However, the link connecting the Proto-Indo-European–speaking Yamnaya with the speakers of Anatolian languages was in the highlands of West Asia, the ancestral region shared by both.
Contributions of Indo-European to Uralic languages (spoken in the forest zone of Eastern Europe and Siberia) appear to have involved only Indo-Iranian speakers ~4200 years ago . This is important because it constrains the migratory history of Proto-Indo-Iranian, consistent with genetic evidence that it spread through the steppe to South Asia and ruling out the possibility that it spread from West Asia to South Asia over the Iranian plateau.
While most linguists seem to agree that the loans are Indo-Iranian and not Proto-Indo-European, there is disagreement over whether they are specifically Indo-Iranian, Iranian, or Indo-Aryan. Misra (1992), in addition to reversing the direction of language flow, is of the opinion that most of the words can be accounted for as Old Indo-Aryan forms and not Iranian. Shevoroskin also considers them to be Indo-Aryan (and even Middle Indo-Aryan). Most recently, Lubotsky (forthcoming) concurs that the oldest layer of borrowings are often of Sankrit and not of Iranian. D'iakonov (1985) and Dolgopolsky (1993) consider them Indo Iranian. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1983b) in contrast, are quite specific that they should be interpreted as early Iranian and not as Indo-Iranian, “or even less as Old Indic”. Joki (1973, 364-365) also considers them to be mostly Iranian or Middle Iranian. As Mallory (1997) quips: “Will the 'real linguist please stand up? It should be obvious that linguists have as much difficulty in establishing the chronological relationships between loanwords as any other 'historical science".
Ultimately, there is little in the history of loanwords that can eliminate a variety of historical possibilities.
There was increased contact from SC Asia into the Eurasian steppes starting 3rd millennium BCE. Spengler et al 2014 (26) state:
The presence of free-threshing wheat (Triticum aestivum/turgidum) and broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) at Central Eurasian highland campsites also illustrates the first transmission of domesticated grains from both southern Central Asia (south of the Syr Darya River) and China into Central Eurasia during the third millennium BC.
These contacts are viable sources of loanwords from the south into Uralic, and they continued well into the 2nd Millenium BCE.
Therefore, I strongly disagree with the authors of the 'Southern Arc' paper in that they are extremely narrow in their line of thinking in constraining Indo Iranians from the steppe, based on ambiguous evidence. The only constraining factor in locating the Indo-Iranians should be the Mitanni evidence (discussed later). Post-1600 BCE various loanwords, Gods & proper names of Indo-Iranian origin appear in the Mitanni context in Syria.
This narrow perspective is very visible in their paper when they choose to not even entertain the possibility of earlier CHG/IranN ancestry common between West Asia and the Indian subcontinent as the carriers of IE language to the region. After all, if CHG/IranN is the carrier of IE languages into Anatolia and the steppe, what language did it bring into the Indian subcontinent? IranN ancestry is the largest source of ancestry in IVC people (13)(5). What language did this largest source of ancestry bring to the region? Do the authors have an answer for that? In comparison, the steppe ancestry in Swat valley was minuscule at an average of 15%.
Bronze Age samples from Shahr-I Sokhta(34) from eastern Iran at the edge of the region we are considering also derive almost all their ancestry from a CHG-related source. These individuals were modeled as having South Asian ancestry, which is not represented in the 5- source model used to model samples from the Southern Arc in our paper.(34) Samples from Tepe Hissar in northeastern Iran ((34) and this study) also have predominantly CHG ancestry but with 7±2% Levantine Neolithic ancestry; the latter could be derived from the CHG/Levant cline of which the Mesopotamian Neolithic was a part.
So the authors did not even try to use an IVC source in their modelling. They didn't even test it. I am extremely displeased by this. Especially when the contacts between the Indian subcontinent and the near east are so well known and attested in archaeology. Many archaeologists have noted the presence of Mitanni Aryan elements at Hasanlu. Very disappointing!!
In the next section, I will analyze some of the new samples. The section will get technical, so lay readers could skip it and go to the next sections.
ANALYZING SOME OF THE NEW DATA
In this article, I will analyze the samples from the NW Iranian site of Hasanlu Tepe and Dinkha Tepe, and discuss the results and implications of the analysis.
I will be analyzing these samples dispassionately, using all relevant sources from surrounding regions that I can in a rotating qpAdm model as described by Harney et al 2021(1), with slight modifications. The advantage provided by this strategy is that it allows us to directly compare competing models against each other. For example, for a target label (whose ancestry we want to find) if we have 20 sources we want to test, then for a 2 source model we will test 20C2 = 190 models one by one. The other 18 populations will go into the reference 'right pops' of qpAdm. Only models which cross the threshold p-value of 0.05 AND with non-negative admixture coefficients will be accepted, except if I can reject them due to some other specified reason. If no 2-source models work, I move on to 3-source models and so on.
The modification I make will be that of the 20 populations (as an example), I will be removing the Outgroup (African label) and a few other (ex 6 labels) Neolithic labels from contention as sources while keeping them as reference populations. So I will only test 20-1-6 = 13 Labels as sources while utilizing the other 7 purely as references. The number of models tested then will be 13C2 in this example. This helps me cut down on computing time and I don't even want to utilize distal labels as sources (eg 8000BCE Ganj_Dareh, 9000BCE PPN, etc.) and only want to check proximal sources which are closer in time to the targets. To this end, I have developed a Python script that helps me run all the models sequentially and record the output in a CSV file systematically.
Unless otherwise specified, this is the list of all the labels I will use for the models.
Of this list, these are the labels I will exclude from sources:
ONG.SG, PPN, EHG, Turkey_N, Iran_GanjDareh_N, CHG, Tarim_EMBA1, Serbia_IronGates_Mesolithic
Some other labels will be removed completely if they are younger in time than the target to be tested. Eg. Hasanlu_LBA_B, Hasanlu_LBA_A, and DinkhaTepe_A will be removed while testing Hasanlu_MBA.
I will explain the labels. The usual nomenclature is Country_SiteName_Timeperiod. N = Neolithic, C = Chalcolithic, BA = Bronze Age, MBA = Middle Bronze age, LBA = Late Bronze age, IA = Iron age.
