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Earth diver mythology or something similar??? Could be. In a way, snails are a kind of mound shape, thus similar to turtle shells, both may represent a mound of creation in the earth-diver myth. In Peru, there were snail shells, and snail shells are also used in the earth diver.
My thoughts on Dolmen origins and migrations, as well as Snail Shell Middens or Snail Burials/Turtle Shell Burials, and links from “Y-DNA R (R1a, R1b, and R2a)” migrations, maybe R2a leading to Proto-Indo-European, transferring it to R1b, taking it to the steppe 7,500 years ago.
Religion is a cultural product. So, it has been part of the human experience, similar to languages, from before we left Africa, spreading humanity across the world.
Dolmens, to me, like other types of mounds, may have cosmic ocean, primordial waters, or celestial river mythological motifs connected, such as Mound of Creation emerging out of the water, World Turtle, or Earth Diver type of mythological thinking.
Dolmen migrations at first seem related with MtDNA X2, going to Canada with X2a making a 7,700-year-old Dolmen as well as shell mounds and to France with X2b making a 7,000-year-old Dolmen as well as shell mounds.
Dolmen
“A dolmen (/ˈdɒlmɛn/) or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or “table”. Most date from the Late Neolithic period (4000–3000 BCE) and were sometimes covered with earth or smaller stones to form a tumulus (burial mound). Small pad-stones may be wedged between the cap and supporting stones to achieve a level appearance. In many instances, the covering has eroded away, leaving only the stone “skeleton.” In Sumba (Indonesia), dolmens are still commonly built (about 100 dolmens each year) for collective graves according to lineage. The traditional village of Wainyapu has some 1,400 dolmens.” ref
“It remains unclear when, why and by whom the earliest dolmens were made. The oldest known are found in Western Europe, dating from c. 7,000 years ago. Archaeologists still do not know who erected these dolmens, which makes it difficult to know why they did it. They are generally all regarded as tombs or burial chambers, despite the absence of clear evidence for this. Human remains, sometimes accompanied by artefacts, have been found in or close to the dolmens which could be scientifically dated using radiocarbon dating. However, it has been impossible to prove that these remains date from the time when the stones were originally set in place.” ref
“Early in the 20th century, before the advent of scientific dating, it was proposed by Harold Peake that the dolmens of western Europe were evidence of cultural diffusion from the eastern Mediterranean. This “prospector theory” surmised that Aegean-origin prospectors had moved westward in search of metal ores, starting before 2200 BCE, and had taken the concept of megalithic architecture with them. Dolmens can be found in the Levant, some along the Jordan Rift Valley (Upper Galilee in Israel, the Golan Heights, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and southeast Turkey.” ref
“Dolmens in the Levant belong to a different, unrelated tradition to that of Europe, although they are often treated “as part of a trans-regional phenomenon that spanned the Taurus Mountains to the Arabian Peninsula.” In the Levant, they are of Early Bronze rather than Late Neolithic age. They are mostly found along the Jordan Rift Valley’s eastern escarpment, and in the hills of the Galilee, in clusters near Early Bronze I proto-urban settlements (3700–3000 BCE), additionally restricted by geology to areas allowing the quarrying of slabs of megalithic size. In the Levant, geological constraints led to a local burial tradition with a variety of tomb forms, dolmens being one of them.” ref
Dolmens of the North Caucasus
“Concentrations of megaliths, dolmens (Adyghe: исп-унэ) and stone labyrinths dating between the end of the 4th millennium and the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE have been found (but little studied) throughout the Caucasus Mountains, including Abkhazia. Most of them are represented by rectangular structures made of stone slabs or cut in rocks with holes in their facade. These dolmens cover the Western Caucasus on both sides of the mountain ridge, in an area of approximately 12,000 square kilometres of Russia and Abkhazia.” ref
“The Caucasian dolmens represent a unique type of prehistoric architecture, built with precisely dressed large stone blocks. The stones were, for example, shaped into 90-degree angles, to be used as corners or were curved to make a circle. While generally unknown in the rest of Eurasia, these structures are equal to the great megaliths of Eurasia in terms of age and quality of architecture, but are still of an unknown origin. In spite of the variety of Caucasian monuments, they show strong similarities with megaliths from different parts of Eurasia, like the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Iran and India.” ref
“A range of hypotheses has been put forward to explain these similarities and the building of megaliths on the whole, but still it remains unclear. Approximately 3,000 of these megalithic monuments are known in the Western Caucasus, but more are constantly being found, while some are being destroyed. Today, many are in great disrepair and will be completely lost if they are not protected from vandals and general neglect. The North Caucasus Dolmens make up a lost city by the shore of the Black Sea. The dolmens could have been vaults of metal objects or jewelry that the invading Scythians pillaged around the first millennium BCE. The dolmens could have been of spiritual significance, and are becoming cherished again today.” ref
“The dolmens have a limited variety in their architecture. The floor plans are square, trapezoidal, rectangular and round. All of the dolmens are punctuated with a portal in the center of the facade. While round portholes are the most common, square ones are also found. In front of the facade is a court that usually splays out, creating an area where rituals possibly took place. The court is usually outlined by large stone walls, sometimes over a meter high, which enclose the court. It is in this area that Bronze and Iron Age pottery has been found – which helped date these sites -, along with human remains, bronze tools and silver, gold and semi-precious stone ornaments.” ref
“The repertoire of decoration for these megalithic structures is not extensive. Vertical and horizontal zigzags, hanging triangles and concentric circles are the most common motifs. One decorative motif that is quite common is found across the top of the porthole slab. It can best be described as a lintel held up by two columns. Pairs of breasts, done in relief, have also been found on a few dolmens. These breasts usually appear above the two columns of the porthole decoration. Perhaps related to these are the stone plugs, which were used to block the porthole, and are found with almost every tomb. They are sometimes phallic-shaped. Some unusual items associated with dolmens are big round stone balls, double balls and animal sculptures.” ref
“One of the most interesting megalithic complexes – group of three dolmens – stands in a row on a hill above Zhane River on the Black Sea coast in the Krasnodar area near Gelendzhik, Russia. In this area there is a great concentration of all types of megalithic sites including settlements and dolmen cemeteries. Large stone mounds surrounded the two monuments. The central dolmen is rectangular in plan, 4 x 4 meters, while the two flanking dolmens are circular, 4 and 5 meters in diameter. The two round dolmens had been bulldozed – probably in the 1950s – in order to harvest the surrounding trees, but the main structure of the central dolmen had not been damaged.
Another (fourth) dolmen near the Zhane River has a secret entrance at the back of the chamber, and a façade, dummy entrance and courtyard at the front of the dolmen. There in addition to these pristine dolmens were some ruined dolmens.” ref
“The Caucasus dolmens are associated with the Klin-Yar community and the Koban culture. A genetic study in 2020 analysing samples from Klin-Yar communities, including the Koban culture, found one sample of paternal Haplogroup D-Z27276, which is associated with the modern Tibetan people. Other haplogroups were Haplogroup J1 and Haplogroup G-M285. Other important megalithic sites of Russia have been found along Russia’s northern shores with the White Sea and the Barents Sea as well as at Vera Island.” ref
“The Dolmen Pyramid of Mamedovo Gorge is an ancient megalithic structure located in the Caucasus region of Russia. It is a unique and impressive pyramid-shaped dolmen that stands approximately 4 meters tall and is made up of massive stone slabs that weigh several tons each. The dolmen is thought to date back to the Bronze Age, approximately 3,500 to 4,000 years ago, and is believed to have served as a burial chamber or religious site for the people who built it. The Dolmen Pyramid of Mamedovo Gorge is unique in its design, with its pyramid shape and the massive size of its stones making it one of the most impressive megalithic structures in the region.” ref
“The dolmen is made up of five massive stone slabs, with the largest weighing approximately 50 tons. The purpose of the Dolmen Pyramid of Mamedovo Gorge remains a mystery, although it is believed to have had significant religious or spiritual significance for the people who built it. Some theories suggest that it may have served as a site for astronomical observations, as the stones are aligned with the movements of the sun and stars.” ref
Types
- Great dolmen – Type of dolmen in Nordic megalith architecture
- Inuksuk – Inuit built stone landmark or cairn
- Polygonal dolmen – Type of dolmen with five to nine supporting stones
- Rectangular dolmen – Rectangular, enlarged or extended dolmen
- Simple dolmen – Early form of dolmen or megalithic tomb
A survey of the Dolmen of Menga suggests that the stone tomb’s Neolithic builders had an understanding of science
“The Neolithic farmers and herders who built a massive stone chamber in southern Spain nearly 6,000 years ago possessed a good rudimentary grasp of physics, geometry, geology and architectural principles, finds a detailed study of the site. Using data from a high-resolution laser scan, as well as unpublished photos and diagrams from earlier excavations, archaeologists pieced together a probable construction process for the monument known as the Dolmen of Menga. Their findings, published on 23 August in Science Advances, reveal new insights into the structure and its Neolithic builders’ technical abilities. The dolmen pre-dates the main stone circle at Stonehenge in the United Kingdom by about 1,000 years, but the construction process described in the study would have involved similar techniques and demanded a similar level of engineering. “These people had no blueprints to work with, nor, as far as we know, any previous experience at building something like this,” says study co-author Leonardo García Sanjuán, an archaeologist at the University of Seville in Spain. “And yet, they understood how to fit together huge blocks of stone” with “a precision that would keep the monument intact for nearly 6,000 years”. “There’s no way you could do that without at least a basic working knowledge of science,” he adds.” ref
“To construct the dolmen, its builders transported 32 giant stone blocks from a quarry around one kilometre away and used them to form the walls, pillars and roof of a massive chamber measuring around 28 metres long, 6 metres wide and 3.5 metres high. The largest of these blocks, one of the capstones that forms part of the roof, is 8 metres long and weighs an estimated 150 tonnes. By comparison, the biggest stone used to build Stonehenge weighs about 30 tonnes. Transporting these huge slabs from the quarry to the site without breaking them would have required particular care, the researchers say, particularly with the soft sandstone used for the roof. They suggest that this could have been done using specially built wooden tracks to reduce friction as the stones were dragged along, much as the builders of Stonehenge are thought to have done. Another task that demanded precision and skill was finessing the upright slabs into sockets carved 1.5 metres deep into the bedrock.” ref
“The laser scans revealed that the builders used counterweights and ramps to move the uprights carefully into the sockets, tilting them at precise, millimetre-scale angles. The stones were carved into facets that meant they locked against their neighbors when the weights and ramps were removed. Parker Pearson adds that the prehistoric engineers’ understanding of physics and geometry resulted in a ‘super-solid monument’. “It’s the sort of thing we see at Stonehenge a thousand years later, with the mortise and tenon joining of uprights and lintels.” But unlike Stonehenge, the Dolmen of Menga is in a seismically active, earthquake-prone area. Despite this, after nearly 6,000 years, the stonework is still snug and secure, says García Sanjuán. “These people really knew what they were doing.” ref
Kurgan
“A kurgan is a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into much of Central Asia and Eastern, Southeast, Western and Northern Europe during the 3rd millennium BCE.” ref
“A tumulus (pl.: tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or (in Siberia and Central Asia) kurgans, and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones built for various purposes, may also originally have been a tumulus. Tumuli are often categorised according to their external apparent shape. In this respect, a long barrow is a long tumulus, usually constructed on top of several burials, such as passage graves. A round barrow is a round tumulus, also commonly constructed on top of burials. The internal structure and architecture of both long and round barrows have a broad range; the categorization only refers to the external apparent shape. The method of inhumation may involve a dolmen, a cist, a mortuary enclosure, a mortuary house, or a chamber tomb. Examples of barrows include Duggleby Howe and Maeshowe.” ref
“Some of the earliest kurgans date to the 4th millennium BC in the Caucasus, and some researchers associate these with the Indo-Europeans. Kurgans were built in the Eneolithic, Bronze, Iron, Antiquity, and Middle Ages, with ancient traditions still active in Southern Siberia and Central Asia. According to the Etymological dictionary of the Ukrainian language the word “kurhan” is borrowed directly from the “Polovtsian” language (Kipchak, part of the Turkic languages) and means: fortress, embankment, high grave. The word has two possible etymologies, either from the Old Turkic root qori- “to close, to block, to guard, to protect”, or qur- “to build, to erect, furnish or stur”. According to Vasily Radlov it may be a cognate to qorγan, meaning “fortification, fortress or a castle.” ref
“The Russian noun, already attested in Old East Slavic, comes from an unidentified Turkic language. Kurgans are mounds of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Popularised by its use in Soviet archaeology, the word is now widely used for tumuli in the context of Eastern European and Central Asian archaeology. Some sceptre graves could have been covered with a tumulus, placing the first kurgans as early as the 5th millennium BCE in eastern Europe. However, this hypothesis is not unanimous. Kurgans were used in Ukrainian and Russian steppes, their use spreading with migration into southern, central, and northern Europe in the 3rd millennium BCE. Later, Kurgan barrows became characteristic of Bronze Age peoples, and have been found from Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria (Thracians, Getae, etc) and Romania (Getae, Dacians), the Caucasus, Russia, to Kazakhstan, Mongolia and the Altay Mountains.” ref
“The Kurgan hypothesis is that Proto-Indo-Europeans were the bearers of the Kurgan culture of the Black Sea and the Caucasus and west of the Urals. Introduced by Marija Gimbutas in 1956, it combines kurgan archaeology with linguistics to locate the origins of the peoples who spoke the Proto-Indo-European language. She tentatively named the culture “Kurgan” after its distinctive burial mounds and traced its diffusion into Europe. The hypothesis has had a significant impact on Indo-European studies. Scholars who follow Gimbutas identify a “Kurgan culture” as reflecting an early Proto-Indo-European ethnicity that existed in the steppes and in southeastern Europe from the 5th millennium to the 3rd millennium BC. In Kurgan cultures, most burials were in kurgans, either clan or individual. Most prominent leaders were buried in individual kurgans, now called “royal kurgans.” More elaborate than clan kurgans and containing grave goods, royal kurgans have attracted the most attention and publicity.” ref
“Burial mounds are complex structures with internal chambers. Within the burial chamber at the heart of the kurgan, elite individuals were buried with grave goods and sacrificial offerings, sometimes including horses and chariots. The structures of the earlier Neolithic period from the 4th to the 3rd millenniums BCE, and Bronze Age until the 1st millennium BC, display continuity of the archaic forming methods. They were inspired by common ritual-mythological ideas. The monuments of these cultures coincide with the Scytho-Siberian world (Saka) monuments. Scytho-Siberian monuments have common features, and sometimes common genetic roots.” ref
“Also associated with these spectacular burial mounds are the Pazyryk, an ancient people who lived in the Altai Mountains lying in Siberian Russia on the Ukok Plateau, near the borders with China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The archaeological site on the Ukok Plateau associated with the Pazyryk culture is included in the Golden Mountains of Altai UNESCO World Heritage Site. Scytho-Siberian classification includes monuments from the 8th to the 3rd century BCE. This period is called the Early or Ancient Nomads epoch. “Hunnic” monuments date from the 3rd century BCE to the 6th century CE, and Turkic ones from the 6th century CE to the 13th century CE, leading up to the Mongolian epoch.” ref
“In all periods, the development of the kurgan structure tradition in the various ethnocultural zones is revealed by common components or typical features in the construction of the monuments. They include:
- funeral chambers
- tombs
- surface and underground constructions of different configurations
- a mound of earth or stone, with or without an entrance
- funeral, ritual, and other traits
- the presence of an altar in the chamber
- stone fence
- moat
- bulwark
- the presence of an entryway into the chamber, into the tomb, into the fence, or into the kurgan
- the location of a sacrificial site on the embankments, inside the mound, inside the moat, inside the embankments, and in their links, entryways, and around the kurgan
- the location of a fire pit in the chamber
- a wooden roof over or under the kurgan, at the top of the kurgan, or around the kurgan
- the location of stone statues, columns, poles and other objects; bypass passages inside the kurgan, inside tombs, or around the kurgan
- funeral paths from the moat or bulwark.
Depending on the combination of these elements, each historical and cultural nomadic zone has certain architectural distinctions.” ref
- My Thoughts on Possible Migrations of “R” DNA and Proto-Indo-European?
- Migrations and Changing Europeans Beginning around 8,000 Years Ago
- My “Steppe-Anatolian-Kurgan hypothesis” 8,000/7,000 years ago
- The Dnieper–Donets culture and Asian varieties of Millet from China to the Black Sea region of Europe by 7,022 years ago
- Kurgan 6,000 years ago/dolmens 7,000 years ago: funeral, ritual, and other?
- 7,020 to 6,020-year-old Proto-Indo-European Homeland of Urheimat or proposed home of their Language and Religion
Haplogroup migrations related to the Ancient North Eurasians: I added stuff to this map to help explain.
People reached Lake Baikal Siberia around 25,000 years ago. They (to Damien) were likely Animistic Shamanists who were also heavily totemistic as well. Being animistic thinkers they likely viewed amazing things in nature as a part of or related to something supernatural/spiritual (not just natural as explained by science): spirit-filled, a sprit-being relates to or with it, it is a sprit-being, it is a supernatural/spiritual creature, or it is a great spirit/tutelary deity/goddess-god. From there comes mythology and faith in things not seen but are believed to somehow relate or interact with this “real world” we know exists.
Both areas of Lake Baikal, one on the west side with Ancient North Eurasian culture and one on the east side with Ancient Northern East Asian culture (later to become: Ancient Northeast Asian culture) areas are the connected areas that (to Damien) are the origin ancestry religion area for many mythologies and religious ideas of the world by means of a few main migrations and many smaller ones leading to a distribution of religious ideas that even though are vast in distance are commonly related to and centering on Lake Baikal and its surrounding areas like the Amur region and Altai Mountains region.
To an Animistic Thinker: “Things are not just as they seem, they may have a spirit, or spirit energy relates to them”
To a Totemistic Thinker: “Things are not just as they seem, they may have a spirit, or spirit energy relates to them; they may have religio-cultural importance.”
“Ancient North Eurasian population had Haplogroups R, P, U, and Q DNA types: defined by maternal West-Eurasian ancestry components (such as mtDNA haplogroup U) and paternal East-Eurasian ancestry components (such as yDNA haplogroup P1 (R*/Q*).” ref
Ancient Beringians/Ancestral Native Americans (AB/ANA)?
“The Ancient Beringians (AB) is a specific archaeogenetic lineage, 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. The ANA lineage was estimated as having been formed between 20,000 and 25,000 years ago by a mixture of East Asian and Ancient North Eurasian lineages, consistent with the model of the peopling of the Americas via Beringia during the Last Glacial Maximum.” ref
“In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient North Eurasian (generally abbreviated as ANE) is the name given to an ancestral component that represents a lineage ancestral to the people of the Mal’ta–Buret’ culture and populations closely related to them, such as the Upper Palaeolithic individuals from Afontova Gora. ANE ancestry developed from a West Eurasian lineage, with varying degrees of admixture from early East Eurasians. ANE ancestry has spread throughout Eurasia and the Americas in various migrations since the Upper Paleolithic, and more than half of the world’s population today derives between 5 to 40% of their genomes from the Ancient North Eurasians. Significant ANE ancestry can be found in the indigenous peoples of the Americas, as well as in regions of Europe, South Asia, Central Asia, and 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
“Ancient North Eurasian associated samples also had varying degrees of admixture from early East Eurasian population, such as the Ust’-Ishim man and Tianyuan man. Sikora et al. (2019) found that the oldest ANE-associated Yana RHS sample (31,600 years ago) in Northeastern Siberia “can be modeled as early West Eurasian with an approximately 22% contribution from early East Asians” suggesting early contact in Northeastern Siberia. Populations genetically similar to MA-1 were an important genetic contributor to Native Americans, Europeans, Ancient Central Asians, South Asians, and some East Asian groups, in order of significance.” ref
“The genetic history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas (also named Amerindians or Amerinds by physical anthropologists) is divided into two distinct episodes: the initial peopling of the Americas during about 20,000 to 14,000 years ago (20–14 kya), and European contact, after about 500 years ago. The former is the determinant factor for the number of genetic lineages, zygosity mutations, and founding haplotypes present in today’s Indigenous Amerindian populations. Most Amerindian groups are derived from two ancestral lineages, which formed in Siberia prior to the Last Glacial Maximum, between about 36,000 and 25,000 years ago, East Eurasian and Ancient North Eurasian. They later dispersed throughout the Americas after about 16,000 years ago (exceptions being the Na Dene and Eskimo–Aleut speaking groups, which are derived partially from Siberian populations which entered the Americas at a later time).” ref
“Ancient Beringian/Ancestral Native American are specific archaeogenetic lineages, related to Ancient North Eurasians split from the Ancestral Native American lineage about 20,000 years ago.” ref
“Lighter skin tones evolved independently in ancestral populations of north-west and north-east Eurasia, with the two populations diverging around 40,000 years ago. Studies have suggested that the two genes most associated with lighter skin colour in modern Europeans originated in the Middle East and the Caucasus about 22,000 to 28,000 years ago, and were present in Anatolia by 9,000 years ago, where their carriers became associated with the Neolithic Revolution and the spread of Neolithic farming across Europe. Lighter skin and blond hair also evolved in the Ancient North Eurasian population.” ref
“A further wave of lighter-skinned populations across Europe (and elsewhere) is associated with the Yamnaya culture and the Indo-European migrations bearing Ancient North Eurasian ancestry and the KITLG allele for blond hair. Furthermore, the SLC24A5 gene linked with light pigmentation in Europeans was introduced into East Africa from Europe over five thousand years ago. These alleles can now be found in the San, Ethiopians, and Tanzanian populations with Afro-Asiatic ancestry. In the San people, it was acquired from interactions with Eastern African pastoralists. Meanwhile, in the case of north-east Asia and the Americas, a variation of the MFSD12 gene is responsible for lighter skin colour. The modern association between skin tone and latitude is thus a relatively recent development.” ref
“The basal East Eurasians (bEE) are an ancient population that had no divergence among the ancestors of East Asians, Northeast Asians/East Siberian, and Native Americans. NA-ES-NA presents another ancient population that had no split between the ancestors of Northeast Asians/East Siberian and Native Americans.” ref
“Schematic of peopling history in Southeast and East Asians, Northeast Asian/East Siberians and Native Americans.” ref
Q Haplogroup
“Q-M242 is the predominant Y-DNA haplogroup among Native Americans and several peoples of Central Asia and Northern Siberia. Q-M242 is believed to have arisen around the Altai Mountains area (or South Central Siberia), approximately 17,000 to 31,700 years ago (approximately 24,500 years ago). Several branches of haplogroup Q-M242 have been predominant pre-Columbian male lineages in indigenous peoples of the Americas. Most of them are descendants of the major founding groups who migrated from Asia into the Americas by crossing the Bering Strait. These small groups of founders must have included men from the Q-M346, Q-L54, Q-Z780, and Q-M3 lineages.” ref
“In North America, two other Q-lineages also have been found. These are Q-P89.1 (under Q-MEH2) and Q-NWT01. They may have not been from the Beringia Crossings but instead come from later immigrants who traveled along the shoreline of Far East Asia and then the Americas using boats. It is unclear whether the current frequency of Q-M242 lineages represents their frequency at the time of immigration or is the result of the shifts in a small founder population over time. Regardless, Q-M242 came to dominate the paternal lineages in the Americas.” ref
“In the indigenous people of North America, Q-M242 is found in Na-Dené speakers at an average rate of 68%. The highest frequency is 92.3% in Navajo, followed by 78.1% in Apache, 87% in SC Apache, and about 80% in North American Eskimo (Inuit, Yupik)–Aleut populations. (Q-M3 occupies 46% among Q in North America). On the other hand, a 4000-year-old Saqqaq individual belonging to Q1a-MEH2* has been found in Greenland. Surprisingly, he turned out to be genetically more closely related to Far East Siberians such as Koryaks and Chukchi people rather than Native Americans. Today, the frequency of Q runs at 53.7% (122/227: 70 Q-NWT01, 52 Q-M3) in Greenland, showing the highest in east Sermersooq at 82% and the lowest in Qeqqata at 30%.” ref
“Haplogroup Q-M242 has been found in approximately 94% of Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and South America. The frequencies of Q among the whole male population of each country reach as follows:
- 61% in Bolivia.
- 51% in Guatemala,
- 40.1% (159/397) to 50% in Peru
- 37.6% in Ecuador,
- 37.3% (181/485) in Mexico (30.8% (203/659) among the specifically Mestizo segment)
- 31.2% (50/160) in El Salvador,
- 15.3% (37/242) to 21.8% (89/408) in Panama,
- 16.1% in Colombia,
- 15.2% (25/165) in Nicaragua,
- 9.7% (20/206) in Chile,
- 5.3% (13/246 in 8 provinces in northeastern, central, southern regions) to 23.4% (181/775 in 8 provinces in central-west, central, northwest regions) in Argentina,
- 5% in Costa Rica,
- 3.95% in Brazil, and so on.” ref
“Lighter skin and blond hair evolved in the Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) population. The SLC24A5 gene’s derived threonine or Ala111Thr allele (rs1426654) has been shown to be a major factor in the light skin tone of Europeans. Possibly originating as long as 19,000 years ago, it has been the subject of selection in the ancestors of Europeans as recently as within the last 5,000 years, and is fixed in modern European populations.” ref, ref
DNA-researcher: It’s not ‘woke’ to portray prehistoric Europeans with dark skin.
“It’s evolution. Ancient DNA analyses suggest that prehistoric Europeans looked different from modern Europeans today, but some people find that hard to accept. There was an artistic picture of an almost 6,000-year-old, girl who was walking along Lolland’s south coast and spits a piece of birch tar into the reeds. It didn’t taste great, but it helped to soothe her toothache. Fast forward 6,000 years, Danish archaeologists working on the Fehmarnbelt project stumble across the piece and recognize it for what it is: an almost 6,000-year-old piece of chewing gum. This ancient piece of gum is now on display at the Museum Lolland-Falster in southern Denmark among an amazing collection of Stone Age artifacts uncovered during the excavations. If you have not been, it is well worth a visit. In 2019, my research team at the University of Copenhagen managed something quite remarkable: We succeeded in extracting DNA from the gum and used it to reconstruct the girl’s entire genome — the first time anyone had sequenced an ancient human genome from anything other than skeletal remains. As the gum had been found on Lolland, we affectionately nicknamed her ‘Lola’.” ref
Stone-age girl in social media ‘shitstorm’
“The story of Lola and her chewing gum made headlines around the world when we published the genome in 2019 and then, suddenly, in the summer of 2023, Lola was back in the news, caught up in a media ‘shitstorm’. The ‘shitstorm’ first gathered pace on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and escalated to the point where the museum had to defend itself on national TV. Even the Danish newspaper ‘Ekstrabladet’ felt they had to comment and gave their opinion in a passionate editorial. So, what happened? These things are difficult to reconstruct, but evidently some people who had seen the image of Lola thought that she looked “way too dark” and accused us—and the museum—of ‘blackwashing’ the past. I suppose this episode says more about our own biases than anything else, and I would like to take this opportunity to explain why we portrayed Lola the way we did and what this tells us about the evolution of skin color in this part of the world.” ref
What we know about Lola
“First a disclaimer, we do not know exactly how old Lola was when she spat that chewing gum into the water. But based on her genome and other DNA trapped in the gum, we learned a lot of other things about her and her world. For example, we learned that she was a hunter-gatherer who lived off wild resources like fish, nuts, and wild game. At the time, small farming communities started to appear in other parts of Europe, but from what we can tell Lola and her kin still lived — as her ancestors had done for thousands of years before her — as hunter-gatherers. We also learned that she likely had dark skin, dark hair, and blue eyes. But how do we know that?” ref
The genetics of human skin pigmentation
“Skin color is a highly heritable and polygenic trait, meaning that it is influenced by multiple genes and their interactions with one another. One of the most well-known genes associated with skin pigmentation is the melanocortin 1 receptor gene (MC1R), but there are dozens more that have been reported to be involved in the pigmentation process. Most of these genes influence skin color by regulating the production of melanin, a dark pigment that protects from the deleterious effects of UV radiation. Basically, the more melanin you have in your skin, the darker it will be, and the more sun your skin can tolerate before you get sunburn. Eye and hair color are determined in a similar way, but the mechanisms that control the production of melanin in the eyes and hair are quite complex and independent processes. That is why it is possible to end up with different combinations of traits, such as the dark hair and blue eyes that are often seen in Europeans today, or the light hair and brown eyes that are common for Solomon Islanders, for example.” ref
How do we know what Lola looked like?
“Because the genes involved in pigmentation have been well studied, it is possible to predict the skin, eye, and hair color of an individual based on their genotype with a certain probability, something that is routinely done in forensic investigations. In practice, this works by checking which variants of a gene are present and what phenotype they are associated with. The more genes we can include in this analysis, the more confident we can be that our prediction is correct. In Lola’s case, we studied 41 gene variants across her genome that have been associated with skin, hair, and eye color in humans, and concluded that she likely had this unusual (at least for today) combination of dark skin, dark hair, and blue eyes.” ref
A common look in prehistoric Europe
“It is difficult to know exactly what people looked like 10,000 years ago. But based on ancient DNA studies, it appears that Lola’s ‘look’ was much more common in prehistoric Europe than it is today. Thanks to advances in ancient DNA sequencing, we now have the genomes of dozens of Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic (i.e. the period between around 50,000 and 5,000 years before present in Europe) individuals from Western Europe. And interestingly they all seem to lack the skin-lightening variants that are so common in Europeans today, indicating that they had dark skin. This is true for ‘Cheddar Man’ who lived around 10,000 years ago in southern England, as well as dozens of other Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherer individuals from France, northern Italy, Spain, the Baltic, and other parts of Europe. Like skin color, eye color is also a fairly complex trait, involving the interaction of many different genes. Therefore, eye color is fairly difficult to predict, but it looks like Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from Western Europe often had blue eyes, just like Lola. Overall, it looks like Lola’s phenotype—the combination of dark skin, dark hair, and blue eyes—was much more common in prehistoric Europe than it is today.” ref
How Europeans got their lighter skin
“So, why did people in prehistoric Europe look so different from northern Europeans today? The answer to this question lies in a complex interplay between our genes, our changing diets, population movements, and the environment. It has been theorized for some time that lighter skin emerged as an adaptive trait to light poor environments as it allows you to absorb sunlight more effectively, which is essential for the production of vitamin D. However, it was unclear when this happened. Early studies suggested that we first may have evolved lighter skin as our ancestors moved out of Africa and into Europe c. 50,000 years ago, but we now believe that this happened much later in European prehistory. In fact, there is evidence that lighter skin only evolved within the last 5,000 years or so, as a result of genetic admixture from Neolithic farming populations (who carried the skin-lightening variant) and strong selection favoring lighter skin.” ref
Our changing diet also played a part
“In addition, it looks like our changing diets also played a part. During most of European prehistory people relied on wild resources like nuts, game, and fish that are all rich in vitamin D, which is essential to our health. That changed dramatically during the Neolithic when people started to rely on a farmer’s diet that was rich in carbohydrates, but poor in vitamin D. Interestingly, this is exactly the period when we see lighter skin tones evolve in Western Europe and we think that the lack of vitamin D in the diet may have increased the selection pressures favouring lighter skin. All in all, there is solid evidence to suggest that lighter skin tones only evolved in Europe within the last 5,000 years or so, and that people who lived in Europe before then typically had darker skin. It is not that surprising, then, that Lola had darker skin. It simply reflects the fact that she lived at a time when Europeans had not yet evolved their lighter skin.” ref
“Sky Burial” and its possible origins at least 12,000 years ago to likely 30,000 years ago or older.
“In archaeology and anthropology, the term excarnation (also known as defleshing) refers to the practice of removing the flesh and organs of the dead before burial, leaving only the bones. Excarnation may be precipitated through natural means, involving leaving a body exposed for animals to scavenge, or it may be purposefully undertaken by butchering the corpse by hand. Practices making use of natural processes for excarnation are the Tibetan sky burial, Comanche platform burials, and traditional Zoroastrian funerals (see Tower of Silence). Some Native American groups in the southeastern portion of North America practiced deliberate excarnation in protohistoric times. Archaeologists believe that in this practice, people typically left the body exposed on a woven litter or altar.” ref
Pictures link
Ancient Headless Corpses Were Defleshed By Griffon Vultures
Sky burial ( Animal Worship mixed with Ancestor Worship) is a funeral practice where a human corpse is placed on a mountaintop, elevated ground, tree, or constructed perch to decompose while be eaten by scavenging animals, especially birds. This Animal Worship (or Zoolatry) rituals may go back to the Neanderthals who seem to Sacralize birds starting around 130,000 years ago in Croatia with eagle talon jewelry and oldest confirmed burial. Or possible (Aurignacian) “Bird Worship” at Hohle Fels cave, Germany, early totemism and small bird figurine at around 33,000 years old, which had been cited as evidence of shamanism. The Tibetan sky-burials appear to have evolved from ancient practices of defleshing corpses as discovered in archeological finds in the region. These practices most likely came out of practical considerations, but they could also be related to more ceremonial practices similar to the suspected sky burial evidence found at Göbekli Tepe (11,500 years before present) and Stonehenge (4,500 years ago). ref
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Possible Clan Leader/Special “MALE” Ancestor Totem Poles around 13,500/11,600 years ago?
Not only are there a set of arms and hands on a few of the “T” shaped pillars, mainly the center pillars, which, to me, may represent clan leader’s ancestors, but there I one pillar seeming to express what, to me, could be a totemistic story done on what looks sort of like a totem pole pillar from Layer II, dated to around 10,800-10,000 years ago, and it appears to involve a woman squatting, potentially giving birth. This could be related to a birth with what may be a child coming out with head and arms showing as well as snakes on either side pointing to the child. And of even more interest, one stone slab holds a crude carving a naked woman squatting with her legs spread and genitals open, possibly also referencing childbirth but it could be of a somewhat sexual nature and this expression of design seems to be somewhat new in the archaeology record.
The number of settlements contemporaneous with Gobekli Tepe Layer II (assigned to Pre-Pottery Neolithic B: 10,800 – 8,500 years ago) increased amongst the Neolithic settlements in the Urfa region and become widespread all around the region.
- Gobekli Tepe, 2. Nevali Cori, 3. Tasli Tepe, 4. Kurt Tepesi, 5. Sefer Tepe, 6. Karahan Tepe, 7. Harbetsuvan Tepesi, 8. Hamzan Tepe, 9. Urfa, 10. Ayanlar Hoyuk/Gaziantep, 11. Kilisik, 12. Tell Abr 3, 13. Boncuklu Tarla, 14. Gusir Hoyuk, 15. Nemrik 9, 16. Qermez Dere, 17. Hasankeyf, 18. Cayonu, 19. Hallan Cemi, 20. Demirci, 21. Kortik Tepe, 22. Mureybet, 23. Cheik Hassan, 24. Jerf el Ahmar, 25. Dja’de, 26. Tell Abr, 27. Akarcay, and 28. Tell Qarmel
Göbekli Tepe is not alone, in fact, it is part of a religious/cultural connected ritual culture in the general region. There are several other similar sites with similar T-pillars to Göbekli Tepe or other types of stone pillar providing a seeming connected cult belief or religious culture of pillars seen in the PPNA-PPNB in the northern portion of the Near East.
“The locations of the sites that contain “T” shaped pillars are the main topic that needs more understanding to grasp the larger sociocultural-religious cultural complex in the same general region. Another matter under discussion is to comprehend the differences between the small-scale settlements that contain cult centers and “T” shaped pillars and the larger ones found at Gobekli Tepe layer III. The fact that settlements with “T” shaped pillars contain both the remains of circular domestic buildings and the pillars such as seen at Cayonu and Nevali Cori, which are also known to contain cult and domestic buildings. It is contemplated that such settlements are contemporary with Gobekli Tepe layer II and the cult building known from Nevali Cori based on the similarities and differences of the “T” shaped pillars. In the light of the finds unearthed from the settlements in Şanliurfa region that contain “T” shaped pillars, such settlements should be dated to the end of Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (LPPNA) and the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (EPPNB).” ref
BEHEADED ANCESTORS. OF SKULLS AND STATUES IN PRE-POTTERY
Pre-pottery Neolithic “Skull Cult/Ancestor Cult” Sites in the Levant and Predominant in Israel
Info on the listed sites:
*Beisamoun: Link
*El-Wad: Link
*Ghwair: Link, Link, Link, Link
*Hatula: Link
*Kfar Hahoresh: Link
*Khirbet Hammam: Link, Link, Link
*Mallaha: Link
*Munhata: Link
*Nahal Hemar: Link, Link, Link
*Tell Aswad: Link
*Tell Ramad: Link
*Wadi Shu’eib: Link, Link, Link
“In the Levant, plastered and remodeled skulls have been found in several PPNB sites, such as Jericho, Tell Ramad, Beisamoun, Kfar Hahoresh, Tell-Aswad, ‘Ain Ghazal, and Nahal Hemar and are thus considered part of a mortuary practice typical of the PPNB. This practice seems to have continued in Anatolia, as plastered skulls have been found at Köşk Höyük [ref]–[ref] and Çatal Hüyük [ref] in much later PN contexts. It is still unclear how the central Anatolian plastered skulls relate to those of the Levant, when there are none of such plastered skulls in Anatolia during the PPNB, and none in the Levant during the PN.” ref
“In the Levant, planned burial customs, performed for ritualistic purposes, date as far back as the Middle Paleolithic [ref]. Skull-related funerary practices began during the late and the final Natufian of the southern Levant (12,500–11,800 tears ago), as evidenced in the Hayonim Cave and Eynan sites, where skulls were detached from the rest of the skeleton [ref]. In PPNA Jericho, group burials of isolated unadorned skulls (nested skulls), organized in various configurations, have been found. The same phenomenon was reported in the EPPNB site of Motza [ref]. During the Mid-late PPNB, mortuary customs developed, involving the artificial remodeling of skulls, evidence of which has been found across the Near East. Skulls covered by plaster masks have been located in Jericho, Beisamoun [ref], ‘Ain Ghazal [ref], [ref], Kfar Hahoresh [ref], Tell Ramad [ref]–[ref], and Tell Aswad [ref]. Three plastered facial masks, without the human skulls, were found buried together in a pit at ‘Ain Ghazal [ref]. At Nahal Hemar, three skulls ornamented with asphalt motifs and one burned skull were found [ref], [ref].” ref
“In Ujrat el Mehed (southern Sinai), adult skulls were removed from the post-cranial skeleton, similarly to other Neolithic Levantine sites [ref]. Other special remains include a skull painted with red ochre from Tell Abu Hureyra [ref], a skull decorated with red and black substances from ‘Ain Ghazal [ref] and painted stone masks from Nahal Hemar [ref]and the area of Er-Ram (exact provenance unknown) [ref]. Thus, the three plastered skulls uncovered at Yiftahel join a growing record of artificially treated skulls from the Levantine PPNB. Most of the plastered skulls found to date belong to adult individuals, and both sexes are represented. For our case, it is important to note that the PPNB is characterized by the shift from hunter-gatherer groups to agricultural societies. This process took place on many different levels, e.g., demographic, societal, religious, economic and epidemiological levels [ref]–[ref].” ref
“It is difficult to draw interpretation from these finds but clearly show the first appearance and gradual affirmation of skulls separation, with special reference to individuals and preserving individual identities. Evidence has shown how facial recognition is a major issue for establishing any kind of personal and social relationships. The memory of dead persons and, furthermore, materializing their identities by means of their skulls was the first step to give them an “after death” life (afterlife ancestor worship) to be oriented towards the ideological needs of the new agricultural society.” ref
“The planners and builders of Gobeklitepe still remain a big mystery, and no one has been able to crack the code so far. It is also surmised that Gobeklitepe’s main function was primarily ritual burials, and in some lesser capacity big feasts and social gatherings. In human terms it is roughly estimated that a minimum of 500 bodies might pull it off.Archaeologists believe that the tail end of Hunter- Gatherer societies were organized in a shamanic way, suggesting that some individuals among them were more developed, a solid system and a sound hierarchy and as such became religious leaders, who presided over – and organized – their clans and societies seemingly a level of priest/priestess-hood, as seen in paganism.” ref
“Skull cult can take on different forms, that is, with skull modifications frequently underlying very specific cultural codes. In the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN; 9600–7000 calBC) of Southeast Anatolia and the Levant, there is an abundance of archaeological evidence for the special status assigned to the human skull: In addition to the deposition of skulls in special places, as attested by the “skull depot” at Tell Qaramel or the “skull building” at Çayönü, human skulls are also known to have been decorated, for example, where the soft tissue and facial features have been remodeled in plaster and/or color was applied to the bone.” ref
“A hitherto unknown type of skull modification has recently been observed at Göbekli Tepe in Southeast Anatolia. And although human burials are still absent from Göbekli Tepe, a considerable number of fragmented human bones (n = 691) have been recovered. Notably, most of the human bone fragments (n = 408) stem from the skull, whereas postcranial fragments are less frequent (n = 283). Although these statistics could reflect taphonomic processes at work, a positive selection of skull material could be indicated. A total of 40 skull fragments (9.8%) carry cut marks from defleshing activities; additional signs of skeletal processing (decapitation) are represented by cut marks on two (of just seven) cervical vertebrae so far discovered at the site.” ref
Wadi Raba Culture
“The Wadi Raba culture or Wadi Rabah culture is a Pottery Neolithic archaeological culture of the Southern Levant, dating to the middle of the 5th millennium BCE. This period was first identified at the ancient site of Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) by British archaeologists John Garstang and Kathleen Kenyon in separate excavations. Kenyon has named this period in Jericho “Pottery Neolithic B”. The name “Wadi Rabah” was since used in archaeologic literature thanks to the works of Israeli archaeologist Jacob Kaplan in the site of Wadi Rabah. This culture is known from a small number of sites, in some of which remains of small rectangular structures were discovered. Some larger structures were found in Munhata, Wadi Rabah, and Ein el-Jarba, though Israeli archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel suggests that large courtyard structures were erected in that period, like the ones found at Sha’ar HaGolan of the preceding Yarmukian culture (c. 6400–6000 BCE) and Tel Tsaf of the following Early/Middle Chalcolithic period (c. 5300–4500 BCE).” ref
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The artifact second from the bottom right (Ritual Wand: Tree of Life goddess): “Bone figurine from Neveh Yam”
Neve Yam
“Neve Yam (Hebrew: נְוֵה יָם, lit. Sea Oasis) is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located around twenty kilometers south of Haifa.” ref
Tree of Life Goddess
“This 7,500 year-old goddess figurine from Neve Yam is among the world’s earliest evidence for established religion, the origins of which date back to the agricultural revolution, around 10,000 years ago. It is similar to contemporaneous figurines, especially the one discovered at Hagosherim, some 100 km away. The striking resemblance between the two objects indicates that the cult of the goddess was widespread by this time. In later periods, the combination of a plant motif (the Tree of Life) with the image of a woman (the goddess) became a common image throughout the Ancient Near East, where it represented the goddess Asherah. Figurine of a goddess decorated with palm fronds or stalks of grain. Neve Yam, Wadi Rabah culture, Late Neolithic Period, 7,500 years ago, incised bone is from the Collection of Israel Antiquities Authority.” ref
Symbolic artifacts from the submerged Neolithic village of Neve-Yam and contemporaneous Israeli sites as fossil directeur for the Wadi Rabah culture.
