Horses, apples and proto Indo European

After being (quite rightly, it seems) told off by one of my commenters after claiming proto Indo European was 9,000 years old and from Anatolia, I decided to spend a day doing some digging into the subject. Okay Maju; now I get why the Anatolian hypothesis and 9,000 year old date is lame.

Reason 1

First of all there’s the dating. The technologies that date PIE are the wheel, the axle and metal working terms that include gold and white metal (tin or silver). And this rather solidly sets the oldest possible date for PIE anywhere to be 5,500 years old. Anatolia 9,000 years ago is just right out, and I’m embarrassed now that I thought it was correct.

Reason 2

The appearance of the horse and apple, both domesticates from Kazakhstan that hadn’t spread very far by 5,500 years ago, and both are words in PIE. In fact, both domesticates seem to have expanded into Europe and Mesopotamia together, and share an arrival time in Persia with Indo European languages, at about 2,000 BC. The plum also originates from near the Caspian sea, and seems to follow a similar route.

Reason 3

A look at some of the other PIE words showed they had agriculture and a range of domesticated Anatolian/Iranian animals, which eliminates the Botai culture that seems to have domesticated the horse about 5,600 years or more. They had to be in an area about 5,000 to 5,500 years ago that had access to horse, apples and the wheel, and that area of overlap was pretty small, and it didn’t include anywhere West of the Black sea or further East than central Kazakhstan.

Reason 4

The expansion of the IE language group very closely matches the spread of the horse and the apple. IE arrives in Persia about 4,000 years ago, and so do the horse and apple. The arrival of the horse in the Takla Makan also ties with the arrival of the Indo European Tocharians, and it can be seen spreading into Europe, reaching the Mycenaeans about 3,700 years ago, also bringing the horse.

Reason 5

I took a good look at the terms describing the PIE homeland. There  are several words meaning sea, lake and shore, and several for mountain or hill. There are quite a few terms describing trees of various species; yew, beech, willow, birch, fir, ash, oak/hornbeam; all of these describe a fairly cool environment. There’s also a word for snow, and one for ice. Wherever they lived had big lake/seas and boats, as well as mountians. It also knew bears, wolves and and lions (lions used to be seen all through Eurasia and Africa).  There have been attempts to put words like monkey and elephant into PIE, but these seem to be Semitic loan words. Leopard however, may deserve a place, as these are found in mountainous areas in the Caspain/Black Sea area. The flora suggests somewhere cooler than Anatolia.

Reason 6

PIE shares some terms with both proto Semitic and proto Finno Ugric, suggesting it was geographically close to both at one time. The proto Semitic terms it shares are primarily agricultural, like bar (grain), tauro (bull) and waynu (wine), which suggests that the transmission of the words into PIE was pretty early. As a side issue, the placing of goats and sheep in proto Semitic makes an African origin for PS a bit unlikely; as does the transmission of PS words into PIE (which has never been near Africa).

Reason 7

The dates IE languages appear. They appear with the Tocharians 3,800 years ago, in Mycenae 3,700 years ago and in Persia about 4,000 years ago. This suggests a central distribution point somewhere just North of the area between the Black and Caspian seas, assuming the expansion moved at a roughly equal speed in all directions. However, it does narrow down the search area, and it seem to be unlikely to be  anywhere further West than the Black sea, or South of Iran. This likely area is also close to a proposed area for proto Finno- Ugric, the Volga area.

Dates for the appearance of Indo European languages at Mycenae, Takla Makan and Persia. The shaded area is my most likely area of origin solely from the dates and distances. Proto Indo Iranian is thought to date to 4,500 BP in the Northern part of Iran.

A slightly more southerly part of this area, the trans-Caucasus, would have been one of the first areas to have both the wheel and domesticated horses. They also had a mountainous terrain, and access to great quality arsenical copper.

Wheel/Horse area overlap at 5k ago shaded in blue.

