Indo-Europeans

The Genetic Origin of Indo-Europeans

I don't want you to think I understand this stuff much.  I read through and my eye lights upon parts that I completely get, while I search in a lot of the remainder for hooks to remember things by.  I thought I was pretty well up on the various deep tribes under discussion in Eurasia, such as Caucasian Hunter Gatherer (CHG) or Ancestral North Eurasian (ANE) or Early European Farmers (EEF) - (think Otzi in the Tyrolean Alps), but they have multiplied while I slept and I have to go back over each set of initials and what they mean and where they fit to even get to the next paragraph now.  The genetics is getting very granular now, at a level unimaginable even 20 years ago.

In the link above, the following comes in at page 27.  You have to squint, (clicking enlarges) but it shows how the Pre-Yamnaya were still pretty localised around the Lower Volga, but within a very few generations were found (and likely dominant) across a wide range. This is somewhat as predicted in David Anthony's The Horse, The Wheel, and Language, which we have discussed here before, but the evidence seemed to point more to the river valleys in Ukraine, the Dneistr and the Dneipr. This is a pretty big change, considering. When I was first studying this as an undergraduate there was still considerable opinion that the Urheimat of the Indo-Europeans was in Western Poland, and Pripet Marshes (Belarus) were considered a rather daringly eastern theory. Yet the truth was out there, as they say.

The origin and spread of the first speakers of Indo-Anatolian languages. Different terminologies exist to designate the linguistic relationship of Anatolian and Indo- European languages. The traditional view includes both within an “Indo-European” (IE) group in which Anatolian languages usually represent the first split. An alternative terminology, which we use here, names the entire linguistic group “Indo-Anatolian” (IA) and uses IE to refer to the set of related non-Anatolian languages such as Tocharian, Greek, Celtic, and Sanskrit. Dates between 4300-3500 BCE have been proposed for the time of IA split predating both the first attestation of the Hittite language in Central Anatolia (post-2000 BCE) and the expansion of the Yamnaya archaeological culture (post-3300 BCE). We identify the Yamnaya population as Proto-IE for several reasons... 

The genetics of the Corded Ware and Beaker cultures are increasingly confirmed as mostly Yamnaya. 

The Yamnaya culture stands as the unifying factor of all attested Indo-European languages. Yet, the homogeneity of the Yamnaya patrilineal community was formed out of the admixture of diverse ancestors, via proximal ancestors from the Dnipro and CLV clines (Fig. 2e). Yamnaya and Anatolians share ancestry from the CLV Cline (Fig. 2e,f), and thus, if the earliest IA language speakers shared any genetic ancestry at all—the possibility of an early transfer of language without admixture must not be discounted—then the CLV Cline is where this ancestry must have come from. 

Also, you might notice that the dates keep getting moved farther back.  Much farther than when I was an undergrad, but that has slowed considerably and there is now evidence from the other direction of dates which must simply be too early.  We are narrowing it down and getting more precise. One of the things that is significant about this is that it is a very large kick in the teeth to the Anatolian hypothesis of IE origin, and even the hybrid hypothesis. I noted the new evidence for the hybrid hypothesis less than a year ago, and only six weeks later was holding my hands up going "Wait a minute. It's not holding up very well already." Genetics really is moving things along in this field that quickly. We can now see more clearly when each group came in to ultimately create the group we called Yamnaya, and we increasingly treat the terms Indo-European and Yamnaya as identical.

The idea has been around and treated with some grudging respect for decades, as it is essentially the Kurgan Hypothesis which Marija Gimbutas set into order in the 1950s from earlier evidence. But because many wanted something else to be true (too long to discuss) and Gimbutas had added in a favorite fillip that proved unsustainable, that it had overrun an essentially peaceful and matriarchal society in Europe, so it was made to sit at the children's table for a long while. It is now the 800-lb gorilla in the room. 

The overrun society was also highly patriarchal and violent, just a notch less so than our utterly insane ancestors in the Branze and Eneolithic ages. There is an occasional grave of a high-status woman.

But in related news, it may not be that roving bands of young men proving their worth by genocidal raids with capture of women (Not child slaves so much.  Those are hard to transport over distance on land. Water works better.) that wiped out the farmers in place in Europe (and Central Asia, and the Indus Valley). According to Kristian Kristiansen (interview by Razib Khan), the Yamnaya also carried the plague.  And not a milder version that only created a moderate advantage, as was initially expected on the basis of Northern European and Scandinavian graves, but full on Black Death that wiped out 40% of the invaded, and as many as 10% of even the invaders themselves. Even they had only slight immunity. 

Disease is increasingly recognised as a huge factor in migration and population replacement. Multiple sclerosis seems to go back millennia, as it is an over-response of an immune system that was living with animals 24/7 on the Steppes, as opposed to daily but more limited contact of farmers, hunter-gatherers, and foragers. The immune system is looking for work, and without microbes, goes after its host.  Something similar is true of Cystic Fibrosis, which also turns out to be ancient.