ABSTRACT: Four symbolic artifacts were recovered from the Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic (Wadi Rabah culture) site of Neveh Yam, dated to the sixth–fifth millennia BCE. These comprise two anthropomorphic figurines made of stone, one anthropomorphic image incised on bone, and a sherd with zoomorphic incisions. These artifacts are described and discussed with reference to similar objects found in additional Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic sites in the southern Levant and later sites in Mesopotamia, the Aegean, and the Iberian Peninsula. It is proposed that the bone figurines from Neveh Yam, ªEn ¥ippori and Ha-Gosherim could represent a symbolic marker for the Wadi Rabah culture and contemporary cultures in the southern Levant.” ref
Excavations at the Submerged Neolithic site of Atlit Yam, off the Carmel Coast of Israel
“Underwater archaeology in Israel began in 1960 and, already then, traces of submerged settlements were discovered. The first research took place in 1969, when the Neve-Yam site was exposed by a winter storm. Subsequently, during the early 1980s, a research project aimed at locating, excavating, salvage, and research of submerged prehistoric settlements. Six decades of research has revealed 17 submerged prehistoric sites, containing substantial and well-preserved finds that enlighten the culture and subsistence of the prehistoric coastal populations of the region. Among them are thirteen Neolithic sites, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic C period, represented at the site of Atlit-Yam, and twelve Pottery Neolithic sites dated to between 8000 and 6500 cal. BP. Most of the PN sites (Kfar-Samir; Hishuley Carmel; Kfar-Galim; Nahal Galim; Hahoterim; Tel-Hreiz; Megadim; Atlit north bay; Neve-Yam and Habonim) are attributed to the Wadi Rabah culture, considered as late Pottery Neolithic or early Chalcolithic, while the Neve-Yam North site belongs to the Lodian culture, which predates the Wadi Rabah culture. The Pottery Neolithic sites are located close to the present shore (1–200 m offshore) at depths of 0–5 m, while the older Atlit-Yam site is located further offshore (200–400 m) and in deeper water (8–12 m below sea level).” ref
The archaeology and paleoenvironment of the submerged Pottery Neolithic settlement of Kfar Samir (Israel).
Abstract: “This article focuses on a recently excavated stone and wood-built water well (Well no.13) from the submerged Pottery Neolithic site (Wadi Rabah culture) of Kfar Samir on the Carmel coast, Israel. This feature is considered within the context of previous research on the site and other submerged sites in the same area, incorporating new data on botanical remains and radiometric dates from Kfar Samir. Taken together, the new and previous investigations of the site shed light on the lifestyle of Pottery Neolithic coastal populations in the Southern Levant, especially those relating to the management of water resources, olive oil production, and the evolution of Mediterranean foodways. This research further informs us on the palaeoenvironment of the Carmel coast and sea-level changes.” ref
7,000-year-old Leopard Temples of Uvda basin in southern Israel
The 7,000 year old Masseboth Leopard Temple of Uvda
“7,000-year-old Leopard Temple of Uvda, in the Uvda basin in the desert of southern Israel. Uvda (Hebrew: עובדה) is the name of a region in the southern Negev desert, directly north of Eilat. The name derives from the Hebrew word uvda (meaning fact). The Uvda Valley is known for the 7000-year-old Leopard Temple archaeological site. They also began to worship something, perhaps the sun, perhaps their own ancestors, and intriguingly, perhaps the local scourge, the wild leopard.” ref, ref
“Uvda Valley Site 6, “stone drawings” of 15 leopards and one oryx, next to an open-air sanctuary, a vertical view (small stones indicate reconstruction).” ref
“Jebel Ḥashem al-Taref, eastern Sinai, three examples of “stone drawings” built next to pairs of open-air sanctuaries: (a) Excavated; (b,c) Unexcavated, dark stones—vertically set, light stones—fallen. Radiometric dates available to date from open sanctuaries are of the 6th and 5th millennia BCE. Nevertheless, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B flint items were also found in some of them (8th–7th millennia BCE), while other finds indicate continuation through the third millennium BCE, even the early second (Middle Bronze Age).” ref
“All open sanctuaries were built next to ancient roads (Figure 21c and Figure 27), while clusters of sanctuaries were built next to road junctions, for example, a cluster of 33 open sanctuaries near Jebel Ḥashem al-Taref in Sinai, 35 km west of Eilat; 4 pairs of sanctuaries at Ramat Saharonim; and 28 sanctuaries near Har Tzuriʻaz, in the southern Negev. Some sanctuaries were built in burial sites, also located next to ancient roads and road junctions.” ref
“This is also the female’s position in the drawing of a couple from Kuntilat ʻAjrud (Figure 17), slightly behind the male, presented as standing on a higher-like level, and her right leg is hidden behind the male’s left leg. Many open sanctuaries are circular, (Figure 21, Figure 28, and Figure 33). Most of them are 6–18 m in diameter, but tiny circular sanctuaries are also known, ca. 3 m in diameter (Figure 33), as well as large circular cult enclosures up to 70 m in diameter (Figure 33b). Stone alignments are attached to most of the circular sanctuaries, mainly in the form of “ladders,” which are chains of square cells made of a single line of stones or of small flagstones set vertically into the ground (Figure 34 and Figure 36). Their length ranges from a few meters to 78 m, and they present one of the combination of lines and circles.” ref
Proto-Semitic dates to ca. 4500–3500 BCE or around 6,500 to 5,500 years ago.
The lunar-crescent-shaped monument is massive at about 14,000 cubic meters (500,000 cubic feet) and has a length of about 150 meters (492 feet), 3050 to 2650 BCE, or around 5,050 to 4,650 years ago.
The 4,500-year-old chalk earthworks monument at Durrington Walls, the super-henge is the largest henge in Britain, has a row of megaliths, with 90 standing stones, some 15 feet tall, is less than 2 miles from Stonehenge.
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By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.
- By day the “Bible God” was in a cloud pillar.
- By night the “Bible God” was in a fire pillar.
- Did a 4,520–4,420-year-old Volcano In Turkey Inspire the Bible God?
My Speculations are in Comparative Mythologies?
For instance, the mytheme of an ancient belief that is seemingly shared though changed and adapted, a fundamental generic unit of narrative structure seems to be shared a common relation with mountains/ancestors/gods or sacred animals with Sacred Mounds, Mountains, Kurgans, and Pyramids.
Sacred Mounds, Mountains, Kurgans, and Pyramids may hold deep Mythology connections?
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“The earth-diver is a common character in various traditional creation myths. In these stories, a supreme being usually sends an animal (most often a type of bird, but also crustaceans, insects, and fish in some narratives) into the primal waters to find bits of sand or mud with which to build habitable land.” ref
Axis Mundi Mythology– cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, center of the world, mound/mountain of creation, or “World/Cosmic tree,” or “Eagle and Serpent tree.” ref, ref
“The World Turtle, also called the Cosmic Turtle or the World-bearing Turtle, is a mytheme of a giant turtle (or tortoise) supporting or containing the world. It occurs in Hindu mythology, Chinese mythology, and the mythologies of some of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.” ref
“Chucalissa, Mississippian culture Mounds in Memphis, art shows all the elements involved in the Path of Souls death journey, a widely held belief system among the mound builders of America.” ref
“Interpretation of southeastern Native cosmology, showing the tripartite division of the world. The axis mundi is depicted as a tree or post connecting the fire symbol of this world, the sun symbol of the upper world, and the ‘swastika’ symbol of the lower world.” ref
“It should be remembered that the Mississippian culture that built Cahokia may have considered a cedar tree or a striped cedar pole to be a symbol of the Axis Mundi (also called the cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, the center of the world, or world tree – has been greatly extended to refer to any mythological concept representing “the connection between Heaven and Earth” or the “higher and lower realms), the pillar connecting the above, middle, & below worlds, & around which the cosmos turns An American Yggdrasil (Norse tree of life). Some work has gone into reconstructing the woodhenge, and it is one of the sites around Cahokia that you can visit today. (The Solar Calendar of Woodhenge in Cahokia | Native America: Cities of the Sky).” – Vulpine Outlaw @Rad_Sherwoodism
“Items adduced as examples of the axis mundi by comparative mythologists include plants (notably a tree but also other types of plants such as a vine or stalk), a mountain, a column of smoke or fire, or a product of human manufacture (such as a staff, a tower, a ladder, a staircase, a maypole, a cross, a steeple, a rope, a totem pole, a pillar, a spire). Its proximity to heaven may carry implications that are chiefly religious (pagoda, temple mount, minaret, church) or secular (obelisk, lighthouse, rocket, skyscraper). The image appears in religious and secular contexts. The axis mundi symbol may be found in cultures utilizing shamanic practices or animist belief systems, in major world religions, and in technologically advanced “urban centers.” ref
Do we know what the symbols represent?
“Yes. It’s a bit more than I’d want to post on TwiX right now. It’s showing the 3-part universe, an upper, lower, and middle world, & the Milky Way is shown as well as Orion the Hand Constellation, Scorpius the ruler of the underworld, and Cygnus, the Judge. Also the main powers of the upper & lower worlds.” – Gregory L Little, Ed.D. @DrGregLittle2
Gregory L Little, Ed.D. BA/MS Psychology, Ed.D. Counseling/Ed. Psych Author since ’84 (70+ books/workbooks). Mound Builder Society: Be Kind; Respect Everything; Honor the Ancient Ones.
EVIDENCE FOR STEPPED PYRAMIDS OF SHELL IN THE WOODLAND PERIOD OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA
FOLKLORE PARALLELS BETWEEN SIBERIA AND SOUTH ASIA AND THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE EURASIAN STEPPES*
“According to the myth about the origin of man recorded among the people of Eastern Europe and Siberia, the creator set a dog to guard the half-made human figures, but the antagonist bribed the guard and spoiled the creation, making humans vulnerable to disease. The creator told the dog to become the servant of man. Texts recorded in India (mostly among the Munda-speaking groups), the Dards of the Hindu Kush and the Abkhasians, though partly similar to the Northern Eurasian ones, do not share some important details: the antagonist is a horse, it tried to destroy man but a dog drove it away. In the Mongolian (more precisely, the Oirat) version, a cow acts instead of a horse, but in other respects, this variant is similar to the Abkhasian ones. Negative associations related to the horse are rather widespread
in Europe and Central Asia. Stories about the creation of man recorded in northern and southern Eurasia stemmed from the anthropogenic myth that was known to the Indo-Europeans of the Bronze Age. South Asia and the European–Siberian zone also share other tales, in particular the Earth-diver myth. Their analysis opens possibilities for reconstructing the early mythology of the inhabitants of the Eurasian steppe.” ref
Comparative Mythology
“Since the term ‘Ancient North Eurasian’ refers to a genetic bridge of connected mating networks, scholars of comparative mythology have argued that they probably shared myths and beliefs that could be reconstructed via the comparison of stories attested within cultures that were not in contact for millennia and stretched from the Pontic–Caspian steppe to the American continent. The mytheme of the dog guarding the Otherworld possibly stems from an older Ancient North Eurasian belief, as suggested by similar motifs found in Indo-European, Native American and Siberian mythology. In Siouan, Algonquian, Iroquoian, and in Central and South American beliefs, a fierce guard dog was located in the Milky Way, perceived as the path of souls in the afterlife, and getting past it was a test.” ref
“The Siberian Chukchi and Tungus believed in a guardian-of-the-afterlife dog and a spirit dog that would absorb the dead man’s soul and act as a guide in the afterlife. In Indo-European myths, the figure of the dog is embodied by Cerberus, Sarvarā, and Garmr. In Zoroastrianism, two four-eyed dogs guard the bridge to the afterlife called Chinvat Bridge. Anthony and Brown note that it might be one of the oldest mythemes recoverable through comparative mythology.” ref
“A second canid-related series of beliefs, myths and rituals connected dogs with healing rather than death. For instance, Ancient Near Eastern and Turkic–Kipchaq myths are prone to associate dogs with healing and generally categorised dogs as impure. A similar myth-pattern is assumed for the Eneolithic site of Botai in Kazakhstan, dated to 3500 BC, which might represent the dog as absorber of illness and guardian of the household against disease and evil. In Mesopotamia, the goddess Nintinugga, associated with healing, was accompanied or symbolized by dogs. Similar absorbent-puppy healing and sacrifice rituals were practiced in Greece and Italy, among the Hittites, again possibly influenced by Near Eastern traditions.” ref
Earth-diver myth
(creation myth or cosmogonic myth, which is a type of cosmogony,
a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it.)
“The earth-diver is a common character in various traditional creation myths. In these stories, a supreme being usually sends an animal (most often a type of bird, but also crustaceans, insects, and fish in some narratives) into the primal waters to find bits of sand or mud with which to build habitable land. Some scholars interpret these myths psychologically while others interpret them cosmogonically. In both cases, emphasis is placed on beginnings emanating from the depths.” ref
“According to Gudmund Hatt and Tristram P. Coffin, Earth-diver myths are common in Native American folklore, among the following populations: Shoshone, Meskwaki, Blackfoot, Chipewyan, Newettee, Yokuts of California, Mandan, Hidatsa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ojibwe, Yuchi, and Cherokee. American anthropologist Gladys Reichard located the distribution of the motif across “all parts of North America”, save for “the extreme north, northeast, and southwest.” ref
“In a 1977 study, anthropologist Victor Barnouw surmised that the earth-diver motif appeared in “hunting-gathering societies“, mainly among northerly groups such as the Hare, Dogrib, Kaska, Beaver, Carrier, Chipewyan, Sarsi, Cree, and Montagnais. Similar tales are also found among the Chukchi and Yukaghir, the Tatars, and many Finno-Ugric traditions, as well as among the Buryat and the Samoyed. In addition, the earth-diver motif also exists in narratives from Eastern Europe, namely Romani, Romanian, Slavic (namely, Bulgarian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Belarusian), and Lithuanian mythological traditions.” ref
“The pattern of distribution of these stories suggest they have a common origin in the eastern Asiatic coastal region, spreading as peoples migrated west into Siberia and east to the North American continent. However, there are examples of this mytheme found well outside of this boreal distribution pattern, for example the West African Yoruba creation myth of Ọbatala and Oduduwa. Characteristic of many Native American myths, earth-diver creation stories begin as beings and potential forms linger asleep or suspended in the primordial realm. The earth-diver is among the first of them to awaken and lay the necessary groundwork by building suitable lands where the coming creation will be able to live. In many cases, these stories will describe a series of failed attempts to make land before the solution is found.” ref
“Among the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the earth-diver cosmogony is attested in Iroquois mythology: a female sky deity falls from the heavens, and certain animals, the beaver, the otter, the duck, and the muskrat dive in the waters to fetch mud to construct an island. In a similar story from the Seneca, people lived in a sky realm. One day, the chief’s daughter was afflicted with a mysterious illness, and the only cure recommended for her (revealed in a dream) was to lie beside a tree and to have it be dug up. The people do so, but a man complains that the tree was their livelihood, and kicks the girl through the hole. She ends up falling from the sky to a world of only water, but is rescued by waterfowl.” ref
“A turtle offers to bear her on its shell, but asked where would be a definitive dwelling place for her. They decide to create land, and the toad dives into the depths of the primal sea to get pieces of soil. The toad puts it on the turtle’s back, which grows larger with every deposit of soil. In another version from the Wyandot, the Wyandot lived in heaven. The daughter of the Big Chief (or Mighty Ruler) was sick, so the medicine man recommends that they dig up the wild apple tree that stands next to the Lodge of the Mighty Ruler, because the remedy is to be found on its roots.” ref
“However, as the tree has been dug out, the ground begins to sink away, and the treetops catch and carry down the sick daughter with it. As the girl falls from the skies, two swans rescue her on their backs. The birds decide to summon all the Swimmers and the Water Tribes. Many volunteer to dive into the Great Water to fetch bits of earth from the bottom of the sea, but only the toad (female, in the story) is the one successful.” ref
GENES AND MYTHS: ANCIENT MAL’TA DNA AND THE EARTH-DIVER MYTHOLOGICAL MOTIF
“Earth-Diver is one of the most widely-distributed and well-studied cosmological myths. Found in mostly Uralic-speaking Eastern Europe, in Siberia, in Munda-speaking Northeast India and North America, its action is set in post-diluvial times when a demiurge sends various creatures to bring a piece of mud from the bottom of the ocean. The first creature fails, but the second one succeeds. Importantly, it’s the least likely creature that succeeds, while the more obvious favorite fails. A loon is a much better diver than a duck but it’s the duck that succeeds. In the end, the demiurge blows the earth out of the tiny piece of mud and restores life on it. Depending on the region, the diving creatures are different – in Eurasia it’s waterfowl birds – loon and duck, in North America it’s amphibians such as turtle or frog, animals such as otter or beaver or waterbirds, in Northeast India and the American Southwest – it’s arthropods.” ref
“The Initial Stages of Evolution of Uralic-Speakers: Evidence from a Mythological Reconstruction (Proto-Uralic Cosmogonic Myth) have suggested that the Earth-Diver motif is the folkloric manifestation of a more comprehensive system of beliefs related to the experiences of a shamanic flight in Northern Eurasian and Amerindian cultures. Siberian shamans liken themselves to waterfowl birds flying between worlds in search of the soul of their patient and they manipulate waterfowl figurines during their shamanic seances. Remarkably, very similar figurines are found at the 24,000-year-old Mal’ta archaeological site in South Siberia (see one on the left made out of a mammoth tusk), and Napol’skikh, in his 1991 book as well as in a recent talk (see video in Russian, roughly from 11:40 on) proposed that the Mal’ta people possessed the “cult of a waterfowl” and told the Earth-Diver myth. This means that the Earth-Diver motif may go back to pre-LGM times.” ref
“Mal’ta has recently made headlines thanks to the sequencing of the genome of a 4-year-old boy found at this site. The DNA sample fell in-between West Eurasians and Amerindians, without any special connection to East Asians, and showed typical West Eurasian mtDNA and Y-DNA haplogroups, namely U and R, respectively. They are sister lineages of widely distributed in the Americas hg B (mtDNA) and hg Q (Y-DNA). It appears that, in pre-LGM times, Amerindians and West Eurasians formed a genetic continuum and that modern East Asians did not yet emerge as a distinct population. This finding may put the distribution of the Earth-Diver myth into a new perspective. Per Davidski’s request, adduce the map of the distribution of the Earth-Diver motif in Eurasia and North America (see the shaded areas on the left).” ref
“One should not expect a perfect fit between the distribution of myths and genes but the Earth-Diver distribution is rather clearly demarcated on a worldwide scale and does show continuity between West Eurasia and North America. The motif is notably absent from Western Europe – precisely the area that was covered with the glacier from 25,000 to 14,000 years ago – and from Beringia (Paleoasiatic peoples such as Chukchees and Koryaks as well as Eskimos don’t tell earth-diver stories), which may have been blocked by ice as well. Its presence in the Balkans is a due to relatively recent events such as Turkic and Avar migrations across the southern European steppe.” ref
“According to Napol’skikh’s motif phylogeny (on the left), the Earth-Diver myth has gone through 3 evolutionary stages – MNP-0, MNP-1 and MNP-2. At MNP-0, any creature (and any number of creatures) could become the demiurge’s helper as long as the least likely creature succeeded. At MNP-1, the plot crystallized around a pair of waterfowls in Siberia and Western North America and a pair of animals in Eastern North America. At MNP-3, one of the creatures dropped off and the demiurge used the help of only one helper. The “cladistics” of the myth is, therefore, rather simple: the dynamic and variable ancestral forms crystallize into progressively fewer characters.” ref
“As the detailed maps of motif and submotif distribution show, North America and Northern Eurasia share MNP-2 but then the rest of the variation is continent-specific. Eurasia has a number of clearly derived variants that are missing from the Americas, while America has a number variants not seen in Eurasia. Napol’skikh observes that stage MNP-0 is better represented in North America – the region that tends to have more archaic versions of the motif and more basal motif diversity (not just waterfowls, but animals, too; not just two creatures but many, etc.). Remarkably, the use of arthropods by the demiurge is a trait shared by Munda-speaking Northeast Indians (see the Berezkin map of Eurasia above) and the Muskogean-speaking Amerindians from the Southeast, both areas being the southernmost extremes of the Earth-Diver distribution. As the Mal’ta boy is re-writing the prehistory of Eurasia, opportunities are growing for cross-disciplinary integration that would tie together genes and culture into a coherent story.” ref
Folklore Parallels Between Siberia And South Asia And The Mythology Of The Eurasian Steppes
“According to the myth about the origin of man recorded among the people of Eastern Europe and Siberia, the creator set a dog to guard the half-made human figures, but the antagonist bribed the guard and spoiled the creation, making humans vulnerable to disease. The creator told the dog to become the servant of man. Texts recorded in India (mostly among the Munda-speaking groups), the Dards of the Hindu Kush and the Abkhasians, though partly similar to the Northern Eurasian ones, do not share some important details: the antagonist is a horse, it tried to destroy man but a dog drove it away. In the Mongolian (more precisely, the Oirat) version, a cow acts instead of a horse, but in other respects this variant is similar to the Abkhasian ones. Negative associations related to the horse are rather widespread in Europe and Central Asia. Stories about the creation of man recorded in northern and southern Eurasia stemmed from the anthropogenic myth that was known to the Indo-Europeans of the Bronze Age. South Asia and the European–Siberian zone also share other tales, in particular the Earth-diver myth. Their analysis opens possibilities for reconstructing the early mythology of the inhabitants of the Eurasian steppe.” ref
Diver-Myths
“Scientific evidence has shown that at one point parts of the earth that are now dry were covered by water. Many myths allude to this fact by imagining a world once covered by water. Many myths, called diver-myths (Long 188), consisted of a being diving into the water that covers the earth to retrieve some earth. The earth brought to the surface became the land we know today. Other stories had the mud brought to the surface in a different way, but many had the common element of some earth being brought to the surface of the water and growing until it became the Earth.” ref
“According to the Iroquois Native Americans water animals inhabited the Earth before there was land. When a Sky Woman fell from her home above they caught her and dove into the seas to bring up mud. This mud they spread onto the back of Big Turtle. There it began to grow until it became North America.” ref
“The Japanese creation myth painted a picture of a muddy ocean which covered the world at the beginning of time. A god and goddess, Izanagi and Izanami, became curious about what was beneath the ocean. Izanagi took his staff and threw it into the ocean. As he lifted it back up some lumps of earth fell off into the water. These became the islands of Japan. No being dove beneath the waters to find mud, but the element of earth being covered by water and a being bringing the earth up is there.” ref
“The creation myth of Christians and Jews does not tell of God diving into the water to bring up mud, but Genesis 1:2 says Òthe Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.Ó Therefore according to the Torah and Bible the Earth was once covered entirely by water.” ref
Power of Myths
“The most obvious function of myths is the explanation of facts, whether natural or cultural. One North American Indian (Abenaki) myth, for example, explains the origin of corn (maize): a lonely man meets a beautiful woman with long, fair hair; she promises to remain with him if he follows her instructions; she tells him in detail how to make a fire and, after he has done so, she orders him to drag her over the burned ground; as a result of these actions, he will see her silken hair (viz., the cornstalk) reappear, and thereafter he will have corn seeds for his use. Henceforth, whenever Abenaki Indians see corn (the woman’s hair), they know that she remembers them.” ref
“Obviously, a myth such as this one functions as an explanation, but the narrative form distinguishes it from a straightforward answer to an intellectual question about causes. The function of explanation and the narrative form go together, since the imaginative power of the myth lends credibility to the explanation and crystallizes it into a memorable and enduring form. Hence myths play an important part in many traditional systems of education. Many myths explain ritual and cultic customs. According to myths from the island of Ceram (in Indonesia), in the beginning life was not complete, or not yet “human”: vegetation and animals did not exist, and there was neither death nor sexuality. In a mysterious manner Hainuwele, a girl with extraordinary gift-bestowing powers, appeared.” ref
“The people killed her at the end of their great annual celebration, and her dismembered body was planted in the earth. Among the species that sprang up after this act of planting were tubers—the staple diet of the people telling the myth. With a certain circularity frequent in mythology, the myth validates the very cultic celebration mentioned in the myth. The cult can be understood as a commemoration of those first events. Hence, the myth can be said to validate life itself together with the cultic celebration. Comparable myths are told in a number of societies where the main means of food production is the cultivation of root crops; the myths reflect the fact that tubers must be cut up and buried in the earth for propagation to take place.” ref
“Ritual sacrifices are typical of traditional peasant cultures. In most cases such customs are related to mythical events. Among important themes are the necessity of death (e.g., the grain “dies” and is buried, only to yield a subsequent harvest), a society’s cyclic renewal of itself (e.g., New Year’s celebrations), and the significance of women and sexuality. New Year’s celebrations, often accompanied by a temporary abandonment of all rules, may be related to or justified by mythical themes concerning a return to chaos and a return of the dead.” ref
“In every mythological tradition one myth or cluster of myths tends to be central. The subject of the central mythology is often cosmogony (origin of the cosmos). In many of those ceremonies that each society has developed as a symbol of what is necessary to its well-being, references are made to the beginning of the world. Examples include the enthronements of kings, which in some traditions (as in Fiji or ancient India) are associated with a creation or re-creation of the world. Analogously, in ancient Mesopotamia the creation epic Enuma elish, which was read each New Year at Babylon, celebrated the progress of the cosmos from initial anarchy to government by the kingship of Marduk; hence the authority of earthly rulers, and of earthly monarchy in general, was implicitly supported and justified.” ref
“Ruling families in ancient civilizations frequently justified their position by invoking myths—for example, that they had divine origins. Examples are known from imperial China, pharaonic Egypt, the Hittite empire, Polynesia, the Inca empire, and India. Elites have also based their claims to privilege on myths. The French historian of ancient religion Georges Dumézil was the pioneer in suggesting that the priestly, warrior, and producing classes in ancient Indo-European societies regarded themselves as having been ordained to particular tasks by virtue of their mythological origins. And in every known cultural tradition there exists some mythological foundation that is referred to when defending marriage and funerary customs.” ref
“Creation myths play a significant role in healing the sick; they are recited (e.g., among the Navajo people of North America) when an individual’s world—that is to say, the person’s life—is in jeopardy. Thus, healing through recitation of a cosmogony is one example of the use of myth as a magical incantation. Another example is the case of Icelandic poets, who, in the singing of the episode in Old Norse mythology in which the god Odin wins for gods and humans the “mead of song” (a drink containing the power of poetic inspiration), can be said to be celebrating the origins of their own art and, hence, renewing it.” ref
“Modern science did not evolve in its entirety as a rebellion against myth, nor at its birth did it suddenly throw off the shackles of myth. In ancient Greece the naturalists of Ionia (western Asia Minor), long regarded as the originators of science, developed views of the universe that were in fact very close to the creation myths of their time. Those who laid the foundations of modern science, such as Nicholas of Cusa, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, and Gottfried Leibniz, were absorbed by metaphysical problems of which the traditional, indeed mythological, character is evident. Among these problems were the nature of infinity and the question of the omnipotence of God. The influence of mythological views is seen in the English physician William Harvey’s association of the circulation of the blood with the planetary movements and Charles Darwin’s explanation of woman’s menstrual cycles by the tides of the ocean.” ref
“Grave VIII also included very fragmentary tibia and fibula, in articulation, and a left humerus, scapula, radius and ulna, representing an articulated arm of an adult. Discriminant analysis of humeral metrics suggests that these elements represent an adult female.” ref
Natufian culture “Evidence for immigration”
“The appearance of complex art: At the same time as the appearance of the Natufian culture there is a noticeable rise in the number of artistic objects in the Levant. These include bone and stone animal carvings, colored stone beads, some of the stones coming from over 100km/63 miles away, and complex abstract carvings that may represent code.” ref
“As well as these there are many burials, often beneath the houses. These burials often contain peculiar objects to accompany the dead. Many burials include beads but one recently discovered included bits of dead wild animals. As mentioned above, materials such as stone from Arabia, obsidian from Anatolia/Turkey, and shell from the Nile valley show contacts with people over several hundred kilometers away. But other evidence, such as stone blade shaping techniques derived from north Africa and some evidence for north African genes in the population suggests that people may also have come in from some distance. Additionally, there is tenuous evidence for the import of a type of fig from north Africa.” ref
“The early Levantine Natufian people shared craniometric affinity with North Africans and in some respects with Sub-Saharan Africans. However, according to Lazaridis et al., Natufians did not share a greater amount of alleles with Sub-Saharan Africans than other ancient Eurasians, and the Basal Eurasian ancestry in Natufians is consistent with originating from the same population as Neolithic Iranians and Mesolithic Iranians.” ref
“Mesolithic Iranians (66±13%), Neolithic Iranians (48±6%), and Epipaleolithic Natufians (44±8% or 63%) share Basal-Eurasian ancestry. Another estimate given for Holocene-era Near Easterners (e.g., Mesolithic Caucasian Hunter Gatherers, Mesolithic Iranians, Neolithic Iranians, Natufians) is that they possess up to 50% Basal Eurasian ancestry.] Additionally, while the Taforalt individuals were considered likely direct descendants of Basal Eurasians, they were shown to not be genetically closer to Basal Eurasians than Holocene-era Iranians.” ref
“The early spread of ancestry from Basal Eurasians spanned from Georgia, dated to 26,000 years ago, to Morocco, dated to 15,000 years ago. Amid the Holocene, the spread of ancestry from Basal Eurasians expanded more broadly into the regions of South Asia and West Eurasia.” ref
This is the oldest Turtle burial. 17,000 to 14,000 years old in the Middle East.
12,000 years ago, in Israel, Turtle burial.
ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Atlit-Yam (Pre-Pottery Neolithic C) is a 40,000-square-metre site/village, near Haifa, Israel, where its people lived in spacious stone houses, complete with paved floors, courtyards, fireplaces, storage facilities, and wells. As well as grain stores, graves, and a ritual stone circle. In the area are also twelve Pottery Neolithic sites. Most of the PN sites (Kfar-Samir; Hishuley Carmel; Kfar-Galim; Nahal Galim; Hahoterim; Tel-Hreiz; Megadim; Atlit north bay; Neve-Yam and Habonim) are attributed to the Wadi Rabah culture, considered as late Pottery Neolithic or early Chalcolithic, while the Neve-Yam North site belongs to the Lodian culture, which predates the Wadi Rabah culture. ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref
Masseboth “Pillars” or “Standing Stones” and in the Singular, Massebah
“On the small ridges there are “Roded type” cult sites characterized by slabs of limestone which were brought from the seabed sediment range nearby.” ref
“Masseboth dot the landscape of the Bible’s desert lands. It’s the Hebrew Bible that calls them masseboth; singular, massebah), usually translated as “pillars” or “standing stones.” They are unmistakably purposeful arrangements of carefully selected crude stones set vertically into the ground, individually or in groups, and are abundant in the desert. The Bible makes it clear that these standing stones had a pervasive, if ambiguous, cultic significance in early Israelite religion. In these shrines masseboth stand alone or in groups—pairs and triads are the most common, but groups of five, seven and nine also occur. Some are only a few inches tall, while others are six feet or more. Most face east and many have at their base a carefully placed circular compartment or cell. Other features, such as offering benches, altars of different types and basins sometimes accompany masseboth. In addition to these independent sites, identical groupings of masseboth can be found at hundreds of tumuli (large stone heaps that mark a tomb) and in open-air sanctuaries.” ref
The Emergence of Masseboth and Their Bible Relations
“The earliest masseboth in the Near East are located in the Negev and the southern Jordan deserts and date to the 11th and 10th millennia B.C.E. (around 13,000-11,000 years ago) Masseboth became quite common from the sixth to the third millennia B.C.E. (around 8,000-4,000 years ago) and continued to be erected all through the Biblical period and later. In the fertile, non-desert areas of the Near East, however, they are much less common, especially at prehistoric sites; only in the second millennium B.C.E. (around 4,000-3,000 years ago) do their numbers significantly increase. The Bible and other ancient literature mention two types of masseboth: those representing gods and their abodes and those representing ancestral spirits.” ref
“Archaeology confirms the existence of both types; people in many traditional societies throughout the world still erect stones of the second type for their ancestors. In the ancient Near East the best-known reference to the ancestral massebah comes from The Tale of Aqhat, a narrative inscribed on 15th-century B.C.E. (3,500 years old) cuneiform tablets from Ugarit (on the Mediterranean coast of Syria). In the story, Dan-el, father of Aqhat, repeatedly complains to the gods that he “does not have a son to set up massebah in the temple in his name.” Although the translation of the last two words is controversial, the stone is clearly understood to contain and preserve the ancestral spirit.” ref
“One Biblical example is the story of Jacob at Beth-El. After he awakens from his dream of a ladder ascending to heaven, Jacob takes the stone that served as his pillow and sets it up, declaring, “This stone that I have set up as a pillar (massebah) shall be God’s house” (Genesis 28:22). He probably believed that the stone contained God’s power and spirit. Three inscribed basalt stelae or pillars were discovered near Sefire, Syria. These Sefire inscriptions, record an eighth-century B.C.E. (around 2,800 years ago) treaty between the vassal/king of Arpad and his overlord. The text, the longest intact inscription in Old Aramaic, contains over 100 legible lines. An introductory section invokes several well-known Syrian and Mesopotamian gods as witnesses to the treaty. It then identifies the stone pillars upon which the treaty is inscribed as the “house of god.” ref
“Later Arabian sources apply the same term, “house of god,” to standing stones. Similarly, a ninth-century B.C.E. (around 2,9,00 years old) Assyrian document describing King Tukulti Ninurta’s campaign to the Lebanon coast says that “he camped by the stones in which the great gods are dwelling.” Other masseboth offer variations on this theme. Some, by virtue of their divine authority, serve as witnesses to treaties and covenants; others oversee the fulfillment of vows and treaties, commemorate special events and bequeath divine protection upon territorial borders.” ref
Two Major Characteristics in Masseboth
*First, “in all groupings, the number of stones parallels the number of gods in various Near Eastern inscriptions, artistic representations and mythologies. Thus, a group of stones may represent a known group of gods.” ref
*Second, “a closer look reveals that most clusters of masseboth include stones of different shapes and proportions; moreover, the stones within a group are set in a symmetrical pattern or in some other order related to their shape.” ref
“For example, a group of seven stones at the top of Ma’aleh Jethro, east of the Uvda Valley, is set in a distinct pattern of alternating broad and narrow stones (see “Desert Masseboth: A Gallery of Types”). The stones were brought from some distance and obviously carefully selected, so we must assume some purpose or concept lay behind this arrangement. A similar relationship between broad and narrow stones or tall and short stones is found in other groups. Perhaps a narrow or tall stone represented a god, and a broad or shorter stone represented a goddess.” ref
Matzevah
“Matzevah or masseba (Hebrew: מַצֵּבָה maṣṣēḇā; “pillar”) is a term used in the Hebrew Bible for a sacred pillar, a type of standing stone. The term has been adopted by archaeologists for Israelite contexts, seldom for related cultures, such as the Canaanite and the Nabataean ones. As a second derived meaning, it is also used for a headstone or tombstone marking a Jewish grave. The Hebrew word matzevah is derived from a root meaning ‘to stand’, which led to the meaning of ‘pillar’. The singular form can be found spelled as masseba, maseba, matzevah, matzeva or mazzevah, and the plural form as massebot, masseboth, masebot, matzevot or matzevoth. When used in a Yiddish-influenced context, it can take the form matzeivah.” ref
“Use of the exclusive word can be found in Genesis 28:18, 28:22, 31:13, 31:45, 35:14, 35:20, Exodus 24:4, Deuteronomy 16:22, and Hosea 3:4. In Genesis 28:22, Jacob says “and this stone, which I have set up for a matzevah, shall be God’s house” and in Genesis 31:13 Yahweh says to Jacob “I am the God of Bethel [lit. “House of God”] where you anointed a matzevah and made a vow to me…”. The matzevah could also serve as a secular memorial: “Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel‘s grave unto this day.” (Genesis 35:20) It could also stand as a symbolic witness: upon confronting Jacob in Gilead, Laban declared “This rock-pile is a witness, and this matzevah is a witness, that I will not pass this rock-pile, and you will not pass this rock-pile and this matzevah, for evil.” (Genesis 31:52).” ref
“Based on Genesis 35:20, observant Jews traditionally erect a monument at the grave of a deceased person. It can be placed either over the grave, as a footstone, or as a headstone. Three purposes can be distinguished. It may mark the gravesite for purity reasons, as priests (cohanim) are required to avoid defilement through contact with the dead, and a marker (any marker) helps them identify a grave. The name of the deceased written on a stone also allows friends and relatives to identify the grave. A respectable, but unostentatious monument appropriate to heirs’ fortune is also a symbolic way to honor the deceased.” ref
- Asherah pole, Canaanite object honoring Asherah, consort of Yahweh (BIBLE GOD)
- Baetylus, a type of sacred stone
- Bema and bamah (“High place”) elevated platform
- Ceremonial pole
- Lingam, abstract representation of the Hindu god Shiva
- Menhir, orthostat, or standing stone: upright stone, typically from the Bronze Age
- Stele, stone, or wooden slab erected as a monument
Menhir
“A menhir from Brittonic languages: maen or men, “stone” and hir or hîr, “long”), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large upright stone, emplaced in the ground by humans, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be found individually as monoliths, or as part of a group of similar stones. Menhirs’ size can vary considerably, but they often taper toward the top. Menhirs are found across Europe, Africa, and Asia, with a concentration in Western Europe, notably in Ireland, Great Britain, and Brittany. Their purpose remains speculative, with theories ranging from druidic rituals to territorial markers or elements of an ideological system. Some menhirs feature engravings, including anthropomorphic figures and symbols, and are often associated with ancient religious ceremonies and burial chambers.” ref
“The word menhir was adopted from French by 19th-century archaeologists. The introduction of the word into general archaeological usage has been attributed to the 18th-century French military officer Théophile Corret de la Tour d’Auvergne. It is a combination of two words of the Breton language: maen and hir. In modern Welsh, they are described as maen hir, or “long stone”. In modern Breton, the word peulvan is used, with peul meaning “stake” or “post” and van which is a soft mutation of the word maen which means “stone”. In Germany and Scandinavia the word Bauta is used (e.g., de:Bautastein and no:bautastein) and this occasionally makes its way into English with the term “bauta stone.” ref
“Almost nothing is known of the social organization or religious beliefs of the people who erected the menhirs. Their language is also unknown. It is known, however, that they buried their dead and had the skills to grow crops, farm, and make pottery, stone tools, and jewelry. Identifying the purpose or use of menhirs remains speculative. Until recently, standing stones were associated with the Beaker people, who inhabited Europe during the European late Neolithic and early Bronze Age—later third millennium BC, c. 2800–1800 BCE. However, recent research into the age of megaliths in Brittany strongly suggests a far older origin, perhaps back to six to seven thousand years ago. During the European Middle Ages, standing stones were believed to have been built by the giants who lived before the biblical flood.” ref
“Many of the megaliths were destroyed or defaced by early Christians; it is estimated that some 50,000 megaliths once stood in Northern Europe, where almost 10,000 now remain. Menhirs have also been found in many other parts of the world. Many menhirs are engraved with megalithic art, some with anthropomorphic features. Other common carvings are identified as images of stone axes, ploughs, shepherds’ crooks, and yokes; and are named after these motifs. However, these identifications are not secure except for those of the stone axe images, and the names used to describe them are largely a matter of convenience. Some menhirs were broken up and incorporated into later passage graves, where they had new megalithic art carved with little regard for the previous pictures. It is not known if this re-use was deliberate or if the passage grave builders just saw menhirs as a convenient source of stone.” ref
“Where menhirs appear in groups, often in a circular, oval, henge, or horseshoe formation, they are sometimes called megalithic monuments. These are sites of ancient religious ceremonies, sometimes containing burial chambers. The exact function of menhirs has provoked more debate than practically any other issue in European prehistory. Over the centuries, they have variously been thought to have been used by druids for human sacrifice, used as territorial markers, or elements of a complex ideological system, used as mnemonic systems for oral cultures, or functioning as early calendars. Until the nineteenth century, antiquarians did not have substantial knowledge of prehistory, and their only reference points were provided by classical literature. The developments of radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology have significantly advanced scientific knowledge in this area.” ref
“Menhirs are widely distributed across Europe, Africa, and Asia, but are most numerous in Western Europe; particularly in Ireland, Great Britain, and Brittany, where there are about 50,000 examples, and northwestern France, where there are some 1,200 further examples. Standing stones are usually difficult to date. They were constructed during many different periods across prehistory as part of the larger megalithic cultures in Europe and near areas. Some menhirs stand next to buildings that have an early or current religious significance. One example is the South Zeal Menhir in Devon, which formed the basis for a 12th-century monastery built by lay monks. The monastery later became the Oxenham Arms hotel, at South Zeal, and the standing stone remains in place in the snug bar at the hotel. It is believed that practitioners of megalithic religions traveled via the sea, as the mass majority of menhirs are located on coasts, islands, and peninsulas.” ref
9,000-6,500 Years Old Submerged Pre-Pottery/Pottery Neolithic Ritual Settlements off Israel’s Coast
9,000-7,000 years-old Sex and Death Rituals: Cult Sites in Israel, Jordan, and the Sinai
9,000 years old Neolithic Artifacts Judean Desert and Hills Israel
9,000-year-old “Atlit Yam” Megoliths and a Mound of Creation (like the Earth-diver Creation Myth?) A stone semicircle of megaliths, alter stone erected among them in the middle and sounded by a moat, which suggests that they may have been used for a water ritual.
