Bell Beakers, Gimbutas and R1b

[TigerMW]

Where are we finding R1b-L51 (xL151) and R1b-L51>L151 (xP312 xU106) ancient DNA? They may still be the "missing link(s)" even with all of the new data. I was afraid of that, but hopefully our analysts can figure it out.

I'm posting this hear because some of the other threads on the new papers are each specific to their own threads and because this really is an R1b focus posting.

Let's get through the alphabet soup of SNPs. The two primary branches that we are looking at are:

R1b-L51 phylogenetic equivalent block:
L51/M412/PF6536/S167, CTS8595/YSC0001291

R1b-L151 phylogenetic equivalent block:
L151/PF6542, CTS7650/FGC44/PF6544/S1164, L11/S27, L52/PF6541, P310/PF6546/S129, P311/PF6545/S128, PF6540/YSC0000082, PF6543/S1159/YSC0000191

R1b-L51 is a brother branch to R1b-Z2103, both descending from the R1b-M269>L23 Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA). Z2103 is a proven Yamnaya proper predominant haplogroup.

L151 descends from L51. I'm using the SNP L151 now because it is consistently used as the lead SNP by ISOGG and FTDNA. See above for other equivalents and synonyms.

The missing links are R1b-L51 (xL151) and R1b-L151 (xP312 xU106). P312/S116 and U106/M405 are the super subclades that dominate western and central Europe today. They descend directly from L151.

Here's what I've seen so far. What am I missing?

RISE564.SG 2500-2000 BCE Bell_Beaker_Germany.SG Osterhofen-Altenmarkt R1b1a1a2a1 > L51
RISE566.SG 2279-2033 calBCE Bell_Beaker_Czech.SG Knezeves R1b1a1a2a1a > P310
RISE471.SG 1691-1519 calBCE Germany_Bronze_Age.SG Untermeitingen R1b1a1a2a1a > P310
I1388 BB_Southern_France R1b1a1a2a1a > L151
I1381 BB_Central_Europe/France R1b1a1a2a1a > L151
I2416 BB_Britain/Great Britain R1b1a1a2a1a > P310
I3588 BB_Central_Europe/Germany R1b1a1a2a1a > P310
I4132 BB_Central_Europe/Germany R1b1a1a2a1a > L52
I2618 England_EBA/Great Britain R1b1a1a2a1a > L151

We know the scientists are trying to call P312/S116 and U106/M405 so the ancestral versus no call decisions need to be made for the above.

There is not a lot above to go on. Germany stands out of course. The most easterly result is from central Czech Rep, near Prague.

Really, R1b-L51* and R1b-L151* are still a huge, huge question marks. I've always had a decision point in my thinking related to:

1) R1b-L151 originating east of the Carpathian Mountains so U106 could go north and P312 south

2) R1b-L151 originating west of the Carpathian Mountains so U106 could expand north/northwest and P312 south/southwest/northwest and maybe north too

3a and 3b) R1b-L151 originates en-route to central Europe either on the north or south side.

Options 3a and 3b may be almost impossible to determine since we are talking about very few individuals and this would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

In that sense, I give up on 3a and 3b until there is some ancient DNA find of L151 further east than it is found today.

That leaves options 1 and 2 as the early expansions of R1b-L151. I think today I lean towards option 2, L151 originating west of the easterly ridge of the Carpathian Mountains. This makes the Carpathian Basin a good suspect as well as the southwesterly extremes of Corded Ware, both in the Bell Beaker contact zone. This does not contradict U106 being found later in Germanic speakers as David Anythony thinks Yamnaya from the Carpathian Basin moved into what was or would be southern Corded Wares lands. We also now have U106 in Bell Beaker in the Netherlands. All of this aligns with Steppe ancestry found in R1b-L151 types to the west and Centum IE languages all over western and central Europe.

[Finn]

T
It sounds as if Bell Beaker's biggest impact in Denmark was merely on Single Grave culture pottery styles.



That's in the Netherlands also the case!

[Finn]

It sounds as if Bell Beaker's biggest impact in Denmark was merely on Single Grave culture pottery styles.

I wonder how many Bell Beaker burials have actually been found in Denmark.

See this!
http://rjh.ub.rug.nl/Palaeohistoria/article/view/24978

[ADW_1981]

It looks like my father's I2* mtDNA line has been in SW England (Boscombe Airfield, Wiltshire) since the Early Bronze Age (1700 BC) and on a R1b-L51 guy. Sample #I2464. I don't believe this is far from the location of his MDKA....

[JohnHowellsTyrfro]

I'm guessing the importance of the beakers, and, clearly, they were important, since elite males were buried with them, had to do with the religious significance of drinking mead or beer or whatever it was. At one time, the French philologist Georges Dumézil proposed the existence of a common Indo-European sacred drink myth that he called the "ambrosia cycle". In it, a man tried to steal from the gods a sacred drink that made its drinkers immortal. The thief failed, humans remained mortal, and the gods kept the ambrosia of immortality for themselves (see Mallory et al, Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, pp. 493-496).

Probably something like that was central to the kurgan BB religion, thus the prominence of the beakers.

Maybe if you had the right cup, the gods gave you a drink of ambrosia when you got to the other side.

As a definite non-expert, I have wondered about why pots appear to have had a particular form for a long period - were there technical limitations on how they could be manufactured, i.e. you can have any colour as long as it is black. Given that people generally like to be creative and seek variety I have thought there had to be some reason, like the inability to produce something different which was as practical or as you say that particular form had some sort of deeper significance. John

[TigerMW]

This is probably a good time to look at how the Beaker Package evolved now that the scientists are saying that the Beaker cultures in early southwestern Europe moved eastward more as an expression of ideas than large numbers of people.

"When the West Meets the East: The Eastern Periphery of the Bell Beaker Phenomenon and Its Relation with the Aegean Early Bronze Age", Volker Heyd, 2008


It speaks in favour of the internationality of the third millennium BC and particularly its third quarter – when as an antipode to the East Mediterranean the ‘international spirit’ so neatly described by Colin Renfrew arrives at its climax and the Bell Beaker phenomenon strives for its widest expansion – that two worlds so different from each other meet, whereby the West is representing the past of ideologies just expiring, while the Early Bronze Age of the southeast is about to seize Europe shaping its history as it goes on.


The Early Bronze Age of the southeast is the winner according to Heyd. We have to question how the northerly Corded Wares plays into this as it did impact NW Europe, but in any case a great expansion emanated from the east.

I find the following points on development of this new and apparently very successful Beaker Package fascinating, particularly the value of foreign objects/knowledge, and the archery versus the hand axe.

"The Transformation of Europe in the Third Millennium BC: the example of ‘Le Petit-Chasseur I + III’ (Sion, Valais, Switzerland)", Richard Harrison and Volker Heyd.


This expansion of the Beaker idea to the east creates a momentum that results in the second transformation of Europe, around 2500 BC. This process took place
rapidly, reaching southern France in the 26th century BC (Lemercier 2004), then arriving in central Europe, and the Csepel group of the Carpathian basin, around 2500 BC...
The ‘Beaker Package’ is fully developed by 2500 BC...

1. The first point is that distance imparts value to ideas and things, so the international scale of the Beaker networks can be understood as a system created to give power to knowledge from distant parts. The individual objects need not, in themselves, be intrinsically valuable, since it is sufficient that knowledge or craft secrets attached to them are valued.

2. The second is the systematic creation of additional identities (or social positions) for people to acquire, materialized especially by dress and seen in the ‘ancestor walls’ at Sion and Aosta

3. The third is the warrior self-consciousness. H. Case (2004, 29) noted this when he suggested that the bow and arrow was deliberately chosen as a status object for men....
creates a deliberate contrast to earlier styles of combat, which used hafted axes and daggers, for close hand-to-hand fighting. Archery allows the warrior to fight at a distance, even from horseback, and he can choose to kill from thirty metres, or be concealed from view. This is antithetical to a code of honour based on individual combat where rivals face each other two metres apart.

4. The fourth is a specific female counterpart to the male warrior, shown in life on the Sion stelae, and in death in the female Beaker graves. It should be noted that this might be an element added outside Iberia.

5. The fifth is a specific religious expression linked to sun worship... Stela No. 1 from Sion actually depicts a rising sun, and thousands of Beaker graves in the East Group place the dead so each one faced eastwards towards the sunrise.

[rms2]

Sun worship was evidently an Indo-European trait, at least according to Gimbutas. The great sky god of the Indo-Europeans was basically the sun, Dyaus Piter, the "Shining Father" (easy to see in the Roman Jupiter).

[Dewsloth]

Sun worship was evidently an Indo-European trait, at least according to Gimbutas. The great sky god of the Indo-Europeans was basically the sun, Dyaus Piter, the "Shining Father" (easy to see in the Roman Jupiter).

And Dyaus > Zeus?

[Finn]

When R1b U106/S21 was already in Europe during Corded Ware Sweden and late Bell Beaker Holland and with al those researches that point more and more to Steppe influences than, with a look trough the eyelashes on the R1b U106/S21 map, is Central Europe, Moravia, the cradle?

http://i65.tinypic.com/k17ucl.jpg

The offspring R1b-Z18 could looks like from the same central European area, but looks a more Nordic Bronze Age (Elp-culture) marker. So a few waves later?

[rms2]

And Dyaus > Zeus?

Always looked like it to me, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that the two were not actually the same. Could be misremembering though.

[rms2]

Anybody notice the two R1bs in Corded Ware in the Genomic History of SE Europe spreadsheet?

They are RISE436 from Germany, and RISE431 from Poland. With RISE1 from Poland, that makes three R1bs in Corded Ware thus far that I know about.

I know RISE1 has been disputed, since evidently he is derived for L1345, I believe, and no other supporting SNPs. I don't know the situation with the other two. RISE436 is listed as R1b1, and RISE431 is listed as R1b1a, so evidently they did not get a lot of y-dna coverage.

[rms2]

Anybody notice the two R1bs in Corded Ware in the Genomic History of SE Europe paper spreadsheet?

They are RISE436 from Germany and RISE431 from Poland. With RISE1 from Poland, that makes three R1bs in Corded Ware thus far that I know about.

I know RISE1 has been disputed, since evidently he is derived for L1345, I believe, and no other supporting SNPs. I don't know the situation with the other two. RISE436 is listed as R1b1, and RISE431 is listed as R1b1a, so evidently they did not get a lot of y-dna coverage.

[TigerMW]

Anybody notice the two R1bs in Corded Ware in the Genomic History of SE Europe paper spreadsheet?

They are RISE436 from Germany and RISE431 from Poland. With RISE1 from Poland, that makes three R1bs in Corded Ware thus far that I know about.

I know RISE1 has been disputed, since evidently he is derived for L1345, I believe, and no other supporting SNPs. I don't know the situation with the other two. RISE436 is listed as R1b1, and RISE431 is listed as R1b1a, so evidently they did not get a lot of y-dna coverage.

There is a lot of cross discussion in the ancient DNA threads so I want to catalog some of the R1b-Bell Beaker related stuff here.

The overlapping zones of the East Bell Beakers and Corded Wares needs to be better understood even if there was no direct transmission of R1b-L51 from one to the other, whichever direction. The interaction of the various regional Bell Beaker groups and Corded Wares left tremendous impact on Central Europe which apparently then spilled west, northwest, north, south and southwest.

One area of great overlap and potential mixing between East Bell Beakers and Epi-Corded Wares is corridor of Eastern Czech Rep. across into Southern Poland. This includes the Moravian River which dumps into the Middle Danube near the intersection of Austria, Slovakia and Hungary. North and east this spreads between the gap in the Sudeten and Carpathian Mountains along the headwaters of the Oder River then to the banks of Upper Vistula River in Poland.

From the "The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age", Hardings and Fokkens, p.817.