Working Rotating models for Hasanlu_MBA
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*S%1 means Admixture coefficient of Source 1, Src1SE means 1 Standard Error for Source1 admixture coefficient. S%1 of 0.125 and Src1SE of 0.057 can be read as Iran_BA_HajjiFiruz having a coefficient of 12.5% +- 5.7% |
Working Rotating Models for Hasanlu_LBA_B
Working Rotating Models for Hasanlu_LBA_A
6/172 models pass. Looks like a Sarazm-type population had a big genetic impact (55-75%) on this sample. Likely a 2nd gen migrant.
Working Rotating Models for Hasanlu_IA
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| DinkhaA and DinkhaB are excluded from the source and reference. |
It is really interesting to witness this seemingly genetic confirmation. On the Hasanlu - Swat Valley connection: https://t.co/yMfLp4N6p1 pic.twitter.com/35f9Xlr7vJ
— Nezih Seven (@nezih_seven) August 26, 2022
Working Rotating Models for DinkhaTepe_A
Working Rotating Models for DinkhaTepe_B
Working Rotating Models for IRQ_Nemrik9_LBA
DISCUSSION
WHAT DOES THIS EXTERNAL ANCESTRY MEAN?
Andronovo and the Bactrian Margiana complex really do appear to be the only game(s) in town, and Lamberg-Karlovsky has indicated why they appear to be mutually exclusive solutions, neither capable of resolving the problem by itself. There is no single culture (using the word in the widest—even most unjustified—sense) that can link the Indus, Iran, Central Asia, and the steppe lands together.
Ghirshman (1977) had already advanced numerous arguments in favour of an Aryan identification of the Gurgan Grey Ware complex; these arguments must now be understood as covering the BMAC as well. Thus, Ghirshman traced the horsemanship, for which the Mitannians were so famous, back to the Gurgan plain, where a locally made cylinder seal from Tepe Hissar IIIB bears the representation of a horse-drawn chariot. Miniature models of trumpets, made of gold and silver, have been found in the Gurgan area (Tepe Hissar IIIC; Treasure of Asterabad) as well as in Bactria. As Ghirshman pointed out, trumpets were needed for directing chariots in battle, and an Egyptian bas-relief of Ramses ΙΠ (early 12th century B.C., soon after intensive Egyptian contacts with Mitanni) shows that trumpets were used in training horses. Horse bones have been found in Gurgan (Shah Tepe), but not, so far, in Bactria or Margiana.* The horse is represented, however, on several of the ceremonial weapons said to have come from the looted graves of Bactria; here one bronze statuette even shows a horse with a naked ityphallic rider, who is pressing his bent legs backwards beneath the horse, without stirrups (Bothmer 1990: 43: no. 29). The abundance of weapons itself suggests that the ruling elite of the BMAC was actively engaged in warfare.
* Dubova (33) asserts the presence of a domesticated horse at Gonur necropolis
Some words need to be said about the discovery of horse remains. It has become clear now that we can talk only about one whole horse burial at Gonur: this was a young animal, leaning against the east wall of the courtyard of royal tomb 3200 and fixed against the side of a four-wheel cart.
It can be said with confidence that there was a domestic horse in Margiana.
Hiebert (31) suggests that the movement of people from BMAC introduced Indo-Iranian to the Iranian plateau.
The identification of the intrusive BMAC burials has suggested a movement of population from Central Asia into an area óf towns and cites on the Iranian plateau (Hiebert and Lamberg-Karlovsky 1992). The lack of imported objects, in addition, into the oases of Bactria and Margiana at this time strongly indicates the unidirectionally of this movement. However, the presence of these burials does not indicate massive migration, since these tombs and cenotaphs outside Central Asia are intermittently dispersed and continuity of occupation in the oases of Central Asia is confirmed. As previously suggested (Hiebert and Lamberg-Karlovsky 1992) and discussed in this volume (by Erdosy in Chapter 1), the appearance of the Central Asian peoples on the Iranian plateau for this brief period at the beginning of the second millennium B.C. is the best candidate for an archaeological correlate of the introduction of Indo-Iranian speakers to Iran and South Asia.
THE HASANLU GOLD BOWL
The ‘gold bowl of Ḥasanlu’ was found in the debris of Burned Building I West on the Citadel Mound at Ḥasanlu in 1958. It had fallen into room 9 in the southeastern corner of the building where, at the end of the 9th century B.C.E., it was buried under the collapsed mud brick walls of the second story along with the bodies of three men. One of these men was carrying the bowl. Although badly crushed, it could be determined that the man had fallen on his right shoulder, with his head facing the north wall. His lower right arm lay upright against the wall face, his hand bent at the wrist. This arm, from wrist to shoulder, was protected by a gauntlet made perhaps of leather (represented by a thin, half-centimeter thick film of powdery yellow and plum-red material). It was backed by six or seven rows of round, flat-topped bronze buttons attached by loops at the back. Two larger flanged buttons formed attachments at either end. The left arm was unadorned, the upper part lying in front of, and parallel to, his chest, with the lower part lying against the wall. Between his hands, lying at forty-five degree angle, was the flattened gold bowl. The bowl was being carried in an upright position and contained three other valued artifacts: a mottled red and white uncut stone cylinder with gold caps, a shattered figurine (perhaps a bird) of laminated ivory (?), and a sword-hilt with a U-shaped bronze guard set over the shoulder of a broken iron blade with round tang. The grip was composed of three red sandstone and three white stone discs fitted over the tang. The pommel was missing. This object is of considerable interest as it matches one found in the former Russian Armenia at Mouci-yeri, dating to between 1200 and 900 B.C.E. (de Morgan, p. 91, figs. 34, 35; Schaeffer, p. 501, nn. 6 and 7).
Images from the Penn Museum site
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| Detail, upper zone of the Hasanlu gold bowl: Storm god in chariot and priest. Only the doubled horns of the front bull indicate that there are indeed two overlapping animals. (Photo courtesy of the Hasanlu Project) |
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Detail, middle zone of the gold bowl: Goddess on a lion. (Courtesy: Penn Museum, Hasanlu Project)
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| Detail, lower zone of the gold bowl: combat scene. 3 headed animal was also seen (Photo courtesy of the Hasanlu Project) |
A detailed description of the scenes on the bowl can be found at Iranica Online, do give it a read.
Aredvi Sura Anahita is principally addressed in Yasht 5 (Yasna 65), also known as the Aban Yasht, a hymn to the waters in Avestan and one of the longer and better preserved of the devotional hymns.