“Bad Dürrenberg is a modest spa town in eastern Germany, perched on a bluff overlooking the Saale River. Among the finds that emerged from the grave that afternoon was a second, tiny skull belonging to an infant of less than a year old, found between the thighs of the adult burial. Other unusual items included the delicate antlers of a roe deer, still attached to part of the skull, that could have been worn as a headdress. Henning also unearthed a polished stone ax similar to a type known from other sites in the area and 31 microliths, small flint blades barely an inch long.” ref
“In the 1950s, researchers reexamined the skeleton and, based on the shape of the pelvis and other bones, suggested that they belonged to a woman. The copious grave goods—in addition to the antler headdress, blades, mussel shells, and boar tusks there were hundreds of other artifacts, including boars’ teeth, turtle shells, and bird bones—clearly marked the burial as special. The flints and other finds were firmly rooted in the world of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who lived between 12,000 and 6,000 years ago. The few Mesolithic graves that had been unearthed in Europe contained a flint blade or two, at most. In comparison, the Bad Dürrenberg grave was uniquely rich for the period.” ref
“It wasn’t until the late 1970s that radiocarbon dating showed that the bones were 9,000 years old, predating farming in central Europe by about 2,000 years and confirming earlier suspicions that the grave dated to the Mesolithic period. Surrounded by tall steel shelves storing artifacts and remains from other graves in the region, they set about excavating the blocks. They worked slowly, sieving the soil from the original dig, and recovered hundreds of additional artifacts. The new finds included dozens more microliths, and additional bird, mammal, and reptile bones. The team also found missing pieces of the woman’s skeleton and more tiny bones belonging to the baby buried with her.” ref
“The shaman lived at a pivotal point in Europe’s past when the climate was changing, pushing people to adapt. People adapted quickly, becoming less mobile and more specialized in response to the changing environment. In the absence of herds of mammoth and reindeer to hunt, such specialization let them wrest more fish and game out of rivers and forests while remaining in a smaller territory. Meller believes that the Bad Dürrenberg burial is proof that human spirituality became more specialized at this time, too, with specific people in the community delegated to interact with the spirit world, often with the help of trances or psychoactive substances. Combined with the earlier analysis of the woman’s grave, the team’s new finds and meticulous look at her bones painted a more complete picture of the shaman. They conjectured that, from an early age, she had been singled out as different from other members of her community.” ref
“Even in death, her unusually rich grave marked her as exceptional. Earlier scholars, including Grünberg, had speculated that she was a shaman who served as an intermediary between her community and the spirit world, and Meller says that the new finds prove it beyond a doubt. In her role as a shaman, the woman would have interceded with supernatural powers on behalf of the sick and injured or to ensure success in the hunt. “You travel in other worlds on behalf of your people with the help of your spirit animal,” says Meller. Just as some people in the Mesolithic specialized in fishing or carving, the Bad Dürrenberg woman specialized in accessing the spirit world. “She must have had talents or skills that were highly esteemed in society,” Jöris says.” ref
“As part of the new archaeological project that started with the reexcavation of the grave in 2019, researchers took yet another look at the woman’s skeleton. A closer examination of her teeth showed that they had been deliberately filed down, exposing the pulp inside. This would have been extremely painful and would have produced a steady flow of blood as the pulp died. The woman would have had to keep the now hollow teeth scrupulously clean to avoid deadly infections. This excruciating procedure, Meller says, might have been a pain ritual to establish her as an interlocutor with the spirit world. Upon close inspection, the woman’s spine revealed a deformity that may have further enhanced her mystical aura.” ref
“According to Orschiedt and Walter Wohlgemuth, head of radiology at Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, the woman had an unusual nub of bone on the inside of her second cervical vertebra that would have compressed a vital artery when she tilted her head back and to the left, cutting off blood flow to her brain. The result was likely an extremely rare condition called nystagmus, a rhythmic twitch of the eyeball that is impossible to deliberately reproduce and would have appeared uncanny to the people in her community. She would have been able to switch it off by angling her head forward to relieve pressure on the artery. “She could deliberately put her head back and induce nystagmus,” Meller says. “It must have added greatly to her credibility as a shaman.” ref
“The woman’s skeleton and the remains of the baby she cradled also contain invisible clues to their identities. Techniques of ancient DNA analysis unavailable just a decade ago have made it possible to answer other questions. Among the finds recovered from the soil by Meller’s team was an inner ear bone belonging to the baby. Not much bigger than a fingernail, this pyramid-shaped bone, which protects fragile parts of the ear, is unusually dense and preserves genetic material particularly well. The shaman’s inner ear bone, too, was preserved along with her skull, which was found during the original excavation. DNA analysis conducted by geneticist Wolfgang Haak of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology confirmed that the shaman was female, as had first been suggested by researchers in the 1950s, and added color to her portrait. Genes for skin pigmentation and hair and eye color showed she was probably dark-skinned, dark-haired, and light-eyed, a far cry from the blond Aryan man imagined by the original excavators. The baby, the researchers found, was a boy.” ref
“DNA extracted from the inner ear bones of the woman and the baby also helped establish their relationship to each other, which was more complex than supposed. They were not, in fact, mother and child, as archaeologists had expected. “It was always assumed the baby was hers,” says Haak. “And it turns out that he’s not.” Instead, the two were distantly related on the mother’s side, second cousins, perhaps, or the woman may have been the baby’s great-great grandmother. Because she was only in her 30s when she died, the latter would mean the baby was placed inside the grave long after her death. “Maybe she took care of the baby in her role as a healer,” Meller says, and was buried with him after they both died at the same time.” ref
“The grave itself, along with the objects deposited inside, provided the final clues to understanding the power of the shaman’s mystical abilities. Researchers believe that the animal remains placed in the burial might have had symbolic meaning. Prey species such as deer and bison or aurochs may have been meant to evoke shamanic rituals intended to provide luck in the hunt. Marsh birds such as cranes, whose bones were also found in the grave, were the ultimate boundary-crossers, capable of flying in the heavens, nesting on the ground, and swimming underwater—a power the shaman might have called upon in her efforts to cross into the spirit world. The birds’ annual migration might also have had mystical significance, as they disappeared in winter and returned each spring. Turtles, whose shells were found by the dozen among the grave offerings, also cross from land to water. “It’s mind-boggling the spectrum of animal remains there are,” Haak says. “It’s a bit of a zoo.” ref
“The team’s analysis of the grave goods further showed that the shaman was connected to a wider community. The flints they found in the block were fashioned from more than 10 different rock sources, some located more than 50 miles away. “What goes in the grave is about how highly regarded she was and how big her community was,” Jöris says. “There were probably people who came from a long distance away for her burial.” During the reexcavation of the shaman’s grave, the team also turned their attention to the area surrounding the burial. As part of preparations for planting trees for the garden show, researchers dug dozens of test holes, but unearthed no other bones or Mesolithic artifacts.” ref
“Barely three feet away from the location of the shaman’s carefully arranged grave, however, they did uncover another small pit containing a pair of red deer antler headdresses. Both headdresses were pointed toward the shaman’s grave, a position scholars believe is unlikely to have been accidental. The fact that an offering had been made to the departed shaman came as no surprise. But radiocarbon dates the team gathered in 2022 indicate that these gifts are around 600 years younger than the woman’s grave, meaning they were placed there more than 20 generations after her death. This antler offering was made around 8,400 years ago and coincided with a dramatic cold spell in prehistoric Europe. Perhaps, Meller says, later shamans called on their distant ancestor for help in troubled times.” ref
“That a preliterate society may have preserved not only the woman’s memory but also recalled the precise location of her grave for so long is a display of sophistication not usually associated with hunter-gatherers. Meller believes that the idea that Mesolithic peoples lacked social complexity does these cultures a great disservice. The impressive level of attention to her grave, in her own time as well as centuries later, speaks to the significance of the shaman herself. “She was so charismatic and powerful,” Meller says, “that people were still talking about this woman six centuries after she died.” With a book on the team’s research published last year and plans for an updated exhibition in the museum in the works, people are talking about her nearly 10,000 years later, too.” ref
9,000-8,500 year old Horned Female shaman Bad Dürrenberg Germany
9,000 years ago Europe, Turtle burial.
8,000 years ago China, Turtle burial.
Turtle shells served as symbolic musical instruments for indigenous cultures of North America
The researchers examined the use of turtle shells as percussion instruments in the southeastern United States. They identified and analyzed several partial Eastern box turtle shells from middle Tennessee archaeological sites that they believe were used as rattles. In the past, turtle shells found at archaeological sites were often dismissed as food remains. It is important to explore and understand what other ways — besides food — prehistoric animal remains may have been used in the past. Turtle shell rattles provide deep insights into human-environment and -animal relationships. The researchers noted that turtle shell rattles have been found throughout North America, ranging from Florida to the Northeast and into Canada. The meaning and importance of these rattles likely differs depending on the region, they said. But, their presence in all these areas demonstrates that turtle shells were important to keeping rhythm in ceremonies across prehistoric North America. For Peres, the research shows there are still many questions for researchers to investigate regarding the role of turtles in indigenous populations. ref
Art and info adapted from: by
Layer 1 Grave 5 at Sito Conte, Panama
“Sitio Conte is an archaeological site located in the Coclé province of Panama near Parita Bay. It can best be described as a necropolis and a “paradigmatic example of a ranked or chiefdom society”. Based on dates from the goldwork and polychrome ceramics found at the site, its use is dated from approximately CE 450–900. While the site has remained untouched since the final excavations in 1940, its mortuary remains are considered to be a critical resource to archaeologists, as they aid in the interpretation of the social dynamics in the region between CE 500 and 1500.” ref
“The site itself is located on the eastern bank of the Rio Grande de Coclé. From its core, it spreads east, north and south along the river. Surrounding the site are grasslands and a number of small hills. To the north of Sitio Conte are the Tabasará Mountains; to the south lies Parita Bay. The most significant features at the site are the graves themselves. Architectural features are few in number and include two rows of large, roughly shaped vertical stones that measured 2 meters in height. These were associated with smaller stones with flat tops, which archaeologist Samuel Kirkland Lothrop referred to as “altars”. Also included among these features were two floors and a large pile of roughly worked stones.” ref
“Little is known about Sitio Conte and the individuals who are interred therein. A number of theories as to the function of the site have been offered, ranging from a “summer residence,” to a shared burial ground. Those interred within the graves have been identified as either “chiefly families” or “chiefs and warriors slain in a single battle”. Archaeologists have a good understanding as to when the site was in use, ascertained by dates associated with the goldwork and polychrome ceramics in the graves. From these artifacts, it has been revealed that the site was used from approximately CE 450 to 900. Around CE 900, the cemetery was abandoned; however, based on household refuse, it appears that domestic occupation of the site continued.” ref
Prominent graves
Grave 1
“Grave 1 is considered to be one of the more prominent unearthed during the Peabody excavation. It dates to CE 400-500. Those who were interred have been interpreted to be a “chief and three of his retainers”. The primary occupant, skeleton 1, was interred in a seated position and lavishly adorned with grave goods. Among these were eight effigy vessels and 112 plates or bowls, all of which were spread along the edge of the grave.” ref
“Also included were gold or tumbaga beads, pendants, greaves and chisels, a canine teeth apron, mirror backs, whale teeth and carved manatee ribs with gold overlay, seventeen hundred serpentine beads and several bundles of stingray spines. Skeleton two also had many of these same objects in association, as well as a small quantity of celts and stone blades. The remaining skeletons had similar grave goods, although fewer in number.” ref
Grave 5
“Dating to around CE 700/800-900, Grave 5 contained fifteen skeletons and a number of grave goods. Interred in the seated position, the primary skeleton (15) was originally housed in a “makeshift hut,” that had long since decomposed. His grave goods included a carved whale tooth pendant, stone mirror backs, gold or tumbaga greaves, cuffs, plaques, and a helmet. On the floor were stone slabs, tortoise shells, and various ceramics.” ref
“Of the other fourteen skeletons that were included in the grave, eight were located along the south and west sides of the grave, and the other six were found on the northern edge. Lothrop felt that the northern group likely belonged to an earlier burial. Some of their grave goods included bone, gold, and stone pendants.” ref
Grave 26
“One of the richest graves of the Peabody excavations, Grave 26 contained 22 skeletons and dates to the same period as Grave 5. The primary occupant, skeleton 12, was interred in a seated position and was once enclosed in a makeshift hut. Forming the floor of the grave were a number of ceramics, a stone slab and the remainder of the grave’s occupants.” ref
“Some of the grave goods that are associated with the primary interment include gold or tumbaga plaques, cuffs, greaves, beads, carved whale teeth and manatee ribs, stingray spines and an emerald. Of the 126 ceramic pieces found in Grave 26, a majority of them lined the walls of the grave. These included thirty-six effigy vessels and ninety polychrome plates. The other occupants had a few grave goods, including several gold ear rods, which were associated with Skeleton 8.” ref
Grave 74
“Excavated during the 1940 expedition led by J. Alden Mason, Grave 74 dates to CE 700/800-900 and is one of richest known graves at Sitio Conte. The primary occupants, skeletons 15 and 16, were found lying on top of one another in the center of the middle layer. Also known as Burial 11, this grave contained over 7500 mortuary furnishings, as well as twenty-three interments that were placed on three levels.
Upper level
“As Mason and his team were digging, they uncovered eight skeletons, all of which were lying face down and parallel to one another. Six of these skeletons were identified as old or mature males, while the other two were unsexed. Among their grave goods were ceramics, stone projectile points, celts, and a winged agate pendant. Skeleton 4 had a cache of stone points at its feet, a cache of gold beads and five repoussé gold plaques, which lay atop the individual. Intact vessels and ceramic sherds lined the north and south ends of the burial, which continued down into the second level.” ref
Middle level
“Proceeding further into the excavation, the team began to reveal a 2nd level of burials. This level contained twelve skeletons that were accompanied by thousands of grave goods. The primary occupants of the grave, skeletons 15 and 16, were located in the center of this level with five skeletons on the pair’s east side, three on the west and single skeletons on the north and south ends.” ref
“Associated with the central individuals were a large number of grave goods, including a large number of repoussé and plain gold plaques, ear rods, bells, greaves and beads. There were also a number of stone projectile points and celts. The most famous of the goods associated with these individuals is the cast gold composite effigy animal pendant with an emerald embedded in its back. This was found lying bottom up atop the gold plaques that covered the two central individuals.” ref
“Numerous items were placed with the other occupants of this grave: gold triangles, a pair of whale teeth, a carved figure covered with gold, canine teeth, several green projectile points and a stone celt. It was on this level that the “ceramic wall” reached both its thickest point, 30 centimeters, and its end. The excavators began to become overwhelmed by the large quantity of ceramics and removed many of the vessels without recording any information. Mason (n.d.: 64) noted that the field team got “gold fever” and “were anxious to get [the] vessels removed from above [the] gold objects, so began removing vessels before making list.” ref
Lower level
“After clearing the second level, the team reached the lowest point of the grave. As they removed the layer of ceramic sherds and surrounding dirt, they uncovered three skeletons. The individual in the center, skeleton 21, lay on its side, while the other two lay face down. Two of the skeletons, 21 and 22, had a few objects associated with them, including a gold bat effigy pendant, ear rods, some stone celts, and a large embossed gold plaque.” ref
The art of Sitio Conte
“The iconography of the gold and ceramic pieces at Sitio Conte reflects a highly refined artistry. While some figures are abstract representations of animals, others appear to be therianthropic in nature. These figures mostly appear in two basic designs, single or paired. There are exceptions to this as some ceramics contain multiple images as well. The iconography of the gold pieces varies from animals such as bats, deer, sharks, crocodiles, and saurians to human and therianthropic figures. Many of these subjects are represented in the iconography of the Coclé style ceramics that appear within the burials. They also include images of snakes, birds, turtles, crabs, insects, frogs, stingrays, armadillos and monkeys. It has been suggested that the inclusion of these gold and ceramic pieces may represent the rank of the individuals with whom they are associated.” ref
World Turtle
“The World Turtle, also called the Cosmic Turtle or the World-bearing Turtle, is a mytheme of a giant turtle (or tortoise) supporting or containing the world. It occurs in Hindu mythology, Chinese mythology, and the mythologies of some of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The comparative mythology of the World-Tortoise discussed by Edward Burnett Tylor (1878:341) includes the counterpart World Elephant.” ref
China: Nüwa Mends the Heavens
“In the Chinese mythology, the creator goddess Nüwa cut the legs off the giant sea turtle Ao (simplified Chinese: 鳌; traditional Chinese: 鰲; pinyin: áo) and used them to prop up the sky after Gong Gong damaged Mount Buzhou, which had previously supported the heavens.” ref
“Nüwa Mends the Heavens (Chinese: 女娲補天; Chinese: 女娲补天; pinyin: Nǚwā bǔtiān) is a well-known theme in Chinese culture. The courage and wisdom of Nüwa inspired the ancient Chinese to control nature’s elements and has become a favorite subject of Chinese poets, painters, and sculptors, along with so many poetry and arts like novels, films, paintings, and sculptures; e.g. the sculptures that decorate Nanshan and Ya’an.” ref
“The Huainanzi tells an ancient story about how the four pillars that support the sky crumbled inexplicably. Other sources have tried to explain the cause, i.e. the battle between Gong Gong and Zhuanxu or Zhurong. Unable to accept his defeat, Gong Gong deliberately banged his head onto Mount Buzhou (不周山) which was one of the four pillars. Half of the sky fell which created a gaping hole and the Earth itself was cracked; the Earth’s axis mundi was tilted into the southeast while the sky rose into the northwest. This is said to be the reason why the western region of China is higher than the eastern and that most of its rivers flow towards the southeast. This same explanation is applied to the Sun, Moon, and stars which moved into the northwest. A wildfire burnt the forests and led the wild animals to run amok and attack the innocent peoples, while the water which was coming out from the earth’s crack didn’t seem to be slowing down.” ref
“Nüwa pitied the humans she had made and attempted to repair the sky. She gathered five colored-stones (red, yellow, blue, black, and white) from the riverbed, melted them and used them to patch up the sky: since then the sky (clouds) have been colorful. She then killed a giant turtle (or tortoise), some version named the tortoise as Ao, cut off the four legs of the creature to use as new pillars to support the sky. But Nüwa didn’t do it perfectly because the unequal length of the legs made the sky tilt. After the job was done, Nüwa drove away the wild animals, extinguished the fire, and controlled the flood with a huge amount of ashes from the burning reeds, and the world became as peaceful as it was before.” ref
“Many Chinese know well their Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, i.e. the early leaders of humanity as well as culture heroes according to the Northern Chinese belief. But the lists vary and depend on the sources used. One version includes Nüwa as one of the Three Sovereigns, who reigned after Fuxi and before Shennong. The myth of the Three Sovereigns sees the three as demigod figures, and the myth is used to stress the importance of an imperial reign. The variation between sources stems from China being generally divided before the Qin and Han dynasties, and the version with Fuxi, Shennong, and Nüwa was used to emphasize rule and structure.” ref
“In her matriarchal reign, she battled against a neighboring tribal chief, defeated him, and took him to the peak of a mountain. Defeated by a woman, the chief felt ashamed to be alive and banged his head on the heavenly bamboo to kill himself and for revenge. His act tore a hole in the sky and made a flood hit the whole world. The flood killed all people except Nüwa and her army which was protected by her divinity. After that, Nüwa patched the sky with five colored-stones until the flood receded.” ref
India
“The World Turtle in Hindu mythology is known as Akūpāra (Sanskrit: अकूपार), or sometimes Chukwa. An example of a reference to the World Turtle in Hindu literature is found in Jñānarāja (the author of Siddhantasundara, writing c. 1500): “A vulture, whichever has only little strength, rests in the sky holding a snake in its beak for a prahara [three hours]. Why can [the deity] in the form of a tortoise, who possesses an inconceivable potency, not hold the Earth in the sky for a kalpa [billions of years]?” The British philosopher John Locke made reference to this in his 1689 tract, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which compares one who would say that properties inhere in “substance” to the Indian, who said the world was on an elephant, which was on a tortoise, “but being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed tortoise, replied—something, he knew not what.” Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable lists, without citation, Maha-pudma and Chukwa as names from a “popular rendition of a Hindu myth in which the tortoise Chukwa supports the elephant Maha-pudma, which in turn supports the world.” ref
North America: Turtle Island (Indigenous North American folklore)
“The Lenape creation story of the “Great Turtle” was first recorded between 1678 and 1680 by Jasper Danckaerts. The belief is shared by other indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, most notably those of the Haudenosanee confederacy, and the Anishinaabeg.” ref
The Jesuit Relations contain a Huron story concerning the World Turtle:
“When the Father was explaining to them [some Huron seminarists] some circumstance of the passion of our Lord, and speaking to them of the eclipse of the Sun, and of the trembling of the earth which was felt at that time, they replied that there was talk in their own country of a great earthquake which had happened in former times; but they did not know either the time or the cause of that disturbance. ‘There is still talk,’ (said they) ‘of a very remarkable darkening of the Sun, which was supposed to have happened because the great turtle which upholds the earth, in changing its position or place, brought its shell before the Sun, and thus deprived the world of sight.” ref
“Turtle Island is a name for Earth or North America, used by some Indigenous peoples, as well as by some Indigenous rights activists. The name is based on a creation story common to several Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of North America. A number of contemporary works continue to use and/or tell the Turtle Island creation story.” ref
“The Lenape story of the “Great Turtle” was first recorded by Europeans between 1678 and 1680 by Jasper Danckaerts. The story is shared by other Northeastern Woodlands tribes, notably the Iroquois peoples. The Lenape believe that before creation there was nothing, an empty dark space. However, in this emptiness, there existed a spirit of their creator, Kishelamàkânk. Eventually in that emptiness, he fell asleep. While he slept, he dreamt of the world as we know it today, the Earth with mountains, forests, and animals. He also dreamt up man, and he saw the ceremonies man would perform. Then he woke up from his dream to the same nothingness he was living in before. Kishelamàkânk then started to create the Earth as he had dreamt it.” ref
“First, he created helper spirits, the Grandfathers of the North, East, and West, and the Grandmother of the South. Together, they created the Earth just as Kishelamàkânk had dreamt it. One of their final acts was creating a special tree. From the roots of this tree came the first man, and when the tree bent down and kissed the ground, woman sprang from it.” ref
“All the animals and humans did their jobs on the Earth, until eventually a problem arose. There was a tooth of a giant bear that could give the owner magical powers, and the humans started to fight over it. Eventually, the wars got so bad that people moved away, and made new tribes and new languages. Kishelamàkânk saw this fighting and decided to send down a spirit, Nanapush, to bring everyone back together. He went on top of a mountain and started the first Sacred Fire, which gave off a smoke that caused all the people of the world to come investigate what it was. When they all came, Nanapush created a pipe with a sumac branch and a soapstone bowl, and the creator gave him Tobacco to smoke with. Nanapush then told the people that whenever they fought with each other, to sit down and smoke tobacco in the pipe, and they would make decisions that were good for everyone.” ref
“The same bear tooth later caused a fight between two evil spirits, a giant toad and an evil snake. The toad was in charge of all the waters, and amidst the fighting he ate the tooth and the snake. The snake then proceeded to bite his side, releasing a great flood upon the Earth. Nanapush saw this destruction and began climbing a mountain to avoid the flood, all the while grabbing animals that he saw and sticking them in his sash. At the top of the mountain there was a cedar tree that he started to climb, and as he climbed he broke off limbs of the tree. When he got to the top of the tree, he pulled out his bow, played it and sang a song that made the waters stop. Nanapush then asked which animal he could put the rest of the animals on top of in the water. The turtle volunteered saying he’d float and they could all stay on him, and that’s why they call the land Turtle Island.” ref
Nanapush then decided the turtle needed to be bigger for everyone to live on, so he asked the animals if one of them would dive down into the water to get some of the old Earth. The beaver tried first, but came up dead, and Nanapush had to revive him. The loon tried second, but its attempt ended with the same fate. Lastly, the muskrat tried. He stayed down the longest, and came up dead as well, but he had some Earth on his nose that Nanapush put on the Turtles back. Because of his accomplishment, Nanapush told the muskrat he was blessed and his kind would always thrive in the land.
“Nanapush then took out his bow and again sang, and the turtle started to grow. It kept growing, and Nanapush sent out animals to try to get to the edge to see how long it had grown. First, he sent the bear, and the bear returned in two days saying he had reached the end. Next, he sent out the deer, who came back in two weeks saying he had reached the end. Finally, he sent the wolf, and the wolf never returned because the land had gotten so big. The Lenape claim that this is why the wolf howls, that it is really a call for their ancestor to come back home.” ref
Haudenosaunee
“According to the oral tradition of the Haudenosaunee (or “Iroquois”), “the earth was the thought of [a ruler] of a great island which floats in space [and] is a place of eternal peace.” Sky Woman fell down to the earth when it was covered with water, or more specifically, when there was a “great cloud sea.” Various animals tried to swim to the bottom of the ocean to bring back dirt to create land. Muskrat succeeded in gathering dirt, which was placed on the back of a turtle. This dirt began to multiply and also caused the turtle to grow bigger. The turtle continued to grow bigger and bigger, and the dirt continued to multiply until it became a huge expanse of land. Thus, when Iroquois cultures refer to the earth, they often call it Turtle Island.” ref
“According to Converse and Parker, the Iroquois faith shared with other religions the “belief that the Earth is supported by a gigantic turtle.” In the Seneca language, the mythical turtle is called Hah-nu-nah, while the name for an everyday turtle is ha-no-wa. In other versions of the story, such as Susan M. Hills’s, the muskrat or other animals die in their search for land for the Sky Woman (named Mature Flower in Hills’s telling). This is a representation of the Haudenosaunee beliefs of death and chaos as forces of creation, as we all give our bodies to the land to become soil, which in turn continues to support life.” ref
“This concept plays out again when the Mature Flower’s daughter dies during childbirth, becoming the first person to be buried on the turtle’s back and whose burial post helped grow various plants such as corn and strawberries. This, according to Hill, also shows how soil, and the land itself, has the ability to act and shape creation. Some tellings do not include this expanded edition as part of the Creation Story, however, these differences are important to note when considering Haudenosaunee traditions and relationships.” ref
Prehistoric edible land snails in the circum-Mediterranean : the archaeological evidence
“Edible land snails are often abundant in late Pleistocene and Holocene archaeological sites (around 10,000 to 6,000 years ago) throughout the Mediterranean region. This chapter, the first attempt to summarize the evidence, argues that in almost every instance the land snails found in occupational deposits are the remains of prehistoric meals.” ref
“Land snails are a frequent, often abundant, component in Late Pleistocene and early- to mid-Holocene archaeological sites throughout the circum-Mediterranean region. The most spectacular examples are the thousands of Capsian escargotières of eastern Algeria and southern Tunisia, but hundreds of other archaeological sites containing abundant land snail shells are known from Cantabria, the Pyrenees, southern France, Italy, south-eastern Europe, Cyprus and the Levant, the Zagros region, Ukraine and Cyrenaica.” ref
“These land snails represent remains of prehistoric meals. What is their significance? My long-term interest in this question has been brought recently to the fore by Fernández-Armesto who suggests that land snails were the first domesticated animal and that their importance has been ignored by archaeologists. I do not think that archaeologists have ignored the issue, but it is certainly true that most of the interest has been on the palaeo-environmental information that can be obtained from study of land snail assemblages, rather than on their role in human subsistence.” ref
“There have been only a few studies with a different emphasis: Lubell et al. attempted to test the ideas of Pond et al. on the contribution of land snails to prehistoric diet in the Holocene Maghreb; Bahn constructed an interesting argument in favor of Mesolithic snail farming in the Pyrenees; Waselkov provided encyclopedic global coverage of the pre-1980s literature on (primarily marine) molluscs as food in prehistory; Chenorkian examined possible dietary contributions of molluscs; and Girod discussed some of the implications of using land snails as food in prehistory.” ref
“In this paper, I will discuss the archaeological evidence for the occurrence of land snails in the prehistoric record of the circum-Mediterranean. In a complementary paper (Lubell, 2004) I will build on these data to investigate whether or not this pattern represents a signature for the « broad spectrum revolution » and if the presence of edible land snails in late Pleistocene and early Holocene sites signals a hitherto unrealized link in the transition to a diet based on herded animals and cultivated plants.” ref
“Archaeologists recently identified the remains of four human funerary burials from approximately 3,800 years ago in a space in northern Peru associated with a water cult. The bundled funeral remains belong to two children, a teenager, and an adult. They were buried facing the Andean mountains and interred with symbolic offerings, such as stone pendants and snail shells. The remains were found nestled between mud and stone walls near a valley in Peru’s dry, coastal Viru province by the Virú Valley Archaeological Research Project (PAVI) of the National University of Trujillo (UNT). “It also shows the importance of the space. People have for a long time wanted to be buried in temples because these are very sacred spaces to them,” Castillo Luján told Reuters, noting that the remains and the walls were likely between 3,100 and 3,800 years old. “In addition, fragments of early pottery found at the site are similar to those observed in other important settlements such as Gramalote, in the Moche Valley, and Huaca Negra, near the coast in the Virú Valley,” Castillo Luján told the University of Trujillo.” ref
Earth diver mythology or something similar??? Could be. In a way, snails are a kind of mound shape, thus similar to turtle shells, both may represent a mound of creation in the earth-diver myth.
Earth Diver
“The earth diver is a character used in creation myths that is sent by a supreme being as an animal into water or muddy land to make it habitable. These stories and origins are used often in the Eastern Asiatic costal region. Often the earth dives is the first to exist and make a world manageable for others to live in. There are many failed attempts explained before one remains in a state of living.” ref
The Yoruba Creation Myth
The Yoruba Creation Story- The Golden Chain
“Long ago, well before there were any people, all life existed in the sky. Olorun lived in the sky, and with Olorun were many orishas. There were both male and female orishas, but Olorun transcended male and female and was the all-powerful supreme being. Olorun and the orishas lived around a young baobab tree. Around the baobab tree the orishas found everything they needed for their lives, and in fact they wore beautiful clothes and gold jewelry. Olorun told them that all the vast sky was theirs to explore. All the orishas save one, however, were content to stay near the baobab tree.” ref
“Obatala was the curious orisha who wasn’t content to live blissfully by the baobab tree. Like all orishas, he had certain powers, and he wanted to put them to use. As he pondered what to do, he looked far down through the mists below the sky. As he looked and looked, he began to realize that there was a vast empty ocean below the mist. Obatala went to Olorun and asked Olorun to let him make something solid in the waters below. That way there could be beings that Obatala and the orishas could help with their powers.” ref
“Touched by Obatala’s desire to do something constructive, Olorun agreed to send Obatala to the watery world below. Obatala then asked Orunmila, the orisha who knows the future, what he should do to prepare for his mission. Orunmila brought out a sacred tray and sprinkled the powder of baobab roots on it. He tossed sixteen palm kernels onto the tray and studied the marks and tracks they made on the powder. He did this eight times, each time carefully observing the patterns. Finally, he told Obatala to prepare a chain of gold and to gather sand, palm nuts, and maize. He also told Obatala to get the sacred egg carrying the personalities of all the orishas.” ref
“Obatala went to his fellow orishas to ask for their gold, and they all gave him all the gold they had. He took this to the goldsmith, who melted all the jewelry to make the links of the golden chain. When Obatala realized that the goldsmith had made all the gold into links, he had the goldsmith melt a few of them back down to make a hook for the end of the chain.
Meanwhile, as Orunmila had told him, Obatala gathered all the sand in the sky and put it in an empty snail shell, and in with it he added a little baobab powder. He put that in his pack, along with palm nuts, maize, and other seeds that he found around the baobab tree. He wrapped the egg in his shirt, close to his chest so that it would be warm during his journey.” ref
“Obatala hooked the chain into the sky, and he began to climb down the chain. For seven days he went down and down, until finally he reached the end of the chain. He hung at its end, not sure what to do, and he looked and listened for any clue. Finally he heard Orunmila, the seer, calling to him to use the sand. He took the shell from his pack and poured out the sand into the water below. The sand hit the water, and to his surprise it spread and solidified to make a vast land. Still unsure what to do, Obatala hung from the end of the chain until his heart pounded so much that the egg cracked. From it flew Sankofa, the bird bearing the sprits of all the orishas. Like a storm, they blew the sand to make dunes and hills and lowlands, giving it character just as the orishas themselves have character.” ref
“Finally, Obatala let go of the chain and dropped to this new land, which he called “Ife”, the place that divides the waters. Soon he began to explore this land, and as he did so he scattered the seeds from his pack, and as he walked the seeds began to grow behind him, so that the land turned green in his wake. After walking a long time, Obatala grew thirsty and stopped at a small pond. As he bent over the water, he saw his reflection and was pleased. He took some clay from the edge of the pond and began to mold it into the shape he had seen in the reflection.” ref
“He finished that one and began another, and before long he had made many of these bodies from the dark earth at the pond’s side. By then he was even thirstier than before, and he took juice from the newly-grown palm trees and it fermented into palm wine. He drank this, and drank some more, and soon he was intoxicated. He returned to his work of making more forms from the edge of the pond, but now he wasn’t careful and made some without eyes or some with misshapen limbs. He thought they all were beautiful, although later he realized that he had erred in drinking the wine and vowed to not do so again.” ref
“Before long, Olorun dispatched Chameleon down the golden chain to check on Obatala’s progress. Chameleon reported Obatala’s disappointment at making figures that had form but no life. Gathering gasses from the space beyond the sky, Olorun sparked the gasses into an explosion that he shaped into a fireball. He sent that fireball to Ife, where it dried the lands that were still wet and began to bake the clay figures that Obatala had made. The fireball even set the earth to spinning, as it still does today. Olorun then blew his breath across Ife, and Obatala’s figures slowly came to life as the first people of Ife.” ref
In Peru, there were snail shells, and snail shells are also used in the earth diver.
Buried with snails? What animal bones tell us about the rise and fall of the Maya in Guatemala| Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
“Tens of thousands of tiny bone fragments reveal eating habits, ceremonial practices and the development of animal domestication during more than 2000 years of history. More than 35,000 bone and shell fragments from a Maya settlement in Ceibal, Guatemala tell the tale of animal use through the ups and downs of a great civilization according to a new report in the journal PLOS One by Ashley Sharpe, staff archaeologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, with colleagues from the University of Arizona, the University of Ibaraki, Japan and Guatemala’s Institute of Anthropology and History and Universidad de San Carlos. One of the first Maya communities to build large monuments, the site of Ceibal was occupied nearly continuously for more than 2000 years, from about 1000 BCE until 1200 CE.” ref
“Ceibal was one of the first Maya sites in Guatemala where ceremonial structures were built. The patterns we see, such as dramatic shifts in diet and ceremonial uses of animals, are not flukes, but likely represent the way the Maya were using resources both at Ceibal and are comparable with other reports across the region,” Sharpe said. Bones decay quickly in the humid tropics. To recover such an exceptional number of well-preserved remains, members of the Ceibal-Petexbatun Archaeological Project suspended soil from the excavations in water and collected bone fragments as they floated to the top. They classified the fragments by comparing them to collections of identified animal bones.” ref
“Apple snail shells. One of the human burials at the site was accompanied by hundreds of apple snail shells, perhaps from a burial feast. One of the most important findings in this study was a dramatic shift in the Maya diet from apple snails and other mollusks, to vertebrate.” ref
“From the earliest remains almost three thousand years ago, we see many different dogs throughout the community, which at the time were the only domestic animals in Central America,” Sharpe said. “It is possible some were pets or used for hunting, but a few bones with cut marks could indicate that some were eaten.” The team also discovered that the early residents of Ceibal were eating thousands of snails and mussels from the nearby river and wetlands. In one residential area dated to roughly 700-450 BCE they found an adult male buried with hundreds of apple snails: perhaps evidence of his burial feast.” ref
“In fact, our most intriguing result was a major shift around 2000 years ago from huge quantities of apple snails and mussel shells to far more fish, turtle and deer bones,” Sharpe said. “We are really curious to find out if this was just a shift in food preferences, or the result of habitat loss. There is evidence from sediment cores in northern Guatemala that there was a lot of deforestation and erosion during the Preclassic-Classic transition around 200 CE, which perhaps destroyed wetland habitats.” Another interesting pattern was the increase in river turtle (Dermatemys mawii) bones after 200 CE. The largest freshwater turtle in the region, this critically endangered species is still considered a delicacy. In another Smithsonian study, zoologists suggested that the ancient Maya imported turtles from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Although this has yet to be confirmed by genetic analysis, the Ceibal results support this possibility.” ref
Headless vulture. Because bird bones are fragile, few were found at the site. Most were water birds from nearby wetlands. This skeleton was probably a ceremonial offering.
Evidence of another imported species was identified from the few fragile bird bones that remained at the site: turkeys. Turkey bones appear at Ceibal after the Preclassic period, supporting the idea that people were bringing early domesticated turkeys from Central Mexico south into Guatemala. Sharpe’s isotope analysis on the turkey bones shows that by the end of the transition turkeys were eating corn, confirming that they were likely domesticated. “Bones of both white-tailed and brocket deer were common throughout the history of the site but as Ceibal became an important political center and society became more socially stratified, we start finding more deer — sometimes a dozen in a single trash deposit,” Sharpe said. “Deer appear to be a favorite food of the Classic period elites and may have played a special role during feasts.” ref
“This study is important because it draws on more than 35,000 pieces of bone and shell from a huge archaeological site in Guatemala. Excavations at the Ceibal and Caobal sites included both areas near monuments and areas further from the center of the settlement. This map shows the region, including other sites mentioned in the article.” ref
Number of identified specimens (NISP) at Ceibal over time. From the research article.
