towards Yakutia_LNBA compared to other East Asian ancestries. Furthermore, we find using a second set of f4-statistics that, at any level of East Asian admixture, the AIEA group with the highest affinity to Yakutia_LNBA over other East Asian ancestries is always a Uralic-speaking population. Lastly, qpAdm analysis shows that models for Uralic speakers—without exception—require Yakutia_LNBA as a source, which can almost always account for all their East Asian ancestry. This contrasts with other ethnolinguistic groupings among AIEAs, such as Scythians, Sarmatians, and their predecessors in the Late Bronze Age (who are often modeled as deriving all their East Asian ancestry from a Mongolia_N_North-related source) or Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic populations (who have additional ancestry from East Asian agriculturalists or Amur Basin hunter-gatherers).” ref
“These observations suggest that the genetic formation of Uralic-speaking populations involved an episode of gene flow from a population with Yakutia_LNBA ancestry. In contrast, the genetic formation of non-Uralic AIEAs either did not involve populations with Yakutia_LNBA ancestry, or involved additional episodes of gene flow from populations of the Eastern Steppes or East Asian agriculturalists that did not affect the ancestors of present-day Uralic-speakers. Additional evidence for a link between Yakutia_LNBA and Uralic populations lies in uniparental markers: Male individuals of the Yakutia_LNBA cluster carry Y-chromosomes under subclades of haplogroup N that are present at high frequency in present-day speakers of Uralic languages.” ref
The Seima-Turbino Phenomenon involved the movement of both people and ideas, and was implicated in the initial westward dispersal of Yakutia_LNBA ancestry
“Populations from Western Siberia to the Upper Volga as late as the MBA (associated with cultures such as the Fatyanovo, Sintashta, and Andronovo) do not show any Yakutia_LNBA ancestry, but present-day Uralic populations from the same regions do, suggesting an east-to-west spread of this ancestry into Western Siberia and Eastern Europe in the MBA at the earliest (∼4,000 years ago). This process, which eventually reached the shores of the Baltic Sea, would have involved Yakutia_LNBA ancestry partially replacing Steppe_MLBA ancestry (that was predominant in populations of the Sintashta, Srubnaya, Andronovo, and related cultures of the Late Bronze Age in Eastern Europe and Central Asia), and Europe_LNBA ancestry (that was predominant in populations of the Corded Ware horizon, including the Fatyanovo culture).” ref
“This process was potentially accompanied by the dispersal of Y-haplogroup N, which— despite its very high frequency in Uralic populations in Eastern Europe and West Siberia today (∼20-100%) —is completely absent from the archaeogenetic record of these regions prior to the arrival of Yakutia_LNBA ancestry from the East. In this section, we present new genomic data supporting the hypothesis that the earliest stages of this westward dispersal of Yakutia_LNBA ancestry, found together with subclades of Y-chromosome haplogroup N, may have taken place within cultural contexts that produced the Seima-Turbino (ST) phenomenon.” ref
“The ST phenomenon refers to the sudden appearance of a very similar suite of bronze artifacts manufactured with advanced casting techniques that spread rapidly (in a century or so) into many cultures spanning a vast region of Northern Eurasia, from China to the Baltic Sea. Archaeologists credit this trans-cultural phenomenon for the introduction of metallurgy into Eastern Eurasia and the dissemination of advanced casting methods for tin bronze into Europe. ST items are noted for their technological sophistication and aesthetic refinement; most are weapons, but some are striking objects of probably ritual or religious significance. Most items are isolated finds from sites attributed to a wide range of cultures within the distributional area of ST artifacts, but many others also come from standalone necropolises across Western Siberia and Eastern Europe: large complexes of burials and, more often, cenotaphs (empty ritual graves) with extremely rich collections of ST artifacts and casting molds.” ref
“The distribution of ST objects, with massive concentrations in exceptional ceremonial sites that punctuate an enormous trans-cultural scatter of metal items, has fueled speculation about the social nature of the ST phenomenon, as well as the identity of their bearers. So far, the only conclusive evidence found for the manufacture of ST bronze artifacts (such as casting molds) are from residential sites of metal-using fisher-foragers in the Ob-Irtysh basin and the region between the Upper Ob and Upper Yenisei—an extraordinary cultural association that has occasioned much comment.” ref
“Linguistic transmission, especially in large-scale societies, need not involve the movement of people or genetic admixture. An observation that populations speak related languages need not imply that they will genetically resemble each other more than populations that do not. However, linguistic transmission across community boundaries in smaller-scale prehistoric societies is likely to have required at least some degree of human mobility that might be visible as genetic admixture, because language dispersal and shift in such contexts is most plausibly accompanied by substantial movements of people. Such patterns suggest that Yakutia_LNBA ancestry may have spread in episodes of human mobility that were associated with the prehistoric dispersal of Uralic languages, in the same way, that the appearance of Yamnaya/Steppe_EMBA ancestry may be correlated with migrations responsible for the expansion of the Indo-European languages (a “tracer-dye”). Likewise, Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry may be connected to the spread of Yeniseian languages.” ref
“Yeniseian languages are related to the Na-Dene languages in North America under the Dene-Yeniseian hypothesis. We investigated this connection by using qpAdm to distinguish sources of APS ancestry in ancient (<4,000 years ago) Siberian and American Arctic groups that have been connected to present-day Yukaghirs, Chukotko-Kamchatkans, Eskimo-Aleuts, and Athabaskans (SI Section VI.B). We find strong evidence that all such ancient groups show at least partial descent from Paleo-Eskimo-related populations (represented by Greenland_Saqqaq.SG), and by extension Syalakh-Belkachi and other “Route 2” populations, except Athabaskans from ∼1,100 years ago, consistent with some previous inferences, and contradicting other work, including from our own team. Instead, the researchers found weak evidence that ancient Athabaskans may require a small quantity of ancestry from a population related to Cisbaikal_LNBA—genetic evidence for the linguistic hypothesis of a distinctive link between Yeniseian and Na-Dene languages. This suggestive result awaits corroboration with further sampling and more sensitive analytic methods.” ref
“There is little agreement among archaeologists about the social processes that drove the sudden spread of ST artifacts across such a wide range of cultures. The extreme genetic diversity and heterogeneity of ST necropolises in our sample is at the very least inconsistent with a concept of a single, homogeneous ST “people” (as proposed in e.g., also see references in). Instead, it suggests that active participation of multiple social groups that were genetically and culturally distinct was an essential part of the ST phenomenon itself—a conclusion consistent with the rest of the inventory found in ST necropolises, such as pottery (which displays similarities to that produced by West Siberian foragers and that of the forest-steppes around Tatarka Hill), artifacts of flint, bone, or jade (which displays similarities to those produced by cultures of far Northeast Siberia and Lake Baikal), and metal items from non-ST traditions (which may have been produced in the Sintashta and especially the closely-related Abashevo cultures). These three sources of material culture closely parallel the three major genetic ancestries in our sample.” ref
“Also remarkable is the prevalence at ST sites of ancestry from multiple foraging populations across Northern Eurasia, from the Cis-Baikal to as far West as the Baltic Sea. This highlights the involvement of populations with a foraging mode of subsistence in this network, in line with recent work highlighting the wide and culturally transformative reach of metal exchange networks in the Bronze Age, as well as the oft-neglected sociopolitical dynamism and economic complexity found across hunter-gatherer populations. Extreme diversity should not obscure the fact that the ST phenomenon was the context within which Yakutia_LNBA ancestry first dispersed westwards—almost to the Urals—for the first time, as suggested by the presence of such ancestry at all four ST sites we sampled (Tatarka, Rostovka, Satyga-16, and Chernoozerye-1).” ref
“The presence of unadmixed Yakutia_LNBA ancestry at Tatarka Hill, to the west of the Kra001 individual from two centuries earlier, shows that the Yakutia_LNBA ancestry that penetrated onto the forest-steppe of this region, far Southwest of the Northeast Siberian forest zone, may have persisted to later contribute to the Yakutia_LNBA ancestry in ST necropolises. Intriguingly, Kra001 is just one out of a group of burials at Nefteprovod-2 dated from ∼4,200 to ∼3,900 years ago that show strikingly similar burial rites as the individuals at Tatarka Hill. This confluence of cultural and genetic similarities suggests that a coherent and culturally distinctive population mediated the intrusion of Yakutia_LNBA ancestry westwards into the Krasnoyarsk-Kansk forest-steppes before 4,200 years ago, which then persisted in the region and later genetically impacted ST necropolises.” ref
“Additionally, a material counterpart to the genetic link between some individuals from ST necropolises and populations of Northeast Siberia can be found in suits of armor made of bone plates, which have been found from the Glazkovo and especially the Ymyyakhtakh cultures. One set was buried with a male of the Yakutia_LNBA population mentioned in this study: N4a1.SG from the Kyordyughen site; others hail from the Upper Yenisei region where Kra001.SG and the Tatarka individuals were situated, and three were buried in Rostovka, one with an admixed male reported in our study (I32816 from Grave 33) that bore both Yakutia_LNBA and Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestries.” ref
“Linguists have shown that Uralic languages have on the order of hundreds of Indo-Iranian loanwords directly inherited from the Proto-Uralic speech community or from the speech communities right after its breakup. The Indo-Iranian expansion has been linked to the spread of Steppe_MLBA ancestry from the Sintashta population in the Trans-Ural region into other parts of Central and West Asia (where it persisted into later populations on the steppes, the Iranian plateau, and Afghanistan that are historically attested as being Iranic-speaking), and also further into South Asia, where it persists into present-day Indo-Aryan groups. Our findings from Rostovka and Satyga-16, showing contact and admixture between a Steppe_MLBA population (which, from archaeological considerations, is plausibly that of the Abashevo culture) and Yakutia_LNBA populations, provides an attractive hypothesis regarding the context in which this linguistic exchange could have first begun.” ref
“Despite the fact that Uralic languages, distributed from Western Siberia to Central Europe, are geographically separated from languages of the Eastern Steppes and far Northeast Siberia, linguists have discovered traces of ancient contact with Yukagiric and Eskimo-Aleut languages on the one hand, and members of the “Altaic” language area (Mongolic, Tungusic, and especially Turkic) on the other. In the latter case, the high level of typological similarity with Uralic languages has been repeatedly emphasized. As a resolution to these conundrums, linguists have suggested a recent eastern origin of the population associated with the later expansions of Uralic speakers (e.g., A “pre-proto-Uralic spoken further east… probably somewhere… near both Mongolia and the watershed area between the Yenisei and the Lena, possibly as recently as 3000 BCE or around 5,000 years ago)—a scenario very compatible with our results.” ref
“A large team of Uralicists recently proposed that early Uralic populations were involved in the ST phenomenon, which catalyzed a rapid westward expansion ∼4 kya along river networks. While our results are consistent with this scenario, they cannot more precisely inform the question of the location of the Uralic homeland, as they are compatible with multiple hypotheses. A number of linguistic considerations (e.g., that proto-Uralic lacks a developed metallurgical vocabulary) may indicate that the proto-Uralic speech community slightly predates the ST. In any case, our analyses suggest that, if not proto-Uralic, at least early Uralic-speaking communities (as well as Indo-Iranian-speaking communities) were among the many groups that interacted to support the long-distance emigration and sociocultural exchanges that created the intriguing and widely-dispersed sets of material remains that form the ST phenomenon. We summarize our arguments linking our genetic results to the prehistoric dispersal of the Uralic languages.” ref
1) “Yakutia_LNBA ancestry is present in virtually all known present and ancient Uralic speakers, accounting for all of their East Asian ancestry and decreases in proportion from East to West. Geographically proximal neighbors of Uralic-speaking populations have less or no Yakutia_LNBA ancestry or have other East Asian ancestries in addition to Yakutia_LNBA ancestry.” ref
2) “Y chromosome haplogroup N which is present in high frequency amongst Uralic speaking males is seen in high frequency in Yakutia_LNBA individuals, and also in individuals with Yakutia_LNBA ancestry associated with the ST phenomenon.” ref
3) “The ST phenomenon, with several individuals carrying high proportions of Yakutia_LNBA ancestry in the Central steppes almost to the Urals, provides an archeologically documented conduit by which ancestry and language could have been transmitted to European Russia and further west.” ref
4) “Genetic contact and mixture between Yakutia_LNBA individuals and Steppe_MLBA individuals, also reflected archaeologically in connections between the ST and the Abashevo, Sintashta and Andronovo cultures, could explain the linguistic connections between the Indo-Iranian IE languages and the Uralic languages.” ref
“Samples from the Late Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Medieval period of the Yenisei River Basin, the Altai region, Western Siberia, and Eastern Europe would be critical in connecting more ancient populations with historically attested Uralic-speaking groups. Such sampling would paint a clearer picture of the dispersals of later, admixed populations carrying Yakutia_LNBA ancestry, and might provide an opportunity to trace such movements to their origin. This would allow for a more precise determination of the archaeological identity of the proto-Uralic speaking community, and illuminate the relationship between it and the wider social world of the West Siberian Bronze Age within which it was possibly embedded.” ref
Cisbaikal_EN (individuals spanning ∼8,000-6,600 years ago from the Early Neolithic Kitoi culture west of the Baikal)
Early Holocene populations from further south (including the Kitoi-associated Transbaikal_EMN and Cisbaikal_EN fat ∼8,800-6,000 years ago, and Mongolia_N_North at ∼7,500 years ago from the Mongolian Plateau) have increasing affinities to the Inland Northeast Asian source.” ref
Samara (7,640-7,555 cal BCE) R1b1(*) ancestral for both haplogroups R-M269 and R-M478
“According to a 2015 study, a hunter-gatherer from Samara (dated 5640-5555 cal BCE) belonging to haplogroup R1b1(*) was ancestral for both haplogroups R-M269 and R-M478. According to the authors, the occurrence of basal forms of R1b in eastern European hunter-gatherers provides a “geographically plausible source” for haplogroup R-M269. Subclades of R-M269, such as R-Z2103, have been found to be prevalent in ancient DNA found in individuals associated with the Yamnaya culture and related populations, and the dispersal of this haplogroup is associated with the spread of so-called “steppe ancestry” and at least some of the Indo-European languages. According to Lazaridis et al. (2022), “the most likely hypothesis” is that the entire R-M269 clade originated “in the North Caucasus and steppe to the north.” ref
“R1b-M73, found primarily in North Asia (Altai, Mongolia), Central Asia and the North Caucasus is thought to have spread during the Neolithic from the Middle East to Central and North Asia, and therefore can be considered to be pre-Indo-European.” ref
R1b1a1a (R-M73)
“Malyarchuk et al. (2011) found R-M73 in 13.2% (5/38) of Shors, 11.4% (5/44) of Teleuts, 3.3% (2/60) of Kalmyks, 3.1% (2/64) of Khakassians, 1.9% (2/108) of Tuvinians, and 1.1% (1/89) of Altaians. The Kalmyks, Tuvinians, and Altaian belong to a Y-STR cluster marked by DYS390=19, DYS389=14-16 (or 14–15 in the case of the Altaian individual), and DYS385=13-13. Dulik et al. (2012) found R-M73 in 35.3% (6/17) of a sample of the Kumandin of the Altai Republic in Russia. Three of these six Kumandins share an identical 15-loci Y-STR haplotype, and another two differ only at the DYS458 locus, having DYS458=18 instead of DYS458=17. This pair of Kumandin R-M73 haplotypes resembles the haplotypes of two Kalmyks, two Tuvinians, and one Altaian whose Y-DNA has been analyzed by Malyarchuk et al. (2011). The remaining R-M73 Kumandin has a Y-STR haplotype that is starkly different from the haplotypes of the other R-M73 Kumandins, resembling instead the haplotypes of five Shors, five Teleuts, and two Khakassians.” ref
“While early research into R-M73 claimed that it was significantly represented among the Hazara of Afghanistan and the Bashkirs of the Ural Mountains, this has apparently been overturned. For example, supporting material from a 2010 study by Behar et al. suggested that Sengupta et al. (2006) might have misidentified Hazara individuals, who instead belonged to “PQR2” as opposed to “R(xR1a).” However, the assignment of these Hazaras’ Y-DNA to the “PQR2” category by Behar et al. (2010) is probably ascribable to the habit that was popular for a while of labeling R-M269 as “R1b” or “R(xR1a),” with any members of R-M343 (xM269) being placed in a polyphyletic, catch-all “R*” or “P” category. Myres et al. (2011), Di Cristofaro et al. (2013), and Lippold et al. (2014) all agree that the Y-DNA of 32% (8/25) of the HGDP sample of Pakistani Hazara should belong to haplogroup R-M478/M73.” ref
“Likewise, most Bashkir males have been found to belong to U-152 (R1b1a1a2a1a2b) and some, mostly from southeastern Bashkortostan, belonged to Haplogroup Q-M25 (Q1a1b) rather than R1b; contra this, Myres et al. (2011) found a high frequency of R-M73 among their sample of Bashkirs from southeast Bashkortostan (77/329 = 23.4% R1b-M73), in agreement with the earlier study of Bashkirs. Besides the high frequency of R-M73 in southeastern Bashkirs, Myres et al. also reported finding R-M73 in the following samples: 10.3% (14/136) of Balkars from the northwest Caucasus, 9.4% (8/85) of the HGDP samples from northern Pakistan (these are the aforementioned Pakistani Hazaras), 5.8% (4/69) of Karachays from the northwest Caucasus, 2.6% (1/39) of Tatars from Bashkortostan, 1.9% (1/54) of Bashkirs from southwest Bashkortostan, 1.5% (1/67) of Megrels from the south Caucasus, 1.4% (1/70) of Bashkirs from north Bashkortostan, 1.3% (1/80) of Tatars from Kazan, 1.1% (1/89) of a sample from Cappadocia, Turkey, 0.7% (1/141) of Kabardians from the northwest Caucasus, 0.6% (3/522) of a pool of samples from Turkey, and 0.38% (1/263) of Russians from Central Russia.” ref
“Besides the aforementioned Pakistani Hazaras, Di Cristofaro et al. (2013) found R-M478/M73 in 11.1% (2/18) of Mongols from central Mongolia, 5.0% (1/20) of Kyrgyz from southwest Kyrgyzstan, 4.3% (1/23) of Mongols from southeast Mongolia, 4.3% (4/94) of Uzbeks from Jawzjan, Afghanistan, 3.7% (1/27) of Iranians from Gilan, 2.5% (1/40) of Kyrgyz from central Kyrgyzstan, 2.1% (2/97) of Mongols from northwest Mongolia, and 1.4% (1/74) of Turkmens from Jawzjan, Afghanistan. The Mongols as well as the individual from southwest Kyrgyzstan, the individual from Gilan, and one of the Uzbeks from Jawzjan belong to the same Y-STR haplotype cluster as five of six Kumandin members of R-M73 studied by Dulik et al. (2012). This cluster’s most distinctive Y-STR value is DYS390=19.” ref
“Karafet et al. (2018) found R-M73 in 37.5% (15/40) of a sample of Teleuts from Bekovo, Kemerovo oblast, 4.5% (3/66) of a sample of Uyghurs from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, 3.4% (1/29) of a sample of Kazakhs from Kazakhstan, 2.3% (3/129) of a sample of Selkups, 2.3% (1/44) of a sample of Turkmens from Turkmenistan, and 0.7% (1/136) of a sample of Iranians from Iran. Four of these individuals (one of the Teleuts, one of the Uyghurs, the Kazakh, and the Iranian) appear to belong to the aforementioned cluster marked by DYS390=19 (the Kumandin-Mongol R-M73 cluster); the Teleut and the Uyghur also share the modal values at the DYS385 and the DYS389 loci. The Iranian differs from the modal for this cluster by having 13-16 (or 13–29) at DYS389 instead of 14-16 (or 14–30). The Kazakh differs from the modal by having 13–14 at DYS385 instead of 13-13. The other fourteen Teleuts and the three Selkups appear to belong to the Teleut-Shor-Khakassian R-M73 cluster from the data set of Malyarchuk et al. (2011); this cluster has the modal values of DYS390=22 (but 21 in the case of two Teleuts and one Khakassian), DYS385=13-16, and DYS389=13-17 (or 13–30, but 14–31 in the case of one Selkup).” ref
“A Kazakhstani paper published in 2017 found haplogroup R1b-M478 Y-DNA in 3.17% (41/1294) of a sample of Kazakhs from Kazakhstan, with this haplogroup being observed with greater than average frequency among members of the Qypshaq (12/29 = 41.4%), Ysty (6/57 = 10.5%), Qongyrat (8/95 = 8.4%), Oshaqty (2/29 = 6.9%), Kerey (1/28 = 3.6%), and Jetyru (3/86 = 3.5%) tribes. A Chinese paper published in 2018 found haplogroup R1b-M478 Y-DNA in 9.2% (7/76) of a sample of Dolan Uyghurs from Horiqol township, Awat County, Xinjiang.” ref
Haplogroup R1b-M269 (R1b1a1b) from 4,000–10,000 years ago
Europe, Eastern associated with Indo-European migrations
“R-M269 had formerly been dated to the Upper Paleolithic, but by about 2010 it was thought to have formed near the beginning of the Neolithic Revolution, about 10,000 years ago. More recent archaeogenetics studies since 2015, however, strongly suggest an origin among Eneolithic hunter-gatherers from eastern Europe. Balaresque et al. (2010) based on the pattern of Y-STR diversity argued for a single source in the Near East and introduction to Europe via Anatolia in the Neolithic Revolution. In this scenario, Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Europe would have been nearly replaced by the incoming farmers. By contrast, Busby et al. (2012) could not confirm the results of Balaresque et al. (2010) and could not make credible estimates of the age of R-M269 based on Y-STR diversity. Furthermore, more recent studies have found that the Y-DNA of Early European Farmers is typically haplogroup G2a.” ref
“According to a 2015 study, a hunter-gatherer from Samara (dated 5640-5555 cal BCE or around 7,640-7,555 years ago) belonging to haplogroup R1b1(*) was ancestral for both haplogroups R-M269 and R-M478. According to the authors, the occurrence of basal forms of R1b in eastern European hunter-gatherers provides a “geographically plausible source” for haplogroup R-M269. Subclades of R-M269, such as R-Z2103, have been found to be prevalent in ancient DNA found in individuals associated with the Yamnaya culture and related populations, and the dispersal of this haplogroup is associated with the spread of so-called “steppe ancestry” and at least some of the Indo-European languages. According to Lazaridis et al. (2022), “the most likely hypothesis” is that the entire R-M269 clade originated “in the North Caucasus and steppe to the north.” ref
“The subclade R-P311 is substantially confined to Western Europe in modern populations. R-P311 is absent from Neolithic-era ancient DNA found in Western Europe, strongly suggesting that its current distribution is due to population movements within Europe taking place after the end of the Neolithic. The three major subclades of P311 are U106 (S21), L21 (M529, S145), and U152 (S28). These show a clear articulation within Western Europe, with centers in the Low Countries, the British Isles and the Alps, respectively. These lineages are associated with the non-Iberian steppe-related groups of the Bell Beaker culture, and demonstrate the relationship between steppe-related ancestry and R1b-M269 subclades, which are “the major lineage associated with the arrival of Steppe ancestry in western Europe after 2500 BCE or around 4,500 years ago.” ref
“European R1b is dominated by R-M269. It has been found at generally low frequencies throughout central Eurasia, but with relatively high frequency among the Bashkirs of the Perm region (84.0%) and Baymaksky District (81.0%). This marker is present in China and India at frequencies of less than one percent. The table below lists in more detail the frequencies of M269 in regions in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Distribution of R-M269 in Europe increases in frequency from east to west. It peaks at the national level in Wales at a rate of 92%, at 82% in Ireland, 70% in Scotland, 68% in Spain, 60% in France (76% in Normandy), about 60% in Portugal, 50% in Germany, 50% in the Netherlands, 47% in Italy, 45% in Eastern England, 43% in Denmark and 42% in Iceland. It is as high as 95% in parts of Ireland. It is also found in some areas of North Africa, where its frequency peaks at 10% in some parts of Algeria. M269 has likewise been observed among 8% of the Herero in Namibia.” ref
“The R-M269 subclade has been found in ancient Guanche (Bimbapes) fossils excavated in Punta Azul, El Hierro, Canary Islands, which are dated to the 10th century (~44%). In western Asia, R-M269 has been reported in 29.2% of Assyrian males from Iran. Haplogroup R1b1 and its subclades in Asia. M269* (xL23) is found at highest frequency in the central Balkans notably Kosovo with 7.9%, North Macedonia 5.1% and Serbia 4.4%. Kosovo is notable in having a high percentage of descendant L23* or L23(xM412) at 11.4% unlike most other areas with significant percentages of M269* and L23* except for Poland with 2.4% and 9.5% and the Bashkirs of southeast Bashkortostan with 2.4% and 32.2% respectively. Notably this Bashkir population also has a high percentage of M269 sister branch M73 at 23.4%. Five individuals out of 110 tested in the Ararat Valley, Armenia belonged to R1b1a2* and 36 to L23*, with none belonging to known subclades of L23. Trofimova et al. (2015) found a surprising high frequency of R1b-L23 (Z2105/2103) among the peoples of the Idel-Ural. 21 out of 58 (36.2%) of Burzyansky District Bashkirs, 11 out of 52 (21.2%) of Udmurts, 4 out of 50 (8%) of Komi, 4 out of 59 (6.8%) of Mordvins, 2 out of 53 (3.8%) of Besermyan and 1 out of 43 (2.3%) of Chuvash were R1b-L23 (Z2105/2103), the type of R1b found in the recently analyzed Yamna remains of the Samara Oblast and Orenburg Oblast.” ref
“Especially Western European R1b is dominated by specific sub-clades of R-M269 (with some small amounts of other types found in areas such as Sardinia). Within Europe, R-M269 is dominated by R-M412, also known as R-L51, which according to Myres et al. (2010) is “virtually absent in the Near East, the Caucasus and West Asia.” This Western European population is further divided between R-P312/S116 and R-U106/S21, which appear to spread from the western and eastern Rhine river basin respectively. Myres et al. note further that concerning its closest relatives, in R-L23*, it is “instructive” that these are often more than 10% of the population in the Caucasus, Turkey, and some southeast European and circum-Uralic populations.” ref
“In Western Europe it is present but in generally much lower levels apart from “an instance of 27% in Switzerland’s Upper Rhone Valley.” In addition, the sub-clade distribution map, Figure 1h titled “L11(xU106,S116)”, in Myres et al. shows that R-P310/L11* (or as yet undefined subclades of R-P310/L11) occurs only in frequencies greater than 10% in Central England with surrounding areas of England and Wales having lower frequencies. This R-P310/L11* is almost non-existent in the rest of Eurasia and North Africa with the exception of coastal lands fringing the western and southern Baltic (reaching 10% in Eastern Denmark and 6% in northern Poland) and in Eastern Switzerland and surrounds.” ref
“R-M269, or R1b1a1b (as of 2018) amongst other names, is now the most common Y-DNA lineage in European males. It is carried by an estimated 110 million males in Europe. R-M269 has received significant scientific and popular interest due to its possible connection to the Indo-European expansion in Europe. Specifically the R-Z2103 subclade has been found to be prevalent in ancient DNA associated with the Yamna culture. All seven individuals in one were determined to belong to the R1b-M269 subclade.
Older research, published before researchers could study the DNA of ancient remains, proposed that R-M269 likely originated in Western Asia and was present in Europe by the Neolithic period. But results based on actual ancient DNA noticed that there was a dearth of R-M269 in Europe before the Bronze Age, and the distribution of subclades within Europe is substantially due to the various migrations of the Bronze and Iron Age. Likewise, the oldest samples classified as belonging to R-M269, have been found in Eastern Europe and Pontic-Caspian steppe, not Western Asia. Western European populations are divided between the R-P312/S116 and R-U106/S21 subclades of R-M412 (R-L51).” ref
R-M269 reaches levels as high as 95% in parts of Ireland. It has also been found at lower frequencies throughout central Eurasia, but with relatively high frequency among the Bashkirs of the Perm region (84.0%). This marker is present in China and India at frequencies of less than one percent. In North Africa and adjoining islands, while R-V88 (R1b1b) is more strongly represented, R-M269 appears to have been present since antiquity. R-M269 has been found, for instance, at a rate of ~44% among remains dating from the 11th to 13th centuries at Punta Azul, in the Canary Islands. These remains have been linked to the Bimbache (or Bimape), a subgroup of the Guanche. In living males, it peaks in parts of North Africa, especially Algeria, at a rate of 10%. In Sub-Saharan Africa, R-M269 appears to peak in Namibia, at a rate of 8% among Herero males. In western Asia, R-M269 has been reported in 40% of Armenian males and over 35% in Turkmen males. (The table below lists in more detail the frequencies of M269 in regions in Asia, Europe, and Africa.)” ref
N* (M231)
“Y-chromosomes that display the M231 mutation that defines Haplogroup N-M231, but do not display the CTS11499, L735, M2291 mutations that define Haplogroup N1 are said to belong to paragroup N-M231*. N-M231* has been found at low levels in China. Out of a sample of 165 Han males from China, two individuals (1.2%) were found to belong to N*. One originated from Guangzhou and one from Xi’an. Among the ancient samples from the Baikal Early Neolithic Kitoi culture, one of the Shamanka II samples (DA250), dated to c. 6500 years ago, was analyzed as NO1-M214 in the original study. However, this same specimen (DA250 or Shamanka 250) has subsequently been found to belong to N-FT210118, the same clade as the other haplogroup N specimens from the same site (besides DA247, who belongs to N-Y147969).” ref
“N-FT210118 is derived from N-L666/N-F2199 but basal to N-CTS6380, this latter being the most recent common ancestor of present-day N-P43 (found mainly among Maris, Udmurts, Komis, Chuvashes, Tatars, Nenets, Nganasans, Khanty, Mansi, Khakas, Tuvans, etc.) and N-F1101 (found mainly among East Asians). Furthermore, N-FT210118 has not been found in any living individual who has had his Y-DNA tested to date, and the estimated TMRCA of N-CTS6380 exceeds the estimated date of deposition of any of the specimens from the Shamanka site associated with the Kitoi culture, so it appears that the representatives of the Kitoi culture at Shamanka (or at least their Y-DNA) have gone extinct rather than being direct ancestors of any living people.” ref
N2 (Y6503)
“N2 (Y6503/FGC28528; B482/FGC28394/Y6584) – a primary branch of haplogroup N-M231, is now represented mainly by a subclade, N-FGC28435, that has spread probably some time in the first half of the second millennium CE and that has been found in individuals from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Turkey (Istanbul). N-Y7310 (or N-F14667) subsumes N-FGC28435 and likewise probably descends from a common ancestor who has lived some time in the first half of the last millennium. However, members of N-Y7310(xFGC28435) exhibit a greater geographic range, including an individual from Rostov Oblast of Russia and a Romanian Hungarian individual with ancestry from Suceava, Bukovina.” ref
“Other branches of N-P189 include members from Turkey, Russia (Moscow Oblast), France (Charente-Maritime), and England (Devon). The most recent common ancestor of all the aforementioned extant N-P189 lineages has been estimated to be 4,900 years ago (95% CI 5,700 <-> 4,100) years before present. An archaeological specimen attributed to the Botai culture of northern Kazakhstan and dated to the latter half of the fourth millennium BCE belongs to N-P189*, being basal to present-day European members of N-P189.” ref
“Lineages that belong to N-Y6503(xP189) and are only distantly related (with a time to most recent common ancestor estimated to be greater than 10,000 years before present) to the aforementioned members of N-P189 have been found in an individual from the present-day Altai Republic and probably also in an archaeological specimen attributed to the Iron Age Mezőcsát culture of what is now Hungary (approx. 2,900 years before present) and in an archaeological specimen attributed to the Kitoi culture of ceramic-using foragers of the area around Lake Baikal (approx. 6,700 years ago).” ref
Ancient peoples
“A sample excavated at the Houtaomuga site in the Yonghe neighborhood of Honggangzi Township, Da’an, Jilin, China dating back to 7,430–7,320 years ago (Phase II of the Early Neolithic) has been found to belong to Y-DNA haplogroup N and mtDNA haplogroup B4c1a2. This sample is autosomally identical with the Neolithic Amur River Basin populations, of which Nivkh people are the closest modern representative. As the paper detected this ancestry in terminal Pleistocene USR1 specimen in Alaska, it is therefore, postulated that there was gene flow from Amur to America of a population belonging to a hypothetical Chukotko-Kamchatkan–Nivkh linguistic family. N has also been found in many samples of Neolithic human remains exhumed from Liao civilization in northeastern China, and in the circum-Baikal area of southern Siberia. It is suggested that yDNA N, reached southern Siberia from 12,000 to 14,000 years ago. From there it reached southern Europe 8,000-10,000 years ago.” ref
“N1a1a1a1-P298/M2126 China (Urumqi, Kashgar Prefecture, Turpan, Aksu Prefecture, Xianyang, Jincheng, Kaifeng, Qiqihar)
- N1a1a1a1a-L392
- N1a1a1a1a1-CTS10760
- N1a1a1a1a1a-CTS2929/VL29 Found with high frequency among Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, northwestern Russians, Swedish Saami, Karelians, Nenetses, Finns, and Maris, moderate frequency among other Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Poles, and low frequency among Komis, Mordva, Tatars, Chuvashes, Dolgans, Vepsa, Selkups, Karanogays, and Bashkirs
- N1a1a1a1a1a1-Z4908
- N-Y46443
- N-Y46443* Russia (Moscow Oblast)
- N-BY33095 Russia (Samara Oblast)
- N1a1a1a1a1a1a-L550/S431
- N-L550* Sweden (Kronoberg County)
- N-Y9454 Sweden (Västra Götaland County, Örebro County), Finland, Russia
- N-Y20911 Finland (Western Finland Province, Southern Finland Province)
- N-Y7795
- N-Y7795* Sweden (Norrbotten County, Södermanland County)
- N-Y29766 Norway (Hedmark)
- N-Y20918 Sweden (Östergötland County, Västerbotten County), Finland (Western Finland Province) ” ref
Samara Y-DNA R1b1a1a 7,640-7,555 years old
“The Yamnaya economy was based upon animal husbandry, fishing, and foraging, and the manufacture of ceramics, tools, and weapons. The people of the Yamnaya culture lived primarily as nomads, with a chiefdom system and wheeled carts and wagons that allowed them to manage large herds. They are also closely connected to Final Neolithic cultures, which later spread throughout Europe and Central Asia, especially the Corded Ware people and the Bell Beaker culture, as well as the peoples of the Sintashta, Andronovo, and Srubnaya cultures. Back migration from Corded Ware also contributed to Sintashta and Andronovo. In these groups, several aspects of the Yamnaya culture are present. Yamnaya material culture was very similar to the Afanasevo culture of South Siberia, and the populations of the two cultures are genetically indistinguishable. This suggests that the Afanasevo culture may have originated from the migration of Yamnaya groups to the Altai region or, alternatively, that both cultures developed from an earlier shared cultural source.” ref
“Genetic studies have suggested that the people of the Yamnaya culture can be modelled as a genetic admixture between a population related to Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers (EHG) and people related to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus (CHG) in roughly equal proportions, an ancestral component which is often named “Steppe ancestry”, with additional admixture from Anatolian, Levantine, or Early European farmers. Genetic studies also indicate that populations associated with the Corded Ware, Bell Beaker, Sintashta, and Andronovo cultures derived large parts of their ancestry from the Yamnaya or a closely related population.”
According to the widely-accepted Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas, the people that produced the Yamnaya culture spoke a stage of the Proto Indo-European language, which later spread eastwards and westwards as part of the Indo-European migrations. The origin of the Yamnaya culture continues to be debated, with proposals for its origins pointing to both the Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog cultures. The Khvalynsk culture (4700–3800 BCE) (middle Volga) and the Don-based Repin culture (c. 3950–3300 BCE) in the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe, and the closely related Sredny Stog culture (c. 4500–3500 BCE) in the western Pontic-Caspian steppe, preceded the Yamnaya culture (3300–2500 BCE).” ref
“The Khvalynsk culture is a Middle Copper Age Eneolithic culture (c. 4,900 – 3,500 BCE or around 6,900-5,500 years ago) of the middle Volga region. It takes its name from Khvalynsk in Saratov Oblast. The Khvalynsk culture is found from the Samara Bend in the north (the location of some of the most important sites such as Krivoluchye) to the North Caucasus in the south, from the Sea of Azov in the west to the Ural River in the east. It was preceded by the Early Eneolithic Samara culture.” ref
“Nina Morgunova regards Khvalynsk I as Early Eneolithic, contemporary with the second stage of Samara culture called Ivanovka and Toksky stage, which pottery was influenced by Khvalynsk culture, as calibrated period of this second stage of Samara culture is 4,850–3,640 BCE or around 6,850-5,640 years ago. Marija Gimbutas, however, believed Samara was earlier and placed Khvalynsk I in the Developed Eneolithic. Not enough Samara culture dates and sites exist to settle the question. After c. 4,500 BCE, Khvalynsk culture united the lower and middle Volga sites keeping domesticated sheep, goats, cattle, and maybe horses.” ref
Eastern hunter-gatherers had R1a and R1b, with lower J and Q.
“Haak et al. (2015) identified the EHG as a distinct genetic cluster in two males only. The EHG male of Samara (dated to ca. 5650–5550 BC) carried Y-haplogroup R1b1a1a* and mt-haplogroup U5a1d. The other EHG male, buried in Karelia (dated to ca. 5500-5000 BCE or around 7,500-7,000 years ago) carried Y-haplogroup R1a1 and mt-haplogoup C1g. The authors of the study also identified a WHG cluster and an SHG cluster, intermediate between WHG and EHG. They suggested that EHGs harbored mixed ancestry from Ancient North Eurasians (ANEs) and WHGs. Researchers have proposed various admixture proportion models for EHGs from WHGs and ANEs.” ref
“Posth et al. (2023) found that most EHG individuals carried c. 70% ANE ancestry and c. 30% WHG ancestry The WHG-like ancestry was most likely not derived from the Oberkassel and Villabruna clusters directly, but from a related and yet unsampled Epigravettian population. The high contribution from Ancient North Eurasians is also visible in a subtle affinity of the EHG to the 40,000-year-old Tianyuan man from Northern China and other East/Southeast Asians, which can be explained by geneflow from a Tianyuan-related source into the ANE lineage (represented by Malta and Afontova Gora 3), which later substantially contributed to the formation of the EHG.” ref
“The formation of the EHG ancestral component is estimated to have happened 13,000–15,000 years ago. EHG associated remains belonged primarily to the human Y-chromosome haplogroups R1, with a lower frequency of haplogroup J and Q. Their mitochondrial chromosomes belonged primarily to haplogroup U2, U4, U5, as well as C1 and R1b. Geneflow from an East Asian-like source towards the EHG contributed around 9.4% (4.4%–14.7%).” ref
EHGs may have mixed with “an Armenian-like Near Eastern source”, which formed the Yamnaya culture, as early as the Eneolithic (5200-4000 BCE or around 7,200-6,000 years ago). The people of the Yamnaya culture were found to be a mix of EHG and a “Near Eastern related population”. During the 3rd millennium BCE, the Yamnaya people embarked on a massive expansion throughout Europe, which significantly altered the genetic landscape of the continent. The expansion gave rise to cultures such as Corded Ware, and was possibly the source of the distribution of Indo-European languages in Europe.” ref
“The people of the Mesolithic Kunda culture and the Narva culture of the eastern Baltic were a mix of WHG and EHG, showing the closest affinity with WHG. Samples from the Ukrainian Mesolithic and Neolithic were found to cluster tightly together between WHG and EHG, suggesting genetic continuity in the Dnieper Rapids for a period of 4,000 years. The Ukrainian samples belonged exclusively to the maternal haplogroup U, which is found in around 80% of all European hunter-gatherer samples.” ref
“The people of the Pit–Comb Ware culture (PCW/CCC) of the eastern Baltic bear 65% EHG ancestry. This is in contrast to earlier hunter-gatherers in the area, who were more closely related to WHG. This was demonstrated using a sample of Y-DNA extracted from a Pit–Comb Ware individual. This belonged to R1a15-YP172. The four samples of mtDNA extracted constituted two samples of U5b1d1, one sample of U5a2d, and one sample of U4a.” ref
“Günther et al. (2018) analyzed 13 SHGs and found all of them to be of EHG ancestry. Generally, SHGs from western and northern Scandinavia had more EHG ancestry (ca 49%) than individuals from eastern Scandinavia (ca. 38%). The authors suggested that the SHGs were a mix of WHGs who had migrated into Scandinavia from the south, and EHGs who had later migrated into Scandinavia from the northeast along the Norwegian coast. SHGs displayed higher frequences of genetic variants that cause light skin (SLC45A2 and SLC24A5), and light eyes (OCA/Herc2), than WHGs and EHGs.” ref
“Members of the Kunda culture and Narva culture were also found to be more closely related with WHG, while the Pit–Comb Ware culture was more closely related to EHG. Northern and eastern areas of the eastern Baltic were found to be more closely related to EHG than southern areas. The study noted that EHGs, like SHGs and Baltic hunter-gatherers, carried high frequencies of the derived alleles for SLC24A5 and SLC45A2, which are codings for light skin.” ref
“Mathieson et al. (2018) analyzed the genetics of a large number of skeletons of prehistoric Eastern Europe. Thirty-seven samples were from Mesolithic and Neolithic Ukraine (9500-6000 BCE or around 11,500-8,000 years ago). These were classified as intermediate between EHG and SHG. The males belonged exclusively to R haplotypes (particularly subclades of R1b1 and R1a) and I haplotypes (particularly subclades of I2). Mitochondrial DNA belonged almost exclusively to U (particularly subclades of U5 and U4).” ref
“A large number of individuals from the Zvejnieki burial ground, which mostly belonged to the Kunda culture and Narva culture in the eastern Baltic, were analyzed. These individuals were mostly of WHG descent in the earlier phases, but over time EHG ancestry became predominant. The Y-DNA of this site belonged almost exclusively to haplotypes of haplogroup R1b1a1a and I2a1. The mtDNA belonged exclusively to haplogroup U (particularly subclades of U2, U4 and U5).” ref
“Forty individuals from three sites of the Iron Gates Mesolithic in the Balkans were estimated to be of 85% WHG and 15% EHG descent. The males at these sites carried exclusively R1b1a and I (mostly subclades of I2a) haplotypes. mtDNA belonged mostly to U (particularly subclades of U5 and U4). People of the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture were found to harbor about 20% hunter-gatherer ancestry, which was intermediate between EHG and WHG. Narasimshan et al. (2019) coined a new ancestral component, West Siberian Hunter-Gatherer (WSHG). WSHGs contained about 20% EHG ancestry, 73% ANE ancestry, and 6% East Asian ancestry. ” ref
Ancient North Eurasian (ANE)
Ancient Beringian/Ancestral Native American (AB/ANA)
Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG)
Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG)
Western Steppe Herders (WSH)
Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer (SHG)
Early European Farmers (EEF)
Jōmon people (Ainu people OF Hokkaido Island)
Neolithic Iranian farmers (Iran_N) (Iran Neolithic)
Haplogroup R possible time of origin about 27,000 years in Central Asia, South Asia, or Siberia:
- Mal’ta–Buret’ culture (24,000-15,000 years ago)
- Afontova Gora culture (21,000-12,000 years ago)
- Trialetian culture (16,000–8000 years ago)
- Samara culture (7,000-6,500 years ago)
- Khvalynsk culture (7,000-6,500 years ago)
- Afanasievo culture (5,300-4,500 years ago)
- Yamna/Yamnaya Culture (5,300-4,500 years ago)
- Andronovo culture (4,000–2,900 years ago) ref
“The ANE lineage is defined by association with the MA-1, or “Mal’ta boy”, remains of 24,000 years ago in central Siberia Mal’ta-Buret’ culture 24,000-15,000 years ago. The Ancient North Eurasians (ANE) samples (Afontova Gora 3, Mal’ta 1, and Yana-RHS) show evidence for minor gene flow from an East Asian-related group (simplified by the Amis, Han, or Tianyuan) but no evidence for ANE-related geneflow into East Asians (Amis, Han, Tianyuan), except the Ainu, of North Japan.” ref
“The ANE lineage is defined by association with the MA-1, or “Mal’ta boy”, remains of 24,000 years ago in central Siberia Mal’ta-Buret’ culture 24,000-15,000 years ago “basal to modern-day Europeans”. Some Ancient North Eurasians also carried East Asian populations, such as Tianyuan Man.” ref
“Bronze-age-steppe Yamnaya and Afanasevo cultures were ANE at around 50% and Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) at around 75% ANE. Karelia culture: Y-DNA R1a-M417 8,400 years ago, Y-DNA J, 7,200 years ago, and Samara, of Y-haplogroup R1b-P297 7,600 years ago is closely related to ANE from Afontova Gora, 18,000 years ago around the time of blond hair first seen there.” ref
Ancient North Eurasian
“In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient North Eurasian (often abbreviated as ANE) is the name given to an ancestral West Eurasian component that represents descent from the people similar to the Mal’ta–Buret’ culture and populations closely related to them, such as from Afontova Gora and the Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site. Significant ANE ancestry are found in some modern populations, including Europeans and Native Americans.” ref
“The ANE lineage is defined by association with the MA-1, or “Mal’ta boy“, the remains of an individual who lived during the Last Glacial Maximum, 24,000 years ago in central Siberia, Ancient North Eurasians are described as a lineage “which is deeply related to Paleolithic/Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Europe,” meaning that they diverged from Paleolithic Europeans a long time ago.” ref
“The ANE population has also been described as having been “basal to modern-day Europeans” but not especially related to East Asians, and is suggested to have perhaps originated in Europe or Western Asia or the Eurasian Steppe of Central Asia. However, some samples associated with Ancient North Eurasians also carried ancestry from an ancient East Asian population, such as Tianyuan Man. Sikora et al. (2019) found that the Yana RHS sample (31,600 BP) in Northern Siberia “can be modeled as early West Eurasian with an approximately 22% contribution from early East Asians.” ref
“Populations genetically similar to MA-1 were an important genetic contributor to Native Americans, Europeans, Central Asians, South Asians, and some East Asian groups, in order of significance. Lazaridis et al. (2016:10) note “a cline of ANE ancestry across the east-west extent of Eurasia.” The ancient Bronze-age-steppe Yamnaya and Afanasevo cultures were found to have a noteworthy ANE component at ~50%.” ref
“According to Moreno-Mayar et al. 2018 between 14% and 38% of Native American ancestry may originate from gene flow from the Mal’ta–Buret’ people (ANE). This difference is caused by the penetration of posterior Siberian migrations into the Americas, with the lowest percentages of ANE ancestry found in Eskimos and Alaskan Natives, as these groups are the result of migrations into the Americas roughly 5,000 years ago.” ref
“Estimates for ANE ancestry among first wave Native Americans show higher percentages, such as 42% for those belonging to the Andean region in South America. The other gene flow in Native Americans (the remainder of their ancestry) was of East Asian origin. Gene sequencing of another south-central Siberian people (Afontova Gora-2) dating to approximately 17,000 years ago, revealed similar autosomal genetic signatures to that of Mal’ta boy-1, suggesting that the region was continuously occupied by humans throughout the Last Glacial Maximum.” ref
“The earliest known individual with a genetic mutation associated with blonde hair in modern Europeans is an Ancient North Eurasian female dating to around 16000 BCE from the Afontova Gora 3 site in Siberia. It has been suggested that their mythology may have included a narrative, found in both Indo-European and some Native American fables, in which a dog guards the path to the afterlife.” ref
“Genomic studies also indicate that the ANE component was introduced to Western Europe by people related to the Yamnaya culture, long after the Paleolithic. It is reported in modern-day Europeans (7%–25%), but not of Europeans before the Bronze Age. Additional ANE ancestry is found in European populations through paleolithic interactions with Eastern Hunter-Gatherers, which resulted in populations such as Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers.” ref
“The Ancient North Eurasians (ANE) split from the ancestors of European peoples somewhere in the Middle East or South-central Asia, and used a northern dispersal route through Central Asia into Northern Asia and Siberia. Genetic analyses show that all ANE samples (Afontova Gora 3, Mal’ta 1, and Yana-RHS) show evidence for minor gene flow from an East Asian-related group (simplified by the Amis, Han, or Tianyuan). In contrast, no evidence for ANE-related geneflow into East Asians (Amis, Han, Tianyuan), except the Ainu, was found.” ref
“Genetic data suggests that the ANE formed during the Terminal Upper-Paleolithic (36+-1,5ka) period from a deeply European-related population, which was once widespread in Northern Eurasia, and from an early East Asian-related group, which migrated northwards into Central Asia and Siberia, merging with this deeply European-related population. These population dynamics and constant northwards geneflow of East Asian-related ancestry would later gave rise to the “Ancestral Native Americans” and Paleosiberians, which replaced the ANE as dominant population of Siberia.” ref
Haplogroup “R” Y-DNA Migrations
To me, there are at least three main migrations of Haplogroup “R” Y-DNA from Siberia to the Middle East areas. First was R1b Y-DNA at 22,000 years ago; next was R1a Y-DNA at 12,300 years ago in Arabia; and last was R2a Y-DNA at 10,000 years ago in Iran Neolithic.