GN Kurochkin(3) also considers the imagery on the bowl as Avestan
The illustrations on this Hasanlu bowl conform to integral passages of the Avesta, found in the 21st chapter of Vendidat and the 5th last devoted to Anâhita.
For example, a hero dressed in a peculiar skirt is shown on the bowl twice: once associated with a bird of prey and once with a three-headed monster. In the Avestan hymn, the hero Thraétaona is also mentioned twice: for the first time in connection with his battle with the three-headed Azi-Dahäka (Zeit 5.33—34) and a second time when he helps the hero Päurva by making him fly up to heaven in the form of a bird of prey ( fest 5.61). After three days and nights, Piurva asks the goddess Anahita to return him to the earth, which she does in the shape of a beautiful girl ( Ya:st 5.62—65). Päurva then performs a sacrifice with the sacred Haoma drink ( Yokt 5.66) (the Hasanlu bowl shows a man with a vessel) (Kuroch- kin 1974).
Some of the scenes on the Hasanlu bowl reappear later in Sasanian toreutics.
The Gandhara Grave Culture of Swat in Pakistan, dating to the second half of the second millennium BC, has been identified by some researchers with the Vedic Aryans. It is significant that also the material culture of Swat offers many parallels to the finds of Tepe Hissar III, Marlik and Hasanlu V.
HP Francfort notes the following in his 2008 paper (4). I apologize for quoting large parts of his paper, but I thought they were too good to paraphrase.
A part of the iconography seems to be related to the Oxus Civilization (labeled also BMAC: Bactro-Margiana Archaeological Complex). The focus or core of the Hasanlu bowl imagery is none other than the basic ancient water cycle, as observed by various students. Water flows down from the muzzles of the bulls of a chariot in the upper register to a composite being in the shape of a mountain monster (“dragon“) that is fought by a hero in a kilt while, as fertility is expressed by various images such as rams and female deities. Links seem clear with an ancient Middle/Inner Asian mythological/naturalistic cycle of water represented earlier, in the first half of the third millennium, on the carved dark stone vases from Jiroft (Kerman, Iran).
On the Hasanlu bowl we then see a hero vanquishing a lion (dragon) AND a goddess taming a lion: this a fundamental core scheme present in the Oxus Civilization iconography. Incidentally, we may observe that the two rams behind the dragon are by means of graphic contact walking on the recumbent lion’s tail: this mean that the naked goddess standing on the rams dominates the lion (an old Oxus Civilization scheme).
Hero in a kilt, as we have seen, fighting against the dragon (hero ON the lion): as observed by various students of the Hasanlu bowl, it is rep-resented twice, once as a fighter with his hands protected by shields and a second time as victorious, larger in size and wearing a diadem (with snake? as trophy?) and bow, quiver and arrows. He wears a kilt ornamented with what apparently are animal tails. This is the costume of the Oxus Civilization warriors-hunters (figs.11, 12) and of the Oxus Civilization hero (eagle anthropomorphic) fighting a dragon or snakes. We can notice in passing the graphic contact of the walking hero with the naked goddess’ hand behind and with a ram’s leg above: in the Oxus Civilization the eagle-hero acts for the goddess and he is also the provider of caprids (see below).
The upper register of the bowl, in the present hypothesis, could represent the Mitanni-Arya deities, apparently in the order of some of the texts: Indra, Mitra, Varuna and the Nāsatya. Indra is the warrior on a chariot with a headdress in the shape of horns. Mitra is the anthropomorphic being with the headdress in a winged (solar) disk. Indra and Mitra drive horse- or equid-drawn chariots. The winged being, the first deity on the right, is Varuna on a chariot drawn by two oxen pouring water (and snow) on the dragon mountain. Introduced by a “priest,” the Nāsatya, two twin bearded men, face these three deities; they lead twin rams, which seems to be a “promotion” of the Nāsatya.” Indra, Mitra and Varuna belong to the sovereign gods of the Indo-Europeans, according to Dumézil, who devoted some pages to the “Indian” gods of Mitanni. Regarding the Vedic Nāsatya, or Aśvin, their status oscillates between human and divine(“promotion”), sacrificing and beneficiaries of the soma sacrifice. The Hasanlu bowl iconography depicts the proposed Aśvin introducing a sacrifice, in front of the sovereign deities, but on the same footing by means of the artistic rules of isocephalic representation and in the upper register. We can recognize here not an exact reflection of the Vedic texts, but a Mitanni-Arya variant expressing the ambivalence of their status.
In this perspective we might see the graphic representation of the Aśvin, twins with twin rams in our interpretation in the upper register, as precisely positioned above the naked goddess on the twin rams(again), purposely to present an artistic vision of the Mitanni-Arya version of the Vedic myth of the Aśvin desirous of enjoying Sukanyā, the spouse of the old rejuvenated Cyavana.
His conclusions are as follows:
The main conclusion is the proposal that the Hasanlu bowl ornamentation is composed of two blocks of beings linked together:- The Mitanni-Arya in the upper register, the heaven and the hierarchical domain of the ruling elites; it seems that it is the exaltation of a priestly cast and of male divinities in chariots;- The Oxus-Hurrian-Mesopotamian in the lower register, which is an Ancient Oriental-Eurasian complex scheme in the process of being minimized.
The present analysis of the Hasanlu bowl might give more substance to the hypothesis of the religious in-fluence of Arya groups in Western Iran at some point. However, we do not pretend that the Hurrian “reading” that proposes to identify images as Kumarbi, Tešub, Ullikummi, Ištar, Šaušga, a “reading” favored by Winter in her comprehensive study of 1989, has been invalidated. Simply, our “reading” gives more consistency to the upper register deities (not simply as Tešub, sun and moon facing sacrificers), the key element being the identification of the Aśvin.
Parpola also agrees about the Indo-Aryan elements of the Hasanlu Bowl (31)
Hasanlu, near Lake Urmia, is an important site associated with Early West Iranian Grey Ware in the second half of the 2nd millennium B.C.. Kurochkin (1990, 1994) has convincingly argued for an Aryan affinity of the famous golden bowl from Hasanlu V, dated to the Early Iron Age (c. 1500-1000 B.C.). He notes that two pictorial scenes on the Hasanlu bowl show a hero dressed in a peculiar skirt: in one the hero is associated with a bird of prey and in the other he is combatting a three-headed monster. In the Avestan hymn to the Goddess Anähitä, preserved in the 5th YaSt, the hero Θraetaona is also mentioned twice: first in connection with his battle with the three-headed AZi-Dahäka (YaSt 5.33-34) and secondly when he helps the hero Päurva by making him fly up to heaven in the form of a bird of prey (YaSt 5.61).