Several streams of external influence arrive in the Carpathian Basin at the start of the Bronze Age. For Transdanubia, the Somogyvar-Vinkovci culture from the north and north-western Balkan area was the most important. In southern and north-western Transdanubia these influencers manifested themselves by specific regional and chronological differences. Excavations here indicate dispersed short-lived open settlement rarely with any indication of differentiated internal structure, as at Pecs-Nagyarpad. A few fortified settlements with multiple ditches on defensible hills (e.g. Nagyborbo) have been found. Post-built or semi-subterranean houses of various sized occur. Sporadic graves have varying funeral rites; usually inhumations, less often urned cremations. Some graves are in mounds, some are flat, some have a stone packing. The number of rich grave goods, common in the south, decreases as one goes northwards (Kulcsar 2009). In south-west Slovakia and in west-central Slovakia this Bz Ao phase is only sporadicaly known from graves (e.g. Caka: Batora, Markova, and Vladar 2003: Abb. 5,6).

From the west the Bell Beaker culture came through southern Moravia to the outer Carpathian part of Slovakia in Bz Ao. The culture here is represented by the limited occurrence of inhumation graves in Beaker settlement pits (Skalica). The Bell Beaker culture probably came down the Danube to the Budapest area (Budapest-Albertfalva), where it is known as the Csepel group (Endroid 2003). These cremation graves are rare. Recently more extensive riverbank settlements with typical boat-shaped buildings and pits with ritual connotations have been discovered. The wider occurrence of accompanying material in the Carpathian part of Slovakia is supposed to be connected with the Csepel group (Batora, Markova, and Vladar 2003), where it participates in further development during the Early Bronze Age, as in western Europe.

Western Slovakia was affected by the expansion of the Corded Ware culture from the north-west. The expansion of groups of the epi-Corded complex from Little Poland through Moravia led to adjoining south-west Slovakia. These groups did not penetrate far southwards into Transdanubia. The cultural borderline they formed remained through the rest of the Early Bronze Age. The oldest of them, the Chlopice-Vesele culture date to Bz Ao, is known predominately from flat inhumation graves in south-west Slovakia (Vesele). Settlement finds are very rare. Copper-wire artefacts and willow-leaf ornaments are found; the origin of the shape is be sought in the Caucasus region and is characteristic for the whole epi-Corded cultural complex.

In south-western Slovakia, as far as the Vah river, these components of the Chlopice-Vesele, Mako-Kosihy-Caka, and Bell Beaker cultures led to the appearance of the Nitra culture in Bz A1, known also in Moravia.

By the way, I still haven't found the date range for "Bz Ao". It appears to be very early Bronze Age.

Heyd has a related article that he wrote without Harrison. He really focuses on the East Bell Beaker groups and variations. He also does a nice regional break down of Corded Wares.

"Families, Prestige Goods, Warriors and Complex Societies: Beaker Groups of the 3rd Millennium cal BC Along the Upper and Middle Danube", Heyd.
https://www.academia.edu/1249549/_2007_V._Heyd_Families_Prestige_Goods_Warriors_and _Complex_Societies_Beaker_Groups_of_the_3rd_Millen nium_cal_BC_along_the_Upper_and_Middle_Danube._Pro ceedings_of_the_Prehistoric_Society_73_2007_p._321-370

One of the charts that has been developed and produced from several folks' work is this one.

http://aegeobalkanprehistory.net/openimg.php?id_img=123#

Mitchell has nicely put this into a format where you can see the modern political boundaries.
Purple = East Bell Beakers
White = Epi-Corded Wares (ESKK)
Red = overlap

http://www.anthrogenica.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=15894&d=1494651402

[rms2]

Isn't it nice to have a paper like Olalde et al's Big Bell Beaker Behemoth or Big Bell Beaker Monster Extravaganza?

If you have British and/or Irish ancestry and you are L21, it is very likely you are descended from Bell Beaker people. How cool is that?

Very cool, IMHO.

[TigerMW]

Isn't it nice to have a paper like Olalde et al's Big Bell Beaker Behemoth or Big Bell Beaker Monster Extravaganza?

If you have British and/or Irish ancestry and you are L21, it is very likely you are descended from Bell Beaker people. How cool is that?

Very cool, IMHO.

Yes, indeed. I felt comfortable enough with the findings to add Bell Beakers to the R1b-L21 "big picture" Descendants Tree on the R-L21 project overview page. It's hard to argue with now.

https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/r-l21/about

What do you think about adding a second big underlying cloud, Celtic, beneath it age wise? I don't know. There area couple of Nordic L21 types that have been there a long time. We could probably say Iberian L21 is Celtiberian or later. It may be too early for such a broad stroke.

[rms2]

Yes, indeed. I felt comfortable enough with the findings to add Bell Beakers to the R1b-L21 "big picture" Descendants Tree on the R-L21 project overview page. It's hard to argue with now.

https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/r-l21/about

What do you think about adding a second big underlying cloud, Celtic, beneath it age wise? I don't know. There area couple of Nordic L21 types that have been there a long time. We could probably say Iberian L21 is Celtiberian or later. It may be too early for such a broad stroke.

Wow! That looks great!

I don't know about adding Celtic though. That may bring trouble down on your head from people who won't like it.

The way you have it now looks really great.

[ffoucart]

I don't think that Bell Beakers or l21 should be considered as "Celtic". For all we know, BBs spoke an IE language, but probably not Proto-Celtic.

If you want to connect a culture to Celts, it would be better to connect them to the Hallstatt Culture.

[vettor]

I don't think that Bell Beakers or l21 should be considered as "Celtic". For all we know, BBs spoke an IE language, but probably not Proto-Celtic.

If you want to connect a culture to Celts, it would be better to connect them to the Hallstatt Culture.

Since La Tene and Halstatt came from Gallic/Celts from central and southern Germany , where a large part of BB came from , How did you make this connection?

What part does the "royal" capital of the gallic-celts play in this BB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glauberg

[castle3]

I'd like to congratulate Dr Jim Wilson as he predicted much of what was published recently. Fantastic to have a geneticist of his ability to turn to.

[Kanenas]

I won't say anything about my views. But it would be nice if we had Y-DNA from Lepontians (from Lugano etc), and from cultures that we definitely know what language they spoke in general (with inscriptions).

[ffoucart]

Well, BB culture as such disappeared around 1900 BC, and was succeeded by different cultures.
The Hallstatt culture is the first culture which showed archeological characteristics connected to Celtic culture. By the way, Celts are an Iron Age culture.
So there is a gap of 1000 years between the last BBs and Celts. So any connection will be a distant one.

Now, there are many books on Hallstatt, La Tene, Celts... No need to write again what has been said many times before.

[Camulogène Rix]

Some archaeologists consider there is a continuity between Unetice and Halstatt, through Tumuli and Urnfields cultures.

[rms2]

I think Hallstatt is too late to be from the very beginning of Celtic, but I don't want to argue about linguistics, since I am not a linguist. I also think it would be more than safe from the standpoint of historical reality to characterize most of L21 as Celtic, but for Mike to do so on his graphic would be to invite attacks from both the Celto-Skeptics and the Germanic/Viking wannabes, so it might be best to avoid it.

[ffoucart]

I think Hallstatt is too late to be from the very beginning of Celtic, but I don't want to argue about linguistics, since I am not a linguist. I also think it would be more than safe from the standpoint of historical reality to characterize most of L21 as Celtic, but for Mike to do so on his graphic would be to invite attacks from both the Celto-Skeptics and the Germanic/Viking wannabes, so it might be best to avoid it.

The problem about using "Celtic" is also because at the time of the BBs, even Proto-Celtic was not formed. I think that Celtic branch and Italic branch formed later. At least some BBs could have spoke something like Proto-Italo-Celtic. But I am not very confident about it. I think that Proto-Italo-Celtic could be related to Unetice, or an Unetice-derived culture.

More likely, BBs spoke another laguage derived from PIE, extinct since then. Perhaps connected to IE languages spoken in Portugal before the Roman Conquest. Their relation du Celtic languages is not clear, if any.

[rms2]

I don't like to argue linguistics, because I am not a linguist, and also because it seems that linguistics is a field in which varying opinions and heated arguments are more common than consensus.

I have seen reputable IE trees that show the split of Italic from Celtic occurring around 2500 BC, so I think it is quite possible most of the Bell Beaker people could have spoken a very early form of Celtic or Proto-Celtic or Pre-Proto-Celtic. Some of them probably spoke early Italic.

It is also possible they all spoke Italo-Celtic dialects and that Italic and Celtic formed in their respective zones as lingua franca languages that facilitated exchange.

One thing I really strongly doubt is that Celtic was the product of the Hallstatt culture.

[Romilius]

Just a question by an ignorant in "bellbeakerology": I read everywhere about the copper use in Bell Beaker sites - copper daggers and arrow points - but, really, I read widely about flint arrow points and dagger in Bell Beaker sites until now. Where did the copper end up?

[TigerMW]

I think Hallstatt is too late to be from the very beginning of Celtic...
I agree.


I also think it would be more than safe from the standpoint of historical reality to characterize most of L21 as Celtic, but for Mike to do so on his graphic would be to invite attacks from both the Celto-Skeptics and the Germanic/Viking wannabes, so it might be best to avoid it.
Too late. I couldn't help myself. There are so many Celtic connections for R1b-L21 people I had to include a green Celtic cloud below the Bell Beaker cloud.
https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/r-l21/about

I covered myself by calling it "Celts & ???".

I was tempted to put in "Celtic and Germanic peoples" with no intent of exclusion to other haplogroups but early* "Germanic" is a question mark and that also opens the door to saying "& Basques & Ligurians". We just don't know about those other things but there can be no doubt that the bulk of R1b-L21 spoke Celtic languages for a long period of time.

This all begs of the question of when something we could call Proto-Celtic was first spoken. I don't know if that is the first day after the Italic and Celtic split? I don't think we can say so as there might have been other dead-end languages before a true Proto-Celtic language could be identified.

Where it was spoken first is also a big question but one zinger of a question at a time.

* I honestly think there has been some forms of L21 in Scandinavia and the Low Countries for a long time but to say they were there in time and participated in the Proto-Germanic formation is just not known and highly questionable.

[Romilius]

A question for experts... have we got the Y-DNA results of The barbing Bowman from Bavaria?

[rms2]

A question for experts... have we got the Y-DNA results of The barbing Bowman from Bavaria?

I can't find any word on dna results from the Barbing Bowman. Barbing is a suburb of Regensburg. I cannot find mention of it in Olalde et al.

[rms2]

I have been criticized by people who have pretty obviously never read any of her works for quoting Gimbutas, but this thread is about "Bell Beakers, Gimbutas, and R1b", so I guess it's safe to quote her here.

Anyway, it seems to me the recent Olalde et al paper, The Beaker Phenomenon And The Genomic Transformation Of Northwest Europe (http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/05/09/135962), vindicates this part of what Gimbutas said on page 390 of her book, The Civilization of the Goddess:



The Bell Beaker culture of western Europe which diffused between 2500 and 2100 B.C. between central Europe, the British Isles, and the Iberian Peninsula, could not have arisen in a vacuum. The mobile horse-riding and warrior people who buried their dead in Yamna type kurgans certainly could not have developed out of any west European culture.

[rms2]

I thought about starting a new thread on this, but the topic is really appropriate to this one. Hope I haven't gone too far into this already. I know I often repeat myself; it's a fault of mine. But I intend to go into detail in this post that I know I have not gone into on this topic already.

As all of us know who have followed this thread at all, and those of us who have read her works know, Gimbutas believed that Bell Beaker was the product of the mixing of Yamnaya migrants with the already somewhat kurganized Vucedol people in the Carpathian Basin.

Just to set the stage, here is Gimbutas on that subject again, from page 391 of her book, The Civilization of the Goddess:



It is very likely that the Bell Beaker complex is an amalgam of Vucedol and Yamna traditions formed after the incursion of the Yamna people into the milieu of the Vucedol culture, i.e., in the course of 300 to 400 years after 3000-2900 B.C.

What I wanted to bring up is the evidence from the recent Olalde et al and Mathieson et al papers, scant though it is, that Gimbutas was right.

Thus far, we know that y-dna haplogroups R1b-Z2103 and I2a2a-M223 were present in Yamnaya of the eastern, Caspian and Volga-Ural steppe, and I2a2a-M223 has been found in one Bulgarian Yamnaya (Bul4 - Mathieson et al 2017).

