Indo-European origins.

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Originally Posted by Albion

This may be because some of the Neolithic cultures of Europe spoke Afro-Asiatic (formerly called Hamito-Semitic) languages. The Cucteni which influence the Yamna (Indo-Europeans) could have been amongst them.
The Neolithic haplogroups and spread of farming suggest this is likely.

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Originally Posted by Albion

I think it is likely that Europe was covered by the following language families during the Neolithic. There would have been some amount of overlap which is indicated by the blurred divisions. The second map has lines to provide a better idea of the areas covered.

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/841...iesofneoli.jpg

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/841...iesofneoli.jpg

These in turn would have partially displaced the earlier hunter-gatherer populations of Europe which likely belonged to the I haplogroup. If haplogroup I was indeed descended from IJ then it is likely that Europe's hunter gatherers spoke what is now termed 'Afro-Asiatic' in my opinion.
This was latter pushed back as Neolithic farmers replaced and assimilated the earlier cultures, with Afro-Asiatic being latter reinforced in some areas with farmers, metalworkers and traders travelling along the coasts (Megalithic culture). Basically it is Venneman's Vasconic theory whilst Finnic in NE Europe makes sense and fits the 'Finnic northern Europe theory' and South Caucasian is my own theory and ultimately I think Basque may be a distant relative of it.

South Caucasian should really be South or North Caucasian, either or maybe even both groups could have been present.

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Those maps aren't 100% accurate, I just knocked them together in a few minutes yesterday. I'd now shrink the South Caucasian area and have most of Europe south of Ukraine speaking Afro-Asiatic with just a few South Caucasians in the mountains.
Romania should be Afro-Asiatic, I may redraw the maps as I think about it more.

BTW, do look into some of Theo Venneman's theories - they're only controversial because people don't want to believe Europe may once have spoken languages akin to Arabic.

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Originally Posted by Bronze

The most likely place of origin for R1a is in south-central asia, around the region of Mehrgarh, in the Indus Valley. The diversity and frequency of R1a is the highest in this region.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehrgarh

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Do you a link to that? Almost all the R1a in South Asia is R1a-Z93.

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Originally Posted by Jaska

It is impossible to trace the language from genes: there are so many possible genetic lineages, and absolutely no reliable way to define which of them is connected to the IE language. The most frequent lineage is not necessarily any more probable than the less frequent lineage.

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Here I agree, Such components from calculators do not exist in reality and can give just and idea how they might have been. I believe they were mostly West Asian like with some North Euro input.

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The only way to find out the right lineage is to look at which lineage best matches the linguistic results.

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So and which does? North European which is strongest among asian admixed (not even entirely Caucasoid to begin with) finno-Ugric people?

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This is easy: the steppe has been an area of repeated linguistic expansion: PIE, Iranian, later Iranian, Bolghar Turkic (Hunnic), Avarian, Hungarian, Kipchak Turkic etc. Linguistic and migrational waves one after another! The steppe is the one particular region where linguistic continuity cannot have deep roots.

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Your making it to easy for me friend. So West Asia has not been a area of repeated linguistic expansion? Iranics, Semites, Mongols, Sumerians, Caucasians and Turkic tribes did never set a foot on West Asian land?

Also most of your arguments are just based on assumptions not on facts.

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It still is the region which best fits the linguistic results: it is the best candidate for Proto-Indo-European homeland.

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Please clarify which linguistic "results" you mean. Are you talking about the highly speculative assumptions of some Linguists placing their assumed "Proto Indo European" language into the steppes simply for the laughable supposition horse domestication has started there, but not taking in account all the components among Indo Europeans which are clearly of West Asian origin.


There are only two ways of how Indo Europeans developed.

1. A Group of West Asian Pastoralists moved into the steppes, mixed with the local Hunthers and Gatheres and created a new language called "Indo-European"

2. A Group of West Asian, already Indo European Pastoralists moved into the steppes and the local Hunthers and Gatheres adopted the language and lifestyle. Later on the "Northern Indo European" (the Hunthers and Gatheres from the Steppes) groups Indo Europeanized vast areas of North- Central Europe, Central Asia and re Indo Europeanized parts of West Asia in form of Iranics, while the Southern Indo European (Proto Indo Europeans of West Asia took other roots from the Balkans and through See to Indo Europeanize West Europe, the Balkans parts of Central, East and South Asia.

A lot of this has to do with migration because of the Ice Age.

http://www.eupedia.com/europe/neolit...rope_map.shtml

When the ice melted, the people returned to their ancestral homelands. I've always believed in the idea that Aryans inhabited the north for a much earlier period and the Atlantean idea is cool. The elements pushed people in certain directions.

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Originally Posted by Albion

The words words for flora and fauna in IE describe the forest zone and the steppes so it points to the edge of the steppes somewhere (Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Caucasus or maybe Cappadocia) but lacks words for things such as seas or Middle Eastern flora and fauna.

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As I already mentioned such a thing as "The Middle Eastern flora and fauna" doesnt exist because the Near East is to diverse in this and has changed many times over time.

"Steppes/Grasslands " are the best places to se pastoralism. And the Near East is where pastoralism developed.

Look at this map here. Grasslands are not absent in the Near East at all, interesting enought Grassland is strong in the area of former Halaf Culture (fertile crescent)
http://www.exploringnature.org/graph...ds_steppes.jpg

Forests are also not absent in West Asia.

http://foris.fao.org/static/data/fra2005/maps/2.2.jpg

This mght be indication that they meant some more Northern regions but not real evidences imo.