Kurochkin's parallels are from Iranian sources, but I should like to point out that at least the former myth is pre-Iranian, for 0raëtaona the son of ÀΘwya has an exact counterpart in the Rgveda, namely Indra's associate Trita Àptya, who slew VisvarOpa, the three-headed son of Tvastr. The Avestan name of the beast, AZi, corresponds to Vedic ahi "snake, dragon", used of Indra's demonic enemy; it also reminds one of the snake or dragon motif so frequently found on the Bronze Age seals of Bactria and Margiana (Pottier 1984; Sarianidi 1986). Moreover, the epithet dahâka, which the dragon has in the Avesta, connects this adversary with the Däsas, against whom the Àryas of the Rgveda were fighting.
The Hasanlu bowl thus seems to reflect Indo-Aryan mythology.
The Evidence from Archaeology and Assyrian texts
The Medes are for the first time attested in 836 B.C. in an Assyrian inscription of King Salmanasar III (who fought against the Mataí).
The Persians are first attested some years earlier (843 B.C., which is the date of the first definite evidence for Iranian settlement in Iran proper), under the name Parsuaš (Iranian *Pārsva-). They apparently have to be located to the south and west of Lake Urmia.
The written evidence points to the east as the direction from which the Medes and the Persians came, and the Iron I ceramic tradition has roots in Hissar III and related sites in the northeast which were occupied long before Iron I grey ware appeared in western Iran. That tradition and those who bore it spread fairly rapidly over much of western Iran in numbers which perhaps match what the written sources tell us of the earliest Iranians in the Zagros. Furthermore, the areas where this pottery is found match in considerable detail those areas where we have postulated that early Iranians were found by the Assyrians.
Evidence for the emergence of horse riding in the 12th century BC is important for resolving the problem of the migration of the Iranian-speaking peoples. E. A. Grantovsky (1970) maintained that analysis of Iranian names indicated that they appeared on the Iranian plateau at the end of the 2nd millennium BC and became numerous only in the 8th century BC. In Iranian culture of this period there appear a number of important innovations. At Hasanlu, Dinka- Tepe, Marlik, and Babadzhan archaeologists have discovered a horse burial rite that is alien to early Iranian cultures.
These ritual burials and images of horse and riders probably mark the route of Iranian-speaking tribes moving from the Eurasian steppes to the Iranian plateau who brought with them horse raising, riding, mounted combat and the cult of the horse.
Thus the archaeological materials of Iran analyzed by M. N. Pogrebova and myself correspond well with the historical data on the migration of the Iranian speaking people to Iran. The contradiction between the hypothesis of E. A. Grantovsky about the Caucasian route and M. D’yakonov’s opinion on the migration through Central Asia is thus eliminated: it is obvious that both routes were used. The beginning of the migration may be believed to have happened in the last quarter of the 2nd millennium BC.
These dates line up perfectly with what we see in the genetic data of NW Iran: BMAC-like ancestry entering the region post 1500BCE. The question is if this approximate date is the consensus, and we have Hasanlu samples dated till 600bce at the latest, then why did Lazaridis et al reject the Hasanlu iron age people as non-Iranian speakers purely based on their idea of what Iranian genetic profile should be like?
Putting it Together
The R1a and R1b quandary, Rules for thee but not for me
There are some reasons to think that the spread of the steppe ancestry into NW Iran is not associated with the historical Iranian languages: first, it's very minor impact; second, its association with the movement of steppe ancestry into the South Caucasus that could plausibly be associated with Proto-Armenian speakers and would thus predict an (Iranian, Armenian) linguistic relationship rather than the universally accepted relationship of Iranian languages with the Indo-Aryan (or Indic) languages of South Asia. Third, South Asian populations have virtually none of the Yamnaya-derived Y-chromosome lineages, and conversely, the samples from Iran included in our study do not have the R-Z93 lineage tracking the spread of steppe ancestry into Central/South Asia. Finally, our samples are from the periphery of the Iranian world (NW Iran) and may also predate the establishment of the Median and Achaemenid kingdoms of Iran during the 1st millennium BCE.
Present-day Iranians do have R-Z93 Y chromosomes or the more general upstream R1a-M17 ones [observed in every one of 19 diverse populations from Iran , as well as in present-day Indians, and modern Iranians almost completely lack R1b Y chromosomes (<1% frequency)]. Thus, it appears that R1a haplogroup Y chromosomes represent a common link between ancient and modern Indo-Iranians, whereas R1b haplogroup Y chromosomes (to which many of the Hasanlu males belonged) do not. The absence of any R1a examples among 16 males at Hasanlu, who are instead patrilineally related to individuals from Armenia, suggests that a non–Indo-Iranian (either related to Armenian or belonging to the non–Indo-European local population) language may have been spoken there and that Iranian languages may have been introduced to the Iranian plateau from Central Asia only in the first millennium.
If Hasanlu people didn't speak Iranian, how do we explain this?
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| Modern Iranian groups (avg) are descended from Hasanlu_IA |
Target: Kurdish_AverageDistance: 0.9144% / 0.0091442697.4 IRN_Hasanlu_IA2.6 Levant_Baqah_BA
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| 3D PCA: Kurdish cluster inside the Hasanlu_IA cluster |
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| F4(Chimp, Steppe, Hasanlu_IA, Modern Iranians) |
As control, we can check F4 stats for modern Indians
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| F4(Chimp, Steppe, IVCp, Modern North Indian) >> 0 |
I propose that the BMAC-related autosomal ancestry in Iranians is responsible for the spread of Iranian languages, not the bronze age steppe. I propose that Hasanlu_IA people were already Iranian speakers which has nothing to do with their R1b Y hg but rather the large-scale BMAC-like admixture from the east. This is the second way that this new paper upends the Steppe theory.
THE MITANNI EVIDENCE
However, a major milestone is the appearance of early IA speakers in the near east, on the northern rims of Mesopotamia. They have left many loanwords in a non-related Caucasus language, Mitanni Hurrite, from ca. 1600 BCE onwards. The Mitanni kingdom covered northern Iraq and Syria; IA speakers will have reached it from its eastern border in the Zagros mountains. The loanwords extend from horse culture (colors, number of rounds in chariot races), to the throne names of Mitanni kings, and a brief list of four Vedic deities (Mitra, Varuṇa, Aryaman, Nāsatya) attached to a treaty with the Hittites (1380 BCE).