1. R1b in the Middle East areas 22,000 years ago
2. R1a in Arabia 12,300 years ago
3. R2a in Iran 10,000 years ago
“Rb1-V88 around 8,000 years ago. R1b-V88 coalescence time was estimated between 9,200–5,600 years ago. Researchers suggest R1b-V88 is a paternal genetic record of the proposed mid-Holocene migration of proto-Chadic Afroasiatic speakers through the Central Sahara into the Lake Chad Basin, and geomorphological evidence is consistent with this view.” ref
“Haplogroup R2a (R-M124) is characterized by SNPs M124, F820/Page4, L381, P249, and is mainly found in South Asia, with lower frequencies in Central Asia. R-M124 is also found in multiple Jewish populations: Iraqi Jews, Persian Jews, Mountain Jews, and Ashkenazi Jews. Most research has tested only for the presence of R-M479 (R2) and R-M124 (R2a) – or SNPs downstream from M124 like P249, P267, L266, PAGES00004, and L381 SNPs). Because the other primary branch, R2b (R-FGC21706) was discovered later than R2a, it has often not been tested for. Hence most results are best described as R2(xR2a). n addition, relatively little research has been done within South Asia, which is known to have the greatest concentration of R2. (Hence the figures cited in the table right may not be indicative of true frequencies, i.e. Pakistan is the only South Asian country that has been included.) In 2013, R2(xR2a) was found in 5 out of 19 males from the Burusho minority of North Pakistan. Haplogroup R2, or R-M479, has been concentrated geographically in South Asia and Central Asia since prehistory. It appears to reach its highest levels among the Burusho people in North Pakistan.” ref
- My Thoughts on Possible Migrations of “R” DNA and Proto-Indo-European?
- Migrations and Changing Europeans Beginning around 8,000 Years Ago
- My “Steppe-Anatolian-Kurgan hypothesis” 8,000/7,000 years ago
- The Dnieper–Donets culture and Asian varieties of Millet from China to the Black Sea region of Europe by 7,022 years ago
- Kurgan 6,000 years ago/dolmens 7,000 years ago: funeral, ritual, and other?
- 7,020 to 6,020-year-old Proto-Indo-European Homeland of Urheimat or proposed home of their Language and Religion
Haplogroup migrations related to the Ancient North Eurasians: I added stuff to this map to help explain.
People reached Lake Baikal Siberia around 25,000 years ago. They (to Damien) were likely Animistic Shamanists who were also heavily totemistic as well. Being animistic thinkers they likely viewed amazing things in nature as a part of or related to something supernatural/spiritual (not just natural as explained by science): spirit-filled, a sprit-being relates to or with it, it is a sprit-being, it is a supernatural/spiritual creature, or it is a great spirit/tutelary deity/goddess-god. From there comes mythology and faith in things not seen but are believed to somehow relate or interact with this “real world” we know exists.
Both areas of Lake Baikal, one on the west side with Ancient North Eurasian culture and one on the east side with Ancient Northern East Asian culture (later to become: Ancient Northeast Asian culture) areas are the connected areas that (to Damien) are the origin ancestry religion area for many mythologies and religious ideas of the world by means of a few main migrations and many smaller ones leading to a distribution of religious ideas that even though are vast in distance are commonly related to and centering on Lake Baikal and its surrounding areas like the Amur region and Altai Mountains region.
To an Animistic Thinker: “Things are not just as they seem, they may have a spirit, or spirit energy relates to them”
To a Totemistic Thinker: “Things are not just as they seem, they may have a spirit, or spirit energy relates to them; they may have religio-cultural importance.”
“Ancient North Eurasian population had Haplogroups R, P, U, and Q DNA types: defined by maternal West-Eurasian ancestry components (such as mtDNA haplogroup U) and paternal East-Eurasian ancestry components (such as yDNA haplogroup P1 (R*/Q*).” ref
“The basal East Eurasians (bEE) are an ancient population that had no divergence among the ancestors of East Asians, Northeast Asians/East Siberian, and Native Americans. NA-ES-NA presents another ancient population that had no split between the ancestors of Northeast Asians/East Siberian and Native Americans.” ref
“Schematic of peopling history in Southeast and East Asians, Northeast Asian/East Siberians and Native Americans.” ref
Q Haplogroup
“Q-M242 is the predominant Y-DNA haplogroup among Native Americans and several peoples of Central Asia and Northern Siberia. Q-M242 is believed to have arisen around the Altai Mountains area (or South Central Siberia), approximately 17,000 to 31,700 years ago (approximately 24,500 years ago). Several branches of haplogroup Q-M242 have been predominant pre-Columbian male lineages in indigenous peoples of the Americas. Most of them are descendants of the major founding groups who migrated from Asia into the Americas by crossing the Bering Strait. These small groups of founders must have included men from the Q-M346, Q-L54, Q-Z780, and Q-M3 lineages.” ref
“In North America, two other Q-lineages also have been found. These are Q-P89.1 (under Q-MEH2) and Q-NWT01. They may have not been from the Beringia Crossings but instead come from later immigrants who traveled along the shoreline of Far East Asia and then the Americas using boats. It is unclear whether the current frequency of Q-M242 lineages represents their frequency at the time of immigration or is the result of the shifts in a small founder population over time. Regardless, Q-M242 came to dominate the paternal lineages in the Americas.” ref
“In the indigenous people of North America, Q-M242 is found in Na-Dené speakers at an average rate of 68%. The highest frequency is 92.3% in Navajo, followed by 78.1% in Apache, 87% in SC Apache, and about 80% in North American Eskimo (Inuit, Yupik)–Aleut populations. (Q-M3 occupies 46% among Q in North America). On the other hand, a 4000-year-old Saqqaq individual belonging to Q1a-MEH2* has been found in Greenland. Surprisingly, he turned out to be genetically more closely related to Far East Siberians such as Koryaks and Chukchi people rather than Native Americans. Today, the frequency of Q runs at 53.7% (122/227: 70 Q-NWT01, 52 Q-M3) in Greenland, showing the highest in east Sermersooq at 82% and the lowest in Qeqqata at 30%.” ref
“Haplogroup Q-M242 has been found in approximately 94% of Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and South America. The frequencies of Q among the whole male population of each country reach as follows:
- 61% in Bolivia.
- 51% in Guatemala,
- 40.1% (159/397) to 50% in Peru
- 37.6% in Ecuador,
- 37.3% (181/485) in Mexico (30.8% (203/659) among the specifically Mestizo segment)
- 31.2% (50/160) in El Salvador,
- 15.3% (37/242) to 21.8% (89/408) in Panama,
- 16.1% in Colombia,
- 15.2% (25/165) in Nicaragua,
- 9.7% (20/206) in Chile,
- 5.3% (13/246 in 8 provinces in northeastern, central, southern regions) to 23.4% (181/775 in 8 provinces in central-west, central, northwest regions) in Argentina,
- 5% in Costa Rica,
- 3.95% in Brazil, and so on.” ref
“Lighter skin and blond hair evolved in the Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) population. The SLC24A5 gene’s derived threonine or Ala111Thr allele (rs1426654) has been shown to be a major factor in the light skin tone of Europeans. Possibly originating as long as 19,000 years ago, it has been the subject of selection in the ancestors of Europeans as recently as within the last 5,000 years, and is fixed in modern European populations.” ref, ref
DNA-researcher: It’s not ‘woke’ to portray prehistoric Europeans with dark skin.
“It’s evolution. Ancient DNA analyses suggest that prehistoric Europeans looked different from modern Europeans today, but some people find that hard to accept. There was an artistic picture of an almost 6,000-year-old, girl who was walking along Lolland’s south coast and spits a piece of birch tar into the reeds. It didn’t taste great, but it helped to soothe her toothache. Fast forward 6,000 years, Danish archaeologists working on the Fehmarnbelt project stumble across the piece and recognize it for what it is: an almost 6,000-year-old piece of chewing gum. This ancient piece of gum is now on display at the Museum Lolland-Falster in southern Denmark among an amazing collection of Stone Age artifacts uncovered during the excavations. If you have not been, it is well worth a visit. In 2019, my research team at the University of Copenhagen managed something quite remarkable: We succeeded in extracting DNA from the gum and used it to reconstruct the girl’s entire genome — the first time anyone had sequenced an ancient human genome from anything other than skeletal remains. As the gum had been found on Lolland, we affectionately nicknamed her ‘Lola’.” ref
Stone-age girl in social media ‘shitstorm’
“The story of Lola and her chewing gum made headlines around the world when we published the genome in 2019 and then, suddenly, in the summer of 2023, Lola was back in the news, caught up in a media ‘shitstorm’. The ‘shitstorm’ first gathered pace on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and escalated to the point where the museum had to defend itself on national TV. Even the Danish newspaper ‘Ekstrabladet’ felt they had to comment and gave their opinion in a passionate editorial. So, what happened? These things are difficult to reconstruct, but evidently some people who had seen the image of Lola thought that she looked “way too dark” and accused us—and the museum—of ‘blackwashing’ the past. I suppose this episode says more about our own biases than anything else, and I would like to take this opportunity to explain why we portrayed Lola the way we did and what this tells us about the evolution of skin color in this part of the world.” ref
What we know about Lola
“First a disclaimer, we do not know exactly how old Lola was when she spat that chewing gum into the water. But based on her genome and other DNA trapped in the gum, we learned a lot of other things about her and her world. For example, we learned that she was a hunter-gatherer who lived off wild resources like fish, nuts, and wild game. At the time, small farming communities started to appear in other parts of Europe, but from what we can tell Lola and her kin still lived — as her ancestors had done for thousands of years before her — as hunter-gatherers. We also learned that she likely had dark skin, dark hair, and blue eyes. But how do we know that?” ref
The genetics of human skin pigmentation
“Skin color is a highly heritable and polygenic trait, meaning that it is influenced by multiple genes and their interactions with one another. One of the most well-known genes associated with skin pigmentation is the melanocortin 1 receptor gene (MC1R), but there are dozens more that have been reported to be involved in the pigmentation process. Most of these genes influence skin color by regulating the production of melanin, a dark pigment that protects from the deleterious effects of UV radiation. Basically, the more melanin you have in your skin, the darker it will be, and the more sun your skin can tolerate before you get sunburn. Eye and hair color are determined in a similar way, but the mechanisms that control the production of melanin in the eyes and hair are quite complex and independent processes. That is why it is possible to end up with different combinations of traits, such as the dark hair and blue eyes that are often seen in Europeans today, or the light hair and brown eyes that are common for Solomon Islanders, for example.” ref
How do we know what Lola looked like?
“Because the genes involved in pigmentation have been well studied, it is possible to predict the skin, eye, and hair color of an individual based on their genotype with a certain probability, something that is routinely done in forensic investigations. In practice, this works by checking which variants of a gene are present and what phenotype they are associated with. The more genes we can include in this analysis, the more confident we can be that our prediction is correct. In Lola’s case, we studied 41 gene variants across her genome that have been associated with skin, hair, and eye color in humans, and concluded that she likely had this unusual (at least for today) combination of dark skin, dark hair, and blue eyes.” ref
A common look in prehistoric Europe
“It is difficult to know exactly what people looked like 10,000 years ago. But based on ancient DNA studies, it appears that Lola’s ‘look’ was much more common in prehistoric Europe than it is today. Thanks to advances in ancient DNA sequencing, we now have the genomes of dozens of Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic (i.e. the period between around 50,000 and 5,000 years before present in Europe) individuals from Western Europe. And interestingly they all seem to lack the skin-lightening variants that are so common in Europeans today, indicating that they had dark skin. This is true for ‘Cheddar Man’ who lived around 10,000 years ago in southern England, as well as dozens of other Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherer individuals from France, northern Italy, Spain, the Baltic, and other parts of Europe. Like skin color, eye color is also a fairly complex trait, involving the interaction of many different genes. Therefore, eye color is fairly difficult to predict, but it looks like Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from Western Europe often had blue eyes, just like Lola. Overall, it looks like Lola’s phenotype—the combination of dark skin, dark hair, and blue eyes—was much more common in prehistoric Europe than it is today.” ref
How Europeans got their lighter skin
“So, why did people in prehistoric Europe look so different from northern Europeans today? The answer to this question lies in a complex interplay between our genes, our changing diets, population movements, and the environment. It has been theorized for some time that lighter skin emerged as an adaptive trait to light poor environments as it allows you to absorb sunlight more effectively, which is essential for the production of vitamin D. However, it was unclear when this happened. Early studies suggested that we first may have evolved lighter skin as our ancestors moved out of Africa and into Europe c. 50,000 years ago, but we now believe that this happened much later in European prehistory. In fact, there is evidence that lighter skin only evolved within the last 5,000 years or so, as a result of genetic admixture from Neolithic farming populations (who carried the skin-lightening variant) and strong selection favoring lighter skin.” ref
Our changing diet also played a part
“In addition, it looks like our changing diets also played a part. During most of European prehistory people relied on wild resources like nuts, game, and fish that are all rich in vitamin D, which is essential to our health. That changed dramatically during the Neolithic when people started to rely on a farmer’s diet that was rich in carbohydrates, but poor in vitamin D. Interestingly, this is exactly the period when we see lighter skin tones evolve in Western Europe and we think that the lack of vitamin D in the diet may have increased the selection pressures favouring lighter skin. All in all, there is solid evidence to suggest that lighter skin tones only evolved in Europe within the last 5,000 years or so, and that people who lived in Europe before then typically had darker skin. It is not that surprising, then, that Lola had darker skin. It simply reflects the fact that she lived at a time when Europeans had not yet evolved their lighter skin.” ref
Paleolithic to Bronze Age Siberians Reveal Connections with First Americans and across Eurasia
“An Upper Paleolithic Siberian shows a deep link with the First Peoples of the Americas. A 10,000-year continuum of Ancient North Eurasian ancestry in the Lake Baikal region. The Neolithic to Bronze Age population formation occurred through prolonged local admixture.” ref
“Modern humans have inhabited the Lake Baikal region since the Upper Paleolithic, though the precise history of its peoples over this long time span is still largely unknown. Here, we report genome-wide data from 19 Upper Paleolithic to Early Bronze Age individuals from this Siberian region. An Upper Paleolithic genome shows a direct link with the First Americans by sharing the admixed ancestry that gave rise to all non-Arctic Native Americans. We also demonstrate the formation of Early Neolithic and Bronze Age Baikal populations as the result of prolonged admixture throughout the eighth to sixth millennium years ago. Moreover, we detect genetic interactions with western Eurasian steppe populations and reconstruct Yersinia pestis genomes from two Early Bronze Age individuals without western Eurasian ancestry. Overall, our study demonstrates the most deeply divergent connection between Upper Paleolithic Siberians and the First Americans and reveals human and pathogen mobility across Eurasia during the Bronze Age.” ref
“The Lake Baikal region in Siberia has been inhabited by modern humans since the Upper Paleolithic and has a rich archaeological record. In the past 5 years, ancient genomic studies have revealed multiple genetic turnovers and admixture events in this region. The 24,000-year-old individual (MA1) from the Mal’ta site represents an ancestry referred to as “Ancient North Eurasian (ANE),” which was widespread across Siberia during the Paleolithic and that contributed to the genetic profile of a vast number of present-day Eurasian populations as well as Native Americans. ANE ancestry was suggested to have been largely replaced in the Lake Baikal region during the Early Neolithic by a gene pool related to present-day northeast Asians, with a limited resurgence of ANE ancestry by the Early Bronze Age.” ref
“Siberia has also been proposed as a source for multiple waves of dispersals into the Americas, the first of which was shown to be driven by a founding population estimated to have formed around 25,000–20,000 years ago. The so-called Ancient Beringian ancestry represented by a 11,500-year-old Alaskan individual (USR1) was shown to be part of this founding population, estimated to have split from other Native Americans around 23,000 years ago. In addition, the recently published 9,800-year-old Kolyma genome from northeastern Siberia was suggested to represent the closest relative to Native American populations outside of the Americas. Moreover, the Paleo-Eskimo ancestry represented by a 4,000-year-old Saqqaq individual from Greenland was also estimated to have split from northeastern Siberian groups and migrated to Arctic America around 6,000–5,000 years ago. Although these waves of migration are generally linked to ancient Siberian populations, their origins in the context of the Siberian genetic history remain poorly understood. Further studies of the Siberian population history using ancient genomes are, therefore, critical for the better understanding of the formation of Native American populations.” ref
“Furthermore, the Neolithic to Bronze Age transition in Eurasia was marked by complex cultural and genetic changes facilitated by extensive population movements, though their impact in the Lake Baikal region is still unclear. Looking to the west, the Early Bronze Age groups from the Pontic-Caspian steppe associated with the Yamnaya complex spread both east and west along with their distinct genetic profile often referred to as “Steppe ancestry”. The eastward expansion of this group is considered to be associated with the Early Bronze Age Afanasievo culture. However, the later Middle Bronze Age Okunevo-related population from the central steppe, as well as the Late Bronze Age Khövsgöl-related population from the eastern steppe, harbor only a limited proportion of Steppe ancestry. Therefore, the effect of steppe migrations in eastern Eurasia, particularly the interactions of Bronze Age Baikal hunter-gatherers with the contemporaneous and geographically proximal Afanasievo population, is still largely unexplored.” ref
“In this study, researchers report 19 newly sequenced ancient hunter-gatherers from the Lake Baikal and its surrounding regions, spanning from the Upper Paleolithic to the Early Bronze Age. Their analyses alongside published data reveal the most deeply divergent ancestry that link Upper Paleolithic Siberians and the First Peoples of the Americas, and more clearly delineate the complex transition between Early Neolithic and Early Bronze Age populations in the Lake Baikal region. We also provide both human and pathogen genomic evidence demonstrating the influence of western Eurasian steppe populations in this region during the Early Bronze Age and discuss the genetic contribution of Lake Baikal hunter-gatherers to Siberian populations through time.” ref
“Most of the Lake Baikal individuals occupied the space on a “ANE-NEA” cline running between “Northeast Asian” (NEA) ancestry represented by Neolithic hunter-gathers from the Devil’s Gate in the Russian Far East, and the ANE ancestry represented by Upper Paleolithic Siberian individuals MA1, AfontovaGora 2 (AG2), and AfontovaGora 3 (AG3), which was first described by. Our newly sequenced Upper Paleolithic genome from the Ust-Kyakhta-3 site (UKY) just south to the Lake Baikal is placed close to the Mesolithic northeastern Siberian Kolyma individual and is shifted toward Native American populations compared to the rest of the ancient Baikal individuals along PC2. All four Early Neolithic individuals cluster with published Early Neolithic groups from the same region (Shamanka_EN, Lokomotiv_EN, UstBelaya_EN) designated as the “Baikal_EN” population. The LNBA individuals were divided into four groups. The major “Baikal_LNBA” group included 10 individuals and clustered with published Late Neolithic to Bronze Age Baikal populations (Shamanka_EBA, Kurma_EBA, UstIda_EBA, UstIda_LN, UstBelaya_BA).” ref
“These individuals were positioned in PCA closer to ANE-related individuals compared with the Early Neolithic individuals from the same region, as well as closer to the Paleo-Eskimo Saqqaq individual. Another two individuals (GLZ001 and GLZ002) from the Glazkovskoe predmestie site, unlike the third individual from the same archaeological site (GLZ003), seemed shifted from the main cluster and showed closer genetic affinity to the Devil’s Gate and Early Neolithic Baikal individuals. One of the six individuals from the Kachug site (KPT005) was substantially displaced from the Baikal_LNBA group toward western Eurasians along PC1, not along the ANE-NEA cline but toward later Bronze Age populations, suggesting a potential introgression of the Steppe-related ancestry. Finally, an Early Bronze Age individual (BZK002) from the Bazaikha site in the Yenisei River region further to the west of the Lake Baikal was significantly displaced toward ANE-related individuals and located close to published Bronze Age individuals associated to the Okunevo culture.” ref
“Population clustering with ADMIXTURE based on worldwide populations also showed a similar clustering pattern. When selecting a K value of 16, the published and newly sequenced individuals belonging to main Early Neolithic to Bronze Age Baikal groups all showed genetic profiles composed of a mixture of three major components that were mostly enriched in ANE-related individuals, northeast Asians, and central Siberians represented by the Uralic-speaking Nganasan population. The ANE and central Siberian ancestries were both of higher proportion in most LNBA Baikal individuals than in the Early Neolithic ones, while GLZ001 and GLZ002 showed higher NEA ancestry, similar to the Early Neolithic population. The BZK002 individual presented a profile similar to the published Okunevo group, with a much larger ANE component compared to other Lake Baikal individuals. The KPT005 individual also displayed a substantial contribution derived from European “Western Hunter-Gatherer” (WHG) ancestry, likely acquired through gene flow from the west.” ref
“Researchers estimated the runs of homozygosity (ROH) of selected individuals together with published Baikal individuals and did not identify an inbreeding signal in any individual. The Kolyma individual showed significantly more ROH compared with other individuals, suggesting a smaller population size in Mesolithic northeastern Siberia. The sharing of identity-by-descent (IBD) segments between individuals suggested a close relationship between UKY and Kolyma, supporting our analyses based on genome-wide SNP data, and also revealed that Early Neolithic and LNBA Baikal individuals shared genetic affinity with each other as well as with the older UKY and Kolyma genomes.” ref
World’s oldest known fort was constructed by hunter-gatherers 8,000 years ago in Siberia
“The fact that this Stone Age fort was built by hunter-gatherers is transforming our understanding of ancient human societies. Hunter-gatherers built the oldest known fort in the world about 8,000 years ago in Siberia, a new study finds. Archaeologists have long associated fortresses with permanent agricultural settlements. However, this cluster of fortified structures reveals that prehistoric groups were constructing protective edifices much earlier than originally thought.” ref
“These hunter-gatherers “defy conventional stereotypes that depict such societies as basic and nomadic, unveiling their capacity to construct intricate structures,” study co-author Tanja Schreiber, an archaeologist at Free University of Berlin, told Live Science in an email. Located along the Amnya River in western Siberia, remains of the Amnya fort include roughly 20 pit-house depressions scattered across the site, which is divided into two sections: Amnya I and Amnya II. Radiocarbon dating confirmed that the settlement was first inhabited during the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, according to the study. When constructed, each pit house would have been protected by earthen walls and wooden palisades — two construction elements that suggest “advanced agricultural and defensive capabilities” by the inhabitants, the archaeologists said in a statement.” ref
“One of the Amnya fort’s most astonishing aspects is the discovery that approximately 8,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers in the Siberian Taiga built intricate defense structures,” Schreiber said. “This challenges traditional assumptions that monumental constructions were solely the work of agricultural communities.” It’s unknown what triggered the need for these fortified structures in the first place, but the strategic location overlooking the river would have not only been an ideal lookout point for potential threats but also allowed hunter-gatherers to keep tabs on their fishing and hunting grounds, the researchers noted.” ref
“The Samara culture was an Eneolithic (Copper Age) culture that flourished around the turn of the 5th millennium BCE, at the Samara Bend of the Volga River (modern Russia). The Samara culture is regarded as related to contemporaneous or subsequent prehistoric cultures of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, such as the Khvalynsk, Repin, and Yamna (or Yamnaya) cultures.” ref
“Genetic analyses of a male buried at Lebyazhinka, radiocarbon dated to 5640-5555 BCE, found that he belonged to a population often referred to as “Samara hunter-gatherers”, a group closely associated with Eastern Hunter-Gatherers. The male sample carried Y-haplogroup R1b1a1a and mitochondrial haplogroup U5a1d.” ref
“Pottery consists mainly of egg-shaped beakers with pronounced rims. They were not able to stand on a flat surface, suggesting that some method of supporting or carrying must have been in use, perhaps basketry or slings, for which the rims would have been a useful point of support. The carrier slung the pots over the shoulder or onto an animal. The decoration consists of circumferential motifs: lines, bands, zig-zags, or wavy lines, incised, stabbed, or impressed with a comb. These patterns are best understood when seen from the top. They appear then to be a solar motif, with the mouth of the pot as the sun. Later developments of this theme show that in fact the sun is being represented.” ref
“The culture is characterized by the remains of animal sacrifice, which occur over most of the sites. There is no indisputable evidence of riding, but there were horse burials, the earliest in the Old World. Typically the head and hooves of cattle, sheep, and horses are placed in shallow bowls over the human grave, smothered with ochre. Some have seen the beginning of the horse sacrifice in these remains, but this interpretation has not been more definitely substantiated. We know that the Indo-Europeans sacrificed both animals and people, like many other cultures.” ref
“The graves found are shallow pits for single individuals, but two or three individuals might be placed there. Some of the graves are covered with a stone cairn or a low earthen mound, the very first predecessor of the kurgan. The later, fully developed kurgan was a hill on which the deceased chief might ascend to the sky god, but whether these early mounds had that significance is doubtful.” ref
“Grave offerings included ornaments depicting horses. The graves also had an overburden of horse remains; it cannot yet be determined decisively if these horses were domesticated and ridden or not, but they were certainly used as a meat-animal. Most controversial are bone plaques of horses or double oxen heads, which were pierced. The graves yield well-made daggers of flint and bone, placed at the arm or head of the deceased, one in the grave of a small boy. Weapons in the graves of children are common later. Other weapons are bone spearheads and flint arrowheads. Other carved bone figurines and pendants were found in the graves.” ref
“The Yamnaya culture or the Yamna culture, also known as the Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, was a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers (the Pontic–Caspian steppe), dating to 3300–2600 BCE or around 5,300 to 4,600 years ago. It was discovered by Vasily Gorodtsov following his archaeological excavations near the Donets River in 1901–1903. Its name derives from its characteristic burial tradition: Я́мная (romanization: yamnaya) is a Russian adjective that means ‘related to pits (yama)’, as these people used to bury their dead in tumuli (kurgans) containing simple pit chambers.” ref
“The Yamnaya economy was based upon animal husbandry, fishing, and foraging, and the manufacture of ceramics, tools, and weapons. The people of the Yamnaya culture lived primarily as nomads, with a chiefdom system and wheeled carts and wagons that allowed them to manage large herds. They are also closely connected to Final Neolithic cultures, which later spread throughout Europe and Central Asia, especially the Corded Ware people and the Bell Beaker culture, as well as the peoples of the Sintashta, Andronovo, and Srubnaya cultures.” ref
“Back migration from Corded Ware also contributed to Sintashta and Andronovo. In these groups, several aspects of the Yamnaya culture are present. Yamnaya material culture was very similar to the Afanasevo culture of South Siberia, and the populations of both cultures are genetically indistinguishable. This suggests that the Afanasevo culture may have originated from the migration of Yamnaya groups to the Altai region or, alternatively, that both cultures developed from an earlier shared cultural source.” ref
“Genetic studies have suggested that the people of the Yamnaya culture can be modelled as a genetic admixture between a population related to Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers (EHG) and people related to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus (CHG) in roughly equal proportions, an ancestral component which is often named “Steppe ancestry”, with additional admixture from Anatolian, Levantine, or Early European farmers. Genetic studies also indicate that populations associated with the Corded Ware, Bell Beaker, Sintashta, and Andronovo cultures derived large parts of their ancestry from the Yamnaya or a closely related population.” ref
“The origin of the Yamnaya culture continues to be debated, with proposals for its origins pointing to both the Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog cultures. The Khvalynsk culture (4700–3800 BCE) (middle Volga) and the Don-based Repin culture (c. 3950–3300 BCE) in the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe, and the closely related Sredny Stog culture (c. 4500–3500 BCE) in the western Pontic-Caspian steppe, preceded the Yamnaya culture (3300–2500 BCE). The Yamnaya culture was succeeded in its western range by the Catacomb culture (2800–2200 BCE); in the east, by the Poltavka culture (2700–2100 BCE) at the middle Volga. These two cultures were followed by the Srubnaya culture (18th–12th century BCE).” ref
“Further efforts to pinpoint the location came from Anthony (2007), who suggested that the Yamnaya culture (3300–2600 BCE) originated in the Don–Volga area at c. 3400 BCE, preceded by the middle Volga-based Khvalynsk culture and the Don-based Repin culture (c. 3950–3300 BCE), arguing that late pottery from these two cultures can barely be distinguished from early Yamnaya pottery. Earlier continuity from eneolithic but largely hunter-gatherer Samara culture and influences from the more agricultural Dnieper–Donets II are apparent.” ref
“He argues that the early Yamnaya horizon spread quickly across the Pontic–Caspian steppes between c. 3400 and 3200 BCE:
The spread of the Yamnaya horizon was the material expression of the spread of late Proto-Indo-European across the Pontic–Caspian steppes.
[…] The Yamnaya horizon is the visible archaeological expression of a social adjustment to high mobility – the invention of the political infrastructure to manage larger herds from mobile homes based in the steppes.” ref
“Alternatively, Parpola (2015) relates both the Corded ware culture and the Yamnaya culture to the late Trypillia (Tripolye) culture. He hypothesizes that “the Tripolye culture was taken over by PIE speakers by c. 4000 BCE,” and that in its final phase the Trypillian culture expanded to the steppes, morphing into various regional cultures which fused with the late Sredny Stog (Serednii Stih) pastoralist cultures, which, he suggests, gave rise to the Yamnaya culture. Dmytro Telegin viewed Sredny Stog and Yamna as one cultural continuum and considered Sredny Stog to be the genetic foundation of the Yamna.” ref
“The Yamnaya culture was nomadic or semi-nomadic, with some agriculture practiced near rivers, and a few fortified sites, the largest of which is Mikhaylivka. Characteristic for the culture are the burials in pit graves under kurgans (tumuli), often accompanied by animal offerings. Some graves contain large anthropomorphic stelae, with carved human heads, arms, hands, belts, and weapons. The dead bodies were placed in a supine position with bent knees and covered in ochre. Some kurgans contained “stratified sequences of graves.” ref
“Kurgan burials may have been rare, and were perhaps reserved for special adults, who were predominantly, but not necessarily, male. Status and gender are marked by grave goods and position, and in some areas, elite individuals are buried with complete wooden wagons. Grave goods are more common in eastern Yamnaya burials, which are also characterized by a higher proportion of male burials and more male-centred rituals than western areas.” ref
“The Yamnaya culture had and used two-wheeled carts and four-wheeled wagons, which are thought to have been oxen-drawn at this time, and there is evidence that they rode horses. For instance, several Yamnaya skeletons exhibit specific characteristics in their bone morphology that may have been caused by long-term horseriding. Metallurgists and other craftsmen are given a special status in Yamnaya society, and metal objects are sometimes found in large quantities in elite graves.” ref
“New metalworking technologies and weapon designs are used. Stable isotope ratios of Yamna individuals from the Dnipro Valley suggest the Yamnaya diet was terrestrial protein based with insignificant contribution from freshwater or aquatic resources. Anthony speculates that the Yamnaya ate meat, milk, yogurt, cheese, and soups made from seeds and wild vegetables, and probably consumed mead.” ref
“Mallory and Adams suggest that Yamnaya society may have had a tripartite structure of three differentiated social classes, although the evidence available does not demonstrate the existence of specific classes such as priests, warriors, and farmers.” ref
“According to Jones et al. (2015) and Haak et al. (2015), autosomal tests indicate that the Yamnaya people were the result of a genetic admixture between two different hunter-gatherer populations: distinctive “Eastern Hunter-Gatherers” (EHG), from Eastern Europe, with high affinity to the Mal’ta–Buret’ culture or other, closely related people from Siberia and a population of “Caucasus hunter-gatherers” (CHG) who probably arrived from the Caucasus or Iran. Each of those two populations contributed about half the Yamnaya DNA. This admixture is referred to in archaeogenetics as Western Steppe Herder (WSH) ancestry.” ref
“Admixture between EHGs and CHGs is believed to have occurred on the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe starting around 5,000 BCE, while admixture with Early European Farmers (EEF) happened in the southern parts of the Pontic-Caspian steppe sometime later. More recent genetic studies have found that the Yamnaya were a mixture of EHGs, CHGs, and to a lesser degree Anatolian farmers and Levantine farmers, but not EEFs from Europe due to lack of WHG DNA in the Yamnaya. This occurred in two distinct admixture events from West Asia into the Pontic-Caspian steppe.” ref
“Haplogroup R1b, specifically the Z2103 subclade of R1b-L23, is the most common Y-DNA haplogroup found among the Yamnaya specimens. This haplogroup is rare in Western Europe and mainly exists in Southeastern Europe today. Additionally, a minority are found to belong to haplogroup I2. They are found to belong to a wider variety of West Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups, including U, T, and haplogroups associated with Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers and Early European Farmers. A small but significant number of Yamnaya kurgan specimens from Northern Ukraine carried the East Asian mtDNA haplogroup C4.” ref
“In 2014, a study discovered a new mtDNA subclade C1f from the remains of 3 people found in north-western Russia and dated to 7,500 years ago. The subclades C1b, C1c, C1d, and C4c are found in the first people of the Americas. C1a is found only in Asia.” ref
“C4 – Upper Palaeolithic (14050 – 13770 years ago) Ust-Kyakhta (Buryatia), Late Neolithic-Bronze Age Irkutsk Oblast, Late Neolithic-Iron Age Yakutia, Tubalar (Ederbes), Todzhin (Toora-Hem, Iiy, Adir-Kezhig), Yukaghir (Andrushkino), Yukaghir/Chuvan (Markovo), Russian, Myanmar
-
- C4a’b’c – Irkutsk Oblast (6815 years ago), India (Jenu Kuruba)
- C4a – China (Guangdong, Han from Beijing)
- C4a1 – Mongol from Chifeng and Hulunbuir, Tashkurgan (Kyrgyz, Sarikoli, Wakhi), Czech Republic, Denmark
- C4a1a – Korea, China, Uyghur, Buryat (South Siberia), Denmark, Sweden, France, Scotland, Canada
- C4a1a1
- C-T195C! – Ireland, Scotland, England, USA, Hungary (Szeged region), Poland, Belarus, Russia (Russian, Buryat), Turkey, Pakistan (Hazara), India (Jammu and Kashmir), China (Bargut and Mongol in Inner Mongolia, etc.), Korea
- C4a1a2 – China
- C4a1a2a – China (Han from Ili, Han from Henan, etc.)
- C4a1a2b
- C4a1a2b1 – China
- C4a1a2b2 – Uyghur
- C4a1a3 – Bronze Age Irkutsk Oblast (Ust’-Belaya, Khaptsagai, Silinskij, Chastaja Padi), Russian (Kemerovo Oblast), Koryak, Yukaghir, Yakut, Evenk (Nyukzha, Chumikan, Nelkan/Dzhigda), Even (Sakkyryyr, Sebjan, Tompo, Markovo, Kamchatka), Udinsk Buryat (Kushun), Todzhin (Toora-Hem, Adir-Kezhig), Altai Kizhi, Iran (Qashqai), Sweden
- C4a1a3a – Yakut, Buryat (Buryat Republic, Irkutsk Oblast), Bargut, Nentsi
- C4a1a3a1 – Yakut, Nganasan (Vadei of Taimyr Peninsula)
- C4a1a3a1a – Evenk (Taimyr, Stony Tunguska)
- C4a1a3a1b – Tofalar
- C4a1a3a1 – Yakut, Nganasan (Vadei of Taimyr Peninsula)
- C4a1a3b – Bargut, Uyghur
- C4a1a3b1 – Chelkan, Tubalar
- C4a1a3c – Evenk (Taimyr Peninsula, Stony Tunguska)
- C4a1a3d – Yakut
- C4a1a3a – Yakut, Buryat (Buryat Republic, Irkutsk Oblast), Bargut, Nentsi
- C4a1a4 – Buryat, Kazakhstan
- C4a1a4a – Evenk (Okhotsk region), Shor
- C4a1a2 – China
- C4a1a5 – Teleut, Ladakh
- C4a1a6
- C4a1a6a – Russia (Bashkortostan, Khamnigan), Kyrgyzstan (Kyrgyz), Inner Mongolia (Bargut, Buryat)
- C4a1a6b – Buryat (South Siberia, Inner Mongolia), Uyghur
- C4a1a7 – Denmark
- C4a1b – China, Thailand (Palaung)
- C4a1c – Russia (Bashkortostan, Adygei), Iran (Azerbaijanian), China (Xibo, Mongol from Tianjin)
- C4a1a – Korea, China, Uyghur, Buryat (South Siberia), Denmark, Sweden, France, Scotland, Canada
- C4a2
- C4a2a – Yakut, Evenk (Chumikan)
- C4a2a1 – Bronze Age (2275 – 2040 cal BCE or around 4,275 to 4,040 years ago) Irkutsk Oblast (specimen irk076 from burial 3 at the Shamanka 2 site, South Baikal), Shor, Chelkan, Teleut, Altai Kizhi, Yakut, Kazakh, Ket, Evenk (Stony Tunguska, Taimyr), Buryat (Irkutsk Oblast, Inner Mongolia), China, Korea
- C4a2a1a – Yukaghir, Yakut, Evenk (Nyukzha, Iyengra, Nelkan/Dzhigda), Even (Tompo)
- C4a2a1b – Evenk (Nyukzha), Yakut
- C4a2a1b1 – Evenk (Nyukzha)
- C4a2a1c – China (Zhejiang, Uyghurs), Buryat, Todzhin (Iiy), Karanogay (Dagestan)
- C4a2a1c1 – Tofalar (Alygdzher, Nerkha, V. Gutara), Khamnigan
- C4a2a1c2 – Uyghurs
- C4a2a1d – Uyghurs
- C4a2a1d1 – Udinsk Buryat (Kushun), Tofalar (V. Gutara), Evenk (Central Siberia)
- C4a2a1d2 – Evenk (Nelkan/Dzhigda), Evenk/Nivkh (Val)
- C4a2a1e – Bargut (Inner Mongolia), Buryat (Irkutsk Oblast)
- C4a2a1f – Buryat (South Siberia, Irkutsk Oblast)
- C4a2a1g – Ket
- C4a2a1 – Bronze Age (2275 – 2040 cal BCE or around 4,275 to 4,040 years ago) Irkutsk Oblast (specimen irk076 from burial 3 at the Shamanka 2 site, South Baikal), Shor, Chelkan, Teleut, Altai Kizhi, Yakut, Kazakh, Ket, Evenk (Stony Tunguska, Taimyr), Buryat (Irkutsk Oblast, Inner Mongolia), China, Korea
- C4a2b – Tibet, Korea
- C4a2b1 – Wancho
- C4a2b2 – China (Han from Beijing)
- C4a2b2a – Tibet (Sherpa)
- C4a2c – Bargut (Inner Mongolia)
- C4a2c1 – India (Jenu Kuruba)
- C4a2c2 – Lepcha
- C4a2c2a – Ladakh
- C4a2a – Yakut, Evenk (Chumikan)
- C4a1 – Mongol from Chifeng and Hulunbuir, Tashkurgan (Kyrgyz, Sarikoli, Wakhi), Czech Republic, Denmark
- C4b – Mongol from Jilin and Hulunbuir, Yukaghir, Altai Kizhi, Ukraine, Slovakia
- C4c – Ijka
- C4c1 – Sioux (Carson County of South Dakota), Shuswap, Canada, USA, France, Spain
- C4c1a – Cherokee (Flint District of Oklahoma)
- C4c1b – Chippewa (Trempealeau in Wisconsin), Ottawa or Chippewa (Sault Saint Marie, Chippewa County, Michigan), Canada
- C4c2 – Métis (Red River, Manitoba), USA
- C4c1 – Sioux (Carson County of South Dakota), Shuswap, Canada, USA, France, Spain
- C4a – China (Guangdong, Han from Beijing)
- C4-T152C! – Russia (Bashkortostan), England
- C4-T152C!-A12780G – Uyghur
- C4d – Turkey, Tibet (Chamdo, Nyingchi, Shannan, Lhoba), Thailand (Khon Mueang from Chiang Mai Province), Han from Beijing, Mongol from Tongliao
- C4-T152C!-T4742C – Altai Republic (ancient DNA), Uyghur
- C4-T152C!-T4742C-T16093C – Kyrgyz (Kyrgyzstan), Tibet (Nyingchi)
- C4-T152C!-T4742C-T8602C – Sarikoli (Tashkurgan), Burusho (Pakistan)
- C4-T152C!-T4742C-T8602C-G11176A – Pamiri (Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan)
- C4e – Teleut, Shor” ref
- C4-T152C!-A12780G – Uyghur
- C4a’b’c – Irkutsk Oblast (6815 years ago), India (Jenu Kuruba)
“People of the Yamnaya culture are believed to have had mostly brown eye colour, light to intermediate skin, and brown hair colour, with some variation.” ref
“Some Yamnaya individuals are believed to have carried a mutation to the KITLG gene associated with blond hair, as several individuals with Steppe ancestry are later found to carry this mutation. The Ancient North Eurasian Afontova Gora group, who contributed significant ancestry to Western Steppe Herders, are believed to be the source of this mutation. A study in 2015 found that Yamnaya had the highest ever calculated genetic selection for height of any of the ancient populations tested. It has been hypothesized that an allele associated with lactase persistence (conferring lactose tolerance into adulthood) was brought to Europe from the steppe by Yamnaya-related migrations.” ref
“A 2022 study by Lazaridis et al. found that the typical phenotype among the Yamnaya population was brown eyes, brown hair, and intermediate skin colour. None of their Yamnaya samples were predicted to have either blue eyes or blond hair, in contrast with later Steppe groups in Russia and Central Asia, as well as the Bell Beaker culture in Europe, who did carry these phenotypes in high proportions.” ref
“The geneticist David Reich has argued that the genetic data supports the likelihood that the people of the Yamnaya culture were a “single, genetically coherent group” who were responsible for spreading many Indo-European languages. Reich’s group recently suggested that the source of Anatolian and Indo-European subfamilies of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language may have been in west Asia and the Yamna were responsible for the dissemination of the latter. Reich also argues that the genetic evidence shows that Yamnaya society was an oligarchy dominated by a small number of elite males.” ref
“The genetic evidence for the extent of the role of the Yamnaya culture in the spread of Indo-European languages has been questioned by Russian archaeologist Leo Klejn and Balanovsky et al., who note a lack of male haplogroup continuity between the people of the Yamnaya culture and the contemporary populations of Europe. Klejn has also suggested that the autosomal evidence does not support a Yamnaya migration, arguing that Western Steppe Herder ancestry in both contemporary and Bronze Age samples is lowest around the Danube in Hungary, near the western limits of the Yamnaya culture, and highest in Northern Europe, which Klejn argues is the opposite of what would be expected if the geneticists’ hypothesis is correct.” ref
Yamnaya culture and the Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE) Language
“Marija Gimbutas identified the Yamnaya culture with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE) in her Kurgan hypothesis. In the view of David Anthony, the Pontic-Caspian steppe is the strongest candidate for the Urheimat (original homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language, citing evidence from linguistics and genetics which suggests that the Yamnaya culture may be the homeland of the Indo-European languages, with the possible exception of the Anatolian languages. On the other hand, Colin Renfrew has argued for a Near Eastern origin of the earliest Indo-European speakers.” ref
“According to David W. Anthony, the genetic evidence suggests that the leading clans of the Yamnaya were of EHG (Eastern European hunter-gatherer) and WHG (Western European hunter-gatherer) paternal origin and implies that the Indo-European languages were the result of “a dominant language spoken by EHGs that absorbed Caucasus-like elements in phonology, morphology, and lexicon.” It has also been suggested that the PIE language evolved through trade interactions in the circum-Pontic area in the 4th millennium BCE, mediated by the Yamna predecessors in the North Pontic steppe.” ref
“Guus Kroonen et al. 2022 found that the “basal Indo-European stage”, also known as Indo-Anatolian or Pre-Proto-Indo-European language, largely but not totally, lacked agricultural-related vocabulary, and only the later “core Indo-European languages” saw an increase in agriculture-associated words. According to them, this fits a homeland of early core Indo-European within the westernmost Yamnaya horizon, around and west of the Dnieper, while its basal stage, Indo-Anatolian, may have originated in the Sredny Stog culture, as opposed to the eastern Yamnaya horizon.” ref
“The Corded Ware culture may have acted as major source for the spread of later Indo-European languages, including Indo-Iranian, while Tocharian languages may have been mediated via the Catacomb culture. They also argue that this new data contradicts a possible earlier origin of Pre-Proto-Indo-European among agricultural societies South of the Caucasus, rather “this may support a scenario of linguistic continuity of local non-mobile herders in the Lower Dnieper region and their genetic persistence after their integration into the successive and expansive Yamnaya horizon”. Furthermore the authors mention that this scenario can explain the difference in paternal haplogroup frequency between the Yamnaya and Corded Ware cultures, while both sharing similar autosomal DNA ancestry.” ref
“The arrival of haplogroup R1a-M417 in Eastern Europe, and the east-west diffusion of pottery through North Eurasia.” ref
R-M417 (R1a1a1)
“R1a1a1 (R-M417) is the most widely found subclade, in two variations which are found respectively in Europe (R1a1a1b1 (R-Z282) ([R1a1a1a*] (R-Z282) and Central and South Asia (R1a1a1b2 (R-Z93) ([R1a1a2*] (R-Z93).” ref
R-Z282 (R1a1a1b1a) (Eastern Europe)
“This large subclade appears to encompass most of the R1a1a found in Europe.
- R1a1a1b1a [R1a1a1a*] (R-Z282*) occurs in northern Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia at a frequency of c. 20%.
- R1a1a1b1a3 [R1a1a1a1] (R-Z284) occurs in Northwest Europe and peaks at c. 20% in Norway.
- R1a1a1c (M64.2, M87, M204) is apparently rare: it was found in 1 of 117 males typed in southern Iran.” ref
R1a1a1b2 (R-Z93) (Asia)
“This large subclade appears to encompass most of the R1a1a found in Asia, being related to Indo-European migrations (including Scythians, Indo-Aryan migrations, and so on).
- R-Z93* or R1a1a1b2* (R1a1a2* in Underhill (2014)) is most common (>30%) in the South Siberian Altai region of Russia, cropping up in Kyrgyzstan (6%) and in all Iranian populations (1-8%).
- R-Z2125 occurs at highest frequencies in Kyrgyzstan and in Afghan Pashtuns (>40%). At a frequency of >10%, it is also observed in other Afghan ethnic groups and in some populations in the Caucasus and Iran.
- R-M434 is a subclade of Z2125. It was detected in 14 people (out of 3667 people tested), all in a restricted geographical range from Pakistan to Oman. This likely reflects a recent mutation event in Pakistan.
- R-M560 is very rare and was only observed in four samples: two Burushaski speakers (north Pakistan), one Hazara (Afghanistan), and one Iranian Azerbaijani.
