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. Long-term settlements with well-developed farming from the South spread into the mountainous zones around 8,220-7,520 years ago. Then by around 6,000-5,000 years ago saw the development of various cultural traditions in south-east Anatolia, north-east Syria, and north-west Iran; on the northern fringe, these traditions manifest themselves through the “kurganized” Maykop culture.
Overview of the Kurgan hypothesis:
Gimbutas’s original suggestion identifies four successive stages of the Kurgan culture:
· Kurgan I, Dnieper/Volga region, earlier half of the 4th millennium BC. Apparently evolving from cultures of the Volga basin, subgroups include the Samara and Seroglazovo cultures. ref
· Kurgan II–III, the latter half of the 4th millennium BC. Includes the Sredny Stog culture and the Maykop culture of the northern Caucasus. Stone circles, anthropomorphic stone stelae of deities. ref
· Kurgan IV or Pit Grave (Yamnaya) culture, the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, encompassing the entire steppe region from the Ural to Romania. ref
In other publications she proposes three successive “waves” of expansion:
· Wave 1, predating Kurgan I, expansion from the lower Volga to the Dnieper, leading to the coexistence of Kurgan I and the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture. Repercussions of the migrations extend as far as the Balkans and along the Danube to the Vinča culture in Serbia and Lengyel culture in Hungary. ref
· Wave 2, mid 4th millennium BC, originating in the Maykop culture and resulting in advances of “kurganized” hybrid cultures into northern Europe around 3000 BC (Globular Amphora culture, Baden culture, and ultimately Corded Ware culture). According to Gimbutas, this corresponds to the first intrusion of Indo-European languages into western and northern Europe. ref
· Wave 3, 3000–2800 BC, expansion of the Pit Grave culture beyond the steppes, with the appearance of the characteristic pit graves as far as the areas of modern Romania, Bulgaria, eastern Hungary, and Georgia, coincident with the end of the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture and Trialeti culture in Georgia (c. 2750 BC). ref
Timeline
· 4500–4000: Early PIE. Sredny Stog, Dnieper–Donets and Samara cultures, domestication of the horse (Wave 1). ref
· 4000–3500: The Pit Grave culture (a.k.a. Yamnaya culture), the prototypical kurgan builders, emerges in the steppe, and the Maykop culture in the northern Caucasus. Indo-Hittite models postulate the separation of Proto-Anatolian before this time. ref
· 3500–3000: Middle PIE. The Pit Grave culture is at its peak, representing the classical reconstructed Proto-Indo-European society with stone idols, predominantly practicing animal husbandry in permanent settlements protected by hillforts, subsisting on agriculture, and fishing along rivers. Contact of the Pit Grave culture with late Neolithic Europe cultures results in the “kurganized” Globular Amphora and Baden cultures (Wave 2). The Maykop culture shows the earliest evidence of the beginning Bronze Age, and Bronze weapons and artifacts are introduced to Pit Grave territory. Probable early Satemization. ref
· 3000–2500: Late PIE. The Pit Grave culture extends over the entire Pontic steppe (Wave 3). The Corded Ware culture extends from the Rhine to the Volga, corresponding to the latest phase of Indo-European unity, the vast “kurganized” area disintegrating into various independent languages and cultures, still in loose contact enabling the spread of technology and early loans between the groups, except for the Anatolian and Tocharian branches, which are already isolated from these processes. The centum–satem break is probably complete, but the phonetic trends of Satemization remain active. ref
Further expansion during the Bronze Age
Main article: Indo-European migrations
“The Kurgan hypothesis describes the initial spread of Proto-Indo-European during the 5th and 4th millennia BC. As used by Gimbutas, the term “kurganized” implied that the culture could have been spread by no more than small bands who imposed themselves on local people as an elite. This idea of the PIE language and its daughter-languages diffusing east and west without mass movement proved popular with archaeologists in the 1970s (the pots-not-people paradigm). The question of further Indo-Europeanization of Central and Western Europe, Central Asia, and Northern India during the Bronze Age is beyond its scope, far more uncertain than the events of the Copper Age, and subject to some controversy. The rapidly developing field of archaeogenetics and genetic genealogy since the late 1990s has not only confirmed a migratory pattern out of the Pontic Steppe at the relevant time, it also suggests the possibility that the population movement involved was more substantial than anticipated.” ref
Kurgan hypothesis Revisions:
Invasion versus diffusion scenarios
“Gimbutas believed that the expansions of the Kurgan culture were a series of essentially hostile military incursions where a new warrior culture imposed itself on the peaceful, matrilinear (hereditary through the female line), matrifocal, though egalitarian cultures of “Old Europe“, replacing it with a patriarchal warrior society, a process visible in the appearance of fortified settlements and hillforts and the graves of warrior-chieftains: The process of Indo-Europeanization was a cultural, not a physical, transformation. It must be understood as a military victory in terms of successfully imposing a new administrative system, language, and religion upon the indigenous groups. In her later life, Gimbutas increasingly emphasized the authoritarian nature of this transition from the egalitarian process of the nature/earth mother goddess (Gaia) to a patriarchal society and the worship of the father/sun/weather god (Zeus, Dyaus). This supposed egalitarian, mother-goddess-worshipping society is not the same as a matriarchy in Gimbutas’s view. Matriarchal hierarchy structures in Gimbutas’s opinion are the same as a patriarchal society, not the actual opposite: an egalitarian society without hierarchy. J. P. Mallory accepted the Kurgan hypothesis as the de facto standard theory of Indo-European origins, but he recognized criticism of any alleged, but not actually stated, “radical” scenario of military invasion; the slow accumulation of influence through coercion or extortion – Gimbutas’s actual main scenario – was often taken as general and immediate raiding and then conquest: One might at first imagine that the economy of argument involved with the Kurgan solution should oblige us to accept it outright. But critics do exist and their objections can be summarized quite simply: Almost all of the arguments for invasion and cultural transformations are far better explained without reference to Kurgan expansions, and most of the evidence so far presented is either totally contradicted by other evidence, or is the result of the gross misinterpretation of the cultural history of Eastern, Central, and Northern Europe.” ref
Alignment with the Anatolian hypothesis
Main article: Anatolian hypothesis
“Alberto Piazza and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza have tried to align the Anatolian hypothesis with the steppe theory. According to Alberto Piazza, “[i]t is clear that, genetically speaking, peoples of the Kurgan steppe descended at least in part from people of the Middle Eastern Neolithic who immigrated there from Turkey.” According to Piazza and Cavalli-Sforza, the Yamna-culture may have been derived from Middle Eastern Neolithic farmers who migrated to the Pontic steppe and developed pastoral nomadism. Wells agrees with Cavalli-Sforza that there is “some genetic evidence for a migration from the Middle East.” Nevertheless, the Anatolian hypothesis is incompatible with the linguistic evidence.” ref
Anthony’s revised steppe theory
“David Anthony‘s The Horse, the Wheel and Language describes his “revised steppe theory”. David Anthony considers the term “Kurgan culture” so lacking in precision as to be useless, instead of using the core Yamnaya culture and its relationship with other cultures as a point of reference. He points out that the Kurgan culture was so broadly defined that almost any culture with burial mounds, or even (like the Baden culture) without them could be included. He does not include the Maykop culture among those that he considers to be IE-speaking, presuming instead that they spoke a Caucasian language.” ref
“The Anatolian hypothesis, also known as the Anatolian theory or the sedentary farmer theory, first developed by British archaeologist Colin Renfrew, proposes that the dispersal of Proto-Indo-Europeans originated in Neolithic Anatolia. It is the main competitor to the Kurgan hypothesis, or steppe theory, the more favored view academically. The Anatolian hypothesis suggests that the speakers of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) lived in Anatolia during the Neolithic era, and it associates the distribution of historical Indo-European languages with the expansion during the Neolithic revolution of the 7th and the 6th millennia BC. This hypothesis states that Indo-European languages began to spread peacefully, by demic diffusion, into Europe from Asia Minor from around 7000 BC with the Neolithic advance of farming (wave of advance). Accordingly, most inhabitants of Neolithic Europe would have spoken Indo-European languages, and later migrations would have replaced the Indo-European varieties with other Indo-European varieties.” ref
“The expansion of agriculture from the Middle East would have diffused three language families: Indo-European languages toward Europe, Dravidian languages toward Pakistan and India, and Afroasiatic languages toward the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. Reacting to criticism, Renfrew revised his proposal to the effect of taking a pronounced Indo-Hittite position. Renfrew’s revised views place only Pre-Proto-Indo-European in the 7th millennium BC in Anatolia, proposing as the homeland of Proto-Indo-European proper the Balkans around 5000 BC, which he explicitly identified as the “Old European culture“, proposed by Marija Gimbutas. He thus still locates the original source of the Indo-European languages in Anatolia around 7000 BC. Reconstructions of a Bronze Age PIE society, based on vocabulary items like “wheel”, do not necessarily hold for the Anatolian branch, which appears to have separated at an early stage, prior to the invention of wheeled vehicles.” ref
According to Renfrew, the spread of Indo-European proceeded in the following steps:
- Around 6500 BC: Pre-Proto-Indo-European, in Anatolia, splits into Anatolian and Archaic Proto-Indo-European, the language of the Pre-Proto-Indo-European farmers who migrate to Europe in the initial farming dispersal. Archaic Proto-Indo-European languages occur in the Balkans (Starčevo–Körös culture), in the Danube valley (Linear Pottery culture), and possibly in the Bug-Dniestr area (Eastern Linear Pottery culture).
- Around 5000 BC: Archaic Proto-Indo-European splits into Northwestern Indo-European (the ancestor of Italic, Celtic, and Germanic), in the Danube valley, Balkan Proto-Indo-European (corresponding to Gimbutas’ Old European culture), and Early Steppe Proto-Indo-European (the ancestor of Tocharian). ref
“The main strength of the farming hypothesis lies in its linking of the spread of Indo-European languages with an archaeologically-known event, the spread of farming, which scholars often assume involved significant population shifts. Research of “87 languages with 2,449 lexical items” by Russell Gray and Quentin Atkinson found an age range for the “initial Indo-European divergence” of 7800 to 9800 years, which was found to be consistent with the Anatolian hypothesis. Using stochastic models to evaluate the presence or absence of different words across Indo-European, Gray & Atkinson (2003) concluded that the origin of Indo-European goes back about 8500 years, the first split being that of Hittite from the rest (Indo-Hittite hypothesis). In 2006, the authors of the paper responded to their critics, authors and S. Greenhill found that two different datasets were also consistent with their theory. An analysis by Ryder and Nicholls found support for the Anatolian hypothesis: Our main result is a unimodal posterior distribution for the age of Proto-Indo-European centered at 8400 years before Present with 95% highest posterior density interval equal to 7100–9800 years ago.” ref
“Bouckaert et al., including Gray and Atkinson, conducted a computerized phylogeographic study, using methods drawn from the modeling of the spatial diffusion of infectious diseases; it also showed strong support for the Anatolian hypothesis despite having undergone corrections and revisions. Colin Renfrew commented on this study, stating that “[f]inally we have a clear spatial picture.” A genetic study from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona favors Gimbutas’s Kurgan hypothesis over Renfrew’s Anatolian hypothesis but “does not reveal the precise origin of PIE, nor does it clarify the impact Kurgan migrations had on different parts of Europe”. Lazaridis et al. (2016) noted on the origins of Ancestral North Indians: “Nonetheless, the fact that we can reject West Eurasian population sources from Anatolia, mainland Europe, and the Levant diminishes the likelihood that these areas were sources of Indo-European (or other) languages in South Asia.” However, Lazaridis et al. previously admitted being unsure “if the steppe is the ultimate source” of the Indo-European languages and believe that more data is needed.” ref
Maykop culture (5,720–5,020 years ago)
“The Maykop culture, c. 3700 BC–3000 BC, was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the western Caucasus region. It extends along the area from the Taman Peninsula at the Kerch Strait to near the modern border of Dagestan and southwards to the Kura River. The culture takes its name from a royal burial found in Maykop kurgan in the Kuban River valley. According to genetic studies on ancient DNA published in 2018, the Maikop population came from the south, probably from western Georgia and Abkhazia, and was descended from the Eneolithic farmers who first colonized the north side of the Caucasus. Maykop is, therefore, the “ideal archaeological candidate for the founders of the Northwest Caucasian language family“.” ref
“In the south, the Maykop culture bordered the approximately contemporaneous Kura-Araxes culture (3500—2200 BC), which extends into the Armenian Plateau and apparently influenced it. To the north is the Yamna culture, including the Novotitorovka culture (3300—2700), which it overlaps in territorial extent. It is contemporaneous with the late Uruk period in Mesopotamia. The Kuban River is navigable for much of its length and provides an easy water-passage via the Sea of Azov to the territory of the Yamna culture, along the Don and Donets River systems. The Maykop culture was thus well-situated to exploit the trading possibilities with the central Ukraine area. Radiocarbon dates for various monuments of the Maykop culture are from 3950 – 3650 – 3610 – 2980 cal BCE. After the discovery of the Leyla-Tepe culture, some links were noted with the Maykop culture.” ref
“The Leyla-Tepe culture is a culture of archaeological interest from the Chalcolithic era. Its population was distributed on the southern slopes of the Central Caucasus (modern Azerbaijan, Agdam District), from 4350 until 4000 B.C. Similar amphora burials in the South Caucasus are found in the Western Georgian Jar-Burial Culture. The culture has also been linked to the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements in the Eastern Anatolia Region. The settlement is of a typical Western-Asian variety, with the dwellings packed closely together and made of mud bricks with smoke outlets. It has been suggested that the Leyla-Tepe were the founders of the Maykop culture. An expedition to Syria by the Russian Academy of Sciences revealed the similarity of the Maykop and Leyla-Tepe artifacts with those found recently while excavating the ancient city of Tel Khazneh I, from the 4th millennium BC. Nearly 200 Bronze Age sites were reported stretching over 60 miles from the Kuban River to Nalchik, at an altitude of between 4,620 feet and 7,920 feet. They were all “visibly constructed according to the same architectural plan, with an oval courtyard in the center, and connected by roads.” ref
“Maykop inhumation practices were characteristically Indo-European, typically in a pit, sometimes stone-lined, topped with a kurgan (or tumulus). Stone cairns replace kurgans in later interments. The Maykop kurgan was extremely rich in gold and silver artifacts; unusual for the time. Researchers established the existence of a local Maykop animal style in the artifacts found. This style was seen as the prototype for animal styles of later archaeological cultures: the Maykop animal style is more than a thousand years older than the Scythian, Sarmatian, and Celtic animal styles. Attributed to the Maykop culture are petroglyphs which have yet to be deciphered. The Maykop people lived sedentary lives, and horses formed a very low percentage of their livestock, which mostly consisted of pigs and cattle. Archaeologists have discovered a unique form of bronze cheek-piece, which consists of a bronze rod with a twisted loop in the middle that threads through the nodes and connects to the bridle, halter strap, and headband. Notches and bumps on the edges of the cheek-pieces were, apparently, to attach nose and under-lip straps. Some of the earliest wagon wheels in the world are found in the Maykop culture area. The two solid wooden wheels from the kurgan of Novokorsunskaya in the Kuban region have been dated to the second half of the fourth millennium.” ref
“The construction of artificial terrace complexes in the mountains is evidence of their sedentary living, high population density, and high levels of agricultural and technical skills. The terraces were built around the fourth millennium BC. and all subsequent cultures used them for agricultural purposes. The vast majority of pottery found on the terraces are from the Maykop period, the rest from the Scythian and Alan period. The Maykop terraces are among the most ancient in the world, but they are little studied. The longevity of the terraces (more than 5000 years) allows us to consider their builders’ unsurpassed engineers and craftsmen. Recent discoveries by archaeologist Alexei Rezepkin include (in his view): 1# The most ancient bronze sword on record, dating from the second or third century of the 4th millennium BC. It was found in a stone tomb near Novosvobodnaya, and is now on display in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. It has a total length of 63 cm and a hilt length of 11 cm. 2# The most ancient column. 3# The most ancient stringed instrument, resembling the modern Adyghian shichepshin, dating from the late 4th-millennium BCE.” ref
Origins?