We have tried to show that linguistic data seem to point to the possibility that ancient Iran could have been invaded by earlier Indo-Iranian Dardo-Nuristani tribes before the arrival of Iranian-speaking tribes, that is, the Medes, about the middle of the second millennium BCE.
61 comments:
Do the authors of this paper, reject IranN/IndiaN geneflow to the Steppe/Yamnaya?
They haven't even modeled with IranN as far as I can see. They label everything as CHG, very shoddy. Also they haven't modeled steppe pops, only the new ones. But I'll look at the papers with fresh eyes tomorrow.
All these southern arc populations are admixed between chg and IranN. Nothing like that seems to be explored. There's also SC asian inflow into Armenia which hasn't been explored, overall it's underwhelming.
Plus, they seem to have found 'Indo Anatolian' language family from somehwere. It was in the dustbin, and suddenly these people have brought it out and they keep using it - Lazridis's twitter thread for example.
I was about to send you these links to you, but I see that you've seen them. I am really curious to know the origin of the other branches of PIE, specially Greek, as it seems to have "Anatolian like words"
@Daniel
Greek, Armenian and IIr form a grouping at some point in time and had to migrate from a common source after being together for a while. However the current consensus that these three groups spread from steppe is still held. I think Greek came from Anatolia, not Yamnaya.
Here is a good primer on some of the research on evidence for or against Indo Anatolian
http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=Greater+Anatolia+and+the+Indo-Hittite+Language+Family
@3rdacc If you search for people north of the Caucasus in the 3rd millenium you will see that there was a lot of mining, whose products were exported to the Balkans and East Europe. So, perhaps, you had some sort of serfdom/slavery going on, with IE being carried by trade of goods and slaves.
But I don't see people consideinrg the Y chromossomes as also due slavery of males.
The 'BMAC impact' in Hasanlu LBA is interesting, but have you tried with Tepe Hissar instead of Bustan? It is closer, and there are well known archaeological connections through gray ware: https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ceramics-ix
About L1a, it is found also in Areni cave in Chalcolithic Armenia, that here is analyzed as 91/92% Armenia Neolithic + 7/8% EHG.
About Swat, the archaeological connection points rather to an Iranian origin: for instance, the gray ware in Swat and Hasanlu comes from NE Iran as you can see in the link above.
The Armenian L1a is different, rather go by the yfull nomenclature. I have included yfull link in blogpost. You will immediately see that the Hasanlu L1a is right under swat IA, and next to a konkani.
Wrt tepe hissar, tepe hissar is almost same as bmac. So it should work too. However i can't include it coz I have too many populations to compute already.
Yes, swat has bmac/tepehissar ancestry. But ivc ancestry in that region looks unmistakeable so far.
Go to https://www.yfull.com/tree/L-Y6288/
See the sample under it. I6555 from Pakistan_loebanr_IA (red means ancient sample). carbon date ~900bce.
Hasanlu L-Y28524 falls directly under L-Y6288. There is also a konkani at L-Y28524*.
The clade above this, is L-l1307, that too is full of Indians, pakistanis and Lankans.
Armenian L1a is L-Y31961 https://www.yfull.com/tree/L-Y31961*/
@Ashish,
The L-Y6288 is downstream of L-1307. This L-1307 is also called L-M357 or L1a2. This is mostly present in North-west India , pakistani and afghans(its the one of the major haplogroups of jats and rors) though a few occurrences are present in south too. Just because it's present in a few modern konkanis, it doesn't mean it originated in india. Also, there are a lot of middle easterners in this clade(apart from chechens for whom it seems to be due to very recent founder founder effect).
The upcoming 4600 BCE sample from turkemenistan (Monjukli Depe) is from this L-1307 or L-M357(L1a2) clade. High probability that its origin lies in a region spanning from caucasus to NE iran to SC Asia. Might've entered southvasia when that eastern iranic like ancestry cane !
I make the connection because of
1. I found IVC ancestry in Hasanlu (not because of trying, but because it worked)
2. Archaeological connections
3. That exact subclade is only found in India and Pak on Yfull.
I did not claim anything about origin, I only said this L-Y28524 in Hasanlu seems to be from IVC / swat.
@vASISTHA, have you seen this?
https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2022/08/dear-iosif.html
2. Archaeological connection ? You mean that petroglyph ?
3. The L-Y28524 seems to have UAE and Qatar samples too,
https://www.yfull.com/tree/L-Y28524/ so how this subclade found only among indian and pak on YFull ?
And going by the formation and TMRCA date of L-Y6288(>7000 years), the assignment of the swat ancient is not as downstream/terminal as expected but that seems normal in case of ancient DNAs where downstrean SNPs are often not found or are damaged.
Yes daniel, I left some comments.
"2. Archaeological connection ? You mean that petroglyph ?"
Did you not read Parpolas excerpt. Same gray vase ware with button/disk bases at swat and hasanlu?
"The L-Y28524 seems to have UAE and Qatar samples too,
https://www.yfull.com/tree/L-Y28524/ so how this subclade found only among indian and pak on YFull"
The UAE and Qatar samples have 60 additional SNPs than L-Y28524, are downstream, and are L-Y60258.
"And going by the formation and TMRCA date of L-Y6288(>7000 years), the assignment of the swat ancient is not as downstream/terminal as expected but that seems normal in case of ancient DNAs where downstrean SNPs are often not found or are damaged."
YFull only accepts the highest quality samples and it does not put up the samples if there are missing markers downstream. You can download the dataset and manually check I6555.
Many smples from those countries on yfull are from recent South Asian migrants living there. Remember Coldmountians on Anthrogenica mentioning it before.
Indeed Singh
"YFull only accepts the highest quality samples and it does not put up the samples if there are missing markers downstream."
lnteresting, then the 3500 year old uzbekistan sample here at https://www.yfull.com/tree/R1b/ is really basal R1b as of now & it's assignment is not due to further missing SNPs downstream ?
Nope, no missing information. That sample is R1b* or R1b-prePh155. Same clade found at tarim.If you click on the i next to it, its written R1b*. It has some of Ph-155 mutations but not all, hence prePH155.
Thank you for clarifying about L1a and Tepe Hissar.
What about L1a in Shahr-i Sokhta and Bustan? Is it related?
