Category: Anthropology

The myth of mixed language, the concepts of culture core and package, and the invention of ‘Steppe folk’

neolithic-steppe

I recently read some papers which, albeit apparently unrelated, should be of interest for many today.

Mixed language

The myth of the mixed languages, by Kees Versteeg, in Advances in Maltese linguistics, ed. by Benjamin Saade and Mauro Tosco, 217-238. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2017 [uncorrected proofs]

This paper focuses on the usefulness of the label ‘mixed languages’ as an analytical tool. Section 1 sketches the emergence of the biological paradigm in linguistics and its effect on the contemporary debate about mixed languages. Sections 2 and 3 discuss two processes that have been held responsible

… Read the rest “The myth of mixed language, the concepts of culture core and package, and the invention of ‘Steppe folk’”

Genetic prehistory of the Baltic Sea region and Y-DNA: Corded Ware and R1a-Z645, Bronze Age and N1c

baltic-region-mittnik

Open Access The genetic prehistory of the Baltic Sea region, by Mittnik et al., Nature Communications 9: 442 (2018), based on preprint The Genetic History of Northern Europe, at BioRxirv.

As you can see, it follows my predictions in terms of haplogroups, and sadly the same trend to substitute ‘Yamna’ for ‘steppe’ while keeping linguistic interpretations unchanged…

Important excerpts for the Indo-European question (emphasis mine):

Mesolithic to Neolithic

In the archaeological understanding, the transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic in the Eastern Baltic region does not coincide with a large-scale population turnover and a stark shift in economy

… Read the rest “Genetic prehistory of the Baltic Sea region and Y-DNA: Corded Ware and R1a-Z645, Bronze Age and N1c”

The Indo-European demic diffusion model, and the “R1b – Indo-European” association

yamna_bell_beaker_cut

Beginning with the new year, I wanted to commit myself to some predictions, as I did last year, even though they constantly change with new data.

I recently read Proto-Indo-European homelands – ancient genetic clues at last?, by Edward Pegler, which is a good summary of the current state of the art in the Indo-European question for many geneticists – and thus a great example of how well Genetics can influence Indo-European studies, and how badly it can be used to interpret actual cultural events – although more time is necessary for some to realize it. Notice for … Read the rest “The Indo-European demic diffusion model, and the “R1b – Indo-European” association”

Earliest modern humans outside Africa and ancient genomic history

palaeolithic

Interesting new paper at Science, The earliest modern humans outside Africa, by Hershkovitz et al., Science (2018) Vol. 359, Issue 6374, pp. 456-459

Introduction:

Recent paleoanthropological studies have suggested that modern humans migrated from Africa as early as the beginning of the Late Pleistocene, 120,000 years ago. Hershkovitz et al. now suggest that early modern humans were already present outside of Africa more than 55,000 years earlier (see the Perspective by Stringer and Galway-Witham). During excavations of sediments at Mount Carmel, Israel, they found a fossil of a mouth part, a left hemimaxilla, with almost complete dentition.

The sediments

… Read the rest “Earliest modern humans outside Africa and ancient genomic history”

Admixture of Srubna and Huns in Hungarian conquerors

hungarian-conqueror-migrations

New preprint at BioRxiv, Mitogenomic data indicate admixture components of Asian Hun and Srubnaya origin in the Hungarian Conquerors, by Neparáczki et al. (2018), at BioRxiv.

Abstract (emphasis mine):

It has been widely accepted that the Finno-Ugric Hungarian language, originated from proto Uralic people, was brought into the Carpathian Basin by the Hungarian Conquerors. From the middle of the 19th century this view prevailed against the deep-rooted Hungarian Hun tradition, maintained in folk memory as well as in Hungarian and foreign written medieval sources, which claimed that Hungarians were kinsfolk of the Huns. In order to shed light on

… Read the rest “Admixture of Srubna and Huns in Hungarian conquerors”