This area is also mountainous; and home to willow, birch,yew and hornbeam trees. It even has a leopard native to it (suggested but not proven as a PIE word). The best match I can find for the flora is on the Black Sea coast of the trans-Caucasus area around Krasnodar, so pretty much the area that was picked for the Kurgan hypothesis, just slightly more into the mountainous areas to the South. I’m not  pro the steppes areas in the more Northern possible zone as a homeland, as these wouldn’t account for the plethora of sea/boating related terms, or the trees, or the mountains. These people had plenty of words for mountain and boating, and the steppes, by their nature, are flat, fairly treeless and not easy to sail on.

I’m not sure that the expansion was so much due to direct military conquests as the wheel and horse combo giving them the edge in many areas; agriculture, trade, war… you name it, the cart/chariot has a lot of uses. Wherever Indo Europeans arrive you see horses arrive at the same time.

So what I’m now looking for is a culture dating from 5,500 to 5,000 years ago in the North trans-Caucasian area. There are a few possibilities, but the Maykop culture fits the time and place and geographical/flora and fauna perfectly. I’m investigating them today. So far I haven’t had a good look at the genetic evidence dated to the era, but that’s next on the list of things to check.

I’ve learned a few other things researching this, mainly to do with proto Semitic. These are that:

• Proto Semitic wasn’t African in origin (I never thought it was, but it’s a nice confirmation), and seems to have radiated out from Anatolia/Iran with the Neolithic expansion, with PIE neighbours.
• That Elamite (extinct Semitic) is related to Dravidian.
• Languages can expand almost explosively, and can die out just as quickly.
• There’s probably a good reason for the Celtic langauges having an Afro Asiatic language structure, which has nothing to do with North Africa. It would seem quite possible that the first farmers who expanded into India and Europe all spoke an AfroAsiataic language, which was then swallowed by IE  (a mirror of what happened in India with Dravidian).

Not a bad day’s research..

Prehistoric origins of the paleo-Berbers and of the Tuaregs through Saharan rupestral art

Prehistoric origins of the paleo-Berbers and of the Tuaregs through Saharan rupestral art

A link to a translated page By Malik Hachid, a historian who specialises in North Africa and Berbers.

English  version.

French version.

Deep common ancestry of Indian and western-Eurasian mitochondrial DNA lineages

Deep common ancestry of Indian and western-Eurasian mitochondrial DNA lineages

About a fifth of the human gene pool belongs largely either to Indo-European or Dravidic speaking people inhabiting the Indian peninsula. The ‘Caucasoid share’ in their gene pool is thought to be related predominantly to the Indo-European speakers. A commonly held hypothesis, albeit not the only one, suggests a massive Indo-Aryan invasion to India some 4,000 years ago [1]. Recent limited analysis of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of Indian populations has been interpreted as supporting this concept [2,3]. Here, this interpretation is questioned. We found an extensive deep late Pleistocene genetic link between contemporary Europeans and Indians, provided by the mtDNA haplogroup U, which encompasses roughly a fifth of mtDNA lineages of both populations. Our estimate for this split is close to the suggested time for the peopling of Asia and the first expansion of anatomically modern humans in Eurasia [4–8] and likely pre-dates their spread to Europe. Only a small fraction of the ‘Caucasoid-specific’ mtDNA lineages found in Indian populations can be ascribed to a relatively recent admixture.

Not that I support an Indo European invasion at that date, anyway.

The Making of the African mtDNA Landscape

The Making of the African mtDNA Landscape

Africa presents the most complex genetic picture of any continent, with a time depth for mitochondrial DNA
(mtDNA) lineages 1100,000 years. The most recent widespread demographic shift within the continent was most probably the Bantu dispersals, which archaeological and linguistic evidence suggest originated in West Africa 3,000–4,000 years ago, spreading both east and south. Here, we have carried out a thorough phylogeographic analysis of mtDNA variation in a total of 2,847 samples from throughout the continent, including 307 new sequences from southeast African Bantu speakers. The results suggest that the southeast Bantu speakers have a composite origin on the maternal line of descent, with ~44% of lineages deriving from West Africa, ~21% from either West or Central Africa, ~30% from East Africa, and ~5% from southern African Khoisan-speaking groups. The ages of the major founder types of both West and East African origin are consistent with the likely timing of Bantu dispersals, with those from the west somewhat predating those from the east. Despite this composite picture, the southeastern African Bantu groups are indistinguishable from each other with respect to their mtDNA, suggesting that they either had a common origin at the point of entry into southeastern Africa or have undergone very extensive gene flow since.

