Ancient steppe populations...

[evon]

http://www.bmbf.de/pub/neue_blicke_auf_alte_kulturen.pdf

Sadly its all in German, but both David and Dienekes have tried to translate atleast part of it:

http://dienekes.blogspot.no/2013/06/ancient-steppe-populations-hints-of.html



- Heterogeneity of North Pontic steppe groups with differences between Catacomb culture and earlier Yamnaya individuals
- "European" light pigmentation but with darker eyes
- Iron Age nomadic horsemen of Central Asia/South Siberia were mixed West/East Eurasia

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/neue-blicke-auf-zivilisa-tionen-der.html


Two years ago I excitedly blogged about a German effort to analyze ancient human DNA from some of the most important archeological cultures from the Eurasian steppes. The project was basically advertised as an effort to solve the mystery of the origins of modern Europeans (see here). But I've heard very little about this study since then, and almost gave up hope that it would ever produce a paper. However, as far as I can tell, the paragraphs below from an online German newsletter give some hints about the results. Unfortunately, I can't make out the details. I've tried Google Translate and it just spat out nonsense.


Population genetic analyses revealed a steadily increasing genetic distance between these cultures from the late Copper Age to the Middle Bronze Age. The greatest genetic distance is between the Copper Age cultures and the Catacomb Culture, and this is much more pronounced than the genetic distance between the early Copper Age cultures and Yamnaya Culture. This could indicate discontinuity and population change through migration. Archeological data suggest a migration into the North Pontic region from the Eastern Steppe, but this is not backed up by the DNA data, or at least the maternal lineages: typically Central Asian mtDNA lineages don't exist in the studied populations. Regardless of the genetic differences between the ancient groups, all of them can be unequivocally classified as European. DNA markers with known phenotype suggest continuity between the populations of the North Pontic Steppe of the 4th/3rd Millennia BC and modern Europeans of the region. For example, all examined ancient individuals are inferred to have light skin pigmentation, which is prevalent in Europe today. Only their eye color is darker.

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/1038/vqgj.png

Enjoy..

[Fire Haired]

can you please post when they have more results

[Fire Haired]

people in that area today have under 20% light eyes most of europe has over 35-40% this could mean that people in the steppe today are the same as yamna people where 6,000 years ago that also means europeans are native to that area because i have heard that originally people in volga russia and the steppes where east asian and that russians and other ethnic groups came just 2,000ybp

remains of kurgen people in south siberia and western china from 4,000-3,8000ybp the vast majority had light eyes and light hair i took all the DNA they have of kurgen indo iraniens in asia from 4,000-2,000ybp 70% had light eyes 60% had light hair since they said the kurgen people in the steppes from 6,000-5,000ybp where mainly dark eyed this makes me think the indo Iranians who went to asia where from another ethnic group

and that even at the begging of major Indo European cultures they where already took up alot of terriotory and had alot of differnt ethnic groups the Indo Iraniens i wonder what they mean by catcomb was differnt from Yaman i guess people in that area today are like all uralic speakers and Catcomb is suppose to be uralic so maybe URalic people conquered the Indo European Ymana like 4,000-5,000ybp

i bet the Y DNA is R1a1a1b which is suppose to be proto Indo European i also would not be suprised to see R1b L23 and since there is a obvisous connectionwith red hair and r1b indo europeans n western europe https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDcQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eupedia.com%2Fgenetics%2Forig ins_of_red_hair.shtml&ei=bIbHUeXtAqKTyQGPoYGADw&usg=AFQjCNEP1vrHeoa6NjY8zkDGe4ZGqrCHfg

and that many indo Iranians also had red hair i except to see some red hair but maybe these early indo Europeans came from a differnt ethnic group the proto Balto Slavic speakers that went to eastern Europe did not have red hair maybe these where proto Balto Slavs the Rise excepts to get Y DNA, mtDNA, full genomes, and austomnal DNA from 100-150 samples from earlu bronze age Scandinavia, Germany ,a nd Polandhttps://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&cad=rja&ved=0CGIQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpolishgenes.blogspot.com%2F2013%2 F04%2Fhundreds-of-prehistoric-scandinavian.html&ei=SofHUcnwIqXhyQGyhoBY&usg=AFQjCNGoKfHvqIgkmK3zHV9DI0flKdNNFA

most will be Indo Europeans maybe they will find that they are related to these Yamna people or maybe they came from another ethnic group with the same culture and they already have austomnal DNA from Indo IRaniens from 4,000-3,800ybp but for some reason wont give the results all they said is their closest modern relatives are north east Europeans i wonder how related they are to these yamna people

