Uralic speakers formed clines of Corded Ware ancestry with WHG:ANE populations

The preprint by Jeong et al. (2018) has been published: The genetic history of admixture across inner Eurasia Nature Ecol. Evol. (2019).

Interesting excerpts, referring mainly to Uralic peoples (emphasis mine):

A model-based clustering analysis using ADMIXTURE shows a similar pattern (Fig. 2b and Supplementary Fig. 3). Overall, the proportions of ancestry components associated with Eastern or Western Eurasians are well correlated with longitude in inner Eurasians (Fig. 3). Notable outliers include known historical migrants such as Kalmyks, Nogais and Dungans. The Uralic- and Yeniseian-speaking populations, as well as Russians from multiple locations, derive most of their Eastern Eurasian ancestry

… Read the rest

Fulani from Cameroon show ancestry similar to Afroasiatic speakers from East Africa

Open access African evolutionary history inferred from whole genome sequence data of 44 indigenous African populations, by Fan et al. Genome Biology (2019) 20:82.

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

Introduction

To extend our knowledge of patterns of genomic diversity in Africa, we generated high coverage (30×) genome sequencing data from 43 geographically diverse Africans originating from 22 ethnic groups, representing a broad array of ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and geographic diversity (Additional file 1: Table S1). These include a number of populations of anthropological interest that have never previously been characterized for high-coverage genome sequence diversity such as Afroasiatic-speaking El

… Read the rest

Pre-Germanic and Pre-Balto-Finnic shared vocabulary from Pitted Ware seal hunters

I said I would write a post about topo-hydronymy in Europe and Iberia based on the most recent research, but it seems we can still enjoy some more discussions about the famous Vasconic Beakers, by people longing for days of yore. I don’t want to spoil that fun with actual linguistic data (which I already summarized) so let’s review in the meantime one of the main Uralic-Indo-European interaction zones: Scandinavia.

Seal hunting

One of the many eye-catching interpretations – and one of the few interesting ones – that could be found in the relatively recent article Talking … Read the rest “Pre-Germanic and Pre-Balto-Finnic shared vocabulary from Pitted Ware seal hunters”

Common Slavs from the Lower Danube, expanding with haplogroup E1b-V13?

Florin Curta has published online his draft for Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages (500-1300), Brill’s Companions to European History, Vol. 10 (2019), apparently due to appear in June.

Some interesting excerpts, relevant for the latest papers (emphasis mine):

The Archaeology of the Early Slavs

(…) One of the most egregious problems with the current model of the Slavic migration is that it is not at all clear where it started. There is in fact no agreement as to the exact location of the primitive homeland of the Slavs, if there ever was one. The idea of tracing

… Read the rest

Scytho-Siberians of Aldy-Bel and Sagly, of haplogroup R1a-Z93, Q1b-L54, and N

Recently, a paper described Eastern Scythian groups as “Uralic-Altaic” just because of the appearance of haplogroup N in two Pazyryk samples.

This simplistic identification is contested by the varied haplogroups found in early Altaic groups, by the early link of Cimmerians with the expansion of hg. N and Q, by the link of N1c-L392 in north-eastern Europe with Palaeo-Laplandic, and now (paradoxically) by the clear link between early Mongolic expansion and N1c-L392 subclades.

A new paper (behind paywall) offers insight into the prevalent presence of R1a-Z93 among eastern Scytho-Siberian groups (most likely including Samoyedic speakers in … Read the rest “Scytho-Siberians of Aldy-Bel and Sagly, of haplogroup R1a-Z93, Q1b-L54, and N”

R1a-Z280 and R1a-Z93 shared by ancient Finno-Ugric populations; N1c-Tat expanded with Micro-Altaic

Two important papers have appeared regarding the supposed link of Uralians with haplogroup N.

Avars of haplogroup N1c-Tat

Preprint Genetic insights into the social organisation of the Avar period elite in the 7th century AD Carpathian Basin, by Csáky et al. bioRxiv (2019).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

After 568 AD the Avars settled in the Carpathian Basin and founded the Avar Qaganate that was an important power in Central Europe until the 9th century. Part of the Avar society was probably of Asian origin, however the localisation of their homeland is hampered by the scarcity of historical and archaeological

… Read the rest

How the genocidal Yamnaya men loved to switch cultures

After some really interesting fantasy full of arrows, it seems Kristiansen & friends are coming back to their most original idea from 2015, now in New Scientist’s recent clickbait Story of most murderous people of all time revealed in ancient DNA (2019):

Teams led by David Reich at Harvard Medical School and Eske Willerslev at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark announced, independently, that occupants of Corded Ware graves in Germany could trace about three-quarters of their genetic ancestry to the Yamnaya. It seemed that Corded Ware people weren’t simply copying the Yamnaya; to a large degree they

… Read the rest

Yekaterinovsky Cape, a link between the Samara culture and early Khvalynsk

We already had conflicting information about the elite individual from the Yekaterinovsky Cape and the materials of his grave, which seemed quite old:

For the burial of 45 in the laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania, a 14C date was obtained: PSUAMS-2880 (Sample ID 16068)30 kDa gelatin Russia. 12, Ekaterinovka Grave 45 ¹⁴C age (BP) 6325 ± 25 δ ¹³C (‰) –23.6 δ¹⁵ N (‰) 14.5. The results of dating suggest chronological proximity with typologically close materials from Yasinovatsky and Nikolsky burial grounds (Telegini et al. 2001: 126). The date obtained also precedes the existing dates

… Read the rest

The Pazyryk culture spoke a “Uralic-Altaic” language… because haplogroup N

Matrilineal and patrilineal genetic continuity of two iron age individuals from a Pazyryk culture burial, by Tikhonov, Gurkan, Peler, & Dyakonov, Int J Hum Genet (2019).

Relevant excerpts (emphasis mine):

Of particular interest to the current study are the archaeogenetic investigations associated with the exemplary mound 1 from the Ak-Alakha-1 site on the Ukok Plateau in the Altai Republic (Polosmak 1994a; Pilipenko et al. 2015). This typical Pazyryk “frozen grave” was dated around 2268±39 years before present (Bln-4977) (Gersdorff and Parzinger 2000). Initial anthropological findings suggested an undisturbed dual inhumation comprising “a middle-aged European- type man” and “a young

… Read the rest