Thursday, December 22, 2022

Genetic History of the Tajiks

12 metre Buddha in Nirvana: Ajina Tepe, Tajikistan 6th - 7th Century CE)


I was going through the paper by Guarino-Vignon et al (2022) again and was struck by some very good insights. The paper is titled "Genetic continuity of Indo-Iranian speakers since the Iron Age in southern Central Asia".

The paper studies the modern Tajik and Yaghnobi people of Tajikistan. While the Tajik speak a Persian dialect (Iranian > West Iranian > SW Iranian > Persian > Tajik), the Yaghnobis speak an Eastern Iranian language, a descendant of ancient Sogdian (Iranian > East Iranian > Sogdian > Yaghnobi).


In this post, I don't want to get into the qpAdm models (maybe later), but I am sure there must be some scope for improvement, as is true for all papers. With qpAdm, the authors model the Yaghnobis as 88-93% Turkmenistan_IA (aka TKM_IA, ~850 BCE, Yaz II culture, Takhirbai 3 site), and the rest from an East Asian population like the Xiongnu culture of Mongolia. This suggests to me that TKM_IA could be strongly related to some sort of proto-Sogdian languages since Xiongnu culture is probably related to the Altai/Turkic language family. This is also validated by the fact that the ~200 - 400 CE Sogdian-speaking Kangju samples show continuity with TKM_IA.

They model the other Tajiks as 71% TKM_IA, 16% XiongNu and 13% Andamanese. This model using both proximal and distal sources (Andamanese) together is a bit weird, but as I said earlier I will not be getting into qpAdm in this post. So, the Persian-speaking Tajiks show additional East Asian as well as Indian ancestry.

Tajik G25
Rough G25 model for Tajiks


What explains this difference in dialect? The authors try to answer this question.

We also do not see a gene flow from Iran despite the Persian cultural expansion which led to a language shift from an east-Iranian language to a west-Iranian in Tajiks—when Yaghnobis kept their east-Iranian language.

 

Notably, we evidenced an admixture event from South Asia restricted to the Tajik population, undocumented before despite evidence in Iranian Turkmens. According to previous archaeological studies multidirectional cultural exchanges with South Asia are known to have taken place as early as the Chalcolithic period: notably from Sialk culture and other Iranian cultures towards Balochistan or from Geoksjur culture of Turkmenistan to southern Afghanistan. In the opposite direction, from south to north, Mundigak III type ceramics find parallels as far as Badakhshan in northeast Afghanistan, material from Balochistan and shells used in necklaces and bracelets from the Arabian Sea are found at the Sarazm site in Tajikistan, showing a long-distance commercial exchange. All these ancient populations were on the move with probably quite frequent exchanges and cultural blends between populations, Iron Age included. Intriguingly, genetic proximity between southern Central Asian and South Asian groups has already been suggested for BMAC samples18 and raises the question of the timing of this gene flow. Two models can be considered: the first one assumes the formation of a homogeneous basal Indo-Iranian background (as observed today in Yaghnobis) and subsequent recent gene flow from South Asian populations; the second model acknowledges the presence of South Asian ancestry in some Bronze Age BMAC samples and suggests Tajiks and Yaghnobis could have derived from distinct BMAC populations, respectively with and without South Asian ancestry, who have both experienced independent admixture with Andronovo-like steppe populations during Iron Age, and eastern nomads with BHG ancestry afterwards. Because the date of the gene-flow from South Asian populations in Tajik genomes is relatively recent, the data favours the first hypothesis; however, uncertainties on the model of admixture (one versus several pulses) may be compatible with continuous gene-flow since the Bronze Age. Additionally, our recent date of admixture fits with the arrival of the South Asian ancestry at the same that the shift from east to west-Iranian language in Tajiks linked to the Persian expansion 1500 years ago.

They pin the East-to-West Iranian language shift on the arrival of AASI-rich ancestry, so maybe the Persian-speaking ancient Afghanis were the vector? This needs further investigation.

There are some other interesting tidbits in the paper.

The main event at the bottom of Indo-Iranian ancestry in southern Central Asia occurred at the end of the Bronze Age/Early Iron Age, through the admixture between local BMAC groups and Andronovo-related populations perhaps linked to the end of the Oxus Civilization. We note here that the steppe group who admixed with BMAC did not present East Asian ancestry, which is consistent with both the archeological and genetic findings of the East Asian ancestry arriving in the Central steppe core only at the end of the Iron Age.

Consistent with Jeong et al 2020, they confirm that East Asian ancestry in the region was a post-Iron age phenomenon. This negates one of the conclusions by Narasimhan et al 2019, that Iron age steppe sources cannot be the vectors for ancestry in India due to some East Asian ancestry. 

They also model TKM_IA as 43% BMAC and 57% Andronovo (from Kytmanovo, they rejected other steppe sources). Elsewhere in the supplement, the percentages are 47% and 53%, which is more likely IMO as per my previous modelling efforts. The first instance might just be a typo.

They further raise an important point, which is not usually addressed in genetic studies, the lack of any major steppe-related impact on mainland Iranian populations.

Interestingly, the ancestry pattern found in Indo-Iranian speakers from Central Asia is not found in other Indo-Iranian speaking populations, namely, the Iranians Persians. This ethnic group displays a genetic continuity since the Bronze Age with ancient individuals from Iran, with limited gene flow from the steppes (either Central or Eastern).

 However, they make one point which I disagree with. 

These results enlighten that Turkmens were an Indo-Iranian-like population not so long ago, who recently shifted language and culture without a substantial genetic change in population.

Furthermore, our study of the Turkmen population presents another example where language and genetics do not match, questioning the idea of inferring language displacement using population movement. Their genetic affiliation to modern western Eurasian populations, seen in earlier studies, is due to a common steppe ancestry.

I do not know which modern Turkmen samples they used, but the East Asian shift in Turkmen as compared to Tajiks is very clear as seen in the below PCA. That 20-25% ancestry shift is likely responsible for their Turkic language.

Tajik Turkmen PCA
Turkmen, Tajik and Yaghnobi PCA (Using G25 coordinates and Vahaduo tool)

 


ADMIXTURE DATING



The authors date the various admixture events in the Tajiks thus:

Finally, we used DATES to estimate the number of generations since the admixture events. We obtained 35 ± 15 generations for the admixture between Turkmenistan_IA and XiongNu-like populations at the origins of the Yaghnobis, i.e. an admixture event dating back to ~ 1019 ± 447 years ago considering 29 years per generation. For Tajiks (TJE, TAB, TJA) we obtained dates from ~ 546 ± 138 years ago (18.8 ± 4.7 generations) to ~ 907 ± 617 years ago (31.2 ± 21.3 generations) for the West/East admixture. We also obtained a date of ~ 944 ± 300 years ago for the admixture with the South Asian population.

Note that the Z-scores are small (Standard errors are large compared to the mean). So, I will try to replicate this result and hopefully make an improvement.

I have access to 32 Tajik samples from the Harvard HO dataset. The annotation file says that they are from the Aininsky district, Kulyab district, Gissar district, Rushan, Shugnan, and Ishkasim. So some of them are East Iranian speakers. I will analyze them all together (for DATES) but bear in mind that they could be a mix of Persian as well as East Iranian speakers.

There are 4 ancestry sources in Tajiks, by antiquity - 1) BMAC 2) Andronovo steppe related 3) South Asian and 4) East Asian. Let us see if DATES can help us find the average admixture date of each event.


I will use the best practice for multiple admixture sources as suggested by Chintalapati et al

To test the performance of DATES for multi-way admixture events, we generated admixed individuals with ancestry from three sources (East Asians, Africans, and Europeans) where the gene flow occurred at two distinct time points. By applying DATES with pairs of reference populations, we observed that DATES recovered both admixture times for target populations that had equal contributions from all three ancestral groups. In the case of unequal admixture proportions from three ancestral groups, DATES inferred the timing of the recent admixture event in most cases. In some cases, however, the inferred dates were intermediate to the two pulses when the ancestry proportion of the recent event was low. This confounding could be eliminated if the reference populations were set up to match the model of gene flow. For example, the inferred times of admixture were accurate if the two references used in DATES were: reference 1: the source population for the recent event and reference 2: pooled individuals from both ancestral populations that contributed to the first admixture event, or the intermediate admixed group formed after the first event. This highlights how the choice of reference populations can help to tune the method to infer the timing of specific admixture events more reliably.

For DATES, I relabeled many samples as either Steppe_MLBA, EastAsian, BMAC or SouthIndian.SG. You can find the list of samples here.


1. East Asian admixture


East Asian dates
DATES decay curve gives East Asian admixture date of 31 +-2 generations



 2. South Asian Admixture

Indian admixture in Tajiks
Indian admixture is Tajiks is dated to 47 +- 4.3 gens ago



3. Steppe admixture into BMAC


Steppe admixture into BMAC
Steppe admixture with BMAC occurred 89 +- 12 Generations ago





SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION


When used properly, DATES (v4010) is able to give us accurate admixture timing of all 3 separate admixture events in the ancestors of the Tajiks. That in itself is utterly spectacular. I was also able to significantly reduce the std errors and increase the significance of the DATES result, probably because the dataset I used for both target and sources was larger.

Using 28 years per Generation, and converting the output into a 95% confidence range by using the formula 

Lower bound date = 2000 - 28 x (Mean +2 Std Error gens)

Upper bound date = 2000 - 28 x (Mean - 2 Std Error gens)

we get the following:

Dates summary
DATES Summary for Tajiks: 3 admixtures, 3 dates




1. The East Asian admixture is dated to the 95% CI range of 1000-1255 CE. The z-score of 13.7 is very highly significant as the Std Error is low. This range perfectly coincides with the Turkic rule of the Kara-Khanid dynasty and later Mongol rule in Central Asia. The East Asian admixture from the Turks must have come during this rule.

2. The South Asian admixture is dated to the 95% CI range of 447-933 CE. The z-score of 10.8 is also highly significant. This corresponds to the period of the end of the Kushana rule and the beginning of the intermittent Sassanid rule over the region, which explains the change to the West Iranian language family. The Kidarites and Hephthalites also held power over the region (as well as NW India) for brief intervening periods and helped spread Indian culture (and probably ancestry) in this region (Grenet, 2003; Masson 1996). How the south Asian admixture happened (but not Iranian) during this period is up for speculation. Various Buddhist monasteries dating from the 4th to the 7th century CE have been found in Tajikistan. Indian writing on pottery was also found, dated to ~ 400CE (Stavisky 1990). It is conceivable that Buddhist monks and merchants from Gandhāra were active in Tajikistan during this time. This conclusion by Razib Khan regarding the Indian admixture in Tajiks is not correct. The admixture predates the Ghaznavid era by a few centuries.

Looks like most of the admixture from the Indian subcontinent dates to the period around 1000 AD, when the Ghaznavids were enslaving large numbers of Indians. This ancestry shows up in Afghanistan and eastern Iran.



12 metre Buddha in Nirvana: Ajina Tepe, Tajikistan 6th - 7th Century CE)


3. The steppe admixture with BMAC is dated to a 96% CI range of 1175 BCE - 186 CE. The Z-score of 7.3 is high. We already know that the steppe admixture into BMAC was a slow continuous process, which properly started only after 1300 BCE.


G25 post bmac
SC Asian samples post 1600BCE show little admixture between BMAC & Steppe (rough model)


The samples from Southern Central Asia till 1300-1400 BCE don't show much admixture between BMAC and steppe populations, although unadmixed steppe people have been sampled. Up north in Kazakhstan, some 1500 BCE samples do show a movement of BMAC people to the north, but these samples are highly unlikely to be the ancestors of TKM_IA or modern Tajiks, because of the presence of EMBA and/or proper East Asian admixture.


Kazakh bmac
1500BCE BMAC admixture in Kazakhstan (rough model only)


Given this, it is probably correct to say that steppe admixture into BMAC in South Central Asia only started post-1200 BCE as shown in the DATES model. By 900 BCE, Steppe ancestry was 50% of the autosomal component of the TKM_IA sample. So we can probably narrow the date range to 1200 - 800 BCE. This ancestry persists in the later Kangju and modern Yaghnobi and Tajik samples.

In the case of continuous admixture over centuries, DATES gives an intermediate date as output(95% CI may not cover the whole range of continuous admixture), so it is possible that the admixture started even before 1200 BCE (as seen in Swat samples). It is also possible that the BMAC ancestors of Tajiks were completely separate from those of Swat Iron age people and therefore the steppe admixture in both of those is from different dates altogether. This is supported by the fact that Swat_IA requires an ANE-shifted Steppe source like Dali_MLBA, whereas TKM_IA requires a Western-steppe-mlba profile.

This is also confirmed in the paper:

Overall, we can say that the Iron Age population from southern Central Asia emerges from the admixture of BMAC with a Bronze Age population close to the Andronovo individuals, which presents a profile with an affinity with Western steppe rather than with Central steppe with an affinity to East Asia (like Karasuk).


Swat vs dali
Swat_IA vs TKM_IA


CONCLUSION


With only modern Tajik samples, we could infer the probable dates of multiple admixtures from varied sources into the ancestors of modern Tajiks. The inferred admixture dates also match the archaeological history of the region fairly well. The representation below offers a glimpse into the population history of the Tajik people.


Genetic history of Tajiks
Genetic History of Tajiks



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REFERENCES




Chintalapati, Manjusha, and Priya Moorjani. "Evolution of the mutation rate across primates." Current opinion in genetics & development 62 (2020): 58-64.

Grenet, Frantz. "Regional interaction in Central Asia and Northwest India in the Kidarite and Hephthalite periods." Proceedings of the British Academy. Vol. 116. 2002.

Guarino-Vignon, Perle, et al. "Genetic continuity of Indo-Iranian speakers since the Iron Age in southern Central Asia." Scientific reports 12.1 (2022): 1-13.

Jeong, Choongwon, et al. "The genetic history of admixture across inner Eurasia." Nature ecology & evolution 3.6 (2019): 966-976.

Khan, Razib. "South Asian Ancestry in Tajikistan." Brown Pundits, 9 Nov. 2021, www.brownpundits.com/2021/11/09/south-asian-ancestry-in-tajikistan/. Accessed 22 Dec. 2022.

Masson, Vadim Mikhaĭlovich. History of Civilizations of Central Asia: The crossroads of civilizations, AD 250 to 750. Vol. 3. UNESCO, 1996.

Mehrjoo, Zohreh, et al. "Distinct genetic variation and heterogeneity of the Iranian population." PLoS genetics 15.9 (2019): e1008385.

Narasimhan, Vagheesh M., et al. "The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia." Science 365.6457 (2019): eaat7487.

STAVISKY, B. J. “Buddhist Monuments of Central Asia and the Sasanians.” Bulletin of the Asia Institute, vol. 4, 1990, pp. 167–70. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24048358. Accessed 22 Dec. 2022.

160 comments:

Orpheus said...

"These results enlighten that Turkmens were an Indo-Iranian-like population not so long ago, who recently shifted language and culture without a substantial genetic change in population."

I don't think there's any contradiction here, not even with the PCA (which as a tool is far from accurate). Turkmens, just like Tajiks and modern Turks (most of them at least) did not undergo substantial genetic change, i.e. influence from Turkic Xiongnu-like populations. Turkmen have a mean of ~22% Baikal siberian ancestry as per the study (~15% for Tajiks) So the shift is there and is actually bigger than modern Turks who are nonetheless Turkic speaking. I don't think they deny the shift (since they even calculate it), they just say it wasn't big and that language can change without substantial genetic change, which is a well-documented occurrence.

Ning et al 2019 calculates Tajiks as over 90% TKM_IA, and Xiongnu. Turkmens are modeled as 94% Tajik and 6% Golden Horde. Overall similar results to Vignon et al 2022.

Ning also models TKM_IA as 47% BMAC and 53% Andronovo, consistent with your modeling.

vAsiSTha said...

Let's just say that I find 20-25% excess mongolian ancestry as significant, whereas the authors do not. Maybe they had samples which weren't as shifted who knows.


Target: Turkmen
Distance: 2.8122% / 0.02812154
78.2 Tajik_Yaghnobi
21.8 MNG_Ulaanzuukh_Slab_Grave


Target: Turkmen_Uzbekistan
Distance: 2.7904% / 0.02790361
76.4 Tajik_Yaghnobi
23.6 MNG_Ulaanzuukh_Slab_Grave

mzp1 said...

Afaik the 'Tajiks' in the Reich dataset are Ishkashim, Rushan etc which is the Yaghnobi type not the Persian type. Ie mountain Tajiks.

vAsiSTha said...

The Reich dataset has Tajiks from these locations

Aininsky district
Kulyab district
Gissar district
Rushan
Shugnan
Ishkasim

Afaik, all of these speak Persian and none of these are Yaghnobi.

vAsiSTha said...

Ah, it seems the Ishkasim and Shugnon Tajiks also speak Eastern Iranian.

mzp1 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mzp1 said...

The Yaghnobi, Eastern Iranians are the 'mountain' type which is further South living in the isolated mountain regions of Badakshan. The Persian speakers are the plains people in low-land areas North of Badakshan.

Also, regarding the origin of IIr. Its important to note the 'intermediate' position of Nuristani with respect to Indo Aryan and Iranian. Nuristani is also a mountain language/people, and they can be considered in between the two groups, hence it goes Indo-Aryan-Nuristani-EasternIranian-WesternIranian and the Eastern Iranians and Nuristanis are located in the mountain areas between South and Central Asia.

Nuristani, due to its intermediate position in IIr, is an important clue as to the origin of IIr. Becuase both Nuristani and Eastern Iranian is closest to Indo Aryan it would look like this area is the separation point of Indo Aryan and Iranian.

vAsiSTha said...

Just found out that Razib Khan wrote a post where he claimed the Indian ancestry in Tajiks was because of Indian slaves during Ghaznavid islamic era. That does not seem to be true. The admixture dates are many centuries older than Ghaznavids.

mzp1 said...

The 'Indian' ancestry modelling needs to use NW South Asians like Gujarati as a source rather than high AASI tribal groups like Onge or Birhor.

Yaghnobis should be closer to South Asians than Turkmenistan IA but if they are using Eastern or high AASI south asians it will give erraneous results.

vAsiSTha said...

In this post, i dont focus on the exact proximal sources for Tajiks, but rather on validating the timing of the 3 separate admixture events - steppe, Indian and east asian.

Singh said...

