Corded Ware—Uralic (III): “Siberian ancestry” and Ugric-Samoyedic expansions

This is the third of four posts on the Corded Ware—Uralic identification. See

An Eastern Uralic group?

Even though proposals of an Eastern Uralic (or Ugro-Samoyedic) group are in the minority – and those who support it tend to search for an origin of Uralic in Central Asia – , there is nothing wrong in supporting this from the point of view … Read the rest “Corded Ware—Uralic (III): “Siberian ancestry” and Ugric-Samoyedic expansions”

The traditional multilingualism of Siberian populations

New paper (behind paywall) A case-study in historical sociolinguistics beyond Europe: Reconstructing patterns of multilingualism in a linguistic community in Siberia, by Khanina and Meyerhoff, Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics (2018) 4(2).

The Nganasans have been eastern neighbours of the Enets for at least several centuries, or even longer, as indicated in Figures 2 and 3.10 They often dwelled on the same grounds and had common households with the Enets. Nganasans and Enets could intermarry (Dolgikh 1962a), while the Nganasans did not marry representatives of any other ethnic groups. As a result, it was not unusual for Enets and Nganasans

… Read the rest

Iron Age bottleneck of the Proto-Fennic population in Estonia

Demographic data and figures derived from Estonian Iron Age graves, by Raili Allmäe, Papers on Anthropology (2018) 27(2).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

Introduction

Inhumation and cremation burials were both common in Iron Age Estonia; however, the pattern which burials were prevalent has regional as well temporal peculiarities. In Estonia, cremation burials appear in the Late Bronze Age (1100–500 BC), for example, in stone-cist graves and ship graves, although inhumation is still characteristic of the period [28, 18]. Cremation burials have occasionally been found beneath the Late Bronze Age cists and the Early Iron Age (500 BC–450 AD) tarand graves

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The Tungusic Ulchi population probably linked to haplogroup C2b1a

New paper (behind paywall) Demographic and Genetic Portraits of the Ulchi Population, by Balanovska et al. Russian Journal of Genetics (2018) 54(10):1245–1253.

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

Marital structure. The intensity of interethnic marriages puts the existence of the Ulchi population at risk. The colorful ethnic composition of the Ulchi settlements is reflected in the marriage structure [see featured image]. We found that the proportion of single-ethnic marriages of the Ulchi is on average 51%. The greatest number of such marriages takes place in the village of Bulava. Marriages of Ulchi with Russians are in second place. Marriages with indigenous

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Dzudzuana, Sidelkino, and the Caucasus contribution to the Pontic-Caspian steppe

It has been known for a long time that the Caucasus must have hosted many (at least partially) isolated populations, probably helped by geographical boundaries, setting it apart from open Eurasian areas.

David Reich writes in his book the following about India:

The genetic data told a clear story. Around a third of Indian groups experienced population bottlenecks as strong or stronger than the ones that occurred among Finns or Ashkenazi Jews. We later confirmed this finding in an even larger dataset that we collected working with Thangaraj: genetic data from more than 250 jati groups spread throughout India (…)

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Corded Ware—Uralic (II): Finno-Permic and the expansion of N-L392/Siberian ancestry

This is the second of four posts on the Corded Ware—Uralic identification:

I read from time to time that “we have not sampled Uralic speakers yet”, and “we are waiting to see when Uralic-speaking peoples are sampled”. Are we, though?

Proto-language homelands are based on linguistic data, such as guesstimates for dialectal evolution, loanwords and phonetic changes for language contacts, toponymy … Read the rest “Corded Ware—Uralic (II): Finno-Permic and the expansion of N-L392/Siberian ancestry”

Munda admixture happened probably during the ANI-ASI mixture

Preprint The genetic legacy of continental scale admixture in Indian Austroasiatic speakers, by Tätte et al. bioRxiv (2018).

Interesting excerpts:

Studies analysing mtDNA and Y chromosome markers have revealed a sex-specific admixture pattern of admixture of Southeast and South Asian ancestry components for Munda speakers. While close to 100% of mtDNA lineages present in Mundas match those in other Indian populations, around 65% of their paternal genetic heritage is more closely related to Southeast Asian than South Asian variation. Such a contrasting distribution of maternal and paternal lineages among the Munda speakers is a classic example of ‘father tongue

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Haplogroup R1a and CWC ancestry predominate in Fennic, Ugric, and Samoyedic groups

Open access Genes reveal traces of common recent demographic history for most of the Uralic-speaking populations, by Tambets et al. Genome Biology (2018).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

Methods

A total of 286 samples of Uralic-speaking individuals, of those 121 genotyped in this study, were analysed in the context of 1514 Eurasian samples (including 14 samples published for the first time) based on whole genome single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (Additional file 1: Table S1). All these samples, together with the larger sample set of Uralic speakers, were characterized for mtDNA and chrY markers.

The question as which material cultures may

… Read the rest

Neolithic and Bronze Age Anatolia, Urals, Fennoscandia, Italy, and Hungary (ISBA 8, 20th Sep)

I will post information on ISBA 8 sesions today as I see them on Twitter (see programme in PDF, and sessions from yesterday).

Official abstracts are listed first (emphasis mine), then reports and images and/or link to tweets. Here is the list for quick access:

Russian colonization in Yakutia

Exploring the genomic impact of colonization in north-eastern Siberia… Read the rest “Neolithic and Bronze Age Anatolia, Urals, Fennoscandia, Italy, and Hungary (ISBA 8, 20th Sep)”