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The Kurgan theory suggests that the people on the Pontic Steppe came into contact with the Cucuteni-Trypillian neolithic civilisation, at that time one of the most advanced in Europe.
The IE people (Yamna) acquired technology from them and would latter help destroy that civilisation.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...utline.svg.png

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I heard about that and this is the Group which I think they have adopted Indo European languages from. Why and how could they adopt so much of Neolthic lifestyle without being under the pressure to adopt also the language spoken to be able to communicate with the Neolthic Group.

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Originally Posted by Albion

This may be because some of the Neolithic cultures of Europe spoke Afro-Asiatic (formerly called Hamito-Semitic) languages. The Cucteni which influence the Yamna (Indo-Europeans) could have been amongst them.
The Neolithic haplogroups and spread of farming suggest this is likely.

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This doesnt make much sense by any meanings. Neolthic expansion took place in an area where people are known to have spoken formerly "isolated languages" and a bit later Caucasian and Indo European one. While Afro Asiatic languages where clearly introduced into West Asia (the northern part where Farming and Pastoralism developed) from an area somewhere between North Africa and the Levant and is associated with the spread of E1b1b* Haplogroup and came in contact with Neolthic Groups with the spread more into the Levant and Mesopotamia by taking some J* and G* lineages.

If we assume that Afro-Asiatic was the language of Neolthic farmers than we would have to assume that Neolthic lifestyle was introduced to West Asia through North Africa and the Levant, while it actually is the other way around and a strong Caucasoid input into Africa came from the Near East.

Here are my revised linguistic maps of Neolithic Europe before the spread of IE:

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/7...olithiceur.jpg

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/7...olithiceur.jpg
Yamna - Proto-Indo-Europeans
Maykop and Cucteni - settled civilisations which greatly influenced the Yamna.

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Originally Posted by Albion

Those maps aren't 100% accurate, I just knocked them together in a few minutes yesterday. I'd now shrink the South Caucasian area and have most of Europe south of Ukraine speaking Afro-Asiatic with just a few South Caucasians in the mountains.
Romania should be Afro-Asiatic, I may redraw the maps as I think about it more.

BTW, do look into some of Theo Venneman's theories - they're only controversial because people don't want to believe Europe may once have spoken languages akin to Arabic.

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I think Afro-Asiatic substratum has been found only in Western Europe like in Celtic languages.Also we are not sure yet whether I is Mesolithic haplogroup.Haplogroup I2 was found in Neolithic sites.It could well be Neolithic marker.

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Originally Posted by Albion

Here are my revised linguistic maps of Neolithic Europe before the spread of IE:

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/7...olithiceur.jpg

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/7...olithiceur.jpg
Yamna - Proto-Indo-Europeans
Maykop and Cucteni - settled civilisations which greatly influenced the Yamna.

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Interesting maps :thumb001:

But too speculative and something entirely new which only works if we assume Europe and the Neolthic farmers were "Afro Asiatic" speakers before. And there are no evidences for this. In fact it cant work because Most of the lineages connected with Neolthic Groups throughout Europe have developed somewhere between East Anatolia, the Caucasus and West Iran, where the Afro Asiatic languages were introduced very lately. Haplogroup G and R1b have no connection to Afro Asiatic languages at all.

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Originally Posted by Alex Delarge

I saw a documentary about the discovery of America this afternoon, and they were talking about the possibility of polynesian sailors reaching California in pre-historic times. Also apparently the japanese sailed to Ecuador in pre-historic times too. The pottery was the same and there's some virus that can only be found in japanese people and Ecuadorian mummies.

Also an european spear was found in America, which predates the crossing of the Bering strait by asians.


So, after that, that 1st point doesn't seem so far fetched. The sea was never a blockage, it was more like a highway.

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Yes, but i meant why exactly sailing directly from WestAsia to Southern Portugal!?I have read that North African route is plausible too.

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As I already mentioned such a thing as "The Middle Eastern flora and fauna" doesnt exist because the Near East is to diverse in this and has changed many times over time.

"Steppes/Grasslands " are the best places to se pastoralism. And the Near East is where pastoralism developed.

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I don't think anyone doubts that pastoralism developed in the Near East, but where people can settle to farm arable crops they will do.
The Indo-Europeans were nomadic pastoralists until they settled in Europe and Southern Asia. The closest the Near East would have ever got to this would have been transhumance and a few goat herders in the mountains.

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Look at this map here. Grasslands are not absent in the Near East at all, interesting enought Grassland is strong in the area of former Halaf Culture (fertile crescent)
http://www.exploringnature.org/graph...ds_steppes.jpg

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I already mentioned this when I mentioned Cappadocia.

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Forests are also not absent in West Asia.

http://foris.fao.org/static/data/fra2005/maps/2.2.jpg

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And this when I mentioned the Caucasus.

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I heard about that and this is the Group which I think they have adopted Indo European languages from. Why and how could they adopt so much of Neolthic lifestyle without being under the pressure to adopt also the language spoken bei the Neolthic groups to communicate with them.

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They adopted what they needed from the Cuceteni but being pastoralists there was a limit to how much they could adopt.
The Yamn didn't adopt the language of the Cucteni because it was of little use to them, their societies were too different.

When the Cuceteni declined members of it may have adopted the Yamna way of life:

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Cultures that rely on nomadic herding, where the livestock may be moved around to greener pastures freely, survive much better in arid regions than cultures that have permanent settlements that are based on subsistence farming techniques. With verified evidence that Kurgan pastoralists were living cheek-to-jowl with the Cucuteni-Trypillian settlements throughout their entire region for many centuries before the end of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, it is becoming very difficult to support Gimbutas' claim of a military conquest of a peaceful civilization. Rather, it is much more believable and logical to conclude that the members of the Cucuteni-Trypillian society that were facing starvation by farming their dry and barren plots of depleted soil chose instead to take up the practice of their neighbors, and became pastoralists instead.