I think they might have found the ghost you are looking for..? but the study is not out yet.

https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/view/PRJEB51862

with updated dataset.
https://edmond.mpdl.mpg.de/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.17617/3.Y1KJMF

TTK001 sample could be from mesolithic Tutkaul site in Tajikstan (we don't know this for sure yet as study is not out but the samples are). Based on independent qpAdm sources, it models as mixture of ANE and 25% proto-IranNeo/CHG. Independent sources who analaysied Y-DNA say it could be Q-Y6802 or bit older Q.

vAsiSTha said...

Ttk = tutkaul. Sounds promising.
I checked this sample. It is 80% Afonotova3, 18% IranN, 2% kolyma_meso

vAsiSTha said...

If this sample is from this far south, then this is definitely the carrier of ANE ancestry into sc asia (sarazm, anau etc) and Indus periphery.

Orpheus said...

@vAsiSTha I saw your discussion about languages/religion earlier (I use the Nitter site). A good rule of thumb when someone tries to talk about "IE religion" and similarities between religions is this: Did those similarities exists in the Nordic Bronze Age, or anywhere in Sintashta? The answer is usually no. These are some of the most steppe-influenced religions. Most other things and religions are EEF/CHG/Iran-related. This includes some later European storm gods like Perkwunos or Thor. They are nowhere to be seen in NBA/Sintashta. "Dyēus" has also been preserved as a root for a god in CHG/Iran-influenced cultures. "[I]dentical formulas referring to [Dyēus] can be found among the subsequent Indo-European languages and myths of the Vedic Indo-Aryans, Latins, Greeks, Phrygians, Messapians, Thracians, Illyrians, Albanians and Hittites." (West 2007, Mallory & Adams 2006)
Steppe-rich pops are nowhere to be found, not to mention that in these cultures it was a storm god and not a simple sky god (in Greek for example the sky god is Ouranos/Ουρανός).

TLDR the argument of "religious similarities" that many steppe fans try to pull is weak.

vAsiSTha said...

Sintashta steppe culture has no fire altars or fire worship, but BMAC and some IVC towns have the evidence. Daily fire sacrifices were obligatory for the Arya (not applicable in Kali Yuga). Sintashta has hardly any evidence for any of this.

With that being said, religion is not so important to decide on IE language spread. Religious motifs and worship of deities can spread far and wide without much population movement or language change(check hindu and buddhist spread to China, Japan/Korea and SE asia).

Also, non IE speakers of the bronze age near east also practiced polytheism with similar deities of Nature (storm, rain, sun, war Gods etc).

vAsiSTha said...

Modeling Sarazm with the new TTK001 sample.

https://pastebin.com/wF6FAC9y - qpAdm Result file

Sarazm_en

CHG: 10%
IranN: 62%
TTK001: 25%
Turkey_N: 3%

Orpheus said...

I was going through Allentoft's et al 2022 supplementals and he didn't seem to find any WHG in Yamnaya despite finding ANF in accord with Lazaridis et al 2022.

vAsiSTha said...

I do find 5-10% WHG in yamnaya, in my previous 'southern sources in the steppe' article. Waiting for allentoft samples to be released.

Orpheus said...

@vAsiStHa Dunno about that, the CHG-EHG-WHG-Anatolia model fails as per Lazaridis et al 2022. Some of your passing models are also without a HG source. Fernandes et al 2018 also has working models for Yamnaya without WHG.

Lazaridis et al 2022 got a working model with WHG at p= 0.019, but all of his best fitting models (0.445, 0.230, 0.122, 0.574, 0.219, 0.330) are devoid of any independent (non-EHG) WHG.

Orpheus said...

Correction, the 0.574 and 0.219 p-values are for RUS_Eneol_Mountains, not for Yamnaya.

vAsiSTha said...

Yea, i too got models with additional ehg+whg required, not ehg alone. Something on the ehg-whg Cline like ukraineN

Truthseeker said...

Can someone tell me if I have to use the 3-source model for the Iranian population, With the 3 sources being- Caucasian/West Iranian, BMAC/Eastern Iranian and the third source being an Elamite source modelled from two source population of- Caucasian and Yemeni.
How will the Iranian subcontinent look like?
Because I ran one model it puts Tajiks as an Eastern Iranian population with a Western Iranian linguistics. How do we explain the linguistic flow here using the genetics? We make the argument that Achaenemids and Sassanid expansion only.

Orpheus said...

@Vara Always nice to read your posts.

Regarding ChL Greece, do you mean the new samples? They might be CWC-related like the Logkas samples, which would not make them Greek speakers. However it would make them even more an example of an "IE from the steppe" religion (and steppe-influenced southern culture, predictably different than Mycenaean culture), and of course as you said the typical mediterranean religions are nowhere to be found in these settlements.

Btw isn't the Bell Beaker culture a med Iberian one? Afaik it's even less steppic/nomadic than CWC/nordic bronze age and these were already sedentary (even mentioned explicitly as farmers in a study).

Orpheus said...

RE: admixture in yamnaya

Lazaridis et al 2022 explicitly states that the initial CHG pulse in the steppe groups happened before the Neolithic because it carries no Anatolia-Levant, and after the Neolithic all CHG/Iran groups carry this ancestry. Then circa 4400-4000BCE there's additional (and much greater) CHG-Levant-Anatolia geneflow into the steppe, explaining (among other things) the closer proximity of Yamnaya to Levantine farmers.

The initial CHG pulse is described by Lazaridis as living north of the Caucasus during the Neolithic and later. Apparently it migrated there sometime after Dzudzuana mixed with the other components making up CHG, and before the Neolithic.

Btw could f4 and rotating models be used to compare Sredny and other steppe groups regarding the steppe source in Yamnaya? Would save everyone from a lot of drama.

vAsiSTha said...

Im ok with an initial pulse pre 5000bce. But that is minor and does not explain the high chg/iran in yamnaya/progress. To explain that this initial ancestry gave 'all' of chg/iran present in yamnaya, Davidski has to show a high chg/iran (higher than progress/yamnaya) presence in the region before 5000bce which is accepted as yamnaya source.

Also, wrt sredni stog no tests are needed. We have 3 samples from dereivka dated to 4600bce and then 3700/3500bce. None of them have enough chg/iran and none of them are better sources for yamnaya than Progress/vonyuchka. Sredni stog is a sink for steppe ancestry, not it's origin.
G25 is enough to confirm this.

Orpheus said...

@vAsiSTha Yes exactly. There was never a single pulse and to claim otherwise is pseudoscientific since this hypothesis cannot be tested and boils down to "trust me bro new samples proving me right will be found in two more weeks, btw ignore all the actual analysis proving me wrong". Hence why I don't pay any attention to claims like that.

Wrt sredny, this is gonna upset many steppephiles. This is also Anthony's last hope as seen in Kroonen et al 2022. After it's dead, I don't see what they can use to support a steppe homeland for IE besides incoherently rambling about magical ghost populations.

Could you make a post about sredny not being the source in yamnaya (iirc this is also seen haplo-wise) at some point in the future? It would come in handy and I also want to use such a reference for a future post of mine.

Daniel de França MTd2 said...

@Vasistha I noticed that the so called migration towards India happened more or less simultaneous with the growth of the first really powerful dynasty of China, the Zhou dynasty. If IE language mostly spread because of the silk route, maybe something autossome influx coming into China from India, and vice verse, in tiny quantities (due the distance) can be detected.

vAsiSTha said...

@daniel
A post 1000bce iron age steppe migration cannot be the cause of IE languages because both RigVeda is clearly pre Iron age.

Also the migration into India seems to be from a mixed bmac steppe source like tkm_ia, so quite a souther source. On the other hand, Indian ancestry starts appearing in Xinjiang post 1000bce (vikas kumar et al)

vAsiSTha said...

@Orpheus

You can follow Davidski's back and forth with me on his blog. He shared co-ordinates of a new unpublished sample from the black sea coast crica 3500bce (he said 'just before yamnaya') as some sort of proof (not sure how that becomes a sredny stog sample). That sample is just like yamnaya_samara.

He claims to know of samples with a very high chg/iran from usatavo and sredny stog. Even if true (and I highly doubt this given his past track record), those samples cant predate 5000bce so I have no idea why he claims major Iran/CHG presence millennia before 5000bce.

Daniel de França MTd2 said...

@Vasistha I should be clearer. Up until Roman times, I hypothesize the spread of IE languages happened by means of the silk road. When China, through the Zhou Dynasty, in the early mllenium BCE, became important in worldwide terms, it opened a new path to the spread of IE, in this case, Tocharian. So, I think that given that the migration you detected in the 1st millennium BCE coincides with that, perhaps you detect a Chinese admixture, a tiny one, in India and a tiny Indian admixture on China. If true, this should give some evidence to this idea of mine.

vAsiSTha said...

There could be a Chinese link in the upcoming Kashmir burzahom samples from 1500bce and 700bce. Some Chinese archaeo links have also been posited for Kashmir.

vAsiSTha said...

In the Aegean samples, i'm getting a few with indian ancestry.

Eg
Target: AID017
Distance: 2.5736% / 0.02573625 | R4P
33.4 GRC_N
24.2 Corded_Ware_Proto-Unetice_POL
23.0 GRC_Manika_Helladic_EBA
19.4 PAK_Loebanr_IA


Target: KRO008
Distance: 2.8501% / 0.02850129 | R4P
50.6 BGR_N
25.2 NLD_LNB_Bell_Beaker
13.8 PAK_Loebanr_IA
10.4 TUR_SE_Gaziantep_BA

Also, 26/56 male samples from the paper are J2/J2a IranN related. Only 4/56 are R1b steppe related. Steppe ancestry is present in many samples though. But so is the iranian related ancestry.

Orpheus said...

@vAsiSTha Went through the paper. It seems like a clusterfuck in EBA-MBA Greece.

Chalcolithic Anatolia is once again found as a source for Minoans. Admixture is dated to around 4300BCE, I'm gonna laugh if Linear A ends up being IE because this would mean that Anatolian were spoken in Anatolia already before 4300BCE.
Cycladic/Helladic samples in the islands and mainland seem to prefer a more CHG source. Not sure what to make of this. Different unsampled proxies perhaps?

The PCA has a marked Central Europe-related shift. This means CWC/Bell Beaker-related. They mention that a CWC source works for all groups as well. In their qpAdm models CWC-related sources also seem to work well for every group. Could be a source similar to Logkas, which would mean they aren't Greek speakers. But I find it weird for all thse people not contributing any anceatry to Mycenaeans (who require a 1:10 Yamnaya:Minoan source as per Lazaridis et al 2022). Can you check if CWC sources are indeed preferred over Yamnaya ones? Their admixture date for steppe arrival is also ~3000BCE. I have no idea what to make of this, it's too early.

Is there any connection to any other culture in the EBA range of haplogroups?

On a sideote, authors mention a male-biased admixture in Iberia. Villalba-Mouco et al 2021 (supplementals) shows female-biased steppe admixture during the BA (X chrom). Explains why there are no CWC haplos in Bell Beakers.

vAsiSTha said...

Those 2 samples that i did g25 for (without knowing arch context) do show corded ware and bell beaker ancestry. So that could be a legit source. Otherwise I haven't looked at the paper/supp in detail yet.

Looks like a clear clusterfuck. R1b is too low, iranian y markers too high. Random thought - what if IE entered Greece very early ~4000bce so that it's close to PIE stage and independently split into anatolian and Greek branches. Would explain why anatolian isn't close to Greek. Maybe there was another wave of IE influence from the north later.

Daniel de França MTd2 said...

@vasistha 4000BCE is extremely early. I don't think there is evidence of anything that resembled Greek culture before the Early Helladic I, that started in 3200BCE.

Orpheus said...

@vAsiSTha I find that date unlikely for a couple of reasons. Assuming it was spread by Yamnaya, there's no Yamnaya ancestry at that date and apparently no Yamnaya ancestry until the MBA or later because earlier is apparently CWC for some reason. Then, there's an Anatolian substratum in Greek in the southern areas but not any other substratum (at least it hasn't been proposed). In 4000BCE the only influx in Greece is from Anatolia so Greek and probably the entire Balkanic group would have to move from Anatolia, after it presumably moved there alongside Anatolian, but didn't leave any trace while Anatolian and non-IE were still spoken after 2000 years.

It's actually more likely that PIE moved westward from Anatolia and simultaneously northward, leaving the Balkanic group in the Balkans early on, I-Ir has already split in the east, Tocharian too, the rest of IE moves with Yamnaya. And I don't find it likely. Although the Bayesian phylogenetic studies (can't remember if it was Gray & Atkinson or the other one) do show such a route, at lea for Greek and Albanian.
Linguistics seems like a dead end on this, maybe with combining A.I. and computational with traditional methods they'll arrive at reliable dates for the splits ocurring.

@Daniel I think he's talking about the Greek language, not Greek culture. That indeed starts with Helladic and Minoan culture (clearly reflected in Mycenaean culture later on). Language can travel independent of culture.

vAsiSTha said...

Ok then. Given the crazy amount of Anatolian ancestry and Y hgs, it would seem that Greek developed from hittite/luwian speakers. But that doesn't seem to be the case. What gives?

What languages does the substrate in old Greek imply?

mzp1 said...

@Vasistha,

re: your discussion with davidski

I dont think either of you are correct.

AFAIK there is no 'recent' admixture into Yamnaya from CHG, Iran_N.

These autosomal profiles like Steppe MLBA, Yamnya etc would of existed since very ancient times South and East of the Caspian. Then, these groups are moving North and thats when we see them in the archeogenetic record.

The CHG/Iran_N in Yamnaya is not due to recent admix. Its just a movement of an entire autosomal profile, Yamnaya from South (East) to PC Steppe. There is no CHG/Iran_N going anywhere.

Thus the CHG/Iran_N in Yamnaya would always model better with something like Sarazm EN.

I dont know if you ran any qpadms comparing Sarazm as a source vs CHG/Iran_N.

The DATES thing is the biggest joke. How it can give admixture dates when admixture didnt even happen!! Can DATES effectively differentiate admixture vs drfit, i dont think so. It will just assume admxiture for everything. You can probably put Han, African, European and give it some central pop and it will give admixture when no admixture event ever happened. Ofcourse its a joke of a program.

If Yamanya is coming from South East to PC Steppe, ofcourse it will have more 'southern' component that EHG. That component cannot be isolated to Iran or CHG and we now have so many samples from these regions that it should obvious there was no admixture of CHG/Iran-N into the steppe, cos nothing has been found.

Sarazm already has more CHG/Iran-N than Yamnaya, so it is just a natural pre-existing cline EHG-Yamnyaya-Sarazm which obviously EHG is just the component EHG so the rest of the cline has more Southen component.

You have to first derive EHG and CHG and Iran_N from some common source. That common source is like Sarazm, Steppe with a bit of Ror. Then EHG is derived from that source. Now, people are backward modelling Yamnaya using EHG and getting this 'undefined' southern component which is similar to CHG/Iran-N but not defined.

vAsiSTha said...

"I dont know if you ran any qpadms comparing Sarazm as a source vs CHG/Iran_N."
I have multiple times. A whole post is dedicated to it.

"The DATES thing is the biggest joke. How it can give admixture dates when admixture didnt even happen!! Can DATES effectively differentiate admixture vs drfit, i dont think so. It will just assume admxiture for everything. "

No, it does not. drifted populations don't give meaningful DATES results. At least use the tools first before declaring it useless. DATES works on allele frequencies. If theres no intermediate allele frequency in the target it wont give any meaningful output (std errors too large).

I agree Sarazm is a nice fit for the source, and I was the first one to point this and push it. But sarazm has no steppe ancestry, like none at all. It is simply Iran_N + ANE + maybe 3% anatolian.

vAsiSTha said...

A very interesting decipherment for Crete Linear A 1600bce, which gives 10 indo-aryan statements as a result.

By Geoffrey Caveney 2022
https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/ejvs/article/view/19770/19179

Fits well with the find of indian related ancestry in some of these Aegean samples.

Orpheus said...

From the supplementals, the R1b haplos date to
Late Helladic III (1400-1100BCE)
1429-1293BCE
Sub-minoan (1100-1000BCE)
991-835BCE

Same pattern with Lazaridis et al 2022. Greek was already spoken for many centuries in Greece, looks like the proto-Greek speakers had Iran/Anatolia-related lineages and R1b arrived later, while the initial Steppe could be mediated by women or some adnixed source that carries steppe from Yamnaya instead od CWC, with J/G haplo. Which would still point at a female-mediated steppe arrival.

@vAsiSTha The IE substrate in Greek is Anatolian. Would make sense if Linear A is related to Anatolian, although it could be a later arrival from migrants, possibly mixing with Mycenaeans.

The Indo-Aryan words are interesting, Sarianidis' work comes to mind. Temple patterns in BMAC are also found in Minoan Crete. So there's a connection. Not sure if it's directly from Indo-Aryan or fron a related language that was in Chalcolithic Anatolia and then moved to Crete (seen in this study and Skourtanioti et al 2022). If MBA Minoans also carry some BMAC-related ancestry then it could be a later arrival. But I doubt it because Minoan isn't Indo-Aryan and there's no Indo-Aryan substratum. So I tend to veer toward an Anatolian language related to Indo-Aryan, possibly an early split among Anatolian languages hence why it has been suggested to be related to Hittite, Luwian, Lycian etc instead of only one language. Can't be sure about anything though.

mzp1 said...

I found another evidence against this admxiture based model of deriving Steppe DNA.

If we look at the relationship of various groups to CHG vs Iran_N, we get the same ratio of CHG to Iran_N for lots of ancient pops that are related or close to Steppe DNA. Even CHG has this ratio of 2:1 of CHG vs Iran_N.

Instead of running qpadm, at the moment I am just using my own f3 based vahaduo calculator. It gives better results than G25 for this type of thing.

So using fstats, we can run d(Test, Chimp)(CHG, Iran_N)

Just as a simple approximation, the more + the score, the more CHG vs Iran_N in that pop.

W D Zscore

1 Russia_Afanasievo 0.0243 3.80
2 Russia_MLBA_Sintashta 0.0235 3.72
3 Russia_Sidelkino_HG.SG 0.0242 2.67
4 Luxembourg_Loschbour 0.0214 2.26
5 Russia_MA1_HG.SG 0.0198 2.07
6 Anatolia_Epipaleolithic 0.0148 1.67
7 Russia_Kostenki14.SG 0.009 1.03
8 Kazakhstan_Eneolithic_Botai.SG 0.0063 0.831
9 Tajikistan_C_Sarazm -0.0153 -1.84

As you can see Steppe DNA scores the most CHG vs Iran_N given all the pops. The results are similar across SteppeDNA, EHG, WHG, MA1, Anatolian

These are the results I get when I 'model' these groups using the f3 calculator in vahaduo

https://ibb.co/TP7zFcL

As you can see the results are pretty similar, with Steppe DNA at the top with more CHG vs Iran N and then older and more distant pops at the bottom.