- R-M780 occurs at high frequency in South Asia: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Himalayas. The group also occurs at >3% in some Iranian populations and is present at >30% in Roma from Croatia and Hungary.” ref
R-M458 (R1a1a1b1a1)
“R-M458 is a mainly Slavic SNP, characterized by its own mutation, and was first called cluster N. Underhill et al. (2009) found it to be present in modern European populations roughly between the Rhine catchment and the Ural Mountains and traced it to “a founder effect that … falls into the early Holocene period, 7.9±2.6 KYA.” M458 was found in one skeleton from a 14th-century grave field in Usedom, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The paper by Underhill et al. (2009) also reports a surprisingly high frequency of M458 in some Northern Caucasian populations (for example 27.5% among Karachays and 23.5% among Balkars, 7.8% among Karanogays and 3.4% among Abazas).” ref
Sintashta culture
“The Sintashta culture is a Middle Bronze Age archaeological culture of the Southern Urals, dated to the period c. 2200–1900 BCE. It is the first phase of the Sintashta–Petrovka complex, c. 2200–1750 BCE or around 4,200 to 3,750 years ago. The culture is named after the Sintashta archaeological site, in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, and spreads through Orenburg Oblast, Bashkortostan, and Northern Kazakhstan. The Sintashta culture is thought to represent an eastward migration of peoples from the Corded Ware culture.” ref
“Sintashta settlements are estimated to have a population of between 200 and 700 individuals with economies that “heavily exploited domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats alongside horses with occasional hunting of wild fauna”. Anthony (2007) assumes that probably the people of the Sintashta culture spoke “Common-Indo-Iranian”. This identification is based primarily on similarities between sections of the Rig Veda, a religious text which includes ancient Indo-Iranian hymns recorded in Vedic Sanskrit, and the funerary rituals of the Sintashta culture as revealed by archaeology.” ref
“Some cultural similarities with Sintashta have also been found to be common with the Nordic Bronze Age of Scandinavia. There is linguistic evidence of interaction between Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranian languages, showing influences from the Indo-Iranians into the Finno-Ugric culture. From the Sintashta culture the Indo-Iranian followed the migrations of the Indo-Iranians to Anatolia, the Iranian plateau and the Indian subcontintinent. From the 9th century BCE onward, Iranian languages also migrated westward with the Scythians back to the Pontic steppe where the proto-Indo-Europeans came from.” ref
“It is widely regarded as the origin of the Indo-Iranian languages (Indo-Iranic languages), whose speakers originally referred to themselves as the Arya. The earliest known chariots have been found in Sintashta burials, and the culture is considered a strong candidate for the origin of the technology, which spread throughout the Old World and played an important role in ancient warfare. Sintashta settlements are also remarkable for the intensity of copper mining and bronze metallurgy carried out there, which is unusual for a steppe culture. Among the main features of the Sintashta culture are high levels of militarism and extensive fortified settlements, of which 23 are known.” ref
“Because of the difficulty of identifying the remains of Sintashta sites beneath those of later settlements, the culture was only distinguished in the 1990s from the Andronovo culture. It was then recognised as a distinct entity, forming part of the “Andronovo horizon”. Koryakova (1998) concluded from their archaeological findings that the Sintashta culture originated from the interaction of the two precursors Poltavka culture and Abashevo culture. Allentoft et al. (2015) concluded from their genetic results that the Sintashta culture should have emerged from an eastward migration of peoples from the Corded Ware culture. In addition, Narasimshan et al. (2019) cautiously cite that “morphological data has been interpreted as suggesting that both Fedorovka and Alakul’ skeletons are similar to Sintashta groups, which in turn may reflect admixture of Neolithic forest HGs and steppe pastoralists, descendants of the Catacomb and Poltavka cultures.” ref
“Sintashta emerged during a period of climatic change that saw the already arid Kazakh steppe region become even colder and drier. The marshy lowlands around the Ural and upper Tobol rivers, previously favored as winter refuges, became increasingly important for survival. Under these pressures both Poltavka and Abashevo herders settled permanently in river valley strongholds, eschewing more defensible hill-top locations. Its immediate predecessor in the Ural-Tobol steppe was the Poltavka culture, an offshoot of the cattle-herding Yamnaya horizon that moved east into the region between 2800 and 2600 BCE. Several Sintashta towns were built over older Poltavka settlements or close to Poltavka cemeteries, and Poltavka motifs are common on Sintashta pottery.” ref
“Sintashta material culture also shows the influence of the late Abashevo culture, derived from the Fatyanovo-Balanovo culture, a collection of Corded Ware settlements in the forest steppe zone north of the Sintashta region that were also predominantly pastoralist. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the Sintashta culture dates to between c. 2200 and 1750 BCE, roughly contemporary with the associated Abashevo and Petrovka cultures. Some authors date the Petrovka culture slightly later, from c. 1900 BCE.” ref
“In Cis-Urals, burial sites Berezovaya and Tanabergen II showed Sintashta culture established there c. 2290–1750 BCE (68.2% probability), and the earliest values of this culture, in Trans-Urals, at the burial sites Sintashta II and Kamenny Ambar-5 (Kurgan 2) are c. 2200–2000 BCE. Chariots appear in southern Trans-Urals region in middle and late phases of the culture, c. 2050-1750 BC. Blöcher et al. (2023) consider Sintashta-Petrovka period came to an end in Trans-Urals c. 1900–1800 BCE.” ref
Genetics
“Allentoft et al. 2015 analyzed the remains of four individuals ascribed to the Sintastha culture. One male carried Y-haplogroup R1a and mt-J1c1b1a, while the other carried Y-R1a1a1b and mt-J2b1a2a. The two females carried U2e1e and U2e1h respectively. The study found a close autosomal genetic relationship between peoples of Corded Ware culture and Sintashta culture, which “suggests similar genetic sources of the two,” and may imply that “the Sintashta derives directly from an eastward migration of Corded Ware peoples.” ref
“Sintashta individuals and Corded Ware individuals both had a relatively higher ancestry proportion derived from the Central Europe, and both differed markedly in such ancestry from the population of the Yamnaya Culture and most individuals of the Poltavka Culture that preceded Sintashta in the same geographic region. Individuals from the Bell Beaker culture, the Unetice culture, and contemporary Scandinavian cultures were also found to be closely genetically related to Corded Ware. A particularly high lactose tolerance was found among Corded Ware and the closely related Nordic Bronze Age. In addition, the study found samples from the Sintashta culture to be closely genetically related to the succeeding Andronovo culture.” ref
“Narasimhan et al. 2019 analyzed the remains of several individuals associated with the Sintashta culture. mtDNA was extracted from two females buried at the Petrovka settlement. They were found to be carrying subclades of U2 and U5. The remains of fifty individuals from the fortified Sintastha settlement of Kamennyi Ambar was analyzed. This was the largest sample of ancient DNA ever sampled from a single site. The Y-DNA from thirty males was extracted. Eighteen carried R1a and various subclades of it (particularly subclades of R1a1a1), five carried subclades of R1b (particularly subclades of R1b1a1a), two carried Q1a and a subclade of it, one carried I2a1a1a, and four carried unspecified R1 clades. The majority of mtDNA samples belonged to various subclades of U, while W, J, T, H and K also occurred. A Sintashta male buried at Samara was found to be carrying R1b1a1a2 and J1c1b1a.” ref
“The authors of the study found the majority of Sintashta people (ca. 80%) to be closely genetically related to the people of the Corded Ware culture, the Srubnaya culture, the Potapovka culture, and the Andronovo culture. These were found to harbor mixed ancestry from the Yamnaya culture and peoples of the Central European Middle Neolithic, like the Globular Amphora culture. The remaining sampled Sintashta individuals belonged to various ancestral types different from the majority population, with affinities to earlier populations such as Eneolithic samples collected at Khvalynsk and hunter-gatherers from Tyumen Oblast in western Siberia. This indicates that the Sintashta settlement of Kamennyi Ambar was a cosmopolitan site that united a genetically heterogenous population in a single social group. Estimates based on DATES (Distribution of Ancestry Tracts of Evolutionary Signals) suggest that genetic characteristics typical of the Sintashta culture formed by c. 3200 BCE.” ref
Warfare
“The preceding Abashevo culture was already marked by endemic intertribal warfare; intensified by ecological stress and competition for resources in the Sintashta period. This drove the construction of fortifications on an unprecedented scale and innovations in military technique such as the invention of the war chariot. Increased competition between tribal groups may also explain the extravagant sacrifices seen in Sintashta burials, as rivals sought to outdo one another in acts of conspicuous consumption analogous to the North American potlatch tradition.” ref
“Sintashta artefact types such as spearheads, trilobed arrowheads, chisels, and large shaft-hole axes were taken east. Many Sintashta graves are furnished with weapons, although the composite bow associated later with chariotry does not appear. Higher-status grave goods include chariots, as well as axes, mace-heads, spearheads, and cheek-pieces. Sintashta sites have produced finds of horn and bone, interpreted as furniture (grips, arrow rests, bow ends, string loops) of bows; there is no indication that the bending parts of these bows included anything other than wood. Arrowheads are also found, made of stone or bone rather than metal. These arrows are short, 50–70 cm long, and the bows themselves may have been correspondingly short.” ref
“Sintashta culture, and the chariot, are also strongly associated with the ancestors of modern domestic horses, the DOM2 population. DOM2 horses originated from the Western Eurasia steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don, but not in Anatolia, during the late fourth and early third millennia BCE. Their genes may show selection for easier domestication and stronger backs.” ref
“The Sintashta economy came to revolve around copper metallurgy. Copper ores from nearby mines (such as Vorovskaya Yama) were taken to Sintashta settlements to be processed into copper and arsenical bronze. This occurred on an industrial scale: all the excavated buildings at the Sintashta sites of Sintashta, Arkaim and Ust’e contained the remains of smelting ovens and slag. Around 10% of graves, mostly adult male, contained artifacts related to bronze metallurgy (molds, ceramic nozzles, ore and slag remains, metal bars and drops). However, these metal-production related grave goods rarely co-occur with higher-status grave goods. This likely means that those who engaged in metal production were not at the top of the social-hierarchy, even though being buried at a cemetery evidences some sort of higher status.” ref
“Much of Sintashta metal was destined for export to the cities of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) in Central Asia. The metal trade between Sintashta and the BMAC for the first time connected the steppe region to the ancient urban civilisations of the Near East: the empires and city-states of modern Iran and Mesopotamia provided a large market for metals. These trade routes later became the vehicle through which horses, chariots and ultimately Indo-Iranian-speaking people entered the Near East from the steppe.” ref
Genetic history of Europe, Genetics and archaeogenetics of South Asia, and Genetic history of the Middle East
PIE Speakers and Haplogroups R1b as well as R1a
“According to three autosomal DNA studies, haplogroups R1b and R1a, now the most common in Europe (R1a is also very common in South Asia) would have expanded from the Pontic steppes, along with the Indo-European languages; they also detected an autosomal component present in modern Europeans which was not present in Neolithic Europeans, which would have been introduced with paternal lineages R1b and R1a, as well as Indo-European languages. Studies that analyzed ancient human remains in Ireland and Portugal suggest that R1b was introduced in these places along with autosomal DNA from the Pontic steppes.” ref
“The subclade R1a1a (R-M17 or R-M198) is most commonly associated with Indo-European speakers. Data so far collected indicate that there are two widely separated areas of high frequency, one in Eastern Europe, around Poland and the Russian core, and the other in South Asia, around Indo-Gangetic Plain. The historical and prehistoric possible reasons for this are the subject of on-going discussion and attention amongst population geneticists and genetic genealogists, and are considered to be of potential interest to linguists and archaeologists also. Ornella Semino et al. propose a postglacial (Holocene) spread of the R1a1 haplogroup from north of the Black Sea during the time of the Late Glacial Maximum, which was subsequently magnified by the expansion of the Kurgan culture into Europe and eastward.” ref
“A large, 2014 study by Underhill et al., using 16,244 individuals from over 126 populations from across Eurasia, concluded there was compelling evidence, that R1a-M420 originated in the vicinity of Iran. The mutations that characterize haplogroup R1a occurred ~10,000 years ago. Its defining mutation (M17) occurred about 10,000 to 14,000 years ago. Pamjav et al. (2012) believe that R1a originated and initially diversified either within the Eurasian Steppes or the Middle East and Caucasus region.” ref
Yamnaya culture
“All Yamnaya individuals sampled by Haak et al. (2015) belonged to the Y-haplogroup R1b. According to Jones et al. (2015) and Haak et al. (2015), autosomal tests indicate that the Yamnaya-people were the result of admixture between “Eastern Hunter-Gatherers” from eastern Europe (EHG) and “Caucasus hunter-gatherers” (CHG). Each of those two populations contributed about half the Yamnaya DNA. According to co-author Dr. Andrea Manica of the University of Cambridge:
The question of where the Yamnaya come from has been something of a mystery up to now […] we can now answer that, as we’ve found that their genetic make-up is a mix of Eastern European hunter-gatherers and a population from this pocket of Caucasus hunter-gatherers who weathered much of the last Ice Age in apparent isolation.” ref
“Based on these findings and by equating the people of the Yamnaya culture with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, David W. Anthony (2019) suggests that the Proto-Indo-European language formed mainly from a base of languages spoken by Eastern European hunter-gathers with influences from languages of northern Caucasus hunter-gatherers, in addition to a possible later influence from the language of the Maikop culture to the south (which is hypothesized to have belonged to the North Caucasian family) in the later neolithic or Bronze Age involving little genetic impact.” ref
Eastern European hunter-gatherers
“According to Haak et al. (2015), “Eastern European hunter-gatherers” who inhabited Russia were a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ~24,000-year-old Siberian from the Mal’ta-Buret’ culture, or other, closely related Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) people from Siberia and to the Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG). Remains of the “Eastern European hunter-gatherers” have been found in Mesolithic or early Neolithic sites in Karelia and Samara Oblast, Russia, and put under analysis. Three such hunter-gathering individuals of the male sex have had their DNA results published. Each was found to belong to a different Y-DNA haplogroup: R1a, R1b, and J. R1b is also the most common Y-DNA haplogroup found among both the Yamnaya and modern-day Western Europeans. R1a is more common in Eastern Europeans and in the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent.” ref
Near East population
“The Near East population were most likely hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus (CHG) c.q. Iran Chalcolithic related people with a major CHG-component. Jones et al. (2015) analyzed genomes from males from western Georgia, in the Caucasus, from the Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,300 years old) and the Mesolithic (9,700 years old). These two males carried Y-DNA haplogroup: J* and J2a. The researchers found that these Caucasus hunters were probably the source of the farmer-like DNA in the Yamnaya, as the Caucasians were distantly related to the Middle Eastern people who introduced farming in Europe.” ref
“Their genomes showed that a continued mixture of the Caucasians with Middle Eastern took place up to 25,000 years ago, when the coldest period in the last Ice Age started. According to Lazaridis et al. (2016), “a population related to the people of the Iran Chalcolithic contributed ~43% of the ancestry of early Bronze Age populations of the steppe.” According to Lazaridis et al. (2016), these Iranian Chalcolithic people were a mixture of “the Neolithic people of western Iran, the Levant, and Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers.” Lazaridis et al. (2016) also note that farming spread at two places in the Near East, namely the Levant and Iran, from where it spread, Iranian people spreading to the steppe and south Asia.” ref
Northern and Central Europe
“Haak et al. (2015) studied DNA from 94 skeletons from Europe and Russia aged between 3,000 and 8,000 years old. They concluded that about 4,500 years ago there was a major influx into Europe of Yamnaya culture people originating from the Pontic–Caspian steppe north of the Black Sea and that the DNA of copper-age Europeans matched that of the Yamnaya. The four Corded Ware people could trace an astonishing three-quarters of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, according to the paper. That suggests a massive migration of Yamnaya people from their steppe homeland into Eastern Europe about 4500 years ago when the Corded Ware culture began, perhaps carrying an early form of Indo-European language.” ref
Bronze age Greece
“A 2017 archaeogenetics study of Mycenaean and Minoan remains published in the journal Nature concluded that the Mycenaean Greeks were genetically closely related with the Minoans but unlike the Minoans also had a 13-18% genetic contribution from Bronze Age steppe populations.” ref
Haplogroup R1a
“Haplogroup R1a, or haplogroup R-M420, is a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup that is distributed in a large region in Eurasia, extending from Scandinavia and Central Europe to southern Siberia and South Asia. While R1a originated ca. 22,000 to 25,000 years ago, its subclade M417 (R1a1a1) diversified ca. 5,800 years ago. The place of origin of the subclade plays a role in the debate about the origins of Proto-Indo-Europeans.” ref
“The split of R1a (M420) is computed to ca. 22,000 or 25,000 years ago, which is the time of the last glacial maximum. A 2014 study by Peter A. Underhill et al., using 16,244 individuals from over 126 populations from across Eurasia, concluded that there was “a compelling case for the Middle East, possibly near present-day Iran, as the geographic origin of hg R1a.” The ancient DNA record has shown the first R1a during the Mesolithic in Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (from Eastern Europe), and the earliest case of R* among Upper Paleolithic Ancient North Eurasians, from which the Eastern Hunter-Gatherers predominantly derive their ancestry. No early samples of R1a have so far been found in Iran.” ref
“According to Underhill et al. (2014), the downstream R1a-M417 subclade diversified into Z282 and Z93 circa 5,800 years ago “in the vicinity of Iran and Eastern Turkey.” Even though R1a occurs as a Y-chromosome haplogroup among various languages such as Slavic and Indo-Iranian, the question of the origins of R1a1a is relevant to the ongoing debate concerning the urheimat of the Proto-Indo-European people, and may also be relevant to the origins of the Indus Valley Civilization. R1a shows a strong correlation with Indo-European languages of Southern and Western Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and to some extent Scandinavia being most prevalent in Eastern Europe, West Asia, and South Asia. In Europe, Z282 is prevalent, particularly while in Asia Z93 dominates. The connection between Y-DNA R-M17 and the spread of Indo-European languages was first noted by T. Zerjal and colleagues in 1999.” ref
Proposed steppe dispersal of R1a1a: Indo-European migrations and Indo-Aryan migrations and R1a
“Semino et al. (2000) proposed Ukrainian origins, and a postglacial spread of the R1a1 gene during the Late Glacial Maximum, subsequently magnified by the expansion of the Kurgan culture into Europe and eastward. Spencer Wells proposes Central Asian origins, suggesting that the distribution and age of R1a1 points to an ancient migration corresponding to the spread by the Kurgan people in their expansion from the Eurasian steppe. According to Pamjav et al. (2012), R1a1a diversified in the Eurasian Steppes or the Middle East and Caucasus region:
Inner and Central Asia is an overlap zone for the R1a1-Z280 and R1a1-Z93 lineages [which] implies that an early differentiation zone of R1a1-M198 conceivably occurred somewhere within the Eurasian Steppes or the Middle East and Caucasus region as they lie between South Asia and Central- and Eastern Europe.” ref
“Three genetic studies in 2015 gave support to the Kurgan theory of Gimbutas regarding the Indo-European Urheimat. According to those studies, haplogroups R1b and R1a, now the most common in Europe (R1a is also common in South Asia) would have expanded from the Pontic–Caspian steppes, along with the Indo-European languages; they also detected an autosomal component present in modern Europeans which was not present in Neolithic Europeans, which would have been introduced with paternal lineages R1b and R1a, as well as Indo-European languages.” ref
Source of R1a1a1 in Corded Ware culture
“David Anthony considers the Yamnaya culture to be the Indo-European Urheimat. According to Haak et al. (2015), a massive migration from the Yamnaya culture northwards took place ca. 2,500 BCE or 4,622 years ago, accounting for 75% of the genetic ancestry of the Corded Ware culture, noting that R1a and R1b may have “spread into Europe from the East after 3,000 BCE” or 5,022 years ago. Yet, all their seven Yamnaya samples belonged to the R1b-M269 subclade, but no R1a1a has been found in their Yamnaya samples. This raises the question of where the R1a1a in the Corded Ware culture came from, if it was not from the Yamnaya culture.” ref
“Semenov & Bulat (2016) do argue for such an origin of R1a1a in the Corded Ware culture, noting that several publications point to the presence of R1a1 in the Comb Ware culture. Haak et al. (2015) found that part of the Yamnaya ancestry derived from the Middle East and that neolithic techniques probably arrived at the Yamnaya culture from the Balkans. The Rössen culture (4,600–4,300 BCE or 6,622-6,322 years ago), which was situated on Germany and predates the Corded Ware culture, an old subclade of R1a, namely L664, can still be found.” ref
Transcaucasia & West Asian origins and possible influence on Indus Valley Civilization
Kura–Araxes culture, Uruk period, and Origins of the Indus Valley Civilisation
“Part of the South Asian genetic ancestry derives from west Eurasian populations, and some researchers have implied that Z93 may have come to India via Iran and expanded there during the Indus Valley Civilization. However, according to Narasimhan et al. (2018), steppe pastoralists are a likely source for R1a in India.” ref
“Mascarenhas et al. (2015) proposed that the roots of Z93 lie in West Asia, and proposed that “Z93 and L342.2 expanded in a southeasterly direction from Transcaucasia into South Asia,” noting that such an expansion is compatible with “the archeological records of eastward expansion of West Asian populations in the 4th millennium BCE culminating in the so-called Kura-Araxes migrations in the post-Uruk IV period.” Yet, Lazaridis noted that sample I1635 of Lazaridis et al. (2016), their Armenian Kura-Araxes sample, carried Y-haplogroup R1b1-M415(xM269) (also called R1b1a1b-CTS3187).” ref
“According to Underhill et al. (2014) the diversification of Z93 and the “early urbanization within the Indus Valley […] occurred at [5,600 years ago] and the geographic distribution of R1a-M780 may reflect this.” Poznik et al. (2016) note that ‘striking expansions’ occurred within R1a-Z93 at ~4,500–4,000 years ago, which “predates by a few centuries the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation.” ref
Proposed South Asian origins
“Kivisild et al. (2003) have proposed either South or West Asia, while Mirabal et al. (2009) see support for both South and Central Asia. Sharma et al.(2009) showcased the existence of R1a in India beyond 18,000 years to possibly 44,000 years in origin. South Asian populations have the highest STR diversity within R1a1a, and subsequent older TMRCA datings, and R1a1a is present among both higher (Brahmin) castes and lower castes, although the frequency is higher among Brahmin castes. From these findings some researchers have concluded that R1a1a originated in South Asia, excluding a substantial genetic influx from Indo-European migrants.” ref
“However, this diversity, and the subsequent older TMRCA-datings, can also be explained by the historically high population numbers, which increases the likelihood of diversification and microsatellite variation. According to Sengupta et al. (2006), “[R1a1 and R2] could have actually arrived in southern India from a southwestern Asian source region multiple times.” Silva et al. (2017) noted that R1a in South Asia most “likely spread from a single Central Asian source pool, there do seem to be at least three and probably more R1a founder clades within the Subcontinent, consistent with multiple waves of arrival.” According to Martin P. Richards, co-author of Silva et al. (2017), “[the prevalence of R1a in India was] very powerful evidence for a substantial Bronze Age migration from central Asia that most likely brought Indo-European speakers to India.” ref
R-M458 (R1a1a1b1a1) 7,900 years old?
“R-M458 is a mainly Slavic SNP, characterized by its own mutation, and was first called cluster N. Underhill et al. (2009) found it to be present in modern European populations roughly between the Rhine catchment and the Ural Mountains and traced it to “a founder effect that […] falls into the early Holocene period, 7,900±2.6 KYA.” M458 was found in one skeleton from a 14th-century grave field in Usedom, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. The paper by Underhill et al. (2009) also reports a surprisingly high frequency of M458 in some Northern Caucasian populations (for example 27.5% among Karachays and 23.5% among Balkars, 7.8% among Karanogays and 3.4% among Abazas).” ref
R-L260 (R1a1a1b1a1a)
“R1a1a1b1a1a (R-L260), commonly referred to as West Slavic or Polish, is a subclade of the larger parent group R-M458, and was first identified as an STR cluster by Pawlowski et al. 2002. In 2010 it was verified to be a haplogroup identified by its own mutation (SNP). It apparently accounts for about 8% of Polish men, making it the most common subclade in Poland. Outside of Poland it is less common. In addition to Poland, it is mainly found in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and is considered “clearly West Slavic.” The founding ancestor of R-L260 is estimated to have lived between 2000 and 3000 years ago, i.e. during the Iron Age, with significant population expansion less than 1,500 years ago.” ref
“In Mesolithic Europe, R1a is characteristic of Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (EHGs). A male EHG of the Veretye culture buried at Peschanitsa near Lake Lacha in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia ca. 10,700 BCE or 12,722 years ago was found to be a carrier of the paternal haplogroup R1a5-YP1301 and the maternal haplogroup U4a. A Mesolithic male from Karelia ca. 8,800 to 7950 BCE or 10,822-9,972 years ago has been found to be carrying haplogroup R1a. A Mesolithic male buried at Deriivka ca. 7000 to 6700 BCE or 9,022-8,722 years ago carried the paternal haplogroup R1a and the maternal U5a2a. Another male from Karelia from ca. 5,500 to 5,000 BCE or 7,522-7,022 years ago, who was considered an EHG, carried haplogroup R1a. A male from the Comb Ceramic culture in Kudruküla ca. 5,900 to 3,800 BCE 7,922-5,822 years ago has been determined to be a carrier of R1a and the maternal U2e1.” ref
“According to archaeologist David Anthony, the paternal R1a-Z93 was found at Alexandria, Ukraine ca. 4000 BCE or 6,022 years ago, Sredny Stog culture, “the earliest known sample to show the genetic adaptation to lactase persistence (I3910-T).” R1a has been found in the Corded Ware culture, in which it is predominant. Examined males of the Bronze Age Fatyanovo culture belong entirely to R1a, specifically subclade R1a-Z93. Haplogroup R1a has later been found in ancient fossils associated with the Urnfield culture; as well as the burial of the remains of the Sintashta, Andronovo, the Pazyryk, Tagar, Tashtyk, and Srubnaya cultures, the inhabitants of ancient Tanais, in the Tarim mummies, and the aristocracy Xiongnu. The skeletal remains of a father and his two sons, from an archaeological site discovered in 2005 near Eulau (in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) and dated to about 2600 BCE or 4,622 years ago, tested positive for the Y-SNP marker SRY10831.2. The Ysearch number for the Eulau remains is 2C46S. The ancestral clade was thus present in Europe at least 4600 years ago, in association with one site of the widespread Corded Ware culture.” ref
R1a and Europe
“In Europe, the R1a1 sub-clade is found at highest levels among peoples of Central and Eastern European descent, with results ranging from 35-65% among Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, Slovaks, western Ukrainians (particularly Rusyns), Belarusians, Moldovans, and Russians. In the Baltics, R1a1a frequencies decrease from Lithuania (45%) to Estonia (around 30%). There is a significant presence in peoples of Scandinavian descent, with the highest levels in Norway and Iceland, where between 20 and 30% of men are in R1a1a. Vikings and Normans may have also carried the R1a1a lineage further out; accounting for at least part of the small presence in the British Isles, the Canary Islands, and Sicily. In East Germany, where Haplogroup R1a1a reaches a peak frequency in Rostock at a percentage of 31.3%, it averages between 20 and 30%.” ref
“In Southern Europe, R1a1a is not common, but significant levels have been found in pockets, such as in the Pas Valley in Northern Spain, areas of Venice, and Calabria in Italy. The Balkans shows wide variation between areas with significant levels of R1a1a, for example, 36–39% in Slovenia, 27%-34% in Croatia, and over 30% in Greek Macedonia, but less than 10% in Albania, Kosovo, and parts of Greece south of Olympus gorge. R1a is virtually composed only of the Z284 subclade in Scandinavia. In Slovenia, the main subclade is Z282 (Z280 and M458), although the Z284 subclade was found in one sample of a Slovenian. There is a negligible representation of Z93 in each region other than Turkey.” ref
“West Slavs and Hungarians are characterized by a high frequency of the subclade M458 and a low Z92, a subclade of Z280. Hundreds of Slovenian samples and Czechs lack the Z92 subclade of Z280, while Poles, Slovaks, Croats and Hungarians only show a very low frequency of Z92. The Balts, East Slavs, Serbs, Macedonians, Bulgarians, and Romanians demonstrate a ratio Z280>M458 and a high, up to a prevailing share of Z92. Balts and East Slavs have the same subclades and similar frequencies in a more detailed phylogeny of the subclades. The Russian geneticist Oleg Balanovsky speculated that there is a predominance of the assimilated pre-Slavic substrate in the genetics of East and West Slavic populations, according to him the common genetic structure that contrasts East Slavs and Balts from other populations may suggest the explanation that the pre-Slavic substrate of the East Slavs consisted most significantly of Baltic-speakers, which at one point predated the Slavs in the cultures of the Eurasian steppe according to archaeological and toponymic references.” ref
R1a and Central Asia
“Zerjal et al. (2002) found R1a1a in 64% of a sample of the Tajiks of Tajikistan and 63% of a sample of the Kyrgyz of Kyrgyzstan. Haber et al. (2012) found R1a1a-M17(xM458) in 26.0% (53/204) of a set of samples from Afghanistan, including 60% (3/5) of a sample of Nuristanis, 51.0% (25/49) of a sample of Pashtuns, 30.4% (17/56) of a sample of Tajiks, 17.6% (3/17) of a sample of Uzbeks, 6.7% (4/60) of a sample of Hazaras, and in the only sampled Turkmen individual.” ref
“Di Cristofaro et al. (2013) found R1a1a-M198/M17 in 56.3% (49/87) of a pair of samples of Pashtuns from Afghanistan (including 20/34 or 58.8% of a sample of Pashtuns from Baghlan and 29/53 or 54.7% of a sample of Pashtuns from Kunduz), 29.1% (37/127) of a pool of samples of Uzbeks from Afghanistan (including 28/94 or 29.8% of a sample of Uzbeks from Jawzjan, 8/28 or 28.6% of a sample of Uzbeks from Sar-e Pol, and 1/5 or 20% of a sample of Uzbeks from Balkh), 27.5% (39/142) of a pool of samples of Tajiks from Afghanistan (including 22/54 or 40.7% of a sample of Tajiks from Balkh, 9/35 or 25.7% of a sample of Tajiks from Takhar, 4/16 or 25.0% of a sample of Tajiks from Samangan, and 4/37 or 10.8% of a sample of Tajiks from Badakhshan), 16.2% (12/74) of a sample of Turkmens from Jawzjan, and 9.1% (7/77) of a pair of samples of Hazara from Afghanistan (including 7/69 or 10.1% of a sample of Hazara from Bamiyan and 0/8 or 0% of a sample of Hazara from Balkh).” ref
“Malyarchuk et al. (2013) found R1a1-SRY10831.2 in 30.0% (12/40) of a sample of Tajiks from Tajikistan. Ashirbekov et al. (2017) found R1a-M198 in 6.03% (78/1294) of a set of samples of Kazakhs from Kazakhstan. R1a-M198 was observed with greater than average frequency in the study’s samples of the following Kazakh tribes: 13/41 = 31.7% of a sample of Suan, 8/29 = 27.6% of a sample of Oshaqty, 6/30 = 20.0% of a sample of Qozha, 4/29 = 13.8% of a sample of Qypshaq, 1/8 = 12.5% of a sample of Tore, 9/86 = 10.5% of a sample of Jetyru, 4/50 = 8.0% of a sample of Argyn, 1/13 = 7.7% of a sample of Shanyshqyly, 8/122 = 6.6% of a sample of Alimuly, 3/46 = 6.5% of a sample of Alban. R1a-M198 also was observed in 5/42 = 11.9% of a sample of Kazakhs of unreported tribal affiliation.” ref
R1a and South Asia
“In South Asia, R1a1a has often been observed in a number of demographic groups. In India, high frequencies of this haplogroup are observed in West Bengal Brahmins (72%) to the east, Gujarat Lohanas (60%) to the west, Khatris (67%) in the north, and Iyengar Brahmins (31%) in the south. It has also been found in several South Indian Dravidian-speaking Adivasis including the Chenchu (26%) and the Valmikis of Andhra Pradesh, Kota (22.58%), and the Kallar of Tamil Nadu suggesting that R1a1a is widespread in Tribal Southern Indians. Besides these, studies show high percentages in regionally diverse groups such as Manipuris (50%) to the extreme North-East and among Punjabis (47%) to the extreme North West. In Pakistan, it is found at 71% among the Mohanna tribe in Sindh province to the south and 46% among the Baltis of Gilgit-Baltistan to the north. Among the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka, 23% were found to be R1a1a (R-SRY1532) positive. Hindus of Chitwan District in the Terai region Nepal show it at 69%.” ref
R1a and East Asia
“The frequency of R1a1a is comparatively low among some Turkic-speaking groups like Yakuts, yet levels are higher (19 to 28%) in certain Turkic or Mongolic-speaking groups of Northwestern China, such as the Bonan, Dongxiang, Salar, and Uyghurs. A Chinese paper published in 2018 found R1a-Z94 in 38.5% (15 / 39) of a sample of Keriyalik Uyghurs from Darya Boyi / Darya Boye Village, Yutian County, Xinjiang (于田县达里雅布依乡), R1a-Z93 in 28.9% (22/76) of a sample of Dolan Uyghurs from Horiqol township, Awat County, Xinjiang (阿瓦提县乌鲁却勒镇), and R1a-Z93 in 6.3% (4/64) of a sample of Loplik Uyghurs from Karquga / Qarchugha Village, Yuli County, Xinjiang (尉犁县喀尔曲尕乡). R1a(xZ93) was observed only in one of 76 Dolan Uyghurs. Note that Darya Boyi Village is located in a remote oasis formed by the Keriya River in the Taklamakan Desert. A 2011 Y-dna study found Y-dna R1a1 in 10% of a sample of southern Hui people from Yunnan, 1.6% of a sample of Tibetan people from Xizang (Tibet Autonomous Region), 1.6% of a sample of Xibe people from Xinjiang, 3.2% of a sample of northern Hui from Ningxia, 9.4% of a sample of Hazak (Kazakhs) from Xinjiang, and rates of 24.0%, 22.2%, 35.2%, 29.2% in 4 different samples of Uyghurs from Xinjiang, 9.1% in a sample of Mongols from Inner Mongolia, 10% of a sample of Northern Han Chinese from Gansu and 8.9% of a sample of Northern Han from western Henan. A different subclade of R1 was also found in 1.5% of a sample of northern Hui from Ningxia.” ref
“In the same study, there were no cases of R1a detected at all in 6 samples of Han Chinese in Yunnan, 1 sample of Han in Guangxi, 5 samples of Han in Guizhou, 2 samples of Han in Guangdong, 2 samples of Han in Fujian, 2 samples of Han in Zhejiang, 1 sample of Han in Shanghai, 1 samples of Han in Jiangxi, 2 samples of Han in Hunan, 1 sample of Han in Hubei, 2 samples of Han in Sichuan, 1 sample of Han in Chongqing, 3 samples of Han in Shandong, 5 samples of Han in Gansu, 3 samples of Han in Jilin and 2 samples of Han in Heilongjiang. T-M70, R-M207 (a subclade of R1a), Q-M242, L-M20, J-P209, I-M170, H-M69, G-M201, C5-M356 and E-SRY4064 collectively make up only 6.79% of the total male population of East Asia (from samples in North Korea and China). The vast majority of East Asia is N-M231, C-M130 except for C5-M356, D-M174, and O-M175 which is 92.87% of the population and are all East Eurasian male haplogroups. R-M207 (a subclade of R1a) came into East Asia via the north from the Central South Asia region (CSA) during paleolithic times in the post-glacial period, especially R1a1a. R1a1a in East Asia is an extremely ancient subclade from the Central Asia-South Asia region and is older than the Western Eurasian (European_ and Central Asian-South Asian (CSA) R1a1*-M17, rivaling the R1a1*-M17 of IWest India in age from testing on variations in STR. The Europe and West Asian R1a1*-M17 split into 7 subbranches only after R1a1 came to North-East Asia, indicating R1a1 in East Asia is an extremely ancient one dating back 15,370 years ago juding from variation in STR (predating the more recent Aryan and Indo-European expansions).” ref
“In a 2014 paper, R1a1a has been detected in 1.8% (2/110) of Chinese samples. These two samples (R-M17, R-M198, R-M434, R-M458 for both) belonged to Han individuals from Fujian and Shanxi provinces. 40% of Salars, 45.2% of Tajiks of Xinjiang, 54.3% of Dongxiang, 60.6% of Tatars, and 68.9% of Kyrgyz in Xinjiang in northwestern China tested in one sample had R1a1-M17. Bao’an (Bonan) had the most haplogroup diversity of 0.8946±0.0305 while the other ethnic minorities in northwestern China had a high haplogroup diversity like Central Asians, of 0.7602±0.0546. In Eastern Siberia, R1a1a is found among certain indigenous ethnic groups including Kamchatkans and Chukotkans, and peaking in Itel’man at 22%.” ref
R1a and West Asia
“R1a1a has been found in various forms, in most parts of Western Asia, in widely varying concentrations, from almost no presence in areas such as Jordan, to much higher levels in parts of Kuwait and Iran. The Shimar (Shammar) Bedouin tribe in Kuwait show the highest frequency in the Middle East at 43%. Wells 2001, noted that in the western part of the country, Iranians show low R1a1a levels, while males of eastern parts of Iran carried up to 35% R1a1a. Nasidze et al. 2004 found R1a1a in approximately 20% of Iranian males from the cities of Tehran and Isfahan. Regueiro 2006 in a study of Iran, noted much higher frequencies in the south than the north.” ref
“A newer study has found 20.3% R-M17* among Kurdish samples which were taken in the Kurdistan Province in western Iran, 19% among Azerbaijanis in West Azerbaijan, 9.7% among Mazandaranis in North Iran in the province of Mazandaran, 9.4% among Gilaks in province of Gilan, 12.8% among Persian and 17.6% among Zoroastrians in Yazd, 18.2% among Persians in Isfahan, 20.3% among Persians in Khorasan, 16.7% Afro-Iranians, 18.4% Qeshmi “Gheshmi”, 21.4% among Persian Bandari people in Hormozgan and 25% among the Baloch people in Sistan and Baluchestan Province.” ref
“Di Cristofaro et al. (2013) found haplogroup R1a in 9.68% (18/186) of a set of samples from Iran, though with a large variance ranging from 0% (0/18) in a sample of Iranians from Tehran to 25% (5/20) in a sample of Iranians from Khorasan and 27% (3/11) in a sample of Iranians of unknown provenance. All Iranian R1a individuals carried the M198 and M17 mutations except one individual in a sample of Iranians from Gilan (n=27), who was reported to belong to R1a-SRY1532.2(xM198, M17).” ref
“Malyarchuk et al. (2013) found R1a1-SRY10831.2 in 20.8% (16/77) of a sample of Persians collected in the provinces of Khorasan and Kerman in eastern Iran, but they did not find any member of this haplogroup in a sample of 25 Kurds collected in the province of Kermanshah in western Iran. Further to the north of these Western Asian regions, on the other hand, R1a1a levels start to increase in the Caucasus, once again in an uneven way. Several populations studied have shown no sign of R1a1a, while the highest levels so far discovered in the region appears to belong to speakers of the Karachay-Balkar language among whom about one-quarter of men tested so far are in haplogroup R1a1a.” ref
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The Maykop culture, the R1b link to the Steppe?
“The Maykop culture (3700-2500 BCE) in the north-west Caucasus was culturally speaking a sort of southern extension of the Yamna horizon. Although not generally considered part of the Pontic-Caspian steppe culture due to its geography, the North Caucasus had close links with the steppes, as attested by numerous ceramics, gold, copper, and bronze weapons and jewelry in the contemporaneous cultures of Mikhaylovka, Sredny Stog, and Kemi Oba. The link between the northern Black Sea coast and the North Caucasus is older than the Maykop period. Its predecessor, the Svobodnoe culture (4400-3700 BCE), already had links to the Suvorovo-Novodanilovka and early Sredny Stog cultures. The even older Nalchik settlement (5000-4500 BCE) in the North Caucasus displayed a similar culture as Khvalynsk in the Caspian Steppe and Volga region. This may be the period when R1b started interacting and blending with the R1a population of the steppes.” ref
“The Yamna and Maykop people both used kurgan burials, placing their deads in a supine position with raised knees and oriented in a north-east/south-west axis. Graves were sprinkled with red ochre on the floor, and sacrificed domestic animal buried alongside humans. They also had in common horses, wagons, a heavily cattle-based economy with a minority of sheep kept for their wool, use of copper/bronze battle-axes (both hammer-axes and sleeved axes), and tanged daggers. In fact, the oldest wagons and bronze artefacts are found in the North Caucasus, and appear to have spread from there to the steppes.” ref
“Maykop was an advanced Bronze Age culture, actually one of the very first to develop metalworking, and therefore metal weapons. The world’s oldest sword was found at a late Maykop grave in Klady kurgan 31. Its style is reminiscent of the long Celtic swords, though less elaborated. Horse bones and depictions of horses already appear in early Maykop graves, suggesting that the Maykop culture might have been founded by steppe people or by people who had close link with them. However, the presence of cultural elements radically different from the steppe culture in some sites could mean that Maykop had a hybrid population. Without DNA testing it is impossible to say if these two populations were an Anatolian R1b group and a G2a Caucasian group, or whether R1a people had settled there too. The two or three ethnicities might even have cohabited side by side in different settlements. The one typical Caucasian Y-DNA lineage that does follow the pattern of Indo-European migrations is G2a-L13, which is found throughout Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia. In the Balkans, the Danube basin, and Central Europe its frequency is somewhat proportional to the percentage of R1b.” ref
“Maykop people are the ones credited for the introduction of primitive wheeled vehicles (wagons) from Mesopotamia to the Steppe. This would revolutionize the way of life in the steppe, and would later lead to the development of (horse-drawn) war chariots around 2000 BCE. Cavalry and chariots played an vital role in the subsequent Indo-European migrations, allowing them to move quickly and defeat easily anybody they encountered. Combined with advanced bronze weapons and their sea-based culture, the western branch (R1b) of the Indo-Europeans from the Black Sea shores are excellent candidates for being the mysterious Sea Peoples, who raided the eastern shores of the Mediterranean during the second millennium BCE.” ref
“The rise of the IE-speaking Hittites in Central Anatolia happened a few centuries after the disappearance of the Maykop and Yamna cultures. Considering that most Indo-European forms of R1b found in Anatolia today belong to the R1b-Z2103 subclade, it makes little doubt that the Hittites came to Anatolia via the Balkans, after Yamna/Maykop people invaded Southeast Europe. The Maykop and Yamna cultures were succeeded by the Srubna culture (1600-1200 BCE), possibly representing an advance of R1a-Z282 people from the northern steppes towards the Black Sea shores, filling the vacuum left by the R1b tribes who migrated to Southeast Europe and Anatolia.” ref
The Siberian & Central Asian branch corresponding to haplogroup R1b
“When R1b crossed the Caucasus in the Late Neolithic, it split into two main groups. The western one (L51) would settle the eastern and northern of the Black Sea. The eastern one (Z2103) migrated to the Don-Volga region, where horses were domesticated circa 4600 BCE. R1b probably mixed with indigenous R1a people and founded the Repin culture (3700-3300 BCE) a bit before the Yamna culture came into existence in the western Pontic Steppe. R1b would then have migrated with horses along the Great Eurasian Steppe until the Altai mountains in East-Central Asia, where they established the Afanasevo culture (c. 3600-2400 BCE). Afanasevo people might be the precursors of the Tocharian branch of Indo-European languages. In 2014, Clément Hollard of Strasbourg University tested three Y-DNA samples from the Afanasevo culture and all three turned out to belong to haplogroup R1b, including two to R1b-M269.” ref
“The R1b people who stayed in the Volga-Ural region were probably the initiators of the Poltavka culture (2700-2100 BCE), then became integrated into the R1a-dominant Sintashta-Petrovka culture (2100-1750 BCE) linked to the Indo-Aryan conquest of Central and South Asia (=> see R1a for more details). Nowadays in Russia R1b is found at higher frequencies among ethnic minorities of the Volga-Ural region (Udmurts, Komi, Mordvins, Tatars) than among Slavic Russians. R1b is also present in many Central Asian populations, the highest percentages being observed among the Uyghurs (20%) of Xinjiang in north-west China, the Yaghnobi people of Tajikistan (32%), and the Bashkirs (47%, or 62.5% in the Abzelilovsky district) of Bashkortostan in Russia (border of Kazakhstan). R1b-M73, found primarily in North Asia (Altai, Mongolia), Central Asia, and the North Caucasus is thought to have spread during the Neolithic from the Middle East to Central and North Asia, and therefore can be considered to be pre-Indo-European.” ref
The European & Middle Eastern branch corresponding to haplogroup R1b
“The Indo-Europeans’s bronze weapons and the extra mobility provided by horses would have given them a tremendous advantage over the autochthonous inhabitants of Europe, namely the native haplogroup C1a2, F, and I (descendants of Cro-Magnon) and the early Neolithic herders and farmers (G2a, H2, E1b1b, and T1a). This allowed R1a and R1b to replace most of the native male lineages (=> see How did R1b come to replace most of the older lineages in Western Europe?), although female lineages seem to have been less affected.” ref
“A comparison with the Indo-Iranian invasion of South Asia shows that 40% of the male linages of northern India are R1a, but less than 10% of the female lineages could be of Indo-European origin. The impact of the Indo-Europeans was more severe in Europe because European society 4,000 years ago was less developed in terms of agriculture, technology (no bronze weapons), and population density than that of the Indus Valley civilization. This is particularly true of the native Western European cultures where farming arrived much later than in the Balkans or Central Europe. Greece, the Balkans and the Carpathians were the most advanced of European societies at the time and were the least affected in terms of haplogroup replacement. neolithic lineages survived better in regions that were more difficult to reach or less hospitable to horse breeders, like the Alps, the Dinaric Alps, the Apennines, and Sardinia.” ref
The Conquest of “Old Europe” and Central Europe (4200-2500 BCE) corresponding to haplogroup R1b
“The first forays of Steppe people into the Balkans happened between 4200 BCE and 3900 BCE, when cattle herders equipped with horse-drawn wagons crossed the Dniester and Danube and apparently destroyed the towns of the Gumelnița, Varna, and Karanovo VI cultures in Eastern Romania and Bulgaria. A climatic change resulting in colder winters during this exact period probably pushed steppe herders to seek milder pastures for their stock, while failed crops would have led to famine and internal disturbance within the Danubian and Balkanic communities. The ensuing Cernavodă culture (Copper Age, 4000-3200 BCE), Coțofeni/Usatovo culture (Copper to Bronze Age, 3500-2500 BCE), Ezero culture (Bronze Age, 3300-2700 BCE), in modern Romania, seems to have had a mixed population of steppe immigrants and people from the old tell settlements. These Steppe immigrants were likely a mixture of both R1a and R1b lineages, with a probably higher percentage of R1a than later Yamna-era invasions.” ref
“The Steppe invaders would have forced many Danubian farmers to migrate to the Cucuteni-Trypillian towns in the eastern Carpathians, causing a population boom and a north-eastward expansion until the Dnieper valley, bringing Y-haplogroups G2a, I2a1 (probably the dominant lineage of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture), E1b1b, J2a, and T1a in what is now central Ukraine. This precocious Indo-European advance westward was fairly limited, due to the absence of Bronze weapons and organized army at the time, and was indeed only possible thanks to climatic catastrophes which reduced the defenses of the towns of Old Europe. The Carphatian, Danubian, and Balkanic cultures were too densely populated and technologically advanced to allow for a massive migration.” ref
“In comparison, the forest-steppe R1a people successfully penetrated into the heart of Europe with little hindrance, due to the absence of developed agrarian societies around Poland and the Baltic. The Corded Ware culture (3200-1800 BCE) was a natural northern and western expansion of the Yamna culture, reaching as far west as Germany and as far north as Sweden and Norway. DNA analysis from the Corded Ware confirmed the presence of R1a and R1b in Poland c. 2700 BCE and R1a central Germany around 2600 BCE. The Corded Ware tribes expanded from the northern fringe of the Yamna culture where R1a lineages were prevalent over R1b ones.” ref
“The expansion of R1b people into Old Europe was slower, but proved inevitable. In 2800 BCE, by the time the Corded Ware had already reached Scandinavia, the Bronze Age R1b cultures had barely moved into the Pannonian Steppe. They established major settlements in the Great Hungarian Plain, the most similar habitat to their ancestral Pontic Steppes. Around 2500 BCE, the western branch of Indo-European R1b were poised for their next major expansion into modern Germany and Western Europe. By that time, the R1b immigrants had blended to a great extent with the indigenous Mesolithic and Neolithic populations of the Danubian basin, where they had now lived for 1,700 years.” ref
“The strongly patriarchal Indo-European elite remained almost exclusively R1b on the paternal side, but absorbed a high proportion of non-Indo-European maternal lineages. Hybridized, the new Proto-Indo-European R1b people would have lost most of their remaining Proto-Europoid or Mongolid features inherited from their Caspian origins (which were still clearly visible in numerous individuals from the Yamna period). Their light hair, eye and skin pigmentation, once interbred with the darker inhabitants of Old Europe, became more like that of modern Southern Europeans. The R1a people of the Corded Ware culture would come across far less populous societies in Northern Europe, mostly descended from the lighter Mesolithic population, and therefore retained more of their original pigmentation (although facial traits evolved considerably in Scandinavia, where the I1 inhabitants were strongly dolicocephalic and long-faced, as opposed to the brachycephalic and broad-faced Steppe people).” ref
The Conquest of Western Europe (2500-1200 BCE) corresponding to haplogroup R1b
“The R1b conquest of Europe happened in two phases. For nearly two millennia, starting from circa 4200 BCE, Steppe people limited their conquest to the rich Chalcolithic civilizations of the Carpathians and the Balkans. These societies possessed the world’s largest towns, notably the tell settlements of the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture. Nothing incited the R1b conquerors to move further into Western Europe at such an early stage, because most of the land north and west of the Alps was still sparsely populated woodland. The Neolithic did not reach the British Isles and Scandinavia before circa 4000 BCE. Even northern France and most of the Alpine region had been farming or herding for less than a millennium and were still quite primitive compared to Southeast Europe and the Middle East.” ref
“North-west Europe remained a tribal society of hunter-gatherers practicing only limited agriculture for centuries after the conquest of the Balkans by the Indo-Europeans. Why would our R1b “conquistadors” leave the comfort of the wealthy and populous Danubian civilizations for the harsh living conditions that lie beyond? Bronze Age people coveted tin, copper, and gold, of which the Balkans had plenty, but that no one had yet discovered in Western Europe.” ref
“R1b-L51 is thought to have arrived in Central Europe (Hungary, Austria, Bohemia) around 2500 BCE, approximately two millennia after the shift to the Neolithic lifestyle in these regions. Agrarian towns had started to develop. Gold and copper had begun to be mined. The prospects of a conquest were now far more appealing.” ref
“The archeological and genetic evidence (distribution of R1b subclades) point at several consecutive waves towards eastern and central Germany between 2800 BCE and 2300 BCE. The Unetice culture was probably the first culture in which R1b-L11 lineages played a major role. It is interesting to note that the Unetice period happen to correspond to the end of the Maykop (2500 BCE) and Kemi Oba (2200 BCE) cultures on the northern shores of the Black Sea, and their replacement by cultures descended from the northern steppes. It can therefore be envisaged that the (mostly) R1b population from the northern half of the Black Sea migrated westward due to pressure from other Indo-European people (R1a) from the north, for example that of the burgeoning Proto-Indo-Iranian branch, linked to the contemporary Poltavka and Abashevo cultures.” ref
“It is doubtful that the Bell Beaker culture (2900-1800 BCE) in Western Europe was already Indo-European because its attributes are in perfect continuity with the native Megalithic cultures. The Beaker phenomenon started during the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic in Portugal and propagated to the north-east towards Germany. During the same period Bronze Age Steppe cultures spread from Germany in the opposite direction towards Iberia, France and Britain, progressively bringing R1b lineages into the Bell Beaker territory. It is more likely that the beakers and horses found across Western Europe during that period were the result of trade with neighboring Indo-European cultures, including the first wave of R1b into Central Europe. It is equally possible that the Beaker people were R1b merchants or explorers who traveled across Western Europe and brought back tales of riches poorly defended by Stone Age people waiting to be to be conquered. This would have prompted a full-scale Indo-European (R1b) invasion from about 2500 BCE in Germany, reaching the Atlantic (north of the Pyrenees at least) around 2200 BCE.” ref
“Ancient DNA tests conducted by Lee et al. (2012), Haak et al. (2015) and Allentoft et al. (2015) have all confirmed the presence of R1b-L51 (and deeper subclades such as P312 and U152) in Germany from the Bell Beaker period onwards, but none in earlier cultures. German Bell Beaker R1b samples only had about 50% of Yamna autosomal DNA and often possessed Neolithic non-Steppe mtDNA, which confirms that R1b invaders took local wives as they advanced westward. Another study by Olalde et al. (2017) confirmed that Iberian Bell Beakers were genetically distinct from the previously tested German samples. None of the Spanish or Portuguese individuals associated with Bell Beaker pottery possessed any Steppe admixture, and none belonged to the Indo-European haplogroup R1b-L23 or its subclades. Instead, they belonged to typical Megalithic lineages like G2a, I2a1, I2a2, and the Neolithic R1b-V88. The paper also confirmed a high frequency of R1b-L51 lineages in central Europe during the Beall Beaker period.” ref
In Britain, Megalithic individuals belonged exclusively to Y-haplogroup I2 (mostly I2a2 and I2a1b-L161), but were entirely replaced by R1b-L51 (mosly L21 clade) in the Early Bronze Age. This means that the Bell Beaker culture was not associated with one particular ethnic group. Beaker pottery originated in Megalithic Iberia, but then spread to France and central Europe and was used by invading R1b-L51 Steppe people, who brought it with them to the British Isles, while wiping out most of the indigenous Megalithic population. There was therefore no ‘Bell Beaker people’, but just various populations trading and using Beaker pots during that period.” ref
“DNA samples from the Unetice culture (2300-1600 BCE) in Germany, which emerged less than two centuries after the appearance of the first R1b-L51 individuals in the late Bell Beaker Germany, had a slightly higher percentage of Yamna ancestry (60~65%) and of Yamna-related mtDNA lineages, which indicates a migration of both Steppe men and women. That would explain why archeological artifacts from the Unetice culture are clearly Yamna-related (i.e. Indo-European), as they abruptly introduced new technologies and a radically different lifestyle, while the Bell Beaker culture was in direct continuity with previous Neolithic or Chalcolithic cultures. R1b men may simply have conquered the Bell Beaker people and overthrown the local rulers without obliterating the old culture due to their limited numbers. Taking the analogy of the Germanic migrations in the Late Antiquity, the R1b invasion of the Bell Beaker period was more alike to that of the Goths, Burgunds, and Vandals, who all migrated in small numbers, created new kingdoms within the Roman empire, but adopted Latin language and Roman culture. In contrast, the Corded Ware and Unetice culture involved large-scale migrations of Steppe people, who imposed their Indo-European language and culture and conquered people, just like the Anglo-Saxons or the Bavarians did in the 5th century.” ref
“The cultures that succeeded to Unetice in Central Europe, chronologically the Tumulus culture (1600-1200 BCE), Urnfield culture (1300-1200 BCE) and Hallstatt culture (1200-750 BCE) cultures remained typically Indo-European. The Hallstatt culture, centered around the Alps, is considered the first classical Celtic culture in Europe. It quickly expanded to France, Britain, Iberia, northern Italy, and the Danube valley, probably spreading for the first time Celtic languages, although not bronze technology nor R1b lineages, which had both already spread over much of western Europe during the Bell Beaker period. => See also Metal-mining and stockbreeding explain R1b dominance in Atlantic fringe” ref
Did the Indo-Europeans corresponding to haplogroup R1b really invade Western Europe?