About the archaeological connection, "same gray vase ware with button/disk bases at swat and hasanlu" does not suggest a movement from Swat to Hasanlu, considering the Iranian origin of Hasanlu gray ware. The period of iron age Hasanlu and Swat seems the same 1000-800 BCE, but gray ware arrived earlier in Hasanlu and also in Swat: "The polished black-gray pottery of Gandhara grave culture during the Ghalegay IV period, earlier considered to run from 1700-1400 BCE, has been associated with that of other BMAC sites like Dashly in Afghanistan, Tepe Hissar and Tureng Teppe... However, these datings between 1700 and 1000 BCE are currently considered outdated, and Gandhara grave culture has been re-dated to c. 1400 to 800 BCE." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhara_grave_culture#Indo-Aryan_migrations
Ghalegay IV gray ware clearly belongs to the bronze age and derives from Iranian or BMAC gray ware. Bronze age Swat has also many cases of West Asian E1b1b1b2.
You are correct. But the predominant view is that BMAC had contact with Swat rather than iran, although both BMAC and iran had similar ancestry/culture. E1b is present in BMAC too.
"What about L1a in Shahr-i Sokhta and Bustan? Is it related?" Havent checked their Y-Full terminal clades.
" the predominant view is that BMAC had contact with Swat rather than iran" in which sense? From Iran to BMAC, we have the movement of Gray Ware: "Carinated gray wares found in small quantities in Namazga IV are considered by Soviet scholars to be forerunners of Namazga V unpainted wares with similar shapes, reflecting a possible eastward migration of the “burnished gray-ware people.” Isolated burnished gray-ware vessels occur sporadically still farther east, for instance at Dashly I and Gonur Depe in the area around Mary (old Margiana) and even at Sarazm, east of Samarkand" https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ceramics-ix
In the other direction, Tepe Hissar IIIC has typical BMAC objects, but I don't know of other BMAC movements more to the west.
About IVC ancestry, it was frequent in BMAC and Eastern Iran, so migrations from there could spread that ancestry to western Iran.
Sorry I meant to say that Swat had contact with BMAC rather than Tepe Hissar or N/NE iran directly
From Sarianidi
"It is worth mentioning that, apart from common funeral ceremonies, the graves at the Gonur necropolis and the Swat graveyard manifested similar ceramic complexes which represent the late variation of the BMAC. The similarity between Swat and Margiana was also supported by another detail. Some anthfopomorphic statuettes had a specific common feature: a cup-like hollow on their heads (Sarianidi 1998a, fig. | 1,l). This detail was earlier unknown in Central Asia. Statuettes with high "crowns" widening upwards were found in Swar graves at the same time (Antonini & Stacul 1972; Dani 1967, pls. li & liii). These "crowns" find their analogies in Turkmenistan of the Namazga V period' There is only one iconographic difference between them: all statuettes of this type from Margiana and Swat are represented standing (Sarianidi 1998a, fig. 16.2) while the Namazga V statuettes are always seated."
They commented in the supplementary info on the methodology, Iran_N didn't produce results with robust enough p-values like CHG did, or something in the likes.
Have you checked the afinity of the Basques with these samples?
Nope. Thats the last thing on my mind. Im busy with finishing these iran samples. Then might move on to anatolians.
@Vasistha that's to put doubt that Yamana was only composed by IE speakers.
Have edited and finished this post. Excited!
Well I always said the BMAC was the origin of the Iranian civilization ie Zoroastrianism, Iranian languages, shahname etc so this bowl definitely is consistent with that.
I dont have these new samples merged yet, but if you want to know if there is additional South Asian ancestry in any samples you can just run the calc
f3(A=test, B=ONG.SG, C=Chimp.REF) and set outgroupmode= TRUE/YES whatever
then just look to find which samples have greater ONG affinity.
I have done this for Steppe samples and others
1 ONG.SG Kazakhstan_Eneolithic_Botai Chimp.REF 217. 1.45 149. 62958
2 ONG.SG Russia_Late_Sarmatian.SG Chimp.REF 216. 1.34 162. 73724
3 ONG.SG Russia_HG_Karelia.SG Chimp.REF 215. 1.44 150. 63238
4 ONG.SG Tajikistan_C_Sarazm Chimp.REF 215. 1.46 147. 57720
5 ONG.SG Russia_Andronovo.SG Chimp.REF 214. 1.28 168. 77585
6 ONG.SG Luxembourg_Loschbour Chimp.REF 214. 1.58 135. 52164
7 ONG.SG Russia_Sidelkino_HG.SG Chimp.REF 214. 1.44 148. 60555
8 ONG.SG Russia_Afanasievo Chimp.REF 214. 1.19 179. 86733
9 ONG.SG Russia_MLBA_Sintashta Chimp.REF 214. 1.18 181. 87459
10 ONG.SG Turkmenistan_IA.SG Chimp.REF 213. 1.51 141. 60093
11 ONG.SG Georgia_Kotias.SG Chimp.REF 212. 1.42 149. 72021
12 ONG.SG Turkmenistan_Gonur_BA_1 Chimp.REF 212. 1.29 164. 68232
13 ONG.SG Iran_GanjDareh_N Chimp.REF 212. 1.22 174. 74888
14 ONG.SG Anatolia_N Chimp.REF 212. 1.17 180. 88294
15 ONG.SG Iran_C_TepeHissar Chimp.REF 211. 1.23 171. 73247
Could you please clarify some notations used? For example, what is meant by "Hasanlu_MBA + IVCp/ Hasanlu_LBA_A"? What do the / and + signify, are they different? Is this meant to represent a 3 source model of Hasanlu_MBA, IVCp, and Hasanlu_LBA_A... or something else? Thanks.
Hasanlu_MBA + IVCp/ Hasanlu_LBA_A
means
Hasanlu_MBA + IVCp as well as Hasanlu_MBA + Hasanlu_LBA_A.
So 2 different 2 source models, not a 3 source model.
Some borrowings might be due Tocharian. Tocharian borrowed words to chinese and other languages of Siberia. But people don't want to acknoledge these same borrowings to Uralic, which is a circumpolar family of languages.
@Vasistha: "After all, 40% steppe ancestry and almost 100% steppe male markers (14) could not change the language of the Basque people in Iberia", maybe "pre-basque" was the dominating Steppe language, which would also justify its similarities to caucasian languages?
@daniel, im not aware of that research.
I have added a section about R1b and Iranians at the end. Do read that part again.