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This map is pretty obvious to me.

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/9681/ydnar1a1a.jpg

I am sorry but everyone arguing that WestAsian J2/G are the PIE-s need to check the psychiatrist.

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This doesnt make much sense by any meanings. Neolthic expansion took place in an area where people are known to have spoken formerly "isolated languages"

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They became isolated latter and are only isolated today because links to other languages are not known or have died out.
All languages must ultimately have a common origin if people have a common origin.

We can assume that much of the Near East (including Levant) would have been Afro-Asiatic and South Caucasian speaking by then. Thus as neolithic farmers spread into Europe they'd have spread Afro-Asiatic and replaced earlier languages.
Sumerian is an isolate because we don't know languages it is linked to yet. Some people say Dravidian, but I find that hard to believe.
Isolates don't just appear out of nowhere, they become isolated via isolation and divergence, not because people wake up speaking a different language one day.

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While Afro Asiatic languages where clearly introduced into West Asia (the northern part where Farming and Pastoralism developed) from an area somewhere between North Africa and the Levant and is associated with the spread of E1b1b* Haplogroup and came in contact with Neolthic Groups with the spread more into the Levant and Mesopotamia by taking some J* and G* lineages.

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Yes, and thus Afro-Asiatic would very likely have been spread throughout much of Europe by Neolithic farmers.
Earlier languages from the Mesolithic wouldn't have survived if the Mesolithic peoples adopted the way of life of the farmers that spoke Afro-Asiatic. However Basque and a few of the pre-IE languages could have been exceptions.

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If we assume that Afro-Asiatic was the language of Neolthic farmers than we would have to assume that Neolthic lifestyle was introduced to West Asia through North Africa and the Levant, while it actually is the other way around and a strong Caucasoid input into Africa came from the Near East.

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The Horn of Africa, particularly the area of Ethiopia and Eritrea, has been proposed by some linguists because it includes the majority of the diversity of the Afroasiatic language family and has very diverse groups in close geographic proximity, sometimes considered a telltale sign for a linguistic geographic origin. Within this region there are several variants:

Christopher Ehret has proposed the western Red Sea coast from Eritrea to southeastern Egypt. While Ehret disputes Militarev's proposal that Proto-Afroasiatic shows signs of a common farming lexicon, he suggests that early Afroasiatic languages were involved in the even earlier development of intensive food collection in the areas of Ethiopia and Sudan. In other words, he proposes an even older age for Afroasiatic than Militarev, at least 15,000 years old and possibly older, and believes farming lexicon can only be reconstructed for branches of Afroasiatic.
In the next phase, unlike many other authors Ehret proposed an initial split between northern, southern and Omotic. The northern group includes Semitic, Egyptian and Berber (agreeing with others such as Diakonoff). He proposed that Chadic stems from Berber (some other authors group it with southern Afroasiatic languages such as Cushitic ones).

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The Levant/Near East. Supporters of a non-north or north east African origin for Afroasiatic are particularly common among those with a background in Semitic or Egyptological studies, or amongst archaeological proponents of the "farming/language dispersal hypothesis" according to which major language groups dispersed with early farming technology in the Neolithic.[13][14] The leading linguistic proponent of this idea in recent times is Alexander Militarev. Arguments for and against this position depend upon the contested proposal that farming-related words can be reconstructed in Proto-Afroasiatic, with farming technology being widely thought to have spread from the Levant into Africa.

Militarev, who linked proto-Afroasiatic to the Levantine Natufian culture, that preceded the spread of farming technology, believes the language family to be about 10,000 years old. He wrote (Militarev 2002, p. 135) that the "Proto-Afrasian language, on the verge of a split into daughter languages", meaning, in his scenario, into "Cushitic, Omotic, Egyptian, Semitic and Chadic-Berber", "should be roughly dated to the ninth millennium BC".

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Asiatic_Urheimat

IMO Afro-Asiatic could have been spread by neolithic farmers to Europe. I don't see any contradictions yet.

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Originally Posted by Optimus

I think Afro-Asiatic substratum has been found only in Western Europe like in Celtic languages.Also we are not sure yet whether I is Mesolithic haplogroup.Haplogroup I2 was found in Neolithic sites.It could well be Neolithic marker.

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There's a non-IE vocabulary in Celtic but also Germanic (although that could be Mesolithic - Finnic, Afro-Asiatic or some language group we don't know about).

I'm not sure about the languages in Southern Europe but there were non-IE languages right into the Iron Age. I think some may have been very early offshoots of Afro-Asiatic.

The I haplogroup I've always thought of as native to Europe - Palaeolithic (Mesolithic in Northern Europe - we were recolonised after the Last Glacial Maximum).
I'm not sure how it would be Neolithic when it isn't really present outside of Europe.

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Originally Posted by Demhat

Interesting maps :thumb001:

But too speculative and something entirely new which only works if we assume Europe and the Neolthic farmers were "Afro Asiatic" speakers before. And there are no evidences for this. In fact it cant work because Most of the lineages connected with Neolthic Groups throughout Europe have developed somewhere between East Anatolia, the Caucasus and West Iran, where the Afro Asiatic languages were introduced very lately. Haplogroup G and R1b have no connection to Afro Asiatic languages at all.

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Yes, that's where they began, but spread South to the Levant where haplogroup E speaking Afro-Asiatic could have assimilated these groups.
Then they spread with farming to Europe.

Some E in Europe could be directly from North Africa, some from the Levant IMO.

It's not hard to imagine - look at the Baltic peoples with their Finno-Ugric N haplogroup speaking some of the most archaic forms of IE.