Olalde et al (2017) found both R1b-Z2103 and I2a2a-M223 in Bell Beaker in the Szigetszentmiklós cemetery on the northwestern part of Csepel (che-pel) Island near Budapest:

I2787 (2458-2202 BC) - R1b-Z2103 Szigetszentmiklós, Felső Ürge-hegyi dűlő (Hungary)

I2786 (2459-2206 BC) - I2a2a-M223 Szigetszentmiklós, Felső Ürge-hegyi dűlő (Hungary)

Without getting too far into the autosomal weeds at this point, suffice it to say that both of those skeletons had substantial steppe dna.

Interestingly, Mathieson et al (2017) found R1b-Z2103 in a Vucedol skeleton in Croatia:

I3499 (2884-2666 BC) - R1b-Z2103 Beli Manastir-Popova Zemlja (Croatia)

He likewise had substantial steppe dna.

Okay. So we have the two established Yamnaya y-dna haplogroups likewise found in both Vucedol and Bell Beaker.

Absolute, smoking gun proof that Gimbutas was right? No, of course not, but interesting nonetheless.

Okay, here is something else to consider. Maybe 10-20 miles north of the Szigetszentmiklós cemetery on Csepel Island lies the Bell Beaker cemetery of Budapest-Békásmegyer, in the northern part of Budapest. Olalde et al tested a number of the skeletons from that cemetery, one of them was the following:

I2365 (2465-2205 BC) - R1b-L2 Budapest-Békásmegyer, Királyok útja (former Vöröshadsereg útja) (Hungary)

I2365 also had substantial steppe autosomal dna.

There are a number of interesting things about I2365, aside from his proximity to the Csepel Island BB burials.

He was buried with a Bell Beaker, an urn, a bowl, an arrowhead, two stone tools, and a Somogyvár–Vinkovci/proto-Nagyrév jug (Olalde et al Supplementary Information, p. 61). That last bit is interesting because of what Gimbutas wrote about Vinkovci-Somogyvar and Bell Beaker (from page 401 of The Civilization of the Goddess):



4. The warlike and horse-riding Bell Beaker people of the middle and second half of the third millennium B.C., who diffused over western Europe, are likely to have originated from an amalgam of remnants of the Vucedol people with the Yamna colonists (after Wave No. 3) in Yugoslavia and Hungary. Their parent culture is called Vinkovci-Samogyvar.


This is from the Olalde et al Supplementary Information, page 60, on the jugs found in 15 of the burials from the BB cemetery of Budapest-Békásmegyer:



Jugs of the southern, Somogyvár–Vinkovci/proto-Nagyrév type were deposited in 15 inhumation burials . . .

Here is something interesting on the burials from the BB cemetery of Szigetszentmiklós on Csepel Island from page 61 of the Olalde et al Supplementary Information, since the burial on the left side aspect applies to all the burials described above (the Vucedol skeleton was buried on its left side but turned somewhat on its belly):



Anthropological analysis of the skeletal remains indicated that men were always interred on their left side, while women were laid to rest on their right side, with the face turned toward the east in the case of both male and female burials. A comparable burial practice was observed in cemeteries of the Bell Beaker East Group in central Europe.


You can make of this what you want, but I think it tends to support Gimbutas' Yamnaya/Vucedol hypothesis. One thing is for certain: this post is not intended to ignite another of those interminable debates over the very basic and fundamental topic of whether or not R1b-M269 and especially its descendant, R1b-L51, originated on the steppe. That topic is better suited to another thread. Here it would be grossly off topic.

[rms2]

Here is another thing I think can be inferred from the data above and the fact that those three Bell Beaker skeletons were all roughly contemporaneous and buried within a few miles of one another:

We can expect to find R1b-P312 in Yamnaya in the Carpathian Basin.

Note too that Vucedol R1b-Z2103 from Croatia (part of what Gimbutas referred to as Yugoslavia) is about 400 years older than the three Bell Beaker skeletons, which would fit Gimbutas' chronology: Yamnaya+Vucedol>Vinkovci-Somogyvar>Bell Beaker.

We need a big steppe behemoth paper that gives us hundreds of y-dna test results from Yamnaya, Mikhailovka, Kemi-Oba, and Budzhak on the Pontic steppe and nearby, and from the thousands of kurgans in the Carpathian Basin and along the Tisza River.

Some Single Grave/Protruding Foot Beaker Corded Ware y-dna would also be nice.

[kinman]

According to my estimated ages, Z2103 and brother clade L51 (along with other L23) are old enough to be the R1b men in Kurgan "Wave 1" ( ca. 4400 BC according to Gimbutas). I get the impression that far more Z2103 men were involved in pushing up the Danube, while most L51 men tended to stay behind in Ukraine (at least until they went north of the Carpathians).

Therefore, I would predict that we will find a lot of Z2103 buried in the area south of the Carpathians, but not so many L51. And being so much older than the P312 clade, Z2103 would probably have had much greater numbers in that time period, so even if L51 men are found buried in the Carpathian Basin, most of them might be P312 negative.


Here is another thing I think can be inferred from the data above and the fact that those three Bell Beaker skeletons were all roughly contemporaneous and buried within a few miles of one another:

We can expect to find R1b-P312 in Yamnaya in the Carpathian Basin.

Note too that Vucedol R1b-Z2103 from Croatia (part of what Gimbutas referred to as Yugoslavia) is about 400 years older than the three Bell Beaker skeletons, which would fit Gimbutas' chronology: Yamnaya+Vucedol>Vinkovci-Somogyvar>Bell Beaker.

We need a big steppe behemoth paper that gives us hundreds of y-dna test results from Yamnaya, Mikhailovka, Kemi-Oba, and Budzhak on the Pontic steppe and nearby, and from the thousands of kurgans in the Carpathian Basin and along the Tisza River.

Some Single Grave/Protruding Foot Beaker Corded Ware y-dna would also be nice.

[rms2]

According to my estimated ages, Z2103 and brother clade L51 (along with other L23) are old enough to be the R1b men in Kurgan "Wave 1" ( ca. 4400 BC according to Gimbutas). I get the impression that far more Z2103 men were involved in pushing up the Danube, while most L51 men tended to stay behind in Ukraine (at least until they went north of the Carpathians).

Therefore, I would predict that we will find a lot of Z2103 buried in the area south of the Carpathians, but not so many L51. And being so much older than the P312 clade, Z2103 would probably have had much greater numbers in that time period, so even if L51 men are found buried in the Carpathian Basin, most of them might be P312 negative.

Any reasons or actual evidence for thinking those things?

What about Gimbutas' ideas? She was an archaeologist who actually participated in digs involving the cultures she wrote about.

[rms2]

This is probably a good thread to resurrect the Corded Ware-as-the-source-of-P312 discussion, as well. I think that is the nearest contender with Gimbutas' ideas. The fact that Olalde et al found GAC + Swedish TRB the best fit for the Neolithic farmer component in Bell Beaker suggests a path across the North European Plain, which was the Corded Ware path. However, a path up the Danube and then into north central Europe would accomplish pretty much the same thing, and moving through Lengyel territory might give a culture Neolithic farmer dna that resembles GAC+TRB. Plus the big elephant-in-the-room problem with Corded Ware is that it has been pretty nearly monolithically R1a thus far.

Anyway, I hope we can resume the good old discussion without the remedial distraction of the "L51 is native to western Europe" debate.

[kinman]

I don't think anything I said contradicts the ideas of Gimbutas. I have just changed my mind about what route P312 took, passing north of the Carpathians (picking up GAC admixture along the way), rather than going up the lower Danube. Either way, they would end up near Bratislava (where I think U152 was likely to have originated). Some P312 could have gone down the Danube from there to trade amber with their Z2103 relatives, but as traders (not residents), they would be less likely to have died there in large numbers.


Any reasons or actual evidence for thinking those things?

What about Gimbutas' ideas? She was an archaeologist who actually participated in digs involving the cultures she wrote about.

[rms2]

I don't think anything I said contradicts the ideas of Gimbutas. I have just changed my mind about what route P312 took, passing north of the Carpathians (picking up GAC admixture along the way), rather than going up the lower Danube. Either way, they would end up near Bratislava (where I think U152 was likely to have originated). Some P312 could have gone down the Danube from there to trade amber with their Z2103 relatives, but as traders (not residents), they would be less likely to have died there in large numbers.

Okay, so this is what you believe, but you don't seem to have any reasons for it or actual evidence to support it.

Gimbutas said Bell Beaker was the product of the amalgam of Yamnaya and Vucedol. That could not have happened via the route around the north side of the Carpathians, unless P312 Yamnaya went around the north side of the Carpathians and then swung back south into the Carpathian Basin to mix with Vucedol.

Here's a map of the tribal situation in the Carpathian Basin in the third millennium BC.

18016

[kinman]

So you are saying that Z2103 was not part of Yamnaya Culture? Is there anything in the ideas of Gimbutas indicating she would not regard Z2103 as Yamnaya?

All I am saying is that Eastern Bell Beaker was likely the product of the amalgam of Z2103 Yamnaya and Vucedol. Of course, P312 could have also been part of this if they began trading bell beakers (as well as amber) with Z2103.


Okay, so this is what you believe, but you don't seem to have any reasons for it or actual evidence to support it.

Gimbutas said Bell Beaker was the product of the amalgam of Yamnaya and Vucedol. That could not have happened via the route around the north side of the Carpathians, unless P312 Yamnaya went around the north side of the Carpathians and then swung back south into the Carpathian Basin to mix with Vucedol.

Here's a map of the tribal situation in the Carpathian Basin in the third millennium BC.

18016

[rms2]

So you are saying that Z2103 was not part of Yamnaya Culture? Is there anything in the ideas of Gimbutas indicating she would not regard Z2103 as Yamnaya?

What gave you that idea?

From the OP:



Thus far, we know that y-dna haplogroups R1b-Z2103 and I2a2a-M223 were present in Yamnaya of the eastern, Caspian and Volga-Ural steppe, and I2a2a-M223 has been found in one Bulgarian Yamnaya (Bul4 - Mathieson et al 2017) . . .

Okay. So we have the two established Yamnaya y-dna haplogroups likewise found in both Vucedol and Bell Beaker.





All I am saying is that Eastern Bell Beaker was likely the product of the amalgam of Z2103 Yamnaya and Vucedol. Of course, P312 could have also been part of this if they began trading bell beakers (as well as amber) with Z2103.

Okay, but you said P312 took the route around the north side of the Carpathians. If it was part of Yamnaya, that part would have had to swing back south into the Carpathian Basin to encounter and mix with Vucedol.

I'm not trying to badger you, and I apologize if my posts sound that way. I'm just trying to understand why you think what you do.

[R.Rocca]

Okay, but you said P312 took the route around the north side of the Carpathians. If it was part of Yamnaya, that part would have had to swing back south into the Carpathian Basin to encounter and mix with Vucedol.

I don't know where, but I recently read that Vucedol was "kurganized" in its final phase much in the way that other cultures were.

[R.Rocca]

A graphic I did not get to post over the weekend due to the other thread being locked out...

Source: Piotr Wlodarczak (2014) The Traits of Early-Bronze Pontic Cultures in the Development of Old Upland Corded Ware (Malopolska Groups) and Zlota Culture Communities


In the Final Neolithic grave inventories from Malopolska, flint arrowheads are found. In the first half of the 3rd millenium, they are recorded in CWC barrow graves (rarely) and also in Zlota Culuture cemeteries [quite often: 162 items from 48 graves - Witkowska 2013]. Their incidence grows around 2600/2500 BC. The same period witnesses also rich sets of arrowheads (the largest - from grave 15, Wilczycw - comprises 30 items). The latter are related to the burials of adult men; as a rule, they are a component of rich and varied inventories. Equipping the dead with archer's gear is a new tradition in Malopolska - graves with arrowheads are not encountered either in the GAC circle or in the Baden Culture. Likewise, the tradition is not observed either in western or northern CWC regions (from there, we know only of single features with arrowheads). In these areas, archer's equipment became a frequent component of grave inventories only after ca. 2400 BC and is associated with assemblages displaying the tradition of the Bell Beaker Culture. Thus, Malopolska inventories with arrowheads are older than such assemblages by about 200-300 years.

http://www.r1b.org/imgs/Malopolska_CWC_Arrowheads.png

[rms2]

I don't know where, but I recently read that Vucedol was "kurganized" in its final phase much in the way that other cultures were.