Pontic steppe Influences
“Its burial practices resemble the burial practices described in the Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas, which has been regarded by some as an Indo-European intrusion from the Pontic steppe into the Caucasus. However, according to J.P. Mallory, … where the evidence for barrows is found, it is precisely in regions that later demonstrate the presence of non-Indo-European populations. The culture has been described as, at the very least, a “kurganized” local culture with strong ethnic and linguistic links to the descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. It has been linked to the Lower Mikhaylovka group and Kemi Oba culture, and more distantly, to the Globular Amphora and Corded Ware cultures, if only in an economic sense. Yet, according to Mallory, Such a theory, it must be emphasized, is highly speculative and controversial although there is a recognition that this culture may be a product of at least two traditions: the local steppe tradition embraced in the Novosvobodna culture and foreign elements from south of the Caucasus which can be charted through imports in both regions.” ref
Iranian Influences
“According to Mariya Ivanova, the Maikop origins were on the Iranian Plateau: Graves and settlements of the 5th millennium BC in North Caucasus attest to a material culture that was related to contemporaneous archaeological complexes in the northern and western Black Sea region. Yet it was replaced, suddenly as it seems, around the middle of the 4th millennium BC by a “high culture” whose origin is still quite unclear. This archaeological culture named after the great Maikop kurgan showed innovations in all areas which have no local archetypes and which cannot be assigned to the tradition of the Balkan-Anatolian Copper Age. The favored theory of Russian researchers is a migration from the south originating in the Syro-Anatolian area, which is often mentioned in connection with the so-called “Uruk expansion”. However, serious doubts have arisen about a connection between Maikop and the Syro-Anatolian region. The foreign objects in the North Caucasus reveal no connection to the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris or to the floodplains of Mesopotamia, but rather seem to have ties to the Iranian plateau and to South Central Asia. Recent excavations in the Southwest Caspian Sea region are enabling a new perspective about the interactions between the “Orient” and Continental Europe. On the one hand, it is becoming gradually apparent that a gigantic area of interaction evolved already in the early 4th millennium BC which extended far beyond Mesopotamia; on the other hand, these findings relativise the traditional importance given to Mesopotamia, because innovations originating in Iran and Central Asia obviously spread throughout the Syro-Anatolian region independently thereof.” ref
Azerbaijan Influences
More recently, some very ancient kurgans have been discovered at Soyuqbulaq in Azerbaijan. These kurgans date to the beginning of the 4th millennium BC, and belong to Leylatepe Culture. According to the excavators of these kurgans, there are some significant parallels between Soyugbulaq kurgans and the Maikop kurgans: “Discovery of Soyugbulaq in 2004 and subsequent excavations provided substantial proof that the practice of kurgan burial was well established in the South Caucasus during the late Eneolithic/Copper Age […] The Leylatepe Culture tribes migrated to the north in the mid-fourth millennium, B.C. and played an important part in the rise of the Maikop Culture of the North Caucasus.” ref
Leyla-Tepe Culture
“The Leyla-Tepe culture of ancient Caucasian Albania belongs to the Chalcolithic era. It got its name from the site in the Agdam district of modern-day Azerbaijan. Its settlements were distributed on the southern slopes of Central Caucasus, from 4350 until 4000 B.C. Monuments of the Leyla-Tepe were first located by I. G. Narimanov, a Soviet archaeologist. Recent attention to the monuments has been inspired by the risk of their damage due to the construction of the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline and the South Caucasus pipeline.” ref
Leyla-Tepe Culture Characteristics and influences
“The Leyla-Tepe culture is also attested at Boyuk Kesik in the lower layers of this settlement. The inhabitants apparently buried their dead in ceramic vessels. Similar amphora burials in the South Caucasus are found in the Western Georgian Jar-Burial Culture, which is mostly of a much later date. The ancient Poylu II settlement was discovered in the Agstafa District of modern-day Azerbaijan during the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. The lowermost layer dates to the early fourth millennium BC, attesting a multilayer settlement of Leyla-Tepe culture. Among the sites associated with this culture, the Soyugbulag kurgans or barrows are of special importance. The excavation of these kurgans, located in Kaspi Municipality, in central Georgia, demonstrated an unexpectedly early date of such structures on the territory of Azerbaijan. They were dated to the beginning of the 4th millennium BC. The culture has also been linked to the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements in the Eastern Anatolia Region (Arslantepe, Coruchu-tepe, Tepechik, etc.). It has been suggested that the Leyla-Tepe were the founders of the Maykop culture. An expedition to Syria by the Russian Academy of Sciences revealed the similarity of the Maykop and Leyla-Tepe artifacts with those found recently while excavating the ancient city of Tel Khazneh I, from the 4th millennium BC. Leyla-Tepe pottery is very similar to the ‘Chaff-Faced Ware’ of northern Syria and Mesopotamia. It is especially well attested at Amuq F phase. Similar pottery is also found at Kultepe, Azerbaijan.” ref
Galayeri
“The important site of Galayeri, belonging to the Leyla-Tepe archaeological culture, was investigated. It is located in the Qabala District of Azerbaijan. Galayeri is closely connected to early civilizations of the Near East. Structures consisting of clay layers are typical; no mud-brick walls have been detected at Galayeri. Almost all findings have Eastern Anatolian Chalcolithic characteristics. The closest analogs of the Galayeri clay constructions are found at Arslantepe/Melid VII in Temple C.” ref
Leyla-Tepe Culture Metalwork
“The appearance of Leyla-Tepe tradition’s carriers in the Caucasus marked the appearance of the first local Caucasian metallurgy. This is perhaps but not entirely attributed to migrants from Uruk, arriving around 4500 BCE. Recent research indicates the connections rather to the pre-Uruk traditions, such as the late Ubaid period, and Ubaid-Uruk phases. Leyla-Tepe metalwork tradition was very sophisticated right from the beginning, and featured many bronze items. Later, the quality of metallurgy increased in both sophistication & quality with the advent of the Kura–Araxes culture.” ref
Infant Burials of the Leila-tepe Culture of the Chalcolithic Age on the Settlement Galaeri in Azerbaijan: an effort of bioarchaeological study
“A study of the Chalcolithic Leila-Tepe culture discovered in Azerbaijan gave strong evidence for Caucasian migration of ancient agriculturists from the Northern Mesopotamia starting from the end of the 5th mill. BC. Burial sites of the culture were mainly connected with infant burials in vessels inside multilayered settlements (tells). Our study was devoted to the description of three burials from excavations of the settlement Galaeri (Beta 330265: 5060±30 BP or 3940—3800 BCE). All infants were buried in vessels of the same type made of rough ceramics. Studying skeletons, we estimated biological age, as well as parameters of physical development and palaeopathological features. A digital microfocus X-ray was used. A pilot study of strontium isotopes ratio by mass-spectrometry was provided (values 0.708618—0.708785), which indicated the growth of infants in common geochemical conditions. It should be stressed that the only control sample of soil from Galaeri settlement shows a little different signal (0.709389). That means, further research of control samples could support the hypothesis of local/non-local origin of infants buried in these vessels. Two youngest infants (##3 and 6) died at 4—6 months. But their sizes were close to modern newborns. The third child, who demonstrated dental age about 4—5 years, was also retarded by 2—3,5 years. All infants from the Galaeri site showed symptoms of chronical vitamin C deficiency. The data indicates the absence of fresh fruits and vegetables in the diet of little children and their mothers.” ref
Transcaucasia
“Recent research in Transcaucasia has revealed the existence of several Late Chalcolithic, often single-period sites, characterized by “Chaff-Faced Ware” (CFW) mostly of Amuq F type. CFW was first described by the Braidwoods after their excavations in the Amuq Plain to the north of Antakya (Antioch) and was attributed to Phase F in their chronological sequence. The geographic extension of CFW is usually associated, explicitly or not, with Northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia; it is deemed to typify the “indigenous” Late Chalcolithic faciès in contrast to “foreign” Uruk pottery assemblages. Both repertoires are indeed attested along the northern Fertile Crescent during the LC3-LC4 period, either together or on separate sites but research carried out at Arslantepe (Phase VII) over the last two decades has shown that the Amuq F horizon probably developed at an earlier date, at least from the beginning of the 4th millennium onwards, thus spanning part of theLC2 period as well. CFW has thus become one of the key elements in any discussion of the origins and mechanisms at work in the rise of early complex societies in Upper Mesopotamia and beyond, as it occurs in a context of incipient urbanisation and administrative development. Therefore, its presence, at times exclusive, on a number of settlements in the South Caucasus, especially in the Araxes or the Kura Basins, raises important questions: if the distribution of CFW is not restricted to Northwest Syria and North Mesopotamia, where is the focus of the CFW province? How and where did it originate? Not only are these issues essential to our understanding of the significance of CFW sites in Transcaucasia but they also call in question current assumptions about the broad interregional dynamics in the Near East at the time of the Uruk expansion. In a previous paper, I put forward several hypotheses suggesting that the occurrence of “Mesopotamian” sites in Transcaucasia probably indicated that the highlands were actually part of the North Mesopotamian oikoumene. After a brief presentation of the evidence from the Kura and Araxes Basins, I will now take advantage of the new data yielded by the current excavations of Ovçular Tepesi in Nakhchivan, and survey results from Eastern Anatolia, to proceed further with this analysis.” ref
DEFINITION OF THE CFW ASSEMBLAGE
“Before proceeding to any comparison between the CFW repertoire of North Syro-Mesopotamia and the pottery retrieved from Transcaucasia, it seems important to recall the main features of the CFW that has been found in the vicinity of the Fertile Crescent. This repertoire is divided into several regional assemblages, which possess common concepts and technological features in spite of morphological and sometimes decorative specificities. According to the description given by the Braidwoods, the CFW from the Amuq Plain, here called “Amuq F,” is mostly hand-made and orange-buff in color. Technologically, it is characterized by the chaff imprints left all over the vessel’s surface by the disintegration of the temper during the process of firing. The surface of most vessels is left plain, but a significant number of them bear traces of burnishing. Sometimes the vessel’s surface is covered by a thin paint or a slip, usually orange or red in color and often burnished. The paste is usually incompletely oxidized as is shown by the grey-black core visible in the break. The morphological repertoire mainly consists of wide necked-jars with short, everted collars and coarse, mass-produced bowls. The bowls may be hemispherical with simple or beaded rims, or more open without-flaring walls, also ending with simple or beaded rims.9 The jars may be angle-necked, sometimes with modeled or channeled rims, which constitute one of the hallmarks of the Amuq F repertoire. The CFW assemblage found at Arslantepe (Phase VII) appears as a somewhat richer version, in terms of diversity, of the Amuq corpus; but we must remember that the occupation levels corresponding to the Amuq F period at Arslantepe have been excavated over a much wider area (630 m2 in 2000) than any of the Amuq sites. Among the most striking pottery finds evidenced at Arslantepe that are seemingly rare in the Amuq Plain, is a wide range of “potter’s marks” occurring on different types of jars and bowls. In the earliest levels of Period VII, these bowls tend to have round, fl int-scraped bases, with the potter’s marks placed near or on the bottom; while in the later levels, the potter’s marks are usually located inside the bowls.” ref
“In fact, the variety of bowls at Arslantepe seems to be greater than in the Amuq Region or any other site: bowls may have hemispherical, out-flaring, or carinated walls with simple, beaded, hammer-head or beveled rims. While small red or orange-slipped beakers with carinated bodies, usually burnished, are seemingly specific to Arslantepe. As in the Amuq Region, the CFW assemblage at Arslantepe is rarely decorated. According to M. Frangipane, the CFW repertoire attested at Arslantepe and in the Amuq Plain is typical of Northwestern Syria, even if some of its elements may occasionally be found East of the Euphrates River.15 A second regional assemblage is more at home in the Middle Euphrates Valley and further east in the Khabur Region. It is typified by the repertoires of Kurban Höyük VI (Area C01), Hacınebi A/B1, Tell Kosaq Shamali Levels 4-3 (Sector B) as well as Tell Leilan V-IV and Tell Brak TW 19-14: this assemblage, which will be referred to henceforth as “Hacınebi A/B1,” is characterized by the so-called “casseroles,” hammerhead bowls and the presence of “grey ware.” Red-slipped ware is attested but seems much rarer than in the Amuq F repertoire. Pottery types common to the Amuq F and the Hacınebi A/B1 assemblages comprise potter’s marks, which are fairly frequent at Tell Brak, and several series of bowls without-flaring or carinated bodies, with simple or beaded rims. The potter’s marks from Brak display a range of motifs that are strikingly similar to those retrieved from Arslantepe VII. Technologically, the CFW from the Amuq and Hacınebi are also clearly akin, with similar paste colors, grey cores, and the use of chaff as the main source of temper. A third CFW assemblage illustrated by the pottery from Hammam et-Turkman V in the Balikh Region offers an intriguing case. This assemblage is divided into two main phases, Hammam VA and VB. If most of the Hammam V pottery is chaff-faced and chaff-tempered, the proportion of CFW decreases from 96,6% to 60,3% from Hammam VA to VB. According to P.M.M.G. Akkermans, however, Phase A is considered to be earlier than the Amuq F period, while morphological links are perceptible between the Hammam VB and the Amuq F repertoires. It should be stressed that the common traits between the Amuq F/Arslantepe VII and the Hammam VB assemblages usually concern rather plain, generic shapes with neither decorative nor morphological specificities. Mention should be made however of a potter’s mark attested on the outer surface of a deep bowl, which has its exact counterpart at Arslantepe VII. Red-slipped and orange burnished ware is attested in Hammam VA but seems to be absent from Phase B; in any case, carinated beakers seem to be unknown.” ref