“There was other evidence for social stratification as well. Ceibal elites wore feline paws and skins on stelae. In a trash heap behind the royal palace, researchers discovered margay and kinkajou mandibles, the arm of an anteater, a bull shark tooth, and sea urchin spines, perhaps also the remains of costumes or other royal paraphernalia. By comparison, the middle class had a more varied diet of local fauna, including rabbits, pacas, agoutis, possums, raccoons, weasels and armadillos, anteaters and even an occasional peccary or tapir. “Then suddenly everything stopped around 950 CE during the famous ’Maya Collapse’ when all the cities were abandoned,” Sharpe said.” ref
“Only a few people occasionally returned to the edges of the site in the centuries after that.” Identifying the bones in this massive collection was just the first step. In the future, they hope to fine-tune their identifications of the numerous tiny fish at the site, use DNA to examine Maya dog breeds, and learn more about the lives of non-elites. “The focus of Maya archaeology up until now has been large monumental sites, and especially the royal elites during the Classic period,” Sharpe said. “We hope to excavate residences and older sites to get a better idea of what society was like for the majority of the Maya people.” ref
The funereal snails
“Les Leftovers: The funereal snails This rite of the presence of snails may be related, either to a funereal meal, or to a symbolic significance: the abbé Martigny, following Salin, thinks it concerns a symbol of the Resurrection, the shell being the tomb which Man must one day leave.” ref
“On March 26, 1872, Emile Rivière discovered a complete skeleton in the grotto of Cavillon, near Menton. This was not the first prehistoric skeleton found in the area, but this one had a particular importance: the way in which it had been buried was sufficiently sophisticated to answer a much-disputed question: did intentional burial already exist in the Paleolithic period? Notably, the skull was covered with over two hundred pierced sea-snails (Nassa neritea) which, along with stag canines, had been part of a fishnet-style headdress. An ankle bracelet of forty-one sea-snails was also found on a tibia bone.” ref
“A few years later, two children’s bodies were found in the same area with almost a thousand of these same sea-snails, again pierced and probably used for the children’s loincloths. Sea-snails are not the same as the familiar culinary snail, which is a land mollusk Nor is their presence here very mysterious, especially since it has been discovered that Rivière’s find, long known as “the man of Menton”, was in fact a woman; shells were among the earliest form of jewelry.” ref
“More mysterious, however, are land snails found in various later tombs. Three dozen snail shells were found in a Gallo-Roman tomb at Pardines in Auvergne. Edouard Salin, the great researcher on the Merovingians, found three shells under the pelvis of a late Gallo-Roman skeleton under the St. Denis Basilica. Snails were found in twenty-six early Christian (II-Vth century) tombs at Beaulieu-sur-Mer; one tightly sealed tomb contained a “veritable deposit of helix aspera (garden snails)”. (The fact that these were Christian tombs may mean that the mollusk had a particular meaning in early Christian iconography; but pagan practices also survived even among some Christians.)” ref
“Early medieval pits at Carvin, in the Nord department, have been tentatively identified as funeral pits and include snails with the remains of shellfish and small rodents. At Noiron-sur-Gevrey, Salin noted numerous shells of varied types of snails found mixed with bones of small animals and frogs in funerary pits; in this case, these may have been the remains of funerary meals. But in the same area, a ring of snail shells set fifteen to twenty centimeters apart formed a ring around a Merovingian skeleton. Similar rings have been found in Merovingian tombs at Lorleau, Villey-Saint-Etienne, Bertheleming, Templeux-la-Fosse and Hardenthum.In the Ardennes, “veritable beds of snails” were found in Merovingian tombs; there and in the Aisne, about thirty snails surrounded some skulls.” ref
“Most touchingly, in one of six Gallo-Roman tombs of newborns at Lyons-la-Foret (in Normandy), Guyot and Dollfus found, on and beside one child’s body, “nine snail shells… Two shells were found at neck level, at the base of the skull, the other six essentially symmetrical to either side of the thorax and pelvis and one between the lower limbs.” About thirty centimeters to the north of this tomb was a pile of almost one hundred shells in a pile about 20 centimeters in diameter. “These were no doubt brought intentionally, in relation to a funerary rite.” But what rite? And what was the significance of the various snails placed so carefully around certain skeletons? Or of those simply piled into mounds or beds?” ref
“This rite of the presence of snails may be related, either to a funereal meal, or to a symbolic significance: the abbé Martigny, following Salin, thinks it concerns a symbol of the Resurrection, the shell being the tomb which Man must one day leave. One thing is certain: the parents who carefully placed – or had placed – nine snail shells at specific points around their newborn’s body had, in their grief, a clear and heartfelt intention, expressed, in its way, as eloquently as the poignant epitaphs found on later graves. But we may never know what that was.” ref
“Snails were widely noted and used in divination. The Greek poet Hesiod wrote that snails signified the time to harvest by climbing the stalks, while the Aztec moon god Tecciztecatl bore a snail shell on his back. This symbolized rebirth; the snail’s penchant for appearing and disappearing was analogized with the moon. In Mayan mythology, the snail is associated with sexual desire, being personified by the god Uayeb.” ref
“In the Mayan calendar … of 5 “nameless” days, called Uayeb. The nameless days were considered extremely unlucky, causing the Maya to observe them with fasting and sacrifices to deities.” ref
“The Haabʼ (Mayan pronunciation: [haːɓ]) is part of the Maya calendric system. It was a 365-day calendar used by many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica. The Haabʼ comprises eighteen months of twenty days each, plus an additional period of five days (“nameless days”) at the end of the year known as Wayeb’ (or Uayeb in 16th-century orthography). Bricker (1982) estimates that the Haabʼ was first used around 500 BCE with a starting point of the winter solstice.
5 unlucky days
“The five nameless days at the end of the calendar, called Wayebʼ, was thought to be a dangerous time. Foster (2002) writes “During Wayeb, portals between the mortal realm and the Underworld dissolved. No boundaries prevented the ill-intending deities from causing disasters.” To ward off these evil spirits, the Mayans had customs and rituals they practiced during Wayebʼ. For example, the Mayans would not leave their homes and wash their hair.” ref
WAYEB (Also known as Uayayab, Uayeb) Maya Bad Luck God
“He is the God of Five Unlucky Days. These occur on a regular basis but only once per year. Every week would be a bit over the top. The Maya Calendar was a marvel of mathematical creation, but to ensure it worked correctly, they needed to add a few extra blank days to the end to pad it out. Because, although Maya mathematics was more or less flawless, the Universe is not. So, just as we use leap years nowadays, the Maya popped an extra 5-day period at the end of the year. This extra time was a period of notorious uncertainty, as you might imagine, and had a reputation for being a time of bad luck and inauspicious happenings. Hence Wayeb, the God of this period, was regarded as a very unlucky figure. Basically, he got the blame for whatever terrible things might be about to happen.” ref
“As a precaution, statues of him would be carried out of towns and villages to minimize the chances. We have it on some kind of authority that Wayeb is portrayed as a drunken sex-maniac. We presume there were a lot of wild parties going on during those fatal Five Blank Days. The thought uppermost in everyone’s minds was surely “well, no-one will notice – these days don’t really exist, do they?” Plus, on the unluckiest days of the year, what’s the worst that could happen? We are not sure how involved Wayeb was in any of this. But we do understand he may also be the first God to wear a shell suit, as a snail shell seems to be his principle abode. Thanks to the Godchecker Holy Snail, we know snail shells are capable of containing much holiness. Presumably he spends the whole year hiding in his shell and only comes out during his Five Days.” ref
Similar to Earth Diver/world Turtle?
“From the earliest times, snails have been part of myths and legends, some even depicting the creation of the world.” Snails in Human Culture. Land snails have featured in the human culture from ancient times. From the earliest times, snails have been part of myths and legends, some even depicting the creation of the world. Snails are often symbolized by their spiral shape or their slowness linked to laziness.” ref
“From Nauru only 3500 km from eastern Australia, comes the creation myth that at the beginning, the only things in existence were Areop-Enap (a spider) and the sea. Areop-Enap searched for food in the darkness and found an enormous clam which swallowed him. He used two snails and a worm to find a way to open the clam. Areop-Enap made the lower clam shell into Earth and the upper shell into the sky and sent the smaller snail west of the sky-shell where it became the Moon. The second snail was sent to the east and became the Sun.” ref
“Another creation myth from the Yoruba people of Nigeria tells that in the beginning, the universe consisted only of the sky, the water, and the wild marshlands. The God Obatala believed that the world needed more so he went to Olorun, ruler of the sky and creator of the sun, asking for permission to create mountains, valleys, forests, and fields. Obatala descends onto Earth to a place called Ife, carrying a snail shell filled with sand, a white hen, a black cat, and a palm nut. When he reached the earth, Obatala spread the sand and planted the nut. After a while, he decided to fashion human beings to keep him company because his task was quite lonely. Humans created by Obatala come together to form the first Yoruba Village in Ife.” ref
“A Navajo Indian tale from northern America tells that long ago, there was a mighty flood, and the People left their world, the Fourth World, the Underworld, and came up into the Fifth World, the world lived in today. They found themselves on the shore of a great ocean. The People broke into groups by clan and went out to find new homes. But at the end of four days, they came back to the place by the ocean as there was no fresh water to drink. First Woman stood in front of the People and said that someone would have to go back down to the old world below to find some fresh water. She sent several strong animals to find it but all were unsuccessful. A thin little girl called ‘snail girl’ offered to search though most thought she could not do this.” ref
“First woman tied a bottle to the girl’s back and she set off slowly. After a long time, she found her way to the underworld and there she found some pure water. She filled the bottle and carried it back but it opened and spilled leaving a silvery trail. This created a large river. Snail girl was thanked and honoured by the People. First Woman declared that from that day on, the snail will carry the water bottle on her back as a symbol of her great journey. Snails will leave a trail of moisture behind at every place travelled as a message to everyone that our pure water is precious and must be taken care of. At present, the Giant African Snail (Achatina fulica) is part of traditional religious ceremonies of Candomblé in Brazil where it is used as an offering to the deity called Oxalá.” ref
Snails in ancient cultures
“Snails have been used since prehistoric times to craft jewellery. Shell ornaments were very common from 50–40,000 years ago onwards. The first known examples of shell jewellery originated in Africa. The spiral to many ancient cultures not only represented the cycle of life, death, and rebirth but represented the rotation of the Earth around the Sun. The spiral was considered the essence of the Universe and of time itself. The Sumerians and Babylonians considered the snails immortal, making them a symbol of eternity.” ref
“Prehistoric shell heaps, or midens (e.g. sambaquis in Brazil from 6000 BCE or Køkkenmøddinger from Denmark from 5000 BCE), bear witness to the amounts of shells processed by tribes through time. In Australia, shell midens created by coastal Indigenous Australian tribes often feature in Dreamtime stories. The Burarra people of Arnhem Land, also referred to as the Gidjingali, regard their midens as sacred sites.” ref
“In ancient Japanese times, snails were considered the most fertile of all animals and gods of water. Snails symbolised tolerance and perseverance and being hermaphrodite, had a duality symbol as in the process of mating they use both, male and female characteristics of their body. The snail was a symbol in ancient Mesoamerican cultures. The Maya are probably the best-known of the classical civilizations of Mesoamerica. Originating in the Yucatán around 2600 BCE, they rose to prominence around CE 250 in present-day southern Mexico, Guatemala, northern Belize and western Honduras. The Mayan earth God, Pauahtan, the patron of scribes and of group of 5 unlucky days known as the Uayeb, emerges from a spiral shell. The ancient cultural centre of Mayans has stone building in the form of cylinder, the observatory for looking at Venus. The observatory is titled El Caracol, meaning ‘snail’. In Mayan mythology, the snail was associated with sexual desire.” ref
“The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from CE 1300 to 1521. At its greatest extent, the Aztec empire covered most of northern Mesoamerica. The ancient Aztecs saw the snail as a sacred being because its shell represented the cycle of life. To the Aztecs, the snail was symbolic of time, transition, and even fertility. Their beliefs are seen in ancient paintings, drawings, and carvings of the spiral snail shell. Their mythological story tells that when creating the Sun and the Moon, the gods let two different powers Tēcciztēcatl who started off as a lowly God of Snails and Worms, and Nanahuatzin, compete against each other. Their task was sacrifice by fire and they were to leap into the flames of a burning pyre.” ref
“After Tēcciztēcatl hesitated, Nanahuatzin was first to sacrifice himself in the fire. Two suns then appeared in the sky but the gods who were angry with Tēcciztēcatl’s hesitation, threw a rabbit into Tēcciztēcatl’s face to reduce his luminosity. Subsequently, Nanahuatzin became the sun god Tonatiuh and Tēcciztēcatl was only awarded the status of moon god. Tēcciztēcatl carried a snail shell on his back. Just as the snail retreats into its shell, the moon retreats into the depths of the ocean. In this culture, the spiral snail shell is also symbolic of the moon, and its phases.” ref
“Quetzalcoatl is another Aztec god associated with the snail. He wore the spiral shell as a symbol on his chest. Therefore, he it was believed that he knew the secrets of reincarnation and the cycles of the Universe and of the gods. The Temple of Quetzalcoatl is decorated with snails and shells which are considered symbols of water. In ancient Peru around 100 to 700 CE, the Mocha, an agriculturally based society, celebrated mountain sacrifices at the beginning of the rainy season which was marked by the appearance of snails in large numbers.” ref
“To the ancient Greeks, snails represented fertility and fruition of hard work. The presence of snails indicated when crops were ready to harvest. Hesiod, a poet who lived around the time of Homer, documented this noting that it was harvest time when snails climbed the stems of plants. Aristotle described the snail in detail and invented a spoon that allowed the snail’s body to be removed intact from the shell. Hippocrates studied the properties of slime mucus and praised its effectiveness in hydrating the skin, relieving skin irritations and redness, wound healing, and treating skin disorders. He also considered their consumption beneficial for various stomach disorders. Hippocrates and Galen considered snails to be beneficial for the treatment of herniation and hypersensitivity.” ref
rehistoric Hunters Roasted and Ate Giant Snails 170,000 Years Ago
“In a groundbreaking discovery, scientists have unearthed the remains of enormous snail shells at a 225,000-year-old archaeological site in southern Africa. What makes this find truly remarkable is that it appears these giant snails were not just natural inhabitants of the area, but also a significant source of sustenance for the humans who lived there. Why and when terrestrial mollusks entered our ancestor’s diet were unanswered questions until the recent discovery of the giant land snail, known as Achatinidae, at a rock-shelter in southern Africa. A new study has demonstrated how small groups of hunter-gatherers captured, roasted and ate giant snails as early as 170,000 years ago. Until now, the oldest evidence of Homo sapiens capturing and eating giant land snails dated to roughly 35,000 years ago in Europe, and around 50,000 years ago in Africa. However, a new study published in the Quaternary Science Reviews shows how people at a southern African rock-shelter called Border Cave roasted a species of giant snail that was, according to the researchers, “as big as an adult’s hand.” ref
Giant Snails Roasting on an Open Fire
“The oldest archaeological layers at Border Cave date to at least 227,000 years ago. Evidence shows how ancient people living in this cave cooked starchy plant stems, ate an array of fruits and hunted small and large animals. A 2020 study published in Science even found that the ancient people living in Border’s cave made grass bedding around 200,000 years ago. The new study was led by Marine Wojcieszak of the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Brussels.” ref
“An analysis of shell fragments excavated at Border Cave demonstrates how hunter-gatherers at the site roasted large African land snails on embers, “and then presumably ate them,” according to Wojcieszak. Described as “a delicacy,” eating these snails spiked in popularity between about 160,000 and 70,000 years ago. According to the team of scientists, these new discoveries at Border Cave “challenge an influential idea that human groups did not make land snails and other small game a big part of their diet until the last Ice Age waned around 15,000 to 10,000 years ago.” ref
“The team of researchers working on the study suggested that when hunter-gatherer groups in southern Africa roamed the countryside hunting large animals, some of them, perhaps with limited mobility due to age or injury, might have stayed behind “snail-gathering.” Wojcieszak added that food sharing at Border Cave demonstrates how “cooperative social behavior was in place from the dawn of our species.” Furthermore, because snail meat is relatively easy to eat, the fatty protein of snails would have been an important source of nutrition for the elderly and smaller children.” ref
“Science News reported that previous archaeological excavations at a cave on the southern tip of South Africa revealed that humans ate mussels, limpets and other marine mollusks as early as around 164,000 years ago. However, according to archaeologist Antonieta Jerardino of the University of South Africa in Pretoria, the new evidence of giant snail consumption at Africa’s Border Cave pushes back the human consumption of mollusks by several thousand years to 170,000 years ago.” ref
“Most of the shell fragments discovered at the site displayed signs of extended heat exposure, which the researchers say is consistent with “having once been attached to snails that were cooked on hot embers.” It was concluded that the lower parts of large land snail shells rested against the hot embers during cooking, which accounts for the burned and unburned shell fragments discovered by the scientists.” ref
Land Snail Shell Beads in the Sub-Saharan Archaeological Record: When, Where, and Why?
“Abstract: Shell beads are well established in the archaeological record of sub-Saharan Africa and appear as early as 75,000 BP; however, most research has focused on ostrich eggshell (OES) and various marine mollusc species. Beads made from various land snails shells (LSS), frequently described as Achatina, also appear to be widespread. Yet tracking their appearance and distribution is difficult because LSS beads are often intentionally or unintentionally lumped with OES beads, there are no directly dated examples, and bead reporting in general is highly variable in the archaeological literature. Nevertheless, Achatina and other potential cases of LSS beads are present at over 80 archaeological sites in at least eight countries, spanning the early Holocene to recent past. Here, we collate published cases and report on several more. We also present a new case from Magubike Rockshelter in southern Tanzania with the first directly dated LSS beads, which we use to illustrate methods for identifying LSS as a raw material. Despite the long history of OES bead production on the continent and the abundance of land snails available throughout the Pleistocene, LSS beads appear only in the late Holocene and are almost exclusively found in Iron Age contexts. We consider possible explanations for the late adoption of land snails as a raw material for beadmaking within the larger context of environmental, economic, and social processes in Holocene Africa. By highlighting the existence of these artifacts, we hope to facilitate more in-depth research on the timing, production, and distribution of LSS beads in African prehistory.” ref
“Shell beads have a long history of production in sub-Saharan Africa and are one of the first indicators of early modern human symbolic behavior, appearing by 75,000 years ago alongside other forms material culture such as utilized ochre and portable/parietal art. Although the earliest examples were perforated whole marine shells, standardized production of shaped ostrich eggshell (OES) beads was established by at least 50,000 years ago. OES beads remain well represented in Later Stone Age (LSA) and Iron Age (IA) deposits, with the tradition continuing into the ethnographic present among linguistically and culturally diverse communities. In contrast to more extensive research on glass beads, however, few studies have moved beyond quantification of OES to focus on chronology, distribution, and manufacture.” ref
“Such studies are typically focused on metric analyses. Other notable work has drawn on ethnographic data to explore the social contexts of these artifacts. This paper builds on the OES literature by focusing on a concurrent but even less studied phenomenon: the production of similar disc beads from the shells of terrestrial land snails. Although land snail shell beads are most often described as Achatina in published sources, identified taxa include other genera in the Family Achatinidae such as Archachatina, Burtoa, and Limicolaria. Referring to all cases as Achatina may produce the undesired effect of masking variation in species used for beadmaking when comparing sites within and across regions. We therefore propose the new designation land snail shell (LSS) beads to complement reporting convention for OES beads without implying taxonomic homogeneity of molluscs.” ref
“Land snails are some of the most pervasive and dense archaeological residues found at sites across Africa. However, interpretation on a case-by-case basis is typically limited to whether their presence is owed to taphonomic “natural” causes (such as self-introduction through burrowing) vs. human agency (such as subsistence behavior or harvesting). Walz argues that this “(non-) treatment” of land snail debris overlooks other possibilities that may inform broader interpretations of site formation, economic and social behavior, and localized environments. Although land snails have been documented as a food source in both archaeological and ethnographic contexts, ethnographic uses also include subsistence and household tools, landscape markers, decorations and personal adornment, and ritual implements. While respecting the limits of ethnographic analogy, it seems unlikely that these other uses are purely historic. To illustrate this point, Walz documents land snail shell beads, scoop/spoon implements, and shallow bowls from Iron Age contexts at Kwa Mgogo and Gonja Maore in northeastern Tanzania. Land snail artifacts are perhaps overlooked more often than OES because snails are expected taphonomic agents and/or ecofacts at many archaeological sites, attracting less attention and scrutiny.” ref
“Beyond general inattentiveness to snail shells as forms of material culture, LSS beads are likely underreported for several reasons. Primarily, shell beads of all types are generally understudied in archaeological accounts. Whereas glass beads are frequently employed as proxies in Iron Age research for long-distance trading networks, individual and group wealth, and social stratification, shell beads are more enigmatic. Aside from obviously exotic cases of marine species traded inland, OES and LSS beads appear in both hunter-gatherer and agropastoralist contexts and are not indicative of any single social process. Consequently, reporting for shell beads is typically limited to tabulation by level and/or raw material, occasionally with summary statistics on diameter, aperture form, and thickness. Other times, shell beads are only reported as present/absent. Second, LSS beads closely resemble their OES counterparts in coloration, size, and morphology. Because both types of beads are often found within a single site, LSS beads are easily mischaracterized or simply grouped with OES. Ward and Maggs further attribute misidentifications to inadequate magnification and encrustations on bead surfaces. Finally, because of their small size, collection bias may reduce the number of LSS and other beads collected from survey assemblages or excavations where sediments are not finely sieved.” ref
“What is becoming clear, however, is that LSS beads are hardly scarce in the sub-Saharan African archaeological record. We now seek to initiate discourse on the existence and distribution of these artifacts and their role in prehistory. This first requires a review of sites where LSS beads have been identified thus far. We then review several ecological aspects of African land snails as a vehicle for discussing how these animals enter the archaeological record, and what aspects of their physiology affect their utility as a raw material for beadmaking. Here, we build upon earlier scholarship aimed at helping archaeologists distinguish LSS beads from OES and other raw materials. Although it may be possible to assign genus or species-level identifications in some circumstances, we argue that, at minimum, describing this type of disc bead as LSS will help improve reporting and inter-site comparisons. We illustrate our methods using a new case study of LSS beads from Magubike Rockshelter in southern Tanzania, which represent the first directly dated beads of this type. The context of these finds at Magubike evokes broader questions on the nature of these artifacts, starting with when they appear and where they are found. Our ultimate objective is to consider why LSS beads begin to appear alongside, but do not replace, OES beads in many places across sub-Saharan African during the latter stages of the Holocene. We believe this can represent a starting point for more focused study of LSS beads in African archaeology, as part of a broader recognition of land snails as an important component of material culture.” ref
“Reviewing the available literature, it is apparent that LSS beads are not unusual finds. Unfortunately, it also becomes apparent that there is no consistent framework for identification or reporting them. Here, we present the geographic and chronologic distribution of published cases of LSS (and potential LSS) beads. We also include several sites which had not previously published the occurrence of LSS (Mumba, Mlambalasi, Border Cave, and White Paintings Shelter). These cases were ascertained by one of the authors (JM) during first hand observation of collections. It is highly possible that other collections likewise have LSS beads that were mistakenly attributed to OES and have not been further examined.” ref
“The use of variable terminology presented the greatest challenge to this literature review. Without an established convention to identify or report LSS beads, numerous published instances may or may not refer to the same raw material. Sites where the shell bead material was identified as OES, marine shell, or water snail were excluded from this list. Some sites have reference to “shell beads”; however, further searching reveals their identification as something other than land snail, e.g., “small ocean snails” at Takwa, “marine gastropod” of likely Andara sp. at Manda, and “fresh water mollusc” at Gamble’s Cave, all from Kenya. The publications which used the generic term “shell beads” were included in our list, as further study is necessary to determine what type of shell they may be.” ref
“To distinguish between potential LSS cases, the raw material category in Table Table11 has two sub-columns to highlight the different standards in reporting. The first lists the term used in the original publication cited. By far, the most common term in the published literature is Achatina, but this is one genus among hundreds of identified species of African land snails. Some site reports have narrower classifications to a particular species, e.g., A. immaculata at Ntshekane, South Africa. Others use the more generic term “mollusc shell,” such as North Horr 1, Kenya. Based on this information, the second sub-column indicates whether the case is likely to be an LSS bead. Beads which are not indicated as LSS may still belong to this category; however, more information is required to support such a designation. These cases still warrant inclusion in our table as they could represent land snails and merit further study.” ref
“Radiocarbon dates and ages provided in Table Table11 are based on published dates and archaeological contexts. We calibrated all published radiocarbon dates using Intcal13 and reported to 95% confidence interval or 2σ. Unfortunately, chronological control for such finds is often lacking. Direct bead dates would be the most reliable given the stratigraphic mobility of beads; however, no direct LSS dates are available in the existing literature. The next most desirable option is to report dates from an associated layer. Where undated, we report the date from the next closest appropriate context (i.e., the underlying or overlying strata). Many publications report shell beads only as present/absent, or as an overall number from the excavation. In cases without provenience and/or associated dates, we report bracketing dates for the site or a broad time period (Later Stone Age, Pastoral Neolithic, or Iron Age).” ref
When Do LSS Beads Occur?
“Investigating the chronological range of LSS bead cases is challenging because other than those from Magubike, there are no direct dates on these artifacts. At present, it is only possible to determine which LSS beads have published provenience data and correlate that with associated radiocarbon dates from charcoal and other datable material within the same level or strata. This of course only produces a rough estimate of the antiquity of LSS beads. Expectedly, the range is quite broad, spanning approximately 15,000 calBP to as recently as 160 calBP. However, the upper extent of this range is potentially a significant overestimate.” ref
“Only four published sites have LSS beads in strata dated to older than 5,000 BP: Bushman Rockshelter and Tloutle in South Africa, and Kalemba and Makwe Rockshelters in Zambia. At Bushman Rockshelter, half of the Achatina beads (n = 3 of 6) and all of the broken and unfinished beads (n = 3) come from levels 1–5. Plug notes elsewhere that levels 1–2 show mixing of modern and Iron Age material, including Lydenburg-type potsherds, tobacco leaves, and goat dung. It is therefore plausible that the LSS beads postdate even the more recent date of 11,131–10,717 calBP derived from charcoal in level 2. Similarly, inverted mid- and late Holocene dates at Tloutle, one of which is from the seventeenth century, imply that at least uppermost levels are “probably a palimpsest of mid-Holocene and recent Holocene occupations.” ref
“At Kalemba, the only four beads specified to be Achatina come from the uppermost horizons R and S, the latter dated to the last 300 years. The nine remaining beads from earlier P and Q horizons are referred to as “small undeterminable land snail (not Achatina),” that are “made from the flat apex of the shell…punched at the thin center of the spiral”. Judging from the line drawing on page 156, it appears that these are examples of pierced opercula rather than shaped disc beads. Finally, it is worth noting that Makwe Rockshelter has an Iron Age occupation with a high density of artifacts, found above bead layers. It is therefore possible that the Achatina beads from that site are intrusive, especially given the stratigraphically inconsistent dates reported by Phillipson.” ref
“As beads can be quite vertically mobile, particularly in sites with long occupational sequences and trampled, mixed upper strata, direct dating should be strongly considered before any of these cases can be confirmed as early Holocene. Otherwise, the vast majority of the remaining cases from Table Table11 are associated with Iron Age deposits. When only the sites with specifically Achatina or “land snail” beads are considered (n = 55 of 81, sites marked as LSS in Table Table1),1), 56% of known LSS beads come from contexts dated within the past 2,000 years. An additional 26% are undated but associated with Iron Age material culture (Fig. 7). This constitutes strong evidence that LSS beads are a relatively recent phenomenon, potentially associated with Iron Age peoples or contact with them.” ref
“These preliminary findings concord with anecdotal observations found throughout the archaeological literature on LSS beads. Ward and Maggs claim that while OES was preferred for beadmaking in the LSA, Achatinidae dominated the early Iron Age. Garlake adds that shells beads of both OES and Achatina material “occur in all Later Iron Age sites in eastern Africa,” indicating continued use throughout this period. Both Mazel, and Hall and Smith suggest that LSS beads are associated with agriculturalists and may not have been prioritized before the spread of farming. Yet, when reporting LSS beads at the potentially nineteenth-century site of Ficus Cave, Partridge singles them out as the only find that would not be expected in most modern Bantu villages. Formally testing the association between LSS beads and the Iron Age, and determining when this tradition appeared and (potentially) disappeared, requires further research into the archaeological context of individual cases as well as direct radiocarbon dating of the artifacts in question. Based on this initial review, however, it appears that LSS beads appear over 40,000 years after OES traditions are established across sub-Saharan Africa and may persist until the recent past if not ethnographic present.” ref
Where Do LSS Beads Occur?
“Consideration of where LSS beads occur provides additional insight into factors that may have shaped their creation. The earliest examples, and the greatest number of individual sites, are found in the southernmost part of the continent. Forty percent of all sites with specified LSS beads are found in South Africa (n = 22 of 55 LSS sites, Table Table1)1) followed by Zimbabwe (n = 8), Botswana (n = 7), and Zambia (n = 6). Tanzania is also well represented (n = 7), although half the confirmed cases come from this study, suggesting further work is needed in the region. Curiously, there is no compelling evidence of LSS beads in western Africa. We found only one potential case from Kintampo Rockshelter No. 6 in Ghana; however, Stahl suspects the “small shell beads” are more likely from marine Cerithids because the land snail and fresh water mollusc shells in the deposits were too thin to have produced the observed beads.” ref
“Concentration of LSS beads in Southern Africa can be at least partly attributed to greater archaeological research focus. Recent work on the Middle and Later Iron Age in Tanzania has revealed LSS beads at dozens of lesser known sites (J. Walz, pers. comm.), suggesting gaps remain in our knowledge of their distribution. However, we cannot dismiss the fact that the four-corner region of southern Africa was the location of successive large-scale complex societies during the Iron Age, with populous capitals such as Mapungubwe, K2, and Great Zimbabwe. Since such polities were heavily integrated in coastal-interior trading networks, and beads are an important social signaling mechanism in societies undergoing processes of vertical stratification, it is understandable that LSS beads might appear more frequently. Southernmost Africa is also known for ethnographically documented networks of hxaro exchange among !Kung-speaking hunter-gatherers in which OES beads play a major role. Social, political, and economic developments in the later Holocene of this region probably contributed to increased bead demand among both food producers and foragers, with farther ranging effects along trade routes. The presence of Zhizo series glass beads in early strata at Kwa Mgogo suggests that these networks had reached as far as northeastern Tanzania by the mid-tenth century AD, perhaps also explaining the presence of LSS beads in the region.” ref
“Plotting the coordinates of known sites reveals another pattern: LSS bead sites cluster in the Afromontane belt along the eastern extent of the continent even though land snail species occupy a much broader range. Land snails are found from sea level to over 3,000 m in elevation and can live in a wide variety of biomes from coastal shores to savannah grassland to rainforest and mountainous range. If LSS raw material was more widely available, why were LSS beads seemingly restricted geographically?” ref
“The eastern distribution of documented LSS bead use does not appear to be related to environmental factors proposed to affect shell growth and form, such as moisture, temperature, substrate composition, predation, or population density. Although thinner shells can result from environmental calcium deprivation, the growth of snail shells is not well understood. There is some correlation between moist environments and shell morphology, with wetter (and warmer) environments contributing to an elevated growth rate through increased activity and feeding, producing larger shells to accommodate large snail bodies. However, both large and small snail species can occur in the same environment so an environmental explanation for shell bead production seems unlikely. Human intervention is another possibility; agricultural activity around the Limpopo-Shashi confluence in the last 2,000 years may have encouraged snail consumption of crops and thus snail collection to curb these invasive agricultural pests.” ref
“The lack of LSS bead sites reported in central and western Africa remains particularly confusing. This area is presently inhabited by A. achatina, one of the three largest LSS on earth. Ethnographic literature from these regions points to A. achatina as a source of food, suggesting the snails were a familiar resource to people from those areas. Furthermore, given the impressive size of A. achatina—150–200 mm in length and up to 100 mm in height—it should be a good candidate for beadmaking raw material. It is possible the absence of published data may reflect biases in collection and reporting and not necessarily a dearth of LSS beads. However, the distribution of such large snail species in the past requires further study. Evaluating what LSS species make good bead raw materials and their ancient distributions would help determine functional and geographical constraints on societies making beads.” ref
Why Do LSS Beads Occur?
“Drawing on the evidence of when and where LSS beads are known thus far, we can engage with hypotheses to explain why they were created. It is perhaps easier to start by eliminating several possibilities. Ancient peoples did not start making LSS beads because they lost the ability or preference for making beads out of OES, which continue to be prevalent into the ethnographic present. Conversely, LSS beads are not absent earlier in the record because of a dearth of land snails. The sheer amount of unmodified snail shells in archaeological deposits across the continent, combined with evidence for snail middens at sites like Mumba, implies prehistoric peoples were familiar with the potential utility of snail shell.” ref
“Although there may be taphonomic explanations for why LSS beads are not typically found in pre-Iron Age contexts, preservation should not be a major factor. Land snail shell is less brittle than OES and has been described as more durable. Bias is more likely to be introduced by the underreporting of these finds. Alternative explanations are rooted in the environmental, economic, and sociopolitical context of this time period in eastern and southern Africa. Although few sources discuss why LSS beads are present beyond the immediate questions of site formation, hypotheses for their creation tend to revolve around several interrelated themes: environmental change, population increase and incipient social stratification, and the elaboration of Iron Age trade networks.” ref
Environmental Change
“The appearance of LSS beads may be linked to environmental change causing the displacement and scarcity of ostriches. There has been considerable discussion on the connection between climate change and the spread and development of Iron Age cultures around the Shashi-Limpopo Basin and along the Swahili coast. Warm wet periods around c. 2,000 BP and c. 1,000 BP are implicated in the spread of Iron Age populations from drier eastern Africa and population increase associated with K2 and Mapungubwe, while the Little Ice Age c. CE 1,300 may have influenced the abandonment of Mapungubwe and the rise of Great Zimbabwe.” ref
“Environmental change and associated human responses could have impacted ostrich ranges. Hall and Smith argue that the Zhizo occupation of the Limpopo belt during a period of increased rainfall displaced ostriches into more marginal areas to the west. Mitchell makes a similar argument for the reduction of personal ornaments at Tloutle after 6,140 BP, suggesting that ostrich populations may have declined in the basin toward the mid-Holocene. During favorable climatic periods, positive feedback between agricultural land cultivation and rising population densities would have also pushed ostriches and other wild fauna to the margins of large settlements. Increasing reliance on domestic species diminishes natural animal and plant diversity and tends to push wildlife away from habitation sites.” ref
“Other explanations for LSS bead production focus on raw material availability on the local scale. These arguments tend to center on whether ostrich and land snail populations can survive in the same environments or if prevalence of one type of bead over the other can be used as a proxy for environmental conditions. Maggs and Ward argue that ostriches and snails are “ecologically incompatible,” with the former requiring savanna environments and snails requiring forest and brush because they are “quickly killed by direct sunlight.” This is not strictly true since land snails are nocturnal and can survive in the same environments as ostriches by hiding and/or resting during the day, perhaps under brush or in rockshelters, and coming out at night when conditions are more favorable. Both types of organisms would be drawn to ephemeral fresh water resources, although ostriches can obtain the majority of their water requirements from eating plants. It is not quite so straightforward to use the presence of one type of shell to infer the rarity of the other.” ref
Population Increase and Incipient Social Stratification
“Related to discussion of environmental fluctuations and ostrich scarcity, production of LSS beads may have been a response to increased demand for beads. Heightened population densities are detectable beginning in the early Holocene, with associated elaboration of material culture including increased production of beads. This process continued throughout the Holocene, aided by the spread of food production throughout many parts of the continent. The development of Iron Age polities in southern Africa is associated with localized population increases around the Shashi-Limpopo Basin, coupled with increased agricultural production. Population concentration and rising social complexity led to the formation of elites and further increases in craft production. Caches of OES and LSS beads and bead blanks at Schroda are considered to be evidence for elite control of craft production. Bead wearing is an important form of social signaling in many African societies and beyond, relaying information about the wearer’s wealth, control over labor, and/or status through non-verbal means. Increased population density coupled with emerging vertical stratification likely increased economic demand for beads and therefore bead raw materials. If OES became more difficult to procure, either through localized environmental shifts or elite-controlled access, LSS may have produced a viable alternative to keep up with markets.” ref
“However, there is some tension in the literature regarding the relationship between OES and LSS, and if the latter represent higher status, exotic products or lower status, locally made alternatives. Arguments for LSS beads as prestige goods are based on the rarity of snails in the immediate vicinity combined with a lack of on-site manufacture debris, indicating beads were traded in in their finished form. Klehm and Klehm and Ernenwein interpret LSS beads as higher value trade items at the Middle and Late Iron Age sites of Khubu la Dintša and Mmadipudi Hill, Botswana, relative to locally produced OES beads. Dubroc draws similar conclusions for the nearby center of Bosutswe, where LSS beads are concentrated in levels with other exotic goods such as mussel shell beads and non-local game. While the value and status of these artifacts would have been historically contingent, LSS like other non-local beads were seemingly used to establish, maintain, and communicate relationships and social influence within emerging state societies.” ref
“Calabrese, however, argues for the lower status of LSS relative to OES beads at Leokwe Hill, South Africa, where elite Leopard’s Kopje individuals occupied a hilltop above Zhizo commoners. The elite hilltop, area A, revealed higher densities of glass beads (33% of total number) and OES beads (62%) than the commoner area B. Notably, only 1% of Achatina beads found at the site come from area A, whereas 73% come from area B. Calabrese interprets these patterns as reflecting differential access to various types of material culture, and potentially raw materials, with commoners having decreased access to glass and OES beads. Given the visual similarities of OES and LSS beads, particularly from a distance, it is tempting to think of the latter’s appearance as reflecting prehistoric counterfeit operations. No blanks or preforms are reported at Leokwe Hill, so such activities must have taken place elsewhere.” ref
“On-site manufacture of LSS beads, in the form of unfinished preform stages, are only reported at a small number of sites: Mutshilachokwe in Zimbabwe, Makwe in Zambia, Gede in Kenya, Kwa Mgogo, Gonja Kalimani and Gonja Maore in Tanzania, Taukome in Botswana, and Magogo and Bushman Rockshelter in South Africa. Overall status of these items was likely fluid depending on place of manufacture, availability of land snail shell for raw material, and finesse of the final product. Although the existence of LSS beads is almost certainly tied to expressing some form of status or identity, this is contingent on context and not easily generalized in the literature.” ref
Iron Age Trade Networks
“Questions of exotic vs. local items play into other discussions about the role of LSS in trade. Growth of complexity in southern Africa is partly attributed to the development of elaborate trade networks between the Indian Ocean and the interior. Establishment of trade routes and a market for the circulation of personal ornaments, including copper bangles, gold, and glass trade beads, is inextricably linked to other processes discussed such as agricultural intensification, population increase and the emergence of nascent elites, and perhaps ecological changes affecting availability of other raw materials such as OES. LSS beads were potentially incorporated into these networks, meeting existing demand for shell beads founded on long-standing traditions using OES. It remains unclear whether Magubike Rockshelter, located more than 1800 km from major centers in the Shashi-Limpopo Basin, would have been part of the same networks or involved in more localized trade. The presence of LSS and Zhizo series glass beads at Kwa Mgogo only 450 km away suggests both scenarios are possible. It is noteworthy that the two clusters of LSS beads at Magubike date to nearly 1,000 years apart (~ 500 years before and after the Kwa Mgogo finds), suggesting considerable time depth for these artifacts in eastern Africa, and potentially independent innovation. Further data on the prevalence of LSS beads in eastern Africa, as well as evidence for movement between eastern and southern Africa, are needed to better assess trade interconnectivity between these regions.” ref
“It is also interesting to consider the role interaction between hunter-gatherer and agropastoralist populations played in the appearance and proliferation of these artifacts (see Wilmsen and Denbow and comments for consideration of political economies in the Kalahari, past and present). OES beads are one of the primary components of hxaro exchange networks among Khoesan groups such as the Zu/’hoãsi. Individuals are linked in ongoing reciprocal exchange relationships with hxaro partners, circulating various types of gifts (except food), although OES beadwork is preferred. Ethnographic and archaeological data demonstrate the Khoesan also traded ivory, skins, ostrich feathers, and copper with other ethnic groups. Hall and Smith hypothesize that foragers engaged in surplus bead production for trade with farmers, although this may have been limited to raw materials with manufacture located and controlled by the elite within cities. Mitchell considers the possibility that foragers were engaged in simultaneous bead production for multiple purposes. This was previously documented by Wiessner, who observed specialized OES manufacture of smaller beads for hxaro and larger beads for trade. In this scenario, perhaps it was the LSS beads that were being manufactured (or raw material supplied) to agropastoralists to maintain forager supplies of OES for hxaro.” ref
“At present, it appears that LSS beads are largely confined to eastern and southeastern Africa during the last 2,000 years, associated with Iron Age communities. Although this is partly biased by ongoing research foci within southeastern Africa, there is compelling evidence that this phenomenon is linked to population increase, elaboration of trade networks, and the growth of social complexity during the later Holocene. It is intriguing that LSS beads appear tens of thousands of years after the establishment of OES beadmaking, despite the much longer tenure of land snails in the same parts of the world. Although we offer some possible explanations as to why this might be, more data are required to begin formally testing hypotheses. Highlighting these artifacts is intended to promote discussion, and ultimately publication, of additional finds from scholars working in diverse regions across the continent. We hope that re-examination of many disc bead assemblages reveals some unexpected finds.” ref
“This exercise in reviewing cases of LSS beads in sub-Saharan Africa has perhaps revealed more about what we do not know than what we do know. Once geographic and temporal distributions are better defined, there are many fruitful directions for further research. For example, LSS bead production remains largely a mystery. Although there are numerous ethnographic accounts of OES beadmaking, it is more difficult to find accounts using LSS. Several site reports note the presence of LSS preforms, but the lack of high-quality images, drawings, or descriptions render it impossible to assess production stages between sites or through time. Since both OES and LSS are naturally occurring convex shells of comparable thickness, both would be broken into smaller pieces, drilled and shaped, and likely followed similar production sequences notes that unfinished preforms were often drilled from the inner surface of the shell, which is consistent with OES techniques suggesting a procedural similarity. However, variability between LSS and OES manufacture techniques (particularly the application of drilling and shaping with different shell characteristics), and variability among LSS examples, remains unexplored.” ref
“Greater attention to distinguishing LSS beads from OES, direct dating of known and new cases, and reportage using standardized terminology should help increase visibility of these finds and pave the way for future work. To this end, we have offered a review of cases known thus far and practical approaches to identifying LSS using the easily observable microstructure of shell profiles. Recently excavated LSS beads with direct dates from Magubike Rockshelter illustrate these methods and add an important data point to the distribution of LSS beads across eastern and southern Africa. We hope this preliminary work prompts additional research questions on related topics, such as differing manufacture techniques between LSS and OES beads, the co-occurrence of these artifacts with other types of personal ornamentation and symbolic imagery, and the broader role of LSS beads in prehistoric African societies.” ref
The believed Sumerian descendants, the Marsh Arabs – R2, Q2, and X2
“The Marsh Arabs, also referred to as Ahwaris, the Maʻdān or Shroog—the latter two often considered derogatory in the present day—are Arab inhabitants of the Mesopotamian marshlands in the modern-day south Iraq, as well as in the Hawizeh Marshes straddling the Iraq-Iran border. Comprising members of many different tribes and tribal confederations, such as the Āl Bū Muḥammad, Ferayghāt, Shaghanbah, Ahwaris, had developed a culture centered on the marshes’ natural resources and unique from other Arabs. The origins of Marsh Arabs are still a matter of some dispute.” ref
“Some scholars such as Ali al-Wardi have claimed they are descended from the Nabataeans of Iraq, the Aramaic-speaking people who inhabited Lower Mesopotamia in the Middle Ages, and some of their clans even follow their ancestry to Islamized Mandaeans. Other scholars have proposed historical and genetic links between the Marsh Arabs and the ancient Sumerians due to shared agricultural practices, methods of house-building, and location. There is, however, no written record of the marsh tribes until the ninth century and the Sumerians lost their distinct ethnic identity by around 1800 BCE, some 2700 years before. Links to Sumerian genetics can likely be traced back to the Arabization and assimilation of indigenous Mesopotamians. Others, however, have noted that much of the culture of Ahwaris is shared with the desert bedouin who came to the area after the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate.” ref
- Y-DNA haplogroups:
- E1b1b 6.3% (-M35* 2.1%, -M78* 0.7%, -M123* 1.4%, -M34 2.1%)
- G-M201 1.4%
- J1 81.1% (-M267* 7.0%, -P58 (Page08)* 72.7%, -M365 (shared with other J1 branches) 1.4%), J2-M172* 3.5%
- L-M76 0.7%
- Q-M242 2.8% (Q1a1b-M25 0.7%, Q1b-M378 2.1%)
- R-M207 4.2% (R1-L23 2.8%, R2-M124 1.4%)
- Mt-DNA haplogroups:
- West Eurasia (77.8%): R0 24.1% (R0* 0.7%, R0a 6.9%, HV 4.1%, H 12.4%), KU 15.9% (K 6.2%, U 9.7%), JT 22.7% (J 15.2%, T 7.6%), N 15.1% (I 0.7%, N1 8.2%, W 4.8%, X2 1.4%)
- North/East Africa (2.8%): M1 2.8%
- Sub-Saharan Africa (4.9%): L 4.9%
- East Asia (1.4%): B4c2 1.4%
- Southwest Asia (10.4%): M* 0.7%, M3 2.1%, R2 2.8%, U7 4.8%
- Others (2.8%): N* 0.7%, R* 2.1%” ref
People reached Lake Baikal Siberia around 25,000 years ago. They (to Damien) were likely Animistic Shamanists who were also heavily totemistic as well. Being animistic thinkers they likely viewed amazing things in nature as a part of or related to something supernatural/spiritual (not just natural as explained by science): spirit-filled, a sprit-being relates to or with it, it is a sprit-being, it is a supernatural/spiritual creature, or it is a great spirit/tutelary deity/goddess-god. From there comes mythology and faith in things not seen but are believed to somehow relate or interact with this “real world” we know exists.