THE WORDS DESCRIBING AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY

We can learn more about the earliest Indo-Europeans from other aspects of their reconstructed vocabulary. Some words, for example, describe an agricultural technology whose existence dates back to 5000 B.C. By that time the agricultural revolution had spread north from its origins in the Fertile Crescent, where the first archaeological evidence of cultivation dates back to at least 8000 B.C. From this region agriculture also spread southward to sustain the Mesopotamian civilizations and westward to Egypt. The Indo-European words for "barley," "wheat" and "flax"; for "apples," "cherries" and their trees, for "mulberries" and their bushes; for "grapes" and their vines; and for the various implements with which to cultivate and harvest them describe a way of life unknown in northern Europe until the third or second millennium B.C., when the first archaeological evidence appears.

THE LANDSCAPE DESCRIBED BY THE INDO-EUROPEAN PROTOLANGUAGE

The landscape described by the reconstructed Indo-European protolanguage is mountainous—as evidenced by the many words for high mountains, mountain lakes and rapid rivers flowing from mountain sources. Such a picture cannot be reconciled with either the plains of central Europe or the steppes north of the Black Sea, which have been advanced as an alternative homeland for the Indo-Europeans. The vocabulary does, however, fit the landscape of eastern Anatolia and Transcaucasia, backed by the splendor of the Caucasus Mountains. The language clothes its landscape in the flora of this region, having words for "mountain oak," "birch," "beech," "hornbeam," "ash," "willow" or"white willow," "yew," "pine" or"fir," "heather" and "moss." Moreover, the language has words for animals that are alien to northern Europe: "leopard," "snow leopard," "lion," "monkey" and "elephant."

The presence of a word for "beech tree," incidentally, has been cited in favor of the European plains and against the lower Volga as the putative Indo -European homeland. Beech trees, it is true, do not grow east of a line drawn from Gdansk on the Baltic to the northwest corner of the Black Sea. Two species of beech ( Fagus orientatis and F. sylvatica) flourish, however, in modern Turkey. Opposing the so-called beech argument is the oak argument: paleobotanical evidence shows that oak trees (which are listed in the reconstructed language's lexicon) were not native to postglacial northern Europe but began to spread there from the south as late as the turn of the fourth to the third millennium B.C.

THE TERMINOLOGY FOR WHEELED TRANSPORT, SMELTING OF METALS

Another significant clue to the identification of the Indo-European home land is provided by the terminology for wheeled transport. There are words for "wheel" (*rotho-), "axle" (*hakhs-), "yoke" (*iak'om) and associated gear. "Horse" is *ekhos and "foal" *pholo. The bronze parts of the chariot and the bronze tools, with which chariots were fashioned from mountain hardwoods, furnish words that embrace the smelting of metals.Petroglyphs, symbols marked on stone, found in the area from the Transcaucasus to upper Mesopotamia between the lakes Van and Urmia are the earliest pictures of horse-drawn chariots.

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To help unravel some of the early Eurasian steppe migration movements, we determined the Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial haplotypes and haplogroups of 26 ancient human specimens from the Krasnoyarsk area dated from between the middle of the second millennium BC. to the fourth century AD. In order to go further in the search of the geographic origin and physical traits of these south Siberian specimens, we also typed phenotype-informative single nucleotide polymorphisms. Our autosomal, Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA analyses reveal that whereas few specimens seem to be related matrilineally or patrilineally, nearly all subjects belong to haplogroup R1a1-M17 which is thought to mark the eastward migration of the early Indo-Europeans. Our results also confirm that at the Bronze and Iron Ages, south Siberia was a region of overwhelmingly predominant European settlement, suggesting an eastward migration of Kurgan people across the Russo-Kazakh steppe. Finally, our data indicate that at the Bronze and Iron Age timeframe, south Siberians were blue (or green)-eyed, fair-skinned and light-haired people and that they might have played a role in the early development of the Tarim Basin civilization. To the best of our knowledge, no equivalent molecular analysis has been undertaken so far.

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Source

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Originally Posted by Optimus

Source

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What's the link with what I linked above? That the mummies of 2000 B.C. were part of Afanasevo? Yes, it's very probable, but the mummies from 2000 years ago tell that they are J2 and G, and the Tocharian language is more linked to these later mummies, given that the language is documented by 600-800 A.D.

Read what I linked, there you'll find the definitive proofs of the Anatolian Hypothesis.

Or according to 2012 study.

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The prevailing Y-chromosome lineage in Pashtun and Tajik (R1a1a-M17), has the highest observed diversity among populations of the Indus Valley [46]. R1a1a-M17 diversity declines toward the Pontic-Caspian steppe where the mid-Holocene R1a1a7-M458 sublineage is dominant. R1a1a7-M458 was absent in Afghanistan, suggesting that R1a1a-M17 does not support, as previously thought, expansions from the Pontic Steppe , bringing the Indo-European languages to Central Asia and India.

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Source

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Originally Posted by Protospatha

What's the link with what I linked above? That the mummies of 2000 B.C. were part of Afanasevo? Yes, it's very probable, but the mummies from 2000 years ago tell that they are J2 and G, and the Tocharian language is more linked to these later mummies, given that the language is documented by 600-800 A.D.

Read what I linked, there you'll find the definitive proofs of the Anatolian Hypothesis.

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Please drop it with the J2/G and Anatolia nonsense.Those scholars that support it are quite in minority.

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Originally Posted by Optimus

Or according to 2012 study.



Source




Please drop it with the J2/G and Anatolia nonsense.Those scholars that support it are quite in minority.

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"Eppur si muove" said Galilei, and no one cared to listen him.