So, what it is showing, EHG has the same type of 'Southern' component that Steppe DNA has, that WHG and others have. So trying to model Steppe DNA with EHG you are just gonna get the same Southern component everyone else has MINUS EHG, because EHG is a source in the model. BUT EHG has the same ratio of CHG to Iran_N as Steppe DNA and related pops like WHG and Anatolian.

Thus it is silly to 'model' Steppe DNA with EHG and a Southern Source. Because the ALL groups in EHG and Steppe DNA have the same affinity to CHG vs Iran_N which comes out in my calc as 2:1.

In my f4 the D number as Zscores for CHG vs Iran_N are maximised and similar across Steppe, EHG, WHG, Anatolian and fall off as we get to older or more distant pops to SteppeDNA. It is the same in my calculator, where the same group of Steppe, EHG, WHG and Anatolian has the most CHG vs Iran_N, and the proportions are very similar across this group at 2:1.

SO YOU HAVE TO ASK YOURSELF WHY THIS WHOLE GROUP STEPPEDNA, WHG, EHG, ANATOLIAN ALL HAVE THE SAME RELATIONSHIP TO CHG VS IRAN_N.

mzp1 said...


You have to figure this out otherwise puting EHG into a model with target Steppe, and looking for the Southern Component, it is the same component with a ratio of 2:1, or D scores of 200 in f4, that is found all across Eurasia in that group inc Steppe, EHG, WHG, Anatolian.

But if EHG and Steppe both have the same ratio or relationship to CHG and Iran_N, it cannot be due to pulse admxiture of this Southern component into just Steppe DNA.

This ratio of 2:1 is so widespread across Eurasia that it has to be inherited from some group that is ancestral to Steppe, EHG, WHG, Anatolian and less so in other groups.

That ancestral group just looks like Steppe DNA, with EHG and WHG derived from that ancestor, and SteppeDNA closest to that ancestor.

So all this modelling stuff is kind of a joke cos it is back to front. First you have to find the common ancestor from which all these groups derive the closeness of CHG from. That common ancestor is where all these groups got their 2:1 CHG Iran_N ratio.

So there is no CHG/Iran_N pulse or adixture with EHG to produce Steppe, because that TYPE of Southern ancestry which 2:1 is found all across Eurasia in related pops.

Steppe DNA is closest to the common ancestor, because it has the highest CHG to Iran_N. All older pops who have left the ancestor earlier have lower CHG and more Iran_N. EHG left the common ancestor, Steppe DNA, a relatlively little while ago, so it has high CHG vs Iran but still less than Steppe DNA.

vAsiSTha said...

There are Indian langoor monkeys in the Minoan frescoes. Bmac/india related Griffins as well. One fresco depicts a girl using saffron and a langoor monkey offering saffron to the Goddess.

vAsiSTha said...

@mzp1

"So using fstats, we can run d(Test, Chimp)(CHG, Iran_N)

Just as a simple approximation, the more + the score, the more CHG vs Iran_N in that pop."

You need to understand why this is.

Just run d(EHG_Sidelkino, Chimp, CHG, Iran) and you will see a significant positive dstat.

This means that CHG itself is already EHG shifted, but IranN is not. This is because geographically, CHG occupies an intermediate position between IranN to its south and EHG to its north so some sort of admixing must have happened in the caucasus pre 10k bce.

Therefore, every steppe test that you run comparing CHG and Iran vs steppe is already tainted by this age old affinity between CHG and EHG. This EHG affinity in CHG is the reason CHG is closer to all steppe pops vs IranN - because simply put CHG = IranN + minor EHG in terms of D and Fstats.


mzp1 said...

No, its not that CHG has EHG over Iran_N. It is also the case with WHG, Anatolian, not just EHG.

I posted the fstat already that you ran.

my fstats I posted f4(test, chimp)(chg, iran_N)

it has the same positive score (d=250-200) for EVERY ONE in WHG, Anatolian, EHG, Steppe.

So CHG is closer to EHG like you said.
But also closer to Anatolian, WHG, and MA1 etc.

So there is admixture into CHG of something that brings it closer to EHG, like you said, it has EHG admixture. Ok, but what about Anatolian, MA1, WHG. It needs to have admixture from all those groups.

To get that there is only ony possible source. That source is Steppe DNA. But Steppe DNA is from 4,000BC and CHG from 11K. So there is some DNA which is a parent of SteppeDNA, and CHG has more DNA from than Iran_N. So something very close to Steppe DNA is what brought CHG closer to Anatolian, WHG, EHG, Steppe etc vs Iran_N.

That common parent, which is what SteppeDNA would of looked like 15K BC, ie the unbroken parent of SteppeDNA, is also the parent of EHG, WHG, Anatolian etc and is the reason they all get the same relationship/ratio of CHG:Iran_N.

That Sidelkino EHG and SteppeDNA have the same relationship to CHG;Iran_N means that descent from a common ancestor best explains these groups, and that means EHG has to be a sibling of that Steppe not a parent.

If there is a common ancestor, which is the only thing that explains everyone having the same CHG:_Iran_N, then Yamnaya SteppeDNA is descended from this direct ancestor in a straight line, just like EHG too.

vAsiSTha said...

@mzp1

"So there is admixture into CHG of something that brings it closer to EHG, like you said, it has EHG admixture. Ok, but what about Anatolian, MA1, WHG. It needs to have admixture from all those groups.

To get that there is only ony possible source. That source is Steppe DNA."

No. That source has extra west eurasian ancestry, probably extra Dzudzuana that Lazaridis already mentioned in his still unpublished Dzudzuana paper. It has nothing to do with steppe. Extra dzudzuana (24000 bce) will make it show affinity to all - EHG, MA1, anatolian WHG.

mzp1 said...

But Dzuzdana hasnt been released. And I alreadly said in previous posts that Dzudzana will look like Steppe DNA and that is probs why it hasnt been released.

I know Dzudzana would also work as the source, but for that to happen it is still going to be close to SteppeDNA or to the Ancestor of Steppe DNA which is basically Steppe DNA of 20K BC or whatever.

But at the moment that source just looks like Steppe DNA.

Orpheus said...

@vAsiSTha I know. What do these things demonstrate, in your opinion?

(Keep in mind saffron is also harvested in Morocco and Griffins are found ~3000BCE in Susa, West Iran https://www.granger.com/results.asp?image=0018458&screenwidth=977 )

mzp1 said...

On top of the stats I showed you, and what we are discussing..

No PURE CHG has been found anywhere near the Steppe that could mix with EHG to produce Steppe DNA. It will NEVER be found cos the mixing never happened there. Yamnaya and others migrated SE to NW and brought their whole autosomnal profile with them. The extra CHG/Iran they have on vs EHG is just them coming from further South and not sharing as much drift with EHG.

So, you gotta look at probabilities. If I told you that Yamnya on the PC Steppe is 50/50 mix of EHG and CHG. And this is all you know. And I asked what do you expect to find in the PC Steppe and neighboring regions in the centuries and millenia leading up to Yamnaya, you would say some EHG and some CHG. Like 50% of the samples would be EHG and 50% would be CHG, and then they mix to form Steppe.

But if you know that you can only find EHG in the Steppe prior to Yamnaya, then with each additional sample that is not CHG, the likelihood of the mixture model being true decreases. At this point, with the huge number of samples of Steppe DNA, and then the moderate samples for EHG, yet nothing for CHG, people really need to doubt this theory in a big way. This is why I am saying this is wrong and DATES can still give a realistic date.

On top of that, ALL the other evidence like the ratio of CHG:Iran_N so stable and widespread across all those related pops Anatolian, WHG, EHG, Steppe, showing that the Southern component is really something more archaic that all these groups inherited.

All this stuff should be telling people that the mainstream theory is very wrong.

Orpheus said...

Btw davidski's argument probably stems from a two year old video from david anthony who said that in the volga region there were very high CHG samples, assumingly from the first migration of CHGs into the steppe.

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

mzp1 wrote:

"On top of that, ALL the other evidence like the ratio of CHG:Iran_N so stable and widespread across all those related pops Anatolian, WHG, EHG, Steppe, showing that the Southern component is really something more archaic that all these groups inherited."

Who then is that source population from which CHG-Iran N+WHG+EHG+Steppe split together even before they appeared as separate groups? When did that mega split happen?

Mayuresh

vAsiSTha said...

@orpheus

The paper which connects the langurs to indus.

"Pareja, M. N., McKinney, T., Mayhew, J. A., Setchell, J. M., Nash, S. D., & Heaton, R. (2019). A new identification of the monkeys depicted in a Bronze Age wall painting from Akrotiri, Thera. Primates. doi:10.1007/s10329-019-00778-1"

Wrt Griffins, I had written a thread about it here https://twitter.com/agenetics1/status/1610255766631616513?s=20&t=-zm5dLl7vth-rrwtNK7mFQ

First found at Baluchistan (Nal pottery (3200-2700bce) , and you say Susa 3000bce as well. Then at 2000bce Gonur. Then in Syria and Crete later in the bronze age.

Another blogger has done a basic qpAdm on the latest Aegean samples and verified the Onge related ancestry. https://t.co/93Rr94X1G2


So, putting it all together, it may seem justified to posit like Geofreey Caveney did, that an Indo-Aryan elite ruled Crete and use Indo-Aryan language in their official decrees. May also have given loanwords to Greek, but Greek doesn't descend from it. Would indicate a presence in Crete 1800bce even before the Mittanis of Syria.







vAsiSTha said...

Khan S, Dialynas E, Kasaraneni VK, Angelakis AN. Similarities of Minoan and Indus Valley Hydro-Technologies. Sustainability. 2020; 12(12):4897. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12124897

Another paper connecting water management tech from Minoan and ivc sites

Orpheus said...

@vAsiSTha Sounds like the "Mycenaean steppe elite" theory repackaged, except even weaker where even smaller similarities are used to "prove" the argument.

What exactly is your proof for an Indo-Aryan (or Indo-Iranian, whatever) elite? Some I-A influence in a non-I-A language? Specific technological similarities? A LBA fresco in Santorini?

I'd be more interested in demonstrating an I-A religion in Minoan Crete (which isn't the case, unlike Mitanni), I-A-related DNA in elite samples, I-A-related haplogroups (in case a high I-A DNA sample is not found). Also a presence of these things from early on. Minoan civilization (and religion) are older than 1600-1450 BCE (oldest sample, Late Helladic I-II) and 1365-1114 BCE. Testing the Griffin Warrior would also be interesting. Of course all of them with some Bronze Age sources older than themseles.

You get the point. Basically anything that points to some kind of ruling elite or mass migration instead of simple trade and a few migrants. Even some pre-MBA/EBA frescos would be better. Otherwise the "steppe origin of Mycenaean elites" is better substantiated with the same arguments:
- Loanwords in Minoan and Greek VS the entire Greek being IE from Yamnaya
- A monkey fresco in Santorini VS the horse, integral to the Mycenaean culture and depicted everywhere. Chariots too
- Plumbing VS Shaft graves for elites and other technological similarities
And as we know, the Mycenaean steppe elite theory is a fantasy.

As for the qpAdm, can he beat Clemente's pValues? You know, the 0.6 to 0.95 ones for the bulk of Mycenaeans and Minoans, all with older sources, none of them with the CWC-Logkas derived samples as well. Keep in mind the models need to explain the twice as high Levantine in Mycenaeans than in Minoans.

I don't care what some linguist has proppsed, considering what Anthony, Kristinansen and many others have proposed for India. Proposing something doesn't mean shit. Another linguist linked Minoan to Luwian (or Lydian, I can't recall) and talked about a Luwian elite in Crete. This actually makes much more sense considering all the Anatolia_ChL in Minoans, cultural influences and possibly the language. The snake goddess has also been linked to the Near Eat and bull idols/symbols are found throughout it, even in Maykop. And despite all that, it remains an unproven theory.

So, hold your horses (or rather, griffins, heh) until thorough testing is done in elites, especially early onea, especially in Crete. Like it hapoened with Mycenaeans, which was only then that the steppe LARPing stopped, although some keep at it.

vAsiSTha said...

Yeah, the IVC theory is still weak, the % ancestry too low and in only a couple of samples, plus no clear uniparental marker. But something I will follow up in the future. Are there Knossos samples available?

Wrt the current batch of greek samples, it seems clear that the steppe ancestry came from Logkas like people and not some fresh inflow from catacomb/yamnaya. Greek_N - GreekLBA -Logkas -CW_DEU makes a nice cline on PCA/

vAsiSTha said...

Hmm. Single sample, but Yamnaya_BGR might also be a possible source logkas first and then other ancient greeks ultimately. Not impossible.

Orpheus said...

@vAsiSTha I looked up Clemente's paper again. Logkas are on a cline of BA Aegean (Minoan-like) and Steppe MLBA/Europe LNBA clusters on the PCA, shifted away from Steppe EMBA. Because PCAs are not perfect by any means I looked at the supplementals again, for proximal models.
Highest pValue 2-way models for Log02 (without Log04) has Steppe MLBA and Europe LNBA. 3-way models (again without Log04) consistently prefer steppe MLBA and one even has Iberia Bronze Age (!) alongside steppe MLBA before it prefers steppe EMBA. Europe LNBA is also preferred over steppe EMBA.
When Europe LNBA and steppe EMBA are in the same model, Europe LNBA will always be preferred as the bigger contributor.

When it comes to Log04 (again without Log02), steppe MLBA is again preferred over steppe EMBA in 2-way models. In 3-way models with far greater pValues both Europe LNBA/steppe MLBA and steppe EMBA are picked, with europe LNBA/steppe MLBA outcompeting steppe EMBA big time.

So they're far more CWC-related than Yamnaya-related. If Yamnaya_Bulgaria contributed DNA to them, either the sample is actually from CWC instead of Yamnaya, or it was a minor contribution. Basically CWC-rich migrants absorbed Yamnaya-rich older migrants in the southern Balkans before migrating further south.

Skourtanioti's PCA also shows a Europe BA cline instead of a steppe En-BA cline.

For now it looks like they are CWC-related. Maybe future studies will show otherwise, who knows.

mzp1 said...

What I notice is that Steppe DNA is generally the most homogenous group compared to others in Eurasia esp Farmers.

When we look at other groups like Greeks and Iranians, it seems Steppe DNA or some form of it best describes the difference between different samples within clusters.

So with Greece and Iran, you have some Greek sample which is the earliest and most distant, say Greece_Minion_Oditra and for Iran GanjDareh, Wezmeh, TepeAbdulHusain, and then more recent samples like Greece Mycenaen and HajjiFiruz, Hissar are all more shifted towards something like SteppeDNA. For the Greeks it could be SteppeMLBA, for Iranians it could be something like Sarazm eneolithic but all Steppe groups would score highly.

I believe that there would of been farmers and nomads in southern regions say around 10KBC and we are only finding the farmers, and then over time as these nomads join the farmers we see the newer pops closer to SteppeDNA.

So say between Iran_N and Hissar, 10K BC GanjDareh/Wezmeh etc are Famers and there is some group of nomads in Iran. Nomads are connected to other unsampled nomdads in South Asia and North Eurasia. We dont sample the Iranian nomads only the farmers. IN 7K BC these nomads become farmers. At 4K BC we sample them in Tepehissar.

So the whole story is just about nomads who are genetically more closely related across NW Eurasia, centred around SteppeDNA, and Farmers who are derived from them, who are more isolated and less genetically connected, and alwauys more drifted. Then over time the newer and newer settlements show more SteppeDNA and it can look like anything Sintastha, CW, Yamnaya, depending on geography.

The SteppeDNA is just the last of the nomads. But they would of existed since ancient times even in Iran and other places, being genetically related to SteppeDNA, of which SteppeDNA was just one group.

mzp1 said...

Ok so kinda interesting.

I wanted to test the above so I ran some f4s

d(Mycenaen, Minoan)(Test, Chimp)
d(TepeHissar/HajiFiruz, GanjDareh) (Test, Chimp)

Also the outgroup f3 gave the same result
f3(Mycenaen, Minion; Chimp) and for Iran too

Anyway the results for both Greeks and Iranians is the difference in the pops is best represented by Israel Natufian, EEF, Anatolian, WHG, HajjiFiruz (incase of Greek). Sintashta scores a bit lower than them.

So when comparing these pops, Minions vs Mycenaeans, GanjDareh vs HajiFiruz/Hissar or even Hissar vs HajjiFiruz, they are basically the same populations which a bit of difference which is going to be related to some ancient HG or 'base' population.

In the case of both Iran and Greece, that ancient pop is alwaus Natufian, EEF, Anatolian, WHG. So I am thinking there was this ancient HG or Nomad that looked like Natufian, EEF, Anatolian, WHG, HajjiFiruz ie one cline of nomads from Iran, through Anatolia and to Greece and maybe Balkans best represented by Natufians and EEF. Then over time they become farmers.

Even running for d(Iran_GanjDareh, TepeAbdulHoseign_N)
(The latter is actually more drifted than Iran_N ie purer Iran_N)

pops scoring highest ie closest to Ganjdareh are Natufian, Anatolian HG, Ukraine_Meso, HajjiFirx, Anatolia_N, Loschbour, pretty much the same or v similar to the other calcs.

So it looks like for Southern pops this is like a 'base' of DNA that seems to differentiate otherwise similar pops, with those being more drifted further away from it.

Then in Iran, we are just sampling farmers so we get the more drifted ones sampled first, as more nomads become farmers the more recent pops in the record are closer to this group.

mzp1 said...

Pops on the opposite side are ancient and pops with less connected drift like Ust_Ishim, CHG, Maikop, Yana, Sidelkino etc

mzp1 said...

I think that Vasishta posted on Davidskis blog about some Natufian ancestry in Steppe. Something to do with qpadms showing more Natufian was needed.

That is very related to my above calcs which seem to suggest something like Natufian best approximating the difference in ancestry between very similar pops ie AbdulHosiein vs GanjDareh, GanjdDareh vs HJ, vs TH, Minoan vs Mycenaen etc.

When I run calcs like
d(Steppe,EHG)(Test, Chimp)

EHG can be Sidelkino or Samara
Steppe can be Sintashta or Yamnaya

Then the calc is also showing Natufian, Anatolian, EEF scoring highest for SteppeDNA.