“Proponents of the Paleolithic or Neolithic continuity model argue that bronze technology and horses could have been imported by Western Europeans from their Eastern European neighbors, and that no actual Indo-European invasion need be involved. It is harder to see how Italic, Celtic and Germanic languages were adopted by Western and Northern Europeans without at least a small scale invasion. It has been suggested that Indo-European (IE) languages simply disseminated through contact, just like technologies, or because it was the language of a small elite and therefore its adoption conferred a certain perceived prestige. However, people don’t just change language like that because it sounds nicer or more prestigious. Even nowadays, with textbooks, dictionaries, compulsory language courses at school, private language schools for adults, and multilingual TV programs, the majority of the people cannot become fluent in a completely foreign language, belonging to a different language family. The linguistic gap between pre-IE vernaculars and IE languages was about as big as between modern English and Chinese. English, Greek, Russian, and Hindi are all related IE languages and therefore easier to learn for IE speakers than non-IE languages like Chinese, Arabic, or Hungarian. From a linguistic point of view, only a wide-scale migration of IE speakers could explain the thorough adoption of IE languages in Western Europe – leaving only Basque as a remnant of the Neolithic languages.” ref
“One important archeological argument in favor of the replacement of Neolithic cultures by Indo-European culture in the Bronze Age comes from pottery styles. The sudden appearance of bronze technology in Western Europe coincides with ceramics suddenly becoming more simple and less decorated, just like in the Pontic Steppe. Until then, pottery had constantly evolved towards greater complexity and details for over 3,000 years. People do not just decide like that to revert to a more primitive style. Perhaps one isolated tribe might experiment with something simpler at one point, but what are the chances that distant cultures from Iberia, Gaul, Italy, and Britain all decide to undertake such an improbable shift around the same time? The best explanation is that this new style was imposed by foreign invaders. In this case, it is not mere speculation; there is ample evidence that this simpler pottery is characteristic of the steppes associated with the emergence of Proto-Indo-European speakers.” ref
“Besides pottery, archaeology provides ample evidence that the early Bronze Age in Central and Western Europe coincides with a radical shift in food production. Agriculture experiences an abrupt reduction in exchange for an increased emphasis on domesticates. This is also a period when horses become more common and cow milk is being consumed regularly. The overall change mimics the Steppic way of life almost perfectly. Even after the introduction of agriculture around 5200 BCE, the Bug-Dniester culture and later Steppe cultures were characterized by an economy dominated by herding, with only limited farming. This pattern expands into Europe exactly at the same time as bronze working.” ref
“Religious beliefs and arts undergo a complete reversal in Bronze Age Europe. Neolithic societies in the Near East and Europe had always worshipped female figurines as a form of fertility cult. The Steppe cultures, on the contrary, did not manufacture female figurines. As bronze technology spreads from the Danube valley to Western Europe, symbols of fertility and fecundity progressively disappear and are replaced by cultures of domesticated animals.” ref
“Another clue that Indo-European Steppe people came in great number to Central and Western Europe is to be found in burial practices. Neolithic Europeans either cremated their dead (e.g. Cucuteni-Tripolye culture) or buried them in collective graves (this was the case of Megalithic cultures). In the Steppe, each person was buried individually, and high-ranking graves were placed in a funeral chamber and topped by a circular mound. The body was typically accompanied by weapons (maces, axes, daggers), horse bones, and a dismantled wagon (or later chariot). These characteristic burial mounds are known as kurgans in the Pontic Steppe.” ref
“Men were given more sumptuous tombs than women, even among children, and differences in hierarchy are obvious between burials. The Indo-Europeans had a strongly hierarchical and patrilinear society, as opposed to the more egalitarian and matrilinear cultures of Old Europe. The proliferation of ststus-conscious male-dominant kurgans (or tumulus) in Central Europe during the Bronze Age is a clear sign that the ruling elite had now become Indo-European. The practice also spread to central Asia and southern Siberia, two regions where R1a and R1b lineages are found nowadays, just like in Central Europe.” ref
“The ceremony of burial is one of the most emotionally charged and personal aspect of a culture. It is highly doubtful that people would change their ancestral practice “just to do like the neighbors”. In fact, different funerary practices have co-existed side by side during the European Neolithic and Chalcolithic. The ascendancy of yet another constituent of the Pontic Steppe culture in the rest of Europe, and in this case one that does not change easily through contact with neighbors, adds up to the likelihood of a strong Indo-European migration. The adoption of some elements of a foreign culture tends to happen when one civilization overawes the adjacent cultures by its superiority.” ref
“This process is called ‘acculturation’. However, there is nothing that indicates that the Steppe culture was so culturally superior as to motivate a whole continent, even Atlantic cultures over 2000 km away from the Pontic Steppe, to abandon so many fundamental symbols of their own ancestral culture, and even their own language. In fact, Old Europe was far more refined in its pottery and jewelry than the rough Steppe people. The Indo-European superiority was cultural but military, thanks to horses, bronze weapons, and an ethic code valuing individual heroic feats in war (these ethic values are known from the old IE texts, like the Rig Veda, Avesta, or the Mycenaean and Hittite literature).” ref
“After linguistics and archaeology, the third category of evidence comes from genetics itself. It had first been hypothesized that R1b was native to Western Europe, because this is where it was most prevalent. It has since been proven that R1b haplotypes displayed higher microsatellite diversity in Anatolia and in the Caucasus than in Europe. European subclades are also more recent than Middle Eastern or Central Asian ones. The main European subclade, R-P312/S116, only dates back to approximately 3500 to 3000 BCE. It does not mean that the oldest common ancestor of this lineage arrived in Western Europe during this period, but that the first person who carried the mutation R-P312/S116 lived at least 5,000 years ago, assumably somewhere in the lower Danube valley or around the Black Sea. In any case, this timeframe is far too recent for a Paleolithic origin or a Neolithic arrival of R1b. The discovery of what was thought to be “European lineages” in Central Asia, Pakistan, and India hit the final nail on the coffin of a Paleolithic origin of R1b in Western Europe, and confirmed the Indo-European link.” ref
“All the elements concur in favor of a large scale migration of Indo-European speakers (possibly riding on horses) to Western Europe between 2500 to 2100 BCE, contributing to the replacement of the Neolithic or Chalcolithic lifestyle by an inherently new Bronze Age culture, with simpler pottery, less farming, more herding, new rituals (single graves) and new values (patrilinear society, warrior heroes) that did not evolve from local predecessors.” ref
The Atlantic Celtic branch (L21) corresponding to haplogroup R1b
“The Proto-Italo-Celto-Germanic R1b people had reached in what is now Germany by 2500 BCE. By 2300 BCE they had arrived in large numbers and founded the Unetice culture. Judging from the propagation of bronze working to Western Europe, those first Indo-Europeans reached France and the Low Countries by 2200 BCE, Britain by 2100 BCE and Ireland by 2000 BCE, and Iberia by 1800 BCE. This first wave of R1b presumably carried R1b-L21 lineages in great number (perhaps because of a founder effect), as these are found everywhere in western, northern, and Central Europe. Cassidy et al. (2015) confirmed the presence of R1b-L21 (DF13 and DF21 subclades) in Ireland around 2000 BCE. Those genomes closely resembled those of the Unetice culture autosomally, but differed greatly from the earlier Neolithic Irish samples. This confirms that a direct migration of R1b-L21 from Central Europe was responsible for the introduction of the Bronze Age to Ireland.” ref
“The early split of L21 from the main Proto-Celtic branch around Germany would explain why the Q-Celtic languages (Goidelic and Hispano-Celtic) diverged so much from the P-Celtic branch (La Tène, Gaulish, Brythonic), which appears to have expanded from the later Urnfield and Hallstat cultures. Some L21 lineages from the Netherlands and northern Germany later entered Scandinavia (from 1700 BCE) with the dominant subclade of the region, R1b-S21/U106 (see below). The stronger presence of L21 in Norway and Iceland can be attributed to the Norwegian Vikings, who had colonized parts of Scotland and Ireland and taken slaves among the native Celtic populations, whom they brought to their new colony of Iceland and back to Norway. Nowadays about 20% of all Icelandic male lineages are R1b-L21 of Scottish or Irish origin.” ref
“In France, R1b-L21 is mainly present in historical Brittany (including Mayenne and Vendée) and in Lower Normandy. This region was repopulated by massive immigration of insular Britons in the 5th century due to pressure from the invading Anglo-Saxons. However, it is possible that L21 was present in Armorica since the Bronze age or the Iron age given that the tribes of the Armorican Confederation of ancient Gaul already had a distinct identity from the other Gauls and had maintained close ties with the British Isles at least since the Atlantic Bronze Age.” ref
The Gallic & Iberian branch (DF27/S250) corresponding to haplogroup R1b
“The first Proto-Celtic R1b lineages to reach France and the Iberian peninsula from Central Europe were probably L21 and DF27. Whereas L21 might have taken a northern route through Belgium and northern France on its way to the British Isles, DF27 seems to have spread all over France but heading in greater number toward the south.” ref
“The Bronze Age did not appear in Iberia until 1800 BCE, and was mostly confined to the cultures of El Argar and Los Millares in south-east Spain, with sporadic sites showing up in Castile by 1700 BCE and in Extremadura and southern Portugal by 1500 BCE. These Early Bronze Age sites typically did not have more than some bronze daggers or axes and cannot be considered proper Bronze Age societies, but rather Copper Age societies with occasional bronze artifacts (perhaps imported). These cultures might have been founded by small groups of R1b adventurers looking for easy conquests in parts of Europe that did not yet have bronze weapons. They would have become a small ruling elite, would have had children with local women, and within a few generations their Indo-European language would have been lost, absorbed by the indigenous languages (=> see How did the Basques become R1b?).” ref
“Martiniano et al. (2017) sequenced the genomes of various skeletons from West Iberia dating from the Middle and Late Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Middle Bronze Age (since the Early Bronze Age did not reach that region). They found that Neolithic and Chalcolithic individuals belonged to Y-haplogroups I*, I2a1, and G2a. In contrast, all three Bronze Age Portuguese men tested belonged to R1b (one M269 and two P312), although they carried Neolithic Iberian maternal lineages (H1, U5b3, X2b) and lacked any discernible Steppe admixture. This is concordant with a scenario of Indo-European R1b men entering Iberia from 1800 BCE as a small group of adventurers and taking local wives, thus diluting their DNA at each generation, until hardly any Steppe admixture was left after a few centuries, by the time they reached Portugal. Nowadays, Spaniards and Portuguese do possess about 25% of Steppe admixture, which means that other more important Indo-European migrations took place later on, during the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age.” ref
“Iberia did not become a fully-fledged Bronze Age society until the 13th century BCE, when the Urnfield culture (1300-1200 BCE) expanded from Germany to Catalonia via southern France, then the ensuing Hallstatt culture (1200-750 BCE) spread throughout most of the peninsula (especially the western half). This period belongs to the wider Atlantic Bronze Age (1300-700 BCE), when Iberia was connected to the rest of Western Europe through a complex trade network.” ref
“It is hard to say when exactly DF27 entered Iberia. Considering its overwhelming presence in the peninsula and in south-west France, it is likely that DF27 arrived early, during the 1800 to 1300 BCE period, and perhaps even earlier, if R1b adventurers penetrated the Bell Beaker culture, as they appear to have done all over Western Europe from 2300 BCE to 1800 BCE. The Atlantic Bronze Age could correspond to the period when DF27 radiated more evenly around Iberia and ended up, following Atlantic trade routes, all the way to the British Isles, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia.” ref
The Italo-Celtic branch (S28/U152/PF6570) corresponding to haplogroup R1b
“Furtwängler et al. (2020) analyzed 96 ancient genomes from Switzerland, Southern Germany, and the Alsace region in France, covering the Middle/Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age. They confirmed that R1b arrived in the region during the transitory Bell Beaker period (2800-1800 BCE). The vast majority of Bell Beaker R1b samples belonged to the U152 > L2 clade (11 out of 14; the other being P312 or L51).” ref
“Starting circa 1300 BCE, a new Bronze Age culture flourished around the Alps thanks to the abundance of metal in the region, and laid the foundation for the classical Celtic culture. It was actually the succession of three closely linked culture: the Urnfield culture, which would evolve into the Hallstatt culture (from 1200 BCE) and eventually into the La Tène culture (from 450 BCE). After the Unetice expansion to Western Europe between 2300 and 1800 BCE, the Urnfield/Hallstatt/La Tène period represents the second major R1b expansion that took place from Central Europe, pushing west to the Atlantic, north to Scandinavia, east to the Danubian valley, and eventually as far away as Greece, Anatolia, Ukraine and Russia, perhaps even until the Tarim basin in north-west China (=> see Tarim mummies.” ref
“R1b-U152 would have entered Italy in successive waves from the northern side of the Alps, starting in 1700 BCE with the establishment of the Terramare culture in the Po Valley. From 1200 BCE, a larger group of Hallstatt-derived tribes founded the Villanova culture (see below). This is probably the migration that brought the Italic-speaking tribes to Italy, who would have belonged mainly the Z56 clade of R1b-U152. During the Iron Age, the expansion of the La Tène culture from Switzerland is associated with the diffusion of the Z36 branch, which would generate the Belgae around modern Belgium and in the Rhineland, the Gauls in France, and the Cisalpine Celts in Italy.” ref
“Antonio et al. (2019) analysed the genomes of Iron Age Latins dating between 900 and 200 BCE, and the samples tested belonged primarily to haplogroup R1b-U152 (including the clades L2, Z56 and Z193), as well as one R1b-Z2103 and one R1b-Z2118. One common linguistic trait between Italic and Gaulish/Brythonic Celtic languages linked to the Hallstatt expansion is that they shifted the original IE *kw sound into *p.” ref
They are known to linguists as the P-Celtic branch (as opposed to Q-Celtic). It is thought that this change occurred due to the inability to pronounce the *kw sound by the pre-Indo-European population of Central Europe, Gaul, and Italy, who were speakers of Afro-Asiatic dialects that had evolved from Near-Eastern languages inherited from the Neolithic. The Etruscans, although later incomers from the eastern Mediterranean, also fit in this category. It has recently been acknowledged that Celtic languages borrowed part of their grammar from Afro-Asiatic languages.” ref
“This shift could have happened when the Proto-Italo-Celtic speakers moved from the steppes to the Danube basin and mixed with the population of Near-Eastern farmers belonging to haplogroups E1b1b, G2a, J, and T. However, such an early shift would not explain why Q-Celtic and Germanic languages did not undergo the same linguistic mutation. It is therefore more plausible that the shift happened after the Proto-Italo-Celts and Proto-Germanics had first expanded across all western and northern Europe. The S28/U152 connection to P-Celtic (and Italic) suggests that the shift took place around the Alps after 1800 BCE, but before the invasion of Italy by the Italic tribes circa 1200 BCE.” ref
“The expansion of the Urnfield/Hallstatt culture to Italy is evident in the form of the Villanovan culture (c. 1100-700 BCE), which shared striking resemblances with the Urnfield/Hallstatt sites of Bavaria and Upper Austria. The Villanova culture marks a clean break with the previous Terramare culture. Although both cultures practiced cremation, whereas Terramare people placed cremated remains in communal ossuaries like their Neolithic ancestors from the Near East, Villanovans used distinctive Urnfield-style double-cone shaped funerary urns, and elite graves containing jewelry, bronze armor and horse harness fittings were separated from ordinary graves, showing for the first time the development of a highly hierarchical society, so characteristic of Indo-European cultures.” ref
“Quintessential Indo-European decorations, such as swastikas, also make their appearance. Originally a Bronze-age culture, the Villanova culture introduced iron working to the Italian peninsula around the same time as it appeared in the Hallstatt culture, further reinforcing the link between the two cultures. In all likelihood, the propagation of the Villanova culture represents the Italic colonization of the Italian peninsula. The highest proportion of R1b-U152 is found precisely where the Villanovans were the more strongly established, around modern Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna. The Villanova culture was succeeded by the Etruscan civilisation, which displayed both signs of continuity with Villanova and new hybrid elements of West Asian origins, probably brought by Anatolian settlers (who would have belonged to a blend of haplogroups G2a, J2, and R1b-Z2103).” ref
The Germanic branch (S21/U106/M405) corresponding to haplogroup R1b
“The principal Proto-Germanic branch of the Indo-European family tree is R1b-S21 (a.k.a. U106 or M405). This haplogroup is found at high concentrations in the Netherlands and north-west Germany. It is likely that R1b-S21 lineages expanded in this region through a founder effect during the Unetice period, then penetrated into Scandinavia around 1700 BCE (probably alongside R1a-L664), thus creating a new culture, that of the Nordic Bronze Age (1700-500 BCE). R1b-S21 would then have blended for more than a millennium with preexisting Scandinavian populations, represented by haplogroups I1, I2-L801, R1a-Z284. When the Germanic Iron Age started c. 500 BCE, the Scandinavian population had developed a truly Germanic culture and language, but was divided in many tribes with varying levels of each haplogroup. R1b-S21 became the dominant haplogroup among the West Germanic tribes, but remained in the minority against I1 and R1a in East Germanic and Nordic tribes, including those originating from Sweden such as the Goths, the Vandals, and Lombards.” ref
“The presence of R1b-S21 in other parts of Europe can be attributed almost exclusively to the Germanic migrations that took place between the 3rd and the 10th century. The Frisians and Anglo-Saxons disseminated this haplogroup to England and the Scottish Lowlands, the Franks to Belgium and France, the Burgundians to eastern France, the Suebi to Galicia, and northern Portugal, and the Lombards to Austria and Italy. The Goths help propagate S21 around Eastern Europe, but apparently their Germanic lineages were progressively diluted by blending with Slavic and Balkanic populations, and their impact in Italy, France, and Spain was very minor. Later the Danish and Norwegian Vikings have also contributed to the diffusion of R1b-S21 (alongside I1, I2b1, and R1a) around much of Western Europe, but mainly in Iceland, in the British Isles, in Normandy, and in the southern Italy.” ref
“From the Late Middle Ages until the early 20th century, the Germans expanded across much of modern Poland, pushing as far as Latvia to the north-east and Romania to the south-east. During the same period the Austrians built an empire comprising what is now the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and parts of Romania, western Ukraine, and southern Poland. Many centuries of German and Austrian influence in central and Eastern Europe resulted in a small percentage of Germanic lineages being found among modern populations. In Romania 4% of the population still consider themselves German. The low percentage of R1b-S21 in Finland, Estonia, and Latvia can be attributed to the Swedish or Danish rule from the late Middle Ages to the late 19th century.” ref
“O’Sullivan et al. (2018) tested the genomes of Merovingian nobles from an early Medieval Alemannic graveyard in Baden-Württemberg. Apart from one individual belonging to haplogroup G2a2b1, all men were members of R1b, and all samples that yielded deep clade results fell under the R1b-U106 > Z381 > Z301 > L48 > Z9 > Z325 clade. The lineage of the Kings of France was inferred from the Y-DNA of several descendant branches (see famous members below) and also belongs to R1b-U106 > Z381. Their earliest-known male-line ancestor was from Robert II, Count of Hesbaye, a Frankish nobleman from present-day Belgium. The House of Wettin (see famous members below), one of the oldest dynasties in Europe, which ruled over many states at various times in history, was yet another well-known noble Germanic lineage part of R1b-U106 > Z381.” ref
How did R1b come to replace most of the older lineages in Western Europe?
“Until recently it was believed that R1b originated in Western Europe due to its strong presence in the region today. The theory was that R1b represented the Paleolithic Europeans (Cro-Magnon) that had sought refuge in the Franco-Cantabrian region at the peak of the last Ice Age, then recolonised Central and Northern Europe once the ice sheet receded. The phylogeny of R1b proved that this scenario was not possible, because older R1b clades were consistently found in Central Asia and the Middle East, and the youngest in Western and Northern Europe. There was a clear gradient from East to West tracing the migration of R1b people (see map above). This age of the main migration from the shores of the Black Sea to Central Europe also happened to match the timeframe of the Indo-European invasion of Europe, which coincides with the introduction of the Bronze-Age culture in Western Europe, and the proliferation of Italo-Celtic and Germanic languages.” ref
“Historians and archeologists have long argued whether the Indo-European migration was a massive invasion, or rather a cultural diffusion of language and technology spread only by a small number of incomers. The answer could well be “neither”. Proponents of the diffusion theory would have us think that R1b is native to Western Europe, and R1a alone represents the Indo-Europeans. The problem is that haplogroup R did arise in Central Asia, and R2 is still restricted to Central and South Asia, while R1a and the older subclades of R1b are also found in Central Asia. The age of R1b subclades in Europe coincides with the Bronze-Age. R1b must consequently have replaced most of the native Y-DNA lineages in Europe from the Bronze-Age onwards.” ref
“However, a massive migration and nearly complete annihilation of the Paleolithic population can hardly be envisaged. Western Europeans do look quite different in Ireland, Holland, Aquitaine, or Portugal, despite being all regions where R1b is dominant. Autosomal DNA studies have confirmed that the Western European population is far from homogeneous. A lot of maternal lineages (mtDNA) also appear to be of Paleolithic origin (e.g. H1, H3, U5, or V) based on ancient DNA tests. What a lot of people forget is that there is also no need of a large-scale exodus for patrilineal lineages to be replaced fairly quickly. Here is why.” ref
- “Polygamy. Unlike women, men are not limited in the number of children they can procreate. Men with power typically have more children. This was all the truer in primitive societies, where polygamy was often the norm for chieftains and kings.
- Status & Power. Equipped with Bronze weapons and horses, the Indo-Europeans would have easily subjugated the Neolithic farmers and with even greater ease Europe’s last hunter-gatherers. If they did not exterminate the indigenous men, the newcomers would have become the new ruling class, with a multitude of local kings, chieftains, and noblemen (Bronze-Age Celts and Germans lived in small village communities with a chief, each part of a small tribe headed by a king) with higher reproductive opportunities than average.
- Gender imbalance. Invading armies normally have far more men than women. Men must therefore find women in the conquered population. Wars are waged by men, and the losers suffer heavier casualties, leaving more women available to the winners.
- Aggressive warfare. The Indo-Europeans were a warlike people with a strong heroic code emphasizing courage and military prowess. Their superior technology (metal weapons, wheeled vehicles drawn by horses) and attitude to life would have allowed them to slaughter any population that did not have organized armies with metal weapons (i.e. anybody except the Middle-Eastern civilizations).
- Genetic predisposition to conceive boys. The main role of the Y-chromosome in man’s body is to create sperm. Haplogroups are determined based on mutations differentiating Y-chromosomes. Each mutation is liable to affect sperm production and sperm motility. Preliminary research has already established a link between certain haplogroups and increased or reduced sperm motility. The higher the motility, the higher the chances of conceiving a boy. It is absolutely possible that R1b could confer a bias toward more male offspring. Even a slightly higher percentage of male births would significantly contribute to the replacement of other lineages with the accumulation effect building up over a few millennia. Not all R1b subclades might have this boy bias. The bias only exist in relation to other haplogroups found in a same population. It is very possible that the fairly recent R1b subclades of Western Europe had a significant advantage compared to the older haplogroups in that region, notably haplogroup I2 and E-V13. Read more” ref
“Replacement of patrilineal lineages following this model quickly becomes exponential. Imagine 100 Indo-European men conquering a tribe of 1000 indigenous Europeans (a ratio of 1:10). War casualties have resulted in a higher proportion of women in the conquered population. Let’s say that the surviving population is composed of 700 women and 300 men. Let’s suppose that the victorious Indo-European men end up having twice as many children reaching adulthood as the men of the vanquished tribe. There is a number of reason for that. The winners would take more wives, or take concubines, or even rape women of the vanquished tribe. Their higher status would guarantee them greater wealth and therefore better nutrition for their offspring, increasing the chances of reaching adulthood and procreating themselves.” ref
“An offspring ratio of 2 to 1 for men is actually a conservative estimate, as it is totally conceivable that Bronze-Age sensibilities would have resulted in killing most of the men on the losing side, and raping their women (as attested by the Old Testament). Even so, it would only take a few generations for the winning Y-DNA lineages to become the majority. For instance, if the first generation of Indo-Europeans had two surviving sons per man, against only one per indigenous man, the number of Indo-European paternal lineages would pass to 200 individuals at the second generation, 400 at the third, 800 at the fourth, and 1600 at the fifth, and so on. During that time indigenous lineages would only stagnate at 300 individuals for each generation.” ref
“Based on such a scenario, the R1b lineages would have quickly overwhelmed the local lineages. Even if the Indo-European conquerors had only slightly more children than the local men, R1b lineages would become dominant within a few centuries. Celtic culture lasted for over 1000 years in Continental Europe before the Roman conquest putting an end to the privileges of the chieftains and nobility. This is more than enough time for R1b lineages to reach 50 to 80% of the population.” ref
“The present-day R1b frequency forms a gradient from the Atlantic fringe of Europe (highest percentage) to Central and Eastern Europe (lowest), the rises again in the Anatolian homeland. This is almost certainly because agriculture was better established in Eastern, then Central Europe, with higher densities of population, leaving R1b invaders more outnumbered than in the West. Besides, other Indo-Europeans of the Corded Ware culture (R1a) had already advanced from modern Russia and Ukraine as far west as Germany and Scandinavia. It would be difficult for R1b people to rival with their R1a cousins who shared similar technology and culture. The Pre-Celto-Germanic R1b would therefore have been forced to settled further west, first around the Alps, then overtaking the then sparsely populated Western Europe.” ref
The Balkanic and Asian branch (Z2103) corresponding to haplogroup R1b
“Haak et al. (2015) tested six Y-DNA samples from the eastern reaches of Yamna culture, in the Volga-Ural region, and all of them turned out to belong to haplogroup R1b. Four of them were positive for the Z2103 mutation. IN all likelihood, R1b-Z2103 was a major lineage of the Poltavka culture, which succeeded to the Yamna culture between the Volga River and the Ural mountains. It eventually merged with the Abashevo culture (presumably belonging chiefly to R1a-Z93) to form the Sintashta culture. Through a founder effect or through political domination, R1a-Z93 lineages would have outnumbered R1b-Z2103 after the expansion to Central and South Asia, although important pockets of Z2103 survived, notably in Bashkorostan, Turkmenistan, and Uyghurstan (Chinese Turkestan).” ref
“R1b-Z2103 would have become an Indo-Iranian lineage like R1a-Z93. This is true of two Z2103 subclades in particular: L277.1 and L584. The former is found in Russia to Central Asia then to India and the Middle East, just like the R1a-L657 subclade of Z93. It can be associated with the Andronovo culture and Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex, as well as the Indo-Aryan migrations. R1b-L584 is found especially in Iran, northern Iraq, the South Caucasus, and Turkey, and correlates more with the Iranian branch of Indo-Europeans, which includes Persians, Kurds, and Scythians.” ref
Anatolian branch corresponding to haplogroup R1b
“The Hittites (c. 2000-1178 BCE) were the first Indo-Europeans to defy (and defeat) the mighty Mesopotamian and Egyptian empires. There are two hypotheses regarding the origins of the Hittites. The first is that they came from the eastern Balkans and invaded Anatolia by crossing the Bosphorus. That would mean that they belonged either to the L23* or the Z2103 subclade. The other plausible scenario is that they were an offshoot of the late Maykop culture, and that they crossed the Caucasus to conquer the Hattian kingdom (perhaps after being displaced from the North Caucasus by the R1a people of the Catacomb culture). In that case, the Hittites might have belonged to the R1b-Z2103 or the R1b-PF7562 subclade. The first hypothesis has the advantage of having a single nucleus, the Balkans, as the post-Yamna expansion of all Indo-European R1b. The Maykop hypothesis, on the other hand, would explain why the Anatolian branch of IE languages (Hittite, Luwian, Lydian, Palaic) is so archaic compared to other Indo-European languages, which would have originated in Yamna rather than Maykop.” ref
“There is substantial archaeological and linguistic evidence that Troy was an Indo-European city associated with the Steppe culture and haplogroup R1b. The Trojans were Luwian speakers related to the Hittites (hence Indo-European), with attested cultural ties to the culture of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. The first city of Troy dates back to 3000 BCE, right in the middle of the Maykop period. Troy might have been founded by Maykop people as a colony securing the trade routes between the Black Sea and the Aegean. The founding of Troy happens to coincide exactly with the time the first galleys were made. Considering the early foundation of Troy, the most likely of the two Indo-European paternal haplogroups would be R1b-M269 or L23.” ref
“The Phrygians and the Proto-Armenians are two other Indo-European tribes stemming from the Balkans. Both appear to have migrated to Anatolia around 1200 BCE, during the ‘great upheavals’ of the Eastern Mediterranean (see below). The Phrygians (or Bryges) founded a kingdom (1200-700 BCE) in west central Anatolia, taking over most of the crumbling Hittite Empire. The Armenians crossed all Anatolia until Lake Van and settled in the Armenian Highlands. Nowadays 30% of Armenian belong to haplogroup R1b, the vast majority to the L584 subclade of Z2103 (=> see The Indo-European migrations to Armenia).” ref
“Most of the R1b found in Greece today is of the Balkanic Z2103 variety. There is also a minority of Proto-Celtic S116/P312 and of Italic/Alpine Celtic S28/U152. Z2103 could have descended from Albania or Macedonia during the Dorian invasion (see below), thought to have happened in the 12th century BCE. Their language appears to have been close enough to Mycenaean Greek to be mutually intelligible and easy for locals to adopt. The Mycenaeans might have brought some R1b (probably also Z2103) to Greece, but their origins can be traced back through archaeology to the Catacomb culture and the Seima-Turbino phenomenon of the northern forest-steppe, which would make them primarily an R1a tribe.” ref
“Greek and Anatolian S116 and some S28 lineages could be attributed to the La Tène Celtic invasions of the 3rd century BCE. The Romans also certainly brought S28 lineages (=> see Genetics of the Italian people), and probably also the Venetians later on, notably on the islands. Older clades of R1b, such as P25 and V88, are only a small minority and would have come along E1b1b, G2a, and J2 from the Middle East.” ref
The great upheavals circa 1200 BCE corresponding to haplogroup R1b
“1200 BCE was a turning point in European and Near-Eastern history. In Central Europe, the Urnfield culture evolved into the Hallstatt culture, traditionally associated with the classical Celtic civilization, which was to have a crucial influence on the development of ancient Rome. In the Pontic Steppe, the Srubna culture make way to the Cimmerians, a nomadic people speaking an Iranian or Thracian language. The Iron-age Colchian culture (1200-600 BCE) starts in the North Caucasus region. Its further expansion to the south of the Caucasus corresponds to the first historical mentions of the Proto-Armenian branch of Indo-European languages (circa 1200 BCE). In the central Levant the Phoenicians start establishing themselves as significant maritime powers and building their commercial empire around the southern Mediterranean.” ref
“But the most important event of the period was incontestably the destruction of the Near-Eastern civilizations, possibly by the Sea Peoples. The great catastrophe that ravaged the whole Eastern Mediterranean from Greece to Egypt circa 1200 BCE is a subject that remains controversial. The identity of the Sea Peoples has been the object of numerous speculations. What is certain is that all the palace-based societies in the Near-East were abruptly brought to an end by tremendous acts of destruction, pillage, and razing of cities. The most common explanation is that the region was invaded by technologically advanced warriors from the north. They could have been either Indo-Europeans descended from the Steppe via the Balkans, or Caucasian people (G2a, J1, J2a, T1a) linked with the expansion of the earlier Kura-Araxes culture to eastern Anatolia and the Levant.” ref
“The Hittite capital Hattusa was destroyed in 1200 BCE, and by 1160 BCE the empire had collapsed, probably under the pressure of the Phrygians and the Armenians coming from the Balkans. The Mycenaean cities were ravaged and abandoned throughout the 12th century BCE, leading to the eventual collapse of Mycenaean civilization by 1100 BCE. The kingdom of Ugarit in Syria was annihilated and its capital never resettled. Other cities in the Levant, Cyprus, and Crete were burned and left abandoned for many generations. The Egyptians had to repel assaults from the Philistines from the East and the Libyans from the West – two tribes of supposed Indo-European origin. The Lybians were accompanied by mercenaries from northern lands (the Ekwesh, Teresh, Lukka, Sherden, and Shekelesh), whose origin is uncertain, but has been placed in Anatolia, Greece, and/or southern Italy.” ref
“The devastation of Greece followed the legendary Trojan War (1194-1187 BCE). It has been postulated that the Dorians, an Indo-European people from the Balkans (probably coming from modern Bulgaria or Macedonia), invaded a weakened Mycenaean Greece after the Trojan War, and finally settled in Greece as one of the three major ethnic groups. The Dorian regions of classical Greece, where Doric dialects were spoken, were essentially the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete, and Rhodes, which is also the part of Greece with the highest percentage of R1b-Z2103.” ref
“Another hypothesis is that the migration of the Illyrians from north-east Europe to the Balkans displaced previous Indo-European tribes, namely the Dorians to Greece, the Phrygians to north-western Anatolia, and the Libu to Libya (after a failed attempt to conquer the Nile Delta in Egypt). The Philistines, perhaps displaced from Anatolia, finally settled in Palestine around 1200 BCE, unable to enter Egypt.” ref
Other migrations of R1b
“Other migrations occurred from Europe to the Near East and Central Asia during the Antiquity and Middle Ages. R1b-S28 (U152) was found in Romania, Turkey, northern Bashkortostan (a staggering 71.5% of the local population according to Myres et al.), and at the border of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Some of it was surely brought by the La Tène Celts, known to have advanced along the Danube, and created the Galatian kingdom in central Anatolia. The rest could just as well be Roman, given that R1b-S28 is the dominant form of R1b in the Italian peninsula.” ref
“Some have hypothesized that some “lost” Roman legions went as far as Central Asia or China and never came back, marrying local women and leaving their genetic marker in isolated pockets in Asia. A more prosaic version is that Roman merchants ended up in China via the Silk Road, which existed since the 2nd century BCE. A small percentage of Western European R1b subclades were also found among Christian communities in Lebanon. They are most likely descendants of the crusaders.” ref
The lactase persistence allele and R1b cattle pastoralists
“Lactose (milk sugar) is an essential component of breast milk consumed by infants. Its digestion is made possible by an enzyme, called lactase, which breaks down lactose in simple sugars that can be absorbed through the intestinal walls and into the bloodstream. In most mammals (humans included), the production of the lactase enzyme is dramatically reduced soon after weaning. As a result, older children and adults become lactose intolerant. That is true of a big part of the world population. Some people possess a genetic mutation that allows the production of lactase through adulthood. This is called lactase persistence (LP). Lactase persistence is particularly common among Northwest Europeans, descended from the ancient Celtic and Germanic people, and in parts of Africa where cattle herding has been practiced for thousands of years. The highest incidence for the lactase persistence alleles, known to geneticists as -13,910*T (rs4988235) and -22018*A (rs182549), are found among Scandinavian, Dutch, British, Irish, and Basque people. Sub-Saharan populations with lactase persistence have different mutations, such as -14010*C, -13915*G, and -13907*G.” ref
“R1b men are thought to be the first people on earth to successfully domesticate cattle and to develop a lifestyle based on cattle husbandry and herding during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (see Neolithic section). Looking for pasture for their cows, R1b tribes migrated from the Near East to the savannah of North Africa (which has since underwent desertification and become the Sahara) and to the Pontic Steppe in southern Russia and Ukraine. For several millennia no other human population was so dependent on cattle for their survival as these R1b tribes.” ref
“It is known that most Neolithic herding societies consumed at least some animal milk and even made cheese from it (since cheese contains less lactose and is easier to digest for people who are lactose intolerant). In most of Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia, people essentially herded goats and sheep, better suited to mountainous environment of the Mediterranean basin, Anatolia, and Iran. Goats and sheep could also be kept easily inside villages by sedentary cereal cultivators, while cows needed vast pastures for grazing, which were particularly scarce in the Middle East. Domesticated cattle were sometimes found in small number among other Neolithic populations, but the ones that relied almost entirely on them were the R1b tribes of the Pontic Steppe and North Africa. To this very day, semi-nomadic pastoralists in the Sahel, such as the Fulani and the Hausa, who are descended from Neolithic R1b-V88 migrants from the Near East, still maintain primarily herds of cattle. It is among these cattle herders that selective pressure for lactase persistence would have been the strongest.” ref
“There has been speculations among geneticists and evolutionary biologists regarding the origin of the lactase persistence allele in Europeans. Over 100 ancient DNA samples have been tested from Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age Europe and Syria, and the -13910*T allele has been found only in Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic and Bronze Age individuals. The origin of the mutation does not really matter, since it could have been present at low frequencies in the human gene pool for tens of thousands of years before it underwent postive selective pressure among cattle-herding societies. What is certain is that individuals from Bronze Age cultures associated with the arrival of Indo-European speakers from the Pontic Steppe already possessed relatively high percentages of the LP allele. For example, the LP allele was found at a frequency of 27% (see Schilz 2006) among the 13 individuals from the Lichtenstein Cave in Germany, who belonged to the Urnfield culture, and were a mix of Y-haplogroups R1b, R1a, and I2a2b.” ref
“Nowadays, the LP allele is roughly proportional to the percentage of R1b, and to a lower extent R1a, found in a population. In the British Isles, the Low Countries and south-west Scandinavia, where LP is the highest in the world, the combined percentage of R1a and R1b exceeds 70% of the population. In Iberia, the highest percentage of LP is observed among the Basques, who have the highest percentage of R1b. In Italy, LP is most common in the north, like R1b. The lowest incidence of LP in Europe are found in South Italy, Greece, and the Balkans, the regions that have the least R1b lineages.” ref
“Tishkoff et al. (2017) confirmed that the Hausa and the Fulani, two Sahel tribes with high incidence of R1b-V88, possessed the same LP allele as Europeans, but that East African pastoralist populations with a high prevalence of the lactase persistence trait possess a completely different mutation, which arose independently. This finding is the strongest evidence so far that the -13,910*T allele originated with the first R1b cattle herders in the Near East, who are the ancestors of both the Indo-Europeans and of African R1b-V88 tribes.” ref
R1 populations spread genes for light skin, blond hair, and red hair
“There is now strong evidence that both R1a and R1b people contributed to the diffusion of the A111T mutation of the SLC24A5, which explains approximately 35% of skin tone difference between Europeans and Africans, and most variations within South Asia. The distribution pattern of the A111T allele (rs1426654) of matches almost perfectly the spread of Indo-European R1a and R1b lineages around Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia. The mutation was probably passed on in the Early neolithic to other Near Eastern populations, which explains why Neolithic farmers in Europe already carried the A111T allele (e.g. Keller 2012 p.4, Lazaridis 2014 suppl. 7), although at lower frequency than modern Europeans and southern Central Asians.” ref
“The light skin allele is also found at a range of 15 to 30% in various ethnic groups in northern sub-Saharan Africa, mostly in the Sahel and savannah zones inhabited by tribes of R1b-V88 cattle herders like the Fulani and the Hausa. This would presuppose that the A111T allele was already present among all R1b people before the Pre-Pottery Neolithic split between V88 and P297. R1a populations have an equally high incidence of this allele as R1b populations. On the other hand, the A111T mutation was absent from the 24,000-year-old R* sample from Siberia, and is absent from most modern R2 populations in Southeast India and Southeast Asia.” ref
“Consequently, it can be safely assumed that the mutation arose among the R1* lineage during the late Upper Paleolithic, probably some time between 20,000 and 13,000 years ago. Fair hair was another physical trait associated with the Indo-Europeans. In contrast, the genes for blue eyes were already present among Mesolithic Europeans belonging to Y-haplogroup I. The genes for blond hair are more strongly correlated with the distribution of haplogroup R1a, but those for red hair have not been found in Europe before the Bronze Age, and appear to have been spread primarily by R1b people (=> see The origins of red hair).” ref
What were the original mtDNA lineages of Neolithic R1b tribes in the Near East?