Specific Amuq F types such as jars with channeled or modeled rims are also conspicuous by their absence. Similarly, none of the diagnostic types typical of the Hacınebi A/B1 repertoire, such as casseroles or hammer-headed bowls, are attested at Hammam VB. Interestingly enough, many of the shapes and decoration types that seem specific to Hammam VB actually come in calcite-tempered, cream, or grey-black burnished ware, which is alien to the CFW sequence. The general pattern of the Hammam VB repertoire nevertheless shows that it is no doubt related to the other CFW regional assemblages reviewed so far. The fact that the proportion of CFW only amounts to ca 60% in Phase VB could be linked to the archaeological context: it has to be kept in mind that most of Period V have been excavated only over a limited exposure (2 x 10 m). There are probably many regional assemblages waiting to be defined other than the three reviewed so far. The latter are linked by a common technological background and organizational concepts (potter’s marks), which point to specific social and economic requirements: the main concern in pottery-making during the CFW period was obviously to reduce time-consuming production processes, while artistic or symbolical expression ranked far behind. In this respect, Tepe Gawra may appear as an interesting case: this reference-site, which is located in the Upper Tigris area, stands out in the CFW horizon by its specificity. If CFW is an important component of Gawran pottery, this repertoire, unlike the corpus from Amuq F, Hammam V, or Hacınebi A/B1, is not dominated by CFW. Two other types of temper are also commonly used in the pottery production, creating different surfaces with no “chaff-faced” effect. Unfortunately, very little technological information is available for each vessel type, so that hardly any comparisons may be drawn between different productions, in particular between decorated and undecorated trends. This is all the more regrettable as, unlike other SyroMesopotamian assemblages, the Gawran repertoire is characterized by a rich variety of decoration processes.” ref
“What is more, several ceramic types that were first discovered at Tepe Gawra have attracted the attention of scholars over the years because of their far-reaching interregional comparanda. Pottery stamped with triangles and rosettes for instance, or blob-painted ware, starting respectively in Gawra XIIA and XA, have close parallels in the Upper Euphrates (Norşuntepe Phase III, Korucutepe Phase B); whereas double-mouthed jars are attested as far as Eridu (Early Uruk levels) in South Mesopotamia, the Amuq (Phase F) in the Northern Levant and Pkhagugape in the North Caucasus. At Norşuntepe and Korucutepe, most “Gawran” vessels turn up in CFW, but judging from the brief descriptions given in the pottery catalog, the technological span of similar vessels at Gawra itself seems to be more complex. At all events, it appears as if the Gawra culture stood partly outside the CFW structural system. Whatever the situation at Tepe Gawra, CFW clearly predominates over most of Upper-Mesopotamia, including the Amuq Plain and the Upper-Euphrates Basin, during the LC2-LC4 time span. Judging by its technological specificities, the spread of CFW over the Fertile Crescent suggests the development of new organization processes in the pottery production, promoting rapidity and standardization. The reasons for this reorganization are still unknown and their analysis beyond the scope of the present article. But it is all the more interesting that this system should extend as far as the South Caucasus.” ref
THE CFW IN TRANSCAUCASIA
“Ever since our first assessment of TranscaucasianMesopotamian relationships, information on the Late Chalcolithic period in the Caucasus has greatly increased with the publication of several excavation reports. These data, together with the results from the renewed excavations of Ovçular Tepesi, open new perspectives for analyzing the cultural context leading to the emergence of CFW in the South Caucasus. At least six sites yielding CFW pottery of SyroMesopotamian type have now been excavated in several parts of Transcaucasia: Berikldeebi in Georgia, Böyük Kesik, Leyla Tepe, Poylu, and Soyuq Bulaq in Azerbaijan, and Tekhut in Armenia. Apart from Tekhut, which is located in the Middle Araxes Basin near Erevan, all these sites are located in the Kura Basin. A small settlement (Alxan Tepe) characterized by Amuq F material, was also found by T. Akhundov in the Lower Araxes Basin (Mugan steppe), but this site has not been excavated yet. It is interesting to note that most of the parallels between the Transcaucasian and the Syro-Mesopotamian CFW relate to the Amuq F repertoire. The best-published evidence comes from Böyük Kesik and Leyla Tepe.” ref
“As in the North Syro-Mesopotamian assemblages, the pottery from these sites mostly comprises chaff-tempered, chaff-faced bowls and jars, pinkish or buff in color, which are described as wheel-thrown. The paste is generally fully oxidized at Leyla Tepe, but the case is different with Böyük Kesik, where many sherds are reported to have a dark core. Yellowish, pinkish, or greenish slip is said to be frequent; but cases of red slip as well as burnishing are also reported for Böyük Kesik. Just as in the Amuq, wide-necked jars with modeled or channeled rims are fairly common. Typically, all the illustrated CFW jars have a sharp inner angle at the junction between the body and the collar. Bowls without flaring walls and beaded-rims strongly recalling Arslantepe VII examples are also attested, together with a series of small carinated bowls. As the carinated bowls are not described, however, it is not clear whether these vessels are red-slipped and burnished like their Arslantepe VII counterparts. Lastly, a series of potter’s marks, some of which are strikingly similar to examples from Arslantepe VII or Tell Brak, have been found at Böyük Kesik, but also on the nearby site of Poylu, as well as in Tekhut in Armenia.” ref
“Judging by the published material, these potter’s marks are equally distributed on jars and bowls, usually on the outside surface. As in Arslantepe VII and Tell Brak, they often appear as complex motives combining impressed dots and incised lines. All examples but one have been applied on a wet paste. Apart from the CFW pottery of Amuq F type, we should also note the presence at both Leyla Tepe and Böyük Kesik of a few types that recall the Upper Tigris Region rather than the Amuq or the Malatya areas. A few “casseroles” reminiscent of North Mesopotamian assemblages have been found both at Böyük Kesik and Leyla Tepe. Curiously enough these “casseroles” are made in « céramique grossière », which is described as mostly grit-tempered, and not in CFW. Similar vessels are documented in the Middle Euphrates Basin at Kurban Höyük and Hacınebi, where they belong to the earlier part of the sequence (Hacınebi A and Kurban VI—Area C01). Two sherds, one from Böyük Kesik and the other from Leyla Tepe, obviously come from “double-mouthed” jars, a vessel type that is also attested in the Amuq F assemblage.” ref
“It is important to note in passing that the similarities between the “Leyla Tepe culture” and North Syro-Mesopotamian sites are not restricted to pottery: parallels have also been drawn between building techniques, architectural plans, stamp seals, and funerary customs. Lastly, to the wealth of information now available for Transcaucasia, we can also add some new data retrieved from the Northern Caucasus, where a series of sites belonging to the Maykop culture are described as having links with UpperMesopotamia and Anatolia. With the exception of a few seals, however, comparisons only apply to the pottery. Analogies are mostly based on shape similarities and the presence of potter’s marks. Yet, if some morphological parallels may be drawn between the Maykop pottery and a few isolated vessels from different sites of the Fertile Crescent, the Maykop repertoire as a whole does not really compare with any of the UpperMesopotamian assemblages, except possibly that from Hammam et-Turkman V. What is more, it has to be stressed that except for a series of large pithoi, most of the Maykop pottery retrieved from the Kuban Basin is neither chaff-tempered nor chaff-faced.” ref
“The Maykop assemblage thus stands outside our scope here, even if comparisons between the Maykop and the CFW repertoires may indirectly be useful for understanding cultural dynamics at an interregional level. To conclude, the CFW technological province no doubt includes Transcaucasia, but the case with the Northern Caucasus is more ambiguous. The Maykop culture is probably related to the dynamics at work south of the Caucasus range although in some way it stands outside the main cultural stream. On the other hand, close cultural links between Transcaucasia, Eastern Anatolia, and Northern Syro-Mesopotamia are evident, questioning again the processes at work in the emergence of the CFW horizon in the Fertile Crescent and beyond. Where did the CFW originate? Are we faced with the migration of North Mesopotamian groups into Transcaucasia, as suggested by a number of authors or should our interpretation of the Late Chalcolithic highland culture(s) be entirely reconsidered?” ref
INTERPRETATION THE MIGRATION HYPOTHESIS
“Ever since their discovery at the beginning of the eighties’, CFW sites in the Kura Basin have been interpreted as the result of migrations from Mesopotamia. In a famous note, I. Narimanov made comparisons between the CFW from Leyla Tepe and the evidence from Yarim Tepe III in Northern Iraq: he explained the parallels between the two assemblages by the migration of “Ubaidian tribes” into Transcaucasia, which he dated to the first half of the 4th millennium BC. This interpretation was endorsed by N. Museyibli as well as T. Akhundov, albeit with minor changes: according to Akhundov, Leyla Tepe should be dated to the second quarter of the 4th millennium, whereas he dates the foundation of Böyük Kesik and Soyuq Bulak to the third quarter of the 4th millennium. Both Akhundov and Museyibli agree that the appearance of Mesopotamian-related sites in the Kura Basin preceded the development of the “Maykop culture” in the North Caucasus: to support this hypothesis, they postulate a chronological time-lag between the foundation of Leyla Tepe sites in Transcaucasia (Berikldeebi, Böyük Kesik, and Leyla Tepe), and the appearance of Maykop sites in the North Caucasus.” ref
“However, according to Akhundov, this time-lag corresponds to two or three centuries, as he dates the Chalcolithic occupation from Maykop to the end of the 4th millennium, whereas Museyibli estimates this time-lag to be “rather short” and dates the rise of the Maykop culture just after the foundation of the Leyla Tepe and the Böyük Kesik settlements, that is to the first half of the 4th millennium. Whatever the date attributed to the Majkop culture, migration groups coming from Mesopotamia would have, according to this scenario, gradually settled the area north of the Zagros and the oriental Taurus ranges, first reaching the Kura Basin and then the North Caucasus. The idea lying behind this scenario is that “Mesopotamian” cultural elements first mingle with local traditions before moving further north, thus creating distinct cultural trends that succeed each other in time, from South to North along the Kura Basin. This scenario is interesting because it acknowledges the existence of regional specificities between different CFW assemblages, at the same time as emphasizing their similarities. But it rests on false assumptions as concerns the relative date of Berikldeebi and Böyük Kesik, which has turned out to be contemporary with or even possibly earlier than Leyla Tepe, although the latter is located further south.” ref
“Thus, the existence, as put forward by Akhundov, of a time-lag linked to migration processes between sites located up (Berikldeebi, Böyük Kesik, Soyuq Bulak) and down (Leyla Tepe) the Kura Basin seems unlikely. The scenario advocated by B. Lyonnet also postulates migrations as the main explanation for the foundation of “alien” sites such as Berikldeebi and Leyla Tepe in Caucasian land. However, feeling that the permanence of “local” features, for instance, the circular architecture attested at Tekhut and Böyük Kesik, does not fit in with the migration model, she draws a distinction between “Mesopotamian” sites, resulting from migrations and “local” sites in contact with Mesopotamian communities, on which “Mesopotamian” artifacts would be the result of interaction or exchange. This scenario, which strongly recalls the models set up for analyzing the “Uruk expansion” in later Upper Mesopotamia, rests on shaky grounds, as the definition of “local” as opposed to “alien” for the Caucasian Late Chalcolithic is even more questionable than in the Uruk case. In point of fact, these questions open onto totally different vistas if the problem is viewed from another angle: what if the close relationships observed between Transcaucasia and Upper Mesopotamia did not result from migrations from South to North but instead from cultural dynamics anchored in the North? As already pointed out in a previous article, the view that the “Amuq F culture” basically belongs to Northern Syria is probably simplistic. The Leyla Tepe assemblage, which from many points of view appears as the northern extension of the Amuq F culture, maybe both Mesopotamian-related and locally rooted in the cultural substratum. In the following sections, I will argue that the Late Chalcolithic CFW in both Transcaucasia and Upper Mesopotamia developed from a local cultural genesis; for this purpose, I would like to marshal the evidence from Ovçular Tepesi and a few East Anatolian sites.” ref
OVÇULAR TEPESI: A PRE-AMUQ F (OR PRE-LEYLA TEPE) CULTURE?
