Indo-European replacement?

[Albion]

Did Indo-Europeans displace previous European populations or assimilate into them?

I always thought they assimilated into them but recently I've read a lot of people suggesting that R1b and R1a could have been spread either by the first farmers or Indo-Europeans and that I1 is the original Palaeolithic native.

So what exactly happened? Did Indo-Europeans replace the original inhabitants or were they subsumed into them and where did they come from?

I personally go with this theory (http://www.jogg.info/41/Wiik.pdf) which suggests that R1b and I1 arrived at roughly the same time but and went in different directions but were partially displaced latter by R1a and N1 in the east.

[Damião de Góis]

Invasions don't usually replace entire populations. In any case i think that Europe was sparsely populated at the time. It's hard to tell what might have happened.

[Oreka Bailoak]

Indo-Europeans didn't totally replace the existing European populations. And they certainly didn't assimilate to the populations that were in Europe before them. Instead the populations in Europe before the IE assimilated to the IE tribes (evidence is the archaeology, linguistics, genetics).

Otzil the Ice man was pre-Indo-European, and the recent National Geographic special on him released his DNA results showing that he is most genetically similar to people in Sardinia. But he was found along the Italian/Swiss border. There is some degree of genetic discontinuity between Europeans of the pre-Indo-European age and Indo-Europeans after IE migrations.

Did they kill all the males, or most of them, and take the women? We don't know, we need more genetic data for the period just after the IE expansions throughout Europe. Whatever the case we can say for sure that there is large genetic discontinuity between the Pre-IE and IE's of today. Maybe this process took place over a long period of time. More genetic data can tell us what happened with more certainty.

So what happened? The most credible theory that I've seen is the model that has them migrating/conquering in a way similar to the Mongol invasions- by horse. There is a great book out called- "Horse, Wheel and Langauge" about the indo-european migrations and the archeolgical evidence of their way of life and horses.

Geneticists also believe that Indo-Europeans also had a genetic advantage over the pre-IE Europeans. Indo-European populations today show a strong correlation with lactose tolerance, and populations that rely upon milk often are able to support a larger population than those that don't. The book "The 10,000 Year Explosion" talks about this theory in some detail, with lots of credible citations for further reading.

The IE's certainly constituted a ruling elite of the populations that they conquered. Often in pre-industrial times, the ruling class had far more kids than the lower classes, (read Dysgenics by Richard Lynn). This probably explains the distribution of R1b and R1a all over Europe at such high levels.

There is a great website that goes over the IE expansion with graphs...
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/neolithic_europe_map.shtml

And they also do a great job detailing exactly how the IE's Y-DNA probably came to dominance.
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/origins_haplogroups_europe.shtml#R1b

^In that last link I'd strongly recommend reading,,,
"How did R1b come to replace most of the older lineages in Western Europe ? Polygamy, Status & Power, Gender imbalance, Aggressive warfare" and "Did the Indo-Europeans really invade Western Europe ?"

Hope that helps.


I personally go with this theory which suggests that R1b and I1 arrived at roughly the same time but and went in different directions but were partially displaced latter by R1a and N1 in the east.
I strongly disagree with this theory. I think the most current findings do not back it up. The forum on the following site can explain why the Y-DNA I was probably indigenous and pre-IE.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/



I always thought they assimilated into them but recently I've read a lot of people suggesting that R1b and R1a could have been spread either by the first farmers or Indo-Europeans and that I1 is the original Palaeolithic native.

So what exactly happened? Did Indo-Europeans replace the original inhabitants or were they subsumed into them and where did they come from?

The old theory was that R1b came from the geographic region of Spain during the Ice Age, (such as the book "Origin of the British"). Then they said farmers and published a few papers of that. But the most recent data seems to disqualify the previous ideas (came in the ice age or Neolithic farmers) and the most recent data and archaeology evidence and linguistic evidence strongly support it spread during the IE. All the data converges upon this. The consensus in academia also seems to be that it (R1b and R1a) spread by the IE's. Read that forum for info.

[Albion]

Invasions don't usually replace entire populations. In any case i think that Europe was sparsely populated at the time. It's hard to tell what might have happened.

I thought so too, but Europedia argues a strong case for replacement. I really don't know what to believe now.


Geneticists also believe that Indo-Europeans also had a genetic advantage over the pre-IE Europeans. Indo-European populations today show a strong correlation with lactose tolerance, and populations that rely upon milk often are able to support a larger population than those that don't. The book "The 10,000 Year Explosion" talks about this theory in some detail, with lots of credible citations for further reading.