So, if there is this Natufian, EEF, Anatolian, CHG, WHG as an Ancient Southern HG/Nomad, and then a more Northern Nomad like Steppe DNA and a yet more Northern one which is SIdelkino or Samara, then that would explain why when you model Steppe with EHG, there is a requirement for some Natufian, because CHG and Iran_N are not sufficiently describing this Southern source.

Northern HG/Nomad: EHG
Central Asian HG/Nomad: Steppe
Iranian, Anatolian HG/Nomad: Natufian, EEF, Anatolian, CHG, Iran_N

Iran_N, CHG: Drifted away from something close to Iranian/Anatolian HG/Nomad.

This has nothing to do with recent population movements. It is just that around 15K BC or whatever, there was this 'cline' of HG/Nomads from North Eurasia to SW Asia, with Steppe DNA in the middle.

Then, there are no temporal sources of Southern Ancestry that can move Norht or mix with EHG to produce Yamnaya, but instead the qpadm or other modelling of Yamnaya with EHG is just looking for that Southern HG/Nomad, because Steppe was always intermediate between the Northern and Southern HG/Nomads since its formation in 15K BC or whatever.

The Southern Ancestry that is required for models to produce Yamnaya from EHG can never be found, properly defined, and does appear in West Asian samples as a possible source from 6K BC because the formation of Steppe goes back much earlier and the Southern input required is very ancient and not yet sampled, but it similar to the ancestry that differentiates otherwise similar groups in West Asia.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to every find this Southern source in any time period after 10K in Steppe or North of Caucasus. These people are still looking for 'CHG' in the Steppes but the thing is it is not even CHG that is required but something like Natufian, CHG, Iran_N, LBK etc which is IMPOSSIBLE to find in geographic and temporal proximity with EHG to have mixed with it.

vAsiSTha said...

@mzp

learn to understand the limits of the tools that you use. This is why we have multiple tools. You hit every nail with your F4/dstat hammer, that too wrongly.

mzp1 said...

Wdym whats wrong with it?
Didnt you post on eurogenes that there needs to be more natufian in steppe?

What's wrong with the fstat?

I have seen laziridis use the fstat in the same way

d(anatolian n, anatolia_hg) (test, chimp)

To look for what pops could of brought farming to anatolia.

mzp1 said...

The thing is Harvard is wrong about admixture f3.

F3 is not a 'formal' test of admixture. It just tests the amount of shared drift between a and b not shared with c.

In other words if c has allele frequencies intermediate between a and b it will be negative.

That is not proof of admixture because it could be due to earlier phylogenetic relationships.

That harvard considers this a formal test of admixture just means that they are wrong.

I think i will email them about this. This field is getting annoying i think evry1 is very wrong and wont change until academia does a big u turn cos alot of this is farcically wrong.

mzp1 said...

This whole field is very wrong about these things.

What we see between 10k and 3k bc forms during the lgm between Central and West Asia.

During the lgm there is an anatolian, natufian like pop in west asia. To their North in West Central Asia something like Sintashta and Yamnaya further NE. ANE is to the North.

Post LGM european pops get closer to ane, steppe than anatolian because the northern route is open.

Then post lgm it is just a movement of central asians to europe with ane type pops (north central asian during lgm) going first and the last group to leave is steppe mlba scythians etc which were the most southern. Im not saying these pops were exactly the same during the lgm but there would more single-line descent than admixture between v different pops.

Thats why Anatolia and dzudzana are close as dzu is from lgm. If anatolian and dzu are close and anatolian and sintashta show huge affinity, and anatolian and lgm euros are close then we just have to look at what was happening during the lgm to understand these populations at 5k bc.

These ppl and the mainstream theory is super retarded like they have no concept or even bother to figure out what was happening during lgm nor figure out who was living in kelteminar or oxus/syr darya all they want is for steppe and pie to be born in europe

Orpheus said...

I was looking at some architecture stuff and saw that Hittite fortifications are identical to Mycenaean fortifications. Minoan fortifications already resembled Hittite ones but Mycenaean ones are virtually identical in their design, especially the "decorations" at the top.

On top of that the Mycenaean lion gate is also virtually identical to the lion hate of Hattusa, the design-entrance is the sane except the position of the two lions is different (and the Mycenaean gate has a Minoan pillar added).

Looks like the Anatolian/Near Eastern influence in Mycenaeans was less genetically significant than in Minoans but even more culturally significant than previously thought.

Orpheus said...

New study out

Ancient genome of Empress Ashina reveals the Northeast Asian origin of Göktürk Khanate

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/17596831

vAsiSTha said...

@mzp

"Thats why Anatolia and dzudzana are close as dzu is from lgm."
dzudzuana is 25000bce. pinarbasi 11000bce, barcin 6000bce.

"-ve f3 is not a test of admixture"

You can simulate admixture and test f3 on them. See if you get -ve or +ve. Then you can test it for random labels. See if you get -ve f3.

mzp1 said...

ADXMIXTURE F3 Calc: I dont much about this calc, its really weird and also dependant on snp count. Outgroup f3 which is not meant as a test for Admixture but genetic closeness bw A and B, with C as an outgroup, makes sense to me and is also independant for snp count in samples.

I believe the Admixture f3 calc, which like all formal stats, is just based on allele frequencies, is just looking for a situation where the allele frequencies are A <> C <> B ie C having intermediate allele frequencies b/w A and B. This is what happens if you have A->C<-B but it can also happen if A<-C->B ie A and B do not share any drift (allele frequency variation) with each other compared to C.

Fstats can never be a FORMAL test of Admixture afaik because allele frequencies at individual snps can be correlated like that without admixture being the cause, and the just looking at allele frequencies cant differentiate the two.

In simulating admxiture (ie in vitro) is different than in vivo. Admxiture simulation will give you perfect allele frequency relationships to get -ve f3 but in reality that is very hard to achieve.

Outgroup f3, is a very good tool but admxiture f3 I think is quite pointless and I have no idea why it varies with snp count which seems to make it very dubious.

But Harvard has always made finding admixture their main focus hence their programs are called ADMIXtools but all this is still not separating adxixture from phylogenetic relationships in a formal way.

mzp1 said...

Anyway, you can look at this PCA.

(Its easy to make PCAs using PLINK with the command -pca. Then plot using a spreadsheet.)

https://ibb.co/YN6NfNh

The Southern Cline here goes from Iran_N to Greece Minion, Anatolian_N, Israel_C (I didnt put Natufian in this PCA, but would be good to add at it and see).

The Northern Cline goes from ANE to EHG/Kostenki/Sunghir to WHG.

So X is E-W and Y is N-S.

Kostenki which is from 30K bc is already very West shifted, then from Kostenki to WHG there is a greater Western shift. So that difference occurs LGM, meaning most of this structure was already in place by 30K BC.

Then, the Southern HG/Nomad I describe is just the Southern Cline in this PCA. Now, you can see that Yamnaya and Steppe, which are closely clustered and barely legible next to Lativa_BA are slighly less Western shifted than both the Southern and Northern groups. That will be because Steppe received a bit more geneflow from South Asians during that period. This is because South Asian Nomads and maybe Agropastoralists had more introgression into Steppe than more Southern and Northern pops. Thus explaining the Y-DNA bottleneck and dominance of R1 in the Steppe cluster, and the slightly Eastern shift of Steppe in this PCA compared to both Northern and Southern West Eurasians.

Ofcourse Steppe is not-inbetween EHG and Iran_N/CHG, it just in between the Northern and Southern groups with a slight pull to the right, but not so much that it is can be a 50/50 or anywhere close mix of EHG and CHG/Iran_N.

In the Southern cline, Iran_N and CHG split off very early hence are very much to the right of the PCA, this is consistent with all other results that have Iran_N splitting off very early.

There is another PCA I have which shows basically the same thing, without SS_BA2_lc at the ends.
https://ibb.co/QfGJt88

mzp1 said...

So when ppl are attempting to model Steppe with EHG..

The models often pick CHG and Iran_N because those are the earliest split off from the Southern HG so they have less West Eurasian drift, as they split off earlier.

So EHG and Minions, Anatolians, Israel_C etc all have maximum Western drift, as they appear very Western shifted in the PCA. But then Steppe is a bit less Western, so pulling more towards South Asians.

Because of this, with EHG, the best other group is chosen as CHG/Iran_N because those are less Western shifted than Anatolian, EEF etc.

But the correct way to model Steppe maybe to have the Northern source like EHG, Sweden_Meso etc and a Southern group like EEF, Anatolians, Minions and also some South Asian, then I am sure the CHG/Iran_N element would drop off.

So I think qpadm would do better when Steppe is modelled with EHG (and other Northern HG) + Southern pops like Anatolian/EEF/Natufian and then a SOuth ASian source like Ror, and then give it CHG and Iran_N.

I made an outgroup f3 calculator which is currently still a prototype but seems to give good results when modelling pops in vahduo, better than G25 imo. I only have data for a few samples. But here I model Steppe in that way.

When I add Ror, it takes away from mostly from Iran_N and CHG (and EHG) but the levels of Anatolian, EEF remain similar.

https://ibb.co/Khf3wXw

So I believe the correct way to 'model' steppe is

Ancient Northern HG, Ancient Southern HG, South Asian

EHG + CHG/Iran is just a rough approximation of this by the computer but is not correct. Ofcourse that elusive CHG/Iran_N will never be found.

mzp1 said...

So its just the extra recent South Asian DNA in Steppe that makes models pick CHG/Iran_N, as those two are less Western shifted compared to Anatolian and other West Asians, due to having separated earlier with less genetic mixing with other Southern pops like Anatolian.

So this CHG/Iran_N component they cannot find, is really just South Asian DNA, that we can see if we model Steppe 'correctly' ie if we approximate the Southern HG and use that as a source.

Then, that explains the difference in Y-DNA with Steppe and others, as Steppe Y-DNA corrrelates well with NW South Asian Y-DNA.

vAsiSTha said...

"So I believe the correct way to 'model' steppe is
Ancient Northern HG, Ancient Southern HG, South Asian"

Ok, where's the Onge ancestry (present in NW indians) in Progress or Yamnaya? can you show it using distal qpAdm?

vAsiSTha said...

* onge related (india specific east Eurasian)

@orpheus
Can read only the abstract. What's the key takeaway if that study?

mzp1 said...

To show Onge ancestry in any group we are just looking at outgroup f3 to ONG.

f3(Chimp; Ong/Gujarati, Test)

A B f3_2dp

1 ONG.SG Russia_HG_Samara 215.46
2 ONG.SG Luxembourg_Loschbour 214.12
3 ONG.SG Russia_Sidelkino_HG.SG 214.01
4 ONG.SG Russia_Afanasievo 213.60
5 ONG.SG Russia_MLBA_Sintashta 213.58
6 ONG.SG Sweden_Mesolithic.SG 213.41
7 ONG.SG Ukraine_Mesolithic 213.35
8 ONG.SG Serbia_Mesolithic_IronGates 213.07
9 ONG.SG Georgia_Kotias.SG 212.37
10 ONG.SG Iran_GanjDareh_N 211.80
11 ONG.SG Greece_BA_Mycenaean 211.65
12 ONG.SG Anatolia_Epipaleolithic 211.47
13 ONG.SG Israel_Natufian 207.76

14 GujaratiB Russia_HG_Samara 223.72
15 GujaratiB Russia_Afanasievo 223.07
16 GujaratiB Russia_MLBA_Sintashta 223.06
17 GujaratiB Georgia_Kotias.SG 222.12
18 GujaratiB Sweden_Mesolithic.SG 221.56
19 GujaratiB Ukraine_Mesolithic 221.41
20 GujaratiB Iran_GanjDareh_N 221.29
21 GujaratiB Russia_Sidelkino_HG.SG 221.29
22 GujaratiB Serbia_Mesolithic_IronGates 220.74
23 GujaratiB Greece_BA_Mycenaean 220.39
24 GujaratiB Anatolia_Epipaleolithic 219.65
25 GujaratiB Luxembourg_Loschbour 219.24
26 GujaratiB Israel_Natufian 214.61

Samara, Steppe, EHG scores the highest for both ONG and GujaratiB. So it looks like there is geneflow from South Asia to Steppe region.

But because Samara and Sidelkino also score quite highly, when running qpadm for Steppe with EHG, it can underestimate South Asian ancestry and put it into EHG/Iran_N because EHG/Steppe just looks like one close cluster (both in PCA and in these stats).

So EHG is too close to Steppe DNA to use it in qpAdms, you are not gonna be able to model the SOuthern input at all and get something inbetween Southern HGs like Anatolian, Natufian, etc and South Asians, and it just picks CHG/Iran_N.

The best way, imo, would be to attempt to approximate the ancient HGs, both Southern and Northern, by combining labels, the Northern source should be more like Sweden_Meso than just pure EHG, then we shoud be able to run more balanced and complete models for Steppe.

EHG and Steppe score very high SA, both Onge and Gujarati, so they are closely clustered. That contact between Steppe and EHG is too recent and they share too much recent DNA with South Asians, so it will throw off the qpAdm Southern component.

Ofcourse with Samara adn EHG scoring such affinity to South Asians, more than Sintashta, already discredits the Aryan Migration Theory.

So the contact b/w South Asians and Steppe is something else, and better explained by this theory.

Orpheus said...

@vAsiSTha First reported genome of a royal Türkic elite. 98% Northeast Asian, 2% West Eurasian.

I got the pdf from Researchgate

Orpheus said...

Missed a detail on Skourtanioti et al 2023. The LBA steppe-rich group in Crete has a nice fit with an Italian source, and this is also seen in their material culture.

This could mean that the influence in BA Greece by Beaker-related and thus CWC-related steppe-harboring people was widespread, and most of the other samples might fall under this category too, especially considering CWC works better as a source for them than does Yamnaya, as seen in the study itself.

mzp1 said...

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

Bread and Salt greeting, probably related to the Neolithization of Southern HG (Iran-Anatolian HG/Nomad).

Greeting is found all across Eurasia, centred around Southern HG, EEF, Centum IE. Is likely a very ancient custom going back to the early Neolithic times, Natufians etc.

Also, Centum IE probably around HajjiFiruz, SS, EEF etc.

natsunoame said...

Vasistha, On your comments in eurogenes blog
Antony's book is far from the idea of scientificity - it is full of wishful thinking and incantations, with no evidence for his baseless claims.
That's why there is a sharp criticism like this against his scientifically ridiculous but pretentious book: Wheels, Languages and Bullshit (Or How Not To Do Linguistic Archaeology)
Quite a strong title, but it's spot on.

https://docserver.ingentaconnect.com/deliver/connect/plg/22972625/v3n1/s3.pdf?expires=1674738809&id=0000&titleid=99003083&checksum=30A393F20DDDD978561981886F05FF99&host=https://www.ingentaconnect.com

vAsiSTha said...

Yes, have read that one.

Kavi said...

By the time of Yamnya, in South Asia we are in the IVC which would be a post-vedic Civization. This is where pre-existing ancient hymns where compiled and the Brahmanas and other texts created.

The IVC is a settling down of people who were recently nomadic herdes, aryans, of Rajashtan, South Punjab, Sindh, Afghanistan.

But in these regions there were already farmers. Those were known as Dasa by the Vedic Aryans. In post-vedic times there is a syncretic nomad and farmer culture, both in Hinduism and Zorastrian/Iranian culture.

Thus in Hinduism the term Dasa becomes loses its negative connotiations. Also there is Bhrighu and his descdendant Kavi Usan. Bhrigu doesnt appear in the early Vedic family books, and doesnt count as one of the 7 saptarshi. But in later Hinduism there is a Samhita by him, Atharveda. His descendant Kai Usan is part of the Kavi dynasty which sets up Zoroastrianism and probably BMAC.

Usan is considered teacher of the Asuras in but doesnt appear in the RV afaik.

So the introduction of Bhrighu and Usan in Hinduism post-Vedic, and with both BMAC and IVC/Hinduism being some integration of Nomad rule and becoming settled peoples, the farming and nomadic interplay is important in understanding the development of Indo Iranian recent history.

Thus Bhrighu and Kavis were likely part of the farming caste, possibly associated with Dasa. Bhrighu is associated with the town Bharuch, which is where my group comes from. My ethnic group has an ancient farming background, and so like other farmers, and Bhrighu and the Kavis, somewhat outside the Vedic/Hindu mainstream.

What Vedic HYmns and Sanskrit is all about, is that they knew their religion, hymns, language was closest to the original for all West and Central Asians. The Cow is a sacred animal for all these peoples including the 'Primordial' Cow in Zoroastrianism and Germanic, from which came all other foods and crops. In Hinduism ofcourse, in Islam the surah The Cow, with Cow being the probably the most uniform cognate across IE.

And the Vedic hymns record the songs of those people who knew they were the last in the region to be living the original nomadic cow herder lifestyle from which everything else came.

Kavi said...

So Indo-Iranian is easy and known. It is all about Rigveda, Avesta, IVC and BMAC, 5K bc to 3K bc.

For the European Centum languages, Greek esp have a greater closeness but would of split much earlier from Indo-Iranian (closer to Sanskrit). For some reason these languages managed to maintain Mora timing even though Iranian, splitting from Indo Aryan much later didnt.

So there is something quite deep and special about Italo-Celtic, Greek and its connection with Sanskrit. This could go back to Chalcolithic West Asia.

All of these languages that we know as IE are due to relatively recent, ie post chalcolithic introgression of nomads into farming lifestyles. Earlier farmers have more drifted language like Semitic, Minion, Etruscan etc.

The palace economies and centralised religious culture of the chalcolithc West Asia is probably where Centum IE expanded from.

For BA Steppe groups they could of spoken any IE language like Centum IE, Tokarian, Anatolian, Iranian etc.

The horse and chariot are so deeply embedded in IE languages they could of existed since 10K BC and archeology can never disprove this idea, so there is not much point arguing about it.

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peAJxzV3ryc

A modern example of female mediated steppe ancestry. No need to understand the language. You will get the idea in the first 3 minutes.

Mayuresh

Orpheus said...

@Kavi Greek descends from the Balkanic group of languages. So if Greek is close to Sanskrit then so is Phrygian, Messapic, Albanian, Thracian, Armenian.

Minoan is also undeciphered so we have no idea if it's a "drifted" language or not.

Kavi said...

Oh right, I will have a look at that.

So I was thinking that in ancient Afghastan there would of been Dasa Farmers and Aryan Nomads, to explain the conflict described in RV. These guys may have been genetically similar, with the farmers 'older' and more drifted. Then these groups mix. In that case we should be able to find this by looking at two different individuals in pashtuns.