[evon]

Some updates from David:


Update 24/06/2013:I've read the article a few times now, and I'd say the most important point it makes is that there was a genetic shift on the North Pontic Steppe from the late Neolithic (also known as the Copper Age or Chalcolithic) to the early Bronze Age. Interestingly, a major genetic shift seems to have taken place in Central Europe at exactly the same time, with the arrival of the Bell Beakers from the Atlantic Facade and Corded Ware/Unetice Cultures from somewhere east of Germany (see here and here).

Now, according to some archeologists, the Catacomb Culture had links to the Central European Corded Ware Culture, because of the presence of Corded Ware-like pottery and polished battle axes in burials. So it seems to me that when the Corded Ware/Unetice groups were streaming into Central Europe, the potentially related Catacomb Culture moved into the North Pontic region. But what was the reason for these migrations and where did they originate exactly?

The comment about the high incidence of genetically inferred brown eyes in the ancient sample is perhaps very important in this context, and I'm really curious now which of the groups studied had the darkest eyes. But I'm already willing to bet that it wasn't the sample from the Catacomb Culture (yellow dots on the map above).

[evon]

And another side view thanks to a Polish member over at AFB:



Prof. Joachim Burger who heads this research also co-authored the recent paper on pig domestication:

The frequency of pigs with European ancestry increased rapidly from the 12th century
BC, and by the 5th century AD domestic pigs exhibiting a Near Eastern genetic
signature had all but disappeared across Anatolia and the southern Caucasus.

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/11/22/molbev.mss261.full.pdf+html

[evon]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2013/06/mackinders-revenge-and-the-rise-of-the-mongrels/#.Uci0rxVKeb5


Mackinder’s revenge and the rise of the mongrels
By Razib Khan | June 24, 2013 3:58 am

Several years ago I reviewed Christopher Beckwith’s magisterial Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. In many ways Beckwith’s narrative is a refreshing inversion of the traditional form of macrohistory, whereby charter societies along the Eurasian littoral issue civilizing tendrils toward the heartland, and are met with periodic barbaric eruptions which they then have to assimilate. From what I can gather Beckwith is not a subjectivist. Rather, the inversion of perspective serves to flesh out neglected dynamics at work across history and near prehistory. For example he highlights the reality that core polities of the Eurasian littoral often crystallized on the barbaric marches of established civilization via process of synthesis between the two cultures. Zoroastrian religion emerged on the northern frontier in Khorasan rather than the southwestern Iranian heartland of Fars. Han China’s predecessor in the form of the Chin dynasty arose from a marcher state in the northwest, and the same was true of the previous ruling house, that of the Zhou. In India classical Hindu civilization first congealed in an elaborated form in Magadha, on the eastern frontiers of Aryavarta. In the West Rome was fundamentally a barbaric and peculiar fringe polity, with only tenuous connections to Magna Graecia, and arguably more influenced by the enigmatic Etruscans.

The last of the World Conquerors?

The vigor of frontiers is such an established historical cliche that I have no great enthusiasm to revisit it in detail. Rather, following Beckwith I believe we need to seriously revisit the proposition that the vast expanses of the Eurasian heartland beyond the civilized frontiers have served as more than just a source of militarized barbarians bent on exploitation. Yes, all that is true, but it seems likely that the cultural and racial melange at the intersection of internal Eurasian trade networks have fundamentally reshaped the contemporary landscapes in ways we are only now beginning to understand. But first, our worldview has to acknowledge that not all peoples and lands have made contributions of equal weight to the shape of the world.

Elements of civilized society, from organized religion to bureaucracy seems to have arisen in distinct and unique forms in three of the charter hearths of the Eurasian littoral. In the west were the cluster of societies which radiated out of the Levant and Mesopotamia. In the east the north China plain served as the locus of the proto-Han civilization. And in South Asia the northwestern region between the Indus and the Ganges gave rise to an influential cluster of societies. To illustrate my point the culture of Java is unique, with deep indigenous roots. But, its high civilization has been clearly affected by both that of South Asia, and later Western Eurasia (in the form of Islam). In mainland Southeast Asia the people of Vietnam by and large look to the north, to China. Their rulers were self-styled Emperors, who administered a bureaucratic society. In contrast the societies to their west are more Indic, in that their symbolic currencies are rooted in South Asia (e.g. Theravada Buddhism and the Chakravartin).

