Proto-Samoyed homeland

This post is part of a draft on South Siberian language homelands and Sprachbünde.

The following text contains a description of Pre- and Proto-Samoyedic stages and its dialectal diversification. Contacts with Indo-Iranian, Yeniseian, Tocharian, Yukaghir, and Turkic, as well as onomastics and palaeolinguistics are taken into account to pinpoint the succeeding homelands and expansion territories. The archaeological-archaeogenetic discussion is focused on the Middle Bronze Age Cherkaskul materials of the Andronovo period, on the Late Bronze Age Karasuk culture, and on the evolution and expansion of the Iron Age Tagar culture within the framework of “Scytho-Siberian” … Read the rest “Proto-Samoyed homeland”

South Siberian Urheimaten and Sprachbünde

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The long-lasting intertwined ethnolinguistic developments of East Uralic speakers with Palaeo-Siberian populations makes it impossible to split up a post about the evolution of the former without discussing the fate of the latter.

External contacts with other indigenous East Asian languages close to the Altai-Sayan region and Circum-Baikal area are also relevant, but would no doubt turn this post series into an unending task. Therefore, I will focus on the western part of the Baikal Neolithic and Neo-Siberian-related ancestry clines, which seem more relevant for the ancient stages of Ob-Ugric and Samoyed developments.

For an easier read of … Read the rest “South Siberian Urheimaten and Sprachbünde”

West Yamnaya settlers like Early Bell Beakers: R1b-P310 and R1b-Z2103

Informal report by Bulgarian archaeologist Svetoslav Stamov in 7/8 TV, from data collected by the Reich Lab for their future paper on South-Eastern Europe.

As can be seen from the TV captions below, this is the earliest R1b-P310 from Yamnaya or Yamnaya-related individuals in Early Bronze Age contexts from Bulgaria. In fact, its appearance together with a R1b-Z2103 lineage (and another undefined R1b-M269) shows once again that the earliest R1b-L23 bottlenecks were associated with Proto-Indo-Europeans.

Lacking a precise periodization, location, or proper cultural context in the spreadsheet, it is impossible to know whether they belong to Khvalynsk-related cultures … Read the rest “West Yamnaya settlers like Early Bell Beakers: R1b-P310 and R1b-Z2103”

R1b-rich Proto-Indo-Europeans show genetic continuity in Asia

Another preprint came out at the same time as Wang et al. (2020), from the Jena Lab of the Max Planck Society: A dynamic 6,000-year genetic history of Eurasia’s Eastern Steppe, by Jeong, Warinner, et al. bioRxiv (2020).

NOTE. I have now updated the Ancient DNA Dataset, the Prehistory Atlas – with PDF and GIS files including Y-DNA and mtDNA of all newly reported samples (starting with the Neolithic) – as well as the PCA files with those from Wang et al. (2020).

The conclusions are similar, but with some interesting twists. Relevant excerpts (emphasis mine), … Read the rest “R1b-rich Proto-Indo-Europeans show genetic continuity in Asia”

Fully Steppe-like Proto-Corded Ware Late Trypillians

The genotypes from Human auditory ossicles as an alternative optimal source of ancient DNA, by Sirak et al. Genome Res. (2020), have been finally published by the Reich Lab, so we can get a sneak peek into what’s coming in future papers about the origins of R1a-rich Proto-Corded Ware and R1b-rich Italo-Venetic peoples.

NOTE. To avoid adding potential errors, I have merged the Reich Lab’s Curated Dataset (v. 42.4, March 1 2020) with these new samples before performing the qpAdm analyses. If you find something different with your files, you should probably check out this simple setting first. … Read the rest “Fully Steppe-like Proto-Corded Ware Late Trypillians”

Proto-Anatolians: from the Southern Caucasus or the Balkans?

There has been some renewed interest lately in the origin of Proto-Anatolians, because of the recent lecture by Petra Goedegebuure, associate professor of Hittitology at the University of Chicago: Anatolians on the Move: From Kurgans to Kanesh, given at the Oriental Institute (Feb 5 2020).

I will try to comment on her lecture with a critical view of some of her ideas, keeping in mind reasons for one or the other potential routes, which we can for the moment simplify as Gimbutas’ (1965, 1993) eastern route through the Caucasus vs. Anthony’s (2007, 2015) … Read the rest “Proto-Anatolians: from the Southern Caucasus or the Balkans?”

Ancient phylogeography: spread of haplogroups R1b, R1a and N

The previous post showed the potential use of TreeToM to visualize ancient DNA samples in maps together with their Y-DNA phylogenetic trees. I have written Newick trees for Y-chromosome haplogroups R1b-L388 (encompassing R-V1636 and R-P297, which in turn split into R-M73 and R-M269), R1a, and N.

I have reviewed some of the BAM files from my previous bulk analyses with YLeaf v.2, to add information that I had not previously included in the All Ancient DNA Dataset, and which might be relevant to the proper depiction of phylogenetic trees; in particular, positive and negative SNPs potentially distinguishing archaic… Read the rest “Ancient phylogeography: spread of haplogroups R1b, R1a and N”

R1b-L23-rich Bell Beaker-derived Italic peoples from the West vs. Etruscans from the East

New paper (behind paywall) Ancient Rome: A genetic crossroads of Europe and the Mediterranean, by Antonio et al. Science (2019).

The paper offers a lot of interesting data concerning the Roman Empire and more recent periods, but I will focus on Italic and Etruscan origins.

NOTE. I have updated prehistoric maps with Y-DNA and mtDNA data, and also the PCA of ancient Eurasian samples by period including the recently published samples, now with added sample names to find them easily by searching the PDFs.

Apennine homeland problem

The traditional question of Italic vs. Etruscan origins from a cultural-historical … Read the rest “R1b-L23-rich Bell Beaker-derived Italic peoples from the West vs. Etruscans from the East”

Corded Ware and Bell Beaker related groups defined by patrilocality and female exogamy

Two new interesting papers concerning Corded Ware and Bell Beaker peoples appeared last week, supporting yet again what is already well-known since 2015 about West Uralic and North-West Indo-European speakers and their expansion.

Below are relevant excerpts (emphasis mine) and comments.

#UPDATE (27 OCT 2019): I have updated Y-DNA and mtDNA maps of Corded Ware, Bell Beaker, EBA, MBA, and LBA migrations. I have also updated PCA plots, which now include the newly reported samples and those from the Tollense valley, and I have tried some qpAdm models (see below).

I. Corded Ware and

… Read the rest