“R1b tribes are thought to have domesticated cattle in that region 10,500 years ago, yet only moved across the Caucasus some time between 7,500 and 6,500 years ago. For three or four millennia, semi-nomadic R1b herders were bound to have intermingled with some of the Near Eastern or Caucasian neighbors. One way of determining what mt-haplogroups R1b tribes carried at the very beginning of the Neolithic, is to compare the above haplogroups with those of African ethnic groups known to possess elevated percentages of R1b-V88. The best studied group are the Fulani, whose mtDNA includes three European-looking haplogroups H, J1b1a, U5, and V making up about 15% of their total maternal lineages.” ref
“These haplogroups have been identified in all four Central African countries sampled, confirming a strong correlation with haplogroup R1b. However, their H, V, and U5 could have come from the Berbers of Northwest Africa. The Berbers also carry R1b-V88, but it’s possible that some of it came from different Neolithic migrations, including a re-expansion from Iberia, as Berbers carry H1, H3, V1a1a, V5, and U5b1b1, lineages that are all found in the Iberian peninsula. U5b1b1 descends from Mesolithic West Europeans, but at present, it is not yet clear how the other haplogroups reached Iberia or Northwest Africa. One hypothesis is that they came from the Near East during the Neolithic, perhaps with R1b-V88 tribes.” ref
“African R1b-V88 and Eurasian haplogroup R1b-P297 split roughly 10,000 years ago, almost certainly in Eastern Europe, where they carried mostly mt-haplogroup U5. Toward the end of the last glaciation, some R1b men would have migrated from Eastern Europe to the region of modern Kurdistan accompanied by women belonging to mtDNA U5. Soon after they arrived J1b1a (and maybe V) would have been the first indigenous Near Eastern lineages assimilated by R1b tribes. R1b-V88 might have assimilated H1 and H3 women in the Levant before moving to North Africa, but that remains highly hypothetical.” ref
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Proto-Indo-European society
“Proto-Indo-European society is the reconstructed culture of Proto-Indo-Europeans, the ancient speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, ancestor of all modern Indo-European languages. Archaeologist David W. Anthony and linguist Donald Ringe distinguish three different cultural stages in the evolution of the Proto-Indo-European language:
- Early (4500–4000 BCE), the common ancestor of all attested Indo-European languages, before the Anatolian split (Cernavodă culture; 4000 BCE); associated with the early Khvalynsk culture,
- Classic, or “post-Anatolian” (4000–3500 BCE), the last common ancestor of the non-Anatolian languages, including Tocharian; associated with the late Khvalynsk and Repin cultures,
- Late (3500–2500 BCE), in its dialectal period due to the spread of the Yamnaya horizon over a large area.” ref
Early Khvalynsk (4900–3900) and Proto-Indo-European society
“Domesticated cattle were introduced around 4700 BCE from the Danube valley to the Volga–Ural steppes where the Early Khvalynsk culture (4900–3900 BCE) had emerged, associated by Anthony with the Early Proto-Indo-European language. Cattle and sheep were more important in ritual sacrifices than in diet, suggesting that a new set of cults and rituals had spread eastward across the Pontic-Caspian steppes, with domesticated animals at the root of the Proto-Indo-European conception of the universe. Anthony attributes the first and progressive domestication of horses, from taming to actually working with the animal, to this period. Between 4500–4200 BCE, copper, exotic ornamental shells, and polished stone maces were exchanged across the Pontic–Caspian steppes from Varna, in the eastern Balkans, to Khvalynsk, near the Volga river. Around 4500, a minority of richly decorated single graves, partly enriched by imported copper items, began to appear in the steppes, contrasting with the remaining outfitted graves.” ref
“The Anatolian distinctive sub-family may have emerged from a first wave of Indo-European migration into southeastern Europe around 4200–4000 BCE, coinciding with the Suvorovo–to–Cernavoda I migration, in the context of a progression of the Khvalynsk culture westwards towards the Danube area, from which had also emerged the Novodanilovka (4400–3800) and Late Sredny Stog (4000–3500 BCE) cultures.” ref
Late Khvalynsk/Repin (3900–3300) and Proto-Indo-European society
“Steppe economies underwent a revolutionary change between 4200 to 3300 BCE, in a shift from a partial reliance on herding, when domesticated animals were probably used principally as a ritual currency for public sacrifices, to a later regular dietary dependence on cattle, and either sheep or goat meat and dairy products. The Late Khvalynsk and Repin cultures (3900–3300 BCE), associated with the classic (post-Anatolian) Proto-Indo-European language, showed the first traces of cereal cultivation after 4000 BCE, in the context of a slow and partial diffusion of farming from the western parts of the steppes to the east. Around 3700–3300 BCE, a second migration wave of proto-Tocharian speakers towards South Siberia led to the emergence of the Afanasievo culture (3300–2500 BCE).” ref
“The spoke-less wheeled wagon was introduced to the Pontic-Caspian steppe around 3500 BCE from the neighboring North Caucasian Maykop culture (3700–3000 BCE), with which Proto-Indo-Europeans traded wool and horses. Interactions with the hierarchical Maykop culture, itself influenced by the Mesopotamian Uruk culture, had notable social effects on the Proto-Indo-European way of life. Meanwhile, the Khvalynsk-influenced cultures that had emerged in the Danube-Donets region after the first migration gave way to the Cernavodă (4000–3200 BCE), Usatovo (3500–2500 BCE), Mikhaylovka (3600–3000 BCE) and Kemi Oba (3700—2200 BCE) cultures, from west to east respectively.” ref
Yamnaya period (3300–2600) and Proto-Indo-European society
“The Yamnaya horizon, associated with the Late Proto-Indo-European language (following both the Anatolian and Tocharian splits), originated in the Don–Volga region before spreading westwards after 3300 BCE, establishing a cultural horizon founded on kurgan funerals that stretched over a vast steppe area between the Dnieper and Volga rivers. It was initially a herding-based society, with limited crop cultivation in the eastern part of the steppes, while the Dnieper–Donets region was more influenced by the agricultural Tripolye culture. Paleolinguistics likewise postulates Proto-Indo-European speakers as a semi-nomadic and pastoral population with subsidiary agriculture.” ref
“Bronze was introduced to the Pontic-Caspian steppes during this period. Following the Yamnaya expansion, long-distance trade in metals and other valuables, such as salt in the hinterlands, probably brought prestige and power to Proto-Indo-European societies. However, the native tradition of pottery making was weakly developed. The Yamnaya funeral sacrifice of wagons, carts, sheep, cattle, and horses was likely related to a cult of ancestors requiring specific rituals and prayers, a connection between language and cult that introduced the Late Proto-Indo-European language to new speakers. Yamnaya chiefdoms had institutionalized differences in prestige and power, and their society was organized along patron-client reciprocity, a mutual exchange of gifts and favors between their patrons, the gods, and human clients. The average life expectancy was fairly high, with many individuals living to 50–60 years old. The language itself appeared as a dialect continuum during this period, meaning that neighboring dialects differed only slightly between each other, whereas distant language varieties were probably no longer mutually intelligible due to accumulated divergences over space and time.” ref
“As the steppe became dryer and colder between 3500–3000 BCE, herds needed to be moved more frequently in order to feed them sufficiently. Yamnaya distinctive identity was thus founded on mobile pastoralism, permitted by two earlier innovations: the introduction of the wheeled wagon and the domestication of the horse. Yamnaya herders likely watched over their cattle and raided on horseback, while they drove wagons for the bulk transport of water or food. Light-framework dwellings could be easily assembled and disassembled to be transported on pack animals.” ref
“Another climate change that occurred after around 3000 BCE led to a more favorable environment allowing for grassland productivity. Yamnaya new pastoral economy then experienced a third wave of rapid demographic expansion, that time towards Central and Northern Europe. Migrations of Usatovo people towards southeastern Poland, crossing through the Old European Tripolye culture from around 3300 BCE, followed by Yamnya migrations towards the Pannonian Basin between 3100–2800 BCE, are interpreted by some scholars as movements of pre-Italic, pre-Celtic and pre-Germanic speakers.” ref
“The Proto-Indo-European language probably ceased to be spoken after 2500 BCE as its various dialects had already evolved into non-mutually intelligible languages that began to spread across most of western Eurasia during the third wave of Indo-European migrations (3300–1500 BCE). Indo-Iranian languages were introduced to Central Asia, present-day Iran, and South Asia after 2000 BCE.” ref
Class Structure and Proto-Indo-European society
“It is generally agreed that Proto-Indo-European society was hierarchical, with some form of social ranking and various degrees of social status. It is unlikely however that they had a rigidly stratified structure, or castes such as are found in historical India. There was a general distinction between free persons and slaves, typically prisoners of war or debtors unable to repay a debt. The free part of society was composed of an elite class of priests, kings, and warriors, along with the commoners, with each tribe following a chief (*wiḱpots) sponsoring feasts and ceremonies, and immortalized in praise poetry.” ref
“The presence of kurgan graves prominently decorated with dress, body ornaments, and weaponry, along with well-attested roots for concepts such as “wealth” (*h₂ép-), “to be in need” (*h₁eg-) or “servant” (*h₂entbʰi-kʷolos, “one who moves about on both sides”; and *h₂upo-sth₂-i/o-, “one standing below”), indicate that a hierarchy of wealth and poverty was recognized. Some graves, larger than the average and necessitating a considerable number of people to be built, likewise suggest a higher status given to some individuals. These prestigious funerals were not necessarily reserved to the wealthiest person. Smiths in particular were given sumptuous graves, possibly due to the association of smithery with magic during the early Bronze Age. In general, such graves were mostly occupied by males in the eastern Don-Volga steppes, while they were more egalitarian in the western Dnieper-Donets region.” ref
Kinship and Proto-Indo-European society
“Linguistics has allowed for the reliable reconstruction of a large number of words relating to kinship relations. These all agree in exhibiting a patriarchal, patrilocal and patrilineal social fabric. Patrilocality is confirmed by lexical evidence, including the word *h₂u̯edh-, ‘to lead (away)’, being the word that denotes a male wedding a female. Rights, possessions, and responsibilities were consequently reckoned to the father, and wives were to reside after marriage near the husband’s family, after the payment of a bride-price.” ref
“The household (*domos) was generally ruled by the senior male of the family, the *dems-potis (‘master of the household’), and could also consist of his children, grandchildren, and perhaps unrelated slaves or servants. His wife probably also played a complementary role: some evidence suggest that she would have kept her position as the mistress (*pot-n-ih₂) of the household in the event her husband dies, while the eldest son would have become the new master. The Proto-Indo-European expansionist kinship system was likely supported by both marital exogamy (the inclusion of foreign women through marriage) and the exchange of foster children with other families and clans, as suggested by genetic evidence and later attestations from Indo-European-speaking groups.” ref
“Once established, the family lasted as long as the male stock of its founder endured, and clan or tribal founders were often portrayed as mythical beings stemming from a legendary past in Indo-European traditions. In this form of kinship organization, the individual’s genetic distance from the clan’s founding ancestor determined his social status. But if he was of exceptional prowess or virtue, the same individual could in his turn gain social prestige among the community and eventually found his own descent-group.” ref
“In the reconstructed lexicon linking the individual to the clan, *h₂erós means a ‘member of one’s own group’, ‘one who belongs to the community’ (in contrast to an outsider). It gave way to the Indo-Iranian *árya (an endonym), and probably to the Celtic *aryos (‘noble, freeman’), the Hittite arā- (‘peer, companion’), and the Germanic *arjaz (‘noble, distinguished’). It is unlikely however that the term had an ethnic connotation, and we do not know if Proto-Indo-European speakers had a term to designate themselves as a group. Another word, *h₁leudhos, means ‘people’, ‘freemen’ in a more general way.” ref
Patron-client and Proto-Indo-European society
“Proto-Indo-European had several words for ‘leader’: *tagós was a general term derived from *tā̆g- (‘set in place, arrange’); *h₃rḗǵs meant a ruler who also had religious functions, with the Roman rex sacrorum (‘king of the sacred’) as a heritage of the priestly function of the king; *w(n̩)nákts designated a ‘lord’ and possessed a feminine equivalent, *wnáktih₂ (a ‘queen’); while the *wiḱpots (or *wiḱ-potis) was the chief of the settlement (*weiḱs), the seat of a tribe, clan or family.” ref
“Public feasts sponsored by such patrons were a way for them to promote and secure a political hierarchy built on the unequal mobilization of labor and resources, by displaying their generosity towards the rest of the community. Rivals competed publicly through the size and complexity of their feasts, and alliances were confirmed by gift-giving and promises made during those public gatherings. The host of the feast was called the *ghosti-potis, the ‘lord of the guests’, who honored the immortal gods and his mortal guests with gifts of food, drink, and poetry.” ref
Guest-Host and Proto-Indo-European society
“Vertical social inequalities were partly balanced by horizontal mutual obligations of hospitality between guests and hosts. According to Anthony, the domestication of horses and the introduction of the wagon in the Pontic-Caspian steppe between 4500 to 3500 BCE led to an increase in mobility across the Yamnaya horizon, and eventually to the emergence of a guest-host political structure. As various herding clans began to move across the steppes, especially during harsh seasons, it became necessary to regulate local migrations on the territories of tribes that had likely restricted these obligations to their kins or co-residents (*h₂erós) until then. In Proto-Indo-European, the term *ghós-ti-, whose original meaning must have been “table companion”, could either mean a host or a guest. The connotation of an obligatory reciprocity between both guests and hosts has persisted in descendant cognates, such as Latin hospēs (“foreigner, guest; host”), Old English ġiest (“stranger, guest”), or Old Church Slavonic gostĭ (“guest”) and gospodĭ (“master”).” ref
“Guests and hosts were indeed involved in a mutual and reciprocal relationship bound by oaths and sacrifices. The giving and receiving of favors was accompanied by a set of ritual actions that indebted the guest to show hospitality to his host at any time in the future. The obligation could even be heritable: Homer’s warriors, Glaukos and Diomedes, stopped fighting and presented gifts to each other when they learned that their grandfathers had shared a guest-host relationship. Violations of the guest-host obligations were considered immoral, illegal, and unholy: in Irish law, refusing hospitality was deemed a crime as serious as murder. The killing of a guest was also greeted with a singular revulsion, as was the abuse of hospitality.” ref
Legal System and Proto-Indo-European society
“Because of the archaic nature of traditional legal phraseology—which preserves old forms and meaning for words—and the necessity for legal sentences to be uttered precisely the same way each time to remain binding, it is possible to securely reconstruct some elements of the Proto-Indo-European legal system. For instance, the word *serk– (‘to make a circle, complete’) designated a type of compensation where the father (or master) had to either pay for the damages caused by his son (or slave), or surrender the perpetrator to the offended party. It is attested by a common legal and linguistic origin in both Roman and Hittite laws. Another root denoting a compensation, *kwey-, had the meanings of ‘blood-price‘, ‘vengeance’ or ‘guilt’ in daughter languages, suggesting that it was specifically applied to the restitution for theft or violence.” ref
“Law was apparently designed to preserve the ‘order’ (*h₂értus) of the universe, with the underlying idea that the cosmic harmony should be maintained, be it in the physical universe or the social world. There was however probably no public enforcement of justice, nor were there formal courts as we know them today. Contractual obligations were protected by private individuals acting as sureties: they pledged to be responsible for payments of debts incurred by someone else if the latter defaulted. In case of litigation, one could either take matter into their own hands, for instance by barring someone from accessing their property to compel payment, or bring the case before judges (perhaps kings) that included witnesses. The word for ‘oath’, *óitos, derives from the verb *h₁ei- (‘to go’), after the practice of walking between slaughtered animals as part of taking an oath.” ref
“The root *h₂értus (from *h₂er-, ‘to fit’) is associated with the concept of a cosmic order, that is which is ‘fitting, right, ordered’. It is one of most securely reconstructed Proto-Indo-European words, with cognates attested in most sub-families: Latin artus (‘joint’); Middle High German art (‘innate feature, nature, fashion’); Greek artús (ἀρτύς, ‘arrangement’), possibly arete (ἀρετή, ‘excellence’); Armenian ard (արդ, ‘ornament, shape’); Avestan arəta- (‘order’) and ṛtá (‘truth’); Sanskrit ṛtú- (ऋतु, ‘right time, order, rule’); Hittite āra (????????????, ‘right, proper’); Tocharian A ārt- (‘to praise, be pleased with’).” ref
Trifunctional Hypothesis and Proto-Indo-European society
“The trifunctional hypothesis, proposed by Georges Dumézil, postulates a tripartite ideology reflected in a threefold division between a clerical class (encompassing both the religious and social functions of the priests and rulers), a warrior class (connected with the concepts of violence and braveness), and a class of farmers or husbandmen (associated with fertility and craftsmanship), on the basis that many historically-known groups speaking Indo-European languages show such a division. Dumézil initially contended that it derived from an actual division in Indo-European societies, but later toned down his approach by representing the system as functions or general organizing principles. Dumézil’s theory has been influential and some scholars continue to operate under its framework, although it has also been criticized as aprioristic and too inclusive, and thus impossible to be proved or disproved.” ref
Rituals and Proto-Indo-European society
Proto-Indo-Europeans practiced a polytheistic religion centered on sacrificial rites of cattle and horses, probably administered by a class of priests or shamans. Animals were slaughtered (*gʷʰn̥tós) and dedicated to the gods (*déiwos) in the hope of winning their favor. The king as the high priest would have been the central figure in establishing good relations with the other world. The Khvalynsk culture, associated with early Proto-Indo-European, had already shown archeological evidence for the sacrifice of domesticated animals. Proto-Indo-Europeans also had a sacred tradition of horse sacrifice for the renewal of kinship involving the ritual mating of a queen or king with a horse, which was then sacrificed and cut up for distribution to the other participants in the ritual.” ref
“Although we know little about the role of magic in Proto-Indo-European society, there is no doubt that it existed as a social phenomenon, as several branches attest the use of similarly worded charms and curses, such as ones against worms. Furthermore, incantations and spells were frequently regarded as one of the three categories of medicine, along with the use of surgical instruments and herbs or drugs. Since the earliest evidence for the burning of the plant was found in Romanian kurgans dated 3,500 BCE, some scholars suggest that cannabis was first used as a psychoactive drug by Proto-Indo-Europeans during ritual ceremonies, a custom they eventually spread throughout western Eurasia during their migrations. Descendant cognates of the root *kanna- (“cannabis”) have been proposed in Sanskrit śaná, Greek kánnabis (κάνναβις), Germanic *hanipa (German Hanf, English hemp), Russian konopljá, Albanian kanëp, Armenian kanap and Old Prussian knapios. Other linguists suggest that the common linguistic inheritance does not date back to the Indo-European period and contend that the word cannabis likely spread later across Eurasia as a Wanderwort (‘wandering word’), ultimately borrowed into Ancient Greek and Sanskrit from a non-Indo-European language.” ref
Poetry and Proto-Indo-European society
“Poetry and songs were central to Proto-Indo-European society. The poet-singer was the society’s highest-paid professional, possibly a member of a hereditary profession that ran in certain families, the art passing from father to son as the poet had to acquire all the technical aspects of the art and to master an extensive body of traditional subject matter. He performed against handsome rewards—such as gifts of horses, cattle, wagons, and women—and was held in high esteem. In some cases, the poet-singer had a stable relationship with a particular noble prince or family. In other cases, he traveled about with his dependants, attaching himself to one court after another.” ref
“A transmitter of inherited cultural knowledge, the poet sang as a recall of the old heroic times, entrusted with telling the praises of heroes, kings, and gods. Composing sacred hymns ensured the gods would in turn bestow favorable fate to the community, and for kings that their memory would live on many generations. A lexeme for a special song, the *erkw (“praise of the gift”) has been identified in early Proto-Indo-European. Such praise poems proclaimed the generosity of the gods (or a patron) and enumerated their gifts, expanding the patron’s fame, the path to immortality otherwise only attainable for mortals through conspicuous acts of war or piety.” ref
“The concept of fame (*ḱléwos) was central to Proto-Indo-European poetry and culture. Many poetic dictions built on this term can be reconstituted, including *ḱléwos wéru (“wide fame”), *ḱléwos meǵh₂ (“great fame”), *ḱléuesh₂ h₂nróm (“the famous deeds of men, heroes”), or *dus-ḱlewes (“having bad repute”). Indo-European poetic tradition was probably oral-formulaic: stock formulas, such as the imperishable fame (*ḱléwos ń̥dʰgʷʰitom), the swift horses (*h₁ōḱéwes h₁éḱwōs), the eternal life (*h₂iu-gʷih₃), the metaphor of the wheel of the sun (*sh₂uens kʷekʷlos), or the epithet man-killer (*hₐnr̥-gʷhen), attached to Hektor and Rudra alike, were transmitted among poet-singers to fill out traditional verse-lines in epic song lyrics. The task of the Indo-European poet was to preserve over the generations the famous deeds of heroes. He would compose and retell poems based on old and sometimes obscure formulations, reconnecting the motifs with his own skills and improvisations. Poetry was therefore associated with the acts of weaving words (*wékʷos webh-) and crafting speech (*wékʷos teḱs-).” ref
Warfare: Kóryos and Proto-Indo-European society
“Although Proto-Indo-Europeans have been often cast as warlike conquerors, their reconstructed arsenal is not particularly extensive. There is no doubt that they possessed archery, as several words with the meaning of “spear” (*gʷéru ; *ḱúh₁los), “pointed stick” (*h₂eiḱsmo), or “throwing spear” (*ǵʰai-só-s) are attested. The term *wēben meant a “cutting weapon”, probably a knife, and *h₂/₃n̩sis a “large offensive knife”, likely similar to bronze daggers found across Eurasia around 3300–3000 BCE. Proto-Indo-Europeans certainly did not know swords, which appeared later around 2000–1500 BCE. The ax was known as *h₄edʰés, while the word *spelo/eh₂ designated a wooden or leather shield. The term *leh₂wós meant “military unit” or “military action”, while *teutéh₂- might have referred to the “adult male with possession” who would mobilize during warfare, perhaps originally a Proto-Indo-European term meaning “the people under arms.” ref
“A number of scholars propose that Proto-Indo-European rituals included the requirement that young unmarried men initiate into manhood by joining a warrior-band named *kóryos. They were led by a senior male and lived off the country by hunting and engaging in raiding and pillaging foreign communities. Kóryos members served in such brotherhoods (Männerbunden) for a number of years before returning home to adopt more respectable identities as mature men. During their initiation period, the young males wore the skin and bore the names of wild animals, especially wolves (*wl̩kʷo) and dogs (*ḱwōn), in order to assume their nature and escape the rules and taboos of their host society.” ref
“Most kurgan stelae found in Pontic-Caspian steppe feature a man wearing with a belt and weapons carved on the stone. In later Indo-European traditions, notably the (half-)naked warrior figures of Germanic and Celtic art, *kóryos raiders wore a belt that bound them to their leader and the gods, and little else. The tradition of kurgan stelae featuring warriors with a belt is also common in Scythian cultures. A continuity of an “animal-shaped raid culture” has been also postulated based on various elements attested in later Indo-European-speaking cultures, such as the Germanic Berserkers, the Italic Ver Sacrum, and the Spartan Crypteia, as well as in the mythical Celtic fianna and Vedic Maruts, and in the legend of the werewolf (“man-wolf”), found in Greek, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic traditions alike.” ref
“In a mostly patriarchal economy based on bride competition, the escalation of the bride-price in periods of climate change could have resulted in an increase in cattle raiding by unmarried men. Scholars also suggest that, alongside the attractiveness of the patron-client and the guest-host relationships, the *kóryos could have played a key role in diffusing Indo-European languages across most of Eurasia.” ref
Personal names and Proto-Indo-European society
“The use of two-word compound words for personal names, typically but not always ascribing some noble or heroic feat to their bearer, is so common in Indo-European languages that it is certainly an inherited feature. These names often belonged in early dialects to the class of compound words that in the Sanskrit tradition are called bahuvrihi. As in Vedic bahuvrihi (literally “much-rice”, meaning “one who has much rice”), those compounds are formed as active structures indicating possession and do not require a verbal root. From the Proto-Indo-European personal name *Ḱléwos-wésu (lit. “good-fame”, meaning “possessing good fame”) derive the Liburnian Vescleves, the Greek Eukleḗs (Εὐκλεής), the Old Persian Huçavah, the Avestan Haosravah-, and the Sanskrit Suśráva.” ref
“A second type of compound consists of a noun followed by a verbal root or stem, describing an individual performing an action. Compounds more similar to synthetics are found in the Sanskrit Trasá-dasyus (“one who causes enemies to tremble”), the Greek Archelaus (Ἀρχέλαος, “one who rules people”), and the Old Persian Xšayāršan (“one who rules men”).” ref
“Many Indo-European personal names are associated with the horse (*h₁éḱwos) in particular, which expressed both the wealth and nobility of their bearer, including the Avestan Hwaspa (“owning good horses”), the Greek Hippónikos (“winning by his horses”), or the Gaulish Epomeduos (“master of horses”). Since domestic animals also served to sacrifice, there were often used as exocentric structures in compound names (the bearers are not ‘horses’ themselves but ‘users of horses’ in some way), in contrast to endocentric personal names rather associated with wild animals like the wolf, for instance in the German Adolf (“a noble wolf”) or the Serbian Dobrovuk (“a good wolf”).” ref
Economy and Proto-Indo-European society
“Proto-Indo-Europeans possessed a Neolithic mixed economy based on livestock and subsidiary agriculture, with a wide range of economic regimes and various degrees of mobility that could be expected across the large Pontic-Caspian steppe. Tribes were typically more influenced by farming in the western Dnieper–Donets region, where cereal cultivation was practiced, while the eastern Don–Volga steppes were inhabited by semi-nomadic and pastoral populations mostly relying on herding. Proto-Indo-European distinguished between unmovable and movable wealth (*péḱu, the “livestock”). As for the rest of society, the economy was founded on reciprocity. A gift always entailed a counter-gift, and each party was bound to the other in a mutual relationship cemented by trust.” ref
Trade and Proto-Indo-European society
“The early Khvalynsk culture, located in the Volga–Ural steppes and associated with early Proto-Indo-European, had trade relationship with Old European cultures. Domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats, as well as copper, were introduced eastward from the Danube valley around 4700–4500 BCE. Copper objects show an artistic influence from Old Europe, and the appearance of sacrificed animals suggests that a new set of rituals emerged following the introduction of herding from the west. The Old European Tripolye culture continued to influence the western part of the steppes, in the Dnieper–Donets region, where the Yamnaya culture was more agricultural and less male-centered.” ref
“Proto-Indo-European speakers also had indirect contacts with Uruk around 3700–3500 through the North Caucasian Maikop culture, a trade route that introduced the wheeled wagon into the Caspian-Pontic steppes. Wheel-made pottery imported from Mesopotamia were found in the Northern Caucasus, and Maikop chieftain was buried wearing Mesopotamian symbols of power—the lion paired with the bull. The late Khvalynsk and Repin cultures probably traded wool and domesticated horses in exchange, as suggested by the widespread appearance of horses in archeological sites across Transcaucasia after 3300 BCE. Socio-cultural interactions with Northwest Caucasians have been proposed, on the ground that the Proto-Indo-European language shows a number of lexical parallels with Proto-Northwest Caucasian. Proto-Indo-European also exhibits lexical loans to or from other Caucasian languages, particularly Proto-Kartvelian.” ref
“Proto-Indo-European probably also had trade relationships with Proto-Uralic speakers around the Ural Mountains. Words for “sell” and “wash” were borrowed in Proto-Uralic, and words for “price” and “draw, lead” were introduced in the Proto-Finno-Ugric language. James P. Mallory suggested that the expansion of the Uralic languages across the northern forest zone might have been stimulated by organizational changes within Uralic forager societies, resulting partly from interaction with more complex, hierarchical Proto-Indo-European and (later) Indo-Iranian pastoral societies at the steppe/forest-steppe ecological border.” ref
Technology and Proto-Indo-European society
“From the reconstructable lexicon, it is clear that Proto-Indo-Europeans were familiar with wheeled vehicles—certainly horse-drawn wagons (*weǵʰnos)—as they knew the wheel (*kʷekʷlóm), the axle (*h₂eḱs-), the shaft (*h₂/₃éih₁os), and the yoke (*yugóm). Although wheels were most likely not invented by Proto-Indo-Europeans, the word *kʷekʷlóm is a native derivation of the root *kʷel– (“to turn”) rather than a borrowing, suggesting short contacts with the people who introduced the concept to them.” ref
“The technology used was a solid wheel made of three planks joined together with their outer edges trimmed to a circle. The swift chariot with spoked wheels, which made the mode of transport much more rapid and lighter, appeared later within the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE), associated with the Indo-Iranians. As the word for “boat” (*néh₂us) is widely attested across the language groups, the means of transport (likely a dugout canoe) was certainly known by Proto-Indo-Europeans.” ref
“The vocabulary associated with metallurgy is very restricted and at best we can attest the existence of copper/bronze, gold, and silver. The basic word for “metal” (*h₂ey-es) is generally presumed to mean “copper” or a copper-tin alloy of “bronze”. “Gold” is reliably reconstructed as *h₂eusom, and *h₂erǵ-n̩t-om designated a “white metal” or “silver”. Proto-Indo-Europeans were also familiar with the sickle (*sr̩po/eh₂), the awl (*h₁óleh₂) for working leather or drilling wood, and used a primitive plough (*h₂érh₃ye/o) made of a curved and forked branch.” ref
“The term for “oven” or “cooking vessel” (*h₂/₃ukʷ) has been reconstructed based on four branches, as for “baking” (*bʰōg-) and “boiling” (*yes-). They certainly drank beer (*h₂elut) and mead (*médʰu), and the word for “wine” (*wóinom) has been proposed, although this remains a debated issue. Proto-Indo-Europeans produced textile, as attested by the reconstructed roots for wool (*wĺh₂neh₂), flax (*linom), sewing (*syuh₁-), spinning (*(s)pen-), weaving (*h₂/₃webʰ-) and plaiting (*pleḱ-), as well as needle (*skʷēis) and thread (*pe/oth₂mo). They were also familiar with combs (*kes) and ointments with salve (*h₃engʷ-).” ref
Animals and Proto-Indo-European society
“Animals (mammals in particular) are fairly abundant in the reconstructed lexicon. We can ascribe about seventy-five names to various animal species, but it hardly recovers all the animals to have been distinguished in the proto-language. While *kʷetwor-pod designated a four-footed animal (tetrapod), *gʷyéh₃wyom seems to have been the general term for animals, derived from the root *gʷyeh₃-, “to live”. Proto-Indo-European speakers also made a distinction between wild animals (*ǵʰwḗr) and the livestock (*péḱu).” ref
Domesticated Animals and Proto-Indo-European society
“The reconstructed lexicon suggests a Neolithic economy with extensive references to domesticated animals. They were familiar with cows (*gʷṓus), sheep (*h₃ówis), goats (*díks, or *h₂eiĝs), and pigs (*sūs ; also *pórḱos, “piglet”). They knew dogs (*ḱwōn), milk (*ǵl̩ákt; also *h₂melǵ-, “to milk”) and dairy foods, wool (*wĺh₂neh₂) and woolen textiles, agriculture, wagons, and honey (*mélit). The domestication of the horse (*h₁éḱwos), thought to be an extinct Tarpan species, probably originated with these peoples, and scholars invoke this innovation as a factor contributing to their increased mobility and rapid expansion.” ref
“The dog was perceived as a symbol of death and depicted as the guardian of the Otherworld in Indo-European cultures (Greek Cerberus, Indic Śarvarā, Norse Garmr). The mytheme possibly stems from an older Ancient North Eurasian belief, as evidenced by similar motifs in Native American and Siberian mythology, in which case it might be one of the oldest mythemes recoverable through comparative mythology. In various Indo-European traditions, the worst throw at the game of dice was named the “dog”, and the best throw was known as the “dog-killer”. Canine teeth of dogs were frequently worn as pendants in Yamnaya graves in the western Pontic steppes, particularly in the Ingul valley.” ref
Wild Animals and Proto-Indo-European society
“Linguistic evidence suggests that Proto-Indo-European speakers were also in contact with various wild animals, such as red foxes (*wl(o)p), wolves (*wl̩kʷo), bears (*h₂ŕ̩tḱos), red deers (*h₁elh₁ēn), elks (moose) (*h₁ólḱis), eagles (*h₃or), otters (*udrós), snakes (*h₁ógʷʰis), mice (*mūs ; from *mus-, “to steal”), or trouts (*lóḱs). Some of them were featured in mythological and folkloric motifs. Goats draw the chariots of the Norse and Indic gods Thor and Pushan, and they are associated with the Baltic god Perkūnas and the Greek god Pan. The words for both the wolf and the bear underwent taboo deformation in a number of branches, suggesting that they were feared as symbols of death in Proto-Indo-European culture.” ref
“In Indo-European culture, the term “wolf” is generally applied to brigands and outlaws who live in the wild. Ritual and mythological concepts connected with wolves, in some cases similar with Native American beliefs, may represent a common Ancient North Eurasian heritage: mai-coh meant both “wolf” and “witch” among Navajos, and shunk manita tanka a “doglike powerful spirit” among Sioux, while the Proto-Indo-European root *ṷeid (“knowledge, clairvoyance”) designated the wolf in both Hittite (ṷetna) and Old Norse (witnir), and a “werewolf” in Slavic languages (Serb vjedo-gonja, Slovenian vedanec, Ukrainian viščun).” ref
Beliefs: Proto-Indo-European mythology
“The reconstructed cosmology of the proto-Indo-Europeans shows that the ritual sacrifice of cattle, cows in particular, was at the root of their beliefs, as the primordial condition of the world order. The myth of *Trito, the first warrior, involves the liberation of cattle stolen by a three-headed serpent named *Ngwhi. After recovering the wealth of the people, Trito eventually offered the cattle to the priest in order to ensure the continuity of the cycle of giving between gods and humans. The creation myth could have rationalized raiding as the recovery of cattle that the gods had intended for the people who sacrificed properly. Many Indo-European cultures preserved the tradition of cattle raiding, which they often associated with epic myths. Georges Dumézil suggested that the religious function was represented by a duality, one reflecting the magico-religious nature of the priesthood, while the other is involved in religious sanction to human society (especially contracts), a theory supported by common features in Iranian, Roman, Scandinavian and Celtic traditions. The study of astronomy was not much developed among Proto-Indo-Europeans, and they probably had established names for only a few individual stars and star-groups (e.g. Sirius, Ursa Major).” ref
“The basic word for “god” in proto-Indo-European is *deiwós (“celestial”), itself a derivative of *dei– (“to shine, be bright”). On the other hand, the word for “earth” (*dʰéǵʰōm) is at root of both “earthly” and “human”, as it is notably attested in the Latin cognates humus and homo. This suggests a hierarchical conception of the status of mankind regarding the gods, confirmed by the use of the term “mortal” (*mr̩tós) as a synonym of “human” as opposed to the never-dying gods in Indo-European traditions. The idea is expressed in the Homeric phrase “of the immortal gods and of men who walk on earth”.” ref
Proto-Indo-European beliefs were influenced by a resistant animistic substratum, and the few names that can be reconstructed based upon both linguistic (cognates) and thematic (reflexes) evidence are the cosmic and elemental deities: the ‘Daylight-Sky’ (*Dyḗus), his partner ‘Earth’ (*Dʰéǵʰōm), his daughter the ‘Dawn’ (*H₂éwsōs), and his Twin Sons, the ‘Sun’ (*Séh₂ul) and the Sun-Maiden, and deities of winds, waters, fire, rivers and springs. The Proto-Indo-European creation myth tells of a primordial sacrifice performed by the first man *Manu (“Man”) on his twin brother *Yemo (“Twin”), from whom emerged the cosmological elements. Other deities, such as the weather-god *Perkʷunos and the guardian of roads and herds, *Péh₂usōn, are probably late innovations since they are attested in a restricted number of traditions, Western (European) and Graeco-Aryan, respectively.” ref
The “wheel” related word list
“Most linguists argue that the PIEs (Proto-Indo-Europeans) did have words for wheel. The candidates put forward for wheel or wagon-related words are nine reconstructed PIE word forms. These are:
- *hurki , argued to mean “wheel”
- *roteh2, argued to mean “wheel”
- *kwékwlo-, argued to mean “wheel”
- *kwelh1-, argued to mean “turn” perhaps in the sense of a turning wheel.
- *h2eks-, argued to mean “axle”
- *h2ih3s-, argued to mean “thill” or “wagon shaft”
- *wéĝh-, argued to mean “convey in a vehicle”
- *h3nebh-, argued to mean “nave” or “wheel hub”
- *iugó-, argued to mean “yoke” ref
Proto-Indo-European language
“Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists. Far more work has gone into reconstructing PIE than any other proto-language, and it is the best understood of all proto-languages of its age. The majority of linguistic work during the 19th century was devoted to the reconstruction of PIE or its daughter languages, and many of the modern techniques of linguistic reconstruction (such as the comparative method) were developed as a result.” ref
“PIE is hypothesized to have been spoken as a single language from 4500 to 2500 BCE during the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, though estimates vary by more than a thousand years. According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis, the original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Europe. The linguistic reconstruction of PIE has provided insight into the pastoral culture and patriarchal religion of its speakers.” ref
“As speakers of Proto-Indo-European became isolated from each other through the Indo-European migrations, the regional dialects of Proto-Indo-European spoken by the various groups diverged, as each dialect underwent shifts in pronunciation (the Indo-European sound laws), morphology, and vocabulary. Over many centuries, these dialects transformed into the known ancient Indo-European languages. From there, further linguistic divergence led to the evolution of their current descendants, the modern Indo-European languages. Today, the descendant languages of PIE with the most native speakers are Spanish, English, Portuguese, Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu), Bengali, Russian, Punjabi, German, Persian, French, Marathi, Italian, and Gujarati.” ref
“PIE is believed to have had an elaborate system of morphology that included inflectional suffixes (analogous to English child, child’s, children, children’s) as well as ablaut (vowel alterations, as preserved in English sing, sang, sung, song) and accent. PIE nominals and pronouns had a complex system of declension, and verbs similarly had a complex system of conjugation. The PIE phonology, particles, numerals, and copula are also well-reconstructed. Asterisks are used as a conventional mark of reconstructed words, such as *wódr̥, *ḱwṓ, or *tréyes; these forms are the reconstructed ancestors of the modern English words water, hound, and three, respectively.” ref
“Commonly proposed subgroups of Indo-European languages include Italo-Celtic, Graeco-Aryan, Graeco-Armenian, Graeco-Phrygian, Daco-Thracian, and Thraco-Illyrian. There are numerous lexical similarities between the Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Kartvelian languages due to early language contact, though some morphological similarities—notably the Indo-European ablaut, which is remarkably similar to the root ablaut system reconstructible for Proto-Kartvelian—may suggest a higher-level phylogenetic relationship.” ref
“The Lusitanian language was a marginally attested language spoken in areas near the border between present-day Portugal and Spain. The Venetic and Liburnian languages known from the North Adriatic region are sometimes classified as Italic. Albanian and Greek are the only surviving Indo-European descendants of a Paleo-Balkan language area, named for their occurrence in or in the vicinity of the Balkan peninsula. Most of the other languages of this area—including Illyrian, Thracian, and Dacian—do not appear to be members of any other subfamilies of PIE, but are so poorly attested that proper classification of them is not possible. Forming an exception, Phrygian is sufficiently well-attested to allow proposals of a particularly close affiliation with Greek, and a Graeco-Phrygian branch of Indo-European is becoming increasingly accepted.” ref
List of Indo-European languages
“The Indo-European languages include some 449 (SIL estimate, 2018 edition) language families spoken by about or more than 3.5 billion people (roughly half of the world population). Most of the major languages belonging to language branches and groups of Europe, and western and southern Asia, belong to the Indo-European language family. Therefore, Indo-European is the biggest language family in the world by number of mother-tongue speakers (but not by number of languages in which it is the 3rd or 5th biggest). Eight of the top ten biggest languages, by number of native speakers, are Indo-European. One of these languages, English, is the de facto World Lingua Franca with an estimate of over one billion second-language speakers.” ref
“Each subfamily or linguistic branch in this list contains many subgroups and individual languages. Indo-European language family has 10 known branches or subfamilies, of which eight are living and two are extinct. The relation of Indo-European branches, how they are related to one another and branched from the ancestral proto-language is a matter of further research and not yet well known. There are some individual Indo-European languages that are unclassified within the language family, they are not yet classified in a branch and could be members of their own branch. The 449 Indo-European languages identified in the SIL estimate, 2018 edition, are mostly living languages, however, if all the known extinct Indo-European languages are added, they number more than 800 or close to one thousand. This list includes all known Indo-European languages, living and extinct.” ref
“A distinction between a language and a dialect is not clear-cut and simple because there is, in many cases, several dialect continuums, transitional dialects, and languages and also because there is no consensual standard to what amount of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and prosody differences there is a language or there is a dialect. (Mutual intelligibility can be a standard but there are closely related languages that are also mutual intelligible to some degree, even if it is an asymmetric intelligibility.) Because of this, in this list, several dialect groups and some individual dialects of languages are shown (in italics), especially if a language is or was spoken by a large number of people and over a big land area, but also if it has or had divergent dialects. The contact between different peoples and languages, especially as a result of European colonization, also gave origin to the many pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages that are mainly based in Indo-European languages (many of which are spoken in island groups and coastal regions).” ref
The ancestral population and language, Proto-Indo-Europeans that spoke Proto-Indo-European, estimated to have lived about 4500 BCE (around 6500 years ago), at some time in the past, starting about 4000 BCE (around 6000 years ago) expanded through migration and cultural influence. This started a complex process of population blend or population replacement, acculturation, and language change of peoples in many regions of western and southern Eurasia. This process gave origin to many languages and branches of this language family. At the end of the second millennium BCE Indo-European speakers were many millions and lived in a vast geographical area in most of western and southern Eurasia (including western Central Asia). In the following two millennia, the number of speakers of Indo-European languages increased even further.” ref
“By geographical area, Indo-European languages remained spoken in big land areas, although most of western Central Asia and Asia Minor was lost to another language family (mainly Turkic) due to Turkic expansion, conquests, and settlement (after the middle of the first millennium AD and the beginning and middle of the second millennium CE respectively) and also to Mongol invasions and conquests (that changed Central Asia ethnolinguistic composition). Another land area lost to non-Indo-European languages was today’s Hungary due to Magyar/Hungarian (Uralic language speakers) conquest and settlement. However, in the second half of the second millennium CE, Indo-European languages expanded their territories to North Asia (Siberia), through Russian expansion, and North America, South America, Australia, and New Zealand as the result of the age of European discoveries and European conquests through the expansions of the Portuguese, Spanish, French, English and the Dutch. (These peoples had the biggest continental or maritime empires in the world and their countries were major powers.)” ref
Ancient mDNA “N1a1a1” and Pottery?
Bon005 – Boncuklu Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 10,220 years ago Turkey – Central Anatolia ref
Bon004 – Boncuklu Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 10,076 years ago Turkey – Central Anatolia ref
ZHAG – Boncuklu Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 9,900 years ago Turkey – Central Anatolia ref
People who lived in ancient settlement in central Turkey migrated to Europe: archaeologists
“10,300-year-old Boncuklu Höyük settlement in Turkey revealed that the people who lived in the settlement migrated to Europe. And the Boncuklu Höyük settlement was established a thousand years before Çatalhöyük, so is the ancestor of later Çatalhöyük.” ref
Ash040 – Aşıklı Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 9,875 years ago Turkey – Central Anatolia ref
CCH144 – Çatalhöyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 8,808 years ago Turkey – Central Anatolia ref
I1096 – Barcın Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 8,300 years ago Turkey – Northwest Anatolia ref
Bar25 – Barcın Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 8,295 years ago Turkey – Northwest Anatolia ref
Tep004 – Tepecik-Çiftlik Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 8,237 years ago Turkey – Northwest Anatolia ref
Tep006 – Tepecik-Çiftlik Höyük mtDNA N1a1a1 around 8,099 years ago Turkey – Northwest Anatolia ref
I0725 – Mentese mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,950 years ago Turkey – South-Western corner, on the Aegean Sea ref
I0174 – Alsonyek-Bataszek mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,558 years ago Hungary – Starcevo ref (Starčevo–Körös–Criș culture: 6,200 – 4,500 BCE or around 8,223-6,523 years ago)
“Starčevo culture of Southeastern Europe originates in the spread of the Neolithic package of peoples and technological innovations including farming and ceramics from Anatolia to the area of Sesklo. The Starčevo culture marks its spread to the inland Balkan peninsula as the Cardial ware culture did along the Adriatic coastline. It forms part of the wider Starčevo–Körös–Criş culture which gave rise to the central European Linear Pottery culture c. 700 years after the initial spread of Neolithic farmers towards the northern Balkans.” ref
Klein1 – Kleinhadersd mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,500 years ago Austria – LBK/AVK ref (Linear Pottery culture *LBK*: 5,500–4,500 BCE or around 7,523-6,523 years ago)
UZZ74 – Grotta dell’Uzzo, Sicily mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,223 years ago Italy – Stentinello I ref (Stentinello culture: dated to the 5th millennium BCE: 5000 to 4000 BCE or around 7,023-6,023 years ago)
I0412 – Els Trocs, Bisaurri, Huesca, Aragón mtDNA N1a1a1 around 7,177 years ago Spain – Epicardial ref (Cardium/Cardial–Epicardial pottery culture: 6400 – 5500 BCE or around 8,423-7,023 years ago)
“Fernández et al. 2014 found traces of maternal genetic affinity between people of the Linear Pottery Culture and Cardium pottery with earlier peoples of the Near Eastern Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, including the rare mtDNA (maternal) basal haplogroup N*, and suggested that Neolithic period was initiated by seafaring colonists from the Near East. Mathieson et al. 2018 examined three Cardials buried at the Zemunica Cave near Bisko in modern-day Croatia c. 5800 BCE the three samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to the maternal haplogroups H1, K1b1a, and N1a1.” ref
ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
“Several linguists and geneticists suggest that the Uralic languages are related to various Siberian languages and possibly also some languages of northern Native Americans. A proposed family is named Uralo-Siberian, it includes Uralic, Yukaghir, Eskimo–Aleut (Inuit), possibly Nivkh, and Chukotko-Kamchatkan. Haplogroup Q is found in nearly all Native Americans and nearly all of the Yeniseian Ket people (90%).” ref, ref
You can find some form of Shamanism, among Uralic, Transeurasian, Dené–Yeniseian, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and Eskaleut languages.
My speculations of shamanism are its dispersals, after 24,000 to 4,000 years ago, seem to center on Lake Baikal and related areas. To me, the hotspot of Shamanism goes from west of Lake Baikal in the “Altai Mountains” also encompassing “Lake Baikal” and includes the “Amur Region/Watershed” east of Lake Baikal as the main location Shamanism seems to have radiated out from.