Spread of the Indo-European languages?
Credit: Dbachman

But the barbarians of the heartland are not without accomplishment either. Though there are still debates as to the ultimate origins of the Indo-Europeans, I think it is hard to dispute that at least some of the expansion of this language family was mediated via the Eurasian heartland. Later in history the Turkic language family spread rapidly over the course of 500 years, moving from a group of dialects clustered on the trans-Siberian fringe, to an international collection of tongues spanning China to Europe. Though united by a language, the Turkic peoples are biological variegated. Populations such as the Kirghiz and Yakut remain predominantly East Eurasian in character. Those such as the Rumelian Turks have only a mildest of tinctures, if any, of East Eurasian ancestry. Those groups occupying the middle ground include most Central Asians, such as Uzbeks. I suspect some of the same applies to Indo-Europeans. Genetically there is little in common, but the tell-tales signs of genetic affinities will be eventually found.

Conquering multiculturalists!

In earlier ages the narrative of the rise of civilizations tended toward an explicit or implicit racial diffusionism. By this, I mean that in antiquity and the early medieval period potentates asserted lineages which went back to the ancient Greeks, Trojans or Hebrews. This established their legitimacy because the high civilization which Northern Europeans inherited had Mediterranean antecedents. In our more recent era more explicitly racialist narratives of Nordic hordes spilling out of the north have been bandied about. A working assumption in both these models is that the purity of the vigorous herrenvolk of yore degrades over time. Asabiyyah unwinds via natural processes.

Moderns have turned their back on these narratives because they are legendary and unpalatable. Even believing Christians are unlikely to accept that the British royal family is of the lineage of king David. The heroes of Homer are simply not relevant to us due to the decline of the classical education. As far as the theories of Nordic superman, that sort of racial triumphalism went out of favor with the Nazis. In their place is an inchoate set of impulses, perhaps best articulated by the pots not people framework in archaeology. Rather than a broad framework there is a vague sentiment of cultural egalitarianism which fits uncomfortably with the rapid and explosive spread of “pots” periodically.

But I am here to present a new model. One of mongrelization, hybridization, and synthetic vigor. The cultural elements of this model have been long present. The Ottoman Turks assimilated Armenian, Kurd, and Greek notables, so that the Sultans of the later years had little “Turkic” blood in them. But their language remained Turkic, and some aspects of their cultural mythology was grounded in their Central Asian origins. Today multiculturalism is often perceived to be an egalitarian ideology, but the Ottomans represent a more accurate historical instance. Though synthetic in origin they had a core self-identity which was domineering, expansive, and acquisitive. Those who did not assimilate to that self-identity were made to be subjects, with second class status.

Today genetics is telling us that these long term connections and diffusions across Eurasia are very old. Modern Europeans seem to have a non-trivial quantum of East Eurasian ancestry. Many East Eurasian groups also exhibit the same pattern. Modern Indians are clearly a hybrid between a West Eurasian and South Eurasian set of populations. And these are simply the more distant genetic affinities which have been scrambled. Today Dienekes posted a translation of a German research project which documents the ethnic complexity of the Eurasian heartland thousands of years ago. Multi-layered complexity in the heartland has very antique roots. In Empires of the Silk Road Christopher Beckwith emphasizes that the free men of the steppe formed bonds of brotherhood which cross-linked them across ethnicity and family (e.g. Jamukha and Temujin). Perhaps these ideological paradigms predicated upon fictive kinship are a natural response of peoples whose origins are synthetic, and who can not fall back on implicit and traditional myths of identity.

The massive polities of the Eurasian littoral had enough surplus worthy of stealing on the part of its rulers. In ancient Egypt pharaoh even had the whole land stolen for his own private property. This is what the brotherhood of the steppe craved, and this is what the often captured. How did they do this? As peoples with diverse origins from brought together from the antipodes of Eurasia perhaps their primary currency was in ideological toolkits which might allow for greater coordination and organization. While the rulers of the littoral societies viewed their peasant masses like an extractive resource, men such as Temujin and Atilla had be entrepreneurial, and always maximize the productivity of their human capital and operate as a lean organizational machine. They were the investment bankers of their age, plundering the human capital of distant lands, and binding them together toward one selfish purpose.

will definitely get that book:)