I see how this would be an advantage.


I strongly disagree with this theory. I think the most current findings do not back it up. The forum on the following site can explain why the Y-DNA I was probably indigenous and pre-IE.

I don't understand though. We're always told in Britain that R1b types migrated here after the LGM with perhaps a smaller migration of I1 into Eastern England.

Britain was recolonised around 10,000 years ago but I read things on Europedia which say it couldn't have been in Europe that long.
If R1b had already displaced the other groups in the Basque refuge and then spread to Britain I'd understand it, but this is saying R1b must have come with invaders which we have no evidence of.

Who is it supposed to have come with? Celts? There's only evidence for small migrations of Belgics in SE England and a few Armoricans in Dorset, evidence for Celtic migrations has always been negligible.

So you see the problem - Brits are told they descend from the first inhabitants to return here after the LGM with latter infusions of migrants, but we're told that most of our genetics go back to the LGM. Am I to believe this is a lie?


All the data converges upon this. The consensus in academia also seems to be that it (R1b and R1a) spread by the IE's. Read that forum for info.

The view of geneticists seems to change with the British weather to be fair.

Decades ago the Indo-European replacement theory was advocated, then a lack of archaeology made views switch to continuity and now replacement has become trendy again.
I'am really getting confused by all of this.

[Logan]

Jury's still out.

Something to do with Steel.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nouprOuzjXU/TSc-p5XC2OI/AAAAAAAAAjc/4B2J1DU30wk/s1600/Conan+the+Barbarian_Screengrab_0005.jpg



http://www.buildinghistory.org/distantpast/ironage.shtml#Cimmerians

[Oreka Bailoak]

I don't understand though. We're always told in Britain that R1b types migrated here after the LGM with perhaps a smaller migration of I1 into Eastern England.

That was the old theory before they discovered that older R1b types come from the Indo-European geographic origin region (between the Black and Caspian seas). They've dated the R1b divergence to about the same time as the expansion of IE. All the data seems to fit. You should start reading that site I've showed you, they keep up to date with the newest findings. Also this site is extremely good.
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/


Who is it supposed to have come with? Celts? There's only evidence for small migrations of Belgics in SE England and a few Armoricans in Dorset, evidence for Celtic migrations has always been negligible.

Yes, R1b seems to have spread with the Celts into the British Isles and also more recently with the massive German immigration into England of the Wolkswandering age.


So you see the problem - Brits are told they descend from the first inhabitants to return here after the LGM with latter infusions of migrants, but we're told that most of our genetics go back to the LGM. Am I to believe this is a lie?The view of geneticists seems to change with the British weather to be fair.Decades ago the Indo-European replacement theory was advocated, then a lack of archaeology made views switch to continuity and now replacement has become trendy again.
I'am really getting confused by all of this.

Yeah. I feel your pain. Most of my ancestry is British and I bought the books about R1b coming from the Basque Ice Refuge, I read all the scientific handouts and even printed them out and put them into a binder. Then they decided to change the story based upon new evidence. I was furious, that I'd been telling people the Basque origin of R1b, and also went through all that trouble to do research that was becoming discredited. In fact that's why my name is Basque, because at the time I believed in the Basque Ice Age Refuge origin of R1b.

Oreka Bailoak = "Equalized Values" in Basque

[Unurautare]

Thracians are natives to Europe,so I have no "ancestral guilt" over replacing anybody.

[morski]

Thracians were IE speakers, though.

Pelasgians are considered to have been the abos of SEE.

[Unurautare]

Thracians were IE speakers, though.

Pelasgians are considered to have been the abos of SEE.

Pelasgians aren't even a real ethnic group imo and nothing is known about them except that the lived in Greece :

The name Pelasgians (Greek: Πελασγοί, Pelasgoí, singular Πελασγός, Pelasgós) was used by some ancient Greek writers to refer to populations that were either the ancestors of the Greeks or who preceded the Greeks in Greece, "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably indigenous people in the Greek world."

The Encyclopedia Britannica online article on Pelasgians:


Pelasgi, also called Pelasgians, the people who occupied Greece before the 12th century bc. The name was used only by ancient Greeks. The Pelasgi were mentioned as a specific people by several Greek authors, including Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides, and were said to have inhabited various areas, such as Thrace, Argos, Crete, and Chalcidice. In the 5th century bc the surviving villages apparently preserved a common non-Greek language.

It is uncertain whether any ancient people actually called themselves Pelasgi. In later Greek usage their name was applied to all “aboriginal” Aegean populations.