So at what point did you switch from India to West Asia Protospatha?

I think we're looking for a homeland around the Black Sea somewhere whether north or south of it.

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We can learn more about the earliest Indo-Europeans from other aspects of their reconstructed vocabulary. Some words, for example, describe an agricultural technology whose existence dates back to 5000 B.C. By that time the agricultural revolution had spread north from its origins in the Fertile Crescent, where the first archaeological evidence of cultivation dates back to at least 8000 B.C.

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Were they IE or just early loan words from the Neolithic civilisations?

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The Indo-European words for "barley," "wheat" and "flax"; for "apples," "cherries" and their trees, for "mulberries" and their bushes; for "grapes" and their vines; and for the various implements with which to cultivate and harvest them describe a way of life unknown in northern Europe until the third or second millennium B.C., when the first archaeological evidence appears.

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Barley, wheat and Flax are all from West Asia.

Domestic Apples are native to the mountains of Kazakhstan - the steppes but Crab Apples are native everywhere in many species and there's evidence for their consumption in the Ertobolle and Swiss lake villages.

Cherries are native to most of Europe. Prunus avium from England to the Caucasus and Prunus cerasus from Germany to the Caucasus - those are the two species which people eat (that and Black Cherries but they came from America latter on).

Cherries would have been consumed from the wild trees until they were domesticated around the South Caucasus somewhere.

Mulberries are in different areas of East Asia (the ones which are eaten anyway) and likely spread along the trade routes, perhaps the Silk Road.

Grapes are native to most of the northern hemisphere. Most species occur in the Americas but it is Vitis vinifera which has always been consumed and made into wine in the Near East and Europe.
That is native to Southern Europe to the Caucasus, the furthest north it gets naturally is on the Rhine. They were likely domesticated around the Caucasus too.

So only the grains point to West Asia specifically, Maykop next to the Yamna was noted for the cultivation of fruit - they could easily be West Asia or the edge of the Pontic Steppe.

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THE LANDSCAPE DESCRIBED BY THE INDO-EUROPEAN PROTOLANGUAGE

The landscape described by the reconstructed Indo-European protolanguage is mountainous—as evidenced by the many words for high mountains, mountain lakes and rapid rivers flowing from mountain sources[/B][/I][/U]. Such a picture cannot be reconciled with either the plains of central Europe or the steppes north of the Black Sea, which have been advanced as an alternative homeland for the Indo-Europeans. The vocabulary does, however, fit the landscape of eastern Anatolia and Transcaucasia, backed by the splendor of the Caucasus Mountains. The language clothes its landscape in the flora of this region, having words for "mountain oak," "birch," "beech," "hornbeam," "ash," "willow" or"white willow," "yew," "pine" or"fir," "heather" and "moss."

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It described well the Caucasus, the region at the edge of both West Asia and the Steppes. Thus this proves nothing in itself, just that Indo-Europeans lived on one side of the Caucasus.

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Moreover, the language has words for animals that are alien to northern Europe: "leopard," "snow leopard," "lion," "monkey" and "elephant."

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Ukraine and Southern Russia aren't Northern Europe. This article seems to be arguing against IE being native to Northern Europe which nobody here has even suggested anyway.
The Pontic Steppe is Eastern Europe.

Leopards could be the Persian Leopard found in the Caucasus and Turkmenistan as well as Iran.

Snow leopards are found in Kazakhstan.

European Lions were formerly found in the Caucasus and Southern Europe, being a subspecies of Asiatic Lions which are still found in India.

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The presence of a word for "beech tree," incidentally, has been cited in favor of the European plains and against the lower Volga as the putative Indo -European homeland. Beech trees, it is true, do not grow east of a line drawn from Gdansk on the Baltic to the northwest corner of the Black Sea. Two species of beech ( Fagus orientatis and F. sylvatica) flourish, however, in modern Turkey. Opposing the so-called beech argument is the oak argument: paleobotanical evidence shows that oak trees (which are listed in the reconstructed language's lexicon) were not native to postglacial northern Europe but began to spread there from the south as late as the turn of the fourth to the third millennium B.C.

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I don't think this proves anything, both species are as common as muck everywhere from England to the Caucasus.
Oak spread north - from Iberia and the Balkans back into post glacial northern Europe.

Again, the Pontic Steppe is Eastern Europe and right next to the Caucasus.

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Another significant clue to the identification of the Indo-European home land is provided by the terminology for wheeled transport. There are words for "wheel" (*rotho-), "axle" (*hakhs-), "yoke" (*iak'om) and associated gear. "Horse" is *ekhos and "foal" *pholo. The bronze parts of the chariot and the bronze tools, with which chariots were fashioned from mountain hardwoods, furnish words that embrace the smelting of metals.Petroglyphs, symbols marked on stone, found in the area from the Transcaucasus to upper Mesopotamia between the lakes Van and Urmia are the earliest pictures of horse-drawn chariots.

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Indo-Europeans could have easily copied and refined the technology. The Sumerians had wagons but not horses which came latter from the steppes.

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Originally Posted by Protospatha

"Eppur si muove" said Galilei, and no one cared to listen him.

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Either be serious or don't troll this thread please.

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Originally Posted by Albion

So at what point did you switch from India to West Asia Protospatha?

I think we're looking for a homeland around the Black Sea somewhere whether north or south of it.



Were they IE or just early loan words from the Neolithic civilisations?



Barley, wheat and Flax are all from West Asia.

Domestic Apples are native to the mountains of Kazakhstan - the steppes but Crab Apples are native everywhere in many species and there's evidence for their consumption in the Ertobolle and Swiss lake villages.