Could be, but the midpoint of the rc dates for that R1b-Z2103 Vucedol skeleton from Croatia is 2775 BC:

I3499 (2884-2666 BC) - R1b-Z2103 Beli Manastir-Popova Zemlja (Croatia)

So Vucedol in Croatia had Z2103 in it pretty early.

[kinman]

I agree. And if this is what happened, then I would expect that P312 mostly mixed with northern Vucedol, and that Z2103 mixed with southern Vucedol. And since Z2103 was older (and presumably greater in numbers at that time), I would expect more Z2103 in all those kurgan graves near the lower Danube. But we will just have wait and see when those are tested.




Okay, but you said P312 took the route around the north side of the Carpathians. If it was part of Yamnaya, that part would have had to swing back south into the Carpathian Basin to encounter and mix with Vucedol.

[rms2]

I think there are good arguments to be made for a Corded Ware origin for R1b-P312, but the thing that bugs me is all the R1a in Corded Ware thus far. I realize that might not be the whole story.

But what I am seeing, and I hope I can lay this out the way it occurs to me, is that we have R1b-Z2103 and I2a2a-M223 in Yamnaya, then, around 2800 BC, R1b-Z2103 in Vucedol. Gimbutas says Yamnaya+Vucedol in the Carpathian Basin = Bell Beaker, and we have R1b-Z2103, I2a2a-M223, and R1b-L2 in Bell Beaker, all buried within a few miles of one another (the first two in the very same cemetery on Csepel Island, but all three in the Budapest area), all three with a lot of steppe dna, and all three roughly contemporaneous. The midpoint of the range of the rc dates of those three BB skeletons is 2333 BC.

Like I said, that's not smoking gun proof, but it does tend Gimbutas' way, and it also tends to show that R1b-P312 (in this case in the form of R1b-L2) was in Yamnaya in the Carpathian Basin.

That R1b-L2 BB man was also buried with a Vinkovci-Somogyvar jug, and Gimbutas called Vinkovci-Somogyvar the parent culture of Bell Beaker. Maybe she was wrong, but it is interesting.

[rms2]

Here is something else interesting Gimbutas said about Vinkovci-Somogyvar, aside from calling it the parent culture of Bell Beaker (from page 391 of The Civilization of the Goddess):



There is hardly any reason to treat these groups [Vinkovci-Samogyvar and Bell Beaker] as separate cultures.

I've posted this picture several times before, but it is illustrative of the chronology of some of the pottery forms in the Carpathian Basin in the third millennium BC:

18024

Note: The spelling of Somogyvar/Samogyvar varies. In The Civilization of the Goddess, Gimbutas uses the Samogyvar spelling.

[alexfritz]

I think there are good arguments to be made for a Corded Ware origin for R1b-P312, but the thing that bugs me is all the R1a in Corded Ware thus far. I realize that might not be the whole story.

is there a site from a common culture in which both R1a and R1b(P312) appeared? from what i have seen thus far is that when R1a and R1b do turn up at a site it was so far always U106 (lichtenstein-c/battle-axe) and not P312;

[kinman]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Budapest area was where P312 traders did most of their business with Z2103. If so, I would expect few P312 kurgan graves further down the lower Danube.

Likewise, P312 and U106 may have traded with each other in the Czech Republic or southern Poland, with U106 living north along the early Amber Road through Poland to Kaliningrad. This would have made P312 the middle men between U106 and Z2103.

But these "spheres of influence" would have tended to limit the options P312 (and subclades) had for expansion as their population increased. They expanded westward since it was the path of least resistance. New lands for horsemen to invade up the Danube and then both up and down the Rhine.


I think there are good arguments to be made for a Corded Ware origin for R1b-P312, but the thing that bugs me is all the R1a in Corded Ware thus far. I realize that might not be the whole story.

But what I am seeing, and I hope I can lay this out the way it occurs to me, is that we have R1b-Z2103 and I2a2a-M223 in Yamnaya, then, around 2800 BC, R1b-Z2103 in Vucedol. Gimbutas says Yamnaya+Vucedol in the Carpathian Basin = Bell Beaker, and we have R1b-Z2103, I2a2a-M223, and R1b-L2 in Bell Beaker, all buried within a few miles of one another (the first two in the very same cemetery on Csepel Island, but all three in the Budapest area), all three with a lot of steppe dna, and all three roughly contemporaneous. The midpoint of the range of the rc dates of those three BB skeletons is 2333 BC.

Like I said, that's not smoking gun proof, but it does tend Gimbutas' way, and it also tends to show that R1b-P312 (in this case in the form of R1b-L2) was in Yamnaya in the Carpathian Basin.

That R1b-L2 BB man was also buried with a Vinkovci-Somogyvar jug, and Gimbutas called Vinkovci-Somogyvar the parent culture of Bell Beaker. Maybe she was wrong, but it is interesting.

[rms2]

At Dereivka in Ukraine (5500-4800 BC) and at Khvalynsk (5200-4000 BC) on the Volga we have R1b and R1a at the same sites. But none of those R1b samples was R1b-M269 let alone U106.

We are still waiting for the raw data from Dereivka, however, but it's too old to be U106.

[rms2]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Budapest area was where P312 traders did most of their business with Z2103. If so, I would expect few P312 kurgan graves further down the lower Danube.

Likewise, P312 and U106 may have traded with each other in the Czech Republic or southern Poland, with U106 living north along the early Amber Road through Poland to Kaliningrad. This would have made P312 the middle men between U106 and Z2103.

But these "spheres of influence" would have tended to limit the options P312 (and subclades) had for expansion as their population increased. They expanded westward since it was the path of least resistance. New lands for horsemen to invade up the Danube and then the Rhine.

I appreciate your point of view, I really do, but those are assertions. You have not really said why you think this way.

What makes you "expect few P312 kurgan graves further down the lower Danube", for example?

I am asking for the reasoning behind your opinions. The opinions you have already given.

[kinman]

Rather than assertions, I would call them predictions or expectations. The main reason behind my opinions is that Z2103 was so much older. They would have had about 1,000 years of population growth before P312 even originated. That could explain why P312 went north of the Carpathians, because Z2103 had already filled the R1b-type niches in the lower Danube area.

And when P312 later started coming down the Danube from the Bratislava area, they would have again bumped into Z2103 dominated regions when they got to the Budapest area. Of course, if we find a large number of P312 graves down stream from Budapest, I'll have to admit I was wrong, but presently it is my prediction that there won't be many P312 (and there will be lots of Z2103).


I appreciate your point of view, I really do, but those are assertions. You have not really said why you think this way.

What makes you "expect few P312 kurgan graves further down the lower Danube", for example?

I am asking for the reasoning behind your opinions. The opinions you have already given.

[razyn]

Those amber-trading people (among many others, who were migrating along or across some huge rivers before bridges and high tech engineering) had to have boats; but AFAIK we don't see Bell Beaker burial boats -- as we do see wheels, cheek pieces, bowlegged guys, &c. So I wonder if the Bronze Age maritime/riverine specialists had a different burial ritual, perhaps floating pyres and such, leaving no prestige burials under mounds for us to play with several thousand years later.

I know several Bronze Age boats survive, in formerly shallow places under old silt. And occasional pictures of boats, scratched on rocks. But they aren't sources of aDNA, or burial goods. That would be one way to camouflage the earlier P312 guys, simpler than leaving them back in Ufa or someplace for a thousand years.

[rms2]

Rather than assertions, I would call them predictions or expectations. The main reason behind my opinions is that Z2103 was so much older. They would have had about 1,000 years of population growth before P312 even originated. That could explain why P312 went north of the Carpathians, because Z2103 had already filled the R1b-type niches in the lower Danube area.

Look on Z2103 as a rubric under which whatever Z2103 subclade(s) those Vucedol and Csepel Bell Beaker men belonged to are found. We're not really talking about Z2103* versus L2 or even P312, so the age difference is not a valid reason for thinking Z2103 went around the south end of the Carpathians and P312 went around the north end. Even the older Yamnaya guys belonged to subclades of Z2103, like Z2106, Z2109, and KMS75. That Csepel Bell Beaker R1b-Z2103 guy was roughly a contemporary of that R1b-L2 Bell Beaker guy buried nearby. You can bet the Z2103 guy was as far up the phylogenetic tree relative to Z2103 as that L2 was relative to L51.

That R1b-L2 Bell Beaker guy was buried just a few miles from the R1b-Z2103 and I2a2a-M223 Bell Beaker guys, all in the Budapest area. Those last two were derived from Yamnaya but the R1b-L2 guy was not? He was just an amber trader from Bratislava?



And when P312 later started coming down the Danube from the Bratislava area, they would have again bumped into Z2103 dominated regions when they got to the Budapest area. Of course, if we find a large number of P312 graves down stream from Budapest, I'll have to admit I was wrong, but presently it is my prediction that there won't be many P312 (and there will be lots of Z2103).

I have noticed your use of the city of Bratislava a number of times, once even mentioning it as the place U152 likely arose. That's pretty pinpoint isn't it? Is it possible to be that precise? Wouldn't it be better to say Slovakia/Southern Poland or something a little more expansive?

If I understand you, thus far your sole reason for thinking P312 went around the north side of the Carpathians is that Z2103 is older than P312. Is that about it?

[Webb]

Those amber-trading people (among many others, who were migrating along or across some huge rivers before bridges and high tech engineering) had to have boats; but AFAIK we don't see Bell Beaker burial boats -- as we do see wheels, cheek pieces, bowlegged guys, &c. So I wonder if the Bronze Age maritime/riverine specialists had a different burial ritual, perhaps floating pyres and such, leaving no prestige burials under mounds for us to play with several thousand years later.

I know several Bronze Age boats survive, in formerly shallow places under old silt. And occasional pictures of boats, scratched on rocks. But they aren't sources of aDNA, or burial goods. That would be one way to camouflage the earlier P312 guys, simpler than leaving them back in Ufa or someplace for a thousand years.

This has always puzzled me a bit. Was the Viking custom of to go a Viking a practice that the locals would have acquired from contact with R1a/R1b groups? If we assume the original inhabitants of Scandinavia were predominately I's and N's, then how much of a boat culture were they? We know that by the Viking age their boat skills were remarkable. How did they gain those skills? If we assume they acquired the Germanic language from U106, did they also acquire sailing skill and culture from the same group? I would assume boats were used for a very long time in Scandinavia for hunting and fishing, but the classic Viking design and boat features, the culture of blast attacks and retreats. The development of trading posts. This seems like it could be the same tactic as the Maritime Bell Beakers. The Bronze Age remains found in Torre Velha, which is very close to modern Lagos in Portugal is coastal. At around 1700 B.C. we have little evidence to point to what type of culture existed there. It is in an area that is argued was part of the Celtic and Turdetanian border around 300 B.C. If TV32032 turns out to be DF27, then was he a Maritime Bell Beaker? Did they use the same type of tactics as the Vikings? Where did they learn sailing? Could Steppe people traveling west through Europe quickly learn boat making and navigation skills? If we had no written records to tell us about Viking incursions, would we know it happened as they seem to have blended into the cultures they encountered? Could this be very similar to Maritime Bell Beakers? Hit heavy, acquire a landing for boats. Have enough people to protect said landing. Quickly set up fortifications to fend off locals. Take from locals initially by force maybe, or at the very least set up trading posts. After 200 or so years, said fortification has transformed into a large trading post and maybe our Maritime Beakers have by this point blended into the local populations. Some thoughts and questions.

[Jean M]

If we assume they acquired the Germanic language from U106

There is no reason to think that men carrying U106 brought the Germanic language into Scandinavia. Pre-Germanic developed in situ over thousands of years. The people speaking it would have carried various Y-DNA haplogroups.