“Research carried out in the Araxes Basin over the last few years has given significant information on the period immediately preceding the Amuq F/Leyla Tepe culture. This period had so far been known mostly through a series of surveys in the region of Lake Van in Turkey and the recent excavations of Aratashen in Armenia (“Level 0”), but unfortunately, the occupation layers from Aratashen 0 being badly damaged, knowledge of this period had remained rather scanty. It is only very recently that this gap has been filled thanks to the data retrieved from Ovçular Tepesi in Nakhchivan. Work at Ovçular Tepesi has revealed an extensive Late Chalcolithic occupation extending over a natural hill for more than 1.3 ha. Two main architectural phases have been brought to light: according to a series of radiocarbon dates, they span the 4350-4000 BC period. In Upper-Mesopotamian terms, this would correspond to LC1 and the very beginnings of LC2. The first architectural phase (Phase I) is characterized by semi-subterranean huts, more or less rectangular in shape, that are usually bordered with one or two rudimentary stone walls on the slope side of the hut: these terrace walls are designed to prevent the virgin soil from crumbling into the huts. In the second phase (Phase II), the latter are replaced by multicellular, rectangular mudbrick houses sometimes built on stone foundations: most interestingly, the pottery associated with both architectural phases remains basically the same throughout the period, with only minor morphological and decorative changes.” ref
“Technologically, the Late Chalcolithic pottery from Ovçular Tepesi is all chaff-tempered and chaff-faced, often with grey to black cores resulting from brief firing. Exterior surface colors are usually beige to buff, sometimes with a cream or a red slip; in this case, the vessel’s surface is often burnished. Most of the repertoire is divided into wide-necked jars with straight or everted collars; and simple bowls with straight or out-flaring walls. A series of impressed or incised, isolated, motifs recalling potter’s marks are located inside some of the bowls: as with the potter’s marks from Arslantepe, Böyük Kesik, or Tell Brak, they were applied on a wet paste. One potsherd bears a triangular combination of dots that is typical of the Amuq F/Leyla Tepe repertoire; incidentally, its exact counterpart is also attested at Tell Brak. But the most frequent “potter’s marks” from Ovçular are formed of parallel lines, often shaped as two “V” set inside each other. It could be argued that the location of the double “V” inside the bowls and their large size precludes their function as “potter’s marks,” but in fact, this function has not been demonstrated with later examples either. In any case, is seems clear that these marks represent some kind of “sign.” ref
“To come back to the vessels: the bowls from Ovçular Tepesi, which make up some 25% of the total assemblage, show interesting characteristics that may be comparable with their later counterparts from the Amuq F horizon. Apart from the shapes, which are of course very basic, it is interesting to note the presence of a few technological traits in common with the Amuq vessels. For instance, the bowls from Ovçular Tepesi are roughly made with plain exterior surfaces that have often been smoothed with a dented tool, creating a comb-scraped effect. Sometimes this tool seems to have been a piece of wood or a flat stone, leaving scraping traces of a slightly different kind. All these techniques strongly recall the fl int-scraping treatment applied to the Coba-bowls commonly found in LC1 on North Syrian sites, but they are also akin to some of the surface treatments attested in LC2-3 along the Fertile Crescent, from the Amuq Plain to Niniveh. In short, the comb-scraping technique, which is widely used at Ovçular on bowls and jars alike, is clearly but one variation from an array of scraping techniques that are used throughout the CFW horizon from LC1 onwards. The second major component of the Ovçular assemblage are jars, 30% of the total bulk), most of which are wide-necked vessels with a short collar. Some of them (about 5% of the total bulk and 28% of the jar assemblage) are characterized by a sharp angle at the junction of the body and the collar, which heralds the characteristic angle necked jars of the Amuq F/Leyla Tepe repertoire. Lastly should be mentioned a few decorative devices shared by the Amuq F/Leyla Tepe and the Ovçular assemblages: bitumen paint, usually applied as a simple band along bowl rims, or as a festoon under the rim; as well as coarse geometric incisions or impressions, that sometimes combine series of dots and lines.” ref
Overall?
“Following the publication of considerable data relating to the Late Chalcolithic period in the Caucasus over the last few years, a number of assumptions concerning the relationships between the Caucasus and Upper Mesopotamia must now be revised. In particular, it has become clear that the various CFW sites recently discovered in the Kura or Araxes Basins should not be considered as “alien” within their Caucasian environment. They are part of a local evolution, together with other cultural components, since the settlement pattern of the highlands during the 4500-3500 BC period is characterized by cultural duality or probably even by multiculturality; a pattern which is also attested in Upper Mesopotamia during most of the 4th millennium BC. According to the present interpretation, the Amuq F/Leyla Tepe culture in the South Caucasus is indeed related to Mesopotamia but it is not a Mesopotamian culture per se. Rather, the center of gravity of this culture probably lies somewhere in the highlands between the Upper Euphrates and the Kura Rivers. The CFW cultural horizon encompasses the highlands and Upper Mesopotamia, which are thus part of the same oikou mene. However, it should be stressed that the CFW sites attested over this vast territory probably had different functions and were constituents of a complex economic system. This territory was also pervious to other cultural elements (DFBW, Late Sioni, Kuro-Araxes), which somehow interacted with the local CFW communities. The implications of this model are far-reaching: first, it puts the emergence of the first urban societies from the Tigris to the Euphrates Basins into a new perspective, as the highlands from Eastern Anatolia and the South Caucasus should now be included in the analysis of the urban development at work in Upper Mesopotamia and beyond. What is more, it follows from the above that the cultural entity that confronted the Uruk expansion from ca 3600 BC onward, was a wide and complex territory extending from the Caucasus down to the Mesopotamian lowlands. It may thus seem remarkable that very few remains clearly identifiable with the Uruk culture have been found north of the Upper Euphrates Basin. This fact may be explained by the simultaneous expansion of the Kura-Araxes cultures from the South Caucasus into Eastern Anatolia and the Levant, which, according to recent data from the excavations of Ovçular Tepesi, began as early as the end of the 5th millennium BCE. In any case, it seems clear that the demise of the CFW culture, which in each region started at a different time throughout the 4th millennium, is concurrent with the development of the Kuro-Araxes phenomenon. To sum up, the emerging picture suggests that the CFW system, whose focus was the highlands, was progressively challenged during the 4th millennium in the North as in the South, respectively by the Kuro-Araxes and the Uruk expansions. After a period of coexistence with both, the CFW culture was superseded in the highlands by the Kuro-Araxes phenomenon, whose driving forces probably had some decisive advantage over its regional neighbors: judging by the importance of metallurgy and mining activities in the Kuro-Araxes world, this advantage could be technology.” ref
North Caucasian Maykop culture (3,700–3,000 BCE) and Pontic-Caspian steppe 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), 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), the last common ancestor of the non-Anatolian languages, including Tocharian; associated with the late Khvalynsk and Repin cultures,
- Late (3500–2500), in its dialectal period due to the spread of the Yamnaya horizon over a large area.” ref
“Proto Khvalynsk culture had domesticated cattle 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 and 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.” ref
“Around 4500 BCE, 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. 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 BCE) and Late Sredny Stog (4000–3500 BCE) cultures.” ref
“Steppe economies underwent a revolutionary change between 4200 and 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 BCE)
“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 steppic 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 horse 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.” ref
“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. As the steppe became dryer and colder between 3500 and 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 and 2800 BCE, are interpreted by some scholars as movements of pre-Italic, pre-Celtic and pre-Germanic speakers. 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
Yamnaya culture and influence from the Maikop culture
“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. All Yamnaya individuals sampled by Haak et al. (2015) belonged to the Y-haplogroup R1b.” 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
“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
“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. 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.” ref
“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
Where did Late Chalcolithic Chaff-Faced Ware originate? Cultural Dynamics in Anatolia and Transcaucasia at the Dawn of Urban Civilization (ca 4500-3500 BC)
Abstract
“Following the discovery of ceramic assemblages related to “Chaff-Faced Ware” (CFW) in Transcaucasia, this article questions the origins of this ware production, which is often implicitly associated with Upper Mesopotamia and Northern Syria. After a thorough comparison of CFW assemblages attested from the Caucasus down to the Fertile Crescent, it is argued that the presence of CFW over this wide territory does not result, counter to a frequent opinion, from the migrations of Mesopotamian groups into Transcaucasia: rather, it developed from a local evolution dating back at least to 4500 BC. The territory spanned by CFW thus constitutes some kind oikoumene, whose center of gravity is probably located in the Highlands, between the Euphrates and the Kura Basins, but not in the Fertile Crescent. This analysis opens new perspectives, as the study of the processes at work in the development of the first urban societies of the Fertile Crescent should now be focussed on this oikoumene as a whole, and not only on Northern Syro-Mesopotamia, in order to understand this fundamental evolution in all its complexity. The discovery of ceramic assemblages linked to the “Chaff-Faced Ware” (CFW) at several sites in Transcaucasia, notably in the Kura basin, raises the question of the origin of this particular production, generally implicitly associated with North Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. Through a comparative morphological and technological analysis of numerous certified CFW productions from the Caucasus to the Fertile Crescent, this article demonstrates that the presence of CFW in this vast territory is not, Contrary to a frequently advanced idea, the result of migrations from Mesopotamia but rather the fruit of a local evolution, which Von can trace back at least to around 4500 BC. The territory occupied by CFW ceramics thus constitutes a form of “oikouménè”, whose center of gravity is probably located in the Highlands, between the Euphrates basin and that of the Kura, and not on the Syro-Mesopotamian rim. This new perspective makes it possible to considerably broaden the analysis of the processes leading to the emergence of the first urban societies in the Fertile Crescent, since it is the whole of this “oikouménè”, and not the only Syro-Mesopotamia of the North, which must now be taken into account in order to understand this fundamental development in all its complexity.” ref
The Caucasus: Complex interplay of genes and cultures
“In the Bronze Age, the Caucasus Mountains region was a cultural and genetic contact zone. Here, cultures that originated in Mesopotamia interacted with local hunter-gatherers, Anatolian farmers, and steppe populations from just north of the mountain ranges. Here, pastoralism was developed and technologies such as the wheeled wagon and advanced metal weapons were spread to neighboring cultures. A new study, examines new genetic evidence in concert with archaeological evidence to paint a more complete picture of the region. An international research team, coordinated by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH) and the Eurasia Department of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in Berlin, is the first to carry out systematic genetic investigations in the Caucasus region. The study, published in Nature Communications, is based on analyses of genome-wide data from 45 individuals in the steppe and mountainous areas of the North Caucasus. The skeletal remains, which are between 6,500 and 3,500 years old, show that the groups living throughout the Caucasus region were genetically similar, despite the harsh mountain terrain, but that there was a sharp genetic boundary to the adjacent steppe areas in the north.” ref
“The Caucasus, an area that today includes parts of Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Iran, and Turkey, is a crucial intersection for the history of Europe, both genetically and culturally. Today it is one of the regions of the world with the highest linguistic diversity, and in the past, populations from the Caucasus were instrumental in shaping the genetic components of today’s Europeans. During the Bronze Age, important technological innovations, developed in the Caucasus and beyond, were transported to Europe through this region, such as the first highly effective metal weapons and the wheel and wagon. Researchers assume that in the wake of the Neolithic period, sometime before 5,000 BC when a more sedentary lifestyle with domesticated animals and plants was established, populations from the southern Caucasus spread over the mountains to the north and there met with nomadic populations from the Eurasian steppe,” says Dr. Wolfgang Haak, group leader for molecular anthropology at the MPI-SHH and leader of the study. “The genetic boundary corresponds in principle to the ecological and geographical regions: the mountains and the steppe. Today, on the other hand, the Caucasus mountains themselves are more of a barrier to gene flow. Over the centuries, an interaction zone was formed, where the traditions of the Mesopotamian civilization and those of the Caucasus met with the cultures of the steppe. This intertwining is evident in the cultural exchange and transfer of technological and social innovations, as well as the occasional exchange of genes, which the study shows also took place between groups of quite distinct genetic backgrounds.” ref
Cultural contact zone, the genetic border region
