Corded Ware

Looking for differences among steppe cultures in Genomics is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

It means, after all, looking for differences among closely related cultures, such as between South-Western and North-Western Anatolian Neolithic cultures, or among Old European cultures (such as Vinča or Cucuteni–Trypillia), or between Iberian cultures after the arrival of steppe-related populations.

These differences between closely related regions, in all these cases and especially among steppe cultures, even when they are supported by Archaeology and anthropological models of migration (and compatible with linguistic models), are expected to be minimal.

Fortunately, we have … Read the rest “Differences in ADMIXTURE between Khvalynsk/Yamna and Sredni Stog/Corded Ware”

Massive Migrations? The Impact of Recent aDNA Studies on our View of Third Millennium Europe

Thanks to Joshua Jonathan, I have discovered the paper Massive Migrations? The Impact of Recent aDNA Studies on our View of Third Millennium Europe, by Martin Furholt, European Journal of Archaeology (28 SEP 2017).

Abstract:

New human aDNA studies have once again brought to the forefront the role of mobility and migration in shaping social phenomena in European prehistory, processes that recent theoretical frameworks in archaeology have downplayed as an outdated explanatory notion linked to traditional culture history. While these new genetic data have provided new insights into the population history of prehistoric Europe, they are frequently

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Archaeological origins of Early Proto-Indo-European in the Baltic during the Mesolithic

New article by Leonid Zaliznyak, Mesolithic origins of the first Indo-European cultures in Europe according to the archaeological data (also available in Russian).

The article refers to the common Meso-Neolithic basis of Ukrainian ancient Indo-European cultures (Mariupol, Serednii Stih) and Central Europe (Funnel Beaker and Globular Amphorae cultures) of the fourth millennium BC. Archaeological materials show that the common cultural and genetic substrate of the earliest Indo-Europeans in Europe was forming from the sixth to the fourth millennia BC due to migration of the Western Baltic Mesolithic population to the east through Poland and Polissia to the Dnipro … Read the rest “Archaeological origins of Early Proto-Indo-European in the Baltic during the Mesolithic”

The Indus Valley Civilisation in genetics – the Harappan Rakhigarhi project

Razib Khan reports on his new website about an article by Tony Joseph, Who built the Indus Valley civilisation?, itself referring to the potential upcoming results of a genetic analysis project involving Rakhigarhi, the biggest Harappan site.

The possible scenarios based on potential sample results in terms of Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups seem to be generally well described, and I would bet – like Khan – for some kind of an East-West Eurasian connection. This is all pure speculation, though, and after all we only have to wait one month and see.

Out of the potential models … Read the rest “The Indus Valley Civilisation in genetics – the Harappan Rakhigarhi project”

Luwians: the missing link with the Aegean Bronze Age, including Troy and the Sea Peoples

A very interesting monograph on the Luwian Civilization, and its potential connection with Wilusa (Troy) from the end of the third millennium and throughout the Bronze Age: The Luwian Civilization – The Missing Link in the Aegean Bronze Age, by Eberhard Zangger (also available in German: Die luwische Kultur – Das fehlende Element in der Ägäischen Bronzezeit).

Abstract:

Aegean prehistory suffered from a bias when the field was conceived 100 years ago and subsequent research has never questioned the fundamental paradigms of the discipline. As a consequence, only one third of the Aegean coasts have thus far

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The new “Indo-European Corded Ware Theory” of David Anthony

I recently wrote about the Indo-European Corded Ware Theory of Kristian Kristiansen and his workgroup, a sort of “Danish school”, whose aim is to prove a direct, long-lasting interaction between the North Pontic steppe and east European cultures during the Late Neolithic, which supposedly gave rise to a Late Indo-European-speaking Corded Ware culture. That is, a sort of renewed Kurgan model; or, more exactly, Kurgan models, since there is no single one preferred right now.

David Anthony had remained more or less in the background after the controversial assessment of the so-called Yamnaya ancestral component by recent … Read the rest “The new “Indo-European Corded Ware Theory” of David Anthony”

On the origin of language and human evolution

A rather risky preprint at BioRxiv, Language evolution to revolution: the jump from finite communication system with many words to infinite recursive language was associated with acquisition of mental synthesis, by Andrey Vyshedskiy (2017).

Abstract:

There is overwhelming archeological and genetic evidence that modern speech apparatus was acquired by hominins by 600,000 years ago. There is also widespread agreement that behavioral modernity arose around 100,000 years ago. We attempted to answer three crucial questions: (1) what triggered the acquisition of behavioral modernity 100,000 years ago, (2) why there was a long gap between acquisition of modern speech apparatus and

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Bell Beaker/early Late Neolithic (NOT Corded Ware/Battle Axe) identified as forming the Pre-Germanic community in Scandinavia

I wrote recently about the newly created Indo-European Corded Ware Theory group, which represents today the last dying effort to sustain the outdated model of the ‘Kurgan peoples’.

Archaeology and Linguistics (like Genetics) keeps slowly but relentlessly rejecting all the Kurgan model‘s foundations, safe for the steppe origin of Indo-European expansion.

The book Language and Prehistory of the Indo-European Peoples. A Cross-Disciplinary perspective. Eds. A. Hyllested, B.N. Whitehead, Th. Olander and B. Anette. Copenhagen Studies in Indo-European. Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen, has been recently published (December 2017).

In it, Christopher Prescott contributes to the … Read the rest “Bell Beaker/early Late Neolithic (NOT Corded Ware/Battle Axe) identified as forming the Pre-Germanic community in Scandinavia”

Coexistence of two different populations in Gotland during the Middle Neolithic

New insights on cultural dualism and population structure in the Middle Neolithic Funnel Beaker culture on the island of Gotland, by Fraser et al., in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (2017).

Abstract (emphasis mine):

In recent years it has been shown that the Neolithization of Europe was partly driven by migration of farming groups admixing with local hunter-gatherer groups as they dispersed across the continent. However, little research has been done on the cultural duality of contemporaneous foragers and farming populations in the same region. Here we investigate the demographic history of the Funnel Beaker culture [Trichterbecherkultur or TRB,

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