So I compared two pashtuns from Reich dataset by rebaleing.

d(HGDP00216, HGDP00243)(Test, Chimp)

Y D

1 Israel_Natufian -0.0104
2 Me -0.006
3 Russia_Kostenki14 -0.0032
4 English -0.003
5 Iran_GanjDareh_N -0.0023
6 Russia_MLBA_Sintashta -0.0012
7 Balochi -0.0011
8 Anatolia_Epipaleolithic -0.001
9 Russia_Ust_Ishim.DG 0
10 Yoruba 0.0002
11 Mbuti 0.0005
12 Russia_Afanasievo 0.0006
13 Georgia_Kotias.SG 0.0014
14 GujaratiB 0.0019
15 Morocco_Iberomaurusian 0.0021
16 Jatt 0.003
17 Ror 0.0043
18 ONG.SG 0.0072
19 VLR.SG 0.0092
20 Russia_MA1_HG.SG 0.0121

So it does separate them by Natufian and ANE, South Asian, Steppe. The former are ancient Southern HGs and recent Farmers, and the latter most recent NW Indo Aryan Nomads. Onge appears at the bottom end, and Rors and 'Aryans'.

Kavi said...

That comparison wasnt representative because I chose two pashtuns closer to me and ror. Just wanted to show the results of randomly chosen pashtuns.

d(HGDP00213, HGDP00216) (Test, Chimp)

Y D

1 Russia_Caucasus_Maikop -0.0115
2 Anatolia_Epipaleolithic -0.0035
3 Russia_Kostenki14 0.0049
4 ONG.SG 0.005
5 Russia_HG_Karelia 0.005
6 Balochi 0.006
7 Israel_Natufian 0.0069
8 Germany_EN_LBK 0.0076
9 Russia_MA1_HG.SG 0.0078
10 Control 0.009
11 Iran_GanjDareh_N 0.0093
12 Georgia_Kotias.SG 0.01
13 Russia_Afanasievo 0.0103
14 Russia_MLBA_Sintashta 0.0113
15 Ror 0.012
16 Jatt 0.0128
17 Russia_Sidelkino_HG.SG 0.0192

Still the same pattern with Anatolian on one end and Indo-Aryans and Steppe on the other side.

Clearly the y-dna of Steppe is coming through ancient South Asian nomads like Rors and Jatts, hence these pops are really closely clustered on different calculations with Anatolia being further away.

Kavi said...

The early Indo-Iranian literature ie Vedic and Shahname, Avesta, really is illuminating to give us clues on the nature of social and political identities across the Eurasian IE world in ancient times.

An interesting observation is the association of astronomy and magic with the farmers and mountain people, that appears in Iranian literature but not in Vedic.

Vedic literature despises magic and does not mention astronomy. Remember that these guys were nomadic cattle herders. In the Iranian literature, which incorporates more farming based peoples, we see lots of mention of astronomy.

It looks like while the Nomads continued the primordial culture of Cow-Herding Nomadism, Poetry etc the Farmers were developing newer arts including Astronomy.

In Indo-Aryan, Magic and Astronomy is associated with Bhrigu and the Kavis.

This association of Astronomy with Farmers can be seen across Eurasia where Megalithic sites like Stonehenge are related to Neolithic cultures and have Astronomical significance. Astronomical knowledge and megaliths are not associated with Steppe nomads, but farmers. So this association is found both in Indo-Iranian and then across Eurasia.

Megaliths are found in almost all parts of South Asia. There is also a broad time evolution with the megaliths in central India and the upper Indus valley where the oldest megaliths are found, while those in the east are of much later date.

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

This is because Farming was mostly done in higher altitude or hilly regions. The upper Indus, maybe upper Punjab would have had more Farmers while the low-land regions would have been nomadic.

So the megalithic, astronomical structures represent ancient IE farming cultures. They are found in mostly Southern Eurasia.

So you can see that European Neolithic Megalithic, and then Nomadic Steppe Kurgans, are the same split of Nomads and Farmers we see deep in Indo-Iranian. This split is coming from PIE, the earliest people were PIE nomads, from which one group became farmers and the other remained nomads.

Kavi said...

Its kinda important not to confuse the symbolic use of horses and chariots by recent nomadic socities in the BA with PIE horses and chariots. The two are very different things.

PIE Horses and Chariots go back to a time before the Neolithic. PIE, as cognates across langauages, or as remembered in Vedic, mentions lots of animals and nomadic culture inc Cows, Dogs, Horses, Wheels, Chariots etc.

PIE were Cow-Herders who also domesticated Dogs and Horses and created the wheel.

It obviously would of taken a very long time to domesticate all these animals from their wild forms. Nothing happened by accident, Dogs and Horse domestication all follow Cow-Domestication and relate to PIE, everything found in Central Eurasia.

So the PIE horse, the asva, was pulling chariots for small nomadic tribes described in Vedic literature. This can go back all the way to pre-Neolithic Eurasia.

The horses and chariots that people are talking about in this field, are related to large-scale BA, centralised, settled states that are way too advanced to be close to PIE, because PIE only has vocab for the the type of small-scale nomadic tribes described in RV.

The horses and chariots of the BA are just symbolic representations of the root of these 'new' states that have their origins in recent nomadic culture, vs the megaliths and astronomy of the earlier farming based civilization.

Its important to note that these horses and chariots of the bronze age, have little practical value, they are used little, dont make too much difference to anything, disappear pretty soon. By the BA farming cultures already have horse-back riding and chariots are obselete, having only symbolic value to denote the descent of this new state from recent nomads, probably from the Western side of the Vedic Aryans, so the Western end of the nomads around Helmand.

So the Nomadic Aryans, of Afg and South Asia, as they settled down and created a new power, another new civilization of nomads settling down, they brought the symbols of horses and chariots, and these symbols expand outward both East and West, replacing the older megalithic symbols of astronomy with symbols of horses and chariots, Rakhigarhi, Gonur, Kurgans, Kura Araxes, Myceanians, Mitanni etc are all new civilizations created by the settling down of the last Indo-Iranian nomads represented by BMAC and IVC, pushing the old megalithic cultures out.

But its easy to confuse the horses and chariots of this time period with actual PIE horses and chariots, and place PIE into this time. But thats not correct.

Kavi said...

To explain most of the IE languages then it is probably like this.

Early IVC is connected closely with Jeitun culture in Southern Turkemistan. The connections are closer between IVC and Anau Tepe, around 4,500BC. These people spoke languages close to Vedic in the East and closer to Italo-Celtic, Greek, Germanic ie Centum in the NW. Further in the past as most of these people were nomads, those languages were closer, hence the similarities between Centum and Vedic are within this space.

There is also greater economic power developing in Mespotamia, which dominates the region soon after.

In the Shahname, this is the period of the rule of Zakak (Azi Dahaka ie Dasa) who came from Mespotamia. He took over rule of the region from Jamshid who lived around Zagros.

After 1k years Fereydun, an Iranian, killed Zahhak and became King. Thus begins the classical Iranian Civilization, which is based in Bactria, with support from Sistan.

This is the BMAC civilization. Consistent with the story the power goes from Zagros (Tepe Anau), Mespotamia (Uruk), to Eastern Iran (BMAC).

About 3500 BC, the cultural unity of the area split into two pottery styles: colourful in the west (Anau, Kara-Depe and Namazga-Depe) and more austere in the east at Altyn-Depe and the Geoksiur Oasis settlements. This may reflect the formation of two tribal groups.

So there is an East-West split, and then BMAC is part of the East. The establishment of BMAC, around 2,500BC, coencides with the downfall and eastward movement of the IVC. Now IVC and Western Iranians rely on BMAC to trade. BMAC centralised the trade networks between India and Western Iran and controlled all the trade.

The older network from IVC to Jeitun and Anau would reflect the older layer between Vedic and Centum IE. Then BMAC uses Iranian, which later spreads Iranian even further West, pushing the older Centum languages out, or replacing them.

Centum languages have to be connected to Indo Aryan from West to East, because they share features not found in Iranian. Iranian is connected Northwards to IA, via Nuristani. Iranian is a mountain language originating from Pamir region, north of Nuristani. It becomes the lingua franca of the new BMAC civilization and then spreads further West, wiping out any trace of an Indo Aryan-Centum connection.

While spreading the Iranian language, BMAC also pushes out the old Deva worhsippers ie Centum peoples from the West, and marginilizing South Asians from the region.

The Deva Asura conflict is post-vedic and post Centum-IA separation. It is driven by BMAC as they centralise power from IVC and West Asia. The Centum and IVC Deva religions are split when BMAC takes control in the middle.

The Centum languages, if based around West Asia, can be connected to Semitic, and explain certain Centum and Semitic similarities. Also explain similarities between the whole European group as it can also be connected to East Caspian probably where Steppe MLBA came from.

vAsiSTha said...

Nice theory. Btw what are the Dstats of two random Pashtuns supposed to tell us, and what are the Z scores of those dstats?

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

Kavi wrote,

"Centum languages have to be connected to Indo Aryan from West to East, because they share features not found in Iranian. Iranian is connected Northwards to IA, via Nuristani. Iranian is a mountain language originating from Pamir region, north of Nuristani."

Where/how would Bangani language fit in the scenerio? Thank you.

https://en.dharmapedia.net/wiki/Bangani_language

Mayuresh

Kavi said...

So for the f4 stat, it is equivalent to admixture f3, in a way. I suppose I can just run that.

But we are comparing two individuals from the same ethnic group, because the difference between them will reflect the most influential admixture event that most differentiated their dna. If there is admixture into a group, it wont propogate completely. Some individuals within the group will have a bit more of one than another. It is better to compare indiv within a group, than groups to each other, because it cancels out intra-group drift. So it is better to compare pashtun with pashtun than pashtun with kalash, because it keeps the variable of pashtun specific drift controlled.

If I run f3 with the earlier pashtun calc,

A B C f3

1 Pathan10 Russia_MA1_HG.SG Pathan2 -0.00615
2 Pathan10 ONG.SG Pathan2 -0.00416
3 Pathan10 Ror Pathan2 -0.00315
4 Pathan10 Russia_Caucasus_Maikop Pathan2 -0.00272
5 Pathan10 Jatt Pathan2 -0.00219
6 Pathan10 Russia_HG_Karelia Pathan2 -0.00205
7 Pathan10 Russia_Afanasievo Pathan2 -0.00163
8 Pathan10 Georgia_Kotias.SG Pathan2 -0.00162
9 Pathan10 Russia_Sidelkino_HG.SG Pathan2 -0.00146
10 Pathan10 Anatolia_Epipaleolithic Pathan2 -0.000814
11 Pathan10 Germany_EN_LBK Pathan2 -0.000497
12 Pathan10 Russia_MLBA_Sintashta Pathan2 -0.00049
13 Pathan10 Iran_GanjDareh_N Pathan2 -0.000474
14 Pathan10 Russia_Kostenki14 Pathan2 -0.000072
15 Pathan10 Control Pathan2 0.00141
16 Pathan10 Israel_Natufian Pathan2 0.00235

You get the same results, - f3 for NW Indo Aryan nomads, who are also connected to recent North Eurasian and Steppe NOMADS. Pathan10 is a mix of Pathan2 with MA1, Ong, Ror ie all NW South Asians, ASI, MA1 ie all 'recent' nomads. Vs the other side all more ancient West Eurasian HGs and recent farmers. So Pathan10 has more recent nomad introgression ie Aryan and Pathan2 has more ancient W Eurasian HG or Farmer, ie ancient farmer, Dasa, mountain dweller.

The pashtuns are kinda important because they straddle the region in between all the different and important peoples, whereas other groups like Kalash are more peripheral in geography. Pashun is in the region inbetween Centum and Indo Aryan but Kalash is on to the side. So the calc for Kalash will be more affected by its geographical position as it for instance, may be further from NAtufian and Anatolian compared to MA1 in general, due to being more North Eastern in geography.

For running the calc, I wanted to test if Pashtuns were a mix of more ancient mountain farmers and more recent nomads, who were otherwise quite similar, and this is exactly what the calc showed. So the Dasa mentioned in Vedic, mentioned close to afgan rivers, would be the group with more Natufian and Anatolian, and the Aryans were the group with more Ror, ASI, MA1 ie coming from Sindh region. They may not have been genetically so different but one just had more ancient W Eurasian and the other more Ong, Guajtrati, Ror, MA1, Steppe.

Kavi said...

Its helpful to look at nomads that we know about in the region. Even currently there are nomads who go from Gujarat all the way into Afganistan. These are kutchi nomads. They can even be found mixing with Pashtuns. So if this goes way back then it is the same thing, these are the types of nomadic movements bringing ASI, Ror and MA1 affinity into Pashtuns.

Many of the South Asian nomads have folk stories of migrating all the way to Russia, Caucasus etc so in ancient times these people could migrate and mix into distant pops. But mostly it was nomad->nomad contact not nomad->farmer, so high ASI NW South Asian nomads would affect North Eurasian like MA1 more than West Eurasian like Anatolian, cos there is more capacity to hold nomadic pops in North Eurasia than West Eurasia.

Thus MA1 and North Eurasia nomads like steppe are a sink for excess nomadic pops from NW South ASia, hence the higher ASI in North Eurasia inc Steppe than West Eurasia.

The PIE stage is very old and has to include all of Punjab inc the Jatts. Jatts are a huge population that became farmers relatively recently. They are outside of the Aryan/Vedic mainstream cos they were already farmers before the most recent nomads settled and created the IVC. Hence 'Aryavarta' does not include Punjab.

Recent Aryans were nomads who were further South and West of Punjab. The Aryans couldnt settle in Punjab so they settled further South on the banks of Sarasvati, the lands they controlled as Aryan nomads, and from there further East, but the region between the Aryans of HAryana and Iran, Punjab, is left out, esp Northern Punjab, and does not appear much in Hinduism or Iranian, or as Aryans, cos the Jatts became farmers much earlier and were not part of the Aryan NW nomads who created IVC and BMAC.

Because the Jatts became farmers much earlier, they were agropastoral while others were nomads. Hence the fstat

W X Y Z D stderr Zscore BABA ABBA nsnps

1 Russia_MLBA_Sintashta Russia_Afanasievo GujaratiB Jatt -0.0058 0.00205 -2.83 6260 6333 98901
2 Russia_MLBA_Sintashta Russia_Afanasievo Ror Jatt -0.0051 0.00221 -2.29 6263 6326 98499

Has a -negative zscore as Rors are closer to Afanasievo and Jatts are closer to Sintashta. The difference b/w SIntashta and Afanasievo is that Sintashta is more settled and agropastoral, whole yamnya/afanasievo are pure nomads. Hence there is more geneflow between Jatts and Sintashta and Rors/Gujaratis and Steppe EBA.

So it is about sources and sinks. The source of pops in NW Eurasia is ASI-like nomads moving South to North. The ASI goes from Gujarat to NW South Asia, then the outflow is more into Central/North Eurasia, into nomads, and less into West Eurasia, who are more farmers and have less free land and opportunities for high ASI pure nomads from NW South Asia.

But most IE languages of IE descend from Centum farmers, we cant really separate the languages of Steppe and Farmer Europeans. The Centum languages seem to derive from Zagros, Caucasus and Balkans. There is Iranian and maybe Indo Aryan in North Eurasia but we have no idea who spoke what going back to even the BA Steppe cos Steppe groups moving to Europe they are now just speaking Centum IE, most of which seems to cluster around Balkans.

Kavi said...

Re: Bangani and other languages.

There are varying and diverse languages all over the place, esp as we move away from the linguistic and genetic core of IE.

In many ways, these 'drifted' languages all drift or change in similar ways independantly. Centum is a sound shift that can happen to PIE indepedantly in different places, because it seems with enough time Satem just becomes Centum. We can see this even in South Asia with S->H in Gujarati, Punjabi and Bengali I think. Also AA->O happens in these places. Also Pashtun->Pakhtun if you think about it is Centumization.

Then Bangani can just be a drifted language that became Centum, but it hasnt drfited as much as Burusho which is a linguistic isolate.

Similarly Euro Centum languages share a bit with Semitic, and there are mythological and cultural similarities. Also with Caucasian where euro Centum and Caucasian languages are the only ones with Labiovelars. So Semitic and Caucasian can be extremely drifted languages, but Centum IE less drifted and then sharing more with core IE but somewhat intermediate between the two.

Similarly Etruscan can be considered IE, closer to Anatolian, which is a very drifted IE language, so Etruscan can just more so drifted it is no longer IE.

So in the family of Eurasian languages, IEs are connected to most other language families, and most other languages are just isolates, not really connected to each other, but most sharing some similarities with branches of IE.

Thus Bangani can just be more drifted than the satem languages, but Burusho is super drifted.

Also, the Satem group is generally very close and less drifted, so Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic are all quite close and not so drifted. But Germanic, Anatolian, Tocharian etc these are the most drifted groups and are all Centum. There are no very drfited languages that are Satem, they are all Centum, so it looks like all IE languages are 'unstable' and tend to go S->K and AA->O.

Kavi said...

A good example is timing.

Iranian is v close to Vedic but is syllable-timed at the earliest stage. So Avestan does not differentiate long A and short A. Long A becomes O.

But in Greek, Latin and Celtic all go back to Mora-timing. Ancient Greek was properly Mora-timed and even retained the PIE (Vedic) accent but it became a fixed accent not free like in PIE.

But over time the Centum IE languages are all moving towards Syllable and then Stress-timing. The modern languages have all moved from Mora to syllable/Stress timing. But this happened independantly in Iranian and Centum IE. There is no Iranian influence moving these languages from Mora->Syllable->Stress timing. Centum left PIE while it still retained Mora_timing, before syllable-timed Iranian was spread by BMAC, then indepedantly of the loss of Mora-timing from Vedic->Iranian, Centum also lost Mora-timing, without outside influence.

Kavi said...

You can see in the PCA where Centum Euro IE languages are coming from.

https://ibb.co/vDChL3k

Bulgarian, French, Italian, Greek, Armenian are all closely clustered, developing around South Caucasus (Armenian) to Meditarreanean and Balkans (Greek and Latin).

So the Latin, Greek and Armenian are all closely clustered.

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

But Armenian has more Indo-Iranian or specifically Iranian elements. So if we just imagine that IE expanded outwards from South Asia to West Asian Neolthic, South Caucasus, and then Meditarraenean, Balkans, then Latin and Greek have already moved West and then Armenian gets the last pulse of Iranian, which has BMAC innovations.

Then, as per the wiki, Armenian also has similarities with Caucasian and Anatolian, as does the larger European Centum group, with Semitic too, because the Centum IE group has very ancient presence in the region.