An old paper from 2002 that I’m posting for reference while I’m hunting down info on L3a.

Paragroup L3A
We here define two previously unlabeled subclades of L3A, L3f, and L3g. The lineages remaining within L3* represent ~20% of all L3A types in Africa. Although they are distributed throughout the continent, they reach the highest frequencies in East Africa, where they account for about half of all types from this region. This frequency profile suggests an origin for L3 in East Africa (Watson et al. 1997). This is supported by the evidence that the out-of-Africa migration, which took place from a source in East Africa 60,000–80,000 years ago, gave rise only to L3 lineages outside Africa.

mtDNA Variation in the South African Kung and Khwe—and Their Genetic Relationships to Other African Populations

mtDNA Variation in the South African Kung and Khwe—and Their Genetic Relationships to Other African Populations

The mtDNA variation of 74 Khoisan-speaking individuals (Kung and Khwe) from Schmidtsdrift, in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, was examined by high-resolution RFLP analysis and control region (CR) sequencing. The resulting data were combined with published RFLP haplotype and CR sequence data from sub-Saharan African populations and then were subjected to phylogenetic analysis to deduce the evolutionary relationships among them. More than 77% of the Kung and Khwe mtDNA samples were found to belong to the major mtDNA lineage, macrohaplogroup L* (defined by a HpaI site at nucleotide position 3592), which is prevalent in sub-Saharan African populations. Additional sets of RFLPs subdivided macrohaplogroup L* into two extended haplogroups—L1 and L2—both of which appeared in the Kung and Khwe. Besides revealing the significant substructure of macrohaplogroup L* in African populations, these data showed that the Biaka Pygmies have one of the most ancient RFLP sublineages observed in African mtDNA and, thus, that they could represent one of the oldest human populations. In addition, the Kung exhibited a set of related haplotypes that were positioned closest to the root of the human mtDNA phylogeny, suggesting that they, too, represent one of the most ancient African populations. Comparison of Kung and Khwe CR sequences with those from other African populations confirmed the genetic association of the Kung with other Khoisan-speaking peoples, whereas the Khwe were more closely linked to non–Khoisan-speaking (Bantu) populations. Finally, the overall sequence divergence of 214 African RFLP haplotypes defined in both this and an earlier study was 0.364%, giving an estimated age, for all African mtDNAs, of 125,500–165,500 years before the present, a date that is concordant with all previous estimates derived from mtDNA and other genetic data, for the time of origin of modern humans in Africa.

I’m going through a lot of DNA studies atthe moment looking for evidence of M1 and M. Apparently one  HG, L3a, seems closely related to it, as L3a is the precursor to M.

The Asian mtDNA phylogeny is subdivided into two macrohaplogroups, one of which is M. M is delineated by a DdeI site at np 10394 and an AluI site of np 10397. The only African mtDNA found to have both of these sites is the Senegalese haplotype AF24. This haplotype branches off African subhaplogroup L3a (figs.2 and3), suggesting that haplogroup M mtDNAs might have been derived from this African mtDNA lineage; however, it is also possible that this particular haplotype is present in Africa because of back-migration from Asia.

I was entertained to see someone was using this to claim M1 was African in origin on another site.. leaving out the inconvenient back-migration from Asia at the end of the quote. Since M itself seems absent in Africa, and M1 traces the path of U in North and East Africa pretty closely, it’s now pretty much a done deal that M1 arrived in North Africa from West Asia. The real mystery is the lack of L3 and M in India, but the Toba eruption could easily have caused a wipe out across India that erased the first immigrants there. I’d like to observe that this L3a seems to have followed the North African population movements that curved southwards down into the West coast of Africa, so I think that its from the back migration may be possible, or at least dating to the expansion from upper Egypt about 24k ago with a origin from the Nile area. I shall have a dig into L3a distribution, something I should have done a while ago.