“The skeletal remains studied come from different Bronze Age cultures. The Maykop culture in particular, based on its spectacular grave goods, which had close parallels in the south, was long regarded as a population that had migrated to the North Caucasus from Mesopotamia. The current paleogenetic study paints a more nuanced picture of mobility during the Bronze Age. People with a distinct southern Caucasus ancestry were already north of the mountain ridges by the 5th millennium BC. It is highly likely that these groups formed the basis for the local Early Bronze Age Maykop culture of the 4th millennium BC. Intriguingly, the Maykop individuals tested are genetically distinct from the groups in the adjacent steppes to the north. The genetic results do not support scenarios of large-scale migrations from the south during the Maykop period, or even from the northwest, as was postulated by some archaeologists. These findings have major implications for our understanding of the local development of North Caucasus cultures in the 4th millennium BC,” explains Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Svend Hansen, Director of the DAI’s Eurasia-Department. By the 3rd millennium BC, pastoralist groups from the steppe were bringing about a fundamental change in the population of Europe. The current study confirms parallel changes in the Caucasus along the southern border of the steppe zone. “During the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC, however, the people living in the Northern Caucasus all shared a similar genetic makeup even though they can be recognized (archaeologically) as different cultural groups,” says Sabine Reinhold, co-director of the archaeological team. “Individuals belonging to Yamnaya or Catacomb cultural complexes, according to archaeological analyses of their graves, are genetically indistinguishable from individuals from the North Caucasian culture in the foothills and in the mountains. Local or global cultural attributions were apparently more important than common biological roots.” ref
Subtle gene flow from the west contributed to the formation of early Yamnaya groups
The massive population shifts in the 3rd millennium BC, in connection with the expansion of the groups from the steppe who were part of what is known as the Yamnaya culture, have long been associated with the transfer of significant technological innovations from Mesopotamia to Europe. Recent studies at the DAI’s Eurasia department on the spread of early wagons or metal weapons have shown, however, that an intensive exchange between Europe, the Caucasus, and Mesopotamia began much earlier. However, can evidence of these technological exchanges also be provided by the genetic interactions revealed in the current study? And if so, in which direction do they point? The genomes of the Yamnaya individuals from the steppe bordering the Caucasus indeed show subtle genetic traces that are also characteristic of the neighboring farming populations of south-eastern Europe. Detailed analysis now shows that this subtle gene flow cannot be linked to the Maykop population, but must have come from the west.” ref
“These are exciting and surprising findings, which highlight the complexity of the processes that lead to the formation of Bronze Age steppe pastoralists,” says Chuan-Chao Wang, population geneticist postdoc at the MPI-SHH and first author of the study, now a professor at Xiamen University in China. Hansen adds, “These subtle genetic traces from the west are indeed remarkable and suggest contact between people in the steppes and western groups, such as the Globular Amphora culture, between the 4th and the 3rd millennium BC.” It appears that the world of the 4th millennium BC was well-connected long before the major expansion of steppe pastoralists and related groups. In this wide-ranging network of contacts, people not only spread and exchanged know-how and technological innovations, but occasionally also exchanged genes, and not only in one direction. Indeed, individuals from the north-eastern dry steppes of the North Caucasus region show genetic traces that hint at a deep and far-reaching connection to people in Siberia, Northeast Asia, and the Americas. “This shows that Eurasia was the site of many exciting chapters in human prehistory that are still shrouded in mystery. Our aim is to investigate these in close collaboration with archaeologists and anthropologists,” says Prof. Johannes Krause, Director of the MPI Archaeogenetics Department and co-leader of the study.” ref
The Production of Thin‐Walled Jointless Gold Beads from the Maykop Culture Megalithic Tomb of the Early Bronze Age at Tsarskaya in the North Caucasus: Results of Analytical and Experimental Research
Abstract
“This study, the first of this kind, reconstructs the technical chaîne operatoire of thin‐walled jointless gold bead production in the Maykop culture on the basis of trace‐wear analysis, experimental research and comparative analysis, using gold beads from the Early Bronze Age dolmen (c. 3200–2900 bc) in kurgan 2 at Tsarskaya (discovered in 1898). The results of the study demonstrate that such beads were produced from a perforated disc‐shaped blank by pressure (with intermittent annealing) within a hemispherical depression in a shaping block (presumably made from stone or bone) and subsequent abrasive treatment of the surface. Most probably, this technique was a regional expression of Near Eastern jewelry traditions that emerged within the urbanized centers of Upper Mesopotamia in the early fourth-millennium bc and spread out, through the Caucasus, into the southern boundaries of the Eurasian steppe.” ref
Analysis of the Mitochondrial Genome of a Novosvobodnaya Culture Representative using Next-Generation Sequencing and Its Relation to the Funnel Beaker Culture
Abstract
“The Novosvobodnaya culture is known as a Bronze Age archaeological culture in the North Caucasus region of Southern Russia. It dates back to the middle of the 4th millennium B.C. and seems to have occurred during the time of the Maikop culture. There are now two hypotheses about the emergence of the Novosvobodnaya culture. One hypothesis suggests that the Novosvobodnaya culture was a phase of the Maikop culture, whereas the other one classifies it as an independent event based on the material culture items found in graves. Comparison between Novosvobodnaya pottery and Funnelbeaker (TRB) pottery from Germany has allowed researchers to suggest that the Novosvobodnaya culture developed under the influence of Indo-European culture. Nevertheless, the origin of the Novosvobodnaya culture remains a matter of debate. We applied next-generation sequencing to study ~5000-year-old human remains from the Klady kurgan grave in Novosvobodnaya stanitsa (now the Republic of Adygea, Russia). A total of 58,771,105 reads were generated using Illumina GAIIx with a coverage depth of 13.4x over the mitochondrial (mt) DNA genome. The mtDNA haplogroup affiliation was determined as V7, suggesting a role of the TRB culture in the development of the Novosvobodnaya culture and supporting the model of sharing between Novosvobodnaya and early Indo-European cultures.” ref
“Since the late 1970s, as archaeological evidence has accumulated, two points of view have emerged pertaining to the emergence of cultural artifacts in the Early Bronze Age in the North Caucasus. One hypothesizes the existence of a single Maikop culture with two developmental phases, including finds discovered in Novosvobodnaya stanitsa (former Tsarskaya). The other hypothesis suggests that the archaeological collections assembled in Novosvobodnaya stanitsa should be treated individually, as independent artifacts (as a distinct culture). During the archaeological excavations of the kurgan grave “Klady” near Novosvobodnaya stanitsa in 1979–1991, which were supervised by A.D. Rezepkin, a total of 22 kurgans were uncovered with 93 well-stratified burial sites. These records allow one not only to establish the absolute chronology of the artifacts but also to contribute to a better understanding of the origin of the Novosvobodnaya culture. Since recently, state-of-the-art tools for genomic analysis have been widely used to solve archaeological and paleontological riddles. Such studies usually analyze mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that possesses characteristics essential for the study of human evolution: maternal inheritance; multiple copies of the mitochondrial genome; accelerated accumulation of mutations relative to the nuclear genome; no genetic recombination; a relatively high integrity of mtDNA in ancient human bone remains, since nuclear DNA breaks down twice as fast as mtDNA does. In this work, we report on the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of a representative of the Novosvobodnaya culture. Our findings suggest that this culture should be related to the Funnel Beaker culture. DNA testing has shown that the human sample from the Novosvobodnaya archaeological site belongs to mtDNA haplogroup V7.” ref
“Mitochondrial DNA sequences were retrieved from the libraries of ancient human DNA. A total of 58,771,105 reads were produced from enriched libraries, most part of which (99.994%) consisted of environmental DNA sequences (bacterial), which commonly occurs in an ancient DNA analysis, or could be explained by the relatedness between bacterial and eukaryotic mitochondrial genes. Read mapping against the reference mitochondrial genome sequence (hg19) allowed us to achieve a coverage depth of 13.4X: a total of 3,422 reads were uniquely mapped (0.006%). Ancient DNA is known to degrade into short fragments over time; cytosine residues (C) located at the ends deaminate to uracil (U) and turn into thymine (T) during sample preparation (PCR ). The frequency of terminal C → T substitutions in samples dated older than 300 thousand years could be up to 60% and higher. At the same time, the sequencing of modern DNA demonstrates less than 0.5% terminal nucleotide substitutions (data not shown). The substitution frequency was calculated using MapDamage 2.0. The frequency of C → T substitutions at the 3′- and 5′-ends of the DNA libraries exceeded 30% in the sample from Novosvobodnaya stanitsa. This finding argues for the fact that the total mtDNA is of ancient origin.” ref
“Recently, archaeological evidence has emerged to argue against the opinion that the Novosvobodnaya culture shares links with the West Asian Maikop culture. The discovered artifacts support the hypothesis that the Baalberg phase of early periods of the Indo–European Funnel–Beaker culture played a significant role in the Novosvobodnaya archaeological culture, rather than the West Asian Maikop culture. To prove or rule out this hypothesis, a DNA analysis is required as one of the definitive tools. Genetic studies devoted to ancient human migrations across Europe have been extensive in the past decades as reviewed by B. Sykes. Thus, in Europe, the major mtDNA haplogroups were U, H, V, I, W, T, and K, which appeared and spread 11–14 thousand years ago during de-glaciation. Haplogroup J may have arrived from the Middle East during an influx of farmers. Sequencing of the mtDNA of representatives of the Linear Pottery culture (the ancestor of the Funnel Beaker culture) allowed one to identify the dominant haplogroups as H, V, and T. In addition, some studies have demonstrated that during the time of the Linear Pottery and related cultures, the haplogroups U, H, and V predominantly occurred in Europe. Our findings, obtained using current genetic analysis techniques, are in agreement with the hypothesis of the origin of the Novosvobodnaya culture proposed by A.D. Rezepkin.” ref
“The sequencing of the mtDNA genome of an ancient human of the Novosvobodnaya archaeological culture dated to about 3,500 years before our era. The SNPs revealed during the analysis indicate that the mtDNA belongs to haplogroup V7, which is widely spread in modern Europeans and occurs in cultures that used to exist in Central Europe. The current findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the Novosvobodnaya culture derived from early archaeological cultures of Northern and Central Europe and is now classified as an independent archaeological culture. However, this conclusion requires a thorough genetic analysis of samples from both the Novosvobodnaya and Maikop archaeological cultures. To date, there have been no available data on the status of the mtDNA haplogroup for the Maikop culture and, presumably, the ancestral Late Anatolian Eastern Chalcolithic period of phases III–IV (Amuk F).” ref
Ancient human genome-wide data from a 3000-year interval in the Caucasus corresponds with eco-geographic regions
Abstract
“Archaeogenetic studies have described the formation of Eurasian ‘steppe ancestry’ as a mixture of Eastern and Caucasus hunter-gatherers. However, it remains unclear when and where this ancestry arose and whether it was related to a horizon of cultural innovations in the 4th millennium BCE that subsequently facilitated the advance of pastoral societies in Eurasia. Here we generated genome-wide SNP data from 45 prehistoric individuals along a 3000-year temporal transect in the North Caucasus. We observe a genetic separation between the groups of the Caucasus and those of the adjacent steppe. The northern Caucasus groups are genetically similar to contemporaneous populations south of it, suggesting human movement across the mountain range during the Bronze Age. The steppe groups from Yamnaya and subsequent pastoralist cultures show evidence for previously undetected farmer-related ancestry from different contact zones, while Steppe Maykop individuals harbor additional Upper Palaeolithic Siberian and Native American related ancestry.” ref
“The 1100-kilometer long Caucasus mountain ranges extend between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and are bounded by the rivers Kuban and Terek in the north and the Kura and Araxes rivers in the south. The rich archaeological record suggests extensive human occupation since the Upper Palaeolithic. A Neolithic lifestyle based on food production began in the Caucasus after 6000 cal BCE. As a region rich in natural resources such as ores, pastures, and timber, the Caucasus gained increasing importance to the economies of the growing urban centers in northern Mesopotamia. In the 4th millennium BCE, the archaeological record attests to the presence of the Maykop and Kura-Araxes, two major cultural complexes of the Bronze Age (BA) in the region. The Maykop culture is well known for its large and rich burial mounds, especially at the eponymous Maykop site, which reflects the rise of a new system of social organization, while the Kura-Araxes is found on both flanks of the Caucasus mountain range, demonstrating a connection between north and south.” ref
“Contact between the near East, the Caucasus, the Steppe, and central Europe is documented, both archaeologically and genetically, as early as the 5th millennium BCE. This increased in the 4th millennium BCE along with the development of new technologies such as the wheel and wagon, copper alloys, new weaponry, and new breeds of domestic sheep. Such contact was critical in the cultural and genetic formation of the Yamnaya complex on the Eurasian Steppe—with about half of BA Steppe ancestry thought to derive from the Caucasus. In the 3rd millennium BC, increased mobility associated with wheeled transport and the intensification of pastoralist practices led to dramatic expansions of populations closely related to the Yamnaya, accompanied by the domestication of horses allowing the more efficient keeping of larger herds. These expansions ultimately contributed a substantial fraction to the ancestry of present-day Europe and South Asia. Thus, the Caucasus region played a crucial role in the prehistory and formation of Eurasian genetic diversity.” ref
