R1b-rich earliest Corded Ware, a Yamnaya-related vector of Indo-European languages

corded-ware-ancestry-eneolithic-bell-beaker

New open source paper, Dynamic changes in genomic and social structures in third millennium BCE central Europe, by Papac et al., Science Advances (2021).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

We report genomic data from the earliest CW individuals to date [show] that CW was widespread across Bohemia by 2900 BCE. The early radiocarbon dates are also supported by these individuals’ genetic profiles, who occupy the most extreme positions on PC2, as expected under a scenario of the earliest CW being migrants from the east who mixed with locals, resulting in intermediate PC2 positions in later generations.

(…)We found poor statistical

… Read the rest

Proto-Turkic homeland

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This post is part of a draft on South Siberian language homelands and Sprachbünde.

The following text contains a description of Proto-Turkic and its main dialectal split. Contacts with Samoyed, Ob-Ugric, Iranian, Yeniseian, Tocharian, Chinese and Mongolic, as well as palaeolinguistics, hydronymy, and ethnonymy are taken into account to pinpoint the succeeding homelands and expansion territories. The archaeological-archaeogenetic discussion is focused on the Middle and Late Bronze Age Altai Mönkhkhairkhan and Deer Stone-Khirigsuur Complex and related groups, as well as on Ulaanzukh; Early Iron Age “Scytho-Siberian” Pazyryk & Uyuk and Slab Grave cultures; and on the Late … Read the rest “Proto-Turkic homeland”

Proto-Samoyed homeland

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This post is part of a draft on South Siberian language homelands and Sprachbünde.

The following text contains a description of Pre- and Proto-Samoyedic stages and its dialectal diversification. Contacts with Indo-Iranian, Yeniseian, Tocharian, Yukaghir, and Turkic, as well as onomastics and palaeolinguistics are taken into account to pinpoint the succeeding homelands and expansion territories. The archaeological-archaeogenetic discussion is focused on the Middle Bronze Age Cherkaskul materials of the Andronovo period, on the Late Bronze Age Karasuk culture, and on the evolution and expansion of the Iron Age Tagar culture within the framework of “Scytho-Siberian” … Read the rest “Proto-Samoyed homeland”

Proto-Uralic Homeland (IX): West Caucasian

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This post is a continuation of a draft on palaeolinguistics and the Proto-Uralic homeland. Or, rather, a preliminary approach to the most likely key to understand the ultimate origin of Proto-Uralic.

Despite the multiple far-fetched proposals of long-range connections between Asian languages and Uralic – e.g. Ural-Altaic, Uralo-Siberian, Eskimo-Uralic, or Uralo-Dravidian – its closest language family is evidently Indo-European, whether by inheritance or by long-lasting intertwined language developments. This supports that Pre-Proto-Uralic and Proto-Uralic developed in Eastern Europe, always close to the Proto-Indo-European homeland. Therefore, it can be assumed that they were subject … Read the rest “Proto-Uralic Homeland (IX): West Caucasian”

Ob-Ugric Homeland

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This post is part of a draft on South Siberian language homelands and Sprachbünde.

The following text contains a description of Ob-Ugric languages and their connection within an Ugric Sprachbund. Special emphasis is placed on their evolution among surrounding ethnolinguistic groups before they were first documented, and on their most likely connection with archaeological cultures succeeding the Seima-Turbino phenomenon in the Southern Urals and the Trans-Urals. The archaeological-archaeogenetic discussion is therefore focused on the Middle Bronze Age Cherkaskul and Late Bronze Age Andronovo-like cultures, as well as on the formation of the “Scythian” Sargat … Read the rest “Ob-Ugric Homeland”

Proto-Yeniseian Homeland

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This post is part of a draft on South Siberian language homelands and Sprachbünde.

The following text contains a description of Yeniseian languages, their dialectal groupings and likely evolution among surrounding ethnolinguistic groups before they were first documented. Special emphasis is placed on ancient Yeniseic formants for water bodies, widely distributed through Western, Southern, and Central Siberia. Finally, the archaeological-archaeogenetic discussion is focused on Early Bronze Age Glazkovo-related and Okunevo-like cultures, due to their patrilineal connection to sampled Yeniseian and ancient Na-Dene populations.

Yeniseian languages

Evolution and Contacts
Hydronymy

Archaeology and population genomics

Glazkovo culture

… Read the rest

Dene-Yeniseian, Eskimo-Aleut, and Chukotko-Kamchatkan

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This post is part of a draft on South Siberian language homelands and Sprachbünde.

At least three major genetic changes have been described to date involving the Lena and Kolyma regions in East Siberia, and all are probably associated with some of the archaeological and linguistic developments that led to the known Early Modern distribution of languages in the Russian Far East and in Northern America.

The following is a tentative description of such intertwined linguistic-archaeological-genetic developments, based on the few available data from each field. For this guesswork, first genetic-archeological results, and then plausible … Read the rest “Dene-Yeniseian, Eskimo-Aleut, and Chukotko-Kamchatkan”

South Siberian Urheimaten and Sprachbünde

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The long-lasting intertwined ethnolinguistic developments of East Uralic speakers with Palaeo-Siberian populations makes it impossible to split up a post about the evolution of the former without discussing the fate of the latter.

External contacts with other indigenous East Asian languages close to the Altai-Sayan region and Circum-Baikal area are also relevant, but would no doubt turn this post series into an unending task. Therefore, I will focus on the western part of the Baikal Neolithic and Neo-Siberian-related ancestry clines, which seem more relevant for the ancient stages of Ob-Ugric and Samoyed developments.

For an easier read of … Read the rest “South Siberian Urheimaten and Sprachbünde”

Y-DNA of 129 high quality shotgun ancient samples

The Reich Lab has recently pre-published high quality shotgun sequencing data from 216 ancient individuals within the framework of the Allen Ancient Genome Diversity Project / John Templeton Ancient DNA Atlas. Metadata for the 216 genomes are available here.

Their median coverage is 4.9x, and among them there are 50 high coverage genomes (17-36x), but there are also samples with a coverage similar to the previously published ones.

The FamilyTreeDNA Haplotree team formed by phylogeneticist Michael Sager and Göran Runfeldt from the R&D team has analyzed all 129 males for Y-SNP calls, using – and updating with them – … Read the rest “Y-DNA of 129 high quality shotgun ancient samples”