Most of the extant mtDNA boundaries in South and Southwest Asia were likely shaped during the initial settlement of Eurasia by anatomically modern humans

Most of the extant mtDNA boundaries in South and Southwest Asia were likely shaped during the initial settlement of Eurasia by anatomically modern humans

Recent advances in the understanding of the maternal and paternal heritage of southand southwest Asian populations have highlighted their role in the colonization of Eurasia byanatomically modern humans. Further understanding requires a deeper insight into the topology ofthe branches of the Indian mtDNA phylogenetic tree, which should be contextualized within thephylogeography of the neighboring regional mtDNA variation. Accordingly, we have analyzedmtDNA control and coding region variation in 796 Indian (including both tribal and castepopulations from different parts of India) and 436 Iranian mtDNAs.

 The results were integratedand analyzed together with published data from South, Southeast Asia and West Eurasia.Results: Four new Indian-specific haplogroup M sub-clades were defined. These, in combinationwith two previously described haplogroups, encompass approximately one third of the haplogroupM mtDNAs in India. Their phylogeography and spread among different linguistic phyla and socialstrata was investigated in detail. Furthermore, the analysis of the Iranian mtDNA pool revealedpatterns of limited reciprocal gene flow between Iran and the Indian sub-continent and allowed theidentification of different assemblies of shared mtDNA sub-clades.

Conclusions: Since the initial peopling of South and West Asia by anatomically modern humans,when this region may well have provided the initial settlers who colonized much of the rest ofEurasia, the gene flow in and out of India of the maternally transmitted mtDNA has been surprisingly limited. Specifically, our analysis of the mtDNA haplogroups, which are shared betweenIndian and Iranian populations and exhibit coalescence ages corresponding to around the earlyUpper Paleolithic, indicates that they are present in India largely as Indian-specific sub-lineages. Incontrast, other ancient Indian-specific variants of M and R are very rare outside the sub-continent

   

Click to enlarge all images.

The quest for finding the origin of haplogroup M and a plausible scenario for the peopling of Eurasia.

Based on the high frequency and diversity of haplogroupM in India and elsewhere in Asia, some authors have suggested (versus [3]) that M may have arisen in SouthwestAsia [16,17,31]. Finding M1 or a lineage ancestral to M1 in India, could help to explain the presence of M1 inAfrica as a result of a back migration from India. Yet, to date this has not been achieved [15], this study). Therefore, one cannot rule out the still most parsimonious scenario that haplogroup M arose in East Africa [3].Furthermore, the lack of L3 lineages other than M and N(indeed, L3M and L3N) in India is more consistent withthe African launch of haplogroup M. On the other hand,one also observes that: i) M1 is the only variant of haplo-group M found in Africa; ii) M1 has a fairly restricted phy-logeography in Africa, barely penetrating into sub-Saharan populations, being found predominantly inassociation with the Afro-Asiatic linguistic phylum – afinding that appears to be inconsistent with the distribu-tion of sub-clades of haplogroups L3 and L2 that havesimilar time depths. That, plus the presence of M1 without accompanying L lineages in the Caucasus [32] and [ourunpublished data], leaves the question about the origin of haplogroup M still open.

The paper gives the age of M2 at about 70k, with 21k either way.  Reading through it there seems to be more of a case for M appearing in the Arabian area, the same for the later M1 and U. Call me mad but I think the absence of M in general could be down to the Toba eruption, which must have had some serious impact in South Asia as it put down ash 2m thick all over India.

A study of the L1c haplogroup of the mitochondrial DNA

A study of the L1c haplogroup of the mitochondrial DNA.
page 7

In this communication, we present a study of the human mitochondrial haplogroup L1c which has been carried out on a total of 455 individuals from 27 African and American populations using both hypervariable regions 1 and 2. The results obtained lead us to draw three main conclusions. First, the time to the L1c most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) has been estimated as 90,000 ± 13,000 YBP, substantially older than the previous estimate (59,650 ± 11,800) and in agreement with archaeological dating. Second, we observed that L1c frequencies reach very high values in Western Pygmies populations (from 86% to 98%), hunter-gatherers supposed to be the most ancient inhabitants of this area. Third and finally, the median networks built using our dataset change the phylogeny of the entire haplogroup. In fact, we present a substantially modified structure for the sub-haplogroups L1c1 and L1c3 and identify a new clade, L1c4 which contains mostly sequences from Pygmies.