“Recent ancient DNA studies have resolved several long-standing questions regarding cultural and population transformations in prehistory. One important feature is a cline of European hunter-gatherer (HG) ancestry that runs roughly from West to East (hence WHG and EHG). This ancestry differs from that of Early European farmers, who are more closely related to farmers of northwest Anatolia and also to pre-farming Levantine individuals. The Near East and Anatolia have long-been seen as the regions from which European farming and animal husbandry emerged. In the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic, these regions harbored three divergent populations, with Anatolian and Levantine ancestry in the west, and a group with a distinct ancestry in the east. The latter was first described in Upper Pleistocene individuals from Georgia (Caucasus hunter-gatherers; CHG) and then in Mesolithic and Neolithic individuals from Iran. The following millennia, spanning the Neolithic to BA, saw admixture between these ancestral groups, leading to a pattern of genetic homogenization of the source populations. North of the Caucasus, Eneolithic and BA individuals from the Samara region (5200–4000 BCE) carry an equal mixture of EHG- and CHG/Iranian ancestry, so-called ‘steppe ancestry’ that eventually spread further west, where it contributed substantially to present-day Europeans, and east to the Altai region as well as to South Asia.” ref
“To understand and characterize the genetic variation of Caucasian populations, present-day groups from various geographic, cultural/ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds have been analyzed previously. Yunusbayev and colleagues described the Caucasus region as an asymmetric semipermeable barrier based on a higher genetic affinity of southern Caucasus groups to Anatolian and Near Eastern populations and a genetic discontinuity between these and populations of the North Caucasus and the adjacent Eurasian steppes. While autosomal and mitochondrial DNA data appear relatively homogeneous across the entire Caucasus, the Y-chromosome diversity reveals a deeper genetic structure attesting to several male founder effects, with striking correspondence to geography, ethnic and linguistic groups, and historical events.” ref
“In the study, researchers aimed to investigate when and how the genetic patterns observed today were formed and test whether they have been present since prehistoric times by generating time-stamped human genome-wide data. We were also interested in characterizing the role of the Caucasus as a conduit for gene-flow in the past and in shaping the cultural and genetic makeup of the wider region. This has important implications for understanding the means by which Europe, the Eurasian steppe zone, and the earliest urban centers in the Near East were connected. Researchers aimed to genetically characterize individuals from cultural complexes such as the Maykop and Kura-Araxes and assessing the amount of gene flow in the Caucasus during times when the exploitation of resources of the steppe environment intensified since this was potentially triggered by the cultural and technological innovations of the Late Chalcolithic and EBA around 4000–3000 BCE. Finally, since the spread of steppe ancestry into central Europe and the eastern steppes during the early 3rd millennium BCE was a striking migratory event in human prehistory, researchers also retraced the formation of the steppe ancestry profile and tested for influences from neighboring farming groups to the west or early urbanization centers further south. Researchers show that individuals from our Caucasian time transect form two distinct genetic clusters that were stable over 3000 years and correspond with eco-geographic zones of the steppe and mountain regions. This finding is different from the situation today, where the Caucasus mountains separate northern from southern Caucasus populations. However, during the early BA we also observe subtle gene flow from the Caucasus as well as the eastern European farming groups into the steppe region, which predates the massive expansion of the steppe pastoralists that followed in the 3rd millennium BCE.” ref
Genetic clustering and uniparentally inherited markers
“Researchers report genome-wide data for 59 Eneolithic/Copper Age and Bronze Age individuals from the Caucasus region. After filtering out 14 individuals that were first-degree relatives or showed evidence of contamination researchers retained 45 individuals for downstream analyses. Based on PCA and ADMIXTURE plots we observe two distinct genetic clusters: one falls with previously published ancient individuals from the West Eurasian steppe (hence termed ‘Steppe’), and the second clusters with present-day southern Caucasian populations and ancient BA individuals from today’s Armenia (henceforth called ‘Caucasus’), while a few individuals take on intermediate positions between the two. The stark distinction seen in our temporal transect is also visible in the Y-chromosome haplogroup distribution, with R1/R1b1 and Q1a2 types in the Steppe and L, J, and G2 types in the Caucasus cluster. In contrast, the mitochondrial haplogroup distribution is more diverse and similar in both groups. The two distinct clusters are already visible in the oldest individuals of our temporal transect, dated to the Eneolithic period (~6300–6100 years ago/4300–4100 cal BCE). Three individuals from the sites of Progress 2 and Vonyuchka 1 in the North Caucasus piedmont steppe (‘Eneolithic/Copper Age steppe’), which harbor EHG and CHG related ancestry, are genetically very similar to Eneolithic individuals from Khvalynsk II and the Samara region. This extends the cline of dilution of EHG ancestry via CHG-related ancestry to sites immediately north of the Caucasus foothills. In contrast, the oldest individuals from the northern mountain flank itself, which are three first-degree-related individuals from the Unakozovskaya cave associated with the Darkveti-Meshoko Eneolithic culture (analysis label ‘Eneolithic Caucasus’) show mixed ancestry mostly derived from sources related to the Anatolian Neolithic and CHG/Iran Neolithic in the ADMIXTURE plot. While similar ancestry profiles have been reported for Anatolian and Armenian Chalcolithic and BA individuals, this result suggests the presence of this mixed ancestry north of the Caucasus as early as ~6500 years ago.” ref
Ancient North Eurasian ancestry in Steppe Maykop individuals
“Four individuals from mounds in the grass steppe zone, archaeologically associated with the ‘Steppe Maykop’ cultural complex, lack the Anatolian farmer-related (AF) component when compared to contemporaneous Maykop individuals from the foothills. Instead, they carry a third and fourth ancestry component that is linked deeply to Upper Paleolithic Siberians (maximized in the individual Afontova Gora 3 (AG3) and Native Americans, respectively, and in modern-day North Asians, such as North Siberian Nganasan. To illustrate this affinity with ‘ancient North Eurasians’ (ANE), we also ran PCA with 147 Eurasian and 29 Native American populations. The latter represents a cline from ANE-rich steppe populations such as EHG, Eneolithic individuals, AG3 and Mal’ta 1 (MA1) to modern-day Native Americans at the opposite end. To formally test the excess of alleles shared with ANE/Native Americans we performed f4-statistics of the form f4(Mbuti, X; Steppe Maykop, Eneolithic steppe), which resulted in significantly positive Z-scores (Z >3) for AG3, MA1, EHG, Clovis and Kennewick for the ancient populations and many present-day Native American populations. Based on these observations we used qpWave and qpAdm methods to model the number of ancestral sources contributing to the Steppe Maykop individuals and their relative ancestry coefficients. Simple two-way models of Steppe Maykop as an admixture of Eneolithic steppe, AG3, or Kennewick do not fit. However, we could successfully model Steppe Maykop ancestry as being derived from populations related to all three sources (p-value 0.371 for rank 2): Eneolithic steppe (63.5 ± 2.9%), AG3 (29.6 ± 3.4%), and Kennewick (6.9 ± 1.0%). We note that the Kennewick related signal is most likely driven by the East Eurasian part of Native American ancestry as the f4-statistics (Steppe_Maykop, Fitted Steppe_Maykop; Outgroup1, Outgroup2) show that the Steppe Maykop individuals share more alleles not only with Karitiana but also with Han Chinese.” ref
Characterizing the Caucasus ancestry profile
“The Maykop period, represented by 12 individuals from eight Maykop sites (Maykop, n = 2; a cultural variant ‘Novosvobodnaya’ from the site Klady, n = 4; and Late Maykop, n = 6) in the northern foothills appears homogeneous. These individuals closely resemble the preceding Eneolithic Caucasus individuals and present a continuation of the local genetic profile. This ancestry persists in the following centuries at least until around ~3120 years ago (1100 cal BCE), as revealed by individuals from Kura-Araxes from both the northeast (Velikent, Dagestan) and the South Caucasus (Kaps, Armenia), as well as MBA/LBA individuals (e.g. Kudachurt, Marchenkova Gora) from the north. Overall, this Caucasus ancestry profile falls among the ‘Armenian and Iranian Chalcolithic’ individuals and is indistinguishable from other Kura-Araxes individuals (Armenian EBA) on the PCA plot, suggesting a dual origin involving Anatolian/Levantine and Iran Neolithic/CHG ancestry, with only minimal EHG/WHG contribution possibly as part of the AF ancestry. Admixture f3-statistics of the form f3(X, Y; target) with the Caucasus cluster as target resulted in significantly negative Z scores (Z < −3) when CHG (or AG3 in Late Maykop) were used as one and Anatolian farmers as the second potential source. We also used qpWave to determine the number of streams of ancestry and found that a minimum of two is sufficient.” ref
Researchers then tested whether each temporal/cultural group of the Caucasus cluster could be modeled as a simple two-way admixture by exploring all possible pairs of sources in qpWave. We found support for CHG as one source and AF ancestry or a derived form such as is found in southeastern Europe as the other. We focused on mixture models of proximal sources such as CHG and Anatolian Chalcolithic for all six groups of the Caucasus cluster (Eneolithic Caucasus, Maykop, and Late Makyop, Maykop-Novosvobodnaya, Kura-Araxes, and Dolmen LBA), with admixture proportions on a genetic cline of 40–72% Anatolian Chalcolithic related and 28–60% CHG related. When we explored Romania_EN and Bulgaria_Neolithic individuals as alternative southeast European sources (30–46% and 32–49%), the CHG proportions increased to 54–70% and 51–68%, respectively. We hypothesize that alternative models, replacing the Anatolian Chalcolithic individual with yet unsampled populations from eastern Anatolia, South Caucasus, or northern Mesopotamia, will likely also provide a fit to some of the tested Caucasus groups. Models with Iran Neolithic as a substitute for CHG could also explain the data in a two-way admixture with the combination of Armenia Chalcolithic or Anatolia Chalcolithic as the other source. However, models replacing CHG with EHG received no support, indicating no strong influence for admixture from the adjacent steppe to the north. We also found no direct evidence of EHG or WHG ancestry in Caucasus groups but observed that Kura-Araxes and Maykop-Novosvobodnaya individuals had likely received additional Iran Chalcolithic-related ancestry (24.9% and 37.4%, respectively.” ref
Characterizing the Steppe ancestry profile
“Individuals from the North Caucasian steppe associated with the Yamnaya cultural formation (5,320–4,420 years ago, 3300–2400 cal BCE) appear genetically almost identical to previously reported Yamnaya individuals from Kalmykia immediately to the north, the middle Volga region, Ukraine, and to other BA individuals from the Eurasian steppes who share the characteristic ‘steppe ancestry’ profile as a mixture of EHG and CHG-related ancestry. These individuals form a tight cluster in PCA space and can be shown formally to be a mixture by significantly negative admixture f3-statistics of the form f3(EHG, CHG; target). This cluster also involves individuals of the North Caucasus culture (4,820–4,520 years ago, 2800–2500 cal BCE) in the piedmont steppe, who share the steppe ancestry profile, as do individuals from the Catacomb culture in the Kuban, Caspian and piedmont steppes (around 4,600–4,220 years ago, 2620–2200 cal BCE), which succeeded the Yamnaya horizon. The individuals of the MBA post-Catacomb horizon (4200–3700 BP, 2200–1700 cal BCE) such as Late North Caucasus and Lola cultures represent both ancestry profiles common in the North Caucasus: individuals from the mountain site Kabardinka show a typical steppe ancestry profile, whereas individuals from the site Kudachurt 90 km to the west or our most recent individual from the western LBA Dolmen culture (3400–3200 BP, 1400–1200 cal BCE) retain the ‘southern’ Caucasus profile. In contrast, one Lola culture individual resembles the ancestry profile of the Steppe Maykop individuals.” ref
Admixture into the steppe zone from the south
“Evidence for an interaction between the Caucasus and the Steppe clusters is visible in our genetic data from individuals associated with the later Steppe Maykop phase around 5,320–5,120 years ago. These ‘outlier’ individuals were buried in the same mounds as those with steppe and in particular Steppe Maykop ancestry profiles but share a higher proportion of AF ancestry visible in the ADMIXTURE plot and are also shifted towards the Caucasus cluster in PC space. This observation is confirmed by formal D-statistics. By modeling Steppe Maykop outliers successfully as a two-way mixture of Steppe Maykop and representatives of the Caucasus cluster, we can show that these individuals received additional ‘Anatolian and Iranian Neolithic ancestry’, most likely from contemporaneous sources in the south. We used ALDER to estimate an average admixture time for the observed farmer-related ancestry in Steppe Maykop outliers of 20 generations or 560 years ago.” ref
Anatolian farmer-related ancestry in steppe groups
“Eneolithic/Copper Age Samara individuals form a cline in PC space running from EHG to CHG, which is continued by the newly reported Eneolithic steppe individuals. However, the trajectory of this cline changes in the subsequent centuries. Here we observe a cline from Eneolithic_steppe towards the Caucasus cluster. We can qualitatively explain this ‘tilting cline’ by developments south of the Caucasus, where Iranian and AF ancestries continue to mix, resulting in a blend that is also observed in the Caucasus cluster, from where it could have spread onto the steppe. The first appearance of ‘combined farmer-related ancestry’ in the steppe zone is evident in Steppe Maykop outliers. However, PCA results suggest that Yamnaya and later groups of the West Eurasian steppe carry also some farmer-related ancestry as they are slightly shifted towards ‘European Neolithic groups’ in PC2 compared to the preceding Eneolithic steppe individuals. The ‘tilting cline’ is also confirmed by admixture f3-statistics, which provide statistically significant negative values for AG3 and any AF group as the two sources. Using f– and D-statistics we also observe an increase in farmer-related ancestry (both Anatolian and Iranian) in our Steppe cluster, distinguishing the Eneolithic steppe from later groups. In addition, we find the Caucasus cluster or Levant/AF groups to share more alleles with Steppe groups than with EHG or Samara_Eneolithic. MLBA groups such as Poltavka, Andronovo, Srubnaya, and Sintashta show a further increase of AF ancestry consistent with the previous studies, reflecting different processes not directly related to events in the Caucasus.” ref