Cherries are native to most of Europe. Prunus avium from England to the Caucasus and Prunus cerasus from Germany to the Caucasus - those are the two species which people eat (that and Black Cherries but they came from America latter on).

Cherries would have been consumed from the wild trees until they were domesticated around the South Caucasus somewhere.

Mulberries are in different areas of East Asia (the ones which are eaten anyway) and likely spread along the trade routes, perhaps the Silk Road.

Grapes are native to most of the northern hemisphere. Most species occur in the Americas but it is Vitis vinifera which has always been consumed and made into wine in the Near East and Europe.
That is native to Southern Europe to the Caucasus, the furthest north it gets naturally is on the Rhine. They were likely domesticated around the Caucasus too.

So only the grains point to West Asia specifically, Maykop next to the Yamna was noted for the cultivation of fruit - they could easily be West Asia or the edge of the Pontic Steppe.




It described well the Caucasus, the region at the edge of both West Asia and the Steppes. Thus this proves nothing in itself, just that Indo-Europeans lived on one side of the Caucasus.



Ukraine and Southern Russia aren't Northern Europe. This article seems to be arguing against IE being native to Northern Europe which nobody here has even suggested anyway.
The Pontic Steppe is Eastern Europe.

Leopards could be the Persian Leopard found in the Caucasus and Turkmenistan as well as Iran.

Snow leopards are found in Kazakhstan.

European Lions were formerly found in the Caucasus and Southern Europe, being a subspecies of Asiatic Lions which are still found in India.



I don't think this proves anything, both species are as common as muck everywhere from England to the Caucasus.
Oak spread north - from Iberia and the Balkans back into post glacial northern Europe.

Again, the Pontic Steppe is Eastern Europe and right next to the Caucasus.



Indo-Europeans could have easily copied and refined the technology. The Sumerians had wagons but not horses which came latter from the steppes.

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They lived on the southern side of Caucasus (Transcaucasia), the article specifies it.

From anywhere the IE had to arrive in India, no? Well, Anatolia is that place.

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Originally Posted by Protospatha

They lived on the southern side of Caucasus (Transcaucasia), the article specifies it.

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I'm not sure if I believe 19th century articles, people back then sometimes wrote any old crap.

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Originally Posted by Albion

I'm not sure if I believe 19th century articles, people back then sometimes wrote any old crap.

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Yeah, this is the case of that shitty jewess Marija Gimbutas. Did you even read the article? All that it says is true.

I'm not sure how you can argue about R1b, G2a or J2 being Indo-European when large areas of Southern and Western Europe where these are the majority spoke non-IE languages well into the Iron Age.

Where G2a peaks in Europe there's been Rhaetian, Etruscan, Pelasgian and Caucasian languages in the present day Caucasus.

J2's distribution is on the periphery of Indo-European speaking areas areas rich in R1b have had pre-IE languages lasting long into the Iron Age (Aquitanian, Rhaetian, possibly Pictish and modern Basque).

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Originally Posted by Protospatha

Yeah, this is the case of that shitty jewess Marija Gimbutas. Did you even read the article? All that it says is true.

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Marija was just some feminist, her only false claim was that all of Europe was matriarchal. The rest she was mostly right on though.

I read that what you posted and refuted much of it except the grains. But then the Cucuteni would have been growing grains too and they and the Maykop influenced the Yamna (proto-Indo-Europeans) quite a lot.

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Originally Posted by Albion

I'm not sure how you can argue about R1b, G2a or J2 being Indo-European when large areas of Southern and Western Europe where these are the majority spoke non-IE languages well into the Iron Age.

Where G2a peaks in Europe there's been Rhaetian, Etruscan, Pelasgian and Caucasian languages in the present day Caucasus.

J2's distribution is on the periphery of Indo-European speaking areas areas rich in R1b have had pre-IE languages lasting long into the Iron Age (Aquitanian, Rhaetian, possibly Pictish and modern Basque).

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1 = Etruscan is IE: http://www.maravot.com/Indo-European_Table.html

2 = Rhaetian is related to Etruscan according to recent studies, so it is IE too.

3 = R1b is not IE, and the remaining non-IE languages were spoken probably by them, or by I1 and I2.

4 = J2 and G were much more present in Europe in ancient times.

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Originally Posted by Protospatha

1 = Etruscan is IE: http://www.maravot.com/Indo-European_Table.html

2 = Rhaetian is related to Etruscan according to recent studies, so it is IE too.

3 = R1b is not IE, and the remaining non-IE languages were spoken probably by them, or by I1 and I2.

4 = J2 and G were much more present in Europe in ancient times.

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1. I'd rather believe real linguists than amateurs on the internet. Courtesy of The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. See pages 6, 7 and 9.
2. Yes, that's possible but if Etrsucan isn't IE then a Rhaetic dialect wouldn't be either.
3. I1 isn't prominent in those areas nor is I2. I2 is prominent in the Balkans, not so much in the Basque country, Alps or Tuscany.
4. Yes, G2a is found in many neolithic graves. This is beyond the point - why where G2a and J2 are in high concentrations is IE relatively recent?

Edit: Protospatha is somewhat funny

Masterful refutation by Albion.
Trusted scholarly evidence always trumps fringe speculators.

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Originally Posted by Joseph Capelli

Do you a link to that? Almost all the R1a in South Asia is R1a-Z93.

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Im not talking about diversity of subclades (although South asia does have R1a in addition to R2), because that will heavily be dependant on the fact that they have tested far more samples from eastern europe compared to south asia.

im mainly talking about the STR diversity which indicate that the age of R1a is older in the indus valley compared to anywhere else in the world.