Haplogroup N-M231 (Y-DNA)
“It is generally considered that N-M231 arose in East Asia approximately 19,400 (±4,800) years ago and populated northern Eurasia after the Last Glacial Maximum. Males carrying the marker apparently moved northwards as the climate warmed in the Holocene, migrating in a counter-clockwise path, to eventually become concentrated in areas as far away as Fennoscandia and the Baltic. The apparent dearth of haplogroup N-M231 amongst Native American peoples indicates that it spread after Beringia was submerged, about 11,000 years ago. Y-chromosomes belonging to N1b-F2930/M1881/V3743, or N1*-CTS11499/L735/M2291(xN1a-F1206/M2013/S11466), have been found in China and sporadically throughout other parts of Eurasia. N1a-F1206/M2013/S11466 is found in high numbers in Northern Eurasia.” ref
“N-M231* has been found at low levels in China. Out of a sample of 165 Han males from China, two individuals (1.2%) were found to belong to N*. One originated from Guangzhou and one from Xi’an. Among the ancient samples from the Lake Baikal region of Siberia, Early Neolithic Kitoi culture, one of the Shamanka II samples (DA250), dated to c. 6500 years ago, was analyzed as NO1-M214 in the original study. However, this same specimen (DA250 or Shamanka 250) has subsequently been found to belong to N-FT210118, the same clade as the other haplogroup N specimens from the same site (besides DA247, who belongs to N-Y147969). N-FT210118 is derived from N-L666/N-F2199 but basal to N-CTS6380, this latter being the most recent common ancestor of present-day N-P43 (found mainly among Maris, Udmurts, Komis, Chuvashes, Tatars, Nenets, Nganasans, Khanty, Mansi, Khakas, Tuvans, etc.) and N-F1101 (found mainly among East Asians). Furthermore, N-FT210118 has not been found in any living individual who has had his Y-DNA tested to date, and the estimated TMRCA of N-CTS6380 exceeds the estimated date of deposition of any of the specimens from the Shamanka site associated with the Kitoi culture, so it appears that the representatives of the Kitoi culture at Shamanka (or at least their Y-DNA) have gone extinct rather than being direct ancestors of any living people.” ref
“Haplogroup N-P43 is defined by the presence of the marker P43. Additionally, haplogroup N-P43 is defined by a marker Y3214, which is shared with a younger yDNA O1b2-K14, distributed in Japan (YFull). It has been estimated to be approximately 4,000 to 5,500 years old (TMRCA 4,510 years, TMRCA 4,700 [95% CI 3,800 <-> 5,600] years ago, or 4,727 [95% CI 3,824 <-> 5,693] years ago). It has been found very frequently among Northern Samoyedic peoples, speakers of Ob-Ugric languages, and northern Khakassians, and it also has been observed with low to moderate frequency among speakers of some other Uralic languages, Turkic peoples, Mongolic peoples, Tungusic peoples, and Siberian Yupik people. Haplogroup N-P43 forms two distinctive subclusters of STR haplotypes, Asian and European, the latter mostly distributed among Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples and related populations.” ref
Asian origin hypothesis for Haplogroup N (mtDNA)
“The hypothesis of Asia as the place of origin of haplogroup N is supported by the following:
- Haplogroup N is found in all parts of the world but has low frequencies in Sub-Saharan Africa. According to a number of studies, the presence of Haplogroup N in Africa is most likely the result of back migration from Eurasia.
- The oldest clades of macrohaplogroup N are found in Asia and Australia.
- It would be paradoxical that haplogroup N had traveled all the distance to Australia or New World yet failed to affect other populations within Africa besides North Africans and Horn Africans.
- The mitochondrial DNA variation in isolated “relict” populations in southeast Asia supports the view that there was only a single dispersal from Africa. The distribution of the earliest branches within haplogroups M, N, and R across Eurasia and Oceania provides additional evidence for a three-founder-mtDNA scenario and a single migration route out of Africa. These findings also highlight the importance of Indian subcontinent in the early genetic history of human settlement and expansion. Therefore, N’s history is similar to M and R which have their most probable origin in South Asia.” ref
- “Haplogroup N1’5
- Haplogroup N1 – found in Africa .
- Haplogroup N1b – found in Middle East, Egypt (Gurna), Caucasus and Europe.
- N1a’c’d’e’I
- Haplogroup N1c – Northern Saudi Arabia, Turkey
- N1a’d’e’I
- Haplogroup N1d – India
- N1a’e’I
- Haplogroup N1a – Arabian Peninsula and Northeast Africa. It is also found in Central Asia and Southern Siberia. This branch is well attested in ancient people from various cultures of Neolithic Europe, from Hungary to Spain, and among the earliest farmers of Anatolia.
- N1e’I
- Haplogroup N1e – found in Balochs, Burushos, and Buryats
- Haplogroup I – West Eurasia and South Asia.
- Haplogroup N5 – found in India.
- Haplogroup N1 – found in Africa .
- Haplogroup N2
- Haplogroup N2a – small clade found in West Europe.
- Haplogroup W – found in Western Eurasia and South Asia
- Haplogroup N3 – all subgroups have so far only been found in Belarus
-
- Haplogroup N3a
- Haplogroup N3a1
- Haplogroup N3b
-
- Haplogroup N7 – all subgroups have so far only been found in Cambodia
- Haplogroup N7a
- Haplogroup N7a1
- Haplogroup N7a2
- Haplogroup N7b
- Haplogroup N7a
- Haplogroup N8 – found in China.
- Haplogroup N9 – found in Far East. [TMRCA 45,709.7 ± 7,931.5 years ago; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9a [TMRCA 17,520.4 ± 4,389.8 years ago; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9a12 – Khon Mueang (Pai District)
- Haplogroup N9a-C16261T
- Haplogroup N9a-C16261T* – Vietnam (Kinh)
- Haplogroup N9a-A4129G-A4913G-T12354C-A12612G-C12636T-T16311C!!! – Tashkurgan (Kyrgyz)
- Haplogroup N9a1’3 [TMRCA 15,007.4 ± 6,060.1 years ago; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9a1 – Chinese (Hakka in Taiwan, etc.), She, Tu, Uyghur, Tuvan, Mongolia, Khamnigan, Korea, Japan [TMRCA 9,200 (95% CI 7,100 <-> 11,600) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a1a – Chinese (Sichuan, Zhanjiang, etc.) [TMRCA 7,300 (95% CI 3,800 <-> 12,800) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a1b – Kyrgyz (Tashkurgan)
- Haplogroup N9a1c – Vietnam (Tay people), Thailand (Khon Mueang from Chiang Mai Province, Lao Isan from Loei Province)
- Haplogroup N9a3 – China [TMRCA 11,500 (95% CI 7,500 <-> 16,800) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a3a – Japan, Korean (Seoul), Taiwan (incl. Paiwan), Thailand (Mon from Lopburi Province and Kanchanaburi Province), China, Uyghur, Kyrgyz (Tashkurgan), Kazakhstan, Buryat, Russia (Belgorod, Chechen Republic, etc.), Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Czech (West Bohemia), Hungary, Austria, Germany [TMRCA 8,280.9 ± 5,124.4 years ago; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9a1 – Chinese (Hakka in Taiwan, etc.), She, Tu, Uyghur, Tuvan, Mongolia, Khamnigan, Korea, Japan [TMRCA 9,200 (95% CI 7,100 <-> 11,600) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a2’4’5’11 [TMRCA 15,305.4 ± 4,022.6 years ago; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9a2 – Japan, Korea, China (Barghut in Hulunbuir, Uyghur, etc.) [TMRCA 10,700 (95% CI 8,200 <-> 13,800) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a2a – Japan, Korea, Uyghur [TMRCA 8,100 (95% CI 6,500 <-> 10,000) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a2a1 – Japan [TMRCA 4,200 (95% CI 1,850 <-> 8,400) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a2a2 – Japan, Korea, Volga-Ural region (Tatar) [TMRCA 5,700 (95% CI 3,500 <-> 8,900) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a2a3 – Japan, Hulun-Buir region (Barghut) [TMRCA 4,700 (95% CI 2,400 <-> 8,400) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a2a4 – Japan [TMRCA 2,800 (95% CI 600 <-> 7,900) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a2b – China
- Haplogroup N9a2c [TMRCA 7,200 (95% CI 3,600 <-> 12,700) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a2c* – Japan
- Haplogroup N9a2c1 – Japan, Korea, Uyghur [TMRCA 2,600 (95% CI 1,250 <-> 4,900) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a2d – Japan, Korea [TMRCA 5,200 (95% CI 1,800 <-> 12,000) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a2e – China
- Haplogroup N9a2a – Japan, Korea, Uyghur [TMRCA 8,100 (95% CI 6,500 <-> 10,000) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a4 – Malaysia [TMRCA 7,900 (95% CI 3,900 <-> 14,300) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a4a – Japan [TMRCA 4,400 (95% CI 1,500 <-> 10,200) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a4b [TMRCA 5,700 (95% CI 2,400 <-> 11,400) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a4b* – Japan
- Haplogroup N9a4b1 – China (Minnan in Taiwan, etc.)
- Haplogroup N9a4b2 – China
- Haplogroup N9a5 [TMRCA 8,700 (95% CI 4,700 <-> 15,000) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a5* – Korea
- Haplogroup N9a5a – Japan
- Haplogroup N9a5b – Japan [TMRCA 5,300 (95% CI 1,150 <-> 15,300) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a11 – Taiwan (Hakka, Minnan), Laos (Lao from Luang Prabang)
- Haplogroup N9a2 – Japan, Korea, China (Barghut in Hulunbuir, Uyghur, etc.) [TMRCA 10,700 (95% CI 8,200 <-> 13,800) years ago]
- Haplogroup N9a6 – Thailand (Phuan from Lopburi Province, Khon Mueang from Lamphun Province, Phutai from Sakon Nakhon Province, Lawa from Mae Hong Son Province, Soa from Sakon Nakhon Province), Vietnam, Sumatra [TMRCA 11,972.5 ± 5,491.7 years ago; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9a6a – Cambodia (Khmer), Malaysia (Bidayuh, Jehai, Temuan, Kensiu), Sumatra, Sundanese
- Haplogroup N9a6b – Malaysia (Seletar)
- Haplogroup N9a7 – Japan
- Haplogroup N9a8 – Japan, China, Buryat
- Haplogroup N9a9 – Chelkans (Biyka, Turochak), Tubalar (North-East Altai), Kyrgyz (Kyrgyzstan), China, Ukraine (Vinnytsia Oblast), Romania (10th century AD Dobruja)
- Haplogroup N9a10 – Thailand (Khon Mueang from Mae Hong Son Province, Chiang Mai Province, Lamphun Province, and Lampang Province, Shan from Mae Hong Son Province, Lao Isan from Loei Province, Black Tai from Kanchanaburi Province, Phuan from Sukhothai Province and Phichit Province, Mon from Kanchanaburi Province), Laos (Lao from Luang Prabang, Hmong), Vietnam (Tay Nung), China (incl. Han in Chongqing)
- Haplogroup N9a10a – China, Taiwan (Ami)
- Haplogroup N9a10a1 – Chinese (Suzhou)
- Haplogroup N9a10a2 – Philippines (Ivatan), Taiwan (Ami)
- Haplogroup N9a10a2a – Taiwan (Atayal, Tsou)
- Haplogroup N9a10b – China
- Haplogroup N9a10a – China, Taiwan (Ami)
- Haplogroup N9b – Japan, Udegey, Nanai, Korea [TMRCA 14,885.6 ± 4,092.5 ybp; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9b1 – Japan [TMRCA 11,859.3 ± 3,760.2 ybp; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9b1a – Japan [TMRCA 10,645.2 ± 3,690.3 ybp; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9b1b – Japan [TMRCA 2,746.5 ± 2,947.0 ybp; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9b1c – Japan [TMRCA 6,987.8 ± 4,967.0 ybp; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9b1c1 – Japan
- Haplogroup N9b2 – Japan [TMRCA 13,369.7 ± 4,110.0 ybp; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9b2a – Japan
- Haplogroup N9b3 – Japan [TMRCA 7,629.8 ± 6,007.6 ybp; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9b4 – Japan, Ulchi
- Haplogroup N9b1 – Japan [TMRCA 11,859.3 ± 3,760.2 ybp; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup Y – found especially among Nivkhs, Ulchs, Nanais, Negidals, Ainus, and the population of Nias Island, with a moderate frequency among other Tungusic peoples, Koreans, Mongols, Koryaks, Itelmens, Chinese, Japanese, Tajiks, Island Southeast Asians (including Taiwanese aborigines), and some Turkic peoples [TMRCA 24,576.4 ± 7,083.2 years ago; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup Y1 – Korea, Taiwan (Minnan), Thailand (Iu Mien from Phayao Province), Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic [TMRCA 14,689.5 ± 5,264.3 ybp; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup Y1a – Nivkh, Ulchi, Hezhen, Udegey, Even, Zabaikal Buryat, Mongolian, Daur, Korea, Han, Tibet, Ukraine [TMRCA 7,467.5 ± 5,526.7 years ago; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup Y1b – Volga Tatar [TMRCA 9,222.8 ± 4,967.0 ybp; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup Y1c – Korea (especially Jeju Island), Khamnigan, Uyghur, Canada
- Haplogroup Y2 – Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Khamnigan, South Africa (Cape Coloured) [TMRCA 7,279.3 ± 2,894.5 years ago; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup Y2a – Taiwan (Atayal, Saisiyat, Tsou), Philippines (Maranao), Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hawaii, USA (Hispanic), Spain, Ireland [TMRCA 4,929.5 ± 2,789.6 years ago; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup Y2b – Japan, South Korea, Buryat [TMRCA 1,741.8 ± 3,454.2 years ago; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup Y1 – Korea, Taiwan (Minnan), Thailand (Iu Mien from Phayao Province), Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic [TMRCA 14,689.5 ± 5,264.3 ybp; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N9a [TMRCA 17,520.4 ± 4,389.8 years ago; CI=95%]
- Haplogroup N10 – found in China (Han from Shanghai, Jiangsu, Fujian, Guangdong, and Yunnan, Hani and Yi from Yunnan, She from Guizhou, Uzbek from Xinjiang) and Southeast Asia (Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia).
- Haplogroup N11 – Mainland China & Philippines: Han Chinese (Yunnan, Sichuan, and Hubei), Tibetan (Xizang), Dongxiang (Gansu), Oroqen (Inner Mongolia) and Mamanwa (Philippines).
- Haplogroup O or N12- found among Indigenous Australians and the Floresians of Indonesia.
- Haplogroup N13 – Aboriginal Australians
- Haplogroup N14 – Aboriginal Australians
- Haplogroup N21 – Temuan, Semelai, Thailand, Khmer, ethnic Malays from Malaysia and Indonesia.
- Haplogroup N22 – Southeast Asia, Bangladesh, India, Japan
- Haplogroup A – found in Central and East Asia, as well as among Native Americans.
- Haplogroup S– extended among Aboriginal Australians.
- Haplogroup X– found most often in Western Eurasia, but also present in the Americas.
- Haplogroup X1 – found primarily in North Africa as well as in some populations of the Levant, notably among the Druze
- Haplogroup X2 – found in Western Eurasia, Siberia, and among Native Americans
- Haplogroup R – a very extended and diversified macro-haplogroup.” ref
Ymyyakhtakh culture
“The Ymyyakhtakh culture (ɯm-mɯ-yakh-takh, Russian: Ымыяхтахская культура, romanized: Ymyyakhtakhskaya kul’tura) was a Late Neolithic culture of Siberia, with a very large archaeological horizon, dating to c. 2200–1300 BCE. Its origins seem to be in the Lena river basin of Yakutia, and also along the Yenisei river. From there it spread to the east and west. Individual sites were also found in Taymyr. It is named after Ymyyakhtakh, a settlement in the Sakha Republic, Russia.” ref
A. Golovnev discusses Ymyyakhtakh culture in the context of a “circumpolar syndrome”:
- “… some features of the East Siberian Ymyyakhtakh culture spread amazingly quickly as far as Scandinavia. Ceramics with wafer prints are found at the Late Bronze Age monuments of the Taimyr Peninsula, Yamal Peninsula, Bolshezemelskaya and Malozemelskaya tundra, the Kola Peninsula, and Finland (not to mention East Siberia and North-East Asia).” ref
“The Ymyyakhtakh made round-bottomed ceramics with waffle and ridge prints on the outer surface. Stone and bone arrowheads, spears, and harpoons are richly represented. Armour plates were also used in warfare. Finds of bronze ware are frequent in the burial grounds. The culture was formed by the tribes migrating from the shores of Lake Baikal to the north, merging with the local substrate of the Bel’kachi culture. The carriers of culture are identified either with the Yukaghirs ethnic group, or perhaps with the Chukchi and Koryaks. The Ymyyakhtakh culture continued at least until the first centuries of our era. It was later replaced by the Ust-Mil culture.” ref
“After 1,700 BCE, the Ymyyakhtakh culture is believed to have spread to the east as far as the Chukotka peninsula, where it was in cultural contact with the Eskimo–Aleut language speakers, and the Paleo-Eskimos. A ceramic complex comparable to the Ymyyakhtakh culture (typified by pottery with an admixture of wool) is also found in northern Fennoscandia near the end of the second millennium BCE.” ref
Syalakh culture
“Syalakh culture is an early Neolithic culture of Yakutia and Eastern Siberia. It formed in the middle Lena river basin in the V — IV millenniums BCE as a result of the migration of tribes from Transbaikalia, which assimilated the local Sumnagin culture (10,500-6,500 years ago) that was preceramic. The culture got its name from Lake Syalakh, located 90 km from the town of Zhigansk in Yakutia (Saha). The first archaeological excavations in this area were conducted under the direction of A. P. Okladnikov in the 1940s. The sites of the carriers of Syalakh culture are marked by the first appearance of polished stone tools, as well as the earliest ceramics (fired clay pottery with a characteristic mesh pattern). Bone harpoons, and bow and arrows have also been found. More than 50 sites of the Syalakh culture are known. In the decorative arts, a central place is occupied by the images of moose, which reflect mythological representation. The Syalakh culture was followed by the Belkachi culture. The ancient Paleo-Eskimo peoples were probably involved in these migrations. According to the linguists, the most likely hypothesis is that representatives of this culture spoke one of the Dené–Yeniseian languages.” ref
According to Pavel Flegontov et al.,
- “The new wave of population from northeastern Asia that arrived in Alaska at least 4,800 years ago displays clear archaeological precedents leading back to Central Siberia. … the Syalakh culture peoples, spreading across Siberia after 6,500 YBP, might represent the “ghost population” that split off around 6,500-7,000 YBP, and later gave rise to migrants into America.” ref
Comb Ceramic culture
“The Comb Ceramic culture or Pit-Comb Ware culture, often abbreviated as CCC or PCW, was a northeast European culture characterised by its Pit–Comb Ware. It existed from around 4200 BCE to around 2000 BCE. The bearers of the Comb Ceramic culture are thought to have still mostly followed the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer (Eastern Hunter-Gatherer) lifestyle, with traces of early agriculture. The distribution of the artifacts found includes Finnmark (Norway) in the north, the Kalix River (Sweden) and the Gulf of Bothnia (Finland) in the west and the Vistula River (Poland) in the south. It would include the Narva culture of Estonia and the Sperrings culture in Finland, among others. They are thought to have been essentially hunter-gatherers, though e.g. the Narva culture in Estonia shows some evidence of agriculture. Some of this region was absorbed by the later Corded Ware horizon. The Pit–Comb Ware culture is one of the few exceptions to the rule that pottery and farming coexist in Europe. In the Near East farming appeared before pottery, then when farming spread into Europe from the Near East, pottery-making came with it. However, in Asia, where the oldest pottery has been found, pottery was made long before farming. It appears that the Comb Ceramic Culture reflects influences from Siberia and distant China.” ref
“By dating according to the elevation of land, the ceramics have traditionally (Äyräpää 1930) been divided into the following periods: early (Ka I, c. 4200 BC – 3300 BC), typical (Ka II, c. 3300 BC – 2700 BC) and late Comb Ceramic (Ka III, c. 2800 BC – 2000 BC). However, calibrated radiocarbon dates for the comb-ware fragments found (e.g., in the Karelian isthmus), give a total interval of 5600 BC – 2300 BC (Geochronometria Vol. 23, pp 93–99, 2004). The settlements were located at sea shores or beside lakes and the economy was based on hunting, fishing, and the gathering of plants. In Finland, it was a maritime culture that became more and more specialized in hunting seals. The dominant dwelling was probably a teepee of about 30 square meters where some 15 people could live. Also, rectangular houses made of timber became popular in Finland from 4000 BC cal. Graves were dug at the settlements and the dead were covered with red ochre. The typical Comb Ceramic age shows an extensive use of objects made of flint and amber as grave offerings.” ref
“The stone tools changed very little over time. They were made of local materials such as slate and quartz. Finds suggest a fairly extensive exchange network: red slate originating from northern Scandinavia, asbestos from Lake Saimaa, green slate from Lake Onega, amber from the southern shores of the Baltic Sea, and flint from the Valdai area in northwestern Russia. The culture was characterized by small figurines of burnt clay and animal heads made of stone. The animal heads usually depict moose and bears and were derived from the art of the Mesolithic. There were also many rock paintings. There are sources noting that the typical comb ceramic pottery had a sense of luxury and that its makers knew how to wear precious amber pendants. The great westward dispersal of the Uralic languages is suggested to have happened long after the demise of the Comb Ceramic culture, perhaps in the 1st millennium BC.” ref
“Saag et al. (2017) analyzed three CCC individuals buried at Kudruküla as belonging to Y-hg R1a5-YP1272 (R1a1b~ after ISOGG 2020), along with three mtDNA samples of mt-hg U5b1d1, U4a and U2e1. Mittnik (2018) analyzed two CCC individuals. The male carried R1 (2021: R1b-M343) and U4d2, while the female carried U5a1d2b. Generally, the CCC individuals were mostly of Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) descent, with even more EHG than people of the Narva culture. Lamnidis et al. (2018) found 15% Western Hunter-Gatherer (WHG) ancestry, 65% Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) – higher than among earlier cultures of the eastern Baltic, and 20% Western Steppe Herder (WSH).” ref
The impacts of bronze age in the gene pool of Chinese:
Insights from phylogeographics of Y-chromosomal haplogroup N1a2a-F1101
“A revised phylogenetic tree of haplogroup N1a2a-F1101 were constructed with age estimation (Figure 1 and Supplementary Table S1). The haplogroups N1a2b-P43 and N1a2a-F1101 split at about 9300 years ago. There are similarities in the early history of the two haplogroups. They all experienced a very significant expansion after a bottleneck period of nearly 5,000 years and became the dominant paternal lineage of descendant populations. The main downstream branch of N1a2a-F1101 is N1a2a1-F1154, and the main differentiation node time is 4400 and 4000 years ago, and dozens of downstream branches are born. Among them, N1a2a1a1a1a1-F710 has undergone significant expansion after 3,350 years ago, giving birth to more than 70 downstream clades (Figure 1 and Supplementary Table S1). This topology suggests that the population expansion experienced by this paternal line around 3,000 years ago was the most significant of all paternal lineages in ancient East Asian populations at the same history period. Previously, ancient DNA studies suggested that this paternal line may be the paternal lineage of the Zhou Dynasty, the third dynasty of ancient China (Ma et al., 2021; Wei et al., 2022). The differentiation topology of this study supports the results of ancient DNA findings.” ref
Early history between 9,300 and 4,400 years ago
“As the only two downstream clades of N1a2-L666, the geographical distribution of N1a2a-F1101 and N1a2b-P43 is very different from each other. Ancient DNA studies have identified early branches of N1a2a-F1101 and N1a2b-P43 in sites in the Baikal region (de Barros Damgaard et al., 2018; Kilinc et al., 2021; Ma et al., 2021). The most recent branch of N1a2-L666 is N1a1-M46, the main paternal type of the Uralic population (Ilumäe et al., 2016). The first two early branches under N1a1-M46, N1a1b-Y149447 and N1a1a3-F4065, are mainly distributed in northeast China (https://www.yfull.com/tree/N/) (Hu et al., 2015). Therefore, we speculate that the initial spread of haplogroup N1a2-L666 may have been in the southwestern part of northeastern China (Figure 3). We proposed that this region is also the initial diffusion center of N1a1-M46, while the diffusion of N1a1-M46 (>12 kya) happened earlier than that of N1a2-L666 (<9.3 kya) (Hu et al., 2015). In the early Holocene (about 11.2kya-8kya), with climate change and the rise of early agricultural populations in northern China, a part of the descendants of the ancestor group, representing by sub-lineage N1a2b-P43, spread to the high latitude region of Siberia, eventually becoming part of the Ural-speaking populations. The other part, representing by sub-lineage N1a2a-F1101, remained in the local area and participated in the formation of the northern Chinese populations in the later historical period (Figure 3).” ref
“A bottleneck period of 5,000 years was observed early in the evolution of N1a2a-F1101 (Figure 1, Supplementary Table S1). Similar lengthy bottleneck periods were observed in downstream structures of N1a2b-P43, N1a1-M46, and Q1a1a-M120 (Ilumäe et al., 2016; Sun et al., 2019). This evolutionary pattern is very different from the expansion pattern of ancient agricultural populations in East Asia, which continued to expand since the beginning of Neolithic age (Yan et al., 2014). The differentiation of the downstream clades of Q-M242 and N-231 presents a similar structure, i.e., downstream clades with high frequency distribution both in East Asia and Siberia, respectively. Therefore, we speculate that in the bottleneck interval, ancient populations with Q1a1a-M120 and N1a2a-F1101 as the main paternal lineages are likely to exist in the form of prehistoric hunter-gatherer populations in the border between the eastern Eurasian steppe and the northern-northeastern China. The drought and harsh natural environment of this area had a great influence on the evolution of the two paternal lineages in later historical periods.” ref
Expansion during the chalcolithic age and bronze age
“During the Chalcolithic age (about 4.5 kya-4.0 kya) in East Asia, copper, cattle and wheat were introduced to the East Asian heartland (Liu and Chen, 2003; Liu, 2004; Liu and Chen, 2017). Archaeologists have suggested that the elements may have spread from northern boundary of China through the Eurasian steppe. However, the demographic context of this important cultural process is very ambiguous. Around 4,000 years ago, the Bronze culture arose in the agro-pastoral region of northwestern China and later spread across East Asia and Southeast Asia. The mixing of the bronze culture of agriculture and animal husbandry with the people of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River contributed to the establishment of three dynasties of the Bronze Age in ancient China, namely the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties (Liu and Chen, 2003; Liu, 2004; Liu and Chen, 2017). As discussed above, ancient populations with Q1a1a-M120 and N1a2a-F1101 as the main paternal lineages may have played a mediating role in the spread of the Copper and Bronze cultures from the eastern Eurasian steppe to the central East Asian region, due to their area of activity in the junction zone. Due to the same reason, these two paternal lines experienced a very significant spread during the Bronze Age, becoming important patrilineal lineages that occupied an upper political position in the Bronze Age, and were frequently detected in the tombs of chiefs and nobles of the time (Zhao et al., 2014; Sun et al., 2019; Ma et al., 2021; Wei et al., 2022).” ref
“An interesting thing is that the significant expansion of N1a2a-F1101 occurred after 3,300 years ago, significantly later than the major expansion period of Q1a1a-M120 (4.2 kya-3 kya, Figure 1). Nevertheless, several downstream clades of Q1a1a-M120, like F4759 and F4689, exhibit simultaneous expansion with N1a2a1a1a1a1-F710 (Sun et al., 2019). Ancient DNA data suggest that these two paternal lineages were concentrated in ancient populations in northwest China, and co-occurred in some tombs (Zhao et al., 2014; Ma et al., 2021; Wei et al., 2022). These ancient DNA studies also suggest that N1a2a-F1101 is likely the paternal lineage of the royal family of the Zhou Dynasty, while Q1a1a-M120 is the main paternal lineage of the Rong-Di populations (Means “Barbarians” in ancient Chinese). Both paternal lineages became the main paternal component of the Chinese group in later generations. In conclusion, we speculate that Q1a1a-M120 and N1a2a-F1101 together constitute the main paternal lineages of the populations that worked as farmers and pastoralists in northwest China during the Copper-Bronze Age. They played a key role in the emergence of bronze culture, early states, and early civilizations in central region of ancient China.” ref
Bronze age globalization in East Asia
“As, discussed in the Introduction section, Bronze age globalization has led to mass replacement and mixing of populations in multiple parts of Eurasia (Allentoft et al., 2015). In East Asia, however, the situation is quite different. Ancient DNA shows that during the Copper-Bronze Age, the populations in the central East Asian region did not experience large-scale replacement, and the genetic components from Indo-Europeans are nearly absent. Based on previous literature and the results of this paper, we suggest that the Gobi Desert on the border between China and Mongolia may have hindered the spread of the Bronze culture and Indo-European-related populations. The hunter-gatherer communities that originally operated in the north and south of the Gobi Desert relied on their familiarity with the environment and long-distance material exchange networks to spread relevant cultural elements as intermediaries.” ref
“In later historical periods, they became the main founders of the bronze culture populations in northwest China. These demographic histories led to the spread of Bronze culture into central East Asia as a form of cultural diffusion, unlike what happened in other parts of Eurasia during the Bronze Age period of globalization. In summary, we constructed a high-resolution phylogeny for Y-chromosome haplogroup N1a2a-F1101, one of main paternal lineages of modern Chinese. We explored the demographic of this paternal haplogroup in the past 9,000 years. We also discussed the activity of ancient populations with this lineage and their role during the appearance of Bronze Age culture, the formation of early state and early civilizations in central region of China. The newly-discovered sub-branches and variants will assist in exploring the formation process of gene pool of Chinese populations and their cultural traditions.” ref
Dené–Yeniseian languages
“Dené–Yeniseian is a proposed language family consisting of the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia and the Na-Dené languages of northwestern North America. Reception among experts has been somewhat favorable; thus, Dené–Yeniseian has been called “the first demonstration of a genealogical link between Old World and New World language families that meets the standards of traditional comparative–historical linguistics“, besides the Eskaleut languages spoken in far eastern Siberia and North America.” ref
“In his 2012 presentation, Vajda also addressed non-linguistic evidence, including analyses of Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups, which are passed unchanged down the male and female lines, respectively, except for mutations. His most compelling DNA evidence is the Q1 Y-chromosomal haplogroup subclade, which he notes arose c. 15,000 years ago and is found in nearly all Native Americans and nearly all of the Yeniseian Ket people (90%), but almost nowhere else in Eurasia except for the Selkup people (65%), who have intermarried with the Ket people for centuries. In his 2012 reply to George Starostin, Vajda clarifies that Dené-Yeniseian “as it currently stands is a hypothesis of language relatedness but not yet a proper hypothesis of language taxonomy”. He leaves “open the possibility that either Yeniseian or ND (or both) might have a closer relative elsewhere in Eurasia.” ref
“Using this and other evidence, he proposes a Proto-Dené-Yeniseian homeland located in eastern Siberia around the Amur and Aldan Rivers. These people would have been hunter-gatherers, as are the modern Yeniseians, but unlike, as Vajda incorrectly claims, nearly all other Siberian groups (except for some Paleosiberian peoples located around the Pacific Rim of far eastern Siberia, who appear genetically unrelated to the Yeniseians). Eventually all descendants in Eurasia were eliminated by the spread of reindeer-breeding pastoralist peoples (e.g. the speakers of the so-called Altaic languages) except for the modern Yeniseians, who were able to survive in swampy refuges far to the west along the Yenisei River because it is too mosquito-infested for reindeer to survive easily. Contrarily, the caribou (the North American reindeer population) were never domesticated, and thus the modern Na-Dené people were not similarly threatened. In fact, reindeer herding spread throughout Siberia rather recently and there were many other hunter-gatherer peoples in Siberia in modern times.” ref
“Instead of forming a separate family, Starostin believes that both Yeniseian and Na-Dené are part of a much larger grouping called Dene-Caucasian. Starostin states that the two families are related in a large sense, but there is no special relationship between them that would suffice to create a separate family between these two language families. In 2015, linguist Paul Kiparsky endorsed Dené–Yeniseian, saying that “the morphological parallelism and phonological similarities among corresponding affixes is most suggestive, but most compelling evidence for actual relationship comes from those sound correspondences which can be accounted for by independently motivated regular sound changes.” ref
“The Dene-Yeniseian hypothesis regards the Ket language spoken in the Yenisei River Basin as genetically related to the widespread Na-Dene language family in North America. Na-Dene comprises Tlingit and the recently extinct Eyak in Alaska, along with over thirty Athabaskan languages spoken from the western North American Subarctic to pockets in California (Hupa), Oregon (Tolowa) and the American Southwest (Navajo, Apache) (Krauss 1976). Pre-Proto-Na-Dene is believed to have spread from Alaska ca. 3000-2500 BCE.” ref
“Sampled Ancient Athabaskans from Alaska (ca. CE 1200) show a 30-40% contribution from Paleo-Eskimo ancestry – complementing the pre-existing ancestry of Northern First Peoples – in an admixture event estimated to have happened roughly during the formation of the Proto-Na-Dene community. To complicate things, these two Ancient Athabascan samples (together with a 19th-century one of hg. Q1b-Y4276) suggest a Y-chromosome bottleneck under Q1b-FGC8436 lineages, in common with an ancient sample (ca. AD 880) from a likely Uto-Aztecan-speaking population from San Nicolas Island, in California.” ref
“Their closest patrilineal relatives are represented in ancient DNA by Eskimo-Aleut-speaking early medieval samples from Beringia (ca. AD 700-1000), of hg. Q1b-Z35703, under the same Q-Y4303 branch. Their common connection with parent Q1b-M3, the most widespread Proto-American lineage (and found almost exclusively in that continent), further dilutes any potential patrilineal connection of Ancient Athabascans with the Sialakh and Bel’kachi cultures, traditionally believed to be the ultimate Siberian vectors of Pre-Proto-Na-Dene.” ref
The population movement represented by Palaeo-Eskimo ancestry is thus probably the most relevant for a hypothetical Dene-Yeniseian connection before the (Pre-)Proto-Na-Dene expansion and eventual admixture with North American First Peoples, since Baikal LN/EBA samples show both Y-DNA lineages – Q1b-Y11938 closely related to modern Kets, and Q1b-YP4010 linked to the Paleo-Eskimo Syalakh/Bel’kachi-related expansions.” ref
The ancestor of Common Yeniseian (dated earlier than ca. 1000 BCE), Proto-Yeniseic, can be dated to a considerably earlier period (possibly ca. 3000-2000 BC), and Na-Dene to a roughly similar time (ca. 3500-2500 BC), which – based on the innovations of the latter – allows for a Dene-Yeniseian split ca. 7000-5000 BC (cf. Vajda in Flegontov et al. 2017). The Baikal LN/EBA-related split in population genomics is visible ca. 7,000 years ago, showing that a Na-Dene – Yeniseian connection is not far-fetched in terms of reconstructible languages or tight link in population genomics. NOTE. For comparison, guesstimates for a reconstructible Indo-Anatolian are ca. 7,000-6,500 ybp, which based on the developments of Khvalynsk implies a potentially much earlier Early PIE achievable through internal reconstruction alone.” ref
“Despite the lack of direct samples from the relevant cultural groups, Vajda (in Flegontov et al. 2017, from the Reich Lab) believes that the Arctic Small Tool tradition (ASTt) is the most likely vector of Na-Dene, and that later steps of the linguistic expansion are likely connected to the spread of “Paleo-Eskimo” groups that brought other elements of North Asian material culture and folklore (Alekseenko 1995; Berezkin 2015), like the bow and arrow technology, thought to have been introduced into California 1,500 years ago by the ancestors of the Hupa and other Pacific Coast Athabaskans (Golla 2011:245).” ref
“Nevertheless, based on the shared ancestry among Northern Pacific groups and the highly variable linguistic guesstimates, it is still possible that the arrival of Proto-Na-Dene was linked to the formation of the Northern Archaic people, as previously proposed (e.g. Esdale 2008, Potter 2008). After all, their Northern Archaic tradition (ca. 5000-4500 BC) probably involved a mixture of Syalakh/Bel’kachi-related population with back-migrating peoples bringing Archaic Cultural Diffusion to Alaska, which would justify the presence of Q1b-M3 among early Athabascans. Further, the role of the recently described USR1-related Ancient Beringian population in these cultural and ethnolinguistic developments is unclear. NOTE. Indeed, there is not sufficient data to discard new waves of Q1b-M3 from North-Eastern Siberia to North America. For an interesting but light and illustrated read on potential population movements through Alaska, check e.g. Tremayne (2019).” ref
I tried to put all the DNA migrations, that together help explain Sami DNA, and thus some of their cultural influences.
Postglacial genomes from foragers across Northern Eurasia reveal prehistoric
mobility associated with the spread of the Uralic and Yeniseian languages
Abstract
“The North Eurasian forest and forest-steppe zones have sustained millennia of sociocultural connections among northern peoples. We present genome-wide ancient DNA data for 181 individuals from this region spanning the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age. We find that Early to Mid-Holocene hunter-gatherer populations from across the southern forest and forest-steppes of Northern Eurasia can be characterized by a continuous gradient of ancestry that remained stable for millennia, ranging from fully West Eurasian in the Baltic region to fully East Asian in the Transbaikal region. In contrast, cotemporaneous groups in far Northeast Siberia were genetically distinct, retaining high levels of continuity from a population that was the primary source of ancestry for Native Americans. By the mid-Holocene, admixture between this early Northeastern Siberian population and groups from Inland East Asia and the Amur River Basin produced two distinctive populations in eastern Siberia that played an important role in the genetic formation of later people. Ancestry from the first population, Cis-Baikal Late Neolithic-Bronze Age (Cisbaikal_LNBA), is found substantially only among Yeniseian-speaking groups and those known to have admixed with them. Ancestry from the second, Yakutian Late Neolithic-Bronze Age (Yakutia_LNBA), is strongly associated with present-day Uralic speakers. We show how Yakutia_LNBA ancestry spread from an east Siberian origin ~4.5kya, along with subclades of Y-chromosome haplogroup N occurring at high frequencies among present-day Uralic speakers, into Western and Central Siberia in communities associated with Seima-Turbino metallurgy: a suite of advanced bronze casting techniques that spread explosively across an enormous region of Northern Eurasia ~4.0kya. However, the ancestry of the 16 Seima-Turbino-period individuals–the first reported from sites with this metallurgy–was otherwise extraordinarily diverse, with partial descent from Indo-Iranian-speaking pastoralists and multiple hunter-gatherer populations from widely separated regions of Eurasia. Our results provide support for theories suggesting that early Uralic speakers at the beginning of their westward dispersal where involved in the expansion of Seima-Turbino metallurgical traditions, and suggests that both cultural transmission and migration were important in the spread of Seima-Turbino material culture.” ref
“It is generally considered that N-M231 arose in East Asia approximately 19,400 (±4,800) years ago and populated northern Eurasia after the Last Glacial Maximum. Males carrying the marker apparently moved northwards as the climate warmed in the Holocene, migrating in a counter-clockwise path, to eventually become concentrated in areas as far away as Fennoscandia and the Baltic (Rootsi et al. 2006). The apparent dearth of haplogroup N-M231 amongst Native American peoples indicates that it spread after Beringia was submerged (Chiaroni, Underhill & Cavalli-Sforza 2009), about 11,000 years ago.” ref
“The Holocene is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years before present (around 9700 BCE), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat.” ref
“Haplogroup N has a wide geographic distribution throughout northern Eurasia, and it also has been observed occasionally in other areas, including Central Asia and the Balkans. It has been found with the greatest frequency among indigenous peoples of Russia, including Finnic peoples, Mari, Udmurt, Komi, Khanty, Mansi, Nenets, Nganasans, Turkic peoples (Yakuts, Dolgans, Khakasses, Tuvans, Tatars, Chuvashes, etc.), Buryats, Tungusic peoples (Evenks, Evens, Negidals, Nanais, etc.), Yukaghirs, Luoravetlans (Chukchis, Koryaks), and Siberian Eskimos, but certain subclades are very common in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and other subclades are found at low frequency in China (Yi, Naxi, Lhoba, Han Chinese, etc.). Especially in ethnic Finnic peoples and Baltic-speaking peoples of northern Europe, the Ob-Ugric-speaking and Northern Samoyed peoples of western Siberia, and Turkic-speaking peoples of Russia (especially Yakuts (McDonald 2005), but also Altaians, Shors, Khakas, Chuvashes, Tatars, and Bashkirs). Nearly all members of haplogroup N among these populations of northern Eurasia belong to subclades of either haplogroup N-Tat or haplogroup N-P43.” ref
“Y-chromosomes belonging to N1b-F2930/M1881/V3743, or N1*-CTS11499/L735/M2291(xN1a-F1206/M2013/S11466), have been found in China and sporadically throughout other parts of Eurasia. N1a-F1206/M2013/S11466 is found in high numbers in Northern Eurasia. N2-Y6503, the other primary subclade of haplogroup N, is extremely rare and is mainly represented among extant humans by a recently formed subclade that is virtually restricted to the countries making up the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro), Hungary and Austria. Other members of N2-Y6503 include a Hungarian with recent ancestry from Suceava in Bukovina, a Slovakian, a few British individuals, and an Altaian.” ref
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“N1c represents the western extent of haplogroup N, which is found all over the Far East (China, Korea, Japan), Mongolia, and Siberia, especially among Uralic speakers of northern Siberia. Haplogroup N1 reaches a maximum frequency of approximately 95% in the Nenets (40% N1c and 57% N1b) and Nganassans (all N1b), two Uralic tribes of central-northern Siberia, and 90% among the Yakuts (all N1c), a Turkic people who live mainly in the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic in central-eastern Siberia.” ref
Nenets (40% N1c and 57% N1b)
“The Nenets, also known as Samoyed, are a Samoyedic ethnic group native to northern Arctic Russia, Russian Far North. According to the latest census in 2010, there were 44,857 Nenets in the Russian Federation, most of them living in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Nenets Autonomous Okrug, and Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District stretching along the coastline of the Arctic Ocean near the Arctic Circle between Kola and Taymyr peninsulas. The Nenets people speak either the Tundra or Forest Nenets languages, which are mutually unintelligible. In the Russian Federation, they have a status of indigenous small-numbered peoples.” ref
“The Nenets language is on the Samoyedic branch of the Uralic language family, with two major dialects, Forest Nenets and Tundra Nenets. Ethnologue says that in Siberia, most young people are still fluent in Nenets, whereas in European Russia, they tend to speak Russian. Overall, the majority of native speakers are from older generations. UNESCO classifies Nenets as an endangered language. Some believe that the use of Russian and Komi is due to inter-ethnic marriages.” ref
“There are two distinct groups of Nenets sensu stricto, based on their economy: the Tundra Nenets (living far to the north) and the Khandeyar, or Forest Nenets. A distinct third group of Nenets, (Yaran people), has emerged as a result of intermarriages between Nenets and Izhma Komi people. The Samoyedic languages form a branch of the Uralic language family. According to one theory, they moved from farther south in Siberia to the northernmost part of what later became Russia sometime before the 12th century.” ref
“Their main subsistence comes from hunting and reindeer herding. Using reindeer as a draft animal throughout the year enables them to cover great distances. Large-scale reindeer herding emerged in the 18th century. They bred the Samoyed dog to help herd their reindeer and pull their sleds, and European explorers later used these dogs for polar expeditions, because they were well adapted to the arctic conditions. Tundra wolves can cause considerable economic loss, as they prey on the reindeer herds which are the livelihood of some Nenets families. Along with reindeer meat, fish is a major component in the Nenets’ diet. Nenets housing is conical yurt (mya).” ref
“They have a shamanistic and animistic belief system which stresses respect for the land and its resources. During migrations, the Nenets placed sacred items like bear skins, religious figures, coins, and more on a holy sleigh. The contents of this sacred sleigh are only unpacked during special occasions or for religious rituals (like sacrifices). However, only esteemed elders are allowed to unpack the sacred sleigh. They had a clan-based social structure. The Nenets shaman is called a Tadibya.” ref
Nganassans (all N1b)
“The Nganasans are a Uralic people of the Samoyedic branch native to the Taymyr Peninsula in northern Siberia. In the Russian Federation, they are recognized as one of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. They reside primarily in the settlements of Ust-Avam, Volochanka, and Novaya in the Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, with smaller populations residing in the towns of Dudinka and Norilsk as well. The Nganasans are thought to be the direct descendants of proto-Uralic peoples. However, there is some evidence that they absorbed local Paleo-Siberian population. The Nganasans were traditionally a semi-nomadic people whose main form of subsistence was wild reindeer hunting, in contrast to the Nenets, who herded reindeer.” ref
“The Nganasans first referred to themselves in Russian as Samoyeds, but they would also often use this term when referring to the Enets people and instead refer to themselves as “Avam people.” For the Nganasans, the term signified ngano-nganasana, which means “real people” in the Nganasan language, and referred to both themselves and the neighboring Madu Enets. However, in their own language, the Avam Nganasans refer to themselves as nya-tansa, which translates as “comrade tribe,” whereas the Vadeyev Nganasans to the East prefer to refer to themselves as a’sa which means “brother,” but also Evenk or Dolgan. The Nganasans were also formerly called Tavgi Samoyeds or Tavgis initially by the Russians, which derives from the word tavgy in the Nenets language.” ref
“The homeland of the Proto-Uralic peoples, including the Samoyeds, is suggested to be somewhere near the Ob and Yenisey river drainage areas of Central Siberia or near Lake Baikal. The Nganasan are considered by most ethnographers who study them to have arisen as an ethnic group when Samoyedic peoples migrated to the Taymyr Peninsula from the south, encountering Paleo-Siberian peoples living there who they then assimilated into their culture. One group of Samoyedic people intermarried with Paleo-Siberian peoples living between the Taz and Yenisei rivers, forming a group that the Soviet ethnographer B.O. Dolgikh refers to as the Samoyed-Ravens.” ref
“Another group intermarried with the Paleo-Siberian inhabitants of the Pyasina River and formed another group which he called the Samoyed-Eagles. Subsequently, a group of Tungusic people migrated to the region near Lake Pyasino and the Avam River, where they were absorbed into Samoyed culture, forming a new group called the Tidiris. There was another group of Tungusic peoples called the Tavgs who lived along the basins of the Khatanga and Anabar rivers and came into contact with the aforementioned Samoyedic peoples, absorbing their language and creating their own Tavg Savoyedic dialect. It is known that the ancestors of the Nganasan previously inhabited territory further south from a book in the city Mangazeya that lists yasak (fur tribute) payments by the Nganasan which were made in sable, an animal that does not inhabit the tundra where the Nganasan now live.” ref
“By the middle of the 17th century, Tungusic peoples began to push the Samoyedic peoples northward towards the tundra Taymyr Peninsula, where they merged into one tribe called “Avam Nganasans”. As the Tavgs were the largest Samoyedic group at the time of this merger, their dialect formed the basis of the present-day Nganasan language. In the late 19th century, a Tungusic group called the Vanyadyrs also moved to the Eastern Taymyr peninsula, where they were absorbed by the Avam Nganasans, resulting in the tribe that is now called Vadeyev Nganasans. In the 19th century, a member of the Dolgans, a Turkic people who lived east of the Nganasans, was also absorbed by the Nganasans, and his descendants formed an eponymous clan, which today, though linguistically fully Samoyedic, is still acknowledged as being Dolgan in origin.” ref
Yakuts (all N1c)
“The Yakuts, or the Sakha (Yakut: саха, sakha; plural: сахалар, sakhalar), are a Turkic ethnic group who mainly live in the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation, with some extending to the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions, and the Taymyr and Evenk Districts of the Krasnoyarsk region. The Yakut language belongs to the Siberian branch of the Turkic languages. The Russian word yakut was taken from Evenk yokō. The Yakuts call themselves Sakha, or Urangai Sakha (Yakut: Уран Саха, Uran Sakha) in some old chronicles.” ref
“Many researchers have concluded that the Yakut ethnogenesis was an admixture of Turko-Mongols migrating from Lake-Baikal and native Yukaghir and Tungusitic peoples residing around the Lena River. Okladnikov detailed this conceived admixture process as the following:
“…the Turkic-speaking ancestors of the Yakuts not only pushed out the aborigines but also subjected them to their influence by peaceful means; they assimilated and absorbed them into their mass… With this, the local tribes lost the former ethnic name and a proper ethnic consciousness, no longer separating themselves from the mass of Yakuts, and [were] not opposed to them… Consequently, as a result of the mixing with Northern aborigines, the southern ancestors of the Yakuts supplemented their culture and language with new features distinguishing them from other steppe tribes.” ref
“In 1996 Aleksei N. Alekseev and S. I. Nikolaeva-Somogotto alternatively proposed that Paleo-Asian and Samoyedic peoples populations instead intermarried with the incoming Turko-Mongols, for which there is some evidence. Traditional Yakut histories contain stories of the aboriginal peoples of Yakutia. From the subarctic Bulunsky and Verkhoyansky Districts accounts state that the Black Yukaghir descended from migrants pushed north from the Lena River. Related stories recorded in Ust’-Aldanskiy Ulus and Megino-Kangalassky District mention certain tribes leaving the region due to rising pressure from the incoming Yakuts. While some remained and intermarried with the newcomer, most went to the northern tundra.” ref
“The Ymyyakhtakh are an ancient people of the Lena River. A burial ground was excavated and anthropologists I.I. Gokhman and L.F. Tomtosova studied the human remains and published their results in 1992. They concluded that some of the Late Neolithic population took part in the formation of the modern Yakuts. The consistency of related artistic embellishments on the traditional clothing of the Buryat, Samoyed, and Yakut led one scholar to conclude they are related. Toponymic data of Yakutia indicates there was once a presence of Paleoasian and Samoyed habitation in the region. Vilyui Tumats reportedly practiced anthropophagy and seen as an “ethnocultural marker” of the Samoyedic peoples.” ref
“The Tumat stand out in Yakut tradition as a numerous and powerful society, with constant conflict once happening with them on the Vilyuy River. Their households were semi-subterranean with sod roofing and are comparable to traditional Samoyed dwellings. The term Doubo was used in medieval Chinese historical works in reference to the Sayano-Altai forest peoples. Vasily Radlov concluded that Doubo referred to the Samoyedic peoples. Doubo is additionally seen as the origin of the ethnonym “Tumat” by L. P. Potapov.” ref
“The Yakuts called the Tumat people “Dyirikinei” or “chipmunk people” (Yakut: Sдьирикинэй), arising from the Tumatian “tail-coat.” Bundles of deer fur were dyed with red ocher and sewn into Tumatian jackets as adornments. Tumat hats were likewise dyed red. This style was likely spread by the Tumatians to some Tungusic peoples. Similar clothing has been reported during the 17th century for the Evenks on the upper Angara and for Evens residing on the lower Kolyma in the early 19th century. Additionally there are many similarities between the clothing of the Tumats and Altaic cultures. Archeological work on Pazyryk culture sites have turned up both hats dyed red and tail-coats made of sables. While the “tails” were not dyed red, they were sewn with red-dyed thread. Stylistic and design choices are also comparable to traditional Khakas and Kumandin clothing.” ref
“Some peaceable interactions including intermarriage did occur with the Tumats. One such example is the life of Džaardaakh (Russian: Джаардаах), a Tumatian woman. She was renowned for her physical strength and martial repute as an archer. However, Džaardaakh eventually married a Yakut man and is considered a notable ancestor of the local Vilyuy Yakut. The origin of her name has been linked to a Yukaghir word for ice.” ref
“The ancestors of Yakuts were Kurykans who migrated from Yenisey river to Lake Baikal and were subject to a certain Mongolian admixture prior to migration in the 7th century. The Yakuts originally lived around Olkhon and the region of Lake Baikal. Beginning in the 13th century they migrated to the basins of the Middle Lena, the Aldan, and Vilyuy rivers under the pressure of the rising Mongols. The northern Yakuts were largely hunters, fishermen, and reindeer herders, while the southern Yakuts raised cattle and horses. The Yakuts engage in animal husbandry, traditionally having focused on rearing horses, mainly the Yakutian horse, reindeer and the Sakha Ynagha (‘Yakutian cow’), a hardy kind of cattle known as Yakutian cattle which is well adapted to the harsh local weather.” ref
Sámi
“The Sámi (also spelled Sami or Saami) are a Finno-Ugric-speaking people inhabiting the region of Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Murmansk Oblast, Russia, most of the Kola Peninsula in particular. The Sámi have historically been known in English as Lapps or Laplanders, but these terms are regarded as offensive by the Sámi, who prefer the area’s name in their own languages, e.g. Northern Sámi Sápmi. Their traditional languages are the Sámi languages, which are classified as a branch of the Uralic language family.” ref
“Traditionally, the Sámi have pursued a variety of livelihoods, including coastal fishing, fur trapping, and sheep herding. Their best-known means of livelihood is semi-nomadic reindeer herding. Currently, about 10% of the Sámi are connected to reindeer herding, which provides them with meat, fur, and transportation. 2,800 Sámi people are actively involved in reindeer herding on a full-time basis in Norway. For traditional, environmental, cultural, and political reasons, reindeer herding is legally reserved for only Sámi in some regions of the Nordic countries.” ref
“Speakers of Northern Sámi refer to themselves as Sámit (the Sámis) or Sápmelaš (of Sámi kin), the word Sápmi being inflected into various grammatical forms. Other Sámi languages use cognate words. As of around 2014, the current consensus among specialists was that the word Sámi was borrowed from the Proto-Baltic word *žēmē, meaning ‘land’ (cognate with Slavic zemlja (земля), of the same meaning).” ref
“The word Sámi has at least one cognate word in Finnish: Proto-Baltic *žēmē was also borrowed into Proto-Finnic, as *šämä. This word became modern Finnish Häme (Finnish for the region of Tavastia; the second ä of *šämä is still found in the adjective Hämäläinen). The Finnish word for Finland, Suomi, is also thought probably to derive ultimately from Proto-Baltic *žēmē, though the precise route is debated and proposals usually involve complex processes of borrowing and reborrowing. Suomi and its adjectival form suomalainen must come from *sōme-/sōma-. In one proposal, this Finnish word comes from a Proto-Germanic word *sōma-, itself from Proto-Baltic *sāma-, in turn, borrowed from Proto-Finnic *šämä, which was borrowed from *žēmē.” ref
“The first probable historical mention of the Sámi, naming them Fenni, was by Tacitus, about CE 98. Variants of Finn or Fenni were in wide use in ancient times, judging from the names Fenni and Φίννοι (Phinnoi) in classical Roman and Greek works. Finn (or variants, such as skridfinn, ‘striding Finn’) was the name originally used by Norse speakers (and their proto-Norse speaking ancestors) to refer to the Sámi, as attested in the Icelandic Eddas and Norse sagas (11th to 14th centuries). The etymology is somewhat uncertain, but the consensus seems to be that it is related to Old Norse finna, from proto-Germanic *finþanan (‘to find’), the logic being that the Sámi, as hunter-gatherers “found” their food, rather than grew it. This etymology has superseded older speculations that the word might be related to fen.” ref
“As Old Norse gradually developed into the separate Scandinavian languages, Swedes apparently took to using Finn to refer to inhabitants of what is now Finland, while the Sámi came to be called Lapps. In Norway, however, Sámi were still called Finns at least until the modern era (reflected in toponyms like Finnmark, Finnsnes, Finnfjord, and Finnøy), and some northern Norwegians will still occasionally use Finn to refer to Sámi people, although the Sámi themselves now consider this to be an inappropriate term. Finnish immigrants to Northern Norway in the 18th and 19th centuries were referred to as Kvens to distinguish them from the Sámi “Finns”. Ethnic Finns (suomalaiset) are a distinct group from Sámi.” ref
“The languages of the Sámi, like other Uralic languages, are believed to originate from the region along the Volga, which is the longest river in Europe. The Sámi have their roots in the middle and upper Volga region in the Corded Ware culture. These groups presumably started to move to the northwest from the early home region of the Uralic peoples in the second and third quarters of the second millennium BCE. On their journey, they used the ancient river routes of northern Russia that had been in use for millennia. Some of these peoples, who may have originally spoken the same western Uralic language, stopped and stayed in the regions between Karelia, Ladoga, and Lake Ilmen, and even further to the east and to the southeast. The groups of these peoples that ended up in the Finnish Lakeland from 1600 to 1500 BCE later “became” the Sámi.” ref
“The Sámi language first developed on the southern side of Lake Onega and Lake Ladoga and spread from there. When the speakers of this language extended to the area of modern-day Finland, they encountered groups of peoples who spoke a number of smaller ancient languages, which later became extinct. However, these languages left traces in the Sámi language. As the language spread further, it became segmented into dialects. The geographical distribution of the Sámi has evolved over the course of history.” ref
“From the Bronze Age, the Sámi occupied the area along the coast of Finnmark and the Kola Peninsula.[32] This coincides with the arrival of the Siberian genome to Estonia and Finland, which may correspond with the introduction of the Finno-Ugric languages in the region. Petroglyphs and archeological findings such as settlements, dating from about 10,000 BCE can be found in Lapland and Finnmark, although these have not been demonstrated to be related to the Sámi people. These hunter-gatherers of the late Paleolithic and early Mesolithic were named Komsa by the researchers. The Sámi have a complex relationship with the Scandinavians (known as Norse people in the medieval era), the dominant peoples of Scandinavia, who speak Scandinavian languages and who founded and thus dominated the kingdoms of Norway and Sweden in which most Sámi people live.” ref
“While the Sámi have lived in Fennoscandia for around 3,500 years, Sámi settlement of Scandinavia does not predate Norse/Scandinavian settlement of Scandinavia, as sometimes popularly assumed. The migration of Germanic-speaking peoples to Southern Scandinavia happened independently and separate from the later Sami migrations into the northern regions. For centuries, the Sámi and the Scandinavians had relatively little contact; the Sámi primarily lived in the inland of northern Fennoscandia, while Scandinavians lived in southern Scandinavia and gradually colonized the Norwegian coast; from the 18th and especially the 19th century, the governments of Norway and Sweden started to assert sovereignty more aggressively in the north, and targeted the Sámi with Scandinavization policies aimed at forced assimilation from the 19th century. Before the era of forced Scandinavization policies, the Norwegian and Swedish authorities had largely ignored the Sámi and did not interfere much in their way of life.” ref
Uralic languages
“Proto-Uralic is the reconstructed language ancestral to the Uralic language family. The language was originally spoken in a small area in about 7000–2000 BCE (estimates vary), and expanded to give differentiated protolanguages. New research has pushed the Proto-Uralic homeland east of the Ural Mountains and deep into Siberia.” ref
“The Ural Mountains or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan. The mountain range forms part of the conventional boundary between the regions of Europe and Asia.” ref
“The Uralic languages form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25 million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (which alone accounts for more than half of the family’s speakers), Finnish, and Estonian. Other significant languages with fewer speakers are Erzya, Moksha, Mari, Udmurt, Sami, Komi, and Vepsian, all of which are spoken in northern regions of Scandinavia and the Russian Federation.” ref
“The name “Uralic” derives from the family’s original homeland (Urheimat) commonly hypothesized to have been somewhere in the vicinity of the Ural Mountains. Finno-Ugric is sometimes used as a synonym for Uralic, though Finno-Ugric is widely understood to exclude the Samoyedic languages. Scholars who do not accept the traditional notion that Samoyedic split first from the rest of the Uralic family may treat the terms as synonymous.” ref
“The Uralic family comprises nine undisputed groups with no consensus classification between them. (Some of the proposals are listed in the next section.) An agnostic approach treats them as separate branches. All Uralic languages are thought to have descended, through independent processes of language change, from Proto-Uralic. The internal structure of the Uralic family has been debated since the family was first proposed. Doubts about the validity of most or all of the proposed higher-order branchings (grouping the nine undisputed families) are becoming more common.” ref
- “Finnic (Fennic, Baltic Finnic, Balto-Finnic, Balto-Fennic)
- Hungarian (Magyar)
- Khanty (Ostyak, Handi, Hantõ)
- Mansi (Vogul)
- Mari (Cheremis)
- Mordvinic (Mordvin, Mordvinian)
- Permic (Permian)
- Sami (Saami, Samic, Saamic, Lappic, Lappish)
- Samoyedic (Samoyed)” ref
“There is also historical evidence of a number of extinct languages of uncertain affiliation:
- Merya
- Muromian
- Meshcherian (until 16th century?)