Both areas of Lake Baikal, one on the west side with Ancient North Eurasian culture and one on the east side with Ancient Northern East Asian culture (later to become: Ancient Northeast Asian culture) areas are the connected areas that (to Damien) are the origin ancestry religion area for many mythologies and religious ideas of the world by means of a few main migrations and many smaller ones leading to a distribution of religious ideas that even though are vast in distance are commonly related to and centering on Lake Baikal and its surrounding areas like the Amur region and Altai Mountains region.
“Lakes are often mysterious bodies of water, especially if they are very deep or surrounded by mountains. No wonder legends and mysteries thrive about them, including monsters that supposedly lurk in their bottomless depths.” ref
People may have first seen the Shaman Rock with the natural brown rock formation resembling a dragon between 30,000 to 25,000 years ago.
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“A 2016 study found that the global maximum of Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) ancestry occurs in modern-day Kets, Mansi, Native Americans, and Selkups. ANE ancestry has spread throughout Eurasia and the Americas in various migrations since the Upper Paleolithic, and more than half of the world’s population today derives between 5 and 42% of their genomes from the Ancient North Eurasians. Significant ANE ancestry can be found in Native Americans, as well as in regions of northern Europe, South Asia, Central Asia, and Siberia. It has been suggested that their mythology may have featured narratives shared by both Indo-European and some Native American cultures, such as the existence of a metaphysical world tree and a fable in which a dog guards the path to the afterlife.” ref
Ancient Northern East Asian/ later became Ancient Northeast Asian
Ancient Paleo-Siberian
Mal’ta–Buret’ culture (Mal’ta boy MA-1)
The Kolyma Shaitans: Legends and Reality (I only use just a small part)
“A unique “shaitan” burial was discovered on the bank of Omuk-Kuel Lake in the Middle-Kolyma ulus in Yakutia. According to the legends, buried in it are mummified remains of a shaman woman who died during a devastating smallpox epidemics in the 18th c. In an attempt to overcome the deadly disease, the shaman’s relatives used her remains as an emeget fetish. The author believes that these legends reflect the real events of those far-away years. The Arabic word “shaitan” came to the Russian language from Turkic languages. According to Islamic tradition, a shaitan is a genie, an evil spirit, a demon. During Russian colonization and Christianization of Siberia, all sacred things used by the aborigines as fetishes, patron spirits of the family, and the tribe, grew to be called “shaitans.” There are various facts, dating to the 18th and 19th cc., confirming that this word also referred to the mummified remains of outstanding shamans.” ref
“In the 1740s, a member of the Second Kamchatka Expedition Yakov Lindenau wrote, “Meat is scratched off the [shaman’s] bones and the bones are put together to form a skeleton, which is dressed in human’s clothes and worshipped as a deity. The Yukagirs place such dressed bones…in their yurts, their number can sometimes reach 10 or 15. If somebody commits even a minor sacrilege with respect to these bones, he stirs up rancor on the part of the Yukagirs… While traveling and hunting, the Yukagirs carry these bones in their sledges, and moreover, in their best sledges pulled by their best deer. When the Yukagirs are going to undertake something really important, they tell fortune using these skeletons: lift a skeleton up, and if it seems light, it means that their enterprise will have a favorable outcome. The Yukagirs call these skeletons stariks (old men), endow them with their best furs, and sit them on beds covered with deer hides, in a circle, as though they are alive.” (Lindenau, 1983, p. 155)” ref
“In the late 19th c., a famous explorer of aboriginal culture V. I. Jochelson noted the changes that occurred in the ritual in the last century and a half. So, the Yukagirs divided among themselves the shaman’s meat dried in the sun and then put it in separate tents. The dead bodies of killed dogs were left there as well. “After that,” V. I. Jochelson writes, “they would divide the shaman’s bones, dry them and wrap in clothes. The skull was an object of worshipping. It was put on top of a trunk (body) cut out of wood. A caftan and two hats – a winter and a summer one – were sewn for the idol. The caftan was all embroidered. On the skull, a special mask was put, with holes for the eyes and the mouth… The figure was placed in the front corner of the home. Before a meal, a piece of food was thrown into the fire and the idol was held above it. This feeding of the idol… was committed before each meal.” (V. I. Jochelson, 2005, pp. 236—237)” ref
“The idol was kept by the children of the dead shaman. One of them was inducted into the shamanism mysteries while his father was still alive. The idol was carried in a wooden box. Sometimes, in line with the air burial ritual, the box was erected on poles or trees, and the idol was taken out only before hunting or a long journey so that the outcome of the enterprise planned could be predicted. With time, the Yukagirs began using wooden idols as charms. V. I. Jochelson notes that by the late 19th c. the Yukagirs had developed a skeptical attitude towards idols and referred to them as “shaitans.” In this way, under the influence of Christianity, the worshipped ancestor’s spirit turned into its opposite – an evil spirit, a devil, a Satan.” ref
Ancestral Native American, Ancient Beringian
14,000-year-old Ust-Kyakhta-3 (UKY) individual found near Lake Baikal
Chertovy Vorota Cave/Devil’s Gate Cave
Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex
32,000-21,000 years ago Yana Culture, at the Yana Woolly Rhinoceros Horn Site in Siberia, with genetic proximity to Ancient North Eurasian populations (Mal’ta and Afontova Gora), but also Ust-Ishim, Sunghir, and to a lesser extent Tianyuan, as well as similarities with the Clovis culture
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
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Here are my thoughts/speculations on where I believe is the possible origin of shamanism, which may have begun sometime around 35,000 to 30,000 years ago seen in the emergence of the Gravettian culture, just to outline his thinking, on what thousands of years later led to evolved Asian shamanism, in general, and thus WU shamanism as well. In both Europe-related “shamanism-possible burials” and in Gravettian mitochondrial DNA is a seeming connection to Haplogroup U. And the first believed Shaman proposed burial belonged to Eastern Gravettians/Pavlovian culture at Dolní Věstonice in southern Moravia in the Czech Republic, which is the oldest permanent human settlement that has ever been found. It is at Dolní Věstonice where approximately 27,000-25,000 years ago a seeming female shaman was buried and also there was an ivory totem portrait figure, seemingly of her.
And my thoughts on how cultural/ritual aspects were influenced in the area of Göbekli Tepe. I think it relates to a few different cultures starting in the area before the Neolithic. Two different groups of Siberians first from northwest Siberia with U6 haplogroup 40,000 to 30,000 or so. Then R Haplogroup (mainly haplogroup R1b but also some possible R1a both related to the Ancient North Eurasians). This second group added its “R1b” DNA of around 50% to the two cultures Natufian and Trialetian. To me, it is likely both of these cultures helped create Göbekli Tepe. Then I think the female art or graffiti seen at Göbekli Tepe to me possibly relates to the Epigravettians that made it into Turkey and have similar art in North Italy. I speculate that possibly the Totem pole figurines seen first at Kostenki, next went to Mal’ta in Siberia as seen in their figurines that also seem “Totem-pole-like”, and then with the migrations of R1a it may have inspired the Shigir idol in Russia and the migrations of R1b may have inspired Göbekli Tepe.
Göbekli Tepe Shamanism
From the journal Praehistorische Zeitschrift
“Abstract: The term shamanism is widely used in archaeology to describe early belief systems. Sometimes, this has taken the form of a one-size-fits-all-explanation, without a discussion of the concept or the cultural contexts it was applied to. Recently, the Early Neolithic (9600–7000 BCE) of southwestern Asia has become a focal point of this discussion. Sites like Nevalı Çori, Göbekli Tepe, Jerf el Ahmar, Körtik Tepe, Tell Abr’3, Tell Qaramel, Wadi Faynan 16, Karahantepe and Sayburç have produced rich evidence, mostly of an iconographical nature, that seems to offer direct insights into early belief systems. The current contribution uses one of the best-researched sites, Göbekli Tepe, as a case study to develop criteria for the identification of shamanism in the archaeological record.” ref
ref
Haplogroup R possible time of origin about 27,000 years in Central Asia, South Asia, or Siberia:
- Mal’ta–Buret’ culture (24,000-15,000 years ago)
- Afontova Gora culture (21,000-12,000 years ago)
- Trialetian culture (16,000–8000 years ago)
- Samara culture (7,000-6,500 years ago)
- Khvalynsk culture (7,000-6,500 years ago)
- Afanasievo culture (5,300-4,500 years ago)
- Yamna/Yamnaya Culture (5,300-4,500 years ago)
- Andronovo culture (4,000–2,900 years ago) ref
Trialetian sites
Caucasus and Transcaucasia:
- Edzani (Georgia)
- Chokh (Azerbaijan), layers E-C200
- Kotias Klde, layer B” ref
Eastern Anatolia:
- Hallan Çemi[9] (from ca. 8.6-8.5k BC to 7.6-7.5k BCE)
- Nevali Çori shows some Trialetian admixture in a PPNB context” ref
Trialetian influences can also be found in:
- Cafer Höyük
- Boy Tepe” ref
Southeast of the Caspian Sea:
- Hotu (Iran)
- Ali Tepe (Iran) (from cal. 10,500 to 8,870 BCE)
- Belt Cave (Iran), layers 28-11 (the last remains date from ca. 6,000 BCE)
- Dam-Dam-Cheshme II (Turkmenistan), layers7,000-3,000 BCE)” ref
“The belonging of these Caspian Mesolithic sites to the Trialetian has been questioned. Little is known about the end of the Trialetian. 6k BC has been proposed as the time on which the decline phase took place. From this date are the first evidence of the Jeitunian, an industry that has probably evolved from the Trialetian. Also from this date are the first pieces of evidence of Neolithic materials in the Belt cave.” ref
“In the southwest corner of the Trialetian region it has been proposed that this culture evolved towards a local version of the PPNB around 7,000 BCE, in sites as Cafer Höyük. Kozłowski suggests that the Trialetian does not seem to have continuation in the Neolithic of Georgia (as for example in Paluri and Kobuleti). Although in the 5,000 BCE certain microliths similar to those of the Trialetian reappear in Shulaveris Gora (see Shulaveri-Shomu) and Irmis Gora.” ref
“The genome of a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer individual found at the layer A2 of the Kotias Klde rock shelter in Georgia (labeled KK1), dating from 9,700 years ago, has been analyzed. This individual forms a genetic cluster with another hunter-gatherer from the Satsurblia Cave, the so-called Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer (CHG) cluster. KK1 belongs to the Y-chromosome haplogruoup J2a (an independent analysis has assigned him J2a1b-Y12379*).” ref
“Although the belonging of the Caspian Mesolithic to the Trialetian has been questioned, it is worth noting that genetic similarities have been found between an Mesolithic hunther-gatherer from the Hotu cave (labeled Iran_HotuIIIb) dating from 9,100-8,600 BCE and the CHG from Kotias Klde. The Iran_HotuIIIb individual belongs to the Y-chromosome haplogroup J (xJ2a1b3, J2b2a1a1) (an independent analysis yields J2a-CTS1085(xCTS11251,PF5073) -probably J2a2-). Then, both KK1 and Iran_HotuIIIb individuals share a paternal ancestor that lived approximately 18.7k years ago (according to the estimates of full). At the autosomal level, it falls in the cluster of the CHG’s and the Iranian Neolithic Farmers.” ref
“Göbekli Tepe (“Potbelly Hill”) is a Neolithic archaeological site near the city of Şanlıurfa in Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey. Dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, between c. 9500 and 8000 BCE, the site comprises a number of large circular structures supported by massive stone pillars – the world’s oldest known megaliths. Many of these pillars are richly decorated with abstract anthropomorphic details, clothing, and reliefs of wild animals, providing archaeologists rare insights into prehistoric religion and the particular iconography of the period..” ref
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- Kebaran culture 23,022-16,522 Years Ago, 2. Kortik Tepe 12,422-11,722 Years Ago, 3. Jerf el-Ahmar 11,222 -10,722 Years Ago, 4. Gobekli Tepe 11,152-9,392 Years Ago, 5. Tell Al-‘abrUbaid and Uruk Periods, 6. Nevali Cori 10,422 -10,122 Years Ago, 7. Catal Hoyuk 9,522-7,722 Years Ago
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10,800-10,000 years old “Göbekli Tepe, engraving of a female person from layer II.” ref
“The Gravettian was an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian circa around 36/33,022 years ago, It is archaeologically the last European culture many consider unified, and had mostly disappeared by c. 22,022 years ago, close to the Last Glacial Maximum, although some elements lasted until c. 17,022 years ago. At this point, it was replaced abruptly by the Solutrean in France and Spain, and developed into or continued as the Epigravettian in Italy, the Balkans, Ukraine, and Russia. The Gravettian culture is known for Venus figurines, which were typically carved from either ivory or limestone. The culture was first identified at the site of La Gravette in the southwestern French department of Dordogne.” ref
“Surviving Gravettian art includes numerous cave paintings and small, portable Venus figurines made from clay or ivory, as well as jewelry objects. The fertility deities mostly date from the early period; there are over 100 known surviving examples. They conform to a very specific physical type, with large breasts, broad hips, and prominent posteriors. The statuettes tend to lack facial details, and their limbs are often broken off.” ref
“In a genetic study published in Nature in May 2016, the remains of fourteen Gravettians were examined. The eight samples of Y-DNA analyzed were determined to be three samples of haplogroup CT, one sample of I, one sample of IJK, one sample of BT, one sample of C1a2, one sample of F. Of the fourteen samples of mtDNA, there were thirteen samples of U and one sample of M. The majority of the sample of U belonged to the U5 and U2. In a genetic study published in Nature in November 2020, the remains of one adult male and two twin boys from a Gravettian site were examined. The Y-DNA analysis revealed that all 3 individuals belonged to haplogroup I. The 3 individuals had the same mtDNA, U5.” ref
“Migration from Siberia behind the formation of Göbeklitepe: Expert states. People who migrated from Siberia formed the Göbeklitepe, and those in Göbeklitepe migrated in five other ways to spread to the world, said experts about the 12,000-year-old Neolithic archaeological site in the southwestern province of Şanlıurfa.“ The upper paleolithic migrations between Siberia and the Near East is a process that has been confirmed by material culture documents,” he said.” ref
“Semih Güneri, a retired professor from Caucasia and Central Asia Archaeology Research Center of Dokuz Eylül University, and his colleague, Professor Ekaterine Lipnina, presented the Siberia-Göbeklitepe hypothesis they have developed in recent years at the congress held in Istanbul between June 11 and 13. There was a migration that started from Siberia 30,000 years ago and spread to all of Asia and then to Eastern and Northern Europe, Güneri said at the international congress.” ref
“The relationship of Göbeklitepe high culture with the carriers of Siberian microblade stone tool technology is no longer a secret,” he said while emphasizing that the most important branch of the migrations extended to the Near East. “The results of the genetic analyzes of Iraq’s Zagros region confirm the traces of the Siberian/North Asian indigenous people, who arrived at Zagros via the Central Asian mountainous corridor and met with the Göbeklitepe culture via Northern Iraq,” he added.” ref
“Emphasizing that the stone tool technology was transported approximately 7,000 kilometers from east to west, he said, “It is not clear whether this technology is transmitted directly to long distances by people speaking the Turkish language at the earliest, or it travels this long-distance through using way stations.” According to the archaeological documents, it is known that the Siberian people had reached the Zagros region, he said. “There seems to be a relationship between Siberian hunter-gatherers and native Zagros hunter-gatherers,” Güneri said, adding that the results of genetic studies show that Siberian people reached as far as the Zagros.” ref
“There were three waves of migration of Turkish tribes from the Southern Siberia to Europe,” said Osman Karatay, a professor from Ege University. He added that most of the groups in the third wave, which took place between 2600-2400 BCE, assimilated and entered the Germanic tribes and that there was a genetic kinship between their tribes and the Turks. The professor also pointed out that there are indications that there is a technology and tool transfer from Siberia to the Göbeklitepe region and that it is not known whether people came, and if any, whether they were Turkish.” ref
“Around 12,000 years ago, there would be no ‘Turks’ as we know it today. However, there may have been tribes that we could call our ‘common ancestors,’” he added. “Talking about 30,000 years ago, it is impossible to identify and classify nations in today’s terms,” said Murat Öztürk, associate professor from İnönü University. He also said that it is not possible to determine who came to where during the migrations that were accepted to have been made thousands of years ago from Siberia. On the other hand, Mehmet Özdoğan, an academic from Istanbul University, has an idea of where “the people of Göbeklitepe migrated to.” ref
“According to Özdoğan, “the people of Göbeklitepe turned into farmers, and they could not stand the pressure of the overwhelming clergy and started to migrate to five ways.” “Migrations take place primarily in groups. One of the five routes extends to the Caucasus, another from Iran to Central Asia, the Mediterranean coast to Spain, Thrace and [the northwestern province of] Kırklareli to Europe and England, and one route is to Istanbul via [Istanbul’s neighboring province of] Sakarya and stops,” Özdoğan said. In a very short time after the migration of farmers in Göbeklitepe, 300 settlements were established only around northern Greece, Bulgaria, and Thrace. “Those who remained in Göbeklitepe pulled the trigger of Mesopotamian civilization in the following periods, and those who migrated to Mesopotamia started irrigated agriculture before the Sumerians,” he said.” ref
“Rb1-V88 around 8,000 years ago. R1b-V88 coalescence time was estimated between 9,200–5,600 years ago. Researchers suggest R1b-V88 is a paternal genetic record of the proposed mid-Holocene migration of proto-Chadic Afroasiatic speakers through the Central Sahara into the Lake Chad Basin, and geomorphological evidence is consistent with this view.” ref
Sumerians
Genetic footprints of Sumerians: a survey of Y-chromosome and mtDNA variation in the Marsh Arabs of Iraq
“For millennia, the southern part of the Mesopotamia has been a wetland region generated by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers before flowing into the Gulf. This area has been occupied by human communities since ancient times, and the present-day inhabitants, the Marsh Arabs, are considered the population with the strongest link to ancient Sumerians. Analyses of the haplogroups and sub-haplogroups observed in the Marsh Arabs revealed a prevalent autochthonous Middle Eastern component for both male and female gene pools, with weak South-West Asian and African contributions, more evident in mtDNA. A higher male than female homogeneity is characteristic of the Marsh Arab gene pool, likely due to a strong male genetic drift determined by socio-cultural factors (patrilocality, polygamy, unequal male and female migration rates).” ref
“Evidence of genetic stratification ascribable to the Sumerian development was provided by the Y-chromosome data where the J1-Page08 branch reveals a local expansion, almost contemporary with the Sumerian City State period that characterized Southern Mesopotamia. On the other hand, a more ancient background shared with Northern Mesopotamia is revealed by the less represented Y-chromosome lineage J1-M267*. Overall our results indicate that the introduction of water buffalo breeding and rice farming, most likely from the Indian sub-continent, only marginally affected the gene pool of autochthonous people of the region. Furthermore, a prevalent Middle Eastern ancestry of the modern population of the marshes of southern Iraq implies that if the Marsh Arabs are descendants of the ancient Sumerians, also the Sumerians were most likely autochthonous and not of Indian or South Asian ancestry.” ref
“The Near East is well known for its important role in human history, particularly as a theatre for great historical events that changed the face of the world during the Neolithic period. The temperate climate and fertile soil brought by the continuous flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, made the Mesopotamian region ideal for early revolutions in agriculture and farming. In particular, the southern part of Mesopotamia (the delta between the two rivers in the present day southern Iraq) has been historically known as the Garden of Eden (biblical name) or Sumer Land, the land of Abraham. The Mesopotamian civilization originated around the 4th millennium BCE (around 6,000 years ago) in the low course of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This alluvial territory, which emerged progressively by soil sedimentation, attracted different populations from the northern and eastern mountains but, whereas traces of their culture are present in the territory, as documented by the Ubaid-Eridu pottery, nothing is available for their identification.” ref
“Only two groups of populations arrived later and in larger number leaved historical records: Sumerian and Semitic groups. The Sumerians, who spoke an isolated language not correlated to any linguistic family, are the most ancient group living in the region for which we have historical evidence. They occupied the delta between the two rivers in the southern part of the present Iraq, one of the oldest inhabited wetland environments. The Semitic groups were semi-nomadic people who spoke a Semitic language and lived in the northern area of the Syro-Arabian desert breeding small animals. From here, they reached Mesopotamia where they settled among the pre-existing populations. The Semitic people, more numerous in the north, and the Sumerians, more represented in the south, after having adsorbed the pre-existing populations, melted their cultures laying the basis of the western civilization.” ref
“The ancient inhabitants of the marsh areas were Sumerians, who were the first to develop an urban civilization some 5,000 years ago. Although footprints of their great civilization are still evident in prominent archaeological sites lying on the edges of the marshes, such as the ancient Sumerian cities of Lagash, Ur, Uruk, Eridu, and Larsa, the origin of Sumerians is still a matter of debate. With respect to this question, two main scenarios have been proposed: according to the first, the original Sumerians were a group of populations who had migrated from “the Southeast” (India region) and took the seashore route through Arabian Gulf before settling down in the southern marshes of Iraq. The second hypothesis posits that the advancement of the Sumerian civilization was the result of human migrations from the mountainous area of Northeastern Mesopotamia to the southern marshes of Iraq, with ensuing assimilation of the previous populations.” ref
“Over time, the many historical and archaeological expeditions that have been conducted in the marshes have consistently reported numerous parallelisms between the modern and ancient life styles of the marsh people. Details such as home architecture (particular arched reed buildings), food gathering (grazing water buffalos, trapping birds and spearing fish, rice cultivation), and means of transportation (slender bitumen-covered wooden boats, called “Tarada”) are documented as still being practiced by the indigenous population locally named “Ma’dan” or “Marsh Arabs”. This village life-style, which has remained unchanged for seven millennia, suggests a possible link between the present-day marsh inhabitants and ancient Sumerians. However, popular tradition considers the Marsh Arabs as a foreign group, of unknown origin, which arrived in the marshlands when the rearing of water buffalo was introduced to the region.” ref
“Marsh Arabs and Iraqis identified 28 haplogroups, 14 in the marsh sample and 22 in the control Iraqis. Only eight haplogroups were shared by both groups. More than 90% of both Y-chromosome gene pools can be traced back to Western Eurasian components: the Middle Eastern Hg J-M304, the Near Eastern Hgs G-M201, E-M78, and E-M123, while the Eurasian Hgs I-M170 and R-M207 are scarce and less common in the Marsh Arabs than in the control sample. Contributions from eastern Asia, India, and Pakistan, represented by Hgs L-M76, Q-M378, and R2-M124, are detected in the Marsh Arabs, but at a very low frequency.” ref
“Haplogroup J accounts for 55.1% of the Iraqi sample reaching 84.6% in the Marsh Arabs, one of the highest frequencies reported so far. Unlike the Iraqi sample, which displays a roughly equal proportion of J1-M267 (56.4%) and J2-M172 (43.6%), almost all Marsh Arab J chromosomes (96%) belongs to the J1-M267 clade and, in particular, to sub-Hg J1-Page08. Haplogroup E, which characterizes 6.3% of Marsh Arabs and 13.6% of Iraqis, is represented by E-M123 in both groups, and E-M78 mainly in the Iraqis. Haplogroup R1 is present at a significantly lower frequency in the Marsh Arabs than in the Iraqi sample (2.8% vs 19.4%; P < 0.001), and is present only as R1-L23. Conversely the Iraqis are distributed in all the three R1 sub-groups (R1-L23, R1-M17 and R1-M412) found in this survey at frequencies of 9.1%, 8.4% and 1.9%, respectively. Other haplogroups encountered at low frequencies among the Marsh Arabs are Q (2.8%), G (1.4%), L (0.7%), and R2 (1.4%).” ref
“When the PCA was based on mtDNA haplogroup frequencies, Marsh Arabs occupied, together with Iraqi and Saudi Arabian populations, a position in the middle of the plot among three distinct groupings: the first included western Eurasian, the second embraced all the South Asian groups while the third represented the North Africa and South Arabian Peninsula peoples. For both systems, the longitudinal separation operated by the first PC is mainly due to the East-West decreasing frequency of East Asian haplogroups (see for example: Y-chromosome Hgs R2-M124, C-RPS4Y, and H-M69; mtDNA Hgs A, F, D, and G) and the increasing frequencies of the African haplogroups (see for example: Y-chromosome Hgs A-M13, B-M60, E-M35; mtDNA Hgs L1, L2, and L3) while the latitudinal separation operated by the second PC is mainly ascribable to the different distribution of haplogroups most frequent in West Eurasian (Y-chromosome Hgs J-M172, M267 and mtDNA Hgs H and U5), and the African-specific haplogroups (Y-chromosome Hgs A-M13, B-M60, E-M35, and mtDNA Hgs L0-3).” ref
“MtDNA variation: A total of 233 haplotypes and 77 sub-haplogroups have been identified in this survey. Only 26 of the observed sub-haplogroups are shared between the two populations, and most of the remaining are represented by singletons. According to their known or supposed geographic/ethnic origin, in addition to a strong West Eurasian component (77.8% and 84.1% in the Marsh Arabs and Iraqis, respectively), it is possible to recognize contributions from North/East and Sub-Saharan Africa and from East and South Asia.” ref
“West Eurasian mtDNAs observed in this study are approximately equally distributed into macro-Hgs R0, KU, and JT, although with haplogroup and sub-haplogroup differences between the two Iraqi samples. In the Marsh Arabs Hg J prevails (15.2%) followed by Hgs H (12.4%), U (9.7%) and T (7.6%). Conversely, in the control group, the most frequent is Hg H (17.0%), followed by Hgs U (14.8%), T (12.6%), and J (11.9%). Both the less represented N1 and W haplogroups show higher frequencies (marginally significant) in Marsh Arabs. The most frequent macro-Hg R0 includes molecules R0a ((preHV)I), more represented among the Marsh Arabs (6.9% vs 4.0%), HV, observed mainly as HV*, but especially H mtDNAs. Although the majority of the H mtDNAs (7.6% in Marsh Arabs vs 10.8% in Iraqis) did not fall into any of the tested sub-haplogroups, a limited number of H subsets (H1, H5, H6, and H14) have been observed. In particular, while H5 (3.4% vs. 2.8%), H1 (0.7% vs. 1.7%), and H14 (0.7% vs. 1.1%) were found in both groups, H6 was observed only in one subject of the control group.” ref
“Almost all the main U sub-haplogroups and the nested K branch were found in the Iraqi sample, but only a sub-set of them (K1, U3, U4, U5, in addition to the South West Asian U7) were observed in the Marsh Arabs. The nested Hg K, mainly K1, was observed at a comparable frequency in both groups (6.2% in the marshes vs 4.6%). The situation of macro-Hg JT is more complex. Significant differences (P < 0.05) emerged in the distribution of J1 and J2 sub-clades, with the latter much more frequent in the marshes (6.2% vs 1.7%). By contrast, Hg T displayed a lower frequency in the marshes (7.6% vs 12.6%) due to a significant lower incidence of its T2 sub-clade (2.1% vs 6.9%, P < 0.05). On the other hand, Hgs N1 (8.2%) and W (4.8%), were both present in the marshes at a three-fold higher frequency than in Iraqis. Haplogroup X was detected as X2 with a frequency lower than 2% in both population samples.” ref
African haplogroups are of North/East and sub-Saharan African origin and represent minor components in both groups. The North/East African contribution is mainly represented by Hg M1 which accounts for 2.8% of Marsh Arabs and 1.2% of the Iraqi sample, the latter displaying also 0.6% of Hg U6. The sub-Saharan African component comprised Hgs L0, L1, L2 and L3 and accounted for 4.9% in the marshes and 9.1% of the control sample. Out of the twelve African sub-haplogroups identified in this survey, six in the marshes and seven in the control sample, only one (L2a1) was shared between the two Iraqi groups.” ref
“The Asian contribution was significantly higher (P < 0.01) in the Marsh Arabs than in the control sample (11.8% vs 5.2%). It includes mtDNAs belonging to the Southern Asian Hgs M (M*, M33, M37e) and R2 in Marsh Arabs, and R5a and U2d in the control sample. Haplogroup U7, frequent in Southwest Asia, was observed in both groups. The East Asian haplogroup B4 was detected at a very low frequency in both Iraqi groups.” ref
“Only a small proportion of the Marsh Arab gene pool derives from gene flow from neighboring regions. On the paternal side, our phylogeographic data highlight some southwest Asian specific contributions as testified to by Hgs Q, L, and R2, known as South Asian Y-chromosome lineages, primarily observed in India and Pakistan. Different from the Iraqi control sample, the Marsh Arab gene pool displays a very scarce input from the northern Middle East (Hgs J2-M172 and derivatives, G-M201 and E-M123), virtually lacks western Eurasian (Hgs R1-M17, R1-M412 and R1-L23) and sub-Saharan African (Hg E-M2) contributions. On the other hand, the absence in both Iraqi groups of the North African E-M81 branch, speaks against substantial patrilineal gene flow from this region.” ref
“On the maternal side, a significant (East/Southwest) Asian component (11.8%) is present among Marsh Arabs as testified to by Hgs B4, M, R2, and U7. The B4 mtDNAs carry control-region motifs observed in Iran, Kirghizstan, Western Siberia, Vietnam, and Korea, attesting to contact with Central and East Asia. This observation is likely due to recent gene flow, although it is worth noting that the ancient Silk Road passed through the Iraqi region from Basra to Baghdad. On the other hand, the majority of M, R2, and U7 mtDNAs display control-region motifs observed in South West Asia and, in particular, in India. Additional evidence of the multiple relationships with South West Asia derives from the presence of one M33 mtDNA, which was completely sequenced, (GenBank accession number: JN540042). This mtDNA belongs to the M33a2a clade and clusters with three sequences from Uttar Pradesh, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, respectively. On the other hand, the presence in Iraq of Hgs M1 (in both Iraqi groups) and U6 (in the control sample) of North/East African origin is indicative of some limited gene flow from that area. The sub-Saharan contribution is instead represented by haplogroups L0, L1, L2, and L3. It reaches values (~8%) in line with those reported for other Middle Eastern Arab populations.” ref
“The last point is well illustrated by Y-chromosome data where the less represented J1-M267* lineage indicates Northern Mesopotamia contributions, whereas the most frequent J1-Page08 branch reveals a local recent expansion about 4,000 years ago. Although the Y-chromosome age estimates deserve caution, particularly when samples are small and standard errors large, it is interesting to note that these estimates overlap the City State period, which characterized Southern Mesopotamia and is testified to by numerous ancient Sumerian cities (Lagash, Ur, Uruk, Eridu, and Larsa).” ref
“In conclusion, our data show that the modern Marsh Arabs of Iraq harbor mtDNAs and Y chromosomes that are predominantly of Middle Eastern origin. Therefore, certain cultural features of the area, such as water buffalo breeding and rice farming, which were most likely introduced from the Indian sub-continent, only marginally affected the gene pool of the autochthonous people of the region. Moreover, a Middle Eastern ancestral origin of the modern population of the marshes of southern Iraq implies that, if the Marsh Arabs are descendants of the ancient Sumerians, also Sumerians were not of Indian or Southern Asian ancestry.” ref
“The Ma’dan, or Marsh Arabs, is a distinct group of people who originally inhabited the marshy area at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq before the marshes were destroyed by irrigation projects developed by the Iraqi government. A seminomadic tribal people, the Ma’dan once lived in reed huts built on floating islands of reeds, and made their living by herding water buffalo, fishing, and hunting wild boars and waterfowl. Their houses were elaborately woven with Gothic-like arches made of bundles of reeds tied together at the top. This same kind of house had been built since the 4th millennium BCE.” ref
“The marshes were covered with rushes and reeds. Qasab, a kind of giant grass that looks like bamboo, covered most of the land and grew as tall as 7.6 m (25 ft). Natural islands, some floating and some anchored, dotted the waters, and the marshes were alive with wildlife, including turtles, frogs, various waterfowl, wild boars, and hordes of mosquitoes in the summer. Eagles were a common sight, soaring in the skies above the marshes. Summers were hot and humid; in the winter, the water was icy, and the winds were cold. A strong wind, called the “forty days’ wind,” blew throughout the month of June. Some historians believe the marshes were the Garden of Eden from the Bible.” ref
“The traditional Ma’dan believed in jinn, bad spirits who could take the form of humans or other animals. Unique to Ma’dan folklore are two marsh monsters: the anfish, a giant serpent with hairy skin, and the afa, a giant serpent with legs. Both were said to live somewhere in the heart of the marshes, and both were deadly. The Ma’dan also believed in a place called Hufaidh, an island of paradise located in the southwest part of the marshes, although no one knows exactly where. According to legends, the jinn could hide the island from human sight. On this island were palaces, palm trees, pomegranate orchards, and huge water buffalo. It was believed that anyone who saw Hufaidh was bewitched, and no one would be able to understand the person’s words afterward. Ma’dan boys are traditionally circumcised at puberty, but many boys refuse because of the frequent occurrence of infection afterward. After a death, some Ma’dan dye their turbans dark blue to signify mourning. Others put mud on their heads and clothes.” ref
“The traditional Ma’dan way of life was organized as a tribal society made up of various groups of families who shared a common lineage, with each family group headed by a sheikh (leader). Marriages were arranged by parents, although a couple had some choice in the matter. Paternal first cousins had the first claim to a young woman for their bride. Another who wished to marry her must have her paternal first cousin’s father’s agreement to give up his son’s right to her. In traditional Ma’dan homes, men and women did not eat together and all meals were conducted in silence. All talking was done before and after the meal, never during it. Men and women were generally segregated in public life as well, although young children would play together.” ref
“The displacement of the Ma’dan from their homeland in the marshes has caused the traditional tribal structure to deteriorate. Little is known about the conditions of Ma’dan women. Nearly 4.2 million Iraqis have fled the war-torn country, and an additional 2.2 million have left homelands within the country for cities and urban areas. The Ma’dan are among this group of displaced individuals, and until the situation in Iraq can be stabilized, the survival of both Ma’dan men and women is highly at risk.” ref
“One of the populations associated with haplogroup Q1b1 is the Marsh Arab population in the southern part of Mesopotamia. For thousands of years, this region has been a wetland due to its position between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern-day Iraq. Mesopotamia has had human occupants since shortly after they first migrated from Africa 60,000-80,000 years ago. The current inhabitants of Mesopotamia, the Marsh Arabs, have strong ties to the ancient Sumer, one of the world’s first civilizations. Like their ancient forebears, Marsh Arab culture includes architecture based on arched reed buildings, subsistence strategies from grazing water buffalo, trapping birds, and spearing fish to cultivating rice, and the use of skinny boats called “Tarada” for transportation.” ref
“Haplogroup Q-L245 is linked to the Marsh ArabsOne of the populations associated with haplogroup Q1b1 is the Marsh Arab population in the southern part of Mesopotamia. For thousands of years, this region has been a wetland due to its position between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern-day Iraq.” ref
Caucasus
“Caucasus hunter-gatherer (CHG), also called Satsurblia cluster, first identified in a 2015 study, based on the population genetics of several modern Western Eurasian (European, Caucasian, and Near Eastern) populations. It represents an ancestry maximized in some Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherer groups in the Caucasus. These groups are also very closely related to Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers in the Iranian Plateau, who are sometimes included within the CHG group. Ancestry that is closely related to CHG-Iranian Neolithic farmers is also known from further east, including from the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex and the Harappan/Indus Valley Civilisation. Caucasus hunter-gatherers and Eastern hunter-gatherers are ancestral in roughly equal proportions to the Western Steppe Herders (WSH), who were widely spread across Europe and Asia beginning during the Chalcolithic.” ref
“The Mesolithic/Neolithic Iranian lineage basal to the Caucasus hunter-gatherers are inferred to derive significant amounts of their ancestry from Basal Eurasian (c. 38–48%), with the remainder ancestry being closer to Ancient North Eurasians or Eastern European Hunter-Gatherer (ANE/EHG; c. 52–62%). The CHG displayed an additional ANE-like component (c. 10%) than the Neolithic Iranians do, suggesting they may have stood in continuous contact with Eastern Hunter-Gatherers to their North. The CHG also carry around 20% additional Paleolithic Caucasus/Anatolian ancestry. Lazaridis et. al (2016) models the CHG as a mixture of Neolithic Iranians, Western Hunter-Gatherers and Eastern Hunter-Gatherers. In addition, CHG cluster with early Iranian farmers, who significantly do not share alleles with early Levantine farmers.” ref