“Researchers then used qpWave and qpAdm to explore the number of ancestry sources for the AF component to evaluate whether geographically proximate groups contributed plausibly to the subtle shift of Eneolithic ancestry in the steppe towards Neolithic groups. Specifically, we tested whether any of the Eurasian steppe ancestry groups can be successfully modeled as a two-way admixture between the Eneolithic steppe and a population X derived from Anatolian- or Iranian farmer-related ancestry, respectively. Surprisingly, we found that a minimum of four streams of ancestry is needed to explain all eight steppe ancestry groups tested. Importantly, our results show a subtle contribution of both AF ancestry and WHG-related ancestry, likely brought in through MN/LN farming groups from adjacent regions in the West. A direct source of AF ancestry can be ruled out. At present, due to the limits of our resolution, we cannot identify a single best source population. However, geographically proximal and contemporaneous groups such as Globular Amphora and Eneolithic groups from the Black Sea area (Ukraine and Bulgaria), representing all four distal sources (CHG, EHG, WHG, and Anatolian_Neolithic), are among the best-supported candidates. Applying the same method to the subsequent North Caucasian Steppe groups such as Catacomb, (Late) North Caucasus confirms this pattern.” ref
“Using qpAdm with Globular Amphora as a proximate surrogate population, we estimated the contribution of AF ancestry into Yamnaya and other steppe groups. We find that Yamnaya Samara individuals have 13.2 ± 2.7% and Ukraine or Caucasus Yamnaya individuals 16.6 ± 2.9% AF ancestry—statistically indistinguishable proportions. Substituting Globular Amphora with Iberia Chalcolithic does not alter the results profoundly. This suggests that the source population was a mixture of AF ancestry and a minimum of 20% WHG ancestry, a genetic profile shared by many European MN/LN and Chalcolithic individuals of the 3rd millennium BCE analyzed thus far. To account for potentially un-modeled ancestry from the Caucasus groups, we added ‘Eneolithic Caucasus’ as an additional source to build a three-way model. We found that Yamnaya Caucasus, Yamnaya Ukraine Ozera, North Caucasus, and Late North Caucasus had likely received additional ancestry (6–40%) from nearby Caucasus groups. This suggests a more complex and dynamic picture of steppe ancestry groups through time, including the formation of a local variant of steppe ancestry in the North Caucasian steppe from the local Eneolithic, a contribution of Steppe Maykop groups, and population continuity between the early Yamnaya period and the MBA (5,320–3,220 years ago, 3300–2200 cal BCE).” ref
Insights from micro-transects through time
“The availability of multiple individuals from one burial mounds allowed researchers to test genetic continuity on a micro-transect level. By focusing on two kurgans (Marinskaya 5 and Sharakhalsun 6) with four and five individuals, respectively, we observe that the genetic ancestry varied through time, alternating between the Steppe and Caucasus ancestries, suggesting a shifting genetic border between the two genetic clusters. We also detected various degrees of kinship between individuals buried in the same mound, which supports the view that particular mounds reflected genealogical lineages. Overall, we observe a balanced sex ratio within our sites across the individuals tested.” ref
A joint model of ancient populations of the Caucasus region
“Researchers fitted qpGraph model recapitulates the genetic separation between the Caucasus and Steppe groups with the Eneolithic steppe individuals deriving more than 60% of ancestry from EHG and the remainder from a CHG-related basal lineage, whereas the Maykop group received about 86.4% from CHG, 9.6% Anatolian farming-related ancestry, and 4% from EHG. The Yamnaya individuals from the Caucasus derived the majority of their ancestry from Eneolithic steppe individuals, but also received about 16% from Globular Amphora-related farmers.” ref
“Researchers data from the Caucasus region cover a 3000-year interval of prehistory, during which we observe a genetic separation between the groups in the northern foothills and those groups of the bordering steppe regions in the north (i.e. the ‘real’ steppe). We have summarised these broadly as Caucasus and Steppe groups in correspondence with eco-geographic vegetation zones that characterize the socio-economic basis of the associated archaeological cultures. When compared to present-day human populations from the Caucasus, which show a clear separation into North and South Caucasus groups along the Great Caucasus mountain range, our new data highlight a different situation during the BA. The fact that individuals buried in kurgans in the North Caucasian piedmont zone are more closely related to ancient individuals from regions further south in today’s Armenia, Georgia, and Iran results in two main observations.” ref
“First, sometime after the BA present-day North Caucasian populations must have received additional gene-flow from steppe populations that now separates them from southern Caucasians, who largely retained the BA ancestry profile. The archaeological and historic records suggest numerous incursions during the subsequent Iron Age and Medieval times, but ancient DNA from these time periods will be needed to test this directly. Second, our results reveal that the Caucasus was no barrier to human movement in prehistory. Instead, the interface of the steppe and northern mountain ecozones could be seen as a transfer zone of cultural innovations from the south and the adjacent Eurasian steppes to the north. The latter is best exemplified by the two Steppe Maykop outlier individuals, which carry additional AF ancestry, for which the contemporaneous piedmont Maykop individuals present likely candidates for the source of this ancestry. This might also explain the regular presence of ‘Maykop-style artifacts’ in burials that share Steppe Eneolithic traditions and are genetically assigned to the Steppe group. Hence the diverse ‘Steppe Maykop’ group indeed represents the mutual entanglement of Steppe and Caucasus groups and their cultural affiliations in this interaction sphere.” ref
“Concerning the influences from the south, our oldest dates from the immediate Maykop predecessors Darkveti-Meshoko (Eneolithic Caucasus) indicate that the Caucasus genetic profile was present north of the range ~6500 BP, 4500 cal BCE. This is in accordance with the Neolithization of the Caucasus, which had started in the flood plains of South Caucasian rivers in the 6th millennium BCE, from where it spread across to the West/Northwest during the following millennium. It remains unclear whether the local CHG ancestry profile (Kotias Klde and Satsurblia in today’s Georgia) was also present in the North Caucasus region before the Neolithic. However, if we take the CHG ancestry as a local baseline and the oldest Eneolithic Caucasus individuals from our transect as a proxy for the local Late Neolithic ancestry, we notice a substantial increase in AF ancestry. This in all likelihood reflects the process of Neolithization, which also brought this type of ancestry to Europe. As a consequence, it is possible that Neolithic groups could have reached the northern foothills earlier. Hence, additional sampling from older individuals would be desirable to fill this temporal and spatial gap. Researchers show that the North Caucasus piedmont region was genetically connected to the south at the time of the eponymous grave mound of Maykop. Even without direct ancient DNA data from northern Mesopotamia, our results suggest an increased assimilation of Chalcolithic individuals from Iran, Anatolia, and Armenia and those of the Eneolithic Caucasus during 6000–4000 cal BCE, and thus likely also intensified cultural connections. It is possible that the cultural and genetic basis of Maykop were formed within this sphere of interaction. In fact, the Maykop phenomenon was long understood as the terminus of expanding Mesopotamian civilizations. It has been further suggested that along with these influences the key technological innovations in western Asia that had revolutionized the late 4th millennium BCE had ultimately also spread to Europe. An earlier connection in the late 5th millennium BCE, however, allows speculations about an alternative archaeological scenario: was the cultural exchange mutual, and did e.g. metal-rich areas such as the Caucasus contribute substantially to the development and transfer of these innovations?” ref
“Within the 3000-year interval covered in this study, we observe a degree of genetic continuity within each cluster, albeit occasionally interspersed by subtle gene-flow between the two clusters as well as from outside sources. Moreover, our data show that the northern flanks were consistently linked to the Near East and had received multiple streams of gene flow from the south during the Maykop, Kura-Araxes, and late phase of the North Caucasus culture. Interestingly, this renewed appearance of the southern genetic make-up in the foothills corresponds to a period of climatic deterioration (known as 4.2 ky event) in the steppe zone, that put a halt to the exploitation of the steppe zone for several hundred years. Further insight arises from individuals that were buried in the same kurgan but in different time periods, as highlighted in the two kurgans Marinskaya 5 and Sharakhalsun 6. Here, we recognize that the distinction between Steppe and Caucasus is not strict but rather reflects a shifting border of genetic ancestry through time, possibly due to climatic/vegetation shifts and/or cultural factors linked to subsistence strategies or social exchange. Thus, the occurrence of Steppe ancestry in the northern foothills likely coincides with the range expansion of Yamnaya pastoralists. However, more time-stamped data from this region will be needed to provide details on the dynamics of this contact zone.” ref
“An important observation is that Eneolithic Samara and Eneolithic steppe individuals directly north of the Caucasus had initially not received AF gene flow. Instead, the Eneolithic steppe ancestry profile shows an even mixture of EHG- and CHG ancestry, suggesting an effective cultural and genetic border between the contemporaneous Eneolithic populations, notably Steppe and Caucasus. Due to the temporal limitations of our dataset, we currently cannot determine whether this ancestry is stemming from an existing natural genetic gradient running from EHG far to the north to CHG/Iran in the south or whether this is the result of Iranian/CHG-related ancestry reaching the steppe zone independently and prior to a stream of AF ancestry, where they mixed with local hunter-gatherers that carried only EHG ancestry. All later steppe groups, starting with Yamnaya, deviate from the EHG-CHG admixture cline towards European populations in the West. We show that these individuals had received AF ancestry, in line with published evidence from Yamnaya individuals from Ukraine (Ozera) and Bulgaria. In the North Caucasus, this genetic contribution could have occurred through immediate contact with Caucasus groups or further south. An alternative source, explaining the increase in WHG-related ancestry, would be contact with contemporaneous Chalcolithic/EBA farming groups at the western periphery of the Yamnaya distribution area, such as Globular Amphora and Cucuteni–Trypillia from Ukraine, which have been shown to carry AF ancestry.” ref
“Archaeological arguments are consonant with both scenarios. Contact between early Yamnaya and late Maykop groups is suggested by Maykop impulses seen in early Yamnaya complexes. A western sphere of interaction is evident from striking resemblances of imagery inside burial chambers of Central Europe and the Caucasus, and similarities in geometric decoration patterns in stone cist graves in the Northern Pontic steppe, on stone stelae in the Caucasus, and on pottery of the Eastern Globular Amphora Culture, which links the eastern fringe of the Carpathians and the Baltic Sea. This overlap of symbols implies a late 4th millennium BCE communication and interaction network that operated across the Black Sea area involving the Caucasus, and later also early Globular Amphora groups in the Carpathians and east/central Europe. The role of early Yamnaya groups within this network is still unclear. However, this interaction zone predates any direct influence of Yamnaya groups in Europe or the succeeding formation of the Corded Ware and its persistence opens the possibility of subtle gene-flow from farmers at the eastern border of arable lands into the steppe, several centuries before the massive range expansions of pastoralist groups that reached Central Europe in the mid-3rd millennium BCE.” ref
“A surprising discovery was that Steppe Maykop individuals from the eastern desert steppes harbored a distinctive ancestry component that relates them to Upper Palaeolithic Siberians (AG3, MA1) and Native Americans. This is exemplified by the more commonly East Asian features such as the derived EDAR allele, which has also been observed in HG from Karelia and Scandinavia. The additional affinity to East Asians suggests that this ancestry is not derived directly from ANE but from a yet-to-be-identified ancestral population in north-central Eurasia with a wide distribution between the Caucasus, the Ural Mountains, and the Pacific coast, of which we have discovered the so far southwestern-most and also youngest genetic representatives. The insight that the Caucasus mountains served as a corridor for the spread of CHG ancestry north but also for subtle later gene-flow from the south allows speculations on the postulated homelands of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) languages and documented gene-flows that could have carried a consecutive spread of both across West Eurasia. This also opens up the possibility of a homeland of PIE south of the Caucasus, and could offer a parsimonious explanation for an early branching off of Anatolian languages, as shown on many PIE tree topologies. Geographically conceivable are also Armenian and Greek, for which genetic data support an eastern influence from Anatolia or the southern Caucasus, and an Indo-Iranian offshoot to the east. However, the latest ancient DNA results from South Asia suggest an LMBA spread via the steppe belt. Irrespective of the early branching pattern, the spread of some or all of the PIE branches would have been possible via the North Pontic/Caucasus region and from there, along with pastoralist expansions, to the heart of Europe. This scenario finds support from the well-attested and widely documented ‘steppe ancestry’ in European populations and the postulate of increasingly patrilinear societies in the wake of these expansions.” ref
Researchers use the following abbreviated labels: Anatolian farmer-related AF; E Early; M Middle; L Late; N Neolithic; BA Bronze Age; WHG, EHG, CHG, HG, Western, Eastern, Caucasus hunter-gatherers, respectively; Mal’ta 1 MA1; Afontova Gora 3 AG3.
