Tag: yamnaya

Złota a GAC-CWC transitional group…but not the origin of Corded Ware peoples

koszyce-gac-zlota-cwc

Open access Unraveling ancestry, kinship, and violence in a Late Neolithic mass grave, by Schroeder et al. PNAS (2019).

Interesting excerpts of the paper and supplementary materials, about the Złota group variant of Globular Amphora (emphasis mine):

A special case is the so-called Złota group, which emerged around 2,900 BCE in the northern part of the Małopolska Upland and existed until 2,600-2,500 BCE. Originally defined as a separate archaeological “culture” (15), this group is mainly defined by the rather local introduction of a distinct form of burial in the area mentioned. Distinct Złota settlements have not yet been identified.

… Read the rest “Złota a GAC-CWC transitional group…but not the origin of Corded Ware peoples”

Yamna the likely source of modern horse domesticates; the closest lineage, from East Bell Beakers

Open access Tracking Five Millennia of Horse Management with Extensive Ancient Genome Time Series, by Fages et al. Cell (2019).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

The earliest archaeological evidence of horse milking, harnessing, and corralling is found in the ∼5,500-year-old Botai culture of Central Asian steppes (Gaunitz et al., 2018, Outram et al., 2009; see Kosintsev and Kuznetsov, 2013 for discussion). Botai-like horses are, however, not the direct ancestors of modern domesticates but of Przewalski’s horses (Gaunitz et al., 2018). The genetic origin of modern domesticates thus remains contentious, with suggested candidates in the Pontic-Caspian steppes (Anthony, 2007), Anatolia (Arbuckle,

… Read the rest “Yamna the likely source of modern horse domesticates; the closest lineage, from East Bell Beakers”

Uralic speakers formed clines of Corded Ware ancestry with WHG:ANE populations

steppe-forest-tundra-biomes-uralic

The preprint by Jeong et al. (2018) has been published: The genetic history of admixture across inner Eurasia Nature Ecol. Evol. (2019).

Interesting excerpts, referring mainly to Uralic peoples (emphasis mine):

A model-based clustering analysis using ADMIXTURE shows a similar pattern (Fig. 2b and Supplementary Fig. 3). Overall, the proportions of ancestry components associated with Eastern or Western Eurasians are well correlated with longitude in inner Eurasians (Fig. 3). Notable outliers include known historical migrants such as Kalmyks, Nogais and Dungans. The Uralic- and Yeniseian-speaking populations, as well as Russians from multiple locations, derive most of their Eastern Eurasian ancestry

… Read the rest “Uralic speakers formed clines of Corded Ware ancestry with WHG:ANE populations”

How the genocidal Yamnaya men loved to switch cultures

yamnaya-expansion-bell-beaker

After some really interesting fantasy full of arrows, it seems Kristiansen & friends are coming back to their most original idea from 2015, now in New Scientist’s recent clickbait Story of most murderous people of all time revealed in ancient DNA (2019):

Teams led by David Reich at Harvard Medical School and Eske Willerslev at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark announced, independently, that occupants of Corded Ware graves in Germany could trace about three-quarters of their genetic ancestry to the Yamnaya. It seemed that Corded Ware people weren’t simply copying the Yamnaya; to a large degree they

… Read the rest “How the genocidal Yamnaya men loved to switch cultures”

Arrival of steppe ancestry with R1b-P312 in the Mediterranean: Balearic Islands, Sicily, and Iron Age Sardinia

steppe-balearic-sicily-sardinia

New preprint The Arrival of Steppe and Iranian Related Ancestry in the Islands of the Western Mediterranean by Fernandes, Mittnik, Olalde et al. bioRxiv (2019)

Interesting excerpts (emphasis in bold; modified for clarity):

Balearic Islands: The expansion of Iberian speakers

Mallorca_EBA dates to the earliest period of permanent occupation of the islands at around 2400 BCE. We parsimoniously modeled Mallorca_EBA as deriving 36.9 ± 4.2% of her ancestry from a source related to Yamnaya_Samara; (…). We next used qpAdm to identify “proximal” sources for Mallorca_EBA’s ancestry that are more closely related to this individual in space and time, and found

… Read the rest “Arrival of steppe ancestry with R1b-P312 in the Mediterranean: Balearic Islands, Sicily, and Iron Age Sardinia”

Updates to ASoSaH: new maps, updated PCA, and added newest research papers

steppe-ancestry-cut

The title says it all. I have used some free time to update the series A Song of Sheep and Horses:

I basically added information from the latest papers published, which (luckily enough for me) haven’t been too … Read the rest “Updates to ASoSaH: new maps, updated PCA, and added newest research papers”

Ahead of the (Indo-European – Uralic) game: in theory and in numbers

yamnaya-expansion-bell-beaker

There is a good reason for hope, for those who look for a happy ending to the revolution of population genomics that is quickly turning into an involution led by beliefs and personal interests. This blog is apparently one of the the most read sites on Indo-European peoples, if not the most read one, and now on Uralic peoples, too.

I’ve been checking the analytics of our sites, and judging by the numbers of the English blog, Indo-European.eu (without the other languages) is quickly turning into the most visited one from Academia Prisca‘s sites on Indo-European languages, beyond … Read the rest “Ahead of the (Indo-European – Uralic) game: in theory and in numbers”

The genetic and cultural barrier of the Pontic-Caspian steppe – forest-steppe ecotone

steppe-forest-steppe-biomes

We know that the Caucasus Mountains formed a persistent prehistoric barrier to cultural and population movements. Nevertheless, an even more persistent frontier to population movements in Europe, especially since the Neolithic, is the Pontic-Caspian steppe – forest-steppe ecotone.

Like the Caucasus, this barrier could certainly be crossed, and peoples and cultures could permeate in both directions, but there have been no massive migrations through it. The main connection between both regions (steppe vs. forest-steppe/forest zone) was probably through its eastern part, through the Samara region in the Middle Volga.

The chances of population expansions crossing this natural … Read the rest “The genetic and cultural barrier of the Pontic-Caspian steppe – forest-steppe ecotone”

ASoSaH Reread (II): Y-DNA haplogroups among Uralians (apart from R1a-M417)

corded-ware-yamna-ancestry

This is mainly a reread of from Book Two: A Game of Clans of the series A Song of Sheep and Horses: chapters iii.5. Early Indo-Europeans and Uralians, iv.3. Early Uralians, v.6. Late Uralians and vi.3. Disintegrating Uralians.

“Sredni Stog”

While the true source of R1a-M417 – the main haplogroup eventually associated with Corded Ware, and thus Uralic speakers – is still not known with precision, due to the lack of R1a-M198 in ancient samples, we already know that the Pontic-Caspian steppes were probably not it.

We have many samples from the north Pontic area since … Read the rest “ASoSaH Reread (II): Y-DNA haplogroups among Uralians (apart from R1a-M417)”