@Vasistha , I quoted you in the paper, if that's what you mean. If it is the tocharian thing, I can provide it later.
Ashish, do BMAC and IVC have shared ancestry?
Yes Hasanlu deals a great blow to the Sintashta Indo-Iranian nonsense.
However, a few comments on common misconceptions:
1." BMAC " is a terrible designation for a network that spanned from Hissar to Quetta. A lot of the characteristics of BMAC don't originate in Bactria nor Margiana, eg. Grey Ware from Hissar, chlorite and alabaster from Sistan, the pilastered buildings with fire altars from Mundigak..etc.
2. While the Indo-Aryans did not have a significant impact in Mesopotamia they did settle in Northern Iran. The Mazena(Mazandaran) Daevas of the Younger Avesta even left behind toponyms; Mount Bikni(Vighna). Actually, even Urmiya is considered IA.
3. Zoroastrianism did not spread with Zarathustra and Vishtaspa but with a community that came later. Wherever the original homeland was doesn't matter but the group that spread it was centered in western Sistan and Herat(Zamyad Yasht). The younger Avesta itself went through multiple redactions for example, the Anahita Yasht during the time of Artaxerxes II.
4. Francfort's interpretation of the Hasanlu bowl is correct but he switched Indra and Varuna. However, his claim of the East Iranian eagle hero being non-IE is dubious. Every IE dragonslayer has been associated with eagles it's even the favorite form of various thunder gods. Also, somehow Francfort forgot about the original IE river goddess Danu and the various water goddesses of the Scythians. To be blunt, BMAC is one of the best examples of IE cultures from rituals to iconography.
I've written about this in detail to Alberto but I haven't finished the last part. Though, It looks like the Mitanni did not come from Hissar IIIC. North Iranian and Mundigak samples will pretty much solve the Proto-Indo-Aryan debate.
"Ashish, do BMAC and IVC have shared ancestry?"
Yes, while BMAC ancestry is largely like Tepe Hissar, IVC sees a good chunk of tepe hissar like ancestry (carrying anatolian component) coming in at an unknown time.
On top of that we already see IVC migrants at Gonur (2100bce), and also bmac ancestry in swat iron age. So, intense contacts between the two.
@vara Thank you for the comments.
"To be blunt, BMAC is one of the best examples of IE cultures from rituals to iconography."
I agree.
As for Mitanni, 2 Hasanlu samples I6430 and I6428 are showing a high amount of swat_udegram or swat_aligrama_nosteppe ancestry of upto 30%.
I will add the results as soon as my models finish running. My idea is that Mitanni Aryan elements do not need a large migration (as large scale language change didn't occur) which is consistent with the ivc ancestry connections being seen at hasanlu
However, bmac like ancestry definitely does overpower this NW iranian region post 1700bce, highly consistent with language changes in the region.
"BMAC " is a terrible designation for a network that spanned from Hissar to Quetta. A lot of the characteristics of BMAC don't originate in Bactria nor Margiana, eg. Grey Ware from Hissar, chlorite and alabaster from Sistan, the pilastered buildings with fire altars from Mundigak..etc."
Right. Because my approach is from the pov of genetics primarily rather than archaeology, and since BMAC sites have lots of aDna samples available to use unlike northern /eastern iran, i tend to prefer that nomenclature.
But in general, bmac samples are very similar to shahr-sokhta siestan samples and can be used interchangeably in most models. I wish we get LBA and IA samples from siestan soon.
@Vasistha "IVC sees a good chunk of tepe hissar like ancestry (carrying anatolian component) coming in at an unknown time" Interesting, where can we see that?
About BMAC/Swat-like ancestry in Hasanlu, at least initially it could be mostly the Mitanni Aryan component. It was thought that Hasanlu with gray ware and other changes reveal around the middle of 2nd mill. BCE the arrival of Mitanni Aryans or Iranians. See https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/hasanlu-teppe-i: "In the second half of the second millennium B.C.E., a major change took place in burial customs, ceramics, and architecture with the appearance of burnished gray, black, red, and brown pottery made in a variety of shapes, including stemmed goblets, spouted jars, and vessels reproducing metal techniques such as gadrooning. At the end of the second millennium B.C.E., the top of the Citadel mound was occupied by a series of monumental buildings, of which at least one was a large temple with a columned hall measuring 18 by 24 meters with four rows of six columns each, a forerunner of later columned halls in Media and Achaemenid Anshan (q.v.)." Recently, Danti has questioned the arrival of new people (see https://www.academia.edu/41532652/The_Iron_Age_at_Hasanlu_Iran_New_Perspectives_by_Megan_Cifarelli), but the genetic data can confirm the migration.
Now, Parpola saw this as a migration of Sintashta Indo-Aryans from BMAC. Now we know that BMAC was not conquered by steppe people at the time Parpola thought (1900 BCE). To me, BMAC and near areas like Tepe Hissar were proto-Iranian, and Mitanni Aryan too: http://new-indology.blogspot.com/2017/05/were-mitanni-really-indo-aryans.html
The IVCp component should not be separated, but it can be simply part of this BMAC-like population, that shared the pre-Zoroastrian pantheon with Vedic Indo-Aryans.
Thanks for the perspective.
Wrt, tepe hissar like ancestry in IVCp samples from SiS and Gonur, Maier et al 2022 preprint has confirmed ~7% anatolian ancestry in those samples, overturning conclusions of Narasimhan et al and shinde et al.
I also confirm the same in my 2previous blog posts on Rakhigarhi and IVCp, except I note that Levant PPN also works instead of Anatolian . The population which mediated this ancestry into India is likely something like Anau chalcolithic. The inflow could have happened between 5000-4000bce.
Added another section
The Evidence from Archaeology and Assyrian texts
That these newcomers to NW Iran are proto-Iranians is completely borne out by archaeological and Assyrian textual evidence. From Iranica Online:
The Medes are for the first time attested in 836 B.C. in an Assyrian inscription of King Salmanasar III (who fought against the Mataí).
The Persians are first attested some years earlier (843 B.C., which is the date of the first definite evidence for Iranian settlement in Iran proper), under the name Parsuaš (Iranian *Pārsva-). They apparently have to be located to the south and west of Lake Urmia.
TC Young,1967 (18) posited that 1300-1000 BCE Iron Age 1 sites at Hasanlu V, and Sialk V are the best fits for the first Iranians in Zagros.