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The ages of accumulated microsatellite variation in the majority of Indian haplogroups exceed 10,000–15,000 years, which attests to the antiquity of regional differentiation. Therefore, our data do not support models that invoke a pronounced recent genetic input from Central Asia to explain the observed genetic variation in South Asia. R1a1 and R2 haplogroups indicate demographic complexity that is inconsistent with a recent single history. Associated microsatellite analyses of the high-frequency R1a1 haplogroup chromosomes indicate independent recent histories of the Indus Valley and the peninsular Indian region.

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i cant be bothered to find the direct link to the study, but its somewhere in here:

http://new-indology.blogspot.se/search/label/genetics

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Originally Posted by Demhat

So and which does? North European which is strongest among asian admixed (not even entirely Caucasoid to begin with) finno-Ugric people?

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These genome-wide components like North European are not “real” in the same sense than the uniparental haplogroups are: different analyses with different amount of components may interpret the results differently, so the amount of North European component varies analysis by analysis.

So, I believe that we have better chance to connect paternal or maternal lineages to the expansions of languages.

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Originally Posted by Demhat

Your making it to easy for me friend. So West Asia has not been a area of repeated linguistic expansion? Iranics, Semites, Mongols, Sumerians, Caucasians and Turkic tribes did never set a foot on West Asian land?

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Of course West Asia has also seen repeated linguistic expansions. I only answered why we cannot find any linguistic continuity in Ukraine.

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Originally Posted by Demhat

Also most of your arguments are just based on assumptions not on facts.

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Oh, really? Please disprove them, if you have the competence. :)
Linguistic results very clearly point to the Pontic Steppe homeland for Indo-European. If you disagree, you should disprove the linguistic evidence. And remember, genetic or archaeological evidence cannot disprove linguistic evidence.

You should read Mallory; after you have read this book twice or thrice, you may try to disprove the steppe homeland:
http://www.ebook3000.com/J--P--Mallo...yth_36083.html

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Originally Posted by Albion

Here are my revised linguistic maps of Neolithic Europe before the spread of IE:

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How do you explain all the ancient European languages which were spoken still some 2 000 years ago and which are not Afro-Asiatic, Indo-European or Uralic? Tartessian, Iberian, Basque, Sican, Siculian, Rhaetian, Etruscan, Pelasgian, and many Palaeo-European substrate languages in the more northern parts.

Therefore it is impossible that Afro-Asiatic could have been so wide-spread in the Neolithic era. It is not even certain if there truly is Afro-Asiatic influence in Celtic or Germanic: Vennemann’s linguistic evidence is vague.

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Originally Posted by Protospatha

From anywhere the IE had to arrive in India, no? Well, Anatolia is that place.

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IE only arrived in India late, and only one branch: Indo-Aryan. As there are Early, Middle and Late Proto-Aryan loanwords in Uralic languages, the Aryan development must have occurred in the North-Caspian steppes.
http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/jphak...icEvidence.pdf

So, the IE language did not spread to India from Anatolia but from Caspian steppes.

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Originally Posted by Bronze

im mainly talking about the STR diversity which indicate that the age of R1a is older in the indus valley compared to anywhere else in the world.

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It must be remembered that STR diversity is valid ONLY when true subhaplogroups are measured. For example, if they calculate the diversity of R1 and R2, it would be higher in India than in Europe, because Europe lacks R2. Similarly, there are many different R1a1-subgroups/clades in India, and their diversities should be calculated separately.

More important than diversity is the descending: where are the most ancestral haplotypes of every R1a1 subgroup/clade?

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Originally Posted by Jaska

How do you explain all the ancient European languages which were spoken still some 2 000 years ago and which are not Afro-Asiatic, Indo-European or Uralic? Tartessian, Iberian, Basque, Sican, Siculian, Rhaetian, Etruscan, Pelasgian, and many Palaeo-European substrate languages in the more northern parts.

Therefore it is impossible that Afro-Asiatic could have been so wide-spread in the Neolithic era. It is not even certain if there truly is Afro-Asiatic influence in Celtic or Germanic: Vennemann’s linguistic evidence is vague.

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It is my opinion that some of these languages could have been very early offshoots of Afro-Asiatic, their very archaic character disguising their origin somewhat.
Earlier languages could have survived too but I think most of Southern and Western Europe would have spoken Afro-Asiatic before Indo-European.

I suppose you can call it an assumption rather than a theory based on much evidence at the moment.

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Originally Posted by Albion

It is my opinion that some of these languages could have been very early offshoots of Afro-Asiatic, their very archaic character disguising their origin somewhat.
Earlier languages could have survived too but I think most of Southern and Western Europe would have spoken Afro-Asiatic before Indo-European.

I suppose you can call it an assumption rather than a theory based on much evidence at the moment.

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Well Jaska has right.If Afro-Asiatic was spoken that doesn't mean it was the sole Pre Indo-European language but other language family were present too like Proto-Basque,Iberian,Pelasgian,Etruscan etc etc.

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Originally Posted by Albion

I'm not sure how you can argue about R1b, G2a or J2 being Indo-European when large areas of Southern and Western Europe where these are the majority spoke non-IE languages well into the Iron Age.

Where G2a peaks in Europe there's been Rhaetian, Etruscan, Pelasgian and Caucasian languages in the present day Caucasus.

J2's distribution is on the periphery of Indo-European speaking areas areas rich in R1b have had pre-IE languages lasting long into the Iron Age (Aquitanian, Rhaetian, possibly Pictish and modern Basque).

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Exept albanians who always spoke IE language

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Originally Posted by Albion

They became isolated latter and are only isolated today because links to other languages are not known or have died out.
All languages must ultimately have a common origin if people have a common origin.