The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia
Abstract
“The genetic formation of Central and South Asian populations has been unclear because of an absence of ancient DNA. To address this gap, we generated genome-wide data from 362 ancient individuals, including the first from eastern Iran, Turan (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan), Bronze Age Kazakhstan, and South Asia. Our data reveal a complex set of genetic sources that ultimately combined to form the ancestry of South Asians today. We document a southward spread of genetic ancestry from the Eurasian Steppe, correlating with the archaeologically known expansion of pastoralist sites from the Steppe to Turan in the Middle Bronze Age (2300-1500 BCE). These Steppe communities mixed genetically with peoples of the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) whom they encountered in Turan (primarily descendants of earlier agriculturalists of Iran), but there is no evidence that the main BMAC population contributed genetically to later South Asians. Instead, Steppe communities integrated farther south throughout the 2nd millennium BCE, and we show that they mixed with a more southern population that we document at multiple sites as outlier individuals exhibiting a distinctive mixture of ancestry related to Iranian agriculturalists and South Asian hunter-gathers. We call this group Indus Periphery because they were found at sites in cultural contact with the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) and along its northern fringe, and also because they were genetically similar to post-IVC groups in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. By co-analyzing ancient DNA and genomic data from diverse present-day South Asians, we show that Indus Periphery-related people are the single most important source of ancestry in South Asia—consistent with the idea that the Indus Periphery individuals are providing us with the first direct look at the ancestry of peoples of the IVC—and we develop a model for the formation of present-day South Asians in terms of the temporally and geographically proximate sources of Indus Periphery-related, Steppe, and local South Asian hunter-gatherer-related ancestry. Our results show how ancestry from the Steppe genetically linked Europe and South Asia in the Bronze Age, and identifies the populations that almost certainly were responsible for spreading Indo-European languages across much of Eurasia.” ref
One Sentence Summary
“Genome-wide ancient DNA from 357 individuals from Central and South Asia sheds new light on the spread of Indo-European languages and parallels between the genetic history of two sub-continents, Europe and South Asia.” ref
The Maturation Of The South Asian Genetic Landscape
“The genetic formation of Central and South Asian populations has been unclear because of an absence of ancient DNA. To address this gap, we generated genome-wide data from 362 ancient individuals, including the first from eastern Iran, Turan (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan), Bronze Age Kazakhstan, and South Asia. Our data reveal a complex set of genetic sources that ultimately combined to form the ancestry of South Asians today. We document a southward spread of genetic ancestry from the Eurasian Steppe, correlating with the archaeologically known expansion of pastoralist sites from the Steppe to Turan in the Middle Bronze Age (2300-1500 BCE).” ref
Groups partially derived from the Ancient North Eurasians
“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
Groups partially derived from the Ancient North Eurasians
“Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) is a lineage derived predominantly (75%) from ANE. It is represented by two individuals from Karelia, one of Y-haplogroup R1a-M417, dated c. 8.4 kya, the other of Y-haplogroup J, dated c. 7.2 kya; and one individual from Samara, of Y-haplogroup R1b-P297, dated c. 7.6 kya. This lineage is closely related to the ANE sample from Afontova Gora, dated c. 18 kya. After the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, the Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG) and EHG lineages merged in Eastern Europe, accounting for early presence of ANE-derived ancestry in Mesolithic Europe. Evidence suggests that as Ancient North Eurasians migrated West from Eastern Siberia, they absorbed Western Hunter-Gatherers and other West Eurasian populations as well.” ref
“Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer (CHG) is represented by the Satsurblia individual dated ~13 kya (from the Satsurblia cave in Georgia), and carried 36% ANE-derived admixture. While the rest of their ancestry is derived from the Dzudzuana cave individual dated ~26 kya, which lacked ANE-admixture, Dzudzuana affinity in the Caucasus decreased with the arrival of ANE at ~13 kya Satsurblia.” ref
“Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer (SHG) is represented by several individuals buried at Motala, Sweden ca. 6000 BC. They were descended from Western Hunter-Gatherers who initially settled Scandinavia from the south, and later populations of EHG who entered Scandinavia from the north through the coast of Norway.” ref
“Iran Neolithic (Iran_N) individuals dated ~8.5 kya carried 50% ANE-derived admixture and 50% Dzudzuana-related admixture, marking them as different from other Near-Eastern and Anatolian Neolithics who didn’t have ANE admixture. Iran Neolithics were later replaced by Iran Chalcolithics, who were a mixture of Iran Neolithic and Near Eastern Levant Neolithic.” ref
“Ancient Beringian/Ancestral Native American are specific archaeogenetic lineages, based on the genome of an infant found at the Upward Sun River site (dubbed USR1), dated to 11,500 years ago. The AB lineage diverged from the Ancestral Native American (ANA) lineage about 20,000 years ago.” ref
“West Siberian Hunter-Gatherer (WSHG) are a specific archaeogenetic lineage, first reported in a genetic study published in Science in September 2019. WSGs were found to be of about 30% EHG ancestry, 50% ANE ancestry, and 20% to 38% East Asian ancestry.” ref
“Western Steppe Herders (WSH) is the name given to a distinct ancestral component that represents descent closely related to the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic–Caspian steppe. This ancestry is often referred to as Yamnaya ancestry or Steppe ancestry.” ref
“Late Upper Paeolithic Lake Baikal – Ust’Kyakhta-3 (UKY) 14,050-13,770 BP were mixture of 30% ANE ancestry and 70% East Asian ancestry.” ref
“Lake Baikal Holocene – Baikal Eneolithic (Baikal_EN) and Baikal Early Bronze Age (Baikal_EBA) derived 6.4% to 20.1% ancestry from ANE, while rest of their ancestry was derived from East Asians. Fofonovo_EN near by Lake Baikal were mixture of 12-17% ANE ancestry and 83-87% East Asian ancestry.” ref
“Hokkaido Jōmon people specifically refers to the Jōmon period population of Hokkaido in northernmost Japan. Though the Jōmon people themselves descended mainly from East Asian lineages, one study found an affinity between Hokkaido Jōmon with the Northern Eurasian Yana sample (an ANE-related group, related to Mal’ta), and suggest as an explanation the possibility of minor Yana gene flow into the Hokkaido Jōmon population (as well as other possibilities). A more recent study by Cooke et al. 2021, confirmed ANE-related geneflow among the Jōmon people, partially ancestral to the Ainu people. ANE ancestry among Jōmon people is estimated at 21%, however, there is a North to South cline within the Japanese archipelago, with the highest amount of ANE ancestry in Hokkaido and Tohoku.” ref
Pic ref
Ancient Human Genomes…Present-Day Europeans – Johannes Krause (Video)
Ancient North Eurasian (ANE)
Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG)
Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG)
Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer (SHG)
Early European Farmers (EEF)
A quick look at the Genetic history of Europe
“The most significant recent dispersal of modern humans from Africa gave rise to an undifferentiated “non-African” lineage by some 70,000-50,000 years ago. By about 50–40 ka a basal West Eurasian lineage had emerged, as had a separate East Asian lineage. Both basal East and West Eurasians acquired Neanderthal admixture in Europe and Asia. European early modern humans (EEMH) lineages between 40,000-26,000 years ago (Aurignacian) were still part of a large Western Eurasian “meta-population”, related to Central and Western Asian populations. Divergence into genetically distinct sub-populations within Western Eurasia is a result of increased selection pressure and founder effects during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, Gravettian). By the end of the LGM, after 20,000 years ago, A Western European lineage, dubbed West European Hunter-Gatherer (WHG) emerges from the Solutrean refugium during the European Mesolithic. These Mesolithic hunter-gatherer cultures are substantially replaced in the Neolithic Revolution by the arrival of Early European Farmers (EEF) lineages derived from Mesolithic populations of West Asia (Anatolia and the Caucasus). In the European Bronze Age, there were again substantial population replacements in parts of Europe by the intrusion of Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) lineages from the Pontic–Caspian steppes. These Bronze Age population replacements are associated with the Beaker culture archaeologically and with the Indo-European expansion linguistically.” ref
“As a result of the population movements during the Mesolithic to Bronze Age, modern European populations are distinguished by differences in WHG, EEF, and ANE ancestry. Admixture rates varied geographically; in the late Neolithic, WHG ancestry in farmers in Hungary was at around 10%, in Germany around 25%, and in Iberia as high as 50%. The contribution of EEF is more significant in Mediterranean Europe, and declines towards northern and northeastern Europe, where WHG ancestry is stronger; the Sardinians are considered to be the closest European group to the population of the EEF. ANE ancestry is found throughout Europe, with a maximum of about 20% found in Baltic people and Finns. Ethnogenesis of the modern ethnic groups of Europe in the historical period is associated with numerous admixture events, primarily those associated with the Roman, Germanic, Norse, Slavic, Berber, Arab and Turkish expansions. Research into the genetic history of Europe became possible in the second half of the 20th century, but did not yield results with a high resolution before the 1990s. In the 1990s, preliminary results became possible, but they remained mostly limited to studies of mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal lineages. Autosomal DNA became more easily accessible in the 2000s, and since the mid-2010s, results of previously unattainable resolution, many of them based on full-genome analysis of ancient DNA, have been published at an accelerated pace.” ref
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
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?
- The Amorite/Amurru people’s God Amurru “Lord of the Steppe”, relates to the Origins of 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.
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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
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.
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
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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
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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.
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