“An alternative model without the need of significant amounts of ANE ancestry has been presented by Vallini et al. (2024), suggesting that the initial Iranian hunter-gatherer-like population which is basal to the CHG formed primarily from a deep Ancient West Eurasian lineage (‘WEC2’, c. 72%), and from varying degrees of Ancient East Eurasian (c. 10%) and Basal Eurasian (c. 18%) components. The Ancient West Eurasian component associated with Iranian hunter-gatherers (WEC2) is inferred to have diverged from the West Eurasian Core lineage (represented by Kostenki-14; WEC), with the WEC2 component staying in the region of the Iranian Plateau, while the proper WEC component expanded into Europe. Irving-Pease et. al (2024) models CHG as being derived from an Out of Africa population that split into basal Northern Europeans and West Asians. The latter was where CHG originated from.” ref
“At the beginning of the Neolithic, at c. 8000 BCE pr around 10,000 years ago, they were probably distributed across western Iran and the Caucasus, and people similar to the northern Caucasus and Iranian plateau hunter-gatherers arrived before 6000 BCE in Pakistan and north-west India. A roughly equal merger between the CHG and Eastern Hunter-Gatherers in the Pontic–Caspian steppe resulted in the formation of the Western Steppe Herders (WSHs). The WSHs formed the Yamnaya culture and subsequently expanded massively throughout Europe during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age c. 3000—2000 BCE. Caucasus hunter gatherer/Iranian-like ancestry, was first reported as maximized in hunter-gatherers from the South Caucasus and early herders/farmers in northwestern Iran, particularly the Zagros, hence the label “CHG/Iranian.” ref
“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, later refined to J1-FT34521, and J2-Y12379*, and mitochondrial haplogroups of K3 and H13c, respectively. Their genomes showed that a continued mixture of the Caucasians with Middle Eastern populations took place up to 25,000 years ago, when the coldest period in the last Ice Age started. “CHG ancestry was also found in an Upper Palaeolithic specimen from Satsurblia cave (dated c. 11000 BCE), and in a Mesolithic one from Kotias Klde cave, in western Georgia (dated c. 7700 BCE).” ref
“The Satsurblia individual is closest to modern populations from the South Caucasus. Margaryan et al. (2017) analysing South Caucasian ancient mitochondrial DNA found a rapid increase of the population at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, about 18,000 years ago. The same study also found continuity in descent in the maternal line for 8,000 years. According to Narasimhan et al. (2019) Iranian farmer related people arrived before 6000 BCE in Pakistan and north-west India, before the advent of farming in northern India. They suggest the possibility that this “Iranian farmer–related ancestry […] was [also] characteristic of northern Caucasus and Iranian plateau hunter-gatherers.” ref
“During the Neolithic and early Eneolithic, likely during the 4th millennium BC, Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHGs) mixed with Eastern Hunter-gatherers (EHGs) on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, with the resulting population, almost half-EHG and half-CHG, forming the genetic cluster known as Western Steppe Herder (WSH). To David W. Anthony, Caucasus hunter-gatherer ancestry of Yamnaya is often with higher than 50%. As well as an overwhelming WSH ancestry, Yamnaya also have additional admixture from Anatolian and Levantine farmers, and the Western Hunter-gatherers (WHGs). Some scholars argue that the archaic PIE (‘Indo-Anatolian’) language may have originated among a CHG-rich population in Western Asia, based on the lack of EHG ancestry in the probable speakers of Anatolian languages. Others, such as Anthony, suggest that PIE was spoken by EHGs living in Eastern Europe.” ref
“According to Jones et al. (2015), Caucasus hunter-gatherer (CHG) “genomes significantly contributed to the Yamnaya steppe herders who migrated into Europe ~3,000 BCE, supporting a formative Caucasus influence on this important Early Bronze Age culture. CHG left their imprint on modern populations from the Caucasus and also Central and South Asia possibly correlating with the arrival of Indo-Aryan languages.” For example, about 50%-70% of Armenian ancestry is derived from CHG, persisting from Neolithic times to the present. Wang et al. (2018) analyzed genetic data of the North Caucasus of fossils dated between the 4th and 1st millennia BC and found a correlation with modern groups of the South Caucasus, concluding that “unlike today – the Caucasus acted as a bridge rather than an insurmountable barrier to human movement.” According to Allentoft et al. (2024), The arrival and admixture of CHG with Caspian steppe cultures is dated to about 7,300-years-old, which is seen in two ancient samples from Golubaya Krinitsa with 18-24% admixture.” ref
“CHG/Iranian Plateau Neolithic-like ancestry is prominent in pre-steppe admixture Chalcolithic and Bronze Age (4500–2000 BCE) populations in Central Asia, like the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (which also had Anatolian Neolithic Farmer-related ancestry) as well as in the northwestern Indian subcontinent such as in sites in or adjacent to the Indus Valley Civilisation (who have mixed CHG-related and Ancient Ancestral South Indian ancestry). It is unclear as to whether the dispersal of CHG/Iranian Plateau-related ancestry eastwards to the Indian subcontinent was the result of the migration of farmers or an earlier dispersal of hunter-gatherers who later adopted farming, but this dispersal likely occurred sometime before 6000 BCE due to the lack of Anatolian Farmer-related ancestry in ancient South Asians, but which is present in the Iranian Plateau after this time. This pre-steppe CHG-related ancestry makes up a significiant proportion of the ancestry of modern South Asians. WSHs, who were of significant CHG ancestry, also later migrated into Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent.” ref
“The 1100-kilometre 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 calBCE. 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 BCW, 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 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. 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
“In our study, we 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 connected6. We 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.” ref
“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, we 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. Here we 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
“The two distinct clusters are already visible in the oldest individuals of our temporal transect, dated to the Eneolithic period (~6300–6100 yBP/4300–4100 calBCE). Three individuals from the sites of Progress 2 and Vonyuchka 1 in the North Caucasus piedmont steppe (‘Eneolithic 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 (orange) and CHG/Iran Neolithic (green) 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.” ref
“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
“Individuals from the North Caucasian steppe associated with the Yamnaya cultural formation (5300–4400 BP, 3300–2400 calBCE) 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 (4800–4500 BP, 2800–2500 calBCE) in the piedmont steppe, who share the steppe ancestry profile, as do individuals from the Catacomb culture in the Kuban, Caspian, and piedmont steppes (4600–4200 BP, 2600–2200 calBCE), which succeeded the Yamnaya horizon.” ref
“The individuals of the MBA post-Catacomb horizon (4200–3700 BP, 2200–1700 calBCE) 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 calBCE) retain the ‘southern’ Caucasus profile. In contrast, one Lola culture individual resembles the ancestry profile of the Steppe Maykop individuals.” ref
“Evidence for interaction between the Caucasus and the Steppe clusters is visible in our genetic data from individuals associated with the later Steppe Maykop phase around 5300–5100 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
“Eneolithic 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 previous studies, reflecting different processes not directly related to events in the Caucasus.” ref
Uan Muhuggiag
“Uan Muhuggiag is an archaeological site in Libya that was occupied by pastoralists between the early Holocene and mid-Holocene; the Tashwinat mummy, which was found at Uan Muhuggiag, was dated to 5600 years ago and presently resides in the Assaraya Alhamra Museum in Tripoli. Uan Muhuggiag is a rock shelter in southwestern Libya in what is now the Sahara Desert. It is located on the bank of the Wadi Teshuinat, sitting on a plateau in the Tadrart Acacus at almost 3000 feet above sea level. The site is approximately 1500 miles west of the Nile Valley.” ref
“The most noteworthy find at Uan Muhuggiag is the well-preserved mummy of a young boy of approximately 2+1⁄2 years old. The child was embalmed, positioned into a fetal position, then placed in a sack made of antelope skin which was insulated by a layer of leaves. The boy’s organs were removed, as evidenced by incisions in his abdomen and thorax, and an organic preservative was inserted to stop his body from decomposing. An ostrich eggshell necklace was also found around his neck. The mummy of the child has been radiocarbon dated, via the deepest coal layer where it was found, to 7438 ± 220 years ago, and, via the animal hide it was wrapped in, to 5405 ± 180 years ago, which has been calibrated to 6250 cal years ago. This date precedes the earliest known Ancient Egyptian mummies by one thousand years. Another date for the animal hide made from the skin of an antelope, which was accompanied by remnants of a grind stone and a necklace made from the eggshell of an ostrich, is 4225 ± 190 BCE.” ref
“Uan Muhuggiag was inhabited during the early- to mid-Holocene in what has been termed as the African Aqualithic culture complex, or “Green Sahara” period. Analysis of pollen found at the base levels of the site dating to between 7500 and 5000 BCE indicates a wet savannah. Extensive samples from a number of sites indicate that tropical humid plants began to expand northward around 12,000 years ago after a lengthy dry period, eventually reaching deep into what is today the Sahara Desert. Rock art findings depicting elephants, giraffes, and crocodiles were discovered at sites surrounding Uan Muhuggiag. Furthermore, fish bones, fish hooks, and harpoons were found at several sites in the Sahara region. It is speculated that the dry period that continues into the present day began around 5000 years ago, which led to the abandonment of the site.” ref
“Uan Muhuggiag appears to have been inhabited from at least the sixth millennium BCE to about 2700 BCE, although not necessarily continuously. The stratigraphic sequence comprises seven distinct occupation levels. Layer 1 is the very top layer, followed by layer 1a. The middle level is labeled from 2a to 2d, with 2d being the oldest. Finally, below that, there is also a layer 3, which is further subdivided into section A, at the top, and section B, at the bottom. Layer 1 has been dated as beginning around 3800 years ago, and consists of loose aeolian sand at the very top, slightly cemented sand and dung below that, and hearths at the bottom.” ref
“Animal remains found at the site include domestic cattle, sheep or goat, wild cat, wild donkey, warthog, gazelle, hare, baboon, and turtle. Domestic cattle bones were also found in the lowest layers and perhaps date from the eighth millennium years ago, providing some of the earliest known evidence of pastoralism in the Sahara. Among the faunal remains in the middle layers, dated to be roughly between 5300 and 6000 years ago, remains of sheep and goats appear more frequently. It has been surmised that this was probably the time period when the shelter was most actively occupied. Fruits and plant seeds were also found. There were more than 30 different species of plant seeds found during the 1982 excavations by Barich, including millet and wild melon. The seeds spanned a long period of time, with the most recent being three date seeds that were radiocarbon dated to 2130 years ago, suggesting that the shelter continued to be inhabited intermittently, even after the period of main occupation and subsequent drought.” ref
“The pottery at Uan Muhuggiag was found mainly in the top layers. It is of the dotted wavy-line decorated variety that was common in the region during that period. There is evidence that a two-toothed tool was used in order to create equal spacing between the dots, known as the “return” technique. Other finds at Uan Muhuggiag include two hemispherical hollows dug out of the rock, measuring approximately 30 to 40 centimeters, called “kettles.” These were found completely covered by deposits and are estimated to be from at least 7500 years ago. Several pieces of charcoal were also found, the oldest of which were determined to be 7800 years old. They were probably used in large fireplace pits. The lower levels also uncovered backed and microlithic tools, while lithics such as flakes and arrowheads were found in the upper layers. A total of 406 stone tool fragments were found in level 2a, and 77 in the earliest occupation level of 2d.” ref
“Antonio Ascenzi, a pathologist, believes that Uan Muhuggiag and the surrounding area became inhabited around 10,000 years ago by Negroid peoples, who followed the monsoon north. It has been suggested that some time later, around 7000 years ago, people from Mesopotamia and the Middle East arrived, introducing pastoralism to the region. The idea of domestic cattle in Africa coming from the Fertile Crescent exclusively is now seen as having serious shortcomings. As no hard archaeological evidence supports this claim, and subsequent archaeology has revealed a deep well of cattle integration and early association of cattle with religious and subsistence strategies in Holocene Africa. More modern scholarship has instead found that the origins of pastoralism, cattle worship, and cattle domestication lie most likely in areas of the Sudanese Nile Valley (e.g., Affad). Several discoveries at Letti, in Sudan, suggest early burial and domestication of cattle, including early implements used to safely bleed cattle without harming them. The cultural practice of drinking cow blood on special occasions is still shared to this day by many Nilotic cattle herding groups in Africa, such as the Maasai and Dinka.” ref
“One of the earliest burials of cattle can be found at the site of Nabta Playa, which had inhabitants that were of the same Nilo-Saharan traditions of Sudan and the broader Nile Valley. These people were responsible for sacrificial cattle burials in clay-lined and roofed chambers covered by rough stone tumuli. At one of the sites from the beginning of the Holocene (~10,000 years ago), among the bones of wild fauna, remains of domesticated cattle with ‘auroch-like’ features were found. There is strong evidence that domestic livestock, principally cattle, played an important role in the lives of the inhabitants of Uan Muhuggiag, which is supported by the amount of cattle bones found at the site as well as evidence of a cattle cult and ritual sacrifice at a location in the Messak Plateau, approximately 60 miles in distance from the site.” ref
“The Tashwinat mummy found at Uan Muhuggiag was one thousand years older than the oldest known Egyptian mummy. Its sophisticated form of evisceration indicates a highly advanced society. Some scholars argue that the sub-Saharan African population living there could have had an influence on the process of mummification used in Ancient Egypt a thousand years later. Considerable debate also exists about whether the rock art found at Uan Muhuggiag along with the two mummies, signify that the shelter was a burial place or otherwise sacred. Mori was a strong advocate of this theory and believed that the site was a place where a cult of the dead took place.” ref
The Garbage Crisis in prehistory: artifact discard patterns at the Early Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 and the origins of household refuse disposal strategies
“Abstract: Concepts of refuse behavior and site abandonment have been developed that show the potential to distinguish degrees of mobility and sedentism among past human communities. Whereas much of this work had been conducted in ethnographic situations or on recent sites, this study makes an initial attempt to apply this body of theory to the archaeological record of humanity’s most fundamental settlement transition: from mobile hunter-gatherer to settled village farmer. The centerpiece of the study is an analysis of artifact distribution patterns in the Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 (ca. 12,000 years ago), which is combined with a diachronic overview of data from earlier and later sites, dating from 20,000 to 8000 years ago. We conclude that human communities in the Natufian period had not yet tailored their indifferent household refuse disposal practices to the long-term requirements of sedentary living. Subsequently, there occurs a punctuated gradient of change in the Levantine sequence, towards higher rates of secondary refuse disposal. Elementary efforts at refuse disposal began in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period (ca. 10,300–9,200 years ago), and some form of consistent garbage cycling was probably a standard feature in many villages by the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period (ca. 9,200–8,000 years ago).” ref
R1a
“R1a could have migrated directly to eastern Europe (European Russia, Ukraine, Belarus), or first southward through Central Asia and Iran. In that latter scenario, R1a would have crossed the Caucasus during the Neolithic, alongside R1b, to colonize the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. In the absence of ancient Y-DNA from those regions, the best evidence supporting a Late Paleolithic migration to Iran is the presence of very old subclades of R1a (like M420) in the region, notably in the Zagros mountains. However, these samples only make up a fraction of all R1a in the region and could just as well represent the descendants of Eastern European hunter-gatherers who branched off from other R1a tribes and crossed from the North Caucasus any time between 20,000 and 8,000 years ago. The logic behind this is that most known historical migrations in Eurasia took place from north to south, as people sought warmer climes. The only exception happened during the Holocene warming up of the climate, which corresponds to the Neolithic colonization of Europe from the Near East. A third possibility is that R1a tribes split in two around Kazakhstan during the Late Paleolithic, with one group moving to eastern Europe, while the other moved south to Iran.” ref
“Some people have theorized that R1a was one of the lineages of the Neolithic farmers, and would have entered Europe through Anatolia, then spread across the Balkans toward Central Europe, then only to Eastern Europe. There are many issues with this scenario. The first is that 99% of modern R1a descends from the branch R1a-M417, which clearly expanded from the Bronze Age onwards, not from the early Neolithic. Its phylogeny also points at an Eastern European origin. Secondly, most of the R1a in the Middle East are deep subclades of the R1a-Z93 branch, which originated in Russia (see below). It could not have been ancestral to Balkanic or Central European R1a. Thirdly, there is a very strong correlation between the Northeast European autosomal admixture and R1a populations, and this component is missing from the genome of all European Neolithic farmers tested to date – even from Ötzi, who was a Chalcolithic farmer. This admixture is also missing from modern Sardinians, who are mostly descended from Neolithic farmers. This is incontrovertible evidence that R1a did not come to Europe with Neolithic farmers, but only propagated from Eastern Europe to the rest of Europe from the Bronze Age onwards.” ref
“R1a is thought to have been the dominant haplogroup among the northern and eastern Proto-Indo-European tribes, which evolved into the Indo-Iranian, Thracian, Baltic, and Slavic people. The Proto-Indo-Europeans originated in the Yamna culture (3300-2500 BCE). Their dramatic expansion was possible thanks to an early adoption of bronze weapons and the domestication of the horse in the Eurasian steppes (circa 4000-3500 BCE). Individuals from the southern part of the Steppe are believed to have carried predominantly lineages belonging to haplogroup R1b (L23 and subclades), while the people of northern forest-steppe to the north would have belonged essentially to haplogroup R1a. The first expansion of the forest-steppe people occurred with the Corded Ware Culture (see Germanic branch below).” ref
“The forest-steppe origin of this culture is obvious from the usage of corded pottery and the abundant use of polished battle axes, the two most prominent features of the Corded Ware culture. This is also probably the time when the satemisation process of the Indo-European languages began, considering that the Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian language groups belong to the same Satem isogloss, and both appear to have evolved from the Catacomb and Srubna cultures. Ancient DNA testing has confirmed the presence of haplogroup R1a-M417 in samples from the Corded Ware culture in Germany (2600 BCE), from Tocharian mummies (2000 BCE) in Northwest China, from Kurgan burials (circa 1600 BCE) from the Andronovo culture in southern Russia and southern Siberia, as well as from a variety of Iron-age sites from Russia, Siberia, Mongolia and Central Asia.” ref
“The origins of the Slavs go back to circa 3500 BCE with the northern Yamna culture and its expansion across Central and Northeast Europe with the Corded Ware culture. The M458 and Z280 lineages spread around Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and western Russia and would form the core of the Proto-Balto-Slavic culture. The high prevalence of R1a in Baltic and Slavic countries nowadays is not only due to the Corded Ware expansion, but also to a long succession of later migrations from Russia, the last of which took place from the 5th to the 10th century CE. The Slavic branch differentiated itself when the Corded Ware culture absorbed the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture (5200-2600 BCE) of western Ukraine and north-eastern Romania, which appears to have been composed primarily of G2a-U1 et I2a1b-M423 lineages descended directly from Paleolithic Europeans, with some other Near-Eastern farmer lineages (notably E-V13, J2a and T1a).” ref
“It is surely during this period that I2a2, E-V13, and T spread (along with R1a) around Poland, Belarus, and western Russia, explaining why eastern and northern Slavs (and Lithuanians) have between 10 and 20% of I2a1b lineages and about 10% of Middle Eastern lineages (18% for Ukrainians). The Corded Ware period was followed in the steppes by the Srubna culture (1800-1200 BCE), and around Poland by the Trzciniec culture (1700-1200 BCE). Mathieson et al. (2015) and Krzewinska et al. (2018) each retrieved the Y-DNA from six Srubna individuals, and all 12 of them belonged to haplogroup R1a. Those tested for deep clades were positive for Z93, the Indo-Iranian branch.” ref
From the Epipalaeolithic into the earliest Neolithic (PPNA) in the South Levant
“Abstract: This paper examines the nature of initial neolithisation indications during the terminal Pleistocene and earliest Holocene in the Southern Levant. This interval corresponds to a period of significant and geographically variable environmental changes in the region. Various lines of evidence are provided to demonstrate the long durée (~15 000 years) character of interactions during the Early, Middle, and Late Epipalaeolithic that was instrumental to the emergence of the fully-fledged agricultural lifeways in the later phases of the Early Neolithic (PPNB).” ref
“Since the inception of research in Southwest Asia, the unique ‘bridging’ role of the Natufian culture, between the ‘Palaeolithic’ and the ‘Neolithic’ (with all that such a role implies) has been widely acknowledged. The ‘intermediate’ nature of this entity – representing the shift from the preceding groups of mobile hunter-gatherers towards the following settled farming societies, especially in the Mediterranean zone – is reflected in many aspects of its material culture and lifeways. There is, for the first time, evidence of long-term, semi-sedentary basecamp sites with substantial, durable structures accompanied by a largely microlithic knapped industry (Palaeolithic in nature), together with a heavy-duty component and sickle blades (heralding the chipped stone traditions of the Neolithic).” ref
“Other distinctive features include cemeteries exhibiting complex burial rites, extensive groundstone and bone tool assemblages, and the appearance of artistic and symbolic manifestations as constant components of the material culture repertoire. Yet, after many years of systematic research, the terminology and processes involved in the transformation from the latest Natufian to the first Neolithic entities, namely the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA; incorporating at least two cultural entities, the ‘Khiamian’ and the ‘Sultanian’) has been contentious and hotly debated. Additionally, there has been increasing awareness that, at least in the Southern Levant, the criteria that justified the use of the term ‘Neolithic Revolution’ actually became apparent only with the shift from PPNA to PPNB.” ref
“Initially, as is often the case in archaeology, it was assumed that the Neolithic ‘package’ was ‘exotic’ (i.e. allochthonous), having arrived from somewhere outside the region, as it was assumed that major changes as a rule occurred through external ‘stimuli’. Later, it was believed that during the latest Natufian phase there was a reversion to a more mobile life-ways, brought about mostly due to the ‘forcing’ conditions of the supposedly harsh climatic Younger Dryas event. Still, it was assumed that the local Neolithic rose from the ‘ashes’ of the declining Natufian, without going into the specifics of how this came about, or the relation of the local southern Neolithic to the emergence of early Neolithic phenomena in the northern Levant. That the local Neolithic represents Natufian survival, ‘by-the-skin-of-their-teeth’, is strengthened also by the presence of only a few sites with a unbroken Natufian – Neolithic sequence and the fact that most PPNA occurrences are found in different locations from the preceding major Natufian base camps.” ref
“Current research has clearly demonstrated that there is solid evidence for local, in situ continuity between the two cultural manifestations. This is reflected by recent investigations of several ‘Epi-Natufian’ and ‘Khiamian’ settlements in the Mediterranean zone. Sites are mostly located at low elevations at the edge of the lower Jordan valley, i.e. Salibiya IX, Gilgal II, Huruk Musa and Nahal Ein Gev II and in the low-lying areas west of the central hill range, i.e. Nahal Oren, Tel Bareqet, Tzur Nathan, Kaizer, Qula and Hatoula, all dating to the interval of c. 12,500–11,600 cal years ago. The archaeology of those sites provides solid evidence of local, endemic developments ‘bridging’ the end of the Natufian complex foragers’ existence and the emergence of larger, clearly sedentary PPNA (Sultanian) settlements. In attempting to understand the dynamics that operated to enable the appearance of what is considered to represent the initial Neolithic, it is necessary to refer to the Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic. Indeed, quite a number of ‘Natufian-cum-Neolithic’ characteristics appear much earlier, already by the Early Epipalaeolithic, with the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum.” ref
“This said, we shall present rather briefly the processes believed to be instrumental in shaping the Natufian entity, and which apparently continued into the Neolithic. Clearly, some of what will be presented is rather speculative, but we do rely on evidence to that effect in the archaeological record. We should clarify that we adhere to and point out the separation between long-term and short-term trends taking place throughout the entire Epipalaeolithic sequence.” ref
“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue…” Ornaments in the Levantine Early Neolithic
“Abstract: With the onset of the Near Eastern Neolithic during the 12th millennium cal years ago or 12,000 to 11,000 years ago, and thereafter, one can observe growing sedentary tendencies, as well a significant increase in populations and community sizes, all reflected in the Neolithic demographic transition. At that time (and even somewhat earlier in certain areas) a notable tendency for within and between community differentiation was observed, archaeologically visible through the variances in the material remains. A specific domain where this phenomenon can be observed are the easily portable items of adornment. The aspiration for symbolling and signaling at both the community level and the individual served to increase webs of interactions and exchange between communities, sometimes over huge distances. The differences and the similarities actually reflected the degree and intensity of connectivity between the communities far and wide.” ref
NATUFIANS (12,500-9500 BCE): SETTLEMENTS, PROTO-AGRICULTURE
“The Natufian culture refers to mostly hunter-gatherers who lived in modern-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria approximately 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. Merging nomadic and settled lifestyles, they were among the first people to build permanent houses and cultivate edible plants. The advancements they achieved are believed to have been crucial to the development of agriculture during the time periods that followed them. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica: Mainly hunters, the Natufians supplemented their diet by gathering wild grain; they likely did not cultivate it. They had sickles of flint blades set in straight bone handles for harvesting grain and stone mortars and pestles for grinding it. Some groups lived in caves, others occupied incipient villages. They buried their dead with their personal ornaments in cemeteries. Carved bone and stone artwork have been found.” ref
“Matti Friedman wrote in Smithsonian magazine: Natufians were linked by characteristic tools, particularly a small, half-moon-shaped flint blade called a lunate,. They also showed signs of the “intentional cultivation” of plants, according to Ofer Bar-Yosef, professor of prehistoric archaeology at Harvard University, using a phrase that seems carefully chosen to avoid the loaded term “agriculture.” Other characteristic markers included jewelry made of dentalium shells, brought from the Mediterranean or the Red Sea; necklaces of beads made of exquisitely carved bone; and common genetic characteristics like a missing third molar. A study, published in Nature Scientific Reports by a team of scientists and archeologists from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rechovot and the University of Copenhagen, rejects the long-held “core region” theory that argues that the Natufian culture spread from the Mount Carmel and Galilee region and suggest instead the Natufians had far more diverse and complex origins.” ref
“Daniel K. Eisenbud wrote in the Jerusalem Post: “According to the researchers, the study is based on evidence from a Natufian site located in Jordan, some 150 km. northeast of Amman. The site, called Shubayqa 1, was excavated by a University of Copenhagen team led by Dr. Tobias Richter from 2012-2015. The excavations uncovered a well-preserved Natufian site, which included, among other findings, a large assemblage of charred plant remains. The botanical remains, which are rare in many Natufian sites in the region, enabled the Weizmann-Copenhagen team to obtain the largest number of dates for any Natufian site yet in either Israel or Jordan. Utilizing an accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS), that can reveal the amount of carbon-14 in a sample as small as a single atom, Prof. Elisabetta Boaretto of the Weizmann Institute, was able to accurately date the charred remains. “To ensure the highest accuracy, the team selected only samples from short-lived plant species or their parts – for example, seeds or twigs – to obtain the dates. “Over 20 samples from different layers of the site were dated, making it one of the best and most accurately dated Natufian sites anywhere,” the Institute continued. “The dates showed, among other things, that the site was first settled not long after the earliest dates obtained for northern Israel.” ref
“Based on the findings, the researchers concluded that either Natufians spread very rapidly into the region, or, more probably, that the settlement patterns emerged more or less simultaneously in different parts of the region. “The early date of Shubayqa 1 shows that Natufian hunter- gatherers were more versatile than previously thought,” said Richter. “Past research had linked the emergence of Natufian culture to the rich habitat of the Mediterranean woodland zone. But the early dates from Shubayqa 1 show that these late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers were also able to live quite comfortably in more open parkland steppe zones further east.” Richter noted the researchers determined that a portion of the Natufians’ subsistence appears to have relied heavily on the exploitation of club rush tubers as well as other wild plants and the hunting of birds, gazelle, and other animals. According to Boaretto, the “core area” theory may have come about, in part, because the Mount Carmel sites have been the best preserved and studied – until now. “In addition to calling into question the idea that the Natufians originated in one settlement and spread outwards, the study suggests that the hunter- gatherers who lived 15,000 to 12,000 years ago were ingenious and resourceful,” said Boaretto. The authors concluded that their findings support the view that there were many pathways to agriculture and “the Neolithic way of life” was a highly variable and complex process that cannot be explained on the basis of single-cause models.” ref
“Laura Anne Tedesco of the Metropolitan Museum of Art wrote: “The Natufians were the first people of the eastern Mediterranean area to establish permanent villages. Prior to the Natufians, bands of people had moved seasonally, to follow animals for hunting and to gather available plants. The Natufians, while still hunters and foragers, settled in villages year-round, relying on the natural resources of their immediate area. These resources included gazelle, wild cereals, and marine life. The latter, abundant in the region, was used for food as well as for making tools, art, and body ornamentation. Shells collected from the Mediterranean and the Red Sea were commonly used for jewelry and headdresses, typical status markers. “After the last Ice Age, as the climate became warmer and rainfall more abundant, the nomadic population of the eastern Mediterranean began to establish the first permanent settlements. The site of Eynan/Ain Mallaha, situated between the hills of Galilee and Lake Hula in the Levant, was inhabited from 10,000 to 8,200 BCE or around 12,000-10,200 years ago, during the Natufian period. Eynan (in Hebrew)/Ain Mallaha (in Arabic) is one of the hundreds of Natufian settlements known from the eastern Mediterranean, where remains of a rich and dynamic artistic tradition have been discovered.” ref
“Excavations in the Levant, including at Eynan/Ain Mallaha, were undertaken with great enthusiasm by European and American archaeologists in the years following World War II. During this period of scientific exploration, hundreds of sites were uncovered, not just Natufian but from preceding and succeeding periods. These archaeological activities contributed enormously to our current understanding of the prehistoric record of this region. Jericho, well known for its defensive walls described in biblical accounts, is another important Natufian site that was discovered at about the same time as Eynan/Ain Mallaha.” “When we talk about people in the Natufian period becoming more sedentary and less mobile, it’s not just about economics and settlement patterns, but about culture,” Tobias Richter, a professor of prehistory at the University of Copenhagen, told Smithsonian. “At what point does a place become home? At what point do we develop emotions and attachments that are tied to a specific location?” ref
“Natufian settlements were generally found in open woodland areas with oak and Pistacia trees and underbrush with large amounts of grain-carrying grasses. They tended to stay away from the high mountains of Lebanon, the steppe areas of the Negev desert in Israel and Sinai, and the Syro-Arabian desert in the east, presumably because of limited food resources and competition from other groups of foragers who exploited this region. Natufian dwellings were semi-subterranean, often with a dry-stone foundation. The frame was probably made of brushwood. No traces of mudbrick have been found, which became common later in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period. Their round houses have a diameter between three and six meters, and contain a central round or subrectangular fireplace. In Ain Mallaha traces of postholes have been identified. Villages covering over 1,000 square meters have been found. Smaller settlements have been interpreted by some researchers as camps. Traces of rebuilding in almost all excavated settlements seem to point to a frequent relocation, hinting of a semi-nomadic rather than settled existence. Settlements have been estimated to house 100–150 people, but there are three categories: small, medium, and large, ranging from 15 square meters to 1,000 square meters. There are no definite indications of storage facilities.” ref
“The Natufian people lived by hunting and gathering. The preservation of plant remains at Natufian sites is poor because of the soil conditions, but wild cereals, legumes, almonds, acorns, and pistachios may have been collected. Animal bones show that gazelle (Gazella gazella and Gazella subgutturosa) were the main prey. Deer, aurochs and wild boar were hunted in the steppe zone, as well as onagers and caprids (ibex). Water fowl and freshwater fish formed part of the diet in the Jordan River valley. Animal bones from Salibiya have been interpreted as evidence for communal hunts with nets. A pita-like bread dated to 12.500 BCE or around 14,500 years ago has been attributed to Natufians. This bread is made of wild cereal seeds and papyrus cousin tubers, ground into flour.” ref
“According to one theory, a sudden change in climate — the Younger Dryas event (c. 10,800 to 9500 BCE) — inspired the development of agriculture. The Younger Dryas was a 1,000-year-long interruption in the higher temperatures prevailing since the Last Glacial Maximum, which produced a sudden drought in the Levant. This could have threatened wild cereals, which were out-competed by dryland scrub. It is presumed that local population had become largely sedentary. To preserve their sedentary way of life they cleared the scrub and planting seeds obtained from elsewhere, originating agriculture. This theory is controversial and hotly debated in the scientific community. Ancient figs found in an archaeological site in the Jordan Valley, presumably where Natufian lived , may represent one of the earliest forms of agriculture, scientists report. The carbonised fruits date between 11,200 and 11,400 years old. The U.S. and Israeli researchers reported their findings in the journal Science and said the figs are a variety that could have only been grown with human intervention, arging the discovery marks the point when humans turned from hunting and gathering to food cultivation.” ref
“Rebecca Morelle of the BBC reported: “Nine small figs, measuring just 18mm (0.7in) across, along with 313 smaller fig fragments were discovered in a house in an early Neolithic village, called Gilgal I, in the Jordan Valley. The researchers from Harvard University in and Bar-Ilan University in Israel believe the figs are an early domestic crop rather than a wild breed. The ancient fig is smaller than these varieties of modern fig After examining the figs, they determined that it was a self-pollinating, or parthenocarpic, variety, like the kind we eat today. In nature, parthenocarpic fig trees appear now and again by a chance genetic mutation; but because they do not produce seeds, they cannot reproduce alone — they require a shoot to be removed and replanted.” ref
Natufians and the Neolithic Revolution?