Part of the Encyclopedia Britannica online article on Thracians:

Illyrians and Thracians

Archaeological evidence indicates that the Balkans were populated well before the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age; about 10,000 years ago). At the dawn of recorded history, two Indo-European peoples dominated the area: the Illyrians to the west and the Thracians to the east of the great historical divide defined by the Morava and Vardar river valleys. The Thracians were advanced in metalworking and in horsemanship. They intermingled with the Greeks and gave them the Dionysian and Orphean cults, which later became so important in classical Greek literature. The Illyrians were more exclusive, their mountainous terrain keeping them separate from the Greeks and Thracians.

I don't know why I keep reading foreign articles that keep diving Thracians into "Thracians"(just in Bulgaria and as some sort of cohesive ethnic group) and Illyrians(Yugoslavia). From what I know the Thracians were a big group in ancient times,possibly stretching from the Baltic Sea all the way down to Anatolia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracian_tribes

[Lábaru]

The Iberians were not replaced, and were not Indo-European, the Indo-European people simply were assimilated.

[Oreka Bailoak]

Indo-Europeans were assimilated into the existing populations
I'm surprised that so many people are picking this choice. This essentially means that IE people came into Europe and rather than passing on their genetics, language, culture, and traditions; instead the IE assimilated into the older non-IE populations learning non-IE traditions, religions, culture, language.

There are certainly exceptions throughout Europe like the Basque, the Etruscans and the ancient Raetic tribes (in modern day Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland).

But for the most part, it seems that the IE tribes didn't assimilate to the prior European tribes, rather, the prior European tribes assimilated to the IE tribes. The evidence is IE Language, IE religions, IE archaeological evidence (their geographic expansion is easily evident in the archaeological record), and genetics as evidenced by the very high percentage of R1b and R1a.

[Albion]

That was the old theory before they discovered that older R1b types come from the Indo-European geographic origin region (between the Black and Caspian seas). They've dated the R1b divergence to about the same time as the expansion of IE. All the data seems to fit. You should start reading that site I've showed you, they keep up to date with the newest findings. Also this site is extremely good.
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/

I've read Europedia and a few other sources. From what I've read it suggests that R1 arose in the Steppes somewhere with one group going south to Pontus / Armenian Highlands and becoming R1b and the rest staying in Southern Russia becoming R1a.
R1a then spread into east Europe as R1b spread through Anatolia, along Southern Europe and up the Atlantic to NW Europe.
I suppose that makes the I1 types the first Y-DNA haplogroups in Europe which may explain why many weird things occur in that general area - blond hair and blue eyes reach their peak and the Germanic languages contain a massive substratum accounting for half of the vocabulary (if we are to believe that Indo-European spread with R1 groups).

This would basically make the Germanics hybrids of the Palaeolithic inhabitants with a latter Neolithic or latter input from R1a and b.
The Basque language may speak one of the many Caucasian isolates perhaps spread there by the smaller haplogroups coming from West Asia, perhaps G2a or it could be a relic of the Augrenacian language I suppose.

I then also read that Indo-European may represent a hybrid of the two R1 languages which became separated but then met again with the expansion of the two groups. This would perhaps account for why Hittite is so distinct, it maybe descends solely from the R1b language before it met the R1a language.

I read something else which went on about IE being linked to I in the Balkans but I haven't really thought much about it.



Yes, R1b seems to have spread with the Celts into the British Isles and also more recently with the massive German immigration into England of the Wolkswandering age.

The only certain migrations are of Belgics into SE England and the odd Armorican in Dorset.
It used to be supposed that two waves of Celts spread to the Isles with the first being Gaels and the latter being Brythons who replaced the Gaels in GB. Maybe that long rubbished theory isn't so rubbish after all then.

If we are looking for evidence of a invasion I suppose it may not show up because it may have been a slow settlement / migration of people replacing a previous people with a much lower population who would have been much less able to put up much of a fight.



Yeah. I feel your pain. Most of my ancestry is British and I bought the books about R1b coming from the Basque Ice Refuge, I read all the scientific handouts and even printed them out and put them into a binder. Then they decided to change the story based upon new evidence. I was furious, that I'd been telling people the Basque origin of R1b, and also went through all that trouble to do research that was becoming discredited. In fact that's why my name is Basque, because at the time I believed in the Basque Ice Age Refuge origin of R1b.

I read most of those books and passed on the same misinformation. It makes me think, maybe those national origin myths such as the Britons coming from Troy with Brutus do contain some grains of truth. Troy is NW Anatolia so it would fit the theory of R1b coming that way.