Taking into consideration the L1c phylogeographic features together with archaeological knowledge, we propose that the hunter-gatherers communities living in Central Africa at least 40,000 YBP could be the ancestors of both Bantu and Western Pygmy populations. These two groups could have separated later on, because of the cycles of expansion and fragmentation of the forest environment occurred till 12,000 YBP. As the next step of this research, we will sequence the complete mtDNA genome in order to test the robustness of the new phylogeny.

Nice to see an older date for this.

Who made the early Aurignacian? The dental evidence.

Who made the early Aurignacian? Evidence from isolated teeth.

Page 5

S.E. Bailey. Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig), Department of
Anthropology, New York University.

Neandertals and anatomically modern humans overlapped in Europe between 45- and 30,000 BP. Unfortunately, the human fossil record during this important time period is sparse. What is preserved is fragmentary and consists primarily of jaws and isolated teeth. This has led some to question whether we can determine if Neandertals or anatomically modern humans were responsible for the early Aurignacian. The goals of this study were, first, to investigate whether root lengths can help differentiate these two taxa; and second, to combine these data with tooth crown traits to assess the taxonomic affiliation of isolated teeth from two early Aurignacian sites (Brassempouy and La Ferrassie).

Root lengths were measured from the lingual aspect of permanent teeth of Neandertals (maximum n=15) and Upper Paleolithic modern humans (maximum n=10). The student’s t-test showed that the mean root lengths of I1, I2, C’, I1, I2, C, P3, P4 and M2 were significantly longer in Neandertals than in Upper Paleolithic moderns (p<0.05), with no overlap in the ranges of I1, I1, C’, and P4. At Brassempouy, the root lengths of the two I1s, C’ and M2 fall more than three standard deviations below the Neandertal mean. Likewise, the single I1 from Le Ferrassie possesses a root that is too short to be considered Neandertal. Additionally, the tooth crowns at both Brassempouy and La Ferrassie lack any diagnostically Neandertal traits. Thus, the preponderance of dental evidence suggests that anatomically modern humans, not Neandertals, are associated with these early Aurignacian sites.

And also by the same author… 

Who made the Early Aurignacian? A Reconsideration of the Brassempouy Dental Remains

The dental human remains from the early Aurignacian layers of Brassempouy (Landes) have been recently described by Henry-Gambier et al. (2004). We provide a critical re-assessment of the features that have led these authors to conclude that the taxonomic status of these fossils is uncertain. Although the works of one of us (S.B.) have been partly used and cited by Henry-Gambier et al. (2004), we disagree with the conclusions that have been drawn from them. In our view and based on the available evidence, the early Aurignacian dental remains from Brassempouy are unambiguously modern in their anatomy. They indeed provide further evidence that the makers of the ancient Aurignacian were early anatomically modern Europeans.

 The second link contains a more complete article.I’ll refrain from mentioning that if the remains are so similar at times that they can only be categorised as one or the other with difficulty.. surely this would suggest some overlap between the two genetically as well as physically.

Relatedness of Eurasian and American Far Northern populations to the Amerindians: HLA genes and linguistics

Relatedness of Eurasian and American Far Northern populations to the Amerindians: HLA genes and linguistics