Traces of Finno-Ugric substrata, especially in toponymy, in the northern part of European Russia have been proposed as evidence for even more extinct Uralic languages.” ref
“Dené–Caucasian is a discredited language family proposal that includes widely-separated language groups spoken in the Northern Hemisphere: Sino-Tibetan languages, Yeniseian languages, Burushaski and North Caucasian languages in Asia; Na-Dené languages in North America; and the Vasconic languages from Europe (including Basque). A narrower connection specifically between North American Na-Dené and Siberian Yeniseian (the Dené–Yeniseian languages hypothesis) was proposed by Edward Vajda in 2008, and has met with some acceptance within the community of professional linguists. The validity of the rest of the family, however, is viewed as doubtful or rejected by nearly all historical linguists.” ref
“The Dené–Caucasian family tree and approximate divergence dates (estimated by modified glottochronology) proposed by S. A. Starostin and his colleagues from the Tower of Babel project:
- Dené–Caucasian languages [8,700 BCE or around 10,700 years ago]
- Na-Dené languages (Athabascan–Eyak–Tlingit)
- Sino-Vasconic languages [7,900 BCE or around 9,900 years ago]
- Vasconic (see below)
- Sino-Caucasian languages [6,200 BCE or around 8,200 years ago]
- Burushaski
- Caucaso-Sino-Yeniseian [5,900 BCE or around 7,900 years ago]
- North Caucasian languages
- Sino-Yeniseian [5,100 BCE or around 7,100 years ago]
“John D. Bengtson groups Basque, Caucasian and Burushaski together in a Macro-Caucasian (earlier Vasco-Caucasian) family (see the section on Macro-Caucasian below). According to him, it is as yet premature to propose other nodes or subgroupings, but he notes that Sumerian seems to share the same number of isoglosses with the (geographically) western branches as with the eastern ones:
- Dené–Caucasian
- The Macro-Caucasian family
- Basque
- North Caucasian
- Burushaski
- Sumerian
- Sino-Tibetan
- Yeniseian
- Na-Dené” ref
- The Macro-Caucasian family
“It has been conjectured that the North-West Caucasian languages may be genetically related to the Indo-European family, at a time depth of perhaps 12,000 years before the present. This hypothesized proto-language is called Proto-Pontic, but is not widely accepted. There does at least appear to have been extensive contact between the two proto-languages, and the resemblances may be due to this influence. A few linguists have proposed even broader relationships, of which the Dene–Caucasian hypothesis is perhaps the most popular. Dene–Caucasian links the North Caucasian (including Northwest Caucasian), Basque, Burushaski, Yeniseian, Sino-Tibetan, and Na–Dene families. However, this is an even more tentative hypothesis than Nostratic, which attempts to relate Kartvelian, Indo-European, Uralic, and Altaic, etc., and which is widely considered to be undemonstrated.” ref
“Nostratic is a hypothetical language macrofamily including many of the language families of northern Eurasia. Though a historically important proposal, in a contemporary context it is typically considered a fringe theory. Although the exact composition varies based on proponent, it typically comprises Kartvelian, Indo-European and Uralic languages; some languages from the similarly controversial Altaic family; the Afroasiatic languages; as well as the Dravidian languages (sometimes also Elamo-Dravidian).” ref
“Iran Neolithic (Iran_N) individuals dated ~8,500 years ago carried 50% Ancient North Eurasian-derived admixture and 50% Dzudzuana-related admixture, marking them as different from other Near-Eastern and Anatolian Neolithics who didn’t have Ancient North Eurasian admixture. Iran Neolithics were later replaced by Iran Chalcolithics, who were a mixture of Iran Neolithic and Near Eastern Levant Neolithic.” ref
I speculate that possibly this “Iran Neolithic” difference is a later migration relating to Ancient North Eurasian admixture, with the source languages from Siberia (pre-proto-indo-europeain, like some kind of pre/proto-Yeniseian, or Dené–Yeniseian languages/or Dené–Caucasian) that then merged into proto-indo-European languages seen just west of Iran in the Caucasus and East Turkey areas. Also, I speculate that the idea of pottery was likewise brought by these peoples and they, to me could have influenced the creation of the earliest pottery in Tell Hassuna and Jarmo (Iraq).
“Proto-Yeniseian or Proto-Yeniseic is the unattested reconstructed proto-language from which all Yeniseian languages are thought to descend from. It is uncertain whether Proto-Yeniseian had a similar tone/pitch accent system as Ket people, who practiced Shamanism and connected to Tengrism. Many studies about Proto-Yeniseian phonology have been done, however there are still many things unclear about Proto-Yeniseian. The probable location of the Yeniseian homeland is proposed on the basis of geographic names and genetic studies, which suggests a homeland in Southern Siberia.” ref
“Tengri (Old Turkic: 𐰚𐰇𐰚:𐱅𐰭𐰼𐰃, romanized: Kök Teŋri/Teŋiri, lit. ’Blue Heaven’; Old Uyghur: tängri; Middle Turkic: تآنغرِ; Ottoman Turkish: تڭری; Kyrgyz: Теңир; Kazakh: Тәңір; Turkish: Tanrı; Azerbaijani: Tanrı; Bulgarian: Тангра; Proto-Turkic *teŋri / *taŋrɨ; Mongolian script: ᠲᠩᠷᠢ, T’ngri; Mongolian: Тэнгэр, Tenger; Uyghur: تەڭرى tengri ) is the all-encompassing God of Heaven in the traditional Turkic, Yeniseian, Mongolic, and various other nomadic Altaic religious beliefs. Tengri is not considered a deity in the usual sense, but a personification of the universe. However, some qualities associated with Tengri as the judge and source of life, and being eternal and supreme, led European and Muslim writers to identify Tengri as a deity of Turkic and Mongolic peoples. According to Mongolian belief, Tengri’s will (jayayan) may break its own usual laws and intervene by sending a chosen person to earth. It is also one of the terms used for the primary chief deity of the early Turkic and Mongolic peoples. Worship surrounding Tengri is called Tengrism. The core beings in Tengrism are the Sky Father (Tenger Etseg) and the Earth Mother (Umay Ana). It involves ancestor worship, as Tengri was thought to have been the ancestral progenitor of mankind in Turkic regions and Mongolia, shamanism, animism, and totemism.” ref
“Tengrism (also known as Tengriism, Tengerism, or Tengrianism) is a religion originating in the Eurasian steppes, based on shamanism and animism. It generally involves the titular sky god Tengri, who is not considered a deity in the usual sense but a personification of the universe. According to some scholars, adherents of Tengrism view the purpose of life to be in harmony with the universe. It was the prevailing religion of the Göktürks, Xianbei, Bulgars, Xiongnu, Yeniseian, and Mongolic peoples and Huns, as well as the state religion of several medieval states: the First Turkic Khaganate, the Western Turkic Khaganate, the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, Old Great Bulgaria, the First Bulgarian Empire, Volga Bulgaria, Khazaria, and the Mongol Empire. In the Irk Bitig, a ninth century manuscript on divination, Tengri is mentioned as Türük Tängrisi (God of Turks). According to many academics, Tengrism was, and to some extent still is, a predominantly polytheistic religion based on the shamanistic concept of animism, and was first influenced by monotheism during the imperial period, especially by the 12th–13th centuries. Abdulkadir Inan argues that Yakut and Altai shamanism are not entirely equal to the ancient Turkic religion.” ref
“The term also describes several contemporary Turkic and Mongolic native religious movements and teachings. All modern adherents of “political” Tengrism are monotheists. Tengrism has been advocated for in intellectual circles of the Turkic nations of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan with Kazakhstan) and Russia (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan) since the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the 1990s. Still practiced, it is undergoing an organized revival in Buryatia, Sakha (Yakutia), Khakassia, Tuva and other Turkic nations in Siberia. Altaian Burkhanism and Chuvash Vattisen Yaly are contemporary movements similar to Tengrism. The term tengri (compare with Kami) can refer to the sky deity Tenger Etseg – also Gök Tengri; Sky father, Blue sky – or to other deities. While Tengrism includes the worship of personified gods (tngri) such as Ülgen and Kaira,Tengri is considered an “abstract phenomenon”. In Mongolian folk religion, Genghis Khan is considered one of the embodiments, if not the main embodiment, of Tengri’s will. The forms of the name Tengri (Old Turkic: Täŋri) among the ancient and modern Turkic and Mongolic are Tengeri, Tangara, Tangri, Tanri, Tangre, Tegri, Tingir, Tenkri, Tangra, Teri, Ter, and Ture. The name Tengri (“the Sky”) is derived from Old Turkic: Tenk (“daybreak”) or Tan (“dawn”). Meanwhile, Stefan Georg proposed that the Turkic Tengri ultimately originates as a loanword from Proto-Yeniseian *tɨŋgɨr- “high”. Mongolia is sometimes poetically called the “Land of Eternal Blue Sky” (Mönkh Khökh Tengeriin Oron) by its inhabitants. According to some scholars, the name of the important deity Dangun (also Tangol) (God of the Mountains) of the Korean folk religion is related to the Siberian Tengri (“Heaven”), while the bear is a symbol of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major).” ref
“Tiān (天) is one of the oldest Chinese terms for heaven and a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion. During the Shang dynasty (17th―11th century BCE), the Chinese referred to their highest god as Shàngdì (上帝, “Lord Above”) or Dì (帝, “Lord”). During the following Zhou dynasty, Tiān became synonymous with this figure. Before the 20th century, worship of Tiān was an orthodox state religion of China. In Chinese culture, heaven tends to be “synonymous with order”, “containing the blueprints for creation”, “the mandate by which earthly rulers govern, and the standards by which to measure beauty, goodness, and truth.” Zhou dynasty nobles made the worship of heaven a major part of their political philosophy and viewed it as “many gods” who embodied order and kingship, as well as the mandate of heaven. For the etymology of tiān, Schuessler links it with the Mongolian word tengri “sky, heaven, heavenly deity” or the Tibeto-Burman words taleŋ (Adi) and tǎ-lyaŋ (Lepcha), both meaning “sky”. He also suggests a likely connection between Chinese tiān 天, diān 巔 “summit, mountaintop”, and diān 顛 “summit, top of the head, forehead”, which have cognates such as Zemeic Naga tiŋ “sky”. However, other reconstructions of 天’s OC pronunciation *qʰl’iːn or *l̥ˤi[n] reconstructed a voiceless lateral onset, either a cluster or a single consonant, respectively. Baxter & Sagart pointed to attested dialectal differences in Eastern Han Chinese, the use of 天 as a phonetic component in phono-semantic compound Chinese characters, and the choice of 天 to transcribe foreign syllables, all of which prompted them to conclude that, around 200 CE, 天’s onset had two pronunciations: coronal *tʰ & dorsal *x, both of which likely originated from an earlier voiceless lateral *l̥ˤ.” ref
“In Taoism and Confucianism, Tiān (the celestial aspect of the cosmos, often translated as “Heaven“) is mentioned in relationship to its complementary aspect of Dì (地, often translated as “Earth“). They are thought to maintain the two poles of the Three Realms (三界) of reality, with the middle realm occupied by Humanity (人, rén), and the lower world occupied by demons (魔, mó) and “ghosts”, the damned, (鬼, guǐ). Tiān was variously thought as a “supreme power reigning over lesser gods and human beings” that brought “order and calm…or catastrophe and punishment”, a god, destiny, an “impersonal” natural force that controlled various events, a holy world or afterlife containing other worlds or afterlives, or one or more of these. “Confucianism has a religious side with a deep reverence for Heaven and Earth (Di), whose powers regulate the flow of nature and influence human events.” Yin and yang are also thought to be integral to this relationship and permeate both, as well as humans and man-made constructs. This “cosmos” and its “principles” is something that “[t]he ways of man should conform to, or else” frustration will result. Many Confucianists, both historically and in current times, use the I Ching to divine events through the changes of Tiān and other “natural forces”. Historical and current Confucianists were/are often environmentalists out of their respect for Heaven and the other aspects of nature and the “Principle” that comes from their unity and, more generally, harmony as a whole, which is “the basis for a sincere mind.” The Emperor of China as Tianzi was formerly vital to Confucianism. Mount Tai is seen as a sacred place in Confucianism and was traditionally the most revered place where Chinese emperors offered sacrifices to heaven and earth. Some tiān in Chinese folk religion were thought to be many different or a hierarchy of multiple, sphere-like realms that contained morally ambiguous creatures and spirits such as huli jing and fire-breathing dragons. ” ref
“Paleo-Siberian languages, languages spoken in Asian Russia (Siberia) that belong to four genetically unrelated groups—Yeniseian, Luorawetlan, Yukaghir, and Nivkh.” ref
Proto-Indo-European mythology
“Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, speakers of the hypothesized Proto-Indo-European language. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested – since Proto-Indo-European speakers lived in preliterate societies – scholars of comparative mythology have reconstructed details from inherited similarities found among Indo-European languages, based on the assumption that parts of the Proto-Indo-Europeans’ original belief systems survived in the daughter traditions. The Proto-Indo-European pantheon includes a number of securely reconstructed deities, since they are both cognates – linguistic siblings from a common origin – and associated with similar attributes and body of myths: such as *Dyḗws Ph₂tḗr, the daylight-sky god; his consort *Dʰéǵʰōm, the earth mother; his daughter *H₂éwsōs, the dawn goddess; his sons the Divine Twins; and *Seh₂ul and *Meh₁not, a solar goddess and moon god, respectively. Some deities, like the weather god *Perkʷunos or the herding-god *Péh₂usōn, are only attested in a limited number of traditions – Western (i.e. European) and Graeco-Aryan, respectively – and could therefore represent late additions that did not spread throughout the various Indo-European dialects.” ref
“Some myths are also securely dated to Proto-Indo-European times, since they feature both linguistic and thematic evidence of an inherited motif: a story portraying a mythical figure associated with thunder and slaying a multi-headed serpent to release torrents of water that had previously been pent up; a creation myth involving two brothers, one of whom sacrifices the other in order to create the world; and probably the belief that the Otherworld was guarded by a watchdog and could only be reached by crossing a river. Various schools of thought exist regarding possible interpretations of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology. The main mythologies used in comparative reconstruction are Indo-Iranian, Baltic, Roman, and Norse, often supported with evidence from the Celtic, Greek, Slavic, Hittite, Armenian, Illyrian, and Albanian traditions as well.” ref
“Early agricultural communities such as Chogha Golan in 10,000 BCE or around 12,000 years ago, along with settlements such as Chogha Bonut (the earliest village in Elam) in 8000 BCE or around 10,000 years ago, began to flourish in and around the Zagros Mountains region in western Iran. Around about the same time, the earliest-known clay vessels and modeled human and animal terracotta figurines were produced at Ganj Dareh, also in western Iran. There are also 10,000-year-old human and animal figurines from Tepe Sarab in Kermanshah Province among many other ancient artifacts.” ref
I also speculate that there may be a connection with this to the earliest pottery in Turkey from Boncuklu Höyük as well.
“12 fired clay samples and an unfired marl sample from the late 9th and early 8th-millennium BCE site of Boncuklu Höyük (8300–7800 cal BCE or around 10,300 to 9,800 years ago) in the Konya Plain, Turkey. The clay vessels from Boncuklu Höyük, an early Neolithic site in central Anatolia, are much earlier than the accepted date for the introduction of pottery in Anatolia, c. 7000 cal BCE or around 9,000 years ago.” ref
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family:
| Subdivisions |
|---|
“Western Iran was inhabited by a population genetically most similar to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus, but distinct from the Neolithic Anatolian people who later brought food production into Europe. While some degree of cultural diffusion between Anatolia, Western Iran, and other neighboring regions is possible, the genetic dissimilarity between early Anatolian farmers and the inhabitants of Ganj Dareh supports a model in which Neolithic societies in these areas were distinct. The genome of an early Neolithic female from Ganj Dareh, GD13a, from the Central Zagros (Western Iran), dated to 10000-9700 cal years ago, a region located at the eastern edge of the Near East. Ganj Dareh is well known for providing the earliest evidence of herd management of goats beginning at 9,900 years ago. The mitochondrion of GD13a (91.74X) was assigned to haplogroup X, most likely to the subhaplogroup X2, which has been associated with an early expansion from the Near East and has been found in early Neolithic samples from Anatolia, Hungary, and Germany. GD13a did not cluster with any other early Neolithic individual from Eurasia in any of the analyses. Also genetically close to GD13a were ancient samples from Steppe populations (Yamanya & Afanasievo) that were part of one or more Bronze age migrations into Europe, as well as early Bronze age cultures in that continent (Corded Ware), in line with previous relationships observed for the Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers.” ref
“Subclade X2 appears to have undergone extensive population expansion and dispersal around or soon after the Last Glacial Maximum, roughly 20,000 years ago. It is more strongly represented in the Near East, the Caucasus, and southern Europe, and somewhat less strongly present in the rest of Europe. The highest concentrations are found in the Ojibwe (25%), Sioux (15%), Nuu-Chah-Nulth (12%), Georgia (8%), Orkney (7%), and amongst the Druze Assyrian community in Israel (27%). Subclades of X2 are not present in South Americans Amerindian populations. The oldest known human associated with X2 is Kennewick Man, whose c. 9000-year old remains were discovered in Washington State. The lineage of haplogroup X in the Americas is not derived from a European subclade, but rather represents an independent subclade, labeled X2a. The X2a subclade has not been found in Eurasia, and has most likely arisen within the early Paleo-Indian population, at roughly 13,000 years ago. A basal variant of X2a was found in the Kennewick Man fossil (ca. 9,000 years ago). No presence of mt-DNA ancestral to X2a has been found in Europe or the Near East. New World lineages X2a and X2g are not derived from the Old World lineages X2b, X2c, X2d, X2e, and X2f, indicating an early origin of the New World lineages “likely at the very beginning of their expansion and spread from the Near East.” ref
“Although it occurs only at a frequency of about 3% for the total current indigenous population of the Americas, it is a bigger haplogroup in northern North America, where among the Algonquian peoples it comprises up to 25% of mtDNA types. It is also present in lesser percentages to the west and south of this area—among the Sioux (15%), the Nuu-chah-nulth (11%–13%), the Navajo (7%), and the Yakama (5%). In Latin America, Haplotype X6 was present in the Tarahumara 1.8% (1/53) and Huichol 20% (3/15) X6 and X7 was also found in 12% in Yanomani people. Unlike the four main Native American mtDNA haplogroups (A, B, C, D), X is not strongly associated with East Asia. The main occurrence of X in Asia discovered so far is in the Altai people in Siberia. One theory of how the X Haplogroup ended up in North America is that the people carrying it migrated from central Asia along with haplogroups A, B, C, and D, from an ancestor from the Altai Region of Central Asia. Two sequences of haplogroup X2 were sampled further east of Altai among the Evenks of Central Siberia. These two sequences belong to X2* and X2b. It is uncertain if they represent a remnant of the migration of X2 through Siberia or a more recent input.” ref
“Haplogroup X has been found in various other bone specimens that were analysed for ancient DNA, including specimens associated with the Alföld Linear Pottery (X2b-T226C, Garadna-Elkerülő út site 2, 1/1 or 100%), Linearbandkeramik (X2d1, Halberstadt-Sonntagsfeld, 1/22 or ~5%), and Iberia Chalcolithic (X2b, La Chabola de la Hechicera, 1/3 or 33%; X2b, El Sotillo, 1/3 or 33%; X2b, El Mirador Cave, 1/12 or ~8%) cultures. Abel-beth-maachah 2201 was a man who lived between 1014 and 836 BCE during the Levant Iron Age and was found in the region now known as Abel Beth Maacah, Metula, Israel. He was associated with the Galilean cultural group. His direct maternal line belonged to mtDNA haplogroup X2b. Haplogroup X has been found in ancient Assyria and ancient Egyptian mummies excavated at the Abusir el-Meleq archaeological site in Middle Egypt, which date from the late New Kingdom and Roman periods. Fossils excavated at the Late Neolithic site of Kelif el Boroud in Morocco, which have been dated to around 5,000 years old, have also been found to carry the X2 subclade.” ref
Indo-European dialects dispersed across Eurasia in successive waves over the course of 8,000 years.
Word origins and ancient DNA reveal the evolutionary path traveled by the languages spoken by half the world.
“Approximately 7,000 years ago, the Indo-European linguistic lineage had already split into numerous distinct branches, according to the study published in Science. “This would rule out the steppe hypothesis,” said Heggarty. Around 8,120 years ago, the Proto-Indo-European language likely experienced its initial diversification event, give or take a few centuries. Recent studies of ancient DNA suggest that farmers from the Caucasus region — between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea — migrated towards Anatolia, which supports the Anatolian theory. Hittite, an extinct language spoken by the Anatolian civilization, is another significant branch of the Indo-European family. For decades, a large group of linguists argued that Hittite was the common ancestor of the other Indo-European languages, with some even considering it to be the direct heir of Proto-Indo-European.” ref
“Ancient DNA, on the other hand, has provided compelling evidence in support of the steppe hypothesis. Since 2015, it has become clear that individuals originating from the Pontic steppe, situated to the south and northeast of present-day Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, migrated to Central Europe approximately 6,000 to 4,500 years ago. Their genetic legacy is evident in both modern Europeans and the indigenous populations of that era. Notably, studies conducted in 2018 and 2019 revealed how these migrant eastern populations replaced a significant proportion of males on the Iberian Peninsula. Furthermore, they brought with them Italic, Germanic, and Celtic languages. It is important to note that when they departed from their original homeland, they likely spoke a common or closely related language descended from Proto-Indo-European. However, as their very slow journey progressed (the Celts took centuries to reach present-day Ireland) and they settled in new territories, language diversification began to emerge.” ref
“The Albanians, Greek-speaking Mycenaeans, and Hittites do not have a dominant genetic signal from the steppe.” ref
Paul Heggarty, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.
“Heggarty’s team made a significant contribution by shedding light on this question. By combining phylogenetic analysis of cognates with insights from ancient DNA, they found potentially two distinct origins. Expansion initially originated from the southern Caucasus region, resulting in the separation of five major language families approximately 7,000 years ago. “The Albanians, Greek-speaking Mycenaeans, and Hittites do not have a dominant genetic signal from the steppe,” said Heggarty. Several millennia later, another wave emerged, led by nomadic steppe herders from the north. This wave not only influenced the development of western branches of the language tree, but it also possibly played a role in the evolution of Slavic and Baltic languages. It even extended its influence to the Indian subcontinent, while giving rise to the now-extinct Tocharian languages in what is present-day Tibet.” ref
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Proto-Indo-Europeans: Western Steppe Herders
“The Proto-Indo-Europeans are a hypothetical prehistoric population of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the ancestor of the Indo-European languages according to linguistic reconstruction. Knowledge of them comes chiefly from that linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics. The Proto-Indo-Europeans likely lived during the late Neolithic, or roughly the 4th millennium BCE. Mainstream scholarship places them in the Pontic–Caspian steppe zone in Eastern Europe (present-day Ukraine and southern Russia).” ref
“Some archaeologists would extend the time depth of PIE to the middle Neolithic (5500 to 4500 BCE or 7,522-6,522 years ago) or even the early Neolithic (7500 to 5500 BCE or 9,522-7,522 years ago), and suggest alternative location hypotheses. By the early second millennium BCE, descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans had reached far and wide across Eurasia, including Anatolia (Hittites), the Aegean (the linguistic ancestors of Mycenaean Greece), the north of Europe (Corded Ware culture), the edges of Central Asia (Yamnaya culture), and southern Siberia (Afanasievo culture).” ref
“While ‘Proto-Indo-Europeans’ is used in scholarship to designate the group of speakers associated with the reconstructed proto-language and culture, the term ‘Indo-Europeans’ may refer to any historical people that speak an Indo-European language. In the words of philologist Martin L. West, “If there was an Indo-European language, it follows that there was a people who spoke it: not a people in the sense of a nation, for they may never have formed a political unity, and not a people in any racial sense, for they may have been as genetically mixed as any modern population defined by language.” ref
“Using linguistic reconstruction from old Indo-European languages such as Latin and Sanskrit, hypothetical features of the Proto-Indo-European language are deduced. Assuming that these linguistic features reflect the culture and environment of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the following cultural and environmental traits are widely proposed:
- pastoralism, including domesticated cattle, horses, and dogs
- agriculture and cereal cultivation, including technology commonly ascribed to late-Neolithic farming communities, e.g., the plow
- transportation by or across water
- the solid wheel, used for wagons, but not yet chariots with spoked wheels
- worship of a sky god, *Dyḗus Ph2tḗr (lit. “sky father”; > Vedic Sanskrit Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́, Ancient Greek Ζεύς (πατήρ) / Zeus (dyeus)), vocative *dyeu ph2ter (> Latin Iūpiter, Illyrian Deipaturos)
- oral heroic poetry or song lyrics that used stock phrases such as imperishable fame (*ḱléwos ń̥dʰgʷʰitom) and the wheel of the sun (*sh₂uens kʷekʷlos).
- a patrilineal kinship-system based on relationships between men” ref
“A 2016 phylogenetic analysis of Indo-European folktales found that one tale, The Smith and the Devil, could be confidently reconstructed to the Proto-Indo-European period. This story, found in contemporary Indo-European folktales from Scandinavia to India, describes a blacksmith who offers his soul to a malevolent being (commonly a devil in modern versions of the tale) in exchange for the ability to weld any kind of materials together. The blacksmith then uses his new ability to stick the devil to an immovable object (often a tree), thus avoiding his end of the bargain. According to the authors, the reconstruction of this folktale to PIE implies that the Proto-Indo-Europeans had metallurgy, which in turn “suggests a plausible context for the cultural evolution of a tale about a cunning smith who attains a superhuman level of mastery over his craft.” ref
“Researchers have made many attempts to identify particular prehistoric cultures with the Proto-Indo-European-speaking peoples, but all such theories remain speculative. The scholars of the 19th century who first tackled the question of the Indo-Europeans’ original homeland (also called Urheimat, from German), had essentially only linguistic evidence. They attempted a rough localization by reconstructing the names of plants and animals (importantly the beech and the salmon) as well as the culture and technology (a Bronze Age culture centered on animal husbandry and having domesticated the horse).” ref
“The scholarly opinions became basically divided between a European hypothesis, positing migration from Europe to Asia, and an Asian hypothesis, holding that the migration took place in the opposite direction. In the early 20th century, the question became associated with the expansion of a supposed “Aryan race“, a now-discredited theory promoted during the expansion of European empires and the rise of “scientific racism“. The question remains contentious within some flavors of ethnic nationalism (see also Indigenous Aryans).” ref
“A series of major advances occurred in the 1970s due to the convergence of several factors. First, the radiocarbon dating method (invented in 1949) had become sufficiently inexpensive to be applied on a mass scale. Through dendrochronology (tree-ring dating), pre-historians could calibrate radiocarbon dates to a much higher degree of accuracy. And finally, before the 1970s, parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia had been off-limits to Western scholars, while non-Western archaeologists did not have access to publications in Western peer-reviewed journals.” ref
“The pioneering work of Marija Gimbutas, assisted by Colin Renfrew, at least partly addressed this problem by organizing expeditions and arranging for more academic collaboration between Western and non-Western scholars. The Kurgan hypothesis, as of 2017 the most widely held theory, depends on linguistic and archaeological evidence, but is not universally accepted. It suggests PIE origin in the Pontic–Caspian steppe during the Chalcolithic. A minority of scholars prefer the Anatolian hypothesis, suggesting an origin in Anatolia during the Neolithic. Other theories (Armenian hypothesis, Out of India theory, Paleolithic Continuity Theory, Balkan hypothesis) have only marginal scholarly support.” ref
“In regard to terminology, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the term Aryan was used to refer to the Proto-Indo-Europeans and their descendants. However, Aryan more properly applies to the Indo-Iranians, the Indo-European branch that settled parts of the Middle East and South Asia, as only Indic and Iranian languages explicitly affirm the term as a self-designation referring to the entirety of their people, whereas the same Proto-Indo-European root (*aryo-) is the basis for Greek and Germanic word forms which seem only to denote the ruling elite of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) society.” ref
“In fact, the most accessible evidence available confirms only the existence of a common, but vague, socio-cultural designation of “nobility” associated with PIE society, such that Greek socio-cultural lexicon and Germanic proper names derived from this root remain insufficient to determine whether the concept was limited to the designation of an exclusive, socio-political elite, or whether it could possibly have been applied in the most inclusive sense to an inherent and ancestral “noble” quality which allegedly characterized all ethnic members of PIE society. Only the latter could have served as a true and universal self-designation for the Proto-Indo-European people.” ref
“By the early twentieth century, this term had come to be widely used in a racist context referring to a hypothesized white, blonde, and blue-eyed “master race” (Herrenrasse), culminating with the pogroms of the Nazis in Europe. Subsequently, the term Aryan as a general term for Indo-Europeans has been largely abandoned by scholars (though the term Indo-Aryan is still used to refer to the branch that settled in Southern Asia).” ref
Proto-Indo-European Urheimat hypotheses and Indo-European migrations
“According to some archaeologists, PIE speakers cannot be assumed to have been a single, identifiable people or tribe, but were a group of loosely related populations ancestral to the later, still partially prehistoric, Bronze Age Indo-Europeans. This view is held especially by those archaeologists who posit an original homeland of vast extent and immense time depth. However, this view is not shared by linguists, as proto-languages, like all languages before modern transport and communication, occupied small geographical areas over a limited time span, and were spoken by a set of close-knit communities—a tribe in the broad sense. Researchers have put forward a great variety of proposed locations for the first speakers of Proto-Indo-European. Few of these hypotheses have survived scrutiny by academic specialists in Indo-European studies sufficiently well to be included in modern academic debate.” ref
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“The shaman is, above all, a connecting figure, bridging several worlds for his people, traveling between this world, the underworld, and the heavens. He transforms himself into an animal and talks with ghosts, the dead, the deities, and the ancestors. He dies and revives. He brings back knowledge from the shadow realm, thus linking his people to the spirits and places which were once mythically accessible to all.–anthropologist Barbara Meyerhoff” ref
My favorite “Graham Hancock” Quote?
“In what archaeologists have studied, yes, we can say there is NO Evidence of an advanced civilization.” – (Time 1:27) Joe Rogan Experience #2136 – Graham Hancock & Flint Dibble
Help the Valentine fight against pseudoarchaeology!!!
In a world of “Hancocks” supporting evidence lacking claims, be a “John Hoopes” supporting what evidence explains.
#SupportEvidenceNotWishfullThinking
Graham Hancock: @Graham__Hancock
John Hoopes: @KUHoopes
People don’t commonly teach religious history, even that of their own claimed religion. No, rather they teach a limited “pro their religion” history of their religion from a religious perspective favorable to the religion of choice.
Do you truly think “Religious Belief” is only a matter of some personal choice?
Do you not see how coercive one’s world of choice is limited to the obvious hereditary belief, in most religious choices available to the child of religious parents or caregivers? Religion is more commonly like a family, culture, society, etc. available belief that limits the belief choices of the child and that is when “Religious Belief” is not only a matter of some personal choice and when it becomes hereditary faith, not because of the quality of its alleged facts or proposed truths but because everyone else important to the child believes similarly so they do as well simply mimicking authority beliefs handed to them. Because children are raised in religion rather than being presented all possible choices but rather one limited dogmatic brand of “Religious Belief” where children only have a choice of following the belief as instructed, and then personally claim the faith hereditary belief seen in the confirming to the belief they have held themselves all their lives. This is obvious in statements asked and answered by children claiming a faith they barely understand but they do understand that their family believes “this or that” faith, so they feel obligated to believe it too. While I do agree that “Religious Belief” should only be a matter of some personal choice, it rarely is… End Hereditary Religion!
Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey
“How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.” ref
We are like believing machines we vacuum up ideas, like Velcro sticks to almost everything. We accumulate beliefs that we allow to negatively influence our lives, often without realizing it. Our willingness must be to alter skewed beliefs that impend our balance or reason, which allows us to achieve new positive thinking and accurate outcomes.
My thoughts on Religion Evolution with external links for more info:
- (Pre-Animism Africa mainly, but also Europe, and Asia at least 300,000 years ago), (Pre-Animism – Oxford Dictionaries)
- (Animism Africa around 100,000 years ago), (Animism – Britannica.com)
- (Totemism Europe around 50,000 years ago), (Totemism – Anthropology)
- (Shamanism Siberia around 30,000 years ago), (Shamanism – Britannica.com)
- (Paganism Turkey around 12,000 years ago), (Paganism – BBC Religion)
- (Progressed Organized Religion “Institutional Religion” Egypt around 5,000 years ago), (Ancient Egyptian Religion – Britannica.com)
- (CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS after 4,000 years ago) (Origin of Major Religions – Sacred Texts)
- (Early Atheistic Doubting at least by 2,600 years ago) (History of Atheism – Wikipedia)
“Religion is an Evolved Product” and Yes, Religion is Like Fear Given Wings…
Atheists talk about gods and religions for the same reason doctors talk about cancer, they are looking for a cure, or a firefighter talks about fires because they burn people and they care to stop them. We atheists too often feel a need to help the victims of mental slavery, held in the bondage that is the false beliefs of gods and the conspiracy theories of reality found in religions.
Understanding Religion Evolution:
- Pre-Animism (at least 300,000 years ago)
- Animism (Africa: 100,000 years ago)
- Totemism (Europe: 50,000 years ago)
- Shamanism (Siberia: 30,000 years ago)
- Paganism (Turkey: 12,000 years ago)
- Progressed organized religion (Egypt: 5,000 years ago), (Egypt, the First Dynasty 5,150 years ago)
- CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago)
- Early Atheistic Doubting (at least by 2,600 years ago)
“An Archaeological/Anthropological Understanding of Religion Evolution”
It seems ancient peoples had to survived amazing threats in a “dangerous universe (by superstition perceived as good and evil),” and human “immorality or imperfection of the soul” which was thought to affect the still living, leading to ancestor worship. This ancestor worship presumably led to the belief in supernatural beings, and then some of these were turned into the belief in gods. This feeble myth called gods were just a human conceived “made from nothing into something over and over, changing, again and again, taking on more as they evolve, all the while they are thought to be special,” but it is just supernatural animistic spirit-belief perceived as sacred.
Quick Evolution of Religion?
Pre-Animism (at least 300,000 years ago) pre-religion is a beginning that evolves into later Animism. So, Religion as we think of it, to me, all starts in a general way with Animism (Africa: 100,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in supernatural powers/spirits), then this is physically expressed in or with Totemism (Europe: 50,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in mythical relationship with powers/spirits through a totem item), which then enlists a full-time specific person to do this worship and believed interacting Shamanism (Siberia/Russia: 30,000 years ago) (theoretical belief in access and influence with spirits through ritual), and then there is the further employment of myths and gods added to all the above giving you Paganism (Turkey: 12,000 years ago) (often a lot more nature-based than most current top world religions, thus hinting to their close link to more ancient religious thinking it stems from). My hypothesis is expressed with an explanation of the building of a theatrical house (modern religions development). Progressed organized religion (Egypt: 5,000 years ago) with CURRENT “World” RELIGIONS (after 4,000 years ago).
Historically, in large city-state societies (such as Egypt or Iraq) starting around 5,000 years ago culminated to make religion something kind of new, a sociocultural-governmental-religious monarchy, where all or at least many of the people of such large city-state societies seem familiar with and committed to the existence of “religion” as the integrated life identity package of control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine, but this juggernaut integrated religion identity package of Dogmatic-Propaganda certainly did not exist or if developed to an extent it was highly limited in most smaller prehistoric societies as they seem to lack most of the strong control dynamics with a fixed closed magical doctrine (magical beliefs could be at times be added or removed). Many people just want to see developed religious dynamics everywhere even if it is not. Instead, all that is found is largely fragments until the domestication of religion.
Religions, as we think of them today, are a new fad, even if they go back to around 6,000 years in the timeline of human existence, this amounts to almost nothing when seen in the long slow evolution of religion at least around 70,000 years ago with one of the oldest ritual worship. Stone Snake of South Africa: “first human worship” 70,000 years ago. This message of how religion and gods among them are clearly a man-made thing that was developed slowly as it was invented and then implemented peace by peace discrediting them all. Which seems to be a simple point some are just not grasping how devastating to any claims of truth when we can see the lie clearly in the archeological sites.
I wish people fought as hard for the actual values as they fight for the group/clan names political or otherwise they think support values. Every amount spent on war is theft to children in need of food or the homeless kept from shelter.