The written evidence points to the east as the direction from which the Medes and the Persians came, and the Iron I ceramic tradition has roots in Hissar III and related sites in the northeast which were occupied long before Iron I grey ware appeared in western Iran. That tradition and those who bore it spread fairly rapidly over much of western Iran in numbers which perhaps match what the written sources tell us of the earliest Iranians in the Zagros. Furthermore, the areas where this pottery is found match in considerable detail those areas where we have postulated that early Iranians were found by the Assyrians.
Douglas Adams, 2020 (19) also states it is consensus that "Proto-Iranians to the north (arriving on the edge of the Fertile Crescent [Assyrian records] by 1100 BC)"
How can one do qpAdm rotation on Linux version of Admixtools?
Great insights! We know Iranian languages and Indo-Aryan languages are sister families. Since BMAC is the Iranian vector according to you, what ancestry is the propagator of Proto-Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan? And why don't we see authoritative archeologists classifying Indus Valley sites as Indo-Aryan and BMAC sites as Iranian if MLBA Central Asian Steppe sites are really irrelevant to Indo-Iranian culture?
@Legend. Thanks.
QpAdm in Linux gives single results for single models. For rotation with less samples, you may use admixr on R by Bodkan, but the problem there is that it runs a fresh qpAdm each time rather than using qpfstats output, so time taken is in multiple hours.
Personally, I have written a python script which runs various rotations from qpfstats output and writes it to file.
Wrt Indo Iranian, if BMAC was Iranian, proto Aryan should be somewhere in NW india or Afghanistan.
Wrt, 'authoratitive archaeologists', Sarianidi was the excavator of Gonur and he already proposed BMAC as Iranian based on his findings. Recently, parpola published a paper on sanauli and claimed that Sanauli was indo Aryan.
The material found at BMAC, including wagons, Horse burials (refer Sarmiento, Dubova, Sarianidi) (before Sintashta culture was even born), Fire rituals, Fire temples, soma equipment (refer Sarianidi), poppy and ephedra seeds (disputed by others, but refer sarianidi) and motifs of serpents and eagles, etc. all point to BMAC culture being Iranian prior to 2000bce.
Edwin Bryant notes the views of most noted archaeologists in his book 'Quest for the Origins of Vedic culture'. There is complete absence of evidence regarding any 'Aryan migration/invasion'. All indian archaeolgists, including the legend BB Lal, and outsiders like Kenoyer, Lamberg-Karlovsky, Jim Schaffer, R Dyson etc. agreed (at least at some point, don't know if they changed views) that evidence of cultural change in north Indian archaeological record is sparse to non existent.
The opponents to this view always has been the Anthony, Mallory, Kuz'mina camp and their friends at Harvard like Witzel. They claim that lack of cultural change in archaeological record doesn't mean anything. It's a shame that only this second set of people are given voice now, mostly due to their collaboration with Harvard in their recent papers. Furthermore, the primary marker of Vedic culture, fire rituals and fire altars (7 altars together near a bathing tank, similar to community ritual spaces seen today for post death Vedic rituals) have been found at Kalibangan and Lothal, long before 2000bce.
For instance in Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 12.9.2.1 describes about ritualistic bathing [8].
"Having performed the sacrifice they betake themselves to the purificatory bath; for after a Soma-sacrifice they do betake themselves to the purificatory bath, and the Sautrâmanî is the same as the Soma (sacrifice)."
Good article on the Kalibangan Fire altars
https://www.indica.today/long-reads/roots-vedic-rituals-harappan-fire-worship-vedic-parallels/
@vAsiSTha The problem with admixr is that I've tried it and honestly it's a hassle to run. I personally run Admixtools in Ubuntu in WSL in windows which is very convenient. I've tried to manually rotate the models too but that again is almost impossible to do by myself as too many unique combinations. I've seen your models are from Admixtools' linux version so if you don't mind can you help me in setting up qpAdm rotation in linux?
I think Proto-Aryan in Afghanistan makes sense because Rig Veda 3.33
shows Vishvamitra and Bharatas crossing Beas and Sutlej to reach Kurukshetra. So thanks for the sources for Gonur and Sinauli, I'll read them.
@vAsiSTha Yeah actually, this is what I meant. Scholars like Anthony, Mallory, Kuz'mina and Witzel have so much clout that I've seen only them being cited. You're the only blogger which I've seen, to represent the other side. In my honest opinion, archeology and genetics hold a lot of weight. Considering that we don't see any archeological influence from MLBA Central Asian Steppe cultures into Indian subcontinent and very minor ancestry influx (which we aren't sure to happen before 1500 BCE in mainland India), it always amazed me how this proposition was emerging victorious in academia.
Also, I think it's necessary to point out that Parpola also has very weird theories in mind like how he shows 2 waves of Indo-aryans arriving into India. Jamison's review of Parpola's book was really great. I think I should share it here.
https://lockwoodonlinejournals.com/index.php/jaos/article/view/776
@Legend
Shoot me a mail at vikramraj12344321 (at) gmail dot com
It's likely their is confusion of Paleolithic pre-Iranian-S.Asian vestigial genes as IVC. That properly reflects east-shiftedness of early Iranians, but not necessarily, authenticate, IVC admixture. Hassanlu is doubtful to have IVC influence.
@blogmaster
Hasanlu_IA_I6430 - This particular sample has definite IVC related admixture.
This recent paper in the Nature from 10 days back would be interesting, it seems to prove my hunch that CHG originated in the Indian subcontinent. Reading the Lazardis paper in light of this new paper hints towards AIT
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06705-1#Fig2
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/GD1hu3a-appears-to-be-related-to-Caucasus-Hunter-Gatherers-and-to-modern-South-Asian_fig1_306017875
Even though part of the Western
Eurasian component found in India can be linked to Bronze Age migrations by dating the last contact using
Linkage Disequilibrium (thus coming from the Kotias lineage), our results highlight the possibility of an older
contribution from a source genetically close to GD13a (which would be hard to disentangle from the later gene
flow from the Steppe). Eventually, ancient DNA from the Indus Valley will be needed to detect conclusively
whether any genetic traces were left by the eastward Neolithic expansion from the Near East, or whether this
process was mostly cultural.
Also, found the above study which postulates CHG (Neolithic female from Ganj Dareh dated to caliberated 10000- 9700BCE to be the source of steppe ancestry in S Asia, much earlier back in time. Or was the direction of diffusion in reverse direction?
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