If Steppe MLBA is related to Kelteminar, which it definitely is, then they can also be speaking a similar language.

So I dont know how in this field we got to a point of looking at Steppe DNA for everything. Esp Yamnaya and Afanasievo, these are not central or v important in the origin of the IE languages, they are quite far from the geographic centre of Vedic and Euro Centum IE, which is in West Asia.

It is just the study of IE began in Northern Europe and they had more of an obsession with Eastern Europe and Steppe nomads.

Greeks and Romans considered these nomads as barbarians and have no ancient connections with them, but all their connections go Eastward to Caucasus, Semitic, Indo Aryan etc.

It's kind of silly and pointless to even give the steppe hypothesis the respect of a refutation.

The high ASI in the Steppe should tell us this group is a sink for excess nomadic groups in NW South Asia, with high ASI, these were more
'primitive' people that did not have the economic, cultural or political abilities to integrate easily into the dynamic West Asian Neolithic, thus taking the higher ASI ie contact with South Asian tribals, coming from Gujarat, into Central and North Eurasia, but not West Asia.

The R1A/B, higher ASI in North Eurasians, high Steppe in Rors, is just outflow from NW South Asian nomads into Steppe, not the other way round. Hence the R1A is coming from Indian tribals, from HGs in Gujarat, up as nomads into NW South Asia, and then into Steppe.

So that is why Steppe, Ror, EHG, MA1 all have higher ASI. Ror has more ASI AND SteppeDNA than Kalash. South Asians are not a mix of ASI and Steppe, but ASI is moving from South Asia to Steppe, via Gujaratis, Rors. Then Gujaratis and Rors have more SteppeDNA AND ASI than others like myself and Pathan, Kalash etc.

More SteppeDNA does not depress ASI. ASI and Steppe are somewhat postiively correlated because ASI is moving North into NW South Asia and then into Steppe, but mixing less into farmers. So ancient Iranian and South Asian farmers have less of both.

Kavi said...

So this theory is really answering all the questions for me. I guess I will do a big write up on my blog. Probably not much point in talking to plebs and others on AG and Eurogenes cos they are still stuck in some weird reality and have made no progress on these questions since aDNA came out. For me, I was looking at IE way before aDNA became big, more than 10 years ago, so I know more about IE than the people online, who mostly just know basic aDNA stuff, most not even capable of running basic calcs or understanding that fstats are the most robust and basic stats to be be looking at.

The only major thing to complete everything is the relationship of J1 and R1A.

J1/R1A is found in Arabs, Jews, Bharuchis, EHG and J1 in CHG. But J1 is so limited and small in number across Eurasia, compared to J2 or R1A it is a bit weird and needs explanation.

As mentioned earlier, the Afghan tribes, esp mountain or more diverged pashtuns, have greater farmer dna than other individuals who are closer to ASI adn NW South Asian nomads. So the idea was that within the pashtuns, there exist a cline of more ancient (farmer, mountain, natufian etc) and more recent (nomads, asi, ror, gujarati, ane).

Therefore, the farmer or older pashtuns should have some of this J1. I was able to find this J1 in Pashtuns.

Southern Afghans, in contrast, are characterized by five sub-clades within haplogroup J-M304 (ie, J1*-M267, J2a*-M410, J2a5-M158, J2b1-M205 and J2b2-M241) collectively at frequency of <3%, as well as by sub-haplogroups Q1a3*-M346 (1.4%), Q1*-P36.2 (0.7%) and Q1a*-MEH2 (0.7%).

https://www.nature.com/articles/ejhg201259

3% of J1/J2 is not a lot but still relevant.

So here again the J1/R1A combo.

The y-dna disptribution of ealy Eurasians and IEs look like this
SW <-E-G-J2-J1-R1A-R1B-Q-> NE

So the early community of South Eurasian IEs lived in this continuum. Then E, G and Q expand outwards, SW and NE. Then J2 and R1B, West and East. Finally R1A and J1 are expanding out.

Semitic has similarities to IE linguistically, and there are many similarities in their religions too. Except the SW Asians, J1, Semitic are just more drifted.

The Asur of Assyria, Ashur-banipal etc and other terms relating to Indo Europeans often are found in Mespotamia. The SW Asian farmer version of IE that Semitic is descended from was very drifted. It separated out first from common IE. HEnce less ASI, more drfited language, more ancient farmers. This is related to the concept of Basal Eurasian. Sw Asians separated out first from the nomads of NW India, therefore, SW Asia has the more drifted and older version of everything.

BMAC was created by Pashtuns, from Sistan Zaublistan, the same southern Pashtuns that have J1/J2, and more ancient farmer dna. In the same way, as today, with Pashtuns centred in Helmand control the Taliban that now controls the territory all the way to Northern Afghanistan.

Kavi said...

Southern Afghanistan, is the region of Mehrgarh, and Shahr-E-Sokhta, since the beginning of farming, the southern afgan and baloch region connected Indian and West Asian/Mespotamian farmers. Baloch and Baruch are cognates, and this goes further west as Belushi in Albanians.

The Afghans say they were the original jews. It is not so far-fetched if some group of pashtuns were involved in the creation of the jewish identity.

But PIE is much older and this is happening after the Centum-Vedic split.

The combo of J1 and R1A can only really be traced back to South Eurasian drifted farmers. Jews, South Pashtuns, Gujarati Bharuchis, the southern-most Eurasian farmers and IEs.

The 'component' or population-grouping methodology that is often used, the idea of population-groups clustering together, is not really the correct way of looking at DNA. It is more about individual variation and variation within groups.

Thus y-dna cannto be correlated with population groups, like J2 with Iran_N, or J1 with Middle East, or R1A with Steppe. Clearly J1 and R1A go way back, found together in EHG, Jews, Arabs and South Eurasian drifted pops.

EHG is new population compared to WHG, and it is bringing R1A, and ASI from NW South Asia to Europe. The movement is inside to outside, less drifted to more drifted, not the opposite and incorrect way people are looking at it.

For North Eurasian, we have lots of samples going back to lgm and prior. We dont have this for SOuth Eurasia, and therein lies the biggest problem. The earliest separation is happening in South Eurasia. With Semitic on one side, having separated and drifted most from ancient NW Indians and ASI, then Euro Centum is somewhat intermediate, and then Indo-Aryan and Iranian, from the East, the least drifted.

Basal Eurasian is just the separation of ancient SW peoples from NW Indians, having less ASI and more drfited farming language and culture.

As civilization, population and wealth is increasing in Southern Eurasia, the separation of groups into niches like nomad and farmer are further developing. For the South Eurasian farmers, from Middle East, to South Afghan, Punjab, and Gujarat, it is the Pashtuns that end up in the middle. They have most access to India, Middle East, West Asia, and Steppe. The R1/J1 combo is at the centre and expansion point of Farmers and Nomads. It is here, in South Eurasia, around Southern Afghanistan, the Nomadic and Farmer culture are most integrated and working together.

vAsiSTha said...

What ties iranics and Indians is J2 not R1a (diff subclades) or J1.

Kavi said...

The J2 and R1A space was probably just more Northern or Nomadic than J1. Hence J2 is found in Euro Centum and R1A in South Asian, then J1 is also found alongside J2 and R1A/B in the South.

Euro Centum is somewhat closer to Vedic than to Iranian, both linguistically and mythologoically, they both are Deva people, while the Asura are associated with Mespotamia, and then expanding with Iranian and bmac.

So Asura would have been anciently separated, numerically smaller, Southern Farmers and then Euro Centum and Indo Aryan are derived from a more northern continuum of Deva peoples with a more homogenious, common and 'primordial' language and religion, hence the similarities between Greek, Latin and Vedic.

Kavi said...

Asurah as found in Middle East are clearly ancient IE Gods. They apparantly are even found in Uralic.

Finnish Indologist, Asko Parpola, traces another possible etymological root of Asura to *asera- of Uralic languages, where it means "lord, prince".[8]

So two non-IE languages, both very distant genetically/geographically, with little relation to other linguistic families, both have the older IE gods Asura. Then Vedic tells us Asura were ancient gods.

In Germanic too there is Aesir and ASgard, but that could be due to recent Iranian influence, maybe in Uralic too. But Uralic has Orja(arya)=slave so that layer probably not coming from BMAC Iranian.

So Asura could have spread from very ancient PIE, to FU and Semitic, after or before those languages drifted away from ancient PIE, which was so old it may not even know Deva gods, only Asura gods. Then Deva concept is innovation in the centre, associated with Vedic NW India and Euro Centum. The Asuric older strata is then found in the most distant groups that separated earlier, Mespotamia, Uralic and maybe Farmers.

Kavi said...

This guy Kale on AG is too lost with fstats

"Can't say I'm willing to take someone too serious who doesn't even acknowledge the 1240k vs SG bias.
Kostenki14 Kostenki14.SG Anatolia_Barcin_N_I1583 Anatolia_Barcin_N_I1583.SG 0.000617772 0.000160485 3.84940 0.000118406 911339"


Because of the calc, is just using the exact same samples, just with capture differences, there is going to be no noise other than minor diffs from capture method.

The Z-score is very high at 3.8 because the stErr is very low, which is because there is no opp matching EVER, due the the samples being exactly the same.

This is why D is more important than Zscore, esp in these circumstances. The qpgraph and qpadm will always use D. This guy doesnt understand what he's doing and talking a lot of garbage.

The D in his calc is tiny, I have never seen such a low D number, but more so the stderr. The Zscore is just high because there is no 'noise' in the calc, ie no opposite or 'error' matches at all.

vs a random calc I ran
Israel_Natufian Russia_MA1_HG.SG GujaratiB Control -0.0112 0.00924 -1.21 2199 2249 33010

D: 0.0112 vs 0.000160485
stderr: 0.00924 vs 0.000160485
z: 1.21 vs 3.8

His Z-score is really high cos there is no stderr, due to the 'weird' calc he is running. He is then confsuing zscore with D. This wont affect any 'real' calc.

vAsiSTha said...

Agreed about the low D estimate.

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

Kavi wrote,

"In many ways, these 'drifted' languages all drift or change in similar ways independantly. Centum is a sound shift that can happen to PIE indepedantly in different places, because it seems with enough time Satem just becomes Centum. "

And the other way round can happen also. As Dr. Koenraad Elst points out, in Marathi the numerals 61, 62 are pronounced as ek sasushta, ba sasushts where 71, 71 are pronounced as

ek Hatar, ba Hater etc. Here one see sthe S>H going the other way round .

Mayuresh

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

71, 72 are pronounced as

ek Hatar, ba Hater etc. Here one see sthe S>H going the other way round .

Mayuresh

Unknown said...

Avesta apparently contains a fragment of the speech of the Turanians. Apparently, the Avestian Aryans did not understand the Turanians. So were the Turanians Iranians?
https://hochunemogu.ru/en/avesta-kommentarii-zabytaya-realnost-smotret-chto-takoe/
And Frankhrasyan jumped out, The most lively of the tours, From the sea of ​​Vorukash, Screaming shouting: "Ite-ita-yatna-ahmai... I can't get Khvarno, Which was taken over by the Coming and former Kings of the Aryan countries, To get what Spitama owns- Zarathushtra.

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

Unknown wrote,

"So were the Turanians Iranians?"

According to Talageri, Tura and Airyu were brothers of the Anu tribe. Anus were to become Iranians after the Varsagiria Battle. Airyu decided to break away from the Indo Aryans but Tura stayed put. Don't see why they could not understand each other's language. This idea could be an extension of the false notion that Aryans were the conquerors and Dasa were the local presumably Dravidians or some other "natives" described as apada (feet less), anasa (nose less) etc.

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-varsagira-battle-in-rigveda.html

"This also explains why all non-Iranians, originally Indo-Aryans, were called Turanians in later classification: Tūra, the brother of Airyu was, like Airyu and his son Citra, an Indo-Aryan or Pūru, but, unlike his brother, he did not shift alliance to the Anu proto-Iranians]. "

mzp1 said...

What i mention above in comments (with my other acc) about IE Uralic and Semitic having a shared origin (which would be closer to Indo Aryan) is already a famous idea known as Nostratic Theory.

I think that the theory is definitely correct.

Re tura, in shahname generally refers to the northern lands separated from iranians by oxus but shifting borders. Turanians have iranian names and also in avesta zoroaster spread his message there so they likely were iranian speakers. These would be steppe dna people post BA like Scythians but tbh could even be Yamnaya if these references go back early enough.

Steppe is mostly land of iranians hence all known steppe always spoke iranian.

Also the terms relating to danu like danu rivers are all turanian type peoples spreading steppe dna to europe.

I wrote a long comment on eg a few years ago saying why the river names don, dnipr dnestre etc came from EHG not scythians or later peoples. The main argument is scythiana didnt settle there or something like that.

Also most of the IE affinities of Uralix are to Indo Iranian, mostly Iranian but some earlier borrowings look more IA.

So its easy to see that steppe dna is mostly correlated with iranian, likely even earlier than Yamnaya. There are loads of very specifically iranian loans in germanic and balto slavic is really close to iranian.

mzp1 said...

Talegeri does have some very bad ideas along with some really good ones.

I dont think its a good idea to take his writing too seriously on the whole but he is good at the details of going through rv and figuring out geneologies etc.

For instance the relationship between anus and iraniana doesnt make sense because iranian literature doesnt mention anus afaik as some big or central tribe. Anus were probably just one of many groups in the region.

Iran had three groups. The 3 sons of fereydun, salm, tur and iraj. Salm (sarmatian) went west, iraj the centre, iran and hind, tur the North.

This myth of 3 brothers is also foind in germanic ans celtic and some Caucasian groups. I actually think it goes back to pre farming times when there may have been three groups of nomads, southern from hind to anatolia, central in central asia and one in north Eurasia. Then this is remembered by Steppe peoples turanians and then incorporated into iranian.

Vedic Aryans had already moved east by the time of iranian and hence iranians are mostly dealing with nw Indians ie pakistan, Sindh, west iran, me, central asia but not haryana aryans.

There was no indo-aryan vs iranian conflict. Deva worshippers referred by iranians were in mazandaran around south caucasus i think but there is no mention of any conflict with indians.

mzp1 said...

Re the relationship between india and iran, it is mostly a trading one but with iran havinf the upper hand.

There is one story that recollects the invention of chess. It is said an indian king sent a game board to the iranian king, and challenged him that if he can figure out the game the indians will continue to pay tribute to iran but if not iran should pay the indians. So relations were pretty decent it seems.

And then in lothal we find a chess board dates to 2k bc.

Unknown said...

The Avestan genealogy is mythical and should not be taken literally, it is similar to the Old Testament genealogy according to which all nations descended from Noah (from Shem, Ham, Japhet).
Neither the Turs nor the Salms were ever ranked among the Aryan peoples, while the name "Aryans" meant various Iranian tribes (Persians, Sogdians, Medes, etc.)
I believe that only Iraj was an aryan (iranian speaker).

Kavi said...

There is no relation between the Iranian LANGAUGE and the term 'Aryan'. You are conflating two different thing. There is no reason Turanians or Steppe people who were not Aryans did not speak Iranian.

Aryans are the people denoted in the Eastern Red block in this image.

https://ibb.co/DpM7h2q

The early continuun (all red) is the ancestor of Indo-Aryan and Euro Centum. This is the Vedic-Greek/Latin continuun relating to linguistic reltionships like Greco-Aryan and mythologically associated with DEva worshipper. The Asura worshippers are the EARLY farmers that left this nomadic continuum v early and are found as farmers in periphery regions.

The Aryans are nomadic peoples in red. The Western part may have disappeared before the term Aryan came into use. Thus Aryan is only associated with NW South Asian and Eastern Afghanistan. That term does not expand out unlike other terms like Danu, Daheans etc, because it is a v recent term.

The Aryans of post-vedic hinduism, descended from Purus or Bharatas, are the arrow moving from the red continuum into Haryana. They went from the West to the East. They must have been pushed out by the alliance of Pashtuns, Brhirgus, Anus whatever who are often described as 'distant' ie diverged peoples with different speech and customs. Those are somewhat more associated with the yellow farmers, but still nomadic Aryans not Dasa, but more intermediate between them. They have Southern and Northern affinities ie with the yellow more periphery divergent branches. Hence the battle of 10 kings it is said "friend rescued friend amongst the two distant peoples.

After the Puru or Bharata clan has left the NW. There is further development and mixing of farmers and nomads, regionalisation of Afg and Hind/Sindh. The term Aryan is used by the BMAC Iranians of Avesta and Shahname, because Aryan always came from that region, earlier denoting the difference between Nomads and Farmers, and in more recent (BMAC, Avestan) times denoting the whole region centred around NE Afg, Western India, ie the red.

The Iranian language is centred around the top yellow, from Badakshan region, north of Nuristani. From here it became Lingua franca of BMAC, ie the Nation of Iran, and spread into Zagros and other parts of Iran and South Afgahnistan. It replaced older languages like Elamite and others like possible remnants of the INdo-Aryan Centum Deva people in the zagros region.

But because Iranian originates around Badakshan, the steppe groups like yamnaya, who would of lived north of them, in the syr darya and oxur rivers, would of spoken Iranian, hence Iranian is the most common linguistic strate amongst ALL Central and North Eurasians and can be found in BS, Germanic and FU.

Iranian can exist in the Steppe region even while the IA-Greek/Latin continuun still existed between NW South Asia and Zagros/Caucasus, so like 6K BC.

Kavi said...

The Avestan genealogy is mythical and should not be taken literally,

Its important to acknowledge the value and often times truth of ancient literature and folk knowledge. Because we live in times where INSTITUTIONS based on Academia, and 'Science' has lots of Socio-economic power, people are too quick to believe academic professionals over written history.

You need to think about whether there is more validity in mythological stories vs academic papers and 'theories' like Steppe Hypothesis or Out of Africa Theory.

The thing is everything I am sayinng and have 'discovered' from my own research, having argued with modern mainstream, regarding IE history, turns out is more consistent with ALL actual IE Literature, Linguistics, Folk Tales, Folk Histories than what the 'academics' are saying.

There is way too much respect to modern academia, wanting to fit in with everyone else etc.

Iranian literature is probably the most important in all globally, maybe except for Rigvedic, though in many ways it is more telling.

Early IE researchers had good ideas like Nostratic theory, but in more recent times, free-thinking and real research has been replaced by politics and power.

Reich Lab knows all too well, its benefactors to Harvard University, and its customers who read their paper, ie the American and English audience who read David Anothony, will simply not accept anything other than a Northern Euro origin for PIE. SO this is all Politics and 'corruption'.

To even think that a Harvard opinion piece ie research paper or David Anthonys books has more value than Shahname is absurd.