Page 31

A. Arnaiz-Villena and M.H. Crawford., Dept. of Immunology, University Complutense, Madrid, Spain and Dep. of Anthropology, University of Kansas, Lawrence.
The tripartite theory for the peopling of the Americas is supported by this study of approximately 15,000 HLA  chromosomes from a worldwide sample. On the basis of the HLA system, it is remarkable that Meso- and South American Amerindians appear to be more closely related to Siberian populations but differ significantly from the Athabaskans and Eskimo-Aleuts. The Aleuts exhibit a high frequency HLADRB1* 0401 and *1402. Both subtypes are absent in neighboring Athabascans or in any other North American First Native populations. A similar pattern is observed for HLA-A* 02 subtypes with * 0206 being frequent in Aleuts but infrequent or absent in other North American populations. The most common extended HLA haplotype in Aleuts, HLA-A* 2402-B* 4002 – DRB1*1402 and DQB1*0301, was absent in ancient North Americans. This study assesses the relationship of genetics and languages of Far Northern European groups and evaluates their potential role in the peopling of the Americas. It is unexpected that our genetic HLA data clusters Andean populations with South Asians, raising questions concerning the reliability and consistency of specific markers in the reconstruction of human evolution. NaDene and Caucasian language groups may have formed an earlier substratum on which other more recent languages evolved in Eurasia and the Americas. The unique frequencies of the HLA haplotypes support the mtDNA sequence- based reconstruction of the phylogenetic position of the Aleuts vis a vis other populations of the Circumpolar region of the world.

Okay, so it’s by Arnaiz-Villena and it’s an HLA study. I think by ’specific markers’ he’s referring to mt/y DNA. Some  more supporting genetic evidence for the Australoid colonisation of South America.

Ancient Jomon DNA from Hokkaido

Mitochondrial DNA analysis of the Jomon and Epi-Jomon individuals in Hokkaido, Japan.

American Journal of Physical Anthropology doi: 10.1002/ajpa.20923

N. Adachi1, K. Shinoda2, K. Umetsu3, Y. Dodo1. 1Department of Anatomy and Anthropology, Tohoku University School of
Medicine, 2Department of Anthropology, National Science Museum, Tokyo, 3Department of Experimental and Forensic
Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Yamagata University.

From the morphological point of view, prehistoric populations in Hokkaido are considered to have been least influenced by Yayoi immigrants. Therefore, genetic study of these people can be expected to provide important information on the genealogy of the early settlers of the Japanese archipelago. In the present study, we examined the genealogy of the seventy-six Jomon and Epi-Jomon skeletons excavated in Hokkaido, Japan by mitochondrial DNA analysis. To identify their genealogy securely, we analyzed the coding region of mtDNA by using amplified product-length polymorphisms (Umetsu et al., 2001, 2005) and direct sequencing. We also sequenced the segments of two hypervariable regions of mtDNA, and  assigned the mtDNA under study to relevant haplogroups using the known mtDNA databases.

Haplogroups D4, G1, M7a, and N9b were observed in the individuals, and N9b was by far the most predominant. The requencies of the haplogroups were quite different from any modern populations including Ainu and Okinawans. Haplogroup N9b is hitherto observed almost only in Japanese populations; therefore, this  haplogroup might be the (pre-) Jomon contribution to the modern Japanese mtDNA pool.

I’m looking for something on this journal summary, so I’ll be posting a lot of abtracts from it today.More on ancient Jomon DNA.

Mitochondrial DNA analysis of Jomon skeletons from the Funadomari site, Hokkaido, and its implication for the origins of Native American 
 
Ancient DNA recovered from 16 Jomon skeletons excavated from Funadomari site, Hokkaido, Japan was analyzed to elucidate the genealogy of the early settlers of the Japanese archipelago. Both the control and coding regions of their mitochondrial DNA were analyzed in detail, and we could securely assign 14 mtDNAs to relevant haplogroups. Haplogroups D1a, M7a, and N9b were observed in these individuals, and N9b was by far the most predominant. The fact that haplogroups N9b and M7a were observed in Hokkaido Jomons bore out the hypothesis that these haplogroups are the (pre-) Jomon contribution to the modern Japanese mtDNA pool. Moreover, the fact that Hokkaido Jomons shared haplogroup D1 with Native Americans validates the hypothesized genetic affinity of the Jomon people to Native Americans, providing direct evidence for the genetic relationships between these populations. However, probably due to the small sample size or close consanguinity among the members of the site, the frequencies of the haplogroups in Funadomari skeletons were quite different from any modern populations, including Hokkaido Ainu, who have been regarded as the direct descendant of the Hokkaido Jomon people. It appears that the genetic study of ancient populations in northern part of Japan brings important information to the understanding of human migration in northeast Asia and America.