And Picts from "Scythia" may not be a myth neither, most people have presumed them to be some Celtic or pre-Celtic Aboriginals but the origin myths say they came from Scythia (~anywhere from Germany eastwards to the Steppes).
Oppenheimer supposed they were proto-Germanics, I think they may have been R1a people of some sort.


Oreka Bailoak = "Equalized Values" in Basque

If you ask Loki he'll change it for you.


I'm surprised that so many people are picking this choice. This essentially means that IE people came into Europe and rather than passing on their genetics, language, culture, and traditions; instead the IE assimilated into the older non-IE populations learning non-IE traditions, religions, culture, language.

I phrased the poll wrong, I should have put it as "mixed with the existing population as a minority" or something like that.


I need to keep revising my theories anyway. R1b and R1a being Neolithic or latter has basically rubbished a lot of what I believed.
Do you think MtDNA H spread with R1b?

[cilicia]

Hi Albion,


I can't speak for all H subclades,but a lot of them seem to have a much earlier entrance into Europe from what I have seen and are associated with Hunter-Gatherers, while R1b is associated more with agriculture. I know Mtdna J1b1 seems to have had a lot to do with the spread of agriculture into Europe. Taken from 23andMe :



Haplogroup J1
Haplogroup J1 originated in the Near East about 38,000 years ago. Its history is closely associated with the development of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent and its expansion north and west into Europe.

Haplogroup J1b
Haplogroup J1b likely originated in the Caucasus Mountains about 27,000 years ago, not long after J1 itself. Over the last 20,000 years the haplogroup has been carried back and forth by migrations between the Caucasus and the Near East. As a result, J1b is especially common among present-day Iranians and Saudi Arabians. It is also frequent among the Ossetians of the Causcasuses.

The Spread of Agriculture

The distribution of one branch of J1b, haplogroup J1b1, was greatly influenced by the expansion of agriculture into Europe from the Near East. J1b1 arose in the Near East about 8,000 years ago, almost exactly the same time and place that agriculture developed in the region. Farming women and their families carried the haplogroup west through Turkey and the Balkans, then across central Europe in search of fertile soil. Today J1b1 can be found broadly across Europe, particularly in northern and western European populations.

The Vikings
By 4,000 years ago an offshoot of J1c2, known as J1c2-16192, had made it all the way to the western edge of Europe, becoming entrenched among the Celtic-speakers of the British Isles. But even that wasn't the end of the journey. Beginning in the 8th century AD, Viking raiders who regularly pillaged coastal Britain and Ireland often sailed back home with Celtic women aboard. Some of those women carried J1c2-16192, so that today there are Norwegians and even Icelanders with the far-flung J haplogroup. "

[Johnston]

Listen to the sagas and they will tell you what modern revisionists claim for themselves: Answers!:p

[Agrippa]

Well, I think it wasn't the same everywhere in Europe and at different times.

But there were many partial replacements over time and many assimilations too.

So such a categorical answer is impossible, because they did both, but they did not, usually, replace the previous population completely, but rather - in my opinion - "cut their head off" or "allied with their head" and then infiltrated the population. The stronger and more numerous they were, as well as the stiffer the resistance was, the higher must be the replacement rate.

But that is a question only more testing of prehistorical material can answer, anything else is just speculative, including methods which statistically analyse modern haplogroup frequencies.

Before we have a more complete aDNA picture of Europe as a whole with diachronic trends being clearly visible and proven, we can't say for sure.

But right now it seems to be - already - clear, that massive replacements were no exception, but the rule. And I would question the Indo-European replacement idea for another faulty idea: What if they were not as foreign to those already Indo-Europeanised? That would have been even harder to prove and needs a much higher resolution and more complete picture of the ancient DNA distribution over time.

[Scrapple]

I need to keep revising my theories anyway. R1b and R1a being Neolithic or latter has basically rubbished a lot of what I believed.
Do you think MtDNA H spread with R1b?

The current state of the research is that H entered Europe as the Ice melted. So R1's entered Europe later and mated with the aboriginal female populations.

http://i.imgur.com/s68T2.png

[Agrippa]

But for both H and R we don't know how wide it was spread and still don't know many things for sure.

H (mtDNA) and R (yDNA) are extremely widespread in the Europoid sphere, so it means little whether it was there or not, because different variants might be brought in by different waves of colonists.

The same can be said for various other major haplogroups of the Europid race in particular, they being so widespread, that they might have been pushed back and force at different times, with different variants involved.