There is LOADS of value and knowledge in ancient folk tales and histories, RV, Iranian, Jewish, Greek etc and too much unjustified respect given to insitutional authority like Academia and Newspaper articles.

But you should just know, that the Anglo-American global order is collapsing. Particularly in England, this current order of insitutions, academia, patriarchy, ie everything derived from BA BMAC/Iran/Pashtun inspired Chariots, rote-learning, patriarchy, violence etc the whole system is collapsing. The current social order in Britain will fall very soon, maybe in the next 20 years. It means a new social order will come about.

That order will simply remove the voices of corruption and lies, divergence, nationalities, nation-states, feudalism etc that underpins the order that produced universities and 'institutions' that were subservient to nation-states, kings and divergent religions.

We are gonna go back to EEF and undiverged global truth, removing the fake identities and stories that underpin patriarchy, religion and nation-states.

These guys can talk all they want about violent nomads dominating everyone, but they will see in front of their own eyes the order of the post-Chalcolithic Violent Steppe nomads replaced by something closer to EEF.

You talk of the Jewish 'mythology'. Know that there is much truth to it that Anglos would not accept. The Jews refer to Germany as Ashkenaz. The Germanic Gods are said to come from ASgard.

Asgard=Asagartiya=Sagartiya=Zagros
Germania=Kermania

Ofcourse the Anglos will never accept that their ancient rulers came from Zagros and East Caspian region.

But it is all known and recorded in ancient literature, anyone can read it if they want.

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

mzp1 wrote,

"The 3 sons of fereydun, salm, tur and iraj. Salm (sarmatian) went west, iraj the centre, iran and hind, tur the North.

Talageri identifies Sarmatians with Simyus of The Rig Veda.

"Vedic Aryans had already moved east by the time of iranian and hence iranians are mostly dealing with nw Indians ie pakistan, Sindh, west iran, me, central asia but not haryana aryans."

Agree. The Varsagira Battle finds a brief mention in the Rig Veda. The westernmost Druhyus responsible for European IE branchaes as per Talageri are also barely found therein.

"There was no indo-aryan vs iranian conflict. Deva worshippers referred by iranians were in mazandaran around south caucasus i think but there is no mention of any conflict with indians."

Well, that depends on who were the "Indians" of those times. A battle did take place, if one believes Rig Veda has any historical value at all. The gods of the Vedics became the demons of the Iranians and vice a versa.

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-varsagira-battle-in-rigveda.html

"The Vārṣāgira battle is described in the Kutsa upa-maṇḍala of Book 1 (I.94-115). This is the only part of the New Books which maintains a historical continuity with the ethos of the period of the Old Books."

"The third important name among the Vārṣāgiras, in fact the main one, is Ṛjrāśva."

Sounds like (Amir) Khushru of recent history? Also, check the Twitter TL of Joseph T. Nooney,

"We may call it the 'Varsagira battle' or the 'Last Devasura war'. The results were significant-

"1. Decisive Vedic victory

2. Permanent separation of the last two Indo European tribes

3. Death of Zoroaster

4. Contributive to the collapse of the Indus-Saraswathy civilization(?)"

https://twitter.com/joeagneya/status/1102177443052367872?lang=en

Though Koenraad Elst has said in video that there was no conclusive winner.

Kavi said...

Talegeri is not correct at all in deriving Euros from Druhyus. Druhyu is just one tribe of many mentioned in these literatures.

Simyu is not Sarmatian afaik, Sarmatian is Sarama from book 10.

Indo Aryan comes from the region that became muslim, the only valid thing maintained by Hinduism is the Rigvedic Hymns. Like evreyone else, they too settled, became farmers and lost vedic and now speak hindi. Its the same story for everyone, once a non-diverged primordial original group, then settling down, becoming localised, drifting and diverging the language, religion and culture. No one is really special and no one today maintains either the Vedic Sanskrit language nor the original nomadic cattle herding way of life.

You cannot look at this according to modern religions like Hinduism vs Islam.

Talegeri is a sham scholar and no one can find value in his work if he attempts to derive PIE as an expansion from UP/Haryana Westward. Expansion of ASI is from Gujarat Northwards, from the Coastal regions where cows are found naturally, grazing them further up the rivers of Indus system.

From this NW region of the Gujarat and Sindu/Sarasvati, IE moved East into Haryana and UP. Not the opposite direction.

Its kind of irrelevant that Hinduism Vedic is somewhat more archaic than Iranina, because everything after Vedic ie Brahmana and Puranas is innovation. Infact, Puranas as composed post-vedic, in interior india, have no validity of their own, nearly everything is made up and there is nothing of value. In my own research, I found all puranic stories and histories to make no sense or provide any useful info.

Out of India is out of Gujarat-Indus Valley not UP or Haryana.

There could be some tribes that moved in the opposite direction, sometimes as a back-migration or whatever, but the major movements, is going from one source in multiple directions. That source is based around Indus river.

Hence we dont care about Varsaghira battle or any minor event. I thought about this alot in the past, why do Iranians call Indians Turanians sometimes. The reason is in later periods, Turan simply became a term to denote generic enemies of whatever was considered 'Iranian' for the Iranians. So even Turks are called Turanian. Also, political alliances between Indians and Iranians were decent, so the Iranians didnt want to hurt those relations, hence any minor conflicts with random indian tribes would be related as Turanians, so as not to offend current Indian political allies.

But there should be contact b/w Indian nomads and Steppe DNA, so if Indian nomads had contact with Steppe, they could of allied against Iranian BMAC farmers, and there can be Indo-Aryan influence within Steppe, but this is minor contact and not necessarily related to the major big groupings, identities and events that really define this period.

Varsaghira, Turva/Turan/Hushdiv that whole conflict with them and Iranians, could be Steppe peoples, or Indians gone to steppe, and remembered by later layers of nomads from the NW who brought it into Vedic and the Haryana based corpus that is Vedic, memories of what happene further west before they settled in Haryana and UP.

Kavi said...

In Vedic, they always talk about Sapta Sindhawa as their ancient home. This is obviously Indus and Punjab region inc Sarasvati.

But Hinduism and 'Aryans' are not in Punjab. The Hindus Aryans are in Haryana and UP, and their version of Aryavarta does not include the bulk of Punjab, which is Sapta Sindhu.

And the Iranians too are Aryans.

And then there is Ghandara, which is Swat region, a northern part of the Indus river, also close to Hindus (and Iranians).

But the main bulk of Sapta Sindhu, mentioned both in Vedic and Iranian, is never aligned with Zoroastrianism, Hinduism and never called themselves Aryans.

So Punjab became farmers and hence were not part of the more Western and Southern Aryan nomads. Sapta Sindhu were Dasa and hence their biggest and oldest population Jatts (related to Dasa, Getae) are neither Aryans nor Hindus.

So most of Sapta Sindhu already separated out from the core of Vedic NOMADS, after becoming farmers, first in higher northern parts of punjab and then moving further south. The Aryan identity develops West and South of Punjab, mostly in the West, and hence does not include them.

Aryan is just an identity that denotes nomads, when they are finding their lifestyle under threat as more and more areas, esp the important Indus system became settled farmers.

Those Aryans cannot ever be more Eastern than Punjab, that just doesnt work. It has to be to the West and South.

Kavi said...

So Ghandara has ancient affinities with Hindus and both Iranian and Indian Aryans, because it too is a recent group from the NW Indus system, more Western than the rest of Punjab.

So the most recent home of these peoples, who are close to each other and talk about each other, but exc the bulk of Punjab, is the Western and Southern part of the Indus Valley. From here the nomadic Aryans were connected to NE Afg, Ghandara, and also went to Haryana/UP.

Hence Ghandara is closer to Haryana Hindus than the bulk of Punjab.

Talegeri is completely wrong that the origin is in Haryana/UP. Talegeris writing is only usefuly to get the DATA re matching names and events, but his interpretations are wholly incorrect and very very far from reality.

Its silly to say Druhyus are Druids based on such a simplistic similarity of names. And I have read his books, his derivation of the IE family coming out of India is very poor, he think those languages all formed in South or West Asia and then moved out. The derivation of Euro Centum from IA is much much earlier than can be reconstructed from Vedic. Because those languages and communities would of drifted and innovated, and created new identies AFTER leaving the region, on their long journey to europe that took many thousands of years. It is absurd to think that the huge Centum family of Europe can just be traced back to random tribes from Vedic, and he has no knowledge of Centum IE groups in any way to make these connections.

The Anus are the Iranians.
The Druhyus are the druids.
Indo Aryan expanded from Haryana/UP to West Punjab.

All this is completely wrong and terrible.

Haryana/UP is a sink, not a source. Fertile green regions were sinks for the PIEs and the source was the more desert like region with rivers where cattle grazed on the river banks. Haryana/UP is not the source becuase these regions would have been covered in forests and not useable by early PIE Cattle herders, theire natural habitat was the semi-deserts of the NW and the smaller fertile regions on the riverbanks.

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

Making sure, I am quoting Talageri correctly and completely, here is his list.

Avestan) Afghanistan: Proto-Iranian: Sairima (Śimyu), Dahi (Dāsa).
NE Afghanistan: Proto-Iranian: Nuristani/Piśācin (Viṣāṇin).
Pakhtoonistan (NW Pakistan), South Afghanistan: Iranian: Pakhtoon/Pashtu (Paktha).
Baluchistan (SW Pakistan), SE Iran: Iranian: Bolan/Baluchi (Bhalāna).
NE Iran: Iranian: Parthian/Parthava (Pṛthu/Pārthava).
SW Iran: Iranian: Parsua/Persian (Parśu/Parśava).
NW Iran: Iranian: Madai/Mede (Madra).
Uzbekistan: Iranian: Khiva/Khwarezmian (Śiva).
W. Turkmenistan: Iranian: Dahae (Dāsa).
Ukraine, S, Russia: Iranian: Alan (Alina), Sarmatian (Śimyu).
Turkey: Thraco-Phrygian/Armenian: Phryge/Phrygian (Bhṛgu).
Romania, Bulgaria: Thraco-Phrygian/Armenian: Dacian (Dāsa).
Greece: Greek: Hellene (Alina).
Albania: Albanian: Sirmio (Śimyu).

Shrikant Gangadhar Talageri

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-full-out-of-india-case-in-short.html

Mayuresh M. Kelkar

Past said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Past said...

@Kavi
Its important to acknowledge the value and often times truth of ancient literature and folk knowledge. Because we live in times where INSTITUTIONS based on Academia, and 'Science' has lots of Socio-economic power, people are too quick to believe academic professionals over written history.

Due to the presence of supernatural beings such as dragons in the Avesta, we cannot consider the Avesta as a reliable historical document. But we can analyze what was known to the ancient compilers of the Avesta.

There is no relation between the Iranian LANGAUGE and the term 'Aryan'. You are conflating two different thing. There is no reason Turanians or Steppe people who were not Aryans did not speak Iranian.

There are several questions.
1. What does "Aryans" mean in the Avesta?
2. Are Aryans mentioned in the Avesta who do not speak Aryan dialects?
3. Did the term Aryans appear only after Zoroaster as descendants/followers of Iraj, and what does the name Iraj mean in this case?
4. Did Turs and Salms call themselves Aryans?

I think while you answer these questions, you will get confused.
And the simplest answer would be " the aryans in the Avesta are an ethno-linguistic community" . And the Avesta describes the mythological origin of Iranian(aryan)-speaking people from Iraj.
There are no Aryans speaking non-aryan languages. There is no good reason to call the Turs and Salms who speak Iranian languages non-Aryans

Vara said...

The Shahnameh is not accurate and requires a deep reading. A superficial reading of a book written 1000 years ago will not tell you much about the history of Proto-Iranians or Indo-Aryans who lived thousands of years before.

Obviously, the Shahnameh contains useful historical information but there is no way the history of the Kayanian dynasty is accurate. The history of the Achaemenids is missing and merged into various characters. It alludes to various conflicts of Parthian/Indo-Parthians (Giv, Gudarz..etc.).

Many mentions of "India" in the Shahnameh and other Iranian works refer to "White India" of the Parthians, ie. the area around the Arghandab or where Pashtuns dominate in this day and age.

Neither Asuras nor Daevas are Proto-Indo-European deities as both are an Indo-Iranian innovation. It can be argued that Devas are an Indo-Aryan innovation as none of the known Devas can be properly reconstructed for Proto-Iranian. Only Asura Dyaus (*Dyeus) can be reliably reconstructed for PIE.

Ashur of the Assyrians is unrelated to the Asuras and Ahuras nor is he that ancient. He is attested in the 2nd millennium bc.

The Daevayasnas of the Younger Avesta are the conquered eastern Indo-Aryans while the Mazena Daevas are the unconquered (at the time) Mitanni related Indo-Aryans of Northern Iran.

The Aryans were not pure nomads. There is ample evidence of plows, barley...etc in the RV. There is also an entire agricultural hymn in book 4(57). The evidence of pure nomads on the Iranian Plateau before the Late Iron Age is disputed.

Arya is not the designation of all Indo-Iranians. The Dahae and Khotanese are Daha ie. Dasas.

The Shahnameh, Younger Avesta, Vedas and much of history is composed under the orders of the elite of those times by the priest and poets ie. the "academics" of that era and shouldn't be taken at face value. Especially when considering that some of these elites have erased much of history (Ardashir, Khosro I, the Barmakids and their friends). The Younger Avesta has had various additions to it over the years and some hymns were composed so late that their language is considered gibberish. Also, there are 400-600 years between Homer and the Trojan War yet the Iliad is not an accurate representation of the events of the LBA. In general, Indo-Iranian is poorly understood and is shrouded in dogmatic views.

Kavi said...

But what you posted there is just obvious tribal names, it does not corroborate any of his ideas.

AFAIK Talegeri is a terrible 'scholar' in many ways, and you should really forget any of his 'ideas' or conclusions, but you can read his book just for the references and matching of names.

I already said that expansion is happening from NW ie west and South of Indus so everything you posted above is consistent with that, so I am not gonna argue with it.

Kavi said...

No one is taking anything at 'face value' ie literally, but we piece things together looking for clues.

I dont know from reading the last few posts whether these are questions or what.

"There is no good reason to call the Turs and Salms who speak Iranian languages non-Aryans"

Yes, there is, because they are not Aryans.

Sarmatians have no history of being 'Aryans'. Sarama ie Sarmatian is not always spoken of fondly by Aryans.


Uralic has lots of Indo-Iranian LANGUAGE loans, but it has Orja (arya) as meaning 'slave'. This is coming from Dasas, who spoke IIr but were not Aryans. So being Aryan and speaking Indo-Iranian are not always the same thing.

The Dasa mentioned in RV are later found further North in Central Asia as mentioned as one of the tribes Zoroaster preached to. Danus also are known as Turanam Danunam. These names are then found across Eurasia associated with steppe peoples, more so in Northern Europe than southern. These are NON-Aryan tribes, mentioned as enemies of the Vedic Aryans. But they could of spoken an Indo-Iranian Language, when they were in contact with Aryans close to India.

"Ashur of the Assyrians is unrelated to the Asuras and Ahuras nor is he that ancient. He is attested in the 2nd millennium bc."

Asaer as Lord/Prince is also found in Uralic.

Most IEs have either or both of Asura or Deva as Gods so it makes sense to place those as PIE. The Deva worshippers are important because it is found very commonly in Latin and related Euro Centum languages.

Kavi said...

3. Did the term Aryans appear only after Zoroaster as descendants/followers of Iraj, and what does the name Iraj mean in this case?

Tur, Salm, and Iraj are not real people afaik, it is just myth, but it tells us that there were three major regions of somewhat related peoples, and those tribes/regions were known as Sarm, Iran and Turan, for the writers of the story. I dont take it to mean there literally was 3 brothers, or that Iraj was real a person.

But these 3 groups could have had ancient similarities, and then they allied to take-over Iran from Zahhak (Mespotamian control). After which they they fought against each other.

I dont understand the conflation of Vedic or Iranian 'Aryan' with Indo Iranian languages. I am pretty sure diverged older IIr like Kalash and even Jatts dont have any recollection of the term Aryan, and they are all IIr speakers.

Kavi said...

Yeah its true that there are some mentions of ploughing in RV but in general Vedic Aryan definitely is associated Nomadism, because their main enemies dasa are associated with farming, mountains and enclosures.

Probably the most important moral value of the Vedic Aryans is keeping the cows free, which does look like a pov of nomads.

But over time the Aryans are also settling down. In book 10 we get most of this, the first marriage hymn, more mentions of villages, more mention of agricultural stuff, I think as far as I remember.

Then by the time of Hinduism they are pretty much all settled. So if we imagine the origin of the identity of Aryan, goes back a bit earlier than Vedic, then at that point they may have been pure nomads, and over time just becoming more and more settled.

Vara said...

I can piece things so that Aryans come from the Mesolithic Steppe. You are making connections between names with no clear etymology attested across thousands of years of time spans. The Shahnameh goggles make no sense in this case especially considering its main source is. the Khwaday Namag, Khosro's favorite book for rewriting history.

Every single Turanian name in the Avesta has a clear Iranian etymology. Druhyus being Celtic druids is impossible. Proto-Celtic barely goes back to the LBA. This theme of millenia of stagnation is unrealistic.

Every linguist knows that an Indo-Iranian group interacted with Uralics. No surprise Asura would be burrowed.

Asuras, Daevas and European gods all go back to a PIE prototype. Jupiter, Zeus, Deivos...etc derive from *Dyeus as does Papaios and Asura Dyaus(and the Daevas led by Indra who replaced him). There is obviously a connection but that isn't because Daevas are Proto-Indo-European. There is absolutely 0 evidence that there was an interaction between South Central Asia and North Europe in the bronze age.

In both Vedas and Gathas cows are clearly metaphorical. All ancient civilizations had pastoral imagery from Egypt to Sumer. In every Vedic book the kings and gods are called lords of settlements and live in forts as well. There is absolutely no archaeological evidence for pure nomads in South Central Asia before the iron age.

From book 6 which is considered one of the older books by all sides:
"Agni gives a hero winning the waters, vanquishing with his attack, as lord of settlements, whose rivals tremble at the full sight of his vast power, in fear"

Kavi said...

Yh there is lots of contact b/w indians and steppe as the whole steppe cluster is closer to onge than all other west eurasans with it peaking in ehg and ba steppe.

Past said...

@Kavi
Yes, there is, because they are not Aryans.
This is coming from Dasas, who spoke IIr but were not Aryans. So being Aryan and speaking Indo-Iranian are not always the same thing.


