Guess the location of David Reich’s proposed 'Southern Arc'

[Zoro]

I’m going to go with where Eurasian DNA has it marked as the “lesser Caucasus” mountains being southern arc and “greater caucasus” mountains being northern arc

https://eurasiandna.com/

[Guti]

Interesting point. It is one of the biggest contenders indeed. It is also located not far from the Steppe Maykop.



Steppe Maykop

[Guti]

I read an intro to the lecture by David Reich one more time and according to the outtake Armenia and northwest Iran were both part of the Southern Arc, and that Indo-Anatolian language family originated in the eastern wing of the Southern Arc.

Therefore we have to rule out the republic of Armenia, since it was most likely the western wing of the Southern Arc.


A striking signal of steppe migration into the Southern Arc is evident in Armenia and northwest Iran where admixture with Yamnaya patrilineal descendants occurred, coinciding with their 3rd millennium BCE displacement from the steppe itself. This ancestry, pervasive across numerous sites of Armenia of ~2000-600 BCE, was diluted during the ensuing centuries to only a third of its peak value, making no further western inroads from there into any part of Anatolia, including the geographically adjacent Lake Van center of the Iron Age Kingdom of Urartu. The impermeability of Anatolia to exogenous migration contrasts with our finding that the Yamnaya had two distinct gene flows, both from West Asia, suggesting that the Indo-Anatolian language family originated in the eastern wing of the Southern Arc and that the steppe served only as a secondary staging area of Indo-European language dispersal.

https://iias.huji.ac.il/event/david-reich-lecture


By the way, they will also discuss the Trialeti culture and how it was linked to the Yamnaya. They will also write something about the Yamnaya and Trialeti patrilineal descendants in Armenia and Northwestern Iran.

[Kaazi]

Just a few weeks left before the first of the 3 ground-breaking papers will come out.
According to David Reich the 'Southern Arc' was a place where the first stage PIEans came from. It was the initial homeland of the earliest proto-Indo-European peoples that later on Indo-Europeanized many people in Europe and Asia.


First of all, I don't know anything about the papers. So at this moment nobody can be right or wrong. It is just a guess. But with my current knowledge about population genetics I can make somehow an educated guess.


After studying the Yamnaya DNA my first guess would be that the 'Southern Arc' has to be located on the eastern side of West Asia. That means that I am ruling the Levant and Anatolia out.

The next step for me to determine the PIEan URHEIMAT is was it in north parts, in the eastern parts or somewhere at the centre of the Eastern West Asia.

All data are pointing out that early stage PIEan people were heavy on a 'Gedrosia' (Caucaso-iranic) component with some minor Anatolia/Levantine influence. That means that I am ruling out the location of the 'Southern Arc' somewhere in the Caucasus.

The only 3 locations that are left are in the Upper Mesopotamia (Southern Kurdistan around Lalish), Northwestern Iran and the northern/central Zagros Mountains.


If I have to choice between those 3, my first chose would be

1. Northcentral Zagros Mountain range. Kurdish Soran areas to the south of Lake Urmia, maybe even close to the Luristan


My second choice would be:

2. an area in the Upper Mesopotamia around Lalish (centre of the Yezidism)


3rd option would be

3 Northwestern Iran around southwestern Caspian Sea coast. Not far from Gilan province of Iran.

Hi Guti,

I got confused by this theory. Some layman questions. I believe on David Reich's works. But then how did EHG originate in NW Iran? or is it that EHG passed thru Caucasus and mixed with CHG females in North Iran to form the PIE culture?? Caucasus Mts. should've been a good natural barrier??

Is the IE pathway into South Asia same as the previous Kurgan theories?? Does that "Greco-Armeno-Aryan sth" linguistic branch hold in this?

[Guti]

Hi Guti,

I got confused by this theory. Some layman questions. I believe on David Reich's works. But then how did EHG originate in NW Iran? or is it that EHG passed thru Caucasus and mixed with CHG females in North Iran to form the PIE culture?? Caucasus Mts. should've been a good natural barrier??

EHG is not that old and it is a mixture of many more ancient components such as WHG, ANE, SHG, CHG/Iran_N etc.

But according to David Reich there were at least 2 distinct gene flows into Yamnaya, both from West Asia. So, that means that there was already some CHG in the Yamnaya Horizon before a second gene flow from the 'Southern Arc' changed the language of the Steppes.

the Yamnaya had two distinct gene flows, both from West Asia, https://iias.huji.ac.il/event/david-reich-lectur

The eastern corridor of the Caucasus Mountains is easy to pass

Is the IE pathway into South Asia same as the previous Kurgan theories??

Yes and no. Most of the Steppe ancestry in South Asia arrived around 1500BC. TRUE

But it is possible that people in SouthCentral Asia (and BMAC) have already spoken an Indo-European dialect before the arrival of new people from the Steppes.

So there are two schools. 1st school says that people in Northern India already have spoken a some type of an Indo-European dialect even before the Steppe migration around 1500BC.
Another school is saying that it were the Steppe people (derived from Yamnaya) who brought Indo-Aryan/Vedic language into South Asia around 1500BC.

[Guti]

Is the IE pathway into South Asia same as the previous Kurgan theories?? Does that "Greco-Armeno-Aryan sth" linguistic branch hold in this?

Watch from min 22:10 what Reich is telling us about Sintashta and Andronovo cultures. According to him Sintashta had some EEF ancestry that he didn't find in India. Therefore he is actually ruling out that there was a real direct Sintashta or Andronovo migration into India.

[Guti]

I think Reich got some DNA samples from these Kurgans in Northwest Iran, from Late Chalcolithic to Iron Age



https://archeorient.hypotheses.org/15823

[Guti]

The first group is composed of kurgans with circular revetments around their graves and with their grave bordered by a stone pile. The builders of these kurgans first established a circular ring around the grave, sometimes marked with a sloping ring of rubble stone, in one to three courses of stones of varying sizes built around the outer perimeter of the kurgan (fig. 1). At the center of this circle there is a small and low pile of rubble set in clay in two to three courses height (Muscarella, 1971: 23).

Kurgans of this type are characteristic of the Late Chalcolithic periods in Iran, Georgia, and Armenia, and are associated with the Maikop culture regarding the structure of kurgan itself as well as the axes heads discovered in them. Although so far only one necropolis of this type has been excavated in Sé Girdan in Iran, its specific structural characteristics led me to place it in a specific group. Sé Girdan is the southernmost region where kurgans have been reported.


Se Girdan kurgans are located on the south shore of Lake Urmia. Some of them were excavated in 1968 and 1970 by O. Muscarella. They have now been redated to the second half of the 4th millennium, although originally they were thought to be much younger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Urmia

[Guti]

Se Girdan kurgans are located on the south shore of Lake Urmia. Some of them were excavated in 1968 and 1970 by O. Muscarella. They have now been redated to the second half of the 4th millennium, although originally they were thought to be much younger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Urmia

So at this moment my 1st choice of the location of the eastern wing of the 'Southern Arc' stands: to the south of Lake Urmia.

[Mark76]

Still can't get over the fact that Turkey is home to Batman