“V. Gordon Childe (1892-1957, an Australian transplant to Britain, invented the concept of the Neolithic Revolution in the 1920s. Charles C. Mann wrote in National Geographic, ” In today’s terms, Childe’s views could be summed up like this: Homo sapiens burst onto the scene about 200,000 years ago. For most of the millennia that followed, the species changed remarkably little, with humans living as small bands of wandering foragers. Then came the Neolithic Revolution — “a radical change,” Childe said, “fraught with revolutionary consequences for the whole species.” In a lightning bolt of inspiration, one part of humankind turned its back on foraging and embraced agriculture. The adoption of farming, Childe argued, brought with it further transformations. To tend their fields, people had to stop wandering and move into permanent villages, where they developed new tools and created pottery. The Neolithic Revolution, in his view, was an explosively important event — “the greatest in human history after the mastery of fire.” ref
“Matti Friedman wrote in Smithsonian magazine: The discoveries at Ein Gev challenge the conventional wisdom about the agricultural revolution—and raise the question of whether the term “revolution” is even the right one… Childe was deeply affected by the Industrial Revolution, which had altered the Western world by the time of his birth, and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, which happened when he was 25. In the first half of the 20th century, which saw the breakup of old empires and ascendant movements for individual rights, belief in scientific progress and human agency was deeply felt. The promise of Childe’s “agricultural revolution” was a life freed from the unpredictable labor of hunting and gathering, and a step up the ladder toward an ordered way of life.” ref
“Today, many scholars still identify the move to agriculture as a singular moment of human invention that paved the way for modern life. This is supported by genetic studies and archaeological finds that trace the appearance of domesticated grains to modern-day Turkey and Syria approximately 10,000 years ago. Avi Gopher, an emeritus professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, for example, pinpoints the transformation to 10,500 years ago. He calls this a “big bang”—a leap in plant domestication in southeastern Turkey executed not gradually but rapidly and purposefully, based on what we would think of as scientific understanding. Smart people, in other words, figured out something novel and important, and human history was never the same after that. This breakthrough, he told me, can only be called a revolution. “The idea that you could take control of a species in nature and put it to work for you—this was a complete change of worldview, one that led, in many ways, to our own civilization. And the evidence is that it happened quickly.” ref
“The key moment of the “agricultural revolution” is sometimes described as a lightning bolt of human innovation akin to electricity or powered flight. It’s a good story. But at Nahal Ein Gev II, every dig season complicates it a little more. The village here flourished 2,000 years before the revolution got going, and the growing impression is of a place curiously ahead of its time—“a true turning point in human culture,” in the words of Steven Mithen, the eminent British prehistorian and author of After the Ice: A Global Human History. Matti Friedman wrote in Smithsonian magazine: The finds at Nahal Ein Gev II testify to humans settling down and practicing some form of cultivation millennia before that “big bang.” “You’ll never hear me say the word ‘revolution,’” Grosman told me. “I hate the word. If we look at Ein Gev, we’ll see that exciting things are happening there, but it’s not a ‘revolution.’ They’ve got one foot in one era and the other foot in another, and that’s why they’re so interesting.” ref
“It’s not that Grosman disagrees that people figured out how to harness grain mutations in southeastern Turkey 2,000 years later. But she sees that as a late stage of the process, not the beginning, and as more of an elaboration than the breakthrough itself. The leap, in her eyes, was from nomadism to living in one place, harvesting plants, and building a society bigger than an extended family. This shift is visible at Nahal Ein Gev II, she believes, and this change made possible the invention of agriculture—not the other way around. The truth is that revolutions have always been more complicated than we tend to think. Was the French Revolution caused by the oppression of common people by royal autocrats, by the spread of liberal ideals, or by expanding literacy? Or was it due to the actions of specific people like Louis XVI or Robespierre? The answer is some combination that is impossible to predict at the time and hard to grasp afterward. Richter, the University of Copenhagen prehistorian, views the move to agriculture in the same way. “I think we have to see history and historic process as an almost chaotic overlapping of circumstances that co-occur at the same time,” he said.” ref
“The Khiamian Period (c. 10,200 – c. 8,800 BCE or around 12,200-10,800 years ago, also referred to as El Khiam or El-Khiam) is a period of the Near-Eastern Neolithic, marking the transition between the Natufian and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Some sources date it from about 10,000 to 9,500 BCE, The Khiamian is named after the site of El Khiam, situated on banks of the Dead Sea, where researchers have recovered the oldest chert arrows heads, with lateral notchs, the so-called “El Khiam points”, which has served to identify sites in Israel, (Azraq), Sinai (Abu Madi), and to the north as far as the Middle Euphrates (Mureybet). The Khiamian is regarded as a time without any major technical innovations. However, for the first time, houses were built on the ground level, not half buried as was previously done. Otherwise, members of this culture were still hunter-gatherers. Agriculture was still rather primitive. Relatively new discoveries in the Middle East and Anatolia show that some experiments with agriculture had taken place by 10,900 BCE, and wild grain processing had occurred by 19,000 BCE at Ohalo II. According to Jacques Cauvin, the Khiamian was the beginning of the worship of the Woman and the Bull, found in later following periods in the Near-East, based on the appearance of small female statuettes, as well as by the burying of aurochs skulls.” ref
“Not far from the Sea of Galilee is the Natufian site of Nahal Ein Gev II, which is sometimes described as a village. Matti Friedman wrote in Smithsonian magazine: I came to the village with Leore Grosman, an archaeologist from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem….Her team of 30 arrived in work pants and sun hats from their quarters at a nearby kibbutz. At first light, they fanned out across the hill by the stream. Soon a few were squatting in the remains of a round house. Several diggers under the direction of Natalie Munro, an archaeologist from the University of Connecticut, were busy in the adjacent cemetery, brushing off an adult cranium and treading carefully around the skeleton of a 3-year-old. One team member set up a geolocation tripod that precisely locates every artifact on a grid. A PhD student looked for gazelle bones. The pace picked up as the sun rose, the same atmosphere of industry you might have sensed if you had come when the villagers were here 12 millennia ago.” ref
“The village yields new surprises each season. When I was there, a pair of doctoral students from Canada and Sweden were brushing earth from two reddish-brown objects inside one of the Natufian homes. It wasn’t clear what the objects were, but they were made of clay, which didn’t seem notable at first—anyone who has spent time at an archaeological dig has seen plenty of pottery. But then I remembered that pottery wasn’t supposed to have been invented in this part of the world for another 4,000 years. “The finds at the site make clear that its people were innovators,” Mithen, the British prehistorian, told me. “Processes of change that we thought occurred during the later Neolithic were already underway at this settlement. Nahal Ein Gev illustrates how architecture, art and economy are interlinked in ways that we have yet to fully understand in the transition from hunting and gathering to farming lifestyles.” ref
“Haplogroup R2a (R-M124) is characterized by SNPs M124, F820/Page4, L381, P249, and is mainly found in South Asia, with lower frequencies in Central Asia. R-M124 is also found in multiple Jewish populations: Iraqi Jews, Persian Jews, Mountain Jews, and Ashkenazi Jews. Most research has tested only for the presence of R-M479 (R2) and R-M124 (R2a) – or SNPs downstream from M124 like P249, P267, L266, PAGES00004, and L381 SNPs). Because the other primary branch, R2b (R-FGC21706) was discovered later than R2a, it has often not been tested for. Hence most results are best described as R2(xR2a). n addition, relatively little research has been done within South Asia, which is known to have the greatest concentration of R2. (Hence the figures cited in the table right may not be indicative of true frequencies, i.e. Pakistan is the only South Asian country that has been included.) In 2013, R2(xR2a) was found in 5 out of 19 males from the Burusho minority of North Pakistan. Haplogroup R2, or R-M479, has been concentrated geographically in South Asia and Central Asia since prehistory. It appears to reach its highest levels among the Burusho people in North Pakistan.” ref
“Haplogroup R2a, or haplogroup R-M124, is a Y-chromosome haplogroup characterized by genetic markers M124, P249, P267, L266, and is mainly found in South Asia as well as in Central Asia, Caucasus, West Asia and North Africa / MENA. Haplogroup R-M124 was known as Haplogroup P1 and formerly thought to be a sister clade of Haplogroup R rather than derived from it. Haplogroup R2 most often observed in Asia, especially on the Indian sub-continent and Central Asia. It is also reported at notable frequencies in Caucasus.” ref
“Ancient samples of haplogroup R2a were observed in the remains of humans from Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Bronze Age Iran and Turan; and Iron Age South Asia. R2a was also recovered from excavated remains in the South Asian sites of Saidu Sharif and Butkara from a later period. R-M124 is most often observed in Asia, especially on the Indian sub-continent and in Central Asia. It is also reported at notable frequencies in Caucasus. Haplogroup R-M124, along with haplogroups H, L, R1a1, and J2, forms the majority of the South Asian male population. The frequency is around 10-15% in India and Sri Lanka and 7-8% in Pakistan. Its spread within South Asia is very extensive, ranging from Baluchistan in the west to Bengal in the east; Hunza in the north to Sri Lanka in the south.” ref
“According to Sengupta et al. (2006), uncertainty neutralizes previous conclusions that the intrusion of HGs R1a1 and R2 [Now R-M124] from the northwest in Dravidian-speaking southern tribes is attributable to a single recent event. Rather, these HGs contain considerable demographic complexity, as implied by their high haplotype diversity. Specifically, they could have actually arrived in southern India from a southwestern Asian source region multiple times, with some episodes considerably earlier than others.” ref
Haplogroup R‑M124 |
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Paragroup R-M124*
Haplogroup R-L295
“Haplogroup R-L295 is a Y-chromosome haplogroup characterized by genetic marker L295. It is found in South Asia, Anatolia, Arabian Peninsula, Europe, & Central Asia so far.” ref
Haplogroup R-L263
“Haplogroup R-L263 is a Y-chromosome haplogroup characterized by genetic marker L263. It is found in Greek Asia Minor & Armenia so far.” ref
Haplogroup R-L1069
“Haplogroup R-L1069 is a Y-chromosome haplogroup characterized by genetic marker L1069. It is found in Kuwait so far.” ref
“The haplogroup R-M124 frequency of 6.1% (6/114) was found among overall Kurds while in one study which was done with 25 samples of Kurmanji Kurds from Georgia, R-M124 has been observed at 44% (11/25). In Caucasus high frequency was observed in Armenians from Sason at 17% (18/104) while it was observed at %1 in Armenians from Van. R2 has been found in Chechens at 16%. R-M124 has been found in approximately 8% (2/24) of a sample of Ossetians from Alagir. In the Caucasus, around 16% of Mountain Jews, 8% of Balkarians, 6% of Kalmyks, 3% of Azerbaijanis, 2.6% of Kumyks, 2.4% of Avars, 2% of Armenians, and 1% to 6% of Georgians belong to the R-M124 haplogroup. Approximately 1% of Turks and 1% to 3% of Iranians also belong to this haplogroup.” ref
“In Iran R-M124 follows a similar distribution as R1a1 with higher percentages in the southeastern Iran. It has been found at Frequencies of 9.1% at Isfahan, 6.9% at Hormozgan, and 4.2% in Mazandaran. In the R2-M124-WTY and R-Arabia Y-DNA Projects, Haplogroup R-M124 has appeared in the following Arab countries: Kuwait (3 clusters), United Arab Emirates (1 cluster), Syrian Arab Republic (1 cluster), and Tunisia (1 cluster). Thus, Haplogroup R-M124 has been observed among Arabs at low frequencies in 11 countries/territories (Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen) of the 22 Arab countries/territories so far. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia so far has one family identified to have Haplogroup R2A (R-M124) of its paternal genome or Y-Chromosome updated 5 January; 2018.” ref
“In Kazakh tribes it varies from 1% to 12%, however it is found at a higher percent at about 25% among Tore Tribe/ Genghis Khans descendant tribe. In Central Asia, Tajikistan shows Haplogroup R-M124 at 6%, while the other ‘-stan’ states vary around 2%. Bartangis of Tajikistan have a high frequency of R-M124 at about 17%, Ishkashimi at 8%, Khojant at 9%, and Dushanbe at 6%. Specifically, Haplogroup R-M124 has been found in approximately 7.5% (4/53) of recent Iranian emigrants living in Samarkand, 7.1% (7/99) of Pamiris, 6.8% (3/44) of Karakalpaks, 5.1% (4/78) of Tajiks, 5% (2/40) of Dungans in Kyrgyzstan, 3.3% (1/30) of Turkmens, 2.2% (8/366) of Uzbeks, and 1.9% (1/54) of Kazakhs.” ref
“Among regional groups, it is found among West Bengalis (23%), New Delhi Hindus (20%), Punjabis (5%) and Gujaratis (3%). Among tribal groups, Karmalis of West Bengal showed highest at 100% (16/16) followed by Lodhas (43%) to the east, while Bhil of Gujarat in the west were at 18%, Tharus of north showed it at 17%, Chenchu and Pallan of south were at 20% and 14% respectively. Among caste groups, high percentages are shown by Jaunpur Kshatriyas (87%), Kamma Chaudhary (73%), Bihar Yadav (50%), Khandayat (46%)and Kallar (44%).” ref
“It is also significantly high in many Brahmin groups including Punjabi Brahmins (25%), Bengali Brahmins (22%), Konkanastha Brahmins (20%), Chaturvedis (32%), Bhargavas (32%), Kashmiri Pandits (14%) and Lingayat Brahmins (30%). North Indian Muslims have a frequency of 19% (Sunni) and 13% (Shia), while Dawoodi Bohra Muslim in the western state of Gujarat have a frequency of 16%, and Mappila Muslims of South India have a frequency of 5%.” ref
“The R2 haplogroup in the northern regions of Pakistan is found among Burusho people (14%), Pashtuns (10%) and Hazaras (4%). In southern regions, it is found among Balochis (12%), Brahuis (12%) and Sindhi (5%). The R2-M124 haplogroup occurs at a considerably higher rate in the northern regions of Afghanistan (11.4%). Although the true percentage remains debated, the haplogroup is known to be at elevated levels in the Pamiri population (number ranges from 6-17% depending on the group). One study on Nuristanis shows a 20% frequency of R2 (1/5), albeit with a small sample size. 38% of the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka were found to be R2 positive according to a 2003 research.” ref
“While R1a and R1b haplogroups are often associated with the Indo-European languages, the original linguistic affinity of the R2 descendant haplogroups R2a and R2b remains unknown. There are not many studies focusing on deeper subclades of Y‑DNA haplogroup R2 (R-M479), and research tends to focus on the widespread subclades of haplogroup R1. Ancient DNA samples carrying pure Y-DNA haplogroups R1* and R2* haven’t been discovered yet. The oldest detected sample of R* related to both R1 and R2 is the 22000 BCE Mal’ta Boy (MA1), who lived near the Lake Baikal and in archaeogenetics he represents the population of the Ancient North Eurasians (ANE).” ref
“The Y-DNA haplogroup R2 is mainly represented by its R2a (R2‑M124; R‑M124; R‑Y3399; R‑P249; R‑L266) subclade detected in 865 samples worldwide, while the R2b (R‑FGC50368; R‑SK2164; R2b‑FGC21706) subclade was seldom tested for and it was detected in only 13 samples worldwide. In Europe the Y-DNA haplogroup R2 is represented solely by the subclades of R2a (R‑M124) and peaks at 2% in Latvia, 1% in Lithuania, 1% in Belarus, 1% in Masovian Voivodeship of Poland, 1% in Slovakia, 1% in Ukraine, 1% in Moldova, 1% in Hungary and 1% in Switzerland. It does not appear at all in Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Scandinavia, Finland, Estonia, Western Poland, Germany, Austria, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal.” ref
R2a in Ancient Samples
- 8241 BC – Ganj Dareh, Iran – Y‑DNA R2a (R‑Y3399), mtDNA unknown (sample I1949)
- 8000 BC – Ganj Dareh, Iran – Y‑DNA R2a (R‑Y3399), mtDNA J1c10 (sample I1945)
- 3500 BC – Geoksyur, Turkmenistan – Y‑DNA R2a (R‑Y8766), mtDNA J1d6 (sample I8526)
- 2196 BC – Gonur, Turkmenistan – Y‑DNA R2a (R‑Y3399), mtDNA R2 (sample I4087)
- 1971 BC – Sappali Tepe, Surxondaryo, Uzbekistan – Y‑DNA R2a-Y3370, mtDNA K1a (sample I7492)
- 1613 BC – Bustan (Boʻston), Uzbekistan – Y‑DNA R2a3a2, mtDNA HV2a2 (sample I11520)
- 1600 BC – Sumbar, Turkmenistan – Y‑DNA R2a-FGC13203 (from R2a‑Y3370), mtDNA W3b (sample I6675)
- 1207 BC – Katelai (Swat), Pakistan – Y‑DNA R2a3a2b2c, mtDNA U7b (sample I12147)
- 400 BC – Saidu Sharif (Swat), Pakistan – Y‑DNA R2a3a2b, mtDNA U2b2 (sample I7722)
- 356 BC – Aligrama (Swat), Pakistan – Y‑DNA R2a3a2b2b1, mtDNA HV6 (sample I8245)
- 166 BC – Ksirov (Danghara Plain), Tajikistan – Y‑DNA R2a (R‑Y3399), mtDNA U2e1e (sample I12292; Kushan)
- 670 AD – Roopkund, Uttarakhand, Northern India – Y‑DNA R2a3a2b2c, mtDNA HV14 (sample I3352)” ref
“The earliest sample containing Y-DNA R2a known to modern archaeogenetics is a man from Ganj Dareh, Iran. This ancient site belongs to the Neolithic Fertile Cresent region, which also contained sites such as Göbekli Tepe, Çatalhöyük, Chogha Golan, Chogha Bonut, Chogha Mish, Abu Hureyra and Jericho. A woman from Ganj Dareh (sample GD13a) shows genetic affinity with Baloch and Brahui from Pakistan and Makrani from Gujarat, India (Baloch mercenaries). R2a carrying male (sample I1945) from Ganj Dareh also carried the descendant haplogroup of mtDNA J1c, which nowadays appears only in Europe and North America, this points to a common origin of his ancestors in a population related to the Ancient North Eurasians.” ref
“Other males from the 3500 BCE Geoksyur site in Turkmenistan carried the following Y-DNA haplogroups: P1 (or CT), 3x J‑ZS6592 (J1a2a1b1a), J‑ZS4428 (from J1a2a1b), J‑PF4993 (from J2a1a1a1a), Q-L56 (Q-M346; Q1a3)[4]. Just like the mtDNA haplogroup J1c, the Y-DNA haplogroup Q1a3 is nowadays widespread mostly among Native Americans, which points to the common ANE origin of Y-DNA P1, R2a, and Q1a3 found at the Central Asian site of Geoksyur. This observation might also explain why in the 2021 Zhang et al. study the Tarim Mummies were modeled as 100% isolate but their genes were also found not only in the Neolithic Central Asian Geoksyur, Namazga, and Sarazm individuals but also in the Botai, Okunevo, Dzungaria, Chemurchek, Bronze Age Baikal and Bronze Age Kumsay in Kazakhstan. They all shared a high level of Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) ancestry.” ref
“Nevertheless, the samples from Geoksyur, Namazga, Parkhai, and Sarazm were still much closer (but not uniform) to Yamna Samara and Afanasievo Culture than to Tarim Mummies and Mal’ta Boy. The only samples from Central Asia shifted towards ANE the most were those from Bronze Age Aigyrzhal, Kyrgyzstan (circa 2100 BCE) and resembled the ones from Early Bronze Age Dzungaria. The downward shift of Geoksyur and Namazga from Yamna Samara was mostly due to its high genetic input from Iran Neolithic and Anatolia Neolithic, in evidence from that earliest 8211 BCE Ganj Dareh sample and lots of Y‑DNA J1a and J2a in Southern Central Asia. That is why the pre-Steppe carries of Y‑DNA R2a in Central Asia can be modeled in aDNA as 10% ANE, 20% Anatolia Neolithic, and 70% Iran Neolithic (that is 90% of Fertile Crescent or Zagrosian DNA). The Elamites might be genetically closest to people from the Neolithic Central Asia but this requires some further examination.” ref
“The phenetic analysis of Tarim Mummies from Bronze Age Qäwrighul (1800 BCE) also pointed to their uniqueness and to their slight affinity towards people from the Oxus Civilization (BMAC) and Sappali Tepe. However, no Y‑DNA R2a has ever been detected in any of the Tarim Mummies from the Xiaohe Cemetery (2100 BCE – 1700 BCE), and instead, they carried mainly the descendants of Y‑DNA haplogroup R1*: 2x R1b‑PH155 (R1b2), 7x R1a1a, 1x R1‑M173. The remaining not deeply classified Y‑DNA haplogroups from Xiaohe were: F‑M89 (East, South and Central Asian), K‑M9 (ancestral to N, O, P, R; 43000 BCE Ust’-Ishim man carried a descendant of this haplogroup: K2a), P‑M45 (ancestral to Q and R).” ref
“BMAC individuals were largely derived from local, Chalcolithic populations similar to those found in Geoksyur. A genome of a woman from 2800 BCE – 2300 BCE Rakhigarhi, Northern India (close to Punjab and New Delhi) matched the DNA from 11 other individuals who had been found at sites in Iran and Turkmenistan from a similar period. A comparison of modern Indo-Iranian populations with the ancient genome has shown genetic continuity with the BMAC cluster, except for their high admixture with Steppe populations (Andronovo Culture), that occurred at the end of BMAC after 2000 BCE. The first genetic outliers observed in several BMAC individuals may represent the very beginning of this demographic event. According to Narasimhan et al. 2019, Steppe pastoralist ancestry appeared in outlier individuals at BMAC sites by the turn of the second millennium BCE around the same time as it appeared on the Southern Steppe (in Sintashta Culture and Andronovo Culture).” ref
“The Central Asian Steppe group, which admixed with BMAC does not harbour the Baikal Hunter-Gatherer genetic component because the BHG component did not arrive in the Central Asian Steppe until the late Iron Age. The best proxy for admixture with BMAC is the subpopulation formed by four individuals all belonging to the Kytmanovo site of Andronovo Culture (1446 BCE – 1298 BCE male from Kytmanovo already carried Y‑DNA R1a‑Z2124). These individuals have a very similar genetic profile to that of individuals from Sintashta, near the Caspian Sea. The screening of the individuals associated with the Andronovo horizon in the data shows that they formed a moderately heterogeneous group, with genetic proximities that do not necessarily correlate with geographical or cultural proximity. For example, Srubnaya-Alakulskaya individuals are more closely related to individuals grouped under the precise Andronovo label than Srubnaya from the Samara region.” ref
“The 2200 BCE – 1600 BCE males from Sappali Tepe, Gonur, Bustan (Boʻston), and Sumbar, who carried the Y‑DNA haplogroup R2a still archaeologically belonged to the BMAC (Oxus Civilization). In the post-1200 BC Swat Valley, Pakistan males carrying R2a appear next to males, who carry the Sintashta derived R1a‑Z94 haplogroup (from R1a‑Z93). None of the Yamna/Afanasievo derived Y‑DNA R1b‑Z2103 appeared in the Swat Valley, even if some males from Sintashta still carried this Y‑DNA haplogroup (2012 BC sample I1020[4]). North of Pakistan there are three additional ancient samples with detected Y‑DNA R1a‑Z93: one from 1497 BCE Kokcha, Uzbekistan (sample I12499) and two from 1200 BCE Kashkarchi, Uzbekistan. One of males from Kokcha, Uzbekistan from around 1738 BCE carried Y‑DNA haplogroup Q1a1b1, which is related to both Native Americans, and Siberian Kets, yet another sign of some Ancient North Eurasian derived genes in Central Asia.” ref
“A 1207 BCE man from Katelai (Swat), Pakistan carried both Y‑DNA R2a3a2b2c and mtDNA U7b. The modern distribution of mtDNA haplogroup U7 almost perfectly matches the distribution of Y‑DNA haplogroup R2 shown on the map above (and below). This supports the hypothesis of a local origin of Y‑DNA R2a and R2b in the Swat Valley of Pakistan because the carriers of mtDNA U7 spread to South Asia and Europe before the suggested Bronze Age expansion of Indo-European languages from the Andronovo Culture and mtDNA U7 originated in the Near East and then spread towards South and Central Asia prior to the Holocene. However, low amounts of mtDNA U7 in West Bengal and Orisa most probably deny the appearance of mtDNA U7 together with Y-DNA R2a in South Asia (but not in Central Asia or Pakistan), and it is still more likely that Y-DNA R2a spread to East India together with Y‑DNA R1a‑Z93, which came from the Andronovo Culture and then those two Y‑DNA haplogroups spread together from the Swat Valley of Pakistan. The latter is also supported by the elevated amounts of mtDNA U7 in Gujarat and Rajasthan and much lower amounts of Y‑DNA R2a there.” ref
“Ancient individuals from the Swat Valley of Pakistan show that the Andronovo Culture (Central Asian Steppe) ancestry integrated further South around 1500 BCE – 1200 BCE, and nowadays this genetic component makes up to 30% of ancestry in many South Asian populations. That Central Asian Steppe ancestry in South Asia has the same genetic profile as that of the Bronze Age Eastern Europe, tracking a movement of people, who affected both regions and likely spread the unique features shared between Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic languages.” ref
R2b in Ancient Samples
- 4000 BCE – Anau Tepe (Tepe-Anau), Turkmenistan – Y‑DNA R2b (R‑FGC50368), mtDNA W3a1 (sample I4087)
- 850 BCE – Loebanr (Swat), Pakistan – Y‑DNA R2b (R‑FGC50368), mtDNA W3a1b (sample I8997)
- 850 BCE – Loebanr (Swat), Pakistan – Y‑DNA R2b (R‑FGC50368), mtDNA W3a1b (sample I8998)” ref
“Those two males from Loebanr were most probably brothers from the same mother, and again, the oldest subclades of Y‑DNA R2 appear near the Swat Valley and in Central Asia instead of South India (or South Asia in general). The oldest sample of mtDNA W3a1 in Central Asia comes from 4000 BCE or around 6,000 years ago, a male from Anau Tepe, who also carried Y‑DNA haplogroup R2b just like those two brothers.” ref
“The second oldest sample carrying mtDNA W3a1 comes from a 2917 BCE Yamna Culture woman from Prydnistryanske, Ukraine (very close to Moldova). Bronze Age samples of that mtDNA haplogroup come mostly from European and Central Asian cultures such as Corded Ware, Baden, Unetice, Trzciniec, BMAC (Sappali Tepe, Uzbekistan), Scythians from Kazakhstan. Its sister haplogroup W3a2 is nowadays found mostly in Tajikistan, England, France, Slovakia, Romania, Poland and Ukraine.” ref
“The 2022 paper by Guarino-Vignon et al. showed that the Neolithic and Chalcolithic samples from Central Asia, including those from Tepe-Anau genetically resemble modern Brahui, Balochi, Makrani, Kalash and Pathans (Pashtuns) but modern Yaghnobis and Tajiks are dramatically shifted from those samples towards Yamna and Iron Age Turkmenistan (Scythians, Kushans). Some samples from Early Middle Bronze Age Turan (circa 1500 BCE) resemble those from Central Asian Steppe (Andronovo Culture) and those of modern Ossetians. The Burusho people appear closer to Pathans and Kalash but form their own cluster far away from the ancient Central Asian samples and Tajiks. The Burusho are still closest to the South Asian cluster.” ref
“Modern samples of R2b were only detected in Pakistan (Islamabad; Punjab; Azad Kashmir), India (Punjab), China (Shandong), Iraq (Al Anbar), Saudi Arabia (Hāʼil), Bahrain (Al Muharraq). It is possible that this haplogroup appeared in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Bahrain already in the Neolithic but the Iron Age Persian expansion or some other recent events could also be responsible for spreading R2b to those regions. This can not be determined.” ref
R2a in Kazakhstan and Europe
“The relatively high amount (0% – 25%) of Y‑DNA R2a in the Kazakh Tore tribe, 12% in Zhanakorgan district, 6.3% – 10% in Kozha tribe, 5.4% in Jalayir tribe, 2% in Sirgeli and Alban tribes, 1% in Baiuly tribe could be explained by the backward migration of Scythians from the territory of BMAC and Southern Andronovo (there are no ancient samples of Y‑DNA R2a from the territory of Kazakhstan). Yaghnobis (cultural and genetic descendants of Scythians) show no genetic admixture from South Asia (unlike Tajiks), while both Yaghnobis and Tajiks show genetic affinity to BMAC and Andronovo[10]. This backward Scythian migration through Kazakhstan is further proven by 8% of Y‑DNA R2a in Ossetians from Alagir, 7.9% in Balkars (descendants of Scythian Alans and Turkic tribes; they carry very high amounts of Central Asian Y‑DNA R1b‑M73 and Iranic Y-DNA R1a‑Z2124 from R1a‑Z94), 16% in Chechens, 20% in Kalmyk-Oirats from Derbet, Kalmykia and 1% in Eastern European countries.” ref
“During the 14th century CE, Alania was destroyed by Timur, and many of the Alans, Cumans, and Kipchaks migrated to Eastern Europe. This genetic influx might go back even further in time as R1a‑Z2124 was already detected in the ancient Hun (5th century CE), Avar, and Hungarian conqueror (post-850 CE) samples from Hungary, a descendant of this Y‑DNA haplogroup, namely the R1a‑Z2123 is nowadays mostly prevelant in Bashkiria, Kazakhstan (in Tore, Kozha, Tarakty, Sirgeli, Oshakty, Kangly, Jalayir, Zhetiru, and Kypshak tribes), Northern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, among Karachay-Balkars and it was the Y‑DNA haplogroup of the Hungarian Árpád Dynasty.” ref
“Even older sample with this Y‑DNA haplogroup is a 380 BCE – 200 BCE Scythian from a kurgan near Samara (I0247), who carried Y-DNA R1a1a1b2a2a (R1a‑Z2125) and mtDNA G2a4. Both Y‑DNA haplogroups R1a‑Z2124 and R1a‑Z2125 were present in the territory of the Middle Bronze Age Kazakhstan because a 1900 BCE – 1300 BCE male from Dali in Bayan-Zhurek mountains, Eastern Kazakhstan carried Y‑DNA R1a‑Z2124 and mtDNA U5a1a2a (sample I0507), this site is only 100 km away from Northern Xinjiang. Another male from 1600 BCE – 1196 BCE Taldysay, Ulytau region, Central Kazakhstan carried R1a‑Z2125 and mtDNA H3g (sample I4787).” ref
“The Kalmyk Dörwöds (Dörbet) in Mongolia are characterized by high frequencies of Y‑DNA haplogroups C3d‑M407 and R2a‑M124 (15.2%). It is noteworthy that the age of haplogroup R2aM1‑24 found in both Dörbet and Oirats from Kalmykia shows the best correspondence to the historical chronology of the Kalmyk dispersals. Haplogroup D-M174, albeit rarely found in the Dörwöds and Torguuds (about 2%), reveals genetic affinity to the Tibetan populations, where this haplogroup was present probably before the Last Glacial Age. Another rare Y‑DNA haplogroup N1a‑M128, which frequently occurred only among Kazakhs (8.1%) in Central Asia, was also detected in the Buzava Kalmyks, who live next to Derbet in Kalmykia and carry up to 17.4% of Y‑DNA haplogroup R2a.” ref
“Phylogenetic network of haplogroup R1a1a‑M17 (carried by 3.3% of Kalmyks) demonstrates that two haplotypes of the Kalmyks coincide with the haplotypes common among different populations of South Siberia (Tuvinians, Altaians and Sojots) and Central Asia (Tajiks and Pathans), two haplotypes with populations of Pathans, Persians and Indians, and one haplotype with South Siberians (Shors and Tuvinians).” ref
“A median network of R2a‑M124 haplotypes derived from 12 Y‑STR loci in the Kalmyks, Buryats (2.7% of R2a) and populations of Southwestern and South Asia (in which this haplogroup is present at a relatively high frequency) reveals common haplotypes observed in Kalmyks and Buryats, whereas there is no haplotype sharing between these and other comparative populations. However, the R2a‑M124 haplotypes found in the Kalmyks and Buryats are still the derivatives of Indian subclades of R2a. This suggests a recent common ancestry and/or expansion of the Kalmyk R2a‑M124 lineages from India or Southern Central Asia.” ref
“The descendants of Y‑DNA R2a‑F2791 subclade are nowadays found only in Latvia, Ukraine, Slovakia, Chechnya, Georgia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. The R2a‑Y101424 subclade of R2a‑Y3399 (basal R2a‑M124) found among Kurds in Turkey is also present in Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, Uzbekistan, and Saudi Arabia, so it most probably was not mediated there by the Scythians. Kurmanji Kurds from Georgia carry around 44% of Y‑DNA R2a‑M124. The Y‑DNA haplogroup R2a has not been detected in the Roma population of Europe[35]. They mostly carry: 44.8% of H‑M82, 22.6% of I‑M170, 12.7% of J2a‑M67, 6.7% of R1‑M173, 3.6% of E‑M36, 2% of J‑M92, 1.6% of C‑M217, 0.4% of R‑M17 (R1a1a) and aren’t responsible for the appearance of Y‑DNA R2a in Europe (the Scythians are and from the 17th century CE the Kalmyks).” ref
R2a in China
“Archaeological excavations at the 2000 BCE site of Sappali Tepe, located in the North Bactrian oasis of Southern Uzbekistan, during the 1960s and 1970s yielded the earliest evidence of silk outside of China and raised the possibility that the East‑West contacts along the Great Silk Road may be far older than previously thought. People from the Southern Gansu province of China nowadays carry 3.4% of Y‑DNA haplogroup R2a. During the Bronze Age, the Qijia Culture (2200 BCE – 1600 BCE) thrived in that region, and it might be one of the factors why the R2a haplogroup spread to Central China.” ref
“Qijia Culture is distinguished by the presence of numerous domesticated horses (in evidence also genetically after DOM2 horse spread to China after ca. 2000 BCE), practice of oracle divination, metal knives, and recovered axes, which point to some interactions with Siberian and Central Asian cultures, in particular with the Seima-Turbino complex (Okunevo Culture). Archaeological evidence points to plausible early contact (often violent) between the Qijia Culture and Central Asia. In spite of all the archaeological evidence of its Western contacts, those most probably were only trade relations as all males from the 2000 BCE Mogou site of the Qijia Culture carried only East Asian Y‑DNA haplogroups: O3a2 and O3a2c1a and did not show any genetic affinity towards West Eurasia. It means that Y-DNA haplogroup R2a appeared in Central China only later in history. 4% of R2a in Western Xinjiang and 2% in Eastern Xinjiang might point to its appearance in that region after 1500 – 1300 BCE because a study from 2021 by Ning et al. proved that the appearance of European mtDNA in 1500 – 1300 BCE Western Xinjiang is correlated with the appearance of Yamna (Steppe) and Andronovo related ancestry.” ref
“In the same study, mtDNA samples from the Qijia Culture clustered with East Asian and South Asian samples far away from European samples, this again suggests that the speculated appearance of Y‑DNA haplogroup R2a in China during the Early Bronze Age either wasn’t correlated with the appearance of Yamna or Andronovo related ancestry or did not happen during the Qijia period in Gansu. The Qijia mtDNA samples were not far away from the Late Bronze Age Kayue, China; Bronze Age Khovsgol, Mongolia and Neolithic samples from Baikal, Russia. Those three geographic regions nowadays harbor around 3% of R2a. Kayue Culture (900 – 600 BCE) most probably developed from the Western part of the Qijia Culture. Early Bronze Age Tarim (Xinjiang) clustered with the Kayue Culture and Neolithic Baikal but not with the European samples.” ref
“The only Asian ancient mtDNA samples clustering close to those from Europe were: Eneolithic Turkmen (Namazga Culture), BMAC, MLBA Central Asian Steppe, Iron Age Shirenzigou and Northern Xinjiang Afanasievo (a proof that Tocharians and Yuezhi are the descendants of the Afanasievo Culture). After 1000 BCE the stone based burial type spreads from Northern Xinjiang Dzungaria (Afanasievo mtDNA) to Eastern Xinjiang, this might represent the earlieast spread of Tocharian languages to Eastern Xinjiang noted by archaeology. According to phenetic comparisons, the Tarim Basin (Xinjiang area) experienced a significant gene flow from highland populations of the Pamirs and Fergana Valley (modern-day Eastern Uzbekistan) after 1200 BCE.” ref
“These highland populations may include those who later became known as the Saka (Scythians) and who may have served as “middlemen” facilitating contacts between the East (China) and West (Bactria) along what later became known as the Great Silk Road. The ancient Scythian DOM2 horse belonged to exactly the same breed as that of Boz Adyr, Xiongnu (from Gol Mod 2 Cemetery, Mongolia), and Karasuk, all those breeds were also closely related to the DOM2 horse from Sintashta, meaning that the people responsible for spreading the final breed of DOM2 horse to China were the Scythians. This lineage of horses survived at least until the 8th century CE in Central Asia at Boz Adyr, Kyrgyzstan. Bronze Age Deer Stone horses from Mongolia, medieval Aukštaičiai horses from Lithuania (9th – 10th century CE), and Iron Age Pazyryk Scythian (6th century BCE) horses showed similar diversity levels.” ref
“This might point to the earliest possible date of 1200 – 700 BCE for the arrival of Y-DNA R2a in the Tarim Basin and points to a similar backward migration of Scythians to the territory of late Andronovo Culture, which also took place in Kazakhstan. The Saka (Scythian) presence has been found in various locations in the Tarim Basin, for example, in the Keriya region at Yumulak Kum (Djoumboulak Koum, Yuansha) around 200 km East of Khotan, with a tomb dated to as early as the 7th century BCE. Surviving documents from Khotan (300 BCE – 1006 CE) of later centuries indicate that the people of Khotan spoke the Saka language (Khotanese), an Eastern Iranian language that was closely related to the Sogdian language from Central Asia. Additionally, the mtDNA samples from Iron Age Western Xinjiang and Southern Xinjiang were shifted from the Bronze Age Xinjiang samples towards BMAC, Tian Shan Saka, Tagar (Scythians), Iron Age Sarmatian, and Hungary Bronze Age.” ref
“According to the 2022 V. Kumar et al. study on ancient DNA from Xinjiang (201 samples), the Bronze Age (3000 – 1000 BCE) Northern and Western Tarim Basin is mainly represented by Y-DNA haplogroups: R1b1 (majority), R1a2 (it is either very rare R1a‑YP4141 or R1a‑Z93), Q2a, Q2, and Q1b1. The Late Bronze Age in the Western Tarim Basin (probably circa 1000 BCE) yields the first appearance of Y‑DNA R1a1. It is during the Iron Age (1000- 1 BCE) when the majority of Y‑DNA haplogroups related to Central Asia appear in Western Tarim Basin: R1a1 (majority), R1b2 (R1b‑PH155), Q2a1, Q1b2, Q1b1, J2a1, J2a2, J2b2, J1a2, L1a2, E1b1 (E1b1b1 was already found at the 2011 BCE Gonur site of BMAC, so it is not Greek or Macedonian), I2a1 (European). The Iron Age Southern Tarim Basin is dominated by Y‑DNA: G2a2 (majority), R1a1, L1a1, Q1b1 (majority), Q1b, Q1, N1a1, and Iron Age Northern Tarim Basin by Y‑DNA: R1b1, R1a1, and R1a2.” ref
“This means that this study, in opposition to 2021 Zhang et al., proves that the Tocharian languages (R1b1) were first in the Tarim Basin right next to some isolated unknown ANE languages (Q2a, Q1b), and exactly after 1000 BCE or around 3,000 years ago, the Scythian genetic influx occurred in Western Xinjiang. The Y‑DNA haplogroup O2 appears in the Eastern Tarim Basin only during the Iron Age and in the Southern Tarim Basin much later in the historical era (1 CE—present). Deeper classification of some of those detected Y-chromosomes on YFull showed that two Xinjiang individuals from 1451 – 1374 BCE and 739 – 494 BCE already carried the Y‑DNA haplogroup R1a‑Z93; two from 1571 – 1460 BCE and 353 ‑ 7 BCE carried the Iranic Y‑DNA R1a‑Z2123. The R1b‑FT292014 haplogroup from Xinjiang is nowadays found only in Pakistan, while R1a‑YP1548 from a 693 BCE Xinjiang man is found only in Kazakhstan, Altai, Kyrgyzstan and Shandong, China (next to 6.7% of R2a in Jiangsu, China).” ref
“Surprisingly, on aDNA PCA, four Late Bronze Age and two Bronze Age Tarim Basin individuals were identical to modern Europeans. Remaining BA samples from Tarim Basin clustered with Early Bronze Age Dzungaria (Proto-Tocharians). Those people might literally be the ancestors of Tocharians, and those 6 people “from Europe” were either European mercenaries/merchants or individuals who still preserved their Yamna/Afanasievo gene pool (maybe they did not mix with the ANE-derived locals). Samples of EMBA (1700 BCE) Tarim Mummies from the 2021 Zhang et al. paper created their own cluster far away from the Afanasievo/European Tarim Basin population and appeared closer to the supposed ancestral ANE population. During the Iron Age, the Tarim Basin samples shifted towards Iran Neolithic (BMAC) and East Asia but still did not move to the exact area of modern Uyghur, Iron Age Southern Tarim Basin, and Iron Age Shirenzigou samples.” ref
“When it comes to Horpa (Qiangic) speaking population of Daofu, Western Sichuan, China, where R2a makes up 6.25% of all Y‑DNA, on PCA they appear to be closest genetically to Han-Xinjiang and Tibetan-Shigatse populations. The European mtDNA haplogroups were not found among Horpa (Qiangic) speaking populations. The mtDNA (maternal) variation of Qiangic populations was also largely contributed by Northern Asian prevalent haplogroups, including haplogroups A, C, D, and G. In addition, cultural features of the upper Yellow River basin, such as painted pottery, millet agriculture, and urn burial, are prevalent in the Neolithic sites of Western Sichuan, probably due to the demic diffusion via the genetic corridor.” ref
“Hui from Ningxia (close to Gansu and Henan) carry 3.2% of R2a, they also carry 1.6% of R1b1b2 (R1b‑M269) and 3.2% of R1a1, unlike Man from Liaoning, who carry 1.5% of R2a but none of the Y-DNA R1 derived haplogroups (just like Qiang from Sichuan and Han from Gansu who carry only R2a). Han from Jiangsu also carry 8.9% of R1a1 next to 6.7% of R2a. In general, R1a and R1b are not totally absent in China as Hui from Yunnan carry 10% of R1b1c and 10% of R1a (next to 10% of J1, 10% of Q1a3, and 0% of R2a). Chinese from the Henan province (next to Gansu) also carry around 1.6% of R1b‑M269.” ref
“R1b1b1 (R1b‑M73 brotherly to R1b‑M269) has also been detected in 8.3% of Chinese Mongolian, in 25% of Kyrgyz from Xinjiang, and in 6% of Uyghurs from Xinjiang (they also carry 30% of R1a1, 16% of J2a and 4% of R2a). R1b‑M73 was detected mainly in NEAS (Kumandins, Mongolians, Chinese, Bashkirs, Northern Pakistani, and Pamiri) and was sporadically detected in South Asia and West Eurasia (except for Karachay-Balkars and Kalmyks). It is possible that this haplogroup, together with R2a and R1a‑Z93, spread to those regions with migrations of the Saka after 1000- 700 BCE and later with those of Xiongnu, Wusun, Yuezhi (probably to Gansu) or Kushans after the 3rd century BCE. In general, the star-like structure of Y‑DNA R2a‑M124, which includes the Chinese samples, suggests that it reflects a relatively recent expansion from South or Central Asia to North-East Asia via the Northern route and more diversified R2 haplotypes occur in the areas around Pakistan and India instead of North-East Asia.” ref
R2a in Thailand and Malaysia
“The Mon from Northern Thailand shows the presence of haplogroups usually found in South, Central, and West Asia: 16.7% of R‑P249 (R2‑M124) and 5.6% of J‑M172 (J2). The connection between the ethnic Mon and populations from South and Central Asia was already proposed from previous identification of mtDNA lineage W3a1b. Both groups of the Mon-Khmer speaking Lawa groups showed high differences between each other and from other populations, presenting low levels of haplogroup diversity with high frequencies of O‑PK4 (O1b1a1) (72% in Lawa 1) and N‑M231 (56% in Lawa 2).” ref
“The native language of Mon is Mon, it belongs to the Monic branch of the Mon-Khmer language family and shares a common origin with the Nyah Kur language, which is spoken by the people of the same name and who live in the Northeastern Thailand. The groups from Thailand, where Y‑DNA haplogroup R1a has been detected are: Khon Muang 6 (9% of R1a; 4.6% of J2; 0% of R2a), Yuan 1 (5.3% of R1a; 0% of J2; 0% of R2a), Yuan 3 (4.2% of R1a; 0% of J2; 0% of R2a). It means that the appearance of R2a in Thailand could have been accompanied by the spread of Y‑DNA haplogroups R1a (usually R1a‑Z94 derived R1a1a1b2a1b: R1a‑Z2124) and J2.” ref
“Y‑DNA R2a (R‑L266, same as R‑M124) and mtDNA R21 has been detected in one modern male (JEH002) from the Malaysian Jehai tribe, who live next to the Thailand’s Southern border. Other male (JEH04) from the same tribe carried Y‑DNA R1a1a1b2a R1a‑Z94 and mtDNA M13b1. If the appearance of Y‑DNA R2a correlates with that of R1a‑Z94 in Thailand and Malaysia, then the spread of R2a in Thailand could occur only after 1200 BCE (after R1a‑Z93 associated Painted Grey Ware Culture appeared in Central India next to West Bengal) but this can not be determined yet. Ancient DNA samples from Thailand carrying Y‑DNA R2a could undermine this statement but just like in the case of ancient samples from Southern India, there aren’t any carrying Y‑DNA R2a.” ref
Languages and Genetics
“Modern distribution of Y‑DNA haplogroups R2a and R2b covers the areas of not only the Indo-European languages but also: Dravidian Brahui in Pakistan; isolate Burushaski in Hunza, Pakistan; Horpa (Qiangic) near Xinlong, Western Sichuan, China; Monguor in Gansu, China; Mandarin in Jiangsu, China; Mon in Thailand; Arabic in Jordan, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates; Jehai (Mon-Khmer) in Malaysia; Kalmyk-Oirat, Buryat (Mongolic), Karachay-Balkar, Ossetian and Chechen in Russia; Kazakh in Kazakhstan; Oirat in Western Mongolia; Lodha, Kannada, Kerala, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Sora in India.” ref
When it comes to Indo-European languages the distribution of Y‑DNA R2 covers the areas of: Tajik, Bartangi and Wakhi (Pamir languages) in Tajikistan; Nuristani, Pashai, Hazara and Aimak in Afghanistan; Balochi, Pashto, Urdu and Punjabi in Pakistan; Persian and Balochi in Iran; Kurdish in Turkey, Iraq, Iran; Kurmanji in Georgia; Dhivehi in Maldives; Sinhalese in Sri Lanka; Kashmiri, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Bengali, Odia, Punjabi, Marwari, Marathi (in Konkan) and Konkani languages in India. All those languages belong to the the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages.” ref
“R2a is only weakly related to the broad distribution of the Hindi language and in areas of Dravidian languages its amounts reach from 3% to 10%. Even if this Y‑DNA haplogroup predates the Yamna (steppe) related genetic input in Central Asia it can not be associated with the appearance of Indo-European languages in Western North India, especially in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.” ref
“Languages mentioned above from the areas where R2a exceeds 14% are marked in bold. From those the ones closest geographically to the appearance of Y‑DNA R2 in ancient samples are: Pamir, Punjabi, Burushaski and Nuristani languages. Václav Blažek in his 2019 paper “Toward the question of Yeniseian homeland in perspective of toponymy” suggests that the Pamir languages have a Burushaski-like substratum. Although Burushaski is today spoken in Pakistan to the South of the Pamir language area, Burushaski formerly had a much wider geographic distribution before being assimilated by Indo-Iranian languages.” ref
“In 203 Burushaski words I found only 15 (that is 7.4%), which might be related to the Indo-European languages: pʰu (“fire”), sua (“good”), ga’rurum (“hot”), mi (“we”), ja (“I”), te (“that”), hir (“man”; Latin: vir), mosh (“nose”), ren (“hand”), girashom (“play”; Old Church Slavonic: igrati; Lower Sorbian: graś), jee (“live”), sa (“sun”), thas (“smoke”), tik (“earth”; Hittite: tekan; Tocharian A: tkaṃ). Similar amount of words in common appears between the Indo-European and Native American languages associated with Y‑DNA haplogroup Q (brother of R* from ANE; 5/96 in the words section of my website resulting in only 5.2% of shared vocabulary).” ref
“It means that the Burushaski language is still a valid candidate for the language most likely associated with the Y‑DNA haplogroup R2. Other most common Y‑DNA haplogroup among Burusho is R1a1 (26%) and from those 15 “Indo-European” Burushaski words only 4 are not in common with Sanskrit. Burushaski words not shared with Sanskrit but instead shared only with the European IE languages are marked in italic bold, and they make up 2% of vocabulary shared between the Y‑DNA R1b‑M269/R1a‑Z283 associated languages and Y‑DNA R2a “associated” Burushaski.” ref
“Other most frequent Y‑DNA haplogroups among Burusho are: 12.4% of L‑M357, 4% of L‑M20, 7.2% of J2‑M172, 4% of H, 2% of Q‑M242 (from ANE). Y‑DNA haplogroup L reaching 16.4% among Burusho is the second most likely candidate to be associated with the origin of the Burushaski language. There are also some words in common between Indo-European (R1a and R1b), Horpa (6.25% of R2a) and Khroskyabs / Tangut (from the same language family branch as Horpa), which could possibly go back to the times of the basal R* haplogroup (ANE):
- Horpa (Rgyalrongic): zjar (“heart”)
- Khroskyabs (Rgyalrongic): sjar
- Swedish: hjärta
- Bulgarian: сърце (sǎrce)
- Udmurt: сюлэм (sjulem)
- Horpa (Rgyalrongic): rɛku (“elbow”)
- Lithuanian: ranka (“hand, arm”)
- Latvian: roka (“hand, arm”)
- Polish: ręka (“hand, arm”)
- Burushaski: ren (“hand”)
- Serbo-Croatian: ruka (“hand, arm”)
- Quechua (Y-DNA Q): ruk’ana (“finger”)
- Khroskyabs (Rgyalrongic): stî (“to exist”)
- Hittite: asanta-
