Tag: suvorovo

Proto-Indo-Europeans: A family business

khvalynsk-yamnaya-y-dna-bottleneck

I have been updating the Ancient DNA Dataset with date estimates published in the recent preprint by Sedig, Olalde, Patterson & Reich bioRxiv (2020), and it had a reference to some interesting new samples from Khvalynsk, showing tight family connections.

Information below is taken from the preprint and from the latest version of the Reich Lab’s Allen Ancient DNA Resource (AADR). Information about the three published Khvalynsk samples is taken from Mathieson et al. Nature (2015) supplementary materials, and each ID features a different font color in the text below for clarity’s sake.

Khvalynsk Family A

I0434, … Read the rest “Proto-Indo-Europeans: A family business”

“Steppe ancestry” step by step: Khvalynsk, Sredni Stog, Repin, Yamna, Corded Ware

dzudzuana_pca-large

Wang et al. (2018) is obviously a game changer in many aspects. I have already written about the upcoming Yamna Hungary samples, about the new Steppe_Eneolithic and Caucasus Eneolithic keystones, and about the upcoming Greece Neolithic samples with steppe ancestry.

An interesting aspect of the paper, hidden among so many relevant details, is a clearer picture of how the so-called Yamnaya or steppe ancestry evolved from Samara hunter-gatherers to Yamna nomadic pastoralists, and how this ancestry appeared among Proto-Corded Ware populations.

Please note: arrows of “ancestry movement” in the following PCAs do not necessarily represent physical … Read the rest ““Steppe ancestry” step by step: Khvalynsk, Sredni Stog, Repin, Yamna, Corded Ware”

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

steppe-eneolithic-migrations

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”

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?”

Kurgan origins and expansion with Khvalynsk-Novodanilovka chieftains

burials-ochre-steppe

The concept of ‘Kurgan peoples’ is a general idea whereby ‘kurgan builders’ are identified with Indo-European speakers. It is a consequence of the oversimplification of Gimbutas’ theory, and is still widespread among linguists, archaeologists, geneticists, and amateurs alike.

NOTE. On the already simplistic assumptions of Gimbutas regarding the so-called ‘kurgan’ burials, see e.g. Häusler’s early criticism.

However, as more ancient DNA studies appear, many ancient cultures once held as ‘kurganized’ are becoming more and more clearly disconnected from Proto-Indo-Europeans: So for example Varna, Cucuteni-Trypillia, Maykop, or Northern Iranian kurgan builders.

The first marked burials

In his chapter Aspects of … Read the rest “Kurgan origins and expansion with Khvalynsk-Novodanilovka chieftains”

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

steppe-horse-sceptre-khvalynsk

dergachev-scepters-khavlynsk-horsesAbout 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”

Haplogroup R1b-L51 in Khvalynsk samples from the Samara region dated ca. 4250-4000 BC

A commenter in a previous post left a reference to an oral communication by Aleksander Khokhlov – shared in a Russian forum on genetics – , from the XIV Conference on Samaran Archaeology, 27-28th January 2018 (still publicized in the Samaran Archaeological Society).

NOTE. You may know Khokhlov as a palaeoanthropologist, part of the Samara Valley project, like David W. Anthony. See the project referenced here, or their recently published book.

Here is my translation of the reported summary (emphasis mine):

Khokhlov, A.A. Preliminary results of anthropological and genetic studies of materials of the Volga-Ural

… Read the rest “Haplogroup R1b-L51 in Khvalynsk samples from the Samara region dated ca. 4250-4000 BC”

Domestication spread probably via the North Pontic steppe to Khvalynsk… but not horse riding

Interesting paper Excavation at the Razdolnoe site on the Kalmius river in 2010, by N. Kotova, D. Anthony, D. Brown, S. Degermendzhy, P. Crabtree, In: Archaeology and Palaeoecology of the Ukrainian Steppe / IA NAS of Ukraine, Kyiv 2017.

Nothing new probably to those who have read Anthony (2007), but this new publication of his research on the North Pontic region seems to contradict recent papers which cast doubts on the presence of early forms of domestication in the North Pontic steppe, and would reject thus also the arrival of domestication to Khvalynsk from a southern route.… Read the rest “Domestication spread probably via the North Pontic steppe to Khvalynsk… but not horse riding”

The Lower Danube during the Eneolithic, and the potential Proto-Anatolian community

zhivotilovka-type-burials

Local cultural settings and transregional phenomena: on the impact of a funerary ritual in the Lower Danube in the 4th millennium BC, by Frinculeasa & Mirea, In: Buletinul Muzeului Judetean Teleorman, Seria Arheologie, 9, 2017, p. 75-116.

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

1. In the area under discussion, around 4300-4200 BC – a chronological segment marking the evolutionary peak of ‘Old Europe’ (Anthony 2007: 225), represented by the Cucuteni A/ Tripolie BI, Aldeni-Bolgrad, Gumelniţa-Karanovo VI cultures – the first tumular burials appeared (Govedarica 2016: 85). However, flat burials, marked by the existence of some allogeneous elements in the local

… Read the rest “The Lower Danube during the Eneolithic, and the potential Proto-Anatolian community”