We can assume that much of the Near East (including Levant) would have been Afro-Asiatic and South Caucasian speaking by then. Thus as neolithic farmers spread into Europe they'd have spread Afro-Asiatic and replaced earlier languages.
Sumerian is an isolate because we don't know languages it is linked to yet. Some people say Dravidian, but I find that hard to believe.
Isolates don't just appear out of nowhere, they become isolated via isolation and divergence, not because people wake up speaking a different language one day.



Yes, and thus Afro-Asiatic would very likely have been spread throughout much of Europe by Neolithic farmers.
Earlier languages from the Mesolithic wouldn't have survived if the Mesolithic peoples adopted the way of life of the farmers that spoke Afro-Asiatic. However Basque and a few of the pre-IE languages could have been exceptions.







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Asiatic_Urheimat

IMO Afro-Asiatic could have been spread by neolithic farmers to Europe. I don't see any contradictions yet.

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I respect your opinion but I have to say just like most explanations your arguments are based on speculations. Your scenario makes only sense if we believe that Afro Asiatic languages are older than 10000 years and that most of the Near East was "Afro Asiatic" speaking at the time. But as we all know Afro Asiatic languages developed somewhere between North Africa and the Levant.and the first recorded Semitic language is Akkadian.


I as a speaker of Indo-European language can say that we use to have own words for Forests, Steppes AND the mountains. Forests and Steppes are common in the area of Pontic-Caspian steppes but the combination of Steppes, Forests and Mountains is more for West Asia. I have never came across Finno-Ugric loanwords in my language and I dont know if there are any in West European languages. IF this is not the case than its only common in East European languages which can be explained through later areal influence. While Afro-Asiatic (Semitic) influence is common in Indic, Armenian, Celtic, Italic, Iranic, Greek and other languages.

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Originally Posted by Optimus

This map is pretty obvious to me.

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/9681/ydnar1a1a.jpg

I am sorry but everyone arguing that WestAsian J2/G are the PIE-s need to check the psychiatrist.

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My friend try to be a bit more respectful you came here while Albion and I where giving each other evidences while you disappeared for some while. I do consider the Anatolian Hypothesis as the bigger possibility and I surely dont need and psychiatrist.

Proto-Indo-European is not Proto-Indo-Aryan. Don't confuse the terms. Indo Aryan was a protolanguage that is ancestor to modern Iranian and Indian branches. Proto-Indio Iranian was likely spoken in Northern Central Asia whereas the ones that stayed became the Iranics and those who moved further south became Proto-Indians.

Proto-Indo-European, however, was likely started to be spoken around central Ukraine.

Your Indian and West asian theories don't make sense. All Andronovo and Corded Ware Kurgans have Eastern Euro looking mummies, not west asians or veddoids.

All Indo-european speakers have r1a1 and an admixture of Corded Ware. That's why you can find Northern Euro admix in upper castes in India and places of Pakistan and not Paki(South Asian) admixture in most other Indo-european groups.

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Originally Posted by Jaska

These genome-wide components like North European are not “real” in the same sense than the uniparental haplogroups are: different analyses with different amount of components may interpret the results differently, so the amount of North European component varies analysis by analysis.

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You dont need to explain me this. I already know that and am probably one of the few persons who mentioned this many times. I was just being "as intelligent as some other Users" who tried to argue "look West Asian peaks in non Indo-European people".

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So, I believe that we have better chance to connect paternal or maternal lineages to the expansions of languages.

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Thats for sure and taken all Indo-European speaking populations together, J2a, G* and R1b exceed the frequency of R1a*. In all Iranic speaking Groups J2a, R1a, R1b and R2 are the most frequent Haplogroups. ONLY in Slavic languages R1a is predominant so how can we come to the conclusion that R1a1a has to be the only founder of Indo-European languages. People who support the Kurgan Hypothesis and really believe that from 5000-3000 b. c. their was still a people so highly homogeneous in Haplogroup (Largely R1a) are the only one who really need to visit a psychiatrist and this is my honest opinion. Haplogroups developed some 30000-5000 years ago and we are to believe in a world so connected (even to that time) to each other, the Indo-Europeans managed to stay so homogenous by 5000-3000 b. c.?

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Of course West Asia has also seen repeated linguistic expansions. I only answered why we cannot find any linguistic continuity in Ukraine.

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Oh, really? Please disprove them, if you have the competence. :)
Linguistic results very clearly point to the Pontic Steppe homeland for Indo-European. If you disagree, you should disprove the linguistic evidence. And remember, genetic or archaeological evidence cannot disprove linguistic evidence.

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And I asked you to give me an example of this "Linguistic results" , of an reconstructed ( not real ) Proto-Indo European language.

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How do you explain all the ancient European languages which were spoken still some 2 000 years ago and which are not Afro-Asiatic, Indo-European or Uralic? Tartessian, Iberian, Basque, Sican, Siculian, Rhaetian, Etruscan, Pelasgian, and many Palaeo-European substrate languages in the more northern parts.

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In which more "northern parts" and which are they?

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IE only arrived in India late, and only one branch: Indo-Aryan. As there are Early, Middle and Late Proto-Aryan loanwords in Uralic languages, the Aryan development must have occurred in the North-Caspian steppes.
http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/jphak...icEvidence.pdf

So, the IE language did not spread to India from Anatolia but from Caspian steppes.

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Read what I wrote again and you will see that it does not stand in contrast to the Anatolian hypothesis. I believe that Aryan and Slavic languages developed in the steppes but that they belong to a different wave. They where most probably local Hunthers and Gatheres in the steppes which mixed with the West Asian Proto-Indo Europeans and adopted the language. And later as a second wave moved into Central- South- and West Asia.