- Sanskrit: अस्ति (asti)
- Tangut (Rgyalrongic): khu (“dog”)
- Tocharian A: ku
- Ancient Greek: κύων (kúōn)
- Old Irish: cú
- Hittite: kuwaš” ref
“Again, those similarities do not exceed 2% of shared vocabulary. The languages, which would exceed this barrier are the Indo-Iranian languages but the sole association of those language with only the Y‑DNA haplogroup R2 would result in the rejection of their association with Y‑DNA haplogroup R1a‑Z93. R1a‑Z93 is the only haplogroup, which strongly binds the Indo-Iranian languages with Europe. To say that Sanskrit originated already with haplogroup’s R2 split from R* (circa 14000 BCE) requires an explanation why the Y‑DNA haplogroup R2a is not as common as R1a‑M780 (from R1a‑Z93 but not from R1a‑Z94 or R1a‑Z2125) in Western North India. The Indo-European areas of India with 0% of R2a are Rajasthan and Assam, while in the Punjab disctrict without the Brahmins it reaches only 4%.” ref
“People from Malana in Himachal Pradesh, India speak the Sino-Tibetan Kanashi language and do not carry any Y‑DNA R2a at all but instead they carry: 60% of J2a1h, 27% of R1a, 10% of H, and 3% of L. This high amount of R1a can not be ignored as “the Kanshi seems to be a mixture of Sanskrit and several Tibetan dialects.” ref
“It is important to notice that the distribution pattern of R1a‑Z93 derived haplogroups in South Asia (India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives) usually matches the distribution pattern of R2a‑M124, for example in Sri Lanka the amounts of R2a and R1a are almost equal, in Uttarakhand the Tharu carry 22% of R1a and 13% of R2a, the Goswami carry 6.5% of R1a and 6.5% of R2a, in Uttar Pradesh there is 19% of R2a and 26.5% of R1a1a. There are some exceptions tough like in Maldives where R1a is more frequent than R2a and in Gujarat where R2a is only 3% – 18% and R1a makes up the majority of Y‑DNA haplogroups there (from 10% to 60% depending on place of measurement)[56], the Brahmins from Uttarakhand carry 46% of R1a and 11% of R2a.” ref
“To say that Iranian languages have nothing to do with R1a‑Z2125 (from R1a‑Z94 and R1a‑Z93) is to ignore the levels of that Y‑DNA haplogroup reaching more than 50% in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan (former Saka territory) and Northern Afghanistan (62% of R1a1a, 0.5% of R1b‑L23 and 11% of R2a). The only areas with lower frequencies of R1a‑Z93 are those with higher frequencies of R2a, so there is still some possibility that the Indo-European Nuristani or Pamir languages could have some association with the Y‑DNA haplogroup R2a but this is only a speculation (maybe better explained by their Burushaski substratum). The area of Dardic languages during the Bronze Age (1200 – 500 BCE) in the Swat Valley of Pakistan contained more samples of Y‑DNA haplogroup R2a than what can be found in the people who live in this area today, namely the Kho (speakers of Khowar), Pathan (nowadays 0% of R2a; 50% of R1a) and Kalash (nowadays 0% of R2a; 20.5% of R1a). The aforementioned people from the Swat Valley fit into their own genetically (aDNA) isolated cluster, while the Burusho are close to Kho and Kalash but still form a slightly different cluster. This might be easily explained by much higher amounts of Andronovo derived ancestry in Kho and Kalash.” ref
“A study from 2015 by Ayub et al. showed that the Kalash people are genetically isolated from the South Asian populations and mostly resemble the Ancient North Eurasian Mal’ta Buret Boy (Paleolithic Siberian Hunter-Gatherers). It means that the ancestors of the Kalash arrived in the territory of Northern Pakistan already around 10,000 – 8,600 BCE or around 12,000 to 10,600 years ago. Those ancestors most probably carried the Y‑DNA haplogroups R2 and Q. This does not mean that they did not receive any genetic input after 8600 BCE. Kalash are even more genetically isolated than the Burusho people but still speak an Indo-Iranian language and carry 20.5% of R1a and 6.8% of R*. According to a 2016 study by Lazaridis et al. the Kalash from Pakistan are inferred to have around 50% of Yamna related ancestry, with the rest being Iranian Neolithic, Onge, and Han. The Kalash have a high proportion of Y‑DNA haplogroup L3a lineages, which are characterized by having the derived allele for the PK3 Y‑SNP and are not found elsewhere. They also have predominantly Western Eurasian mitochondrial lineages and no genetic affiliation with East Asians.” ref
“The Khowar language (and with it other Dardic languages, including Chitral Kalasha) can surely be excluded from the proposed cultural descendants of Y‑NA haplogroup R2a because even if it is geographically close to the Burusho, who carry 14.4% of R2a, the Kho and Kalash carry none and the Khowar language still retains many words in forms closest to Sanskrit. The Western Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups (HV8, H19, H57, H24, C, and C4a) were predominantly observed in the Kho samples with an overall frequency of 50%.” ref
“On aDNA PCA, the Kho people are slightly shifted from Burusho and Kalash towards Iranian, Central Asian, Siberian, and European samples. That is why “Kho can trace a large proportion of their ancestry to the population who migrated South from the Southern Siberian steppes (Andronovo Culture) during the second millennium BCE (~110 generations ago). An additional wave of gene flow from a population carrying East Asian ancestry was also identified in the Kho (also in Balti and Burusho) that occurred ~60 generations ago and may possibly be linked to the expansion of the Tibetan Empire during 7th – 9th century CE”. The Kho possess genetic ancestry components associated with the Yamna Culture and European Neolithic Farmers (Anatolia Neolithic + WHG); these three components taken together are characteristic of Middle Bronze Age populations from the Andronovo Culture, while the Early Bronze Age Central Asian Steppe populations lack the additional Anatolian Neolithic and WHG components. The shift of Kho from the 3500 BCE Geoksyur, Turkmenistan samples is also evident.” ref
“The only remaining Indo-European candidates closest to the archaeological sites, where oldest R2a samples were found, would then be the Nuristani languages (some Nuristani males still carry Y‑DNA R2a). To prove that the Nuristani languages in Afghanistan are the descendants of a language spoken by the people who carried the R2a haplogroup in Central Asia during the Neolithic, one would have to compare how many words the Kamkata-viri language (maybe Kamviri dialect) does not share with Sanskrit, Avestan, and European languages.” ref
“If this amount would be much higher than what Sanskrit does not share with Avestan and European languages, then those “not shared” words most likely originated in the R2a associated substrum language, for example, words similar to Sanskrit “मत्स्य (matsya)” (“fish”) and Nuristani Kamviri “oa mâći” (“fish”). In general, there are around 55 non-Indo-European words shared between Sanskrit and Avestan, which might have originated in the language related to the Oxus Civilization. Those 55 words and only 12% of R2a in that region (5% – 10% among other Dravidians in India) disqualify the Dravidian Brahui language as a descendant of a language spoken in the Oxus Civilization.” ref
“The ancient Y-DNA R2a samples predating 1500 BC come mostly from the territory of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, so one might suggest that they were related to the Iranic languages (spoken before the arrival of Turkmen and Uzbek languages). This might explain all the differences between Sanskrit and Avestan, but the language of 3500 BCE Turkmenistan and even that of BMAC remains unknown, and in this supposed thesis, the Y‑DNA haplogroup R1a‑Z93 and Sintshta aDNA would be associated with Sanskrit but not with Avestan. Why would then the supposed “R2a associated Iranic languages” be much closer to R1a‑Z93 associated Sanskrit than Sanskrit would be to R1b associated Latin… I have no idea. One would have to prove that Sanskrit is closer to Latin than it is to Avestan or to Nuristani languages.” ref
“To conclude all the speculations… It is not possible to precisely identify a modern language, which would be closest to a language spoken by the people who after 10,000 BCE brought the Y‑DNA haplogroup R2* to Central Asia. This mystery might be solved in the future with a discovery of a language spoken by the Oxus Civilization or the Namazga Culture.” ref
Iran Neolithic
“Demographically complex Near East hints at Anatolian and Indo-Aryan arrival, researchers focused on the three Late Chalcolithic groups with sufficiently large sample size and who are the earliest in time among the LC-LBA groups: ÇamlıbelTarlası_LC (n = 9), İkiztepe_LC (n = 11), and Arslantepe_LC (n = 17). Taking individual estimates from all these individuals together (“Anatolia_LC”), we obtain a robust admixture date estimate of 105 ± 19 generations ago when we use Barcın_N and modern Caucasians as proxies of the source gene pools. Using a generation time of 28 years (Moorjani et al., 2016), this estimate equates to an admixture event ∼3,000 years before the time of the LC-LBA individuals, corresponding to ∼6500 years BCE or around 8,500 years ago.Büyükkaya_EC is the earliest individual in our dataset with a genetic profile similar to the LC-LBA groups within Anatolia.” ref
“Therefore, we also tested a scenario in which the later LC-LBA groups had descended from the same gene pool without further external contribution. f4 (Mbuti, X; Büyükkaya_EC, LC-LBA) suggests that Büyükkaya_EC shares more alleles with the European/Anatolian Farmers (e.g., Boncucklu, LBK, Barcın_N) than LC-LBA groups do. Likewise, most LC-LBA groups cannot be modeled in qpAdm as a sister group with Büyükkaya_EC when Barcın_N is included in the outgroups. The time around 6500–6400 years BCE marks a significant junction in the Anatolian Neolithic because it saw a sudden and massive expansion of sedentary communities into areas that had previously supported no or very few food-producing communities before. Subsequently, in the Southern Caucasus, the abrupt appearance of a Neolithic lifestyle and the introduction of exogenous domesticated animal and plant species ca. 6000 BCE suggests some type of interaction with, and eventually intrusion of Neolithic populations from the neighboring regions, among which Southeastern Anatolia—along with Zagros and the Caspian belt—could be one of the most suitable candidates.” ref
“In the subsequent millennia and until the Late Bronze Age, genetic continuity persisted in North-Central and Eastern Anatolia, which is supported by the genetic similarity of these later populations and the absence of new ancestry sources after the Neolithic period. This contradicts prior hypotheses for population change based on archaeological evidence of intense cultural interactions during this period. For example, the site of İkiztepe on the Turkish Black Sea Coast contains a material culture with strong Balkan affinities, and this has been argued to signify direct contact with populations across the Black Sea, but these contacts do not seem to be accompanied by gene flow.” ref
“Evidence for genetic homogenization across larger geographic distances also comes from the uniparentally inherited Y chromosome lineages. We observe the most common male lineages, J1a, J2a, J2b, and G2a, in all spatiotemporal groups of the region. Alongside the less frequent lineages H2 and T1a, these all form part of the genetic legacy that dates to the Neolithic or was already present in the region during the Upper Paleolithic. In the subsequent millennia and until the Late Bronze Age, genetic continuity persisted in North-Central and Eastern Anatolia, which is supported by the genetic similarity of these later populations and the absence of new ancestry sources after the Neolithic period.” ref
“The paper mentions, in particular, İkiztepe on the Black Sea Coast, which shows a material culture with strong Balkan affinities. This confirms that the available İkiztepe individual from the end-4th millennium BC represented not only the actual community at the time (and was not a recent incomer from the Southern Caucasus), but also that it continued this likely ancestry of Hattic-related North Anatolians homogenized during the previous period, judging by the earliest available sample from the beginning of the millennium. Contrasting with the conclusions about İkiztepe based on a handful of samples, the Arslantepe sampling offers two important cues as to the origin of Anatolian languages and the fate of the lineages brought by their speakers.” ref
“An Arslantepe LC individual, ART038 (ca. 3361-3105 BC), shows hg. R1b-V1636, also highlighted by the paper. The authors, in their outdated comparison to the main haplogroup (R1b-Z2103) reported from Yamnaya and Afanasievo, forget to mention that this same hg. R1b-V1636 was found before in Khvalynsk and in Khvalynsk-related Progress 2, and later in Yamnaya from the Caucasus. ART038 [S150 (H221)] is a young female [sic] from Period VI B1/VI B2 lying on top of stone slabs closing the Royal tomb. Probably sacrificed. Dating of human bone: 3361-3105 cal BCE (4534 ± 27 years ago, MAMS-34112).” ref
“The fact that it has no Steppe ancestry shows how gene flows were easily diluted among a demographically dense Near Eastern population within a few generations. The case of the subsequent Arslantepe EBA period, when Kura-Araxes dominated over the site, is illustrative of a similar process: In PCA and f4-statistics, two individuals dating to this period show excess affinity with populations from the Caucasus and the Pontic steppe compared to their peers, while later Arslantepe_EBA individuals do not share this Caucasian affinity. This implies that the postulated demic interaction must have been transient and of small scale, although the small sample size from Arslantepe_EBA (n = 4) may not be sufficient to detect it. Subtle gene flow is consistent with recent findings from the site, suggesting that the EBA pastoralists occupying the site were more likely well-established local groups moving around the mountains rather than intrusive groups from the Caucasus.” ref
“The only Y-DNA reported from that period is hg. J2a-Z500, which has to be added to the already available Kura-Araxes-related (South Caucasus) G2b-FGC2964, and J1a-Z1842, the three of them thus continuing apparently the previous Near Eastern homogenization period. You can read more about: Ikiztepe and the potential arrival of Proto-Anatolian during the Chalcolithic. A discussion of the complex linguistic landscape of Anatolia, including the North Anatolian family (to which Hattic belongs), and Kura-Araxes as the most likely vector of Hurro-Urartian. Arslantepe and the likely incursion of Early Anatolians, as well as its conquest by non-Indo-European speakers from Kura-Araxes.” ref
Genetic Turnover in the Bronze Age Northern Levant
The Northern Levant, represented by the sites Tell Kurdu, Ebla, and Alalakh, showcases the most noticeable genetic turnover among our four time transects. Within two millennia after the last Middle Chalcolithic Tell Kurdu individual (TellKurdu_MC), the genetic profile of the populations in and around the Amuq valley (Alalakh_MLBA and Ebla_EMBA) changed to largely resemble contemporaneous Anatolians. However, the qpAdm modeling with Büyükkaya_EC suggests that Alalakh_MLBA and Ebla_EMBA are still distinct from the other Anatolian groups with respect to their connection to the ancient Southern Levant. All genetic analyses of Alalakh_MLBA were conducted at the exclusion of one female (ALA019) because of her outlier position in the PCA. Discovered at the bottom of a well, the archaeological and anthropological context suggest that the skeletal remains of this woman, C14-dated to 1568–1511 cal BCE (AMS; 2-sigma), represent an irregular burial with evidence of several healed skeletal traumata (…)” ref
In the Eurasian PCA, ALA019 falls genetically closer to Chalcolithic and Bronze Age individuals from ancient Iran and Turan (present-day area of Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan) (Narasimhan et al., 2019). These populations represent a west-east genetic cline with varying proportions of ancestries related to Barcın_N, Iran_N (Iran Neolithic), and WSHG (hunter-gatherers from Western Siberia). We confirmed the genetic affinity of ALA019 observed in the PCA with an outgroup-f3 test. Other ancient populations from the Caucasus and the Western steppe also produced high affinity but f4(Mbuti, X; Turanx, ALA019) suggest that ALA019 differs from other Turan individuals by occasionally sharing more or less alleles with either Iran_N or WSHG, which agrees with the presence of a genetic cline in this area. In the absence of ancient genomes from nearby regions such as Southern Mesopotamia, the most likely ancestral origin of this individual was somewhere in Eastern Iran or Central Asia.” ref
Interestingly, and even though the sample is female, ALA019 displays an ancestry similar to the region where Bronze Age Near Eastern Indo-Aryanspeakers are supposed to have expanded from. The presence of multiple injuries (potentially dating to her childhood) indicates a hard life, and her ‘burial’ – for lack of a better name – also implies a hard death, but it is difficult to draw any conclusions from a single individual: ALA019 (Square 32.57, Locus 247, AT 15878) is an adult female aged 40-45 years old found at the bottom of a very deep well [hence, dubbed “the Well Lady”]. The remains exhibit the presence of osteoarthritis with eburnation (OA) on the cervical vertebrae between C1 and C2, along with the rare presence of adventitious bursa on lumbar 3 and 4.” ref
“The individual shows evidence of healed trauma on the frontal bone of the skull and two healed fractured ribs (Shafiq, 2020). Enthesophytes were found on both calcaneal bones. (…) She was discovered facedown with her limbs splayed, indicating that she had been carelessly thrown into the well while it was still in use (probably for domestic/craft purposes or for animals). As this individual’s deposition was the result of misadventure, rather than deliberate burial, there are no accompanying grave goods. Dating of human bone: 1625-1511 BCE (3298 ± 23 years ago, MAMS-33687).” ref
“The likely connection of this heavily admixed Turan-like outlier to the arrival of Mitanni Indic suggests, once again, that the expansion of Indo-Iranian languages was a much more complex phenomenon than the Y-DNA bottleneck under R1a-Z93 and Steppe_MLBA visible in Sintashta-Potapovka and continued in the Andronovo horizon. For more on this, see: The initial evolution of Indo-Iranians in Turan and contacts with BMAC. A recent update on how Yamnaya-related peoples replaced Europeans, but admixed heavily as they spread to Asia. The emergence of Indo-Aryan in the Near East and the chronological position of Mitanni Indic.” ref
Early Neolithic genomes from the eastern Fertile Crescent
“Near Eastern genomes from Iran: The genetic composition of populations in Europe changed during the Neolithic transition from hunting and gathering to farming. To better understand the origin of modern populations, Broushaki et al. sequenced ancient DNA from four individuals from the Zagros region of present-day Iran, representing the early Neolithic Fertile Crescent. These individuals unexpectedly were not ancestral to early European farmers, and their genetic structures did not contribute significantly to those of present-day Europeans. These data indicate that a parallel Neolithic transition probably resulted from structured farming populations across southwest Asia.” ref
“Abstract: We sequenced Early Neolithic genomes from the Zagros region of Iran (eastern Fertile Crescent), where some of the earliest evidence for farming is found, and identify a previously uncharacterized population that is neither ancestral to the first European farmers nor has contributed substantially to the ancestry of modern Europeans. These people are estimated to have separated from Early Neolithic farmers in Anatolia some 46,000 to 77,000 years ago and show affinities to modern-day Pakistani and Afghan populations, but particularly to Iranian Zoroastrians. We conclude that multiple, genetically differentiated hunter-gatherer populations adopted farming in southwestern Asia, that components of pre-Neolithic population structure were preserved as farming spread into neighboring regions, and that the Zagros region was the cradle of eastward expansion.” ref
“The earliest evidence for cultivation and stock-keeping is found in the Neolithic core zone of the Fertile Crescent; a region stretching north from the southern Levant through eastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia, then east into the Zagros Mountains on the border of modern-day Iran and Iraq. From there, farming spread into surrounding regions, including Anatolia and, later, Europe, southern Asia, and parts of Arabia and North Africa. Whether the transition to agriculture was a homogeneous process across the core zone, or a mosaic of localized domestications, is unknown. Likewise, the extent to which core zone farming populations were genetically homogeneous, or exhibited structure that may have been preserved as agriculture spread into surrounding regions, is undetermined.” ref
“Ancient DNA (aDNA) studies indicate that early Aegean farmers dating to ~6500 to 6000 BCE are the main ancestors of early European farmers, although it is not known if they were predominantly descended from core zone farming populations. We sequenced four Early Neolithic (EN) genomes from Zagros, Iran, including one to 10× mean coverage from a well-preserved male sample from the central Zagros site of Wezmeh Cave [WC1, 7455 to 7082 calibrated years (cal) BCE]. The three other individuals were from Tepe Abdul Hosein and were less well preserved (genome coverage between 0.6 and 1.2×) but are around 10,000 years old, and therefore are among the earliest Neolithic human remains in the world.” ref
“Despite a lack of a clear Neolithic context, the radiocarbon-inferred chronological age and palaeodietary data support WC1 being an early farmer. WC1 bone collagen δ13C and δ15N values are indistinguishable from those of a securely assigned Neolithic individual from Abdul Hosein and consistent with a diet rich in cultivated C3 cereals rather than animal protein. Specifically, collagen from WC1 and Abdul Hosein is 13C depleted compared to those from contemporaneous wild and domestic fauna from this region, which consumed C4 plants. Crucially, WC1 and the Abdul Hosein farmers exhibit very similar genomic signatures.” ref
“The four EN Zagros genomes form a distinct cluster in the first two dimensions of a principal components analysis; they plot closest to modern-day Pakistanis and Afghans and are well separated from European hunter-gatherers (HG) and other Neolithic farmers. In an outgroup f3-test, all four Neolithic Iranian individuals are genetically more similar to each other than to any other prehistoric genome except a Chalcolithic genome from northwestern Anatolia (see below). Despite 14C dates spanning around 1200 years, these data are consistent with all four genomes being sampled from a single eastern Fertile Crescent EN population.” ref
“This observed excess of long segments of reduced heterozygosity could be the result of cultural practices such as consanguinity and endogamy, or demographic constraints such as a recent or ongoing bottleneck. The extent of population genetic structure in Neolithic southwestern Asia has important implications for the origins of farming. High levels of structuring would be expected under a scenario of localized independent domestication processes by distinct populations, whereas low structure would be more consistent with a single population origin of farming or a diffuse homogeneous domestication process, perhaps involving high rates of gene flow across the entire Neolithic core zone. The ancient Zagros individuals show stronger affinities to Caucasus HGs, whereas Neolithic Aegeans showed closer affinities to other European HGs.” ref
“Formal tests of admixture of the form f3 (Neo_Iranian, HG; Anatolia_Neolithic) were all positive with Z-scores above 15.78, indicating that Neolithic northwestern Anatolians did not descend from a population formed by the mixing of Zagros Neolithics and known HG groups. These results suggest that Neolithic populations from northwestern Anatolia and the Zagros descended from distinct ancestral populations. Furthermore, although the Caucasus HGs are genetically closest to EN Zagros individuals, they also share unique ancestry with eastern, western, and Scandinavian European HGs, indicating that they are not the direct ancestors of Zagros Neolithics.” ref
“The significant differences between ancient Iranians, Anatolian/European farmers, and European HGs suggest a pre-Neolithic separation. Assuming a mutation rate of 5 × 10−10 per site per year, the inferred mean split time for Anatolian/European farmers (as represented by Bar8, 4) and European HGs (Loschbour) ranged from 33,000 to 39,000 years ago [combined 95% confidence interval (CI) 15,000 to 61,000 years ago], whereas the preceding divergence of the ancestors of Neolithic Iranians (WC1) occurred 46,000 to 77,000 years ago (combined 95% CI 38,000 to 104,000 years ago). Furthermore, the European HGs were inferred to have an effective population size (Ne) that was ~10 to 20% of either Neolithic farming group, consistent with the ROH and θ ^ analyses.” ref
“Levels of inferred Neanderthal ancestry in WC1 are low, but fall within the general trend described recently in Fu et al. Fu et al. also inferred a basal Eurasian ancestry component in the Caucasus HG sample Satsurblia when examined within the context of a “base model” for various ancient Eurasian genomes dated from ~45,000 to 7,000 years ago. ADMIXTUREGRAPH inferred almost twice as much basal Eurasian ancestry for WC1 as for Satsurblia (62 versus 32%), with the remaining ancestry derived from a population most similar to Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) such as Mal’ta–Buret’ culture. Thus, Neolithic Iranians appear to derive predominantly from the earliest known Eurasian population branching event.” ref
“Chromosome painting” and an analysis of recent haplotype sharing using a Bayesian mixture model revealed that, when compared to 160 to 220 modern groups, WC1 shared a high proportion (>95%) of recent ancestry with individuals from the Middle East, Caucasus, and India. We also compared WC1’s haplotype-sharing profile to that of three high-coverage Neolithic genomes from northwestern Anatolia, Germany (LBK; Stuttgart), and Hungary (NE1; Polgár-Ferenci-hát). Unlike WC1, these Anatolian and European Neolithics shared ~60 to 100% of recent ancestry with modern groups sampled from southern Europe.” ref
“Recent haplotype sharing between each modern group and ancient Neolithic genomes from Iran (WC1) and Europe (LBK, NE1), HG genomes sampled from Luxembourg (Loschbour) and the Caucasus (KK1; Kotias), a 4500-year-old genome from Ethiopia (Mota) and Ust’-Ishim, and a 45,000-year-old genome from Siberia. Modern groups from south, central, and northwestern Europe shared haplotypes predominantly with European Neolithic samples LBK and NE1, and European HGs, whereas modern Near and Middle Eastern, as well as southern Asian samples, had higher sharing with WC1. Modern Pakistani, Iranian, Armenian, Tajikistani, Uzbekistani, and Yemeni samples were inferred to share >10% of haplotypes with WC1. This was true even when modern groups from neighboring geographic regions were added as potential ancestry surrogates. Iranian Zoroastrians had the highest inferred sharing with WC1 out of all modern groups. Consistent with this, outgroup f3 statistics indicate that Iranian Zoroastrians are the most genetically similar to all four Neolithic Iranians, followed by other modern Iranians (Fars), Balochi (southeastern Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), Brahui (Pakistan and Afghanistan), Kalash (Pakistan), and Georgians. Interestingly, WC1 most likely had brown eyes, relatively dark skin, and black hair, although Neolithic Iranians carried reduced pigmentation-associated alleles in several genes and derived alleles at 7 of the 12 loci showing the strongest signatures of selection in ancient Eurasians. Although there is a strong Neolithic component in these modern south Asian populations, simulation of allele sharing rejected full population continuity under plausible ancestral population sizes, indicating some population turnover in Iran since the Neolithic.” ref
“While Early Neolithic samples from eastern and western southwest Asia differ conspicuously, comparisons to genomes from Chalcolithic Anatolia and Iron Age Iran indicate a degree of subsequent homogenization. Kumtepe6, a ~6750-year-old genome from northwestern Anatolia, was more similar to Neolithic Iranians than to any other non-Iranian ancient genome. Furthermore, our male Iron Age genome (971 to 832 BCE) from Tepe Hasanlu in northwestern Iran shares greatest similarity with Kumtepe6 even when compared to Neolithic Iranians (table S20). We inferred additional non-Iranian or non-Anatolian ancestry in F38 from sources such as European Neolithics and even post-Neolithic Steppe populations (table S20). Consistent with this, F38 carried a N1a subclade mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is common in early European and northwestern Anatolian farmers. In contrast, his Y chromosome belongs to subhaplogroup R1b1a2a2, also found in five Yamnaya individuals and in two individuals from the Poltavka culture. These patterns indicate that post-Neolithic homogenization in southwestern Asia involved substantial bidirectional gene flow between the east and west of the region, as well as possible gene flow from the Steppe.” ref
“Migration of people associated with the Yamnaya culture has been implicated in the spread of Indo-European languages, and some level of Near Eastern ancestry was previously inferred in southern Russian pre-Yamnaya populations. However, our analyses suggest that Neolithic Iranians were unlikely to be the main source of Near Eastern ancestry in the Steppe population (table S20) and that this ancestry in pre-Yamnaya populations originated primarily in the west of southwest Asia. Researchers also inferred shared ancestry between Steppe and Hasanlu Iron Age genomes that was distinct from EN Iranians. In addition, modern Middle Easterners and South Asians appear to possess mixed ancestry from ancient Iranian and Steppe populations (tables S19 and S20). However, Steppe-related ancestry may also have been acquired indirectly from other sources, and it is not clear if this is sufficient to explain the spread of Indo-European languages from a hypothesized Steppe homeland to the region where Indo-Iranian languages are spoken today. Yet, the affinities of Zagros Neolithic individuals to modern populations of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and India is consistent with a spread of Indo-Iranian languages, or of Dravidian languages (which includes Brahui), from the Zagros into southern Asia, in association with farming.” ref
“The Neolithic transition in southwest Asia involved the appearance of different domestic species, particularly crops, in different parts of the Neolithic core zone, with no single center. Early evidence of plant cultivation and goat management between the 10th and the 8th millennium BCE highlights the Zagros as a key region in the Neolithization process. Given the evidence of domestic species movement from east to west across southwest Asia, it is surprising that EN human genomes from the Zagros are not closely related to those from northwestern Anatolia and Europe. Instead, they represent a previously undescribed Neolithic population. Our data show that the chain of Neolithic migration into Europe does not reach back to the eastern Fertile Crescent, also raising questions about whether intermediate populations in southeastern and Central Anatolia form part of this expansion. Nevertheless, it seems probable that the Zagros region was the source of an eastern expansion of the southwestern Asian domestic plant and animal economy. Our inferred persistence of ancient Zagros genetic components in modern-day South Asians lends weight to a strong demic component to this expansion.” ref
The genetics of an early Neolithic pastoralist from the Zagros, Iran
“Abstract: The agricultural transition profoundly changed human societies. We sequenced and analyzed the first genome (1.39x) of an early Neolithic woman from Ganj Dareh, in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, a site with early evidence for an economy based on goat herding, ca. 10,000 years ago. We show that Western Iran was inhabited by a population genetically most similar to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus, but distinct from the Neolithic Anatolian people who later brought food production into Europe. The inhabitants of Ganj Dareh made little direct genetic contribution to modern European populations, suggesting those of the Central Zagros were somewhat isolated from other populations of the Fertile Crescent. Runs of homozygosity are of a similar length to those from Neolithic farmers and shorter than those of Caucasus and Western Hunter-Gatherers, suggesting that the inhabitants of Ganj Dareh did not undergo the large population bottleneck suffered by their northern neighbors. While some degree of cultural diffusion between Anatolia, Western Iran, and other neighboring regions is possible, the genetic dissimilarity between early Anatolian farmers and the inhabitants of Ganj Dareh supports a model in which Neolithic societies in these areas were distinct.” ref
Ancient Migratory Events in the Middle East: New Clues from the Y-Chromosome Variation of Modern Iranians
“Abstract: Knowledge of high-resolution Y-chromosome haplogroup diversification within Iran provides an important geographic context regarding the spread and compartmentalization of male lineages in the Middle East and southwestern Asia. At present, the Iranian population is characterized by an extraordinary mix of different ethnic groups speaking a variety of Indo-Iranian, Semitic, and Turkic languages. Despite these features, only a few studies have investigated the multiethnic components of the Iranian gene pool. In this survey, 938 Iranian male DNAs belonging to 15 ethnic groups from 14 Iranian provinces were analyzed for 84 Y-chromosome biallelic markers and 10 STRs. The results show an autochthonous but non-homogeneous ancient background mainly composed by J2a sub-clades with different external contributions. The phylogeography of the main haplogroups allowed the identification of post-glacial and Neolithic expansions toward western Eurasia but also recent movements towards the Iranian region from western Eurasia (R1b-L23), Central Asia (Q-M25), Asia Minor (J2a-M92) and southern Mesopotamia (J1-Page08). In spite of the presence of important geographic barriers (Zagros and Alborz mountain ranges and the Dasht-e Kavir and Dash-e Lut deserts), which may have limited gene flow, AMOVA analysis revealed that language, in addition to geography, has played an important role in shaping the nowadays Iranian gene pool. Overall, this study provides a portrait of the Y-chromosomal variation in Iran, useful for depicting a more comprehensive history of the peoples of this area as well as for reconstructing ancient migration routes. In addition, our results evidence the important role of the Iranian plateau as a source and recipient of gene flow between culturally and genetically distinct populations.” ref
“The Middle Eastern region had a central role in human evolution. It has been a passageway for Homo sapiens between Africa and the rest of Asia and, in particular, the first region of the Asian continent occupied by modern humans. This area was also one of the regions where agriculture began during the Neolithic period, in particular in the Fertile Crescent, from which it spread westwards and eastwards. Different pre-historic sites across the Iranian plateau point to the existence of ancient cultures and urban settlements in the sixth millennium BP, perhaps even some centuries earlier than the earliest civilizations in nearby Mesopotamia. The proto-Iranian language first emerged following the separation of the Indo-Iranian branch from the Indo-European language family. Proto-Iranian tribes from Central Asian steppes arrived on the Iranian plateau in the fifth and fourth millennium years ago, settled as nomads, and further separated into different groups. By the third millennium BP, Cimmerians, Sarmatians, and Alans populated the steppes North of the Black Sea, while Medes, Persians, Bactrians, and Parthians occupied the western part of the Iranian plateau. Other tribes began to settle on the eastern edge, as far East as on the mountainous frontier of north-western Indian subcontinent and into the area which is now Baluchistan.” ref
“Nowadays, Iranian territory has been occupied by Medes (Maad) in the central and north-western regions, Persians (Paars) in the south-western region, and Parthians (Parthav) in the north-eastern and eastern regions of the country. In the 6th century BCE Cyrus the Great founded the Achaemenid Empire (the first Persian Empire), which started in South Iran and spread from Libya to Anatolia and Macedonia, encompassing an extraordinary ethno-cultural diversity. This widespread empire collapsed after two centuries (towards the end of the 4th century BCE) on account of Alexander the Great. In the 2nd century BC, north-eastern Persia was invaded by the Parthians who founded an empire extending from the Euphrates to Afghanistan. Because of its location on the Silk Road, connecting the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty in China, it quickly became a center of trade and commerce. The Parthians were succeeded by the Sassanid Empire, one of the most important and influential historical periods of Persia. Afterwards, Iran was invaded by several populations, such as the Arabs, Mongols, and Ottoman Turks. The Muslim conquest of Persia in 637 CE led to the introduction of Islam, with the consequent decline of the Zoroastrian religion, which still survives in some communities in different parts of Iran, especially in Tehran and Yazd.” ref
“This continuous invasion of populations with different origins and cultures created an interesting mix of different ethnic groups speaking a variety of Indo-Iranian, Semitic, and Turkic languages and encompassing Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Azeris, Baluchs, Bandaris, Gilaks, Kurds, Lurs, Mazandarani, Persians, Qeshm people, Turkmens, Zoroastrians and a group of so-called Afro-Iranians, which might be the result of the slave trade with Zanzibar. Despite the great potentiality of this genetic scenario in providing useful information to reconstruct traces of ancient migrations, only a few studies have investigated the multi-ethnic components of the Iranian gene pool. In order to shed some light on the genetic structure of the Iranian population as well as on the expansion patterns and population movements that affected this region, the Y-chromosomes of 938 Iranians, representative of the majority of the provinces and ethnic groups in Iran, were examined at an unprecedented level of resolution.” ref
“The analysis of 88 Y-chromosome bi-allelic markers in 938 subjects belonging to 15 ethnic groups from 14 Iranian provinces allowed the identification of 65 different Y-chromosome lineages (Table 1 and Figure S1). They belong to 15 main haplogroups (B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, L, N, O, Q, R and T) the most frequent of which are J (31.4%), R (29.1%), G (11.8%) and E (9.2%), with great differences (disregarding those relative to samples smaller than 20 subjects) in frequencies and sub-haplogroups observed among provinces and ethnic groups (Figure 1). On the whole, the Iranian population is characterized by very high haplogroup diversity (0.952): the maximum value being observed in the Persians of Fars (0.962) and the minimum in the Arabs of Khuzestan (0.883) and the Turkmen of Golestan (0.821).” ref
“Haplogroup J is predominant in Iran where both its sub-clades, J2-M172 and J1-M267, are observed. Its highest frequencies are registered in the populations located along the south-western shores of the Caspian Sea and along the Zagros Mountains ridge. Exceptionally high is the frequency observed in the Baluchi of Sistan Baluchestan, in agreement with their likely Caspian Sea origin.” ref
“J1-M267 does not exceed 10% in the majority of the Iranian samples examined, with higher values only in Fars (11.4%), Zoroastrians from Yazd (11.7%), Gilan (12.5%), Assyrians from Azerbaijan (17.9%) and Khuzestan (33.4%). The proportion of the two sub-lineages, J1-Page08 and J1-M267*, is highly variant, being J1-M267* almost restricted to north-western Iranian groups and J1-Page08 mainly observed in populations living below the Dasht-e Kevir and Dasht-e Lut desert area, (approximately latitude 30°N). It reaches a frequency of 31.6% in the Arab group from Khuzestan at the border with southern Iraq. J2-M172 is the main Iranian haplogroup (22.5%), almost entirely (92.9%) represented by J2a-M410 sub-clades.” ref
“The majority of the M410 chromosomes are J2a-Page55 and mainly represented by its main sub-clades M530, M47, and M67. In particular, the recently described J2a-M530 shows high frequencies in the Zoroastrians of Yazd (17.6%) and Tehran (15.4%), and in the Persians of Yazd (17.0%). J2a-M47 reaches frequencies higher than 5% in the Zoroastrians of Yazd (8.8%), in Mazandaran, Khuzestan, and Fars (∼7%), while it is absent in the Assyrians of Azerbaijan Gharbi and Tehran, in Sistan Baluchestan and in Hormozgan (except for the Qeshm group). J2a-M92 was observed in Sistan Baluchestan (12.5%) while the paragroup J2a-M67* was observed mainly in the Armenians of Tehran (8.8%). J2a-M68, previously reported in the neighboring Iraqi population, was not observed in Iran. As for the paragroups, J2a-M410* represents 2.8% of the total sample with ∼7% of frequency in Khuzestan, Mazandaran, and Khorasan, whereas J2a-Page55*, observed at 6.6% in central Anatolia, accounts for 4.8% of the Iranian sample. J2-M172*, recently described in the neighboring Iraqi Marsh Arabs (3.5%), characterizes one subject from Khuzestan (1.8%).” ref
“Haplogroup R in Iran is mainly represented by the R1 sub-lineages R1a-M198 and R1b-M269, whereas R2-M124 was observed only in 2.8% of the total sample. All the R1a Y chromosomes belong to the M198* paragroup with frequencies ranging from 0% to 25%. Indeed neither the “European” M458 nor the “Pakistani” M434 have been observed in our samples. Haplogroup R1b-M269 shows its highest frequency in the Assyrians (29.2%, averaged on Tehran and Azerbaijan Gharbi groups). High values are also observed in the Armenians from Tehran and in Lorestan (both with ∼24%). With the exception of five chromosomes belonging to the paragroup R1b-M269* and three chromosomes clustering in the “European” sub-haplogroup R1b-M412, all the M269 Y chromosomes belong to the R1b-L23 clade.” ref
“Haplogroup G is observed in this survey as G1-M285 and G2a-P15. G1-M285, previously described in the Iranian population, accounts only for 1.8% of the present Iranian sample. G2a-P15 is the most frequent sub-clade characterizing 9.1% of the total sample, with incidences ranging from 0% in Sistan Baluchestan to 19.3% in the Arabs of Khuzestan. Interestingly, the majority (74.7%) of the G2a-P15 Y chromosomes belong to the paragroups G2a-P15* and G2a-P303*.” ref
“Haplogroup E in Iran is mainly represented by the E1-M123 (3.7%) and E1b-M78 (3.0%) branches. The first is almost entirely characterized by its sub-lineage M34 and reaches its highest incidence (13.6%) in Kurdistan. The second is present as E1b-M78* in Lorestan (9.8%), E1b-V13 (5.9%) and E1b-V22 (2.9%) in the Zoroastrians of Yazd. It is worth noting the presence of individuals carrying African-specific haplogroups (three belonging to E2-M75 and 17 to E1b-M2) in South-East Iran (Hormozgan and Sistan Baluchestan), whereas the North-East African E1b-M81 is not observed.” ref
Evidence of Late Glacial expansions from a Near Eastern Y-chromosome reservoir
“It is known that in parts of the Near East, such as the Levant and Asia Minor, populations persisted throughout the last glaciation but no archaeological evidence for a Near Eastern Late Glacial expansions has till now been discovered. Recently, thanks to the recalibration of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) clock, signals of Near Eastern dispersals towards Europe in the Late Glacial (from 12,000–19,000 years ago) emerged from complete mitochondrial genome analysis of haplogroups J and T, previously associated only with the Neolithic diffusion. Although the Y-chromosome molecular clock is far from reaching the mtDNA level of accuracy, evidences of Late Glacial dispersals from the Middle East are provided by the large number of deep rooting lineages (rare elsewhere), from which diverged different branches that underwent Neolithic expansions. Accordingly, Y chromosomes F-M89* and IJ-M429* were observed in the Iranian plateau: the first represents the ancestral state of the main Euro-Asiatic haplogroups while the second probably moved toward southeast Europe sometime before the Last Glacial Maximum where it differentiated into the “western Eurasian” haplogroup I. Similarly, basal lineages of the “Middle Eastern” haplogroup J (J1-M267* and different J2a lineages: J2-M172*, J2a-M410* and J2a-Page55*) and of haplogroups G (G2-P287*, G2-P15* and G2-P303*) and R (R1b-M269*) were also observed. Their frequency and variance distributions suggest a Mesolithic Middle Eastern origin/presence (Figure 1, Tables S2, S3, S4, S5 and S7) of these Y chromosomes supporting the role of the Middle East as a genetic reservoir for Late Glacial expansions and subsequent Neolithic dispersals southwards and westwards into South-East Europe.” ref
“J1-M267* shows high variance in the Middle Eastern region including Eastern Turkey, North-West Iraq, and North-West Iran (Gilan – Mazandaran, Table S2), where probably originated 26,300 ±8.2 years ago (Table S7) and then migrated westwards up to the Balkans and the Italian Peninsula and southwards as far as in Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia. The network of the M267* haplotypes (Figures 2 and S2) confirms the previously described non-star-like substructure, enlightening a recent expansion (5,500 ±2.9 years ago, Table S7) of the cluster characterized by the DYS388-13 and DYS390-23 repeats including North-East Turkish and Assyrian (from Turkey, Iraq and Iran) Y-chromosomes. This cluster also harbours virtually all the M267* Marsh Arab Y chromosomes supporting the previously proposed origin in northern Mesopotamia for the Iraqi Marsh Arabs. However, only a further subdivision of this paragroup will allow a better understanding of times and ways of migrations marked by the M267* Y chromosomes.
“Among the different J2a haplogroups, J2a-M530 is the most informative as for ancient dispersal events from the Iranian region. This lineage probably originated in Iran where it displays its highest frequency and variance in Yazd and Mazandaran (Figure 2). Taking into account its microsatellite variation and age estimates along its distribution area (Tables S3 and S7), it is likely that its diffusion could have been triggered by the Euroasiatic climatic amelioration after the Last Glacial Maximum and later increased by agriculture spread from Turkey and Caucasus towards southern Europe. The high variance observed in the Italian Peninsula is probably the result of stratifications of subsequent migrations and/or of the presence of sub-lineages not yet identified. Of interest in the M530 network (Figures 2 and S3) is the presence of a lateral branch that is characterized by a DYS391 repeat number equal to 9. Differently from previous observations, this branch is not restricted to Anatolian Greek samples being shared with different eastern Mediterranean coastal populations. The M530 diffusion pattern seems to be also shared by the paragroups J2a-M410* and J2a-PAGE55*. In addition, the variance distribution of the rare R1b-M269* Y chromosomes, displaying decreasing values from Iran, Anatolia and the western Black Sea coastal region, is also suggestive of a westward diffusion from the Iranian plateau, although more complex scenarios can be still envisioned because of its non-star like structure.” ref
“Another lineage potentially informative in revealing pre-Neolithic dispersals from the Middle East towards Europe is J2a-M67*. It is characterized by a wide distribution, including European, North-African and Near Eastern Y chromosomes, without virtually going beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan. Its variance distribution identifies different frequency peaks in Iran, the Levant, Cyprus, Crete and Central Italy (Figure 2). The network (Figures 2 and S4), which appears to be complex reflecting internal heterogeneity, includes three most frequent, one step related, haplotypes harboring chromosomes from different populations, few common haplotypes (within population sub-sets) and a wide number of singleton haplotypes. Expansion events are clearly identified in the Levant and the Anatolia/Caucasus/southern Balkan regions from where the M67* spread towards southern Europe. Differently, no sign of J2a-M67* expansion is registered in other areas at high variance such as Iran (15,800 ±4.0 years ago), Cyprus (14,800 ±4.0 years ago), Central Italy (13,200 ±4.2 years ago) and Crete (12,900 ±4.5 years ago) (Table S7) where the majority of the observed haplotypes are rare and occupy a peripheral position in the network. Thus, while the high M67* variance in Central Italy is likely due to a stratification of seaborne migrations of Middle Eastern/Asia Minor peoples, the diversification observed in Iran and the Aegean Islands can be explained by a first Near Eastern, and possibly Anatolian, diffusion of the lineage followed by a Levantine expansion.” ref
Haplogroup R1a and the diffusion of Indo-European languages <