Aryan-speaking Dasas is not a fact, it is not even a mainstream version.

Tur, Salm, and Iraj are not real people afaik, it is just myth, but it tells us that there were three major regions of somewhat related peoples, and those tribes/regions were known as Sarm, Iran and Turan, for the writers of the story. I dont take it to mean there literally was 3 brothers, or that Iraj was real a person.

You see how difficult to explain this legend with your position : Aryans are Aryans, but Turanians are also Aryans, whom the first Aryans do not consider to be Aryans.
So what did "Aryans" mean in the Avesta? We know they means several Iranian-speaking ethnic groups there. But your version?
I think that even you are not entirely satisfied with your own answers.
@Vara
Every single Turanian name in the Avesta has a clear Iranian etymology
Yes.
Shem, Ham and Japheth (as well as Noah) also have clear Semitic etymologies, but the peoples who descended from them have different languages according to the Old Testament.

Vara said...

Past

Turan is a red herring. The earliest attestation of Turan in reign of Shapur puts it between Kushan and Makran. This Turan is Khuzdar.

Late Sasanian Turan is beyond the Oxus. Yet, in Rustam and Sohrab Samangan was Turanian. So which version do we pick to align with the Shahnameh worldview when the Shahmameh itself isn't consistent?

Kavi said...

Bro, 'Aryan' is not a language. There is no such thing as 'Aryan' speaking, in Linguistics.

There are

Aryans of the Rigveda: An identity I believe was based on a socio-political and religions group tied to an ancient NOMADIC way of life, culture, religion and language. Aryan refers to these people, more so their way of life but Aryan does not mean language here necessarily.

Aryan of Iran: This was a Nation state system. Aryans are defined primarily by, being a citizen of that state, and later also possibly requiring the following of Zoroastrianism. Aryan just means if you live in the region that is considered Iran, which is South of Oxus, West Indus, and somewhere to the West of Iran.

Indo-Aryan: A linguistic term denoting specifically linguistic traits.

Iranian: A linguistic term denoting certain linguistic traits.

Aryan-speaking Dasas is not a fact, it is not even a mainstream version.

The identification of Dasa with Indo-Aryan can be found, for instance Gujarati, which has the more commonly Iranian Dasa=Man and ofcourse they are IA speakers.

Also, as I mentioned the non-Aryan identity of whoever gave the IIr borrowings into Uralic, as it has the non-Aryan form orja=slave. Know that this is same opp meaning as in IA where Dasyu means slave.

but Turanians are also Aryans

afaik no one esp not me identified Turanians as Aryans, otherwise they would be called Aryans, not Turanians lol. I said they likely spoke a form of Iranian language. But that does not make them Aryans per the Iranian meaning, ie people residing in what was known then as Iran, being part of that culture.

Kavi said...

@Vara, hmm the Avesta is pretty clear that there was tribe called Turanam Danuman where Zoraster preached, so I think likely the Iranian myths do refer to Turanians in the North. I mean we dont see any tribes further south calling themselves Turanian.

Althoug I agree the location does move around a bit though in general, like 90% of the time it refers to the northern neuugbours and associates them with nomadism. But those people themselves may not have called themselves Turanian.

But again, with the whole nomadic vs settled thing, though the Iranians called Turanians as nomads, they are also know to have had cities and settlements, so it probably they just had more nomads than iranians, or had more temporary settlements, or just very cities and generally more nomads, ie cities for the elites and other workers, and most poeple being nomads.

Past said...

@Kavi

Also, as I mentioned the non-Aryan identity of whoever gave the IIr borrowings into Uralic, as it has the non-Aryan form orja=slave. Know that this is same opp meaning as in IA where Dasyu means slave.

I do not see a good logic in this : orja=dasya=slave.
But I know one historical analogy.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slave
Slave (etymology)

From Middle English sclave, from Old French sclave, from Medieval Latin sclāvus (“slave”), from Late Latin Sclāvus (“Slav”), because Slavs were often forced into slavery in the Middle Ages

My version / hypothesis: the ancient Uralic people were in contact with the ancient Iranians through the ancient slave trade: perhaps the Turs were the suppliers of slaves (nomads in historical times were often engaged in the slave trade)

Kavi said...

I dont know but the slave trade is developed related to the times and regions we are talking about.

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

Talageri offers the following words in support of the great Druyhu migrations out of modern-day Afghanistan. The Druyhus never really got along with the rest of the Vedic clans and they left. They are barely mentioned in the Rig Veda and mostly in an inimical context.
Vedic Druhyu
Iranian Druj
Celtic Drui
Lithuanian Drugas and Russian Drug (meaning friend)
Gothic druigan (do military service) and ga-drauhts (soldier)
Old Nors/Icelandic drott
Old English dryht
Old German truhth
Modern
English troops (my addition, not mentioned by Talageri)
Vara wrote,

“Neither Asuras nor Daevas are Proto-Indo-European deities as both are an Indo-Iranian innovation.”
Be that as it may, here is list of gods compiled by Talageri. According to Kazanas, no more than 2 IE branches retain anything from the remote past two the EXCLUSION of the Vedic.

Dyaus Pitar (Vedic), Zeus Pater (Greek), Jupiter (Roman), Dei Patrous (Illyrian), Dievs (Baltic).
Uṣas (Vedic), Eos (Greek), Aurora (Roman), Aushrine (Baltic).
Varuṇa (Vedic), Odinn/Wodan (Germanic), Ouranous (Greek), Velinas (Baltic).
Asura (Vedic), Aesir (Germanic), Ahura (Avestan).
Marut (Vedic), Ares (Greek), Mars (Roman).
Parjanya (Vedic), Perkunas (Baltic), Perunu (Slavic), Fjorgyn (Germanic).
Traitana (Vedic), Thraetaona (Avestan), Triton (Greek).
Aryaman (Vedic), Airyaman (Avestan), Ariomanus/Eremon (Celtic).
Saramā/Sārameya (Vedic), Hermes (Greek).
Pūṣan, Paṇi (Vedic), Pan (Greek), Vanir (Germanic).
Rudra (Vedic), Ruglu (Slavic).
Danu (Vedic), Danu (Irish).
Indra (Vedic), Indra (Avestan), Inara (Hittite).
Śarvara (Vedic), Kerberos (Greek).
Śrī (Vedic), Ceres (Greek), Freyr/Freya (Germanic).
Bhaga (Vedic), Baga (Avestan), Bog (Slavic).
Apām Napāt (Vedic), Apām Napāt (Avestan), Neptunus (Roman), Nechtain (Celtic).
Ṛbhu (Vedic), Elbe (Germanic).
Yama (Vedic), Yima (Avestan), Ymir (Germanic).

Vara wrote,

“In both Vedas and Gathas cows are clearly metaphorical”

!!

There is overwhelming evidence of bos indicus migrations out of the Indian Continent.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-57880-4

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/age.12836#:~:text=Zebu%20cattle%20were%20domesticated%20in,the%20landmass%20of%20Afro%2DEurasia

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

Sorry,

"Be that as it may, here is list of gods compiled by Talageri. According to Kazanas, no more than 2 IE branches retain anything from the remote past two the EXCLUSION of the Vedic."

Should read

Be that as it may, here is a list of gods compiled by Talageri. According to Kazanas, no more than two IE branches retain anything from the remote past to the EXCLUSION of the Vedic branch.

Kavi said...

You have to know if Druj went to Europe via the Nomad Steppe (Iranian?) route or the Farmer Balkans (euro centum?) route? Otherwise it can be just a name resemblance.

Vara said...

" When, o Indra and Agni, you are among the Yadus, the Turvaśas, when among the Druhyus, the Anus, the Pūrus, from there, bulls—yes! drive here. Then drink of the pressed soma."
Druhyus worshipped Indra and Agni. Absolutely zero evidence of deity called Indra worshipped by the Celts.

Druhyu is a clan.
Druj means falsehood and is more likely related to draugr.
Druid means seer, sorcerer..etc.
Dryht means troops (masses?).

There is no archaeological support for a migration of Druhyus from Afghanistan to western Europe nor was Celtic even spoken at this supposed time. The only relationship these words have is they sound similar. Like I side a superficial hypothesis supported by dogmatic views.

Again you are only showing similarities between deities of different branches which has nothing to do with the term Deva or Asura. There are no deities called Mitra and Varuna outside of Indo-Iranian. Sharing functions with other Indo-European deities doesn't necessarily make them cognates. Indra is specifically Indo-Aryan or Indo-Nuristani based on the older Vrtraghan who replaced Dyaus sometimes before the Rigveda was composed, and has no relation with Inara.

"There is overwhelming evidence of bos indicus migrations out of the Indian Continent."

Duh obviously they had to know of cows to mention them in the Vedas?? Grey cows and red cows are obviously metaphorical.

Kavi said...

I dont know if you are responding to me or Mayuresh, ofcourse I personally dont agree with Talegeris main concepts, but Varuna is found outside IA as for instance Ouranous of the Latins.

Vrtrahan and Indra are not replacements for Dyaus. In Vedic Dyaus is just an older god who is not much mentioned, and Indra is a newer God but I dont think we can say it is a 'replacement'.

There is a misconception that conflates Indra ie Thunder-God with Dyaus in general but these two are quite different at the linguistic level, Dyaus Pater translates as Light Father and doenst have the warlike or thunder association that Indra does.

Vrtra is a demon and Vrtraghan is just an epithet of the demon-destroyer. That could be an epithet of Indra or a related development.

Initially all Vedic (IE) Gods were just linguistic concepts that made sense within the poetic constructions that their 'religion' was based on.

Celtic and other Euro Centum languages would of separated much earlier than Vedic imo as even those tribes mentioned in Vedic as collated by Talegeri are mostly just found close to Iranian and not so far spread out to the West. Tribes not mentioned by Talegeri, such as Danus and Dasa are actually found more integrated into Euro Centum branches than say Druhyu so I dont know why he focuses on them rather than the obvious connection of Danu and Danavas with Celtic and Greek Danus and Daneans.

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

Kavi wrote,

"I dont know if you are responding to me or Mayuresh"

I was not. Thank you.

Mayuresh

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

Response to Vara,

“There is no archaeological support for a migration of Druhyus from Afghanistan,”

Please google “Gundestrup Cauldron and Hindu and Celtic cultural links.

“Grey cows and red cows are obviously metaphorical.”

Do these look grey?


https://www.google.com/search?q=grey+cows+in+india&sxsrf=AJOqlzViBBBU6upPTRGAhFcCm8E61J-MEQ%3A1675608846647&ei=DsPfY42UJ42IptQPybKfuAk&ved=0ahUKEwiN09iw0f78AhUNhIkEHUnZB5cQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=grey+cows+in+india&gs_lcp=Cgxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAQAzIFCCEQqwIyCAghEBYQHhAdMggIIRAWEB4QHTIICCEQFhAeEB0yCAghEBYQHhAdMggIIRAWEB4QHTIICCEQFhAeEB0yCAghEBYQHhAdMgoIIRAWEB4QDxAdMgoIIRAWEB4QDxAdOgoIABBHENYEELADOgcIABCwAxBDOg0IABDkAhDWBBCwAxgBOgwILhDIAxCwAxBDGAI6BQgAEIAEOgUILhCABDoGCAAQFhAeOggIABAWEB4QDzoFCAAQhgM6CAgAEBYQHhAKOgUIIRCgAUoECEEYAEoECEYYAVCOB1iBFWDXFmgBcAF4AIABZogB6gWSAQM4LjGYAQCgAQHIAQ_AAQHaAQYIARABGAnaAQYIAhABGAg&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#imgrc=qPH64naqVOdxXM

do these look red?
https://butlerfarms.us/sindhi-cattle/

Kavi said...

@Mayuresh,

I have already given you a theory of OIT that is consistent with certain things (alot of the Iranian-Vedic connections) that Talegeri talks about.

Other than that I am not sure why you continue to bring up Talegeris specific ideas like Druhyu=Druids?

I think you should let go of Talegeri as any kind of authority and this specific Druhyu=Druid connection because it doesnt help anyones case or make any good arguments as it is just one name similarity and there is no way to connect Druhyu with Cauldrons.

Afaik the etmylogy of Druid is Dru-Vid ie Tree-Knowledge which is not even the same as DruHYU

Kavi said...

Uh so this Druvid thing got me thinking a bit more.

What about Dravid aka Dravidian, maybe it can also be derived from Druh or the same root as Druid.

A really interesting note is that Sinhaleses which is an IA language from Sri Lanka has the word Watura for Water. This is the same as Germanic and also Hittite. But no other IA language has that word. SO maybe there was more linguistic diversity in the NW with languages having the word Watura, and then that diversity is lost from this region but Watura is found both in the South (Sinhalese) and NW (Germanic/Hittite), having originated in the NW.

Maybe Brahui is a remnant of old Dravidian languages that existed (originated) in the NW maybe around Balochistan, from drift from IE, then Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis would then be a group from that region.

So there is expansion from NW South Asia that goes South as well as N and W.

Brahui cannot really be explained as recent movement from South to North, as the source language cannot easily be determined.

I know that for most people this would be a crazy idea. But there are so many deep associations from IE to other language groups, that it all points to deep contact b/w IE and other language groups, much like the Nostratic theory.

Another very widespread and important cognate is the root MLK. This appears as Milk, Malik (Semitic) and Mlechha (IA).

IA only has the use Mlechha, Semitic has the meaning associated with Malik, Hebrew melech (King) and many many widespread IE and non-IE languages have Milk as the drink.

→ Chuukese: minik
⇒ Gamilaraay: milambaraay
→ Gilbertese: miriki
→ Japanese: ミルク (miruku)
→ Korean: 밀크 (milkeu)
→ Lingala: míliki
→ Maori: miraka
→ Marshallese: milik
→ Volapük: milig
→ Yoruba: mílíìkì

So older expansion/contact/separation seems to have Milk as the drink, the next layer found in Semitic has the M-L-K something like a title, and then the final leftover seems to have innovated and derived the word as Mleccha ie outsider, probably to separate themselves from the M-L-K Semitic group.

Ofcourse Milk is the main product that would have been produced and traded by early Nomads. That may have been an identifer for nomads ancestral to Semitic, and then become a title to denote descent from nomads, referring to the ancient milk-producing acitivity of the tribes who became kings of the middle east.

Then in opposition, the IAs take it to mean the outsider, enemy, with bad speech ie drifted speech, as it became a term associated with those ancestral speakers of semitic.

I mean it is obvious that Mlechha is a cognate of Morrocco, and other MLK terms and these are found in a more positive sense in the middle east, being very widespread, but a negative sense in IA.

Kavi said...

Interesting linguistic study looks at older words across Eurasia and identifies ancient contacts and patterns consistent with Nostratic and what I am saying here.

Also, there is a group of Siberian reindeer herder nomads called Chuckchee which is quite close in name to Kutchi nomads that are found widespread from Gujarat to Afganistan.

They pretty much live the same lifestyle as Kutchi nomads further South.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2htihlZPC3w



Kavi said...

Ya true, it could be independant. But still there is some value them having such a similar lifestyle.

Honestly some of the YT videos of Asian nomads are quite interesting and fun to watch especially if you have been immersed in IE readings for many years. The chuckchee video had reinders pulling sleighs reminiscent of Nordic imagery. There is also an interesting short clip where the doc shows a 'light' sleigh, this would be the equivalent of light chariots.

I saw another one with a related group called the Kam. The two groups are referred to as Kam-Chuckchee. The Kam looked more West Eurasian in many ways and having more developed items, culture etc though that was just from 2 documentaries.

The names are interesting because Kam can also be related to Kamboj. It's possible local tribes could have assimilated into newer 'federations' and taken those names.

I mean we can look at dna if samples are available.

Rmt said...

Which method of evaluating IVC ancestry is more accurate the one that uses the lowest amount of AASI as the IVC sample or the one that uses 2 IVC samples of different AASI amounts?

vAsiSTha said...

qpAdm is the best for evaluating IVC ancestry. Can run it on all 10-11 indus periphery samples together or on each individually.

Rmt said...

If you were to pick a group/caste which closely represents the IVC poupulation which group/caste would you choose?

Rmt said...

Do you think that people similar to IVC people were there in the Kashmir neolithic sites?

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

Rmt,

You asked three questions in a row. I am going to ask YOU one for a change. Write your real full name including your given name, fathers name and your surname (last name). Thank you for you help.


Mayuresh M. Kelkar

Daniel de França MTd2 said...

@Vasistha, do you have an idea of when the Indo Aryans arrived in India? There's a friend of mine, an indologist, that claims a neolithic arrival, with a spread identical to Renfrew Colin's Anatolian theory (spread by farming), except that it was located in Iran. I think it was a bit later, with the appearance of urban societies in Mesopotamia and also of the silk road, where trade was the vehicle of spread.

vAsiSTha said...

Gujarati middle castes are closest to IVC.
Kashmir will be similar to iVC but with extra Tibetan ancestry.

@Daniel
Between 5000-3500bce via SC Asia.

Daniel de França MTd2 said...

@vasistha and Why not 2500BC for the lower bound and 6500BC for the upper bound?

vAsiSTha said...

Because SC Asian ancestry (carrying anatolian ancestry via Caucasus which only enters SC asia after 4500bce) is already found in Indus periphery samples by 3000bce.

Daniel de França MTd2 said...

@Vasistha that sound like Anatolian urhaimat theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolian_hypothesis , pay special attention to why it fell out of favor. This is the disperse map of it: https://monarchaphuman.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/unit-iii-language2.pdf

vAsiSTha said...

No, it's more like Armenia/north Iran theory of gamkrelidze/Ivanov and Krause. Although personally this or SC Asian PIE is the solution and I can't choose which one

Daniel de França MTd2 said...

@Vasistha the urhamat area is not so different in neither case. You still can have the Gamkrelidze and Ivanov theory with a slightly broader area, the difference is, though, the method of spread which would be through agriculture.

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

The Rigveda Chronology And The Indo European Homeland | Dr Aleksandr Semenenko | #sangamtalks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLnQ8eyG4gA

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar said...

I posted the following comment on the above video,

"Brilliant! On the genetic side the most ubiquitous branch of R1a-Z93 found in about 20% of R1a - Z93 carrying Indian males (so about 40 million) L657 never existed on the steppe and is not there even today. According to genetic modeler Ashish Kulkarni a single man carrying R1-Z93 migrated to the Indian Continent and was reproductively successful. His ancestors along the way developed the unique L657 branch in situ. For the curious, Kulkarni runs a genetic blog on the internet."

vAsiSTha said...

Thanks Mayuresh.