“Steppe people seem not to have penetrated South Asia”

indo-iranian-sintashta-uralic-migrations

Open access structured abstract for The first horse herders and the impact of early Bronze Age steppe expansions into Asia from Damgaard et al. Science (2018) 360(6396):eaar7711.

Abstract (emphasis mine):

The Eurasian steppes reach from the Ukraine in Europe to Mongolia and China. Over the past 5000 years, these flat grasslands were thought to be the route for the ebb and flow of migrant humans, their horses, and their languages. de Barros Damgaard et al. probed whole-genome sequences from the remains of 74 individuals found across this region. Although there is evidence for migration into Europe from the steppes, the

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The origin of social complexity in the development of the Sintashta culture

Very interesting PhD thesis by Igor Chechushkov, Bronze Age human communities in the Southern Urals steppe: Sintashta-Petrovka social and subsistence organization (2018).

Abstract:

Why and how exactly social complexity develops through time from small-scale groups to the level of large and complex institutions is an essential social science question. Through studying the Late Bronze Age Sintashta-Petrovka chiefdoms of the southern Urals (cal. 2050–1750 BC), this research aims to contribute to an understanding of variation in the organization of local communities in chiefdoms. It set out to document a segment of the Sintashta-Petrovka population not previously recognized in the archaeological record

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The importance of fine-scale studies for integrating palaeogenomics and archaeology

Short review (behind paywall) The importance of fine-scale studies for integrating paleogenomics and archaeology, by Krishna R. Veeramah, Current Opinion in Genetics & Development (2018) 53:83-89.

Abstract (emphasis mine):

There has been an undercurrent of intellectual tension between geneticists studying human population history and archaeologists for almost 40 years. The rapid development of paleogenomics, with geneticists working on the very material discovered by archaeologists, appears to have recently heightened this tension. The relationship between these two fields thus far has largely been of a multidisciplinary nature, with archaeologists providing the raw materials for sequencing, as well as a scaffold

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On the origin of haplogroup R1b-L51 in late Repin / early Yamna settlers

A recent comment on the hypothetical Central European origin of PIE helped me remember that, when news appeared that R1b-L51 had been found in Khvalynsk ca. 4250-4000 BC, I began to think about alternative scenarios for the expansion of this haplogroup, with one of them including Central Europe.

Because, if YFull‘s (and Iain McDonald‘s) estimation of the split of R1b-L23 in L51 and Z2103 (ca. 4100 BC, TMRCA ca. 3700 BC) was wrong, by as much as the R1a-Z645 estimates proved wrong, and both subclades were older than expected, then maybe R1b-L51 was not part of … Read the rest “On the origin of haplogroup R1b-L51 in late Repin / early Yamna settlers”

Mitogenomes show likely origin of elevated steppe ancestry in neighbouring Corded Ware groups

Open Access Mitochondrial genomes reveal an east to west cline of steppe ancestry in Corded Ware populations, by Juras et al., Scientific Reports (2018) 8:11603.

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine, references have been deleted for clarity):

Ancient DNA was extracted from the Corded Ware culture individuals excavated in southeastern Poland (N = 12) and Moravia (N = 3). Late Eneolithic (N = 5) and Bronze Age human remains (N = 25) originated from western Ukraine and came from the Yampil barrow cemetery complex located in the north–western region of the Black Sea. Bronze Age individuals were associated with different archaeological

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Trypillia and Greece Neolithic outliers: the smoking gun of Proto-Anatolian migrations?

neolithic-migrations-khvalynsk-novodanilovka-anatolian

(Continued from the post Corded Ware culture origins: The Final Frontier).

Looking at the PCA of Wang et al. (2018), I realized that Sredni Stog / Corded Ware peoples seem to lie somewhere between:

the eastern steppe (i.e. Khvalynsk-Yamna); and
Lower Danube and Balkan cultures affected by Anatolian- and steppe-related (i.e. Khvalynsk-Novodanilovka) migrations.

This multiethnic interaction of the western steppe fits therefore the complex archaeological description of events in the North Pontic, Lower Danube, and Dnieper-Dniester regions. Here are some interesting samples related to those long-lasting contacts:

1. I3719 (mtDNA H1, Y-DNA I2a2a) Ukraine Neolithic sample … Read the rest “Trypillia and Greece Neolithic outliers: the smoking gun of Proto-Anatolian migrations?”

Sredni Stog, Proto-Corded Ware, and their “steppe admixture”

Once the haplogroups of the announced West Yamna and Yamna settlers in Hungary and Khvalynsk from Ekaterinovka appear, it is to be expected that there won’t be much discussion on the Y-DNA bottlenecks that affected Khvalynsk – Yamna migrations.

So let’s cut to the chase and see where Corded Ware peoples (mainly of R1a-Z645 subclades) got their so-called “steppe admixture” different from that of Yamna. Because, as you might have realized by now, Sredni Stog – and consequently Corded Ware – remains nowadays an undefined (archaeological) mess.

Rassamakin explains it quite well, in the chapter Eneolithic of the Black … Read the rest “Sredni Stog, Proto-Corded Ware, and their “steppe admixture””

When Bell Beakers mixed with Eneolithic Europeans: Pömmelte and the Europe-wide concept of sanctuary

Recent open access paper The ring sanctuary of Pömmelte, Germany: a monumental, multi-layered metaphor of the late third millennium BC, by Spatzier and Bertemes, Antiquity (2018) 92(363):655-673.

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

In recent decades, evidence has accumulated for comparable enclosures of later dates, including the Early Bronze Age Únětice Culture between 2200 and 1600 BC, and thus into the chronological and cultural context of the Nebra sky disc. Based on the analysis of one of these enclosure sites, recently excavated at Pömmelte on the flood plain of the Elbe River near Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, and dating to the late third

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About Scepters, Horses, and War: on Khvalynsk migrants in the Caucasus and the Danube

About two months ago I stumbled upon a gem in archaeological studies related to Proto-Indo-Europeans, the book О скипетрах, о лошадях, о войне: этюды в защиту миграционной концепции М.Гимбутас (On sceptres, on horses, on war: Studies in defence of M. Gimbutas’ migration concepts), 2007, by V. A. Dergachev, from the Institute of Cultural Heritage of the Moldavian Republic.

Dergachev’s work dedicates 488 pages to a very specific Final Neolithic-Eneolithic period in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, and the most relevant parts of the book concern the nature and expansion of horses and horse domestication, horse-head scepters, and other horse-related symbology… Read the rest “About Scepters, Horses, and War: on Khvalynsk migrants in the Caucasus and the Danube”