Here are several of my blog posts on history:
- To Find Truth You Must First Look
- (Magdalenian/Iberomaurusian) Connections to the First Paganists of the early Neolithic Near East Dating from around 17,000 to 12,000 Years Ago
- Natufians: an Ancient People at the Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Life
- Possible Clan Leader/Special “MALE” Ancestor Totem Poles At Least 13,500 years ago?
- Jewish People with DNA at least 13,200 years old, Judaism, and the Origins of Some of its Ideas
- Baltic Reindeer Hunters: Swiderian, Lyngby, Ahrensburgian, and Krasnosillya cultures 12,020 to 11,020 years ago are evidence of powerful migratory waves during the last 13,000 years and a genetic link to Saami and the Finno-Ugric peoples.
- The Rise of Inequality: patriarchy and state hierarchy inequality
- Fertile Crescent 12,500 – 9,500 Years Ago: fertility and death cult belief system?
- 12,400 – 11,700 Years Ago – Kortik Tepe (Turkey) Pre/early-Agriculture Cultic Ritualism
- Ritualistic Bird Symbolism at Gobekli Tepe and its “Ancestor Cult”
- Male-Homosexual (female-like) / Trans-woman (female) Seated Figurine from Gobekli Tepe
- Could a 12,000-year-old Bull Geoglyph at Göbekli Tepe relate to older Bull and Female Art 25,000 years ago and Later Goddess and the Bull cults like Catal Huyuk?
- Sedentism and the Creation of goddesses around 12,000 years ago as well as male gods after 7,000 years ago.
- Alcohol, where Agriculture and Religion Become one? Such as Gobekli Tepe’s Ritualistic use of Grain as Food and Ritual Drink
- Neolithic Ritual Sites with T-Pillars and other Cultic Pillars
- Paganism: Goddesses around 12,000 years ago then Male Gods after 7,000 years ago
- First Patriarchy: Split of Women’s Status around 12,000 years ago & First Hierarchy: fall of Women’s Status around 5,000 years ago.
- Natufians: an Ancient People at the Origins of Agriculture and Sedentary Life
- J DNA and the Spread of Agricultural Religion (paganism)
- Paganism: an approximately 12,000-year-old belief system
- Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism)
- Shaman burial in Israel 12,000 years ago and the Shamanism Phenomena
- Need to Mythicized: gods and goddesses
- 12,000 – 7,000 Years Ago – Paleo-Indian Culture (The Americas)
- 12,000 – 2,000 Years Ago – Indigenous-Scandinavians (Nordic)
- Norse did not wear helmets with horns?
- Pre-Pottery Neolithic Skull Cult around 11,500 to 8,400 Years Ago?
- 10,400 – 10,100 Years Ago, in Turkey the Nevail Cori Religious Settlement
- 9,000-6,500 Years Old Submerged Pre-Pottery/Pottery Neolithic Ritual Settlements off Israel’s Coast
- Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city” around 9,500 to 7,700 years ago (Turkey)
- Cultic Hunting at Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city”
- Special Items and Art as well as Special Elite Burials at Catal Huyuk
- New Rituals and Violence with the appearance of Pottery and People?
- Haplogroup N and its related Uralic Languages and Cultures
- Ainu people, Sámi people, Native Americans, the Ancient North Eurasians, and Paganistic-Shamanism with Totemism
- Ideas, Technology and People from Turkey, Europe, to China and Back again 9,000 to 5,000 years ago?
- First Pottery of Europe and the Related Cultures
- 9,000 years old Neolithic Artifacts Judean Desert and Hills Israel
- 9,000-7,000 years-old Sex and Death Rituals: Cult Sites in Israel, Jordan, and the Sinai
- 9,000-8500 year old Horned Female shaman Bad Dürrenberg Germany
- Neolithic Jewelry and the Spread of Farming in Europe Emerging out of West Turkey
- 8,600-year-old Tortoise Shells in Neolithic graves in central China have Early Writing and Shamanism
- Swing of the Mace: the rise of Elite, Forced Authority, and Inequality begin to Emerge 8,500 years ago?
- Migrations and Changing Europeans Beginning around 8,000 Years Ago
- My “Steppe-Anatolian-Kurgan hypothesis” 8,000/7,000 years ago
- Around 8,000-year-old Shared Idea of the Mistress of Animals, “Ritual” Motif
- Pre-Columbian Red-Paint (red ochre) Maritime Archaic Culture 8,000-3,000 years ago
- 7,522-6,522 years ago Linear Pottery culture which I think relates to Arcane Capitalism’s origins
- Arcane Capitalism: Primitive socialism, Primitive capital, Private ownership, Means of production, Market capitalism, Class discrimination, and Petite bourgeoisie (smaller capitalists)
- 7,500-4,750 years old Ritualistic Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine
- Roots of a changing early society 7,200-6,700 years ago Jordan and Israel
- Agriculture religion (Paganism) with farming reached Britain between about 7,000 to 6,500 or so years ago and seemingly expressed in things like Western Europe’s Long Barrows
- My Thoughts on Possible Migrations of “R” DNA and Proto-Indo-European?
- “Millet” Spreading from China 7,022 years ago to Europe and related Language may have Spread with it leading to Proto-Indo-European
- Proto-Indo-European (PIE), ancestor of Indo-European languages: DNA, Society, Language, and Mythology
- The Dnieper–Donets culture and Asian varieties of Millet from China to the Black Sea region of Europe by 7,022 years ago
- Kurgan 6,000 years ago/dolmens 7,000 years ago: funeral, ritual, and other?
- 7,020 to 6,020-year-old Proto-Indo-European Homeland of Urheimat or proposed home of their Language and Religion
- Ancient Megaliths: Kurgan, Ziggurat, Pyramid, Menhir, Trilithon, Dolman, Kromlech, and Kromlech of Trilithons
- The Mytheme of Ancient North Eurasian Sacred-Dog belief and similar motifs are found in Indo-European, Native American, and Siberian comparative mythology
- Elite Power Accumulation: Ancient Trade, Tokens, Writing, Wealth, Merchants, and Priest-Kings
- Sacred Mounds, Mountains, Kurgans, and Pyramids may hold deep connections?
- Between 7,000-5,000 Years ago, rise of unequal hierarchy elite, leading to a “birth of the State” or worship of power, strong new sexism, oppression of non-elites, and the fall of Women’s equal status
- Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite & their slaves
- Hell and Underworld mythologies starting maybe as far back as 7,000 to 5,000 years ago with the Proto-Indo-Europeans?
- The First Expression of the Male God around 7,000 years ago?
- White (light complexion skin) Bigotry and Sexism started 7,000 years ago?
- Around 7,000-year-old Shared Idea of the Divine Bird (Tutelary and/or Trickster spirit/deity), “Ritual” Motif
- Nekhbet an Ancient Egyptian Vulture Goddess and Tutelary Deity
- 6,720 to 4,920 years old Ritualistic Hongshan Culture of Inner Mongolia with 5,000-year-old Pyramid Mounds and Temples
- First proto-king in the Balkans, Varna culture around 6,500 years ago?
- 6,500–5,800 years ago in Israel Late Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Period in the Southern Levant Seems to Express Northern Levant Migrations, Cultural and Religious Transfer
- KING OF BEASTS: Master of Animals “Ritual” Motif, around 6,000 years old or older…
- Around 6000-year-old Shared Idea of the Solid Wheel & the Spoked Wheel-Shaped Ritual Motif
- “The Ghassulian Star,” a mysterious 6,000-year-old mural from Jordan; a Proto-Star of Ishtar, Star of Inanna or Star of Venus?
- Religious/Ritual Ideas, including goddesses and gods as well as ritual mounds or pyramids from Northeastern Asia at least 6,000 years old, seemingly filtering to Iran, Iraq, the Mediterranean, Europe, Egypt, and the Americas?
- Maykop (5,720–5,020 years ago) Caucasus region Bronze Age culture-related to Copper Age farmers from the south, influenced by the Ubaid period and Leyla-Tepe culture, as well as influencing the Kura-Araxes culture
- 5-600-year-old Tomb, Mummy, and First Bearded Male Figurine in a Grave
- Kura-Araxes Cultural 5,520 to 4,470 years old DNA traces to the Canaanites, Arabs, and Jews
- Minoan/Cretan (Keftiu) Civilization and Religion around 5,520 to 3,120 years ago
- Evolution Of Science at least by 5,500 years ago
- 5,500 Years old birth of the State, the rise of Hierarchy, and the fall of Women’s status
- “Jiroft culture” 5,100 – 4,200 years ago and the History of Iran
- Stonehenge: Paganistic Burial and Astrological Ritual Complex, England (5,100-3,600 years ago)
- Around 5,000-year-old Shared Idea of the “Tree of Life” Ritual Motif
- Complex rituals for elite, seen from China to Egypt, at least by 5,000 years ago
- Around 5,000 years ago: “Birth of the State” where Religion gets Military Power and Influence
- The Center of the World “Axis Mundi” and/or “Sacred Mountains” Mythology Could Relate to the Altai Mountains, Heart of the Steppe
- Progressed organized religion starts, an approximately 5,000-year-old belief system
- China’s Civilization between 5,000-3,000 years ago, was a time of war and class struggle, violent transition from free clans to a Slave or Elite society
- Origin of Logics is Naturalistic Observation at least by around 5,000 years ago.
- Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State)
- Ziggurats (multi-platform temples: 4,900 years old) to Pyramids (multi-platform tombs: 4,700 years old)
- Did a 4,520–4,420-year-old Volcano In Turkey Inspire the Bible God?
- Finland’s Horned Shaman and Pre-Horned-God at least 4,500 years ago?
- 4,000-year-Old Dolmens in Israel: A Connected Dolmen Religious Phenomenon?
- Creation myths: From chaos, Ex nihilo, Earth-diver, Emergence, World egg, and World parent
- Bronze Age “Ritual” connections of the Bell Beaker culture with the Corded Ware/Single Grave culture, which were related to the Yamnaya culture and Proto-Indo-European Languages/Religions
- Low Gods (Earth/ Tutelary deity), High Gods (Sky/Supreme deity), and Moralistic Gods (Deity enforcement/divine order)
- The exchange of people, ideas, and material-culture including, to me, the new god (Sky Father) and goddess (Earth Mother) religion between the Cucuteni-Trypillians and others which is then spread far and wide
- Koryaks: Indigenous People of the Russian Far East and Big Raven myths also found in Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and other Indigenous People of North America
- 42 Principles Of Maat (Egyptian Goddess of the justice) around 4,400 years ago, 2000 Years Before Ten Commandments
- “Happy Easter” Well Happy Eostre/Ishter
- 4,320-3,820 years old “Shimao” (North China) site with Totemistic-Shamanistic Paganism and a Stepped Pyramid
- 4,250 to 3,400 Year old Stonehenge from Russia: Arkaim?
- 4,100-year-old beaker with medicinal & flowering plants in a grave of a woman in Scotland
- Early European Farmer ancestry, Kelif el Boroud people with the Cardial Ware culture, and the Bell Beaker culture Paganists too, spread into North Africa, then to the Canary Islands off West Africa
- Flood Accounts: Gilgamesh epic (4,100 years ago) Noah in Genesis (2,600 years ago)
- Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)
- When was the beginning: TIMELINE OF CURRENT RELIGIONS, which start around 4,000 years ago.
- Early Religions Thought to Express Proto-Monotheistic Systems around 4,000 years ago
- Kultepe? An archaeological site with a 4,000 years old women’s rights document.
- Single God Religions (Monotheism) = “Man-o-theism” started around 4,000 years ago with the Great Sky Spirit/God Tiān (天)?
- Confucianism’s Tiān (Shangdi god 4,000 years old): Supernaturalism, Pantheism or Theism?
- Yes, Your Male God is Ridiculous
- Mythology, a Lunar Deity is a Goddess or God of the Moon
- Sacred Land, Hills, and Mountains: Sami Mythology (Paganistic Shamanism)
- Horse Worship/Sacrifice: mythical union of Ruling Elite/Kingship and the Horse
- The Amorite/Amurru people’s God Amurru “Lord of the Steppe”, relates to the Origins of the Bible God?
- Bronze Age Exotic Trade Routes Spread Quite Far as well as Spread Religious Ideas with Them
- Sami and the Northern Indigenous Peoples Landscape, Language, and its Connection to Religion
- Prototype of Ancient Analemmatic Sundials around 3,900-3,150 years ago and a Possible Solar Connection to gods?
- Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)
- The Weakening of Ancient Trade and the Strengthening of Religions around 3000 years ago?
- Are you aware that there are religions that worship women gods, explain now religion tears women down?
- Animistic, Totemistic, and Paganistic Superstition Origins of bible god and the bible’s Religion.
- Myths and Folklore: “Trickster gods and goddesses”
- Jews, Judaism, and the Origins of Some of its Ideas
- An Old Branch of Religion Still Giving Fruit: Sacred Trees
- Dating the BIBLE: naming names and telling times (written less than 3,000 years ago, provable to 2,200 years ago)
- Did a Volcano Inspire the bible god?
- Dené–Yeniseian language, Old Copper Complex, and Pre-Columbian Mound Builders?
- No “dinosaurs and humans didn’t exist together just because some think they are in the bible itself”
- Sacred Shit and Sacred Animals?
- Everyone Killed in the Bible Flood? “Nephilim” (giants)?
- Hey, Damien dude, I have a question for you regarding “the bible” Exodus.
- Archaeology Disproves the Bible
- Bible Battle, Just More, Bible Babble
- The Jericho Conquest lie?
- Canaanites and Israelites?
- Accurate Account on how did Christianity Began?
- Let’s talk about Christianity.
- So the 10 commandments isn’t anything to go by either right?
- Misinformed christian
- Debunking Jesus?
- Paulism vs Jesus
- Ok, you seem confused so let’s talk about Buddhism.
- Unacknowledged Buddhism: Gods, Savior, Demons, Rebirth, Heavens, Hells, and Terrorism
- His Foolishness The Dalai Lama
- Yin and Yang is sexist with an ORIGIN around 2,300 years ago?
- I Believe Archaeology, not Myths & Why Not, as the Religious Myths Already Violate Reason!
- Archaeological, Scientific, & Philosophic evidence shows the god myth is man-made nonsense.
- Aquatic Ape Theory/Hypothesis? As Always, Just Pseudoscience.
- Ancient Aliens Conspiracy Theorists are Pseudohistorians
- The Pseudohistoric and Pseudoscientific claims about “Bakoni Ruins” of South Africa
- Why do people think Religion is much more than supernaturalism and superstitionism?
- Religion is an Evolved Product
- Was the Value of Ancient Women Different?
- 1000 to 1100 CE, human sacrifice Cahokia Mounds a pre-Columbian Native American site
- Feminist atheists as far back as the 1800s?
- Promoting Religion as Real is Mentally Harmful to a Flourishing Humanity
- Screw All Religions and Their Toxic lies, they are all fraud
- Forget Religions’ Unfounded Myths, I Have Substantiated “Archaeology Facts.”
- Religion Dispersal throughout the World
- I Hate Religion Just as I Hate all Pseudoscience
- Exposing Scientology, Eckankar, Wicca and Other Nonsense?
- Main deity or religious belief systems
- Quit Trying to Invent Your God From the Scraps of Science.
- Archaeological, Scientific, & Philosophic evidence shows the god myth is man-made nonsense.
- Ancient Alien Conspiracy Theorists: Misunderstanding, Rhetoric, Misinformation, Fabrications, and Lies
- Misinformation, Distortion, and Pseudoscience in Talking with a Christian Creationist
- Judging the Lack of Goodness in Gods, Even the Norse God Odin
- Challenging the Belief in God-like Aliens and Gods in General
- A Challenge to Christian use of Torture Devices?
- Yes, Hinduism is a Religion
- Trump is One of the Most Reactionary Forces of Far-right Christian Extremism
- Was the Bull Head a Symbol of God? Yes!
- Primate Death Rituals
- Christian – “God and Christianity are objectively true”
- Australopithecus afarensis Death Ritual?
- You Claim Global Warming is a Hoax?
- Doubter of Science and Defamer of Atheists?
- I think that sounds like the Bible?
- History of the Antifa (“anti-fascist”) Movements
- Indianapolis Anti-Blasphemy Laws #Free Soheil Rally
- Damien, you repeat the golden rule in so many forms then you say religion is dogmatic?
- Science is a Trustable Methodology whereas Faith is not Trustable at all!
- Was I ever a believer, before I was an atheist?
- Atheists rise in reason
- Mistrust of science?
- Open to Talking About the Definition of ‘God’? But first, we address Faith.
- ‘United Monarchy’ full of splendor and power – Saul, David, and Solomon? Most likely not.
- Is there EXODUS ARCHAEOLOGY? The short answer is “no.”
- Lacking Proof of Bigfoots, Unicorns, and Gods is Just a Lack of Research?
- Religion and Politics: Faith Beliefs vs. Rational Thinking
- Hammer of Truth that lying pig RELIGION: challenged by an archaeologist
- “The Hammer of Truth” -ontology question- What do You Mean by That?
- Navigation of a bad argument: Ad Hominem vs. Attack
- Why is it Often Claimed that Gods have a Gender?
- Why are basically all monotheistic religions ones that have a male god?
- Shifting through the Claims in support of Faith
- Dear Mr. AtHope, The 20th Century is an Indictment of Secularism and a Failed Atheist Century
- An Understanding of the Worldwide Statistics and Dynamics of Terrorist Incidents and Suicide Attacks
- Intoxication and Evolution? Addressing and Assessing the “Stoned Ape” or “Drunken Monkey” Theories as Catalysts in Human Evolution
- Sacred Menstrual cloth? Inanna’s knot, Isis knot, and maybe Ma’at’s feather?
- Damien, why don’t the Hebrews accept the bible stories?
- Dealing with a Troll and Arguing Over Word Meaning
- Knowledge without Belief? Justified beliefs or disbeliefs worthy of Knowledge?
- Afrocentrism and African Religions
- Crecganford @crecganford offers history & stories of the people, places, gods, & culture
- Empiricism-Denier?
I am not an academic. I am a revolutionary that teaches in public, in places like social media, and in the streets. I am not a leader by some title given but from my commanding leadership style of simply to start teaching everywhere to everyone, all manner of positive education.
To me, Animism starts in Southern Africa, then to West Europe, and becomes Totemism. Another split goes near the Russia and Siberia border becoming Shamanism, which heads into Central Europe meeting up with Totemism, which also had moved there, mixing the two which then heads to Lake Baikal in Siberia. From there this Shamanism-Totemism heads to Turkey where it becomes Paganism.
Not all “Religions” or “Religious Persuasions” have a god(s) but
All can be said to believe in some imaginary beings or imaginary things like spirits, afterlives, etc.
Paganism 12,000-4,000 years old
12,000-7,000 years old: related to (Pre-Capitalism)
7,000-5,000 years old: related to (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!
5,000 years old: related to (Kings and the Rise of the State)
4,000 years old: related to (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism)
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Low Gods “Earth” or Tutelary deity and High Gods “Sky” or Supreme deity
“An Earth goddess is a deification of the Earth. Earth goddesses are often associated with the “chthonic” deities of the underworld. Ki and Ninhursag are Mesopotamian earth goddesses. In Greek mythology, the Earth is personified as Gaia, corresponding to Roman Terra, Indic Prithvi/Bhūmi, etc. traced to an “Earth Mother” complementary to the “Sky Father” in Proto-Indo-European religion. Egyptian mythology exceptionally has a sky goddess and an Earth god.” ref
“A mother goddess is a goddess who represents or is a personification of nature, motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction or who embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother. In some religious traditions or movements, Heavenly Mother (also referred to as Mother in Heaven or Sky Mother) is the wife or feminine counterpart of the Sky father or God the Father.” ref
“Any masculine sky god is often also king of the gods, taking the position of patriarch within a pantheon. Such king gods are collectively categorized as “sky father” deities, with a polarity between sky and earth often being expressed by pairing a “sky father” god with an “earth mother” goddess (pairings of a sky mother with an earth father are less frequent). A main sky goddess is often the queen of the gods and may be an air/sky goddess in her own right, though she usually has other functions as well with “sky” not being her main. In antiquity, several sky goddesses in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Near East were called Queen of Heaven. Neopagans often apply it with impunity to sky goddesses from other regions who were never associated with the term historically. The sky often has important religious significance. Many religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, have deities associated with the sky.” ref
“In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept in polytheistic religions of a sky god who is addressed as a “father”, often the father of a pantheon and is often either a reigning or former King of the Gods. The concept of “sky father” may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an “earth mother“. “Sky Father” is a direct translation of the Vedic Dyaus Pita, etymologically descended from the same Proto-Indo-European deity name as the Greek Zeûs Pater and Roman Jupiter and Germanic Týr, Tir or Tiwaz, all of which are reflexes of the same Proto-Indo-European deity’s name, *Dyēus Ph₂tḗr. While there are numerous parallels adduced from outside of Indo-European mythology, there are exceptions (e.g. In Egyptian mythology, Nut is the sky mother and Geb is the earth father).” ref
Tutelary deity
“A tutelary (also tutelar) is a deity or spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of “tutelary” expresses the concept of safety and thus of guardianship. In late Greek and Roman religion, one type of tutelary deity, the genius, functions as the personal deity or daimon of an individual from birth to death. Another form of personal tutelary spirit is the familiar spirit of European folklore.” ref
“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Korean shamanism, jangseung and sotdae were placed at the edge of villages to frighten off demons. They were also worshiped as deities. Seonangshin is the patron deity of the village in Korean tradition and was believed to embody the Seonangdang. In Philippine animism, Diwata or Lambana are deities or spirits that inhabit sacred places like mountains and mounds and serve as guardians. Such as: Maria Makiling is the deity who guards Mt. Makiling and Maria Cacao and Maria Sinukuan. In Shinto, the spirits, or kami, which give life to human bodies come from nature and return to it after death. Ancestors are therefore themselves tutelaries to be worshiped. And similarly, Native American beliefs such as Tonás, tutelary animal spirit among the Zapotec and Totems, familial or clan spirits among the Ojibwe, can be animals.” ref
“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Austronesian beliefs such as: Atua (gods and spirits of the Polynesian peoples such as the Māori or the Hawaiians), Hanitu (Bunun of Taiwan‘s term for spirit), Hyang (Kawi, Sundanese, Javanese, and Balinese Supreme Being, in ancient Java and Bali mythology and this spiritual entity, can be either divine or ancestral), Kaitiaki (New Zealand Māori term used for the concept of guardianship, for the sky, the sea, and the land), Kawas (mythology) (divided into 6 groups: gods, ancestors, souls of the living, spirits of living things, spirits of lifeless objects, and ghosts), Tiki (Māori mythology, Tiki is the first man created by either Tūmatauenga or Tāne and represents deified ancestors found in most Polynesian cultures). ” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Mesopotamian Tutelary Deities can be seen as ones related to City-States
“Historical city-states included Sumerian cities such as Uruk and Ur; Ancient Egyptian city-states, such as Thebes and Memphis; the Phoenician cities (such as Tyre and Sidon); the five Philistine city-states; the Berber city-states of the Garamantes; the city-states of ancient Greece (the poleis such as Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth); the Roman Republic (which grew from a city-state into a vast empire); the Italian city-states from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, such as Florence, Siena, Ferrara, Milan (which as they grew in power began to dominate neighboring cities) and Genoa and Venice, which became powerful thalassocracies; the Mayan and other cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (including cities such as Chichen Itza, Tikal, Copán and Monte Albán); the central Asian cities along the Silk Road; the city-states of the Swahili coast; Ragusa; states of the medieval Russian lands such as Novgorod and Pskov; and many others.” ref
“The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BCE; also known as Protoliterate period) of Mesopotamia, named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and the Sumerian civilization. City-States like Uruk and others had a patron tutelary City Deity along with a Priest-King.” ref
“Chinese folk religion, both past, and present, includes myriad tutelary deities. Exceptional individuals, highly cultivated sages, and prominent ancestors can be deified and honored after death. Lord Guan is the patron of military personnel and police, while Mazu is the patron of fishermen and sailors. Such as Tu Di Gong (Earth Deity) is the tutelary deity of a locality, and each individual locality has its own Earth Deity and Cheng Huang Gong (City God) is the guardian deity of an individual city, worshipped by local officials and locals since imperial times.” ref
“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Hinduism, personal tutelary deities are known as ishta-devata, while family tutelary deities are known as Kuladevata. Gramadevata are guardian deities of villages. Devas can also be seen as tutelary. Shiva is the patron of yogis and renunciants. City goddesses include: Mumbadevi (Mumbai), Sachchika (Osian); Kuladevis include: Ambika (Porwad), and Mahalakshmi. In NorthEast India Meitei mythology and religion (Sanamahism) of Manipur, there are various types of tutelary deities, among which Lam Lais are the most predominant ones. Tibetan Buddhism has Yidam as a tutelary deity. Dakini is the patron of those who seek knowledge.” ref
“A tutelary (also tutelar) The Greeks also thought deities guarded specific places: for instance, Athena was the patron goddess of the city of Athens. Socrates spoke of hearing the voice of his personal spirit or daimonion:
You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me … . This sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician.” ref
“Tutelary deities who guard and preserve a place or a person are fundamental to ancient Roman religion. The tutelary deity of a man was his Genius, that of a woman her Juno. In the Imperial era, the Genius of the Emperor was a focus of Imperial cult. An emperor might also adopt a major deity as his personal patron or tutelary, as Augustus did Apollo. Precedents for claiming the personal protection of a deity were established in the Republican era, when for instance the Roman dictator Sulla advertised the goddess Victory as his tutelary by holding public games (ludi) in her honor.” ref
“Each town or city had one or more tutelary deities, whose protection was considered particularly vital in time of war and siege. Rome itself was protected by a goddess whose name was to be kept ritually secret on pain of death (for a supposed case, see Quintus Valerius Soranus). The Capitoline Triad of Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva were also tutelaries of Rome. The Italic towns had their own tutelary deities. Juno often had this function, as at the Latin town of Lanuvium and the Etruscan city of Veii, and was often housed in an especially grand temple on the arx (citadel) or other prominent or central location. The tutelary deity of Praeneste was Fortuna, whose oracle was renowned.” ref
“The Roman ritual of evocatio was premised on the belief that a town could be made vulnerable to military defeat if the power of its tutelary deity were diverted outside the city, perhaps by the offer of superior cult at Rome. The depiction of some goddesses such as the Magna Mater (Great Mother, or Cybele) as “tower-crowned” represents their capacity to preserve the city. A town in the provinces might adopt a deity from within the Roman religious sphere to serve as its guardian, or syncretize its own tutelary with such; for instance, a community within the civitas of the Remi in Gaul adopted Apollo as its tutelary, and at the capital of the Remi (present-day Rheims), the tutelary was Mars Camulus.” ref
Household deity (a kind of or related to a Tutelary deity)
“A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in paganism as well as in folklore across many parts of the world. Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity – typically a goddess – often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, such as the ancient Greek Hestia.” ref
“The second type of household deities are those that are not one singular deity, but a type, or species of animistic deity, who usually have lesser powers than major deities. This type was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the Lares of ancient Roman religion, the Gashin of Korean shamanism, and Cofgodas of Anglo-Saxon paganism. These survived Christianisation as fairy-like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish Brownie and Slavic Domovoy.” ref
“Household deities were usually worshipped not in temples but in the home, where they would be represented by small idols (such as the teraphim of the Bible, often translated as “household gods” in Genesis 31:19 for example), amulets, paintings, or reliefs. They could also be found on domestic objects, such as cosmetic articles in the case of Tawaret. The more prosperous houses might have a small shrine to the household god(s); the lararium served this purpose in the case of the Romans. The gods would be treated as members of the family and invited to join in meals, or be given offerings of food and drink.” ref
“In many religions, both ancient and modern, a god would preside over the home. Certain species, or types, of household deities, existed. An example of this was the Roman Lares. Many European cultures retained house spirits into the modern period. Some examples of these include:
- Brownie (Scotland and England) or Hob (England) / Kobold (Germany) / Goblin / Hobgoblin
- Domovoy (Slavic)
- Nisse (Norwegian or Danish) / Tomte (Swedish) / Tonttu (Finnish)
- Húsvættir (Norse)” ref
“Although the cosmic status of household deities was not as lofty as that of the Twelve Olympians or the Aesir, they were also jealous of their dignity and also had to be appeased with shrines and offerings, however humble. Because of their immediacy they had arguably more influence on the day-to-day affairs of men than the remote gods did. Vestiges of their worship persisted long after Christianity and other major religions extirpated nearly every trace of the major pagan pantheons. Elements of the practice can be seen even today, with Christian accretions, where statues to various saints (such as St. Francis) protect gardens and grottos. Even the gargoyles found on older churches, could be viewed as guardians partitioning a sacred space.” ref
“For centuries, Christianity fought a mop-up war against these lingering minor pagan deities, but they proved tenacious. For example, Martin Luther‘s Tischreden have numerous – quite serious – references to dealing with kobolds. Eventually, rationalism and the Industrial Revolution threatened to erase most of these minor deities, until the advent of romantic nationalism rehabilitated them and embellished them into objects of literary curiosity in the 19th century. Since the 20th century this literature has been mined for characters for role-playing games, video games, and other fantasy personae, not infrequently invested with invented traits and hierarchies somewhat different from their mythological and folkloric roots.” ref
“In contradistinction to both Herbert Spencer and Edward Burnett Tylor, who defended theories of animistic origins of ancestor worship, Émile Durkheim saw its origin in totemism. In reality, this distinction is somewhat academic, since totemism may be regarded as a particularized manifestation of animism, and something of a synthesis of the two positions was attempted by Sigmund Freud. In Freud’s Totem and Taboo, both totem and taboo are outward expressions or manifestations of the same psychological tendency, a concept which is complementary to, or which rather reconciles, the apparent conflict. Freud preferred to emphasize the psychoanalytic implications of the reification of metaphysical forces, but with particular emphasis on its familial nature. This emphasis underscores, rather than weakens, the ancestral component.” ref
“William Edward Hearn, a noted classicist, and jurist, traced the origin of domestic deities from the earliest stages as an expression of animism, a belief system thought to have existed also in the neolithic, and the forerunner of Indo-European religion. In his analysis of the Indo-European household, in Chapter II “The House Spirit”, Section 1, he states:
The belief which guided the conduct of our forefathers was … the spirit rule of dead ancestors.” ref
“In Section 2 he proceeds to elaborate:
It is thus certain that the worship of deceased ancestors is a vera causa, and not a mere hypothesis. …
In the other European nations, the Slavs, the Teutons, and the Kelts, the House Spirit appears with no less distinctness. … [T]he existence of that worship does not admit of doubt. … The House Spirits had a multitude of other names which it is needless here to enumerate, but all of which are more or less expressive of their friendly relations with man. … In [England] … [h]e is the Brownie. … In Scotland this same Brownie is well known. He is usually described as attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house, and performing similar household tasks. His favorite gratification was milk and honey.” ref
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“These ideas are my speculations from the evidence.”
I am still researching the “god‘s origins” all over the world. So you know, it is very complicated but I am smart and willing to look, DEEP, if necessary, which going very deep does seem to be needed here, when trying to actually understand the evolution of gods and goddesses. I am sure of a few things and less sure of others, but even in stuff I am not fully grasping I still am slowly figuring it out, to explain it to others. But as I research more I am understanding things a little better, though I am still working on understanding it all or something close and thus always figuring out more.
Sky Father/Sky God?
“Egyptian: (Nut) Sky Mother and (Geb) Earth Father” (Egypt is different but similar)
Turkic/Mongolic: (Tengri/Tenger Etseg) Sky Father and (Eje/Gazar Eej) Earth Mother *Transeurasian*
Hawaiian: (Wākea) Sky Father and (Papahānaumoku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*
New Zealand/ Māori: (Ranginui) Sky Father and (Papatūānuku) Earth Mother *Austronesian*
Proto-Indo-European: (Dyḗus/Dyḗus ph₂tḗr) Sky Father and (Dʰéǵʰōm/Pleth₂wih₁) Earth Mother
Indo-Aryan: (Dyaus Pita) Sky Father and (Prithvi Mata) Earth Mother *Indo-European*
Italic: (Jupiter) Sky Father and (Juno) Sky Mother *Indo-European*
Etruscan: (Tinia) Sky Father and (Uni) Sky Mother *Tyrsenian/Italy Pre–Indo-European*
Hellenic/Greek: (Zeus) Sky Father and (Hera) Sky Mother who started as an “Earth Goddess” *Indo-European*
Nordic: (Dagr) Sky Father and (Nótt) Sky Mother *Indo-European*
Slavic: (Perun) Sky Father and (Mokosh) Earth Mother *Indo-European*
Illyrian: (Deipaturos) Sky Father and (Messapic Damatura’s “earth-mother” maybe) Earth Mother *Indo-European*
Albanian: (Zojz) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*
Baltic: (Perkūnas) Sky Father and (Saulė) Sky Mother *Indo-European*
Germanic: (Týr) Sky Father and (?) *Indo-European*
Colombian-Muisca: (Bochica) Sky Father and (Huythaca) Sky Mother *Chibchan*
Aztec: (Quetzalcoatl) Sky Father and (Xochiquetzal) Sky Mother *Uto-Aztecan*
Incan: (Viracocha) Sky Father and (Mama Runtucaya) Sky Mother *Quechuan*
China: (Tian/Shangdi) Sky Father and (Dì) Earth Mother *Sino-Tibetan*
Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian: (An/Anu) Sky Father and (Ki) Earth Mother
Finnish: (Ukko) Sky Father and (Akka) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*
Sami: (Horagalles) Sky Father and (Ravdna) Earth Mother *Finno-Ugric*
Puebloan-Zuni: (Ápoyan Ta’chu) Sky Father and (Áwitelin Tsíta) Earth Mother
Puebloan-Hopi: (Tawa) Sky Father and (Kokyangwuti/Spider Woman/Grandmother) Earth Mother *Uto-Aztecan*
Puebloan-Navajo: (Tsohanoai) Sky Father and (Estsanatlehi) Earth Mother *Na-Dene*
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Hinduism around 3,700 to 3,500 years old. ref
Judaism around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (The first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew” dated to around 3,000 years ago Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley. And many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed around 2,500) ref, ref
Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)
“Judaism is an Abrahamic, its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Some scholars argue that modern Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, by the late 6th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions.” ref
“Yahwism is the name given by modern scholars to the religion of ancient Israel, essentially polytheistic, with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Heading the pantheon was Yahweh, the national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with his consort, the goddess Asherah; below them were second-tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot, and Astarte, all of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees, and a third and fourth tier of minor divine beings, including the mal’ak, the messengers of the higher gods, who in later times became the angels of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yahweh, however, was not the ‘original’ god of Israel “Isra-El”; it is El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon, whose name forms the basis of the name “Israel”, and none of the Old Testament patriarchs, the tribes of Israel, the Judges, or the earliest monarchs, have a Yahwistic theophoric name (i.e., one incorporating the name of Yahweh).” ref
“El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “god” or “deity“, or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ‘ila, represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-, meaning “god”. Specific deities known as ‘El or ‘Il include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period. ʼĒl is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, ʼĒl played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean “ʼĒl the King” but ʾil hd as “the god Hadad“. The Semitic root ʾlh (Arabic ʾilāh, Aramaic ʾAlāh, ʾElāh, Hebrew ʾelōah) may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning “gods” is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm “powers”. In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for “god” by biblical commentators. However the documentary hypothesis for the Old Testament (corresponds to the Jewish Torah) developed originally in the 1870s, identifies these that different authors – the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and the Priestly source – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. Inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis.” ref
Jainism around 2,599 – 2,527 years old. ref
Confucianism around 2,600 – 2,551 years old. ref
Buddhism around 2,563/2,480 – 2,483/2,400 years old. ref
Christianity around 2,o00 years old. ref
Shinto around 1,305 years old. ref
Islam around 1407–1385 years old. ref
Knowledge to Ponder:
Stars/Astrology:
- Possibly, around 30,000 years ago (in simpler form) to 6,000 years ago, Stars/Astrology are connected to Ancestors, Spirit Animals, and Deities.
- The star also seems to be a possible proto-star for Star of Ishtar, Star of Inanna, or Star of Venus.
- Around 7,000 to 6,000 years ago, Star Constellations/Astrology have connections to the “Kurgan phenomenon” of below-ground “mound” stone/wood burial structures and “Dolmen phenomenon” of above-ground stone burial structures.
- Around 6,500–5,800 years ago, The Northern Levant migrations into Jordon and Israel in the Southern Levant brought new cultural and religious transfer from Turkey and Iran.
- “The Ghassulian Star,” a mysterious 6,000-year-old mural from Jordan may have connections to the European paganstic kurgan/dolmens phenomenon.
“Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications. Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindus, Chinese, and the Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Islamicate world and eventually Central and Western Europe. Contemporary Western astrology is often associated with systems of horoscopes that purport to explain aspects of a person’s personality and predict significant events in their lives based on the positions of celestial objects; the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems.” ref
Around 5,500 years ago, Science evolves, The first evidence of science was 5,500 years ago and was demonstrated by a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world. ref
Around 5,000 years ago, Origin of Logics is a Naturalistic Observation (principles of valid reasoning, inference, & demonstration) ref
Around 4,150 to 4,000 years ago: The earliest surviving versions of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, which was originally titled “He who Saw the Deep” (Sha naqba īmuru) or “Surpassing All Other Kings” (Shūtur eli sharrī) were written. ref
Hinduism:
- 3,700 years ago or so, the oldest of the Hindu Vedas (scriptures), the Rig Veda was composed.
- 3,500 years ago or so, the Vedic Age began in India after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Judaism:
- around 3,000 years ago, the first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew”
- around 2,500 years ago, many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed
Myths: The bible inspired religion is not just one religion or one myth but a grouping of several religions and myths
- Around 3,450 or 3,250 years ago, according to legend, is the traditionally accepted period in which the Israelite lawgiver, Moses, provided the Ten Commandments.
- Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, a collection of ancient religious writings by the Israelites based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament is the first part of Christianity’s bible.
- Around 2,400 years ago, the most accepted hypothesis is that the canon was formed in stages, first the Pentateuch (Torah).
- Around 2,140 to 2,116 years ago, the Prophets was written during the Hasmonean dynasty, and finally the remaining books.
- Christians traditionally divide the Old Testament into four sections:
- The first five books or Pentateuch (Torah).
- The proposed history books telling the history of the Israelites from their conquest of Canaan to their defeat and exile in Babylon.
- The poetic and proposed “Wisdom books” dealing, in various forms, with questions of good and evil in the world.
- The books of the biblical prophets, warning of the consequences of turning away from God:
- Henotheism:
- Exodus 20:23 “You shall not make other gods besides Me (not saying there are no other gods just not to worship them); gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves.”
- Polytheism:
- Judges 10:6 “Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the sons of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines; thus they forsook the LORD and did not serve Him.”
- 1 Corinthians 8:5 “For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords.”
- Monotheism:
- Isaiah 43:10 “You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.
Around 2,570 to 2,270 Years Ago, there is a confirmation of atheistic doubting as well as atheistic thinking, mainly by Greek philosophers. However, doubting gods is likely as old as the invention of gods and should destroy the thinking that belief in god(s) is the “default belief”. The Greek word is apistos (a “not” and pistos “faithful,”), thus not faithful or faithless because one is unpersuaded and unconvinced by a god(s) claim. Short Definition: unbelieving, unbeliever, or unbelief.
Expressions of Atheistic Thinking:
- Around 2,600 years ago, Ajita Kesakambali, ancient Indian philosopher, who is the first known proponent of Indian materialism. ref
- Around 2,535 to 2,475 years ago, Heraclitus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor or modern Turkey. ref
- Around 2,500 to 2,400 years ago, according to The Story of Civilization book series certain African pygmy tribes have no identifiable gods, spirits, or religious beliefs or rituals, and even what burials accrue are without ceremony. ref
- Around 2,490 to 2,430 years ago, Empedocles, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. ref
- Around 2,460 to 2,370 years ago, Democritus, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher considered to be the “father of modern science” possibly had some disbelief amounting to atheism. ref
- Around 2,399 years ago or so, Socrates, a famous Greek philosopher was tried for sinfulness by teaching doubt of state gods. ref
- Around 2,341 to 2,270 years ago, Epicurus, a Greek philosopher known for composing atheistic critics and famously stated, “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?” ref
This last expression by Epicurus, seems to be an expression of Axiological Atheism. To understand and utilize value or actually possess “Value Conscious/Consciousness” to both give a strong moral “axiological” argument (the problem of evil) as well as use it to fortify humanism and positive ethical persuasion of human helping and care responsibilities. Because value-blindness gives rise to sociopathic/psychopathic evil.
“Theists, there has to be a god, as something can not come from nothing.”
Well, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something. This does not tell us what the something that may have been involved with something coming from nothing. A supposed first cause, thus something (unknown) happened and then there was something is not an open invitation to claim it as known, neither is it justified to call or label such an unknown as anything, especially an unsubstantiated magical thinking belief born of mythology and religious storytelling.
While hallucinogens are associated with shamanism, it is alcohol that is associated with paganism.
The Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries Shows in the prehistory series:
Show two: Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show tree: Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show four: Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show five: Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”
Show six: Emergence of hierarchy, sexism, slavery, and the new male god dominance: Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves!
Prehistory: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” the division of labor, power, rights, and recourses: VIDEO
Pre-animism 300,000 years old and animism 100,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Totemism 50,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Shamanism 30,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism”: VIDEO
Paganism 12,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Pre-Capitalism): VIDEO
Paganism 7,000-5,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Capitalism) (World War 0) Elite and their slaves: VIEDO
Paganism 5,000 years old: progressed organized religion and the state: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (Kings and the Rise of the State): VIEDO
Paganism 4,000 years old: related to “Anarchism and Socialism” (First Moralistic gods, then the Origin time of Monotheism): VIEDO
I do not hate simply because I challenge and expose myths or lies any more than others being thought of as loving simply because of the protection and hiding from challenge their favored myths or lies.
The truth is best championed in the sunlight of challenge.
An archaeologist once said to me “Damien religion and culture are very different”
My response, So are you saying that was always that way, such as would you say Native Americans’ cultures are separate from their religions? And do you think it always was the way you believe?
I had said that religion was a cultural product. That is still how I see it and there are other archaeologists that think close to me as well. Gods too are the myths of cultures that did not understand science or the world around them, seeing magic/supernatural everywhere.
I personally think there is a goddess and not enough evidence to support a male god at Çatalhöyük but if there was both a male and female god and goddess then I know the kind of gods they were like Proto-Indo-European mythology.
This series idea was addressed in, Anarchist Teaching as Free Public Education or Free Education in the Public: VIDEO
Our 12 video series: Organized Oppression: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of power (9,000-4,000 years ago), is adapted from: The Complete and Concise History of the Sumerians and Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia (7000-2000 BC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szFjxmY7jQA by “History with Cy“
Show #1: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Samarra, Halaf, Ubaid)
Show #2: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power
Show #3: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Uruk and the First Cities)
Show #4: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (First Kings)
Show #5: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Early Dynastic Period)
Show #6: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power
Show #7: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Sargon and Akkadian Rule)
Show #9: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Gudea of Lagash and Utu-hegal)
Show #12: Mesopotamian State Force and the Politics of Power (Aftermath and Legacy of Sumer)
The “Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries”
Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ Atheist Leftist @Skepticallefty & I (Damien Marie AtHope) @AthopeMarie (my YouTube & related blog) are working jointly in atheist, antitheist, antireligionist, antifascist, anarchist, socialist, and humanist endeavors in our videos together, generally, every other Saturday.
Why Does Power Bring Responsibility?
Think, how often is it the powerless that start wars, oppress others, or commit genocide? So, I guess the question is to us all, to ask, how can power not carry responsibility in a humanity concept? I know I see the deep ethical responsibility that if there is power their must be a humanistic responsibility of ethical and empathic stewardship of that power. Will I be brave enough to be kind? Will I possess enough courage to be compassionate? Will my valor reach its height of empathy? I as everyone, earns our justified respect by our actions, that are good, ethical, just, protecting, and kind. Do I have enough self-respect to put my love for humanity’s flushing, over being brought down by some of its bad actors? May we all be the ones doing good actions in the world, to help human flourishing.
I create the world I want to live in, striving for flourishing. Which is not a place but a positive potential involvement and promotion; a life of humanist goal precision. To master oneself, also means mastering positive prosocial behaviors needed for human flourishing. I may have lost a god myth as an atheist, but I am happy to tell you, my friend, it is exactly because of that, leaving the mental terrorizer, god belief, that I truly regained my connected ethical as well as kind humanity.
Cory and I will talk about prehistory and theism, addressing the relevance to atheism, anarchism, and socialism.
At the same time as the rise of the male god, 7,000 years ago, there was also the very time there was the rise of violence, war, and clans to kingdoms, then empires, then states. It is all connected back to 7,000 years ago, and it moved across the world.
Cory Johnston: https://damienmarieathope.com/2021/04/cory-johnston-mind-of-a-skeptical-leftist/?v=32aec8db952d
The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist (YouTube)
Cory Johnston: Mind of a Skeptical Leftist @Skepticallefty
The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist By Cory Johnston: “Promoting critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics by covering current events and talking to a variety of people. Cory Johnston has been thoughtfully talking to people and attempting to promote critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics.” http://anchor.fm/skepticalleft
Cory needs our support. We rise by helping each other.
Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ @Skepticallefty Evidence-based atheist leftist (he/him) Producer, host, and co-host of 4 podcasts @skeptarchy @skpoliticspod and @AthopeMarie
Damien Marie AtHope (“At Hope”) Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist. Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Poet, Philosopher, Advocate, Activist, Psychology, and Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Historian.
Damien is interested in: Freedom, Liberty, Justice, Equality, Ethics, Humanism, Science, Atheism, Antiteism, Antireligionism, Ignosticism, Left-Libertarianism, Anarchism, Socialism, Mutualism, Axiology, Metaphysics, LGBTQI, Philosophy, Advocacy, Activism, Mental Health, Psychology, Archaeology, Social Work, Sexual Rights, Marriage Rights, Woman’s Rights, Gender Rights, Child Rights, Secular Rights, Race Equality, Ageism/Disability Equality, Etc. And a far-leftist, “Anarcho-Humanist.”
I am not a good fit in the atheist movement that is mostly pro-capitalist, I am anti-capitalist. Mostly pro-skeptic, I am a rationalist not valuing skepticism. Mostly pro-agnostic, I am anti-agnostic. Mostly limited to anti-Abrahamic religions, I am an anti-religionist.
To me, the “male god” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 7,000 years ago, whereas the now favored monotheism “male god” is more like 4,000 years ago or so. To me, the “female goddess” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 11,000-10,000 years ago or so, losing the majority of its once prominence around 2,000 years ago due largely to the now favored monotheism “male god” that grow in prominence after 4,000 years ago or so.
My Thought on the Evolution of Gods?
Animal protector deities from old totems/spirit animal beliefs come first to me, 13,000/12,000 years ago, then women as deities 11,000/10,000 years ago, then male gods around 7,000/8,000 years ago. Moralistic gods around 5,000/4,000 years ago, and monotheistic gods around 4,000/3,000 years ago.
To me, animal gods were likely first related to totemism animals around 13,000 to 12,000 years ago or older. Female as goddesses was next to me, 11,000 to 10,000 years ago or so with the emergence of agriculture. Then male gods come about 8,000 to 7,000 years ago with clan wars. Many monotheism-themed religions started in henotheism, emerging out of polytheism/paganism.
Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):
Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist, Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Jeweler, Poet, “autodidact” Philosopher, schooled in Psychology, and “autodidact” Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Pre-Historian (Knowledgeable in the range of: 1 million to 5,000/4,000 years ago). I am an anarchist socialist politically. Reasons for or Types of Atheism
My Website, My Blog, & Short-writing or Quotes, My YouTube, Twitter: @AthopeMarie, and My Email: damien.marie.athope@gmail.com