Viking style boat-building (clinker) also evolved in situ and was not imported. Extract from AJ:


Signs of seagoing vessels in Scandinavia appear c. 2500 BC. Daggers from the flint-rich Limfjord region of North Jutland appear in South Norway. Though little Bell Beaker pottery seems to have arrived in Norway from Jutland, other elements of that culture did. Seagoing boats would be needed to make the crossing from Jutland to the Scandinavian peninsula. It was the start of Scandinavian seafaring. Log dugouts have been found that could have been used on rivers or even coastal waters, but our knowledge of the first seagoing Scandinavian vessels comes from the thousands of Bronze Age rock carvings of ships. Clearly part of the same tradition is the Hjortspring boat dating from 300-400 BC, with two timber horn-like extensions at prow and stern. It was a sewn, plank-built canoe intended to be paddled by ranks of oarsmen.

In the first centuries AD sewing planks together was replaced by overlapping planks, fastened together with nails. The technique is known as clinker-building, or 'lap-strake'. Remains of such vessels were preserved in the Nydam bog in Jutland. Several later ships have survived thanks to the practice of ship burials. From about AD 400 onwards the Angles had arrived in England from Jutland in clinker-built ships. A royal example was buried at Sutton Hoo iin East Anglia n the 7th century.

[R.Rocca]

Quote Originally Posted by Marija Gimbutas:
There is hardly any reason to treat these groups [Vinkovci-Samogyvar and Bell Beaker] as separate cultures.



It looks to me like there are many more differences between Vinkovci-Samogyvar and Bell Beaker than there are commonalities. If they were not to be treated as different cultures, they wouldn't be... and a big area to the west/south-west of Csepel island would be considered "Bell Beaker".

[rms2]

It looks to me like there are many more differences between Vinkovci-Samogyvar and Bell Beaker than there are commonalities. If they were not to be treated as different cultures, they wouldn't be... and a big area to the west/south-west of Csepel island would be considered "Bell Beaker".

Vinkovci-Somogyvar was kind of an aside I mentioned because that R1b-L2 BB guy had a Vinkovci-Somogyvar jug in his grave. Gimbutas might have been wrong about it, especially since, from what I can see from the rc dates, Vinkovci-Somogyvar and Bell Beaker were roughly contemporaneous. If she was right about the bigger issue of the origin of Bell Beaker, then Bell Beaker and Vinkovci-Somogyvar would simply both be outgrowths of the Yamnaya/Vucedol mixing bowl in the Carpathian Basin.

Gimbutas was writing at the latest in the 1990s and did not have access to the rc dates we now have available.

[MJost]

Vucedol succeeded by Vinkovci/Samogyvar Culture but earlier than Bell Beaker into proto-Únětice with Friuli U152 connection? http://tit.archaeologicaltraces.org/TIT0024.pdf

I am still trying to push the southern route here.

MJost - Watterson

[kinman]

(1) I think it was early in 2015, I said U152 probably arose in northeastern Austria, then I narrowed it to the area between Vienna and Bratislava (sometimes I just say Bratislava). I still think that area between Vienna and Bratislava is the most likely place, and when I found out the Amber Road crosses the Danube right in between them, I became even more convinced.

(2) As for believing P312 went around the north side of the Carpathians, what finally convinced me was the GAC admixture. I am glad Mitchell and others convinced me of that.




I have noticed your use of the city of Bratislava a number of times, once even mentioning it as the place U152 likely arose. That's pretty pinpoint isn't it? Is it possible to be that precise? Wouldn't it be better to say Slovakia/Southern Poland or something a little more expansive?

If I understand you, thus far your sole reason for thinking P312 went around the north side of the Carpathians is that Z2103 is older than P312. Is that about it?

[R.Rocca]

The biggest problem I see with Vucedol is that there are so many materially distinct cultural artifacts that simply have no equivalents in Bell Beaker. Not even close...

http://forum.net.hr/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.ImageFileViewer/CommunityServer.Discussions.Components.Files.14/7103.4_2D00_3.jpg_2D00_400x411.jpg

... and some closeups of some of them...

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-Yj0U1u6zzE/maxresdefault.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/hr/thumb/f/fa/Kultna_posuda_u_obliku_ptice.jpg/440px-Kultna_posuda_u_obliku_ptice.jpg

http://novena.hr/vr/mdc/vodic_muzeja/files/assets/seo/page514_images/0001.jpg

[rms2]

The biggest problem I see with Vucedol is that there are so many materially distinct cultural artifacts that simply have no equivalents in Bell Beaker. Not even close...

http://forum.net.hr/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.ImageFileViewer/CommunityServer.Discussions.Components.Files.14/7103.4_2D00_3.jpg_2D00_400x411.jpg

... and some closeups of some of them...

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-Yj0U1u6zzE/maxresdefault.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/hr/thumb/f/fa/Kultna_posuda_u_obliku_ptice.jpg/440px-Kultna_posuda_u_obliku_ptice.jpg

http://novena.hr/vr/mdc/vodic_muzeja/files/assets/seo/page514_images/0001.jpg

That's a good point, but I think the thing to remember is not that Beaker is an outgrowth of Vucedol, but that Beaker is the product of the amalgam of Vucedol and Yamnaya, at least according to Gimbutas. It would not necessarily have retained all of its Old European farmer elements as reflected in those artifacts. I don't know just precisely what Gimbutas meant either. How much of the mix was Vucedol and how much was Yamnaya? It could be it was 90% Yamnaya tempered by 10% Vucedol people. I do not know. It could be that much Vucedol refinement was dropped in favor of Yamnaya, especially if this was a male mediated thing.

In Gimbutas' favor we have the two established Yamnaya y-dna haplogroups in both Vucedol and Bell Beaker, as well as loads of R1b-L51 (mostly in the form of P312) in Bell Beaker.

The big problem with Corded Ware as a source of P312 is that we don't seem to have any kind of R1b in it. It's almost monolithically R1a.

[kinman]

Using YFull's numbers, Z2103 arose 6200 ybp, but P312 didn't arise until 4800 ybp. In that 1400 years, the population of Z2103 was probably in the thousands, compared with just one P312 man (who had just acquired the P312 mutation). So the 1400-year age difference of these clades would have been a very important factor.

There would have been large numbers of Z2103 in the lower Danube, and the Vucedol Z2103 guy in Croatia in that time period is almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg. And Z2103 was expanding southeast into Turkey and west towards Italy. And I believe YFull's 6200 ybp for Z2103 is an underestimate, probably more like 6700 ybp, and thus Z2103 very easily could have been part of Gimbutas' Kurgan Wave 1 (4300-4400 BC). That's 1500 years before P312 arose.

Both P312 and U106 probably succeeded because they chose to avoid the Z2103 crowds south of the Carpathians and instead went north of the Carpathians.


Look on Z2103 as a rubric under which whatever Z2103 subclade(s) those Vucedol and Csepel Bell Beaker men belonged to are found. We're not really talking about Z2103* versus L2 or even P312, so the age difference is not a valid reason for thinking Z2103 went around the south end of the Carpathians and P312 went around the north end. Even the older Yamnaya guys belonged to subclades of Z2103, like Z2106, Z2109, and KMS75. That Csepel Bell Beaker R1b-Z2103 guy was roughly a contemporary of that R1b-L2 Bell Beaker guy buried nearby. You can bet the Z2103 guy was as far up the phylogenetic tree relative to Z2103 as that L2 was relative to L51.

That R1b-L2 Bell Beaker guy was buried just a few miles from the R1b-Z2103 and I2a2a-M223 Bell Beaker guys, all in the Budapest area. Those last two were derived from Yamnaya but the R1b-L2 guy was not? He was just an amber trader from Bratislava?

[rms2]

. . .

(2) As for believing P312 went around the north side of the Carpathians, what finally convinced me was the GAC admixture. I am glad Mitchell and others convinced me of that.

Olalde et al did not actually say there was GAC admixture in non-Iberian Bell Beaker. What they said was that GAC + Swedish TRB is the best fit for the Neolithic farmer component in non-Iberian Bell Beaker. It could be that Bell Beaker acquired that by coming across the North European Plain as Corded Ware pre-Beaker, or it could be that it acquired it on the trek north from the Carpathian Basin. It is also possible that the Neolithic farmer component in Bell Beaker had a different source that simply resembles GAC + Swedish TRB, possibly Lengyel.

As I have mentioned a number of times, the big problem with seeing Corded Ware as the source of P312 is the absence thus far of any kind of R1b in Corded Ware and the overwhelming predominance of R1a in it.

[rms2]

Using YFull's numbers, Z2103 arose 6200 ybp, but P312 didn't arise until 4800 ybp. In that 1400 years, the population of Z2103 was probably in the thousands, compared with just one P312 man (who had just acquired the P312 mutation). So the 1400-year age difference of these clades would have been a very important factor.

Evidently you did not understand my reply to your age argument.

When I referred to that Vucedol Z2103 and that Bell Beaker Z2103 as "Z2103", that is simply because I do not yet know to what Z2103 subclade(s) they belonged. You can bet neither of them was actually Z2103*. That Bell Beaker R1b-Z2103 was roughly a contemporary of that Bell Beaker R1b-L2. As I said before, it is almost certain that Z2103 Bell Beaker guy was as far up the phylogenetic tree from Z2103 as that L2 Bell Beaker guy was from L51.

The rest of your post seems to be based on that same erroneous argument.

The L51 line leading to and including P312 would not have been much younger than the Z2103 line leading to whatever subclade(s) were also in Yamnaya and subsequently in Bell Beaker at the same time.

So you see we are not talking about P312 versus the much older Z2103 which had more time to reproduce. We are talking about P312 compared with whatever phylogenetically contemporaneous subclade(s) of Z2103 were also present in Yamnaya, that is, the P312 line coming down from L51 and the x line (or lines) coming down from Z2103.

[rms2]

One has to wonder what happened if the Yamnaya of the Carpathian Basin was mostly R1b-Z2103. Why didn't it expand much from there? Z2103 is relatively scarce in central and western Europe.

Why did an apparently energetic and expansive people just stop?

Why did the R1b-P312-dominated Bell Beaker people finish the job Yamnaya started?

Personally, I think the answer is that western Yamnaya was not mostly Z2103. I could be wrong, of course.

[Silesian]

Using YFull's numbers, Z2103 arose 6200 ybp, but P312 didn't arise until 4800 ybp. In that 1400 years, the population of Z2103 was probably in the thousands, compared with just one P312 man (who had just acquired the P312 mutation). So the 1400-year age difference of these clades would have been a very important factor.

There would have been large numbers of Z2103 in the lower Danube, and the Vucedol Z2103 guy in Croatia in that time period is almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg. And Z2103 was expanding southeast into Turkey and west towards Italy. And I believe YFull's 6200 ybp for Z2103 is an underestimate, probably more like 6700 ybp, and thus Z2103 very easily could have been part of Gimbutas' Kurgan Wave 1 (4300-4400 BC). That's 1500 years before P312 arose.

Both P312 and U106 probably succeeded because they chose to avoid the Z2103 crowds south of the Carpathians and instead went north of the Carpathians.

Overlap between two R1b branches 4800-4400+/-YBP might look like this.
P312>L2 [4800YBP-4400YBP] line is roughly equivalent with R-Y5592>CTS9219 >Y5587>Y5586 [4800YBP-4400YBP]

[kinman]

Looks like to me that Z2103 did expand from there. Especially west into Italy,
south into Greece, and southeast into Turkey. If it crossed the Bosphorus about 3000 B.C., Z2103 men could even be among the founders of Troy (about 2920 BC).


One has to wonder what happened if the Yamnaya of the Carpathian Basin was mostly R1b-Z2103. Why didn't it expand much from there? Z2103 is relatively scarce in central and western Europe.

Why did an apparently energetic and expansive people just stop?

Why did the R1b-P312-dominated Bell Beaker people finish the job Yamnaya started?

Personally, I think the answer is that western Yamnaya was not mostly Z2103. I could be wrong, of course.

[Silesian]

Overlap between two R1b branches 4800-4400+/-YBP might look like this.
P312>L2 [4800YBP-4400YBP] line is roughly equivalent with R-Y5592>CTS9219 >Y5587>Y5586 [4800YBP-4400YBP]

R1a equivalent- For those with R1a lines and regional distribution- Equivalent overlap+/-

R-Z284 4700-4300+/- YBP

[lgmayka]

Evidently you did not understand my reply to your age argument.
As far as I can see, his logic is sound. One needs to look at the age of expansion.

If we use YFull's numbers, R-L23 divided, about 4200 BCE, into R-Z2103 and R-L51.

Around 4000 BCE, R-Z2103 divided into 4 different clades, of which the most prolific, R-Z2106, rapidly split into 2 clades, of which the more prolific R-Z2108 rapidly divided into 2 singletons and 3 clades. The most prolific of the clades, R-Z2110, rapidly divided into 3 singletons and 2 clades. By YFull's numbers, this all happened "in the blink of an eye"--all dates are listed as 6000 ybp. This was clearly a fairly rapid expansion, and its progeny are scattered all across Europe, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Perhaps the early singletons are the most intriguing: R-Z2108* (https://yfull.com/tree/R-Z2108*/) in Dagestan and India, R-Z2110* (https://yfull.com/tree/R-Z2110*/) in Italy, Bulgaria, and Colombia (presumably from Spain).

In contrast, R-L51 divided into 2 clades, R-Z2118 and R-L151, around 3900 BCE. R-Z2118 barely survived until 3100 BCE, when it began a very modest expansion. R-L151 barely survived until 2800 BCE, when it began its phenomenal expansion that eventually blanketed half of Europe.

I understand the claim that YFull's dating does not well reflect actual SNP count differences--i.e., that R-Z2103 is younger than YFull's TMRCA, and/or R-L151 is older than YFull's TMRCA. But doesn't the ancient DNA so far support the contention that R-Z2103 began to expand centuries before R-L151 did? If the early expansion of R-Z2103 was westward or southwestward, isn't it possible that the later expansion of R-L151 went into territory not already occupied by R-Z2103 ?

[kinman]

Correct. And if I counted correctly, Y5586 is 8 subclades down from Z2103 (and separated by roughly 12 SNPs).

In any case, I don't understand why rms2 seems to dismiss the 1400 year headstart that Z2103 had over P312. It must have taken many centuries for the population numbers of P312 and subclades to catch up with the population numbers of Z2103.

If one looks at the YFull numbers for L151 (L11), it formed 5900 ybp, but the MRCA is 4800 ybp (when P312 arose). L151/L11 was apparently just limping along for over a thousand years (compared to the much faster population growth of Z2103). It took P312 and U106 a VERY long time to catch back up to the Z2103 lineages in population numbers.

P.S. I see that Igmayka posted something similar while I was typing my post. Seems to explain it even better than my post.


Overlap between two R1b branches 4800-4400+/-YBP might look like this.
P312>L2 [4800YBP-4400YBP] line is roughly equivalent with R-Y5592>CTS9219 >Y5587>Y5586 [4800YBP-4400YBP]

[kinman]

Yes, that makes perfect sense. The faster expanding Z2103 got to the lower Danube first (or at least in much greater numbers), so L151 and its progeny went north of the Carpathians. Perhaps a less agreeable alternative, but also perhaps better in the long run once they reached the Amber Road in Poland. But Z2103 did pretty well expanding into Turkey, Italy, and Greece (and in smaller numbers elsewhere in Europe). Even in France and Spain, where Z2103 seems to have favored the southern coasts. L151's progeny instead pushed mainly west and/or north, and eventually on to the conquest of North America.




I understand the claim that YFull's dating does not well reflect actual SNP count differences--i.e., that R-Z2103 is younger than YFull's TMRCA, and/or R-L151 is older than YFull's TMRCA. But doesn't the ancient DNA so far support the contention that R-Z2103 began to expand centuries before R-L151 did? If the early expansion of R-Z2103 was westward or southwestward, isn't it possible that the later expansion of R-L151 went into territory not already occupied by R-Z2103 ?

[rms2]

Looks like to me that Z2103 did expand from there. Especially west into Italy,
south into Greece, and southeast into Turkey. If it crossed the Bosphorus about 3000 B.C., Z2103 men could even be among the founders of Troy (about 2920 BC).

I guess we have different definitions of the word expand, at least when it comes to central and western Europe, where Z2103 is infrequent. Even in Italy, Z2103 runs about 5-10%. Compare that to the level of R1b-L151 there.

The Danube Valley runs to the northwest from the Carpathian Basin. It's the natural path from there. Yet that is the path of increasing R1b-P312 and declining Z2103.

[rms2]

. . .

In any case, I don't understand why rms2 seems to dismiss the 1400 year headstart that Z2103 had over P312. It must have taken many centuries for the population numbers of P312 and subclades to catch up with the population numbers of Z2103 . . .

Because your argument was based on the idea that those Vucedol and Bell Beaker R1b-Z2103s were Z2103*, and Z2103 had a 1400-year head start on P312, rather than members of subclades of Z2103 that were contemporaneous with P312.

lgmayka's argument is fundamentally different from yours and makes more sense. He was arguing expansion dates of the relative clades, not simply that Z2103 is older than P312 and therefore had more time to grow in population.

Ultimately it was L151/L11 that expanded rapidly into central and western Europe.

[rms2]

As far as I can see, his logic is sound. One needs to look at the age of expansion.

If we use YFull's numbers, R-L23 divided, about 4200 BCE, into R-Z2103 and R-L51.

Around 4000 BCE, R-Z2103 divided into 4 different clades, of which the most prolific, R-Z2106, rapidly split into 2 clades, of which the more prolific R-Z2108 rapidly divided into 2 singletons and 3 clades. The most prolific of the clades, R-Z2110, rapidly divided into 3 singletons and 2 clades. By YFull's numbers, this all happened "in the blink of an eye"--all dates are listed as 6000 ybp. This was clearly a fairly rapid expansion, and its progeny are scattered all across Europe, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Perhaps the early singletons are the most intriguing: R-Z2108* (https://yfull.com/tree/R-Z2108*/) in Dagestan and India, R-Z2110* (https://yfull.com/tree/R-Z2110*/) in Italy, Bulgaria, and Colombia (presumably from Spain).

In contrast, R-L51 divided into 2 clades, R-Z2118 and R-L151, around 3900 BCE. R-Z2118 barely survived until 3100 BCE, when it began a very modest expansion. R-L151 barely survived until 2800 BCE, when it began its phenomenal expansion that eventually blanketed half of Europe.

I understand the claim that YFull's dating does not well reflect actual SNP count differences--i.e., that R-Z2103 is younger than YFull's TMRCA, and/or R-L151 is older than YFull's TMRCA. But doesn't the ancient DNA so far support the contention that R-Z2103 began to expand centuries before R-L151 did? If the early expansion of R-Z2103 was westward or southwestward, isn't it possible that the later expansion of R-L151 went into territory not already occupied by R-Z2103 ?

Except that wasn't his logic; it's yours. He was arguing simply that Z2103 is older than P312 and therefore had much more time to grow in numbers, as if those Vucedol and Bell Beaker Z2103s were part of a population that had been steadily growing since around 6000 BC rather than members of subclades that were phylogenetically equivalent to and contemporaneous with P312.

[rms2]

. . .

R-L151 barely survived until 2800 BCE, when it began its phenomenal expansion that eventually blanketed half of Europe.

That's a good point. One has to ask himself what happened around 2800 BC (give or take a couple of centuries).




I understand the claim that YFull's dating does not well reflect actual SNP count differences--i.e., that R-Z2103 is younger than YFull's TMRCA, and/or R-L151 is older than YFull's TMRCA. But doesn't the ancient DNA so far support the contention that R-Z2103 began to expand centuries before R-L151 did? If the early expansion of R-Z2103 was westward or southwestward, isn't it possible that the later expansion of R-L151 went into territory not already occupied by R-Z2103 ?

Thus far, the Z2103 in Yamnaya has come from the Caspian steppe and the Volga-Ural steppe. Perhaps its expansion into Anatolia came by way of the Caucasus rather than via the Balkans. Or perhaps it went south through the Balkans into Anatolia rather than up to the northwest via the Danube Valley. (I'm not speaking in absolutes, saying that no Z2103 went to the northwest, only that maybe most of it went south.)

Yamnaya is a cultural horizon that occupied a very large area. There are differences between eastern and western Yamnaya.

What if Z2103 was just not as numerous in western Yamnaya as it was in eastern Yamnaya? We have already discussed the differences in burial customs between Mikhailovka/Kemi Oba and eastern Yamnaya. The burial practices in Bell Beaker resemble those of the former, which would have gone into the formation of western Yamnaya, since Mikhailovka/Kemi Oba were the westernmost Eneolithic steppe cultures that went into the Yamnaya mix.

We have Z2103 in Yamnaya, Vucedol and Bell Beaker, and I2a2a-M223 in Yamnaya and Bell Beaker, which are hints that perhaps Gimbutas was right. Then we have R1b-P312 apparently overwhelmingly preponderant in Bell Beaker. All of that taken together strikes me as an indication of the make-up of the Yamnaya source population that went into the formation of Bell Beaker.

On the other hand, perhaps L151 took a different route than up the Danube Valley. Perhaps it went around the north side of the Carpathians and west across the North European Plain. I am definitely open to that. Maybe L151 was in Corded Ware. If that is the case, however, it was well hidden, since it's not showing up in Corded Ware. Right away someone will say, "But it's not showing up in Yamnaya either." The difference is that we have not tested Yamnaya on the Pontic steppe or in the Carpathian Basin, and we have not tested Mikhailovka/Kemi Oba, whose burial rites resembled those of Bell Beaker, and, as Leo S. Klejn pointed out in his critique, many of the Yamnaya burials in the Carpathian Basin resemble those of Mikhailovka.

Corded Ware we have tested, but, yeah, we need a lot more of that, too. I would really like to see some y-dna test results from the branch of Corded Ware called Single Grave/Protruding Foot Beaker in the Netherlands. (Can we start calling that SGPF or just Single Grave?)

[TigerMW]

R-L151 barely survived until 2800 BCE, when it began its phenomenal expansion that eventually blanketed half of Europe.
...

That's a good point. One has to ask himself what happened around 2800 BC (give or take a couple of centuries).
...
There may be another alternative related to the lineages from R1b-L23>L51 to R1b-L151's MRCA.

The L51+ L151- subclades may have expanded greatly in those early days but then later been clobbered or otherwise swamped.

I think we often underestimate the value of diversity, the diversity of genes (autosomal DNA), of geographies, of cultural practices, etc.

Almost all Y DNA lines get clobbered sooner or later unless they can somehow spread into enough situations that in one way or another they'll survive. How does one Y DNA line insure survival of a comprehensive and catastrophic war? The answer is to be on both sides that way you are the winning side. The same applies to autosomal DNA. The more gene pools a subclade is mixed into the better the chance of a winning combination against disease. The more geographies a subclade is in and the more various cultural practices it picks up the more likely to survive in a superior position.

Perhaps R1b-L51 primarily live nearer home, in a place which eventually became inhospitable. Meanwhile the wayward sons adventured west into not necessarily greener pastures, but safety in diversity.

[TigerMW]

Looks like to me that Z2103 did expand from there. Especially west into Italy,
south into Greece, and southeast into Turkey. If it crossed the Bosphorus about 3000 B.C., Z2103 men could even be among the founders of Troy (about 2920 BC).
We might want to be more specific about Italy. It has only been united as Italy politically in recent times. Z2103 did well across the southern portions of the Italian Peninsula and some of the related islands. The Alpine area and even the northern parts of the peninsula are a different story.

[rms2]

The discussion between Russian archaeologist Leo S. Klejn and a number of geneticists involved in ancient dna research has been touched on in a couple of other threads here recently. Here is a link to that discussion:

Discussion: Are the Origins of Indo-European Languages Explained by the Migration of the Yamnaya Culture to the West? (http://sci-hub.cc/saveme/b03a/[email protected])

While I think Klejn was well answered by the geneticists, his critique is valuable because it raises some important points, for example, the obvious difference between Yamnaya burials, especially on the eastern steppe, and kurgan burials in the Carpathian Basin.

On Yamnaya burials from page 2:



I have excavated on several occasions steppe barrows containing burials of the Yamnaya culture. I know these burials well: they are usually primary in the barrow, sometimes secondary, with strong skeletons laid on their backs with raised knees, and they are densely covered with red ochre. Men and women are buried in the same way. The graves usually contain handmade ceramics without handles, i.e. small, roundbottomed, egg-shaped vessels, sometimes with a corded decoration. They also often contain hammer-headed pins made of horn, and occasionally stone shaft-hole hammer-axes, and bronze lance-shaped knives and awls. This culture is widely distributed on the steppe. On the western steppe, the Yamnaya is of mixed character, retaining its own distinctive way of interment in barrows but adopting different, local ceramics.


Here he is on older steppe kurgan burials and burials in the Carpathian/Danube Basin, from page 11:



The cultural affinities of barrow burials in the Danube basin

I have read the outstanding archaeological works by Volker Heyd with great interest. In a recent work in co-authorship with Frı̑nculeasa and Preda (Frı̑nculeasa et al., 2015) he summarizes the results of many years’ excavations of barrows in the basin of the Danube. The results are extremely important. The early date of some burials on the steppe (last third of the fourth millennium BC) is substantiated. Yet Heyd and his co-authors have shown that these early barrow burials (as distinct from those of the third millennium, similar in some ways to Yamnaya burials) are significantly different: pit graves are not rectangular but oval, skeletons are not on their backs with bent legs but curled up on their sides or supine, ochre is scanty, and ceramics are not round-bottomed (as on the Dnieper or Don) but are of Balkan type.

By contemporary Russian standards, this must be characterized as another, separate culture, not Yamnaya. Among Eneolithic steppe cultures classified by Rassamakin and Kotova in the Ukraine, some are very similar to the Lower Danube cultures (Lower Mikhailovka, Kvityana): barrows, oval pit graves, skeletons supine or lying curled on their sides, and cromlechs. The culture in question was one of these, and its possible connection with Yamnaya (kurgan, what else?) is too limited.

Furthermore, with regard to the barrow burials of the third millennium BC in the basin of the Danube, although they have been assigned to the Yamnaya culture, I would consider them as also belonging to another, separate culture, perhaps a mixed culture: its burial custom is typical of the Yamnaya, but its pottery is absolutely not Yamnaya, but local Balkan with imports of distinctive corded beakers (Schnurbecher). I would not be surprised if Y-chromosome haplogroups of this population were somewhat similar to those of the Yamnaya, while mitochondrial groups were indigenous.


So we have some older steppe burials that differ from Yamnaya in that the bodies were often interred crouched on their sides, like Bell Beaker and Corded Ware, similar burials in the Danube basin that are like Lower Mikhailovka, and some Danube basin burials of the third millennium BC that are typical of Yamnaya but with corded pottery, again, like Bell Beaker and Corded Ware.


I think most of us are fairly familiar with kurgan Bell Beaker burials (as opposed to early Iberian BB burials): in a pit, which is sometimes a wood-lined or stone-lined cist; with weapons, tools, and animal bones, including horse bones; covered with a round mound sometimes surrounded by a ring of stones (a cromlech) and sometimes topped by an anthropomorphic stone stela. Bell Beaker bodies were buried crouched on their sides with knees flexed. Orientation varied, but men were almost always buried on one side and women on the other.

It seems to me Bell Beaker burials in particular resemble those of the Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba culture.

Here is David Anthony on Mikhailovka I kurgans, from pages 269-271 of his book, The Horse The Wheel and Language:



Mikhailovka I kurgans were distributed from the lower Dnieper westward to the Danube delta and south to the Crimean peninsula, north and northwest of the Black Sea. Near the Danube they were interspersed with cemeteries that contained Danubian Cernavoda I-III ceramics. Most Mikhailovka I kurgans were low mounds of black earth covered by a layer of clay, surrounded by a ditch and a stone cromlech, often with an opening on the southwest side. The graves frequently were in cists lined with stone slabs. The body could be in an extended supine position or contracted on the side or supine with raised knees, although the most common pose was contracted on the side. Occasionally (e.g., Olaneshti, k. 2, gr. 1, on the lower Dniester) the grave was covered by a stone anthropomorphic stela - a large stone slab carved at the top into the shape of a head projecting above rounded shoulders (see figure 13.11). This was the beginning of a long and important North Pontic tradition of decorating some graves with carved stone stelae.

Here's more on Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba from James Mallory's book, In Search of the Indo-Europeans, pages 203-205:



The third major Ukrainian cultural entity of the earlier Eneolithic is the Lower Mikhaylovka-Kemi Oba culture which spans the region between the lower Dnieper and the Crimea. The lower Dnieper variant, the Lower Mikhaylovka culture, synchronizes roughly with the later part of the Sredny Stog culture, while the Kemi Oba culture of the Crimea extends into the later Eneolithic.

. . . Burials and associated rituals have attracted special attention. The burials are placed in low mounds (kurgans) and the presence of stone rings, cromlechs, is frequently noted. Hearths have been discovered built on top of the kurgans, on their periphery or within the burial pit itself. Grave goods are rare but may include pottery, copper awls or shell ornaments.

One of the more striking recent discoveries of the Lower Mikhaylovka group is the existence of altars or offering places. Beneath a kurgan at Kalanchak was found a circular area on which lay the fractured remains of an anthropomorphic stone stela with traces of ochre; potsherds; and animal bones. Similar deposits have been found elsewhere.

To the south, in the Crimea, are the remains of the Kemi Oba culture which is primarily represented by small cemeteries. Besides those features which are similar to the Lower Mikhaylovka group, for example, kurgans, cromlechs, eastern orientation, and so forth, there are several other features of considerable interest. A number of tombs which have been built as stone cists have included painted ornament on the walls. Of greater representational interest are the carved stone stelae on which are depicted the heads and arms of figures, and which are covered with both geometric and more realistic ornament. A fine example of this is the stone stela that derives from Kernosovka. The stela stood 1.2 metres high and depicts the head, including a face with a moustache and beard; arms; and phallus. On the front surface of the stela are carved images of what have been interpreted as tools such as mattocks, a battle-axe, and animals including two horses. There are about seventy such figures known from the Pontic region. Considerable evidence exists that they were employed in Later Eneolithic burials, especially in the construction of Yamnaya graves where they were used to cover the deceased. This was clearly not their original purpose since they were constructed to stand upright, and Dmitry Telegin suggests that they were originally manufactured by the Lower Mikhaylovka-Kemi Oba culture and later appropriated by Yamnaya tribes who reused them in their own burials.

These major cultural groups - Sredny Stog, Novodanilovka and the Lower Mikhaylovka-Kemi Oba cultures - all constitute the primary Eneolithic cultures of the lower and middle Dnieper to the lower Don region in the period 4500-3500 BC. Their origins are by no means clearly understood though no one would deny a strong degree of continuity from the preceding Surski and Dnieper-Donets cultures in their development.


Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba was the westernmost Eneolithic steppe culture and went into the mix that made up western Yamnaya.

It seems to me these facts, taken together, might indicate that the steppe population that moved west of the Dniester was different from the Yamnaya population of the Caspian and Volga-Ural steppe.

Klejn mentioned the older steppe burials (from the last third of the 4th millennium BC) with crouched-on-the-side orientation (like Beaker and Corded Ware), which he regards as belonging to a different culture than Yamnaya. Gimbutas spoke of three waves of kurgan movement to the west, with Yamnaya simply being Wave 3, the last and largest. I think kinman suggested that L51 might have been part of one of those earlier waves. Some of the kurgans in the Carpathian Basin predate Gimbutas' Wave 3.

Perhaps R1b-L51 or L151 was part of one of those earlier kurgan waves and was subsequently pushed northwest by the arrival of Yamnaya with Wave 3? That might explain the differences in burial rites. Perhaps the impetus of this push into relatively virgin territory led to the rapid expansion of L151.

I am not asserting any of this stuff dogmatically. I'm just tossing it out there for consideration and discussion.

[rms2]

Here is another quote from page 11 of Klejn's critique. It pinpoints the last great hope of those who object, for various reasons, to the idea that R1b-L51 is fundamentally Indo-European.

It's a valid criticism, coming from Klejn, and needs to be addressed.



New genetic results, new interpretations

Quite recently we have witnessed the success of a group of geneticists from Stanford University and elsewhere (Poznik et al., 2016). They succeeded in revealing varieties of Y-chromosome connected with demographic expansions in the Bronze Age. Such expansion can give rise to migration. Among the variants connected with this expansion is R1b, and this haplogroup is typical for the Yamnaya culture. But what bad luck! This haplogroup connected with expansion is indicated by the clade L11, while the Yamnaya burials are associated with a different clade, Z2103, that is not marked by expansion. It is now time to think about how else the remarkable results reached by both teams of experienced and bright geneticists may be interpreted.


I think the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence indicates that R1b-L51 came from the steppe and is Indo-European. The reason it has not shown up in Yamnaya yet is because we have only tested Yamnaya of the Caspian steppe and the Volga-Ural steppe and not western Yamnaya, with the exception of one Bulgarian I2a2a.

It is also possible that R1b-L51 was in one of the earlier steppe cultures that moved west with Gimbutas' Wave 1 or Wave 2, or that R1b-L51 was in the western vanguard of Corded Ware.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

The discussion between Russian archaeologist Leo S. Klejn and a number of geneticists involved in ancient dna research has been touched on in a couple of other threads here recently. Here is a link to that discussion:

Discussion: Are the Origins of Indo-European Languages Explained by the Migration of the Yamnaya Culture to the West? (http://sci-hub.cc/saveme/b03a/[email protected])

While I think Klejn was well answered by the geneticists, his critique is valuable because it raises some important points, for example, the obvious difference between Yamnaya burials, especially on the eastern steppe, and kurgan burials in the Carpathian Basin.

On Yamnaya burials from page 2:



Here he is on older steppe kurgan burials and burials in the Carpathian/Danube Basin, from page 11:



So we have some older steppe burials that differ from Yamnaya in that the bodies were often interred crouched on their sides, like Bell Beaker and Corded Ware, similar burials in the Danube basin that are like Lower Mikhailovka, and some Danube basin burials of the third millennium BC that are typical of Yamnaya but with corded pottery, again, like Bell Beaker and Corded Ware.


I think most of us are fairly familiar with kurgan Bell Beaker burials (as opposed to early Iberian BB burials): in a pit, which is sometimes a wood-lined or stone-lined cist; with weapons, tools, and animal bones, including horse bones; covered with a round mound sometimes surrounded by a ring of stones (a cromlech) and sometimes topped by an anthropomorphic stone stela. Bell Beaker bodies were buried crouched on their sides with knees flexed. Orientation varied, but men were almost always buried on one side and women on the other.

It seems to me Bell Beaker burials in particular resemble those of the Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba culture.

Here is David Anthony on Mikhailovka I kurgans, from pages 269-271 of his book, The Horse The Wheel and Language:



Here's more on Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba from James Mallory's book, In Search of the Indo-Europeans, pages 203-205:



Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba was the westernmost Eneolithic steppe culture and went into the mix that made up western Yamnaya.

It seems to me these facts, taken together, might indicate that the steppe population that moved west of the Dniester was different from the Yamnaya population of the Caspian and Volga-Ural steppe.

Klejn mentioned the older steppe burials (from the last third of the 4th millennium BC) with crouched-on-the-side orientation (like Beaker and Corded Ware), which he regards as belonging to a different culture than Yamnaya. Gimbutas spoke of three waves of kurgan movement to the west, with Yamnaya simply being Wave 3, the last and largest. I think kinman suggested that L51 might have been part of one of those earlier waves. Some of the kurgans in the Carpathian Basin predate Gimbutas' Wave 3.

Perhaps R1b-L51 or L151 was part of one of those earlier kurgan waves and was subsequently pushed northwest by the arrival of Yamnaya with Wave 3? That might explain the differences in burial rites. Perhaps the impetus of this push into relatively virgin territory led to the rapid expansion of L151.

I am not asserting any of this stuff dogmatically. I'm just tossing it out there for consideration and discussion.

I'm squeezing the memory cells here, but I though BB burials were mostly flat. Even most CWC were mostly flat, apart from Stage A, when it is characterised by male , primary internments, under barrows. Then the use of barrow diminishes, women also appear giving rise to the classic bi-gendered ritual.
(just a minor point).

[ffoucart]

It seems to me these facts, taken together, might indicate that the steppe population that moved west of the Dniester was different from the Yamnaya population of the Caspian and Volga-Ural steppe.


What we see from aDNA is a common population between Yamna and CWC, and who gave rise to the later BBs. The only variations are due to mixing with locals (CWC and BBs) on autosomal level, and Y haplogroups.

Does it mean that this population was a cultural monolith, without any variation? The answer is clearly no.

aDNA is saying that a population living in Eastern Europe/European Steppe is a source of admixture for various BA populations. This source population was very similar to Yamna, but not necessarily identical to them. And probably culturally different in any case, even if many aspects were shared.

Moreover, later BBs are attested around 1000 years after the first Yamna. So, cultural evolution must also be taken into account.

If you consider the possibility of multiple waves from the Steppe, it would mean that the original genetical homogenous population existed already centuries before the Yamna (as Yamna being a relatively unadmixed population to be a good proxy), so probably around 4000BC.

Interesting idea, but I am not sure if it's very likely.

[R.Rocca]

It seems to me these facts, taken together, might indicate that the steppe population that moved west of the Dniester was different from the Yamnaya population of the Caspian and Volga-Ural steppe.

Also looking at all of the Early Bronze Age samples from Bulgaria, I would say one wave may have consisted almost entirely of I2a2 and the next almost entirely R-Z2103. They would have passed through territories previously dominated by G2a as found in the Cucuteni-Trypillia samples. Here they are...

I2175 I2a2a1b1 3328-3015 calBCE Bulgaria_EBA
buried in a pit-grave, laying on his back, with ochre

I2165 I2a2a1b1b 3020-2895 calBCE Bulgaria_EBA
Buried under tumulus in a small pit, head to the East and legs bent at the knees.

Bul4 I2a2a1b1b 3012-2900 calBCE Yamnaya_Bulgaria_outlier
Buried under a barrow, a supine inhumation with flexed legs, arms alongside the body, with red ochre over and around the skull

I2510 G2a2a1a2 2906-2710 calBCE Bulgaria_BA
Buried in a pit grave, Only the head, several bones of both hands and the upper ribs are preserved.

The Vucedol samples also paint a similar picture as one sample is R-Z2103, one is G2a2a1a2a... and from the prior Szécsényi-Nagy study... one I2a2 and two unresolved R1b. If I had to, I'd bet the unresolved samples are likely R-Z2103 as well. Obviously we'll need to wait for more samples.

As you know, I2a2 has been found in a late Yamnaya sample from Russia as well.

It is not until this R1a sample appears in the Middle Bronze Age that a steppe halogroup that influenced Central Europe appears, and it is R1a instead of R-L51...

I2163 R1a1a1b2 1750-1625 calBCE Bulgaria_MLBA

[rms2]

Bulgaria is south of the Danube and not part of the Carpathian Basin, and one could assemble an even more impressive list of Corded Ware samples from farther north in Europe that are very nearly all R1a and likewise have no R1b-L51. If the point of those Bulgarian results is to show that R1b-L51 did not come up the Danube with Yamnaya, then the even longer list of Corded Ware results could be used to make the same sort of argument with regard to that culture.

Moving into Bulgaria involves leaving the natural northwestern path of the Danube Valley and heading south.

Budapest sits astride the Danube just northwest of the Carpathian Basin, and there we have an R1b-L51 Bell Beaker skeleton buried within a few miles of an R1b-Z2103 Bell Beaker skeleton and an I2a2a-M223 Bell Beaker skeleton:

I2365 (2465-2205 BC) - R1b-L2 Budapest-Békásmegyer, Királyok útja (former Vöröshadsereg útja) (Hungary)

18065

I don't know the answer, but I do know where we have not yet looked.

[rms2]

I'm squeezing the memory cells here, but I though BB burials were mostly flat. Even most CWC were mostly flat, apart from Stage A, when it is characterised by male , primary internments, under barrows. Then the use of barrow diminishes, women also appear giving rise to the classic bi-gendered ritual.
(just a minor point).

No, I believe that is one of the differences between Bell Beaker and Corded Ware: BB single graves were covered with a round tumulus, and CW graves tended to be flat.

[rms2]

What we see from aDNA is a common population between Yamna and CWC, and who gave rise to the later BBs. The only variations are due to mixing with locals (CWC and BBs) on autosomal level, and Y haplogroups.

Does it mean that this population was a cultural monolith, without any variation? The answer is clearly no.

aDNA is saying that a population living in Eastern Europe/European Steppe is a source of admixture for various BA populations. This source population was very similar to Yamna, but not necessarily identical to them. And probably culturally different in any case, even if many aspects were shared.

Moreover, later BBs are attested around 1000 years after the first Yamna. So, cultural evolution must also be taken into account.

If you consider the possibility of multiple waves from the Steppe, it would mean that the original genetical homogenous population existed already centuries before the Yamna (as Yamna being a relatively unadmixed population to be a good proxy), so probably around 4000BC.

Interesting idea, but I am not sure if it's very likely.

Great, but the issue being addressed in this thread (see its title) is where the R1b in Bell Beaker came from. And of course that means R1b-L51 for the most part, especially its descendant R1b-P312.

Maybe you could address that.

[rms2]

Over in the recently closed down thread that discussed Corded Ware as a possible source of the P312 in Bell Beaker, the Budzhak culture was brought up, as I recall, because of certain similarities between it and Bell Beaker, especially with regard to types of arrowheads.

Budzhak evidently arose on the northwest coast of the Black Sea in southern Moldova in the territory of the old Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba culture, whose burial rites were so similar in many respects to those of Bell Beaker. The Wikipedia article on Budzhak, Budjak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budjak), cites S.V. Ivanova, Balkan-Carpathian variant of the Yamnaya culture-historical region, to say the following about Budzhak:



The Budjak culture of the North-West Black Sea region is considered to be important in the context of the Pit-Grave or Yamnaya culture of the Pontic steppe, dating to 3,600–2,300 BC. In particular, Budjak may have given rise to the Balkan-Carpathian variant of Yamnaya culture.

[Net Down G5L]

I'm squeezing the memory cells here, but I though BB burials were mostly flat. Even most CWC were mostly flat, apart from Stage A, when it is characterised by male , primary internments, under barrows. Then the use of barrow diminishes, women also appear giving rise to the classic bi-gendered ritual.
(just a minor point).




No, I believe that is one of the differences between Bell Beaker and Corded Ware: BB single graves were covered with a round tumulus, and CW graves tended to be flat.

According to Fitzpatrick, the Boscombe Bowmen and Amesbury Archer graves were flat graves (these are early Chalcolithic graves).
However, (later) EBA Beaker graves in that geographical area seem to be under tumuli.

Many have interpreted tumuli in southern England as territorial markers - showing ownership of land - that can be seen from a distance.

Just a thought....could the flat graves represent early phase settlement where Beakers were integrating/co-existing with 'existing land owners'. And could they begin to bury their dead under tumuli once they had established domination/control/ownership of an area of land?

No idea if any studies have looked at this or whether there are enough reliably dated flat and tumuli graves in any one area to test the idea (???)

[rms2]

Some of the supposed flat graves were rendered flat through farming activity in subsequent years.

18070 18071

[rms2]

Here's a map of the Danube/Rhine system. I sketched in the Tisza River, as you can probably tell, and added the names of some of the westernmost steppe cultures, Budzhak within Yamnaya and Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba preceding Yamnaya in the Eneolithic.

There are a lot of Yamnaya kurgans along the Tisza River, and you can see its proximity to Budapest.

18099

[MitchellSince1893]

Here's a map of the Danube/Rhine system. I sketched in the Tisza River, as you can probably tell, and added the names of some of the westernmost steppe cultures, Budzhak within Yamnaya and Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba preceding Yamnaya in the Eneolithic.

There are a lot of Yamnaya kurgans along the Tisza River, and you can see its proximity to Budapest.

18088

Seems like a pretty straight forward solution: Yamnaya-Budzhak folks took the Tisza River from near their territory to the Carpathian Basin introducing non Z2103 M269 that eventually ended up in Bell Beaker.
Plus it's a more direct route than the purely North of the Carpathian route into S. Poland into Moravia or the Danube route.

While more direct, it requires crossing the Carpathinans so it isn't the path of least resistance.

If Budzhak was a reservoir of P312 subclades a few branches down, you could have a situation were multi subclade groups were taking more than one route into Central Europe at multiple times, complicating our efforts to make this a simple to follow story.

[Silesian]

Bulgaria is south of the Danube and not part of the Carpathian Basin, and one could assemble an even more impressive list of Corded Ware samples from farther north in Europe that are very nearly all R1a and likewise have no R1b-L51. If the point of those Bulgarian results is to show that R1b-L51 did not come up the Danube with Yamnaya, then the even longer list of Corded Ware results could be used to make the same sort of argument with regard to that culture.

Moving into Bulgaria involves leaving the natural northwestern path of the Danube Valley and heading south.

Budapest sits astride the Danube just northwest of the Carpathian Basin, and there we have an R1b-L51 Bell Beaker skeleton buried within a few miles of an R1b-Z2103 Bell Beaker skeleton and an I2a2a-M223 Bell Beaker skeleton:

I2365 (2465-2205 BC) - R1b-L2 Budapest-Békásmegyer, Királyok útja (former Vöröshadsereg útja) (Hungary)

18065

I don't know the answer, but I do know where we have not yet looked.

R1b-L51 Bell Beaker skeleton buried within a few miles of an R1b-Z2103[688 (I2787)] Bell Beaker skeleton and an I2a2a-M223 Bell Beaker skeleton-Two of these have [Yamnaya-Steppe ancestry].
The Vucedol R1b sample also paint a similar picture as one sample is R-Z2103, one is G2a2a1a2a-one is derived from Steppe[Yamnaya-Steppe ancestry] the other is not[G2a].
"Santa's Six Foot Elves"
http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.ca/search?updated-max=2017-07-12T10:52:00-05:00&max-results=5&start=5&by-date=false

Grave 552 (I4178, GEN 58): Male individual lying on his left side, in contracted
position. The rectangular shaped grave pit, oriented northeast–southwest, was enclosed
by a round ditch. Grave goods include a Bell Beaker, and a bowl.
I4178/GEN_58/Grave552: 2500-2200 BCE [R1b1a1a2 + J1c1b1a]

Grave 49 (I2741, GEN 20): Male individual lying of his left side, in contracted position.
The rectangular shaped grave pit, oriented northeast–southwest, was enclosed by a
round ditch. Grave goods include a Bell Beaker, a bowl, a stone wrist-guard and a
dagger. The radiocarbon date for this individual is:
I2741/GEN_20, Grave 49: 2458–2154 calBCE (3835±35 BP, Poz-83641)


....has the highest concentration of the Steppe-like ancestry of any individual within the Beaker world, and probably Western Europe for that matter. At the same rate, Szigetszentmiklós has an individual (I2741) who exhibits nearly zero Steppe-like ancestry. ....


Like the Małopolskan Beakers from the previous post, the initial Beaker ethnic is wholly alien to this region, being characterized as a tall, Alpine, wide-faced, [I]strongly-built people with pronounced brachycephaly. The prominent noses, cheeks and mastoid processes are often remarked upon, including from the Köhler paper below.


http://www.academia.edu/2917506/UNIQUE_BURIAL_OF_THE_BELL_BEAKER_CULTURE_FROM_THE_ CEMETERY_IN_SAMBORZEC_SOUTHERN_POLAND_

This is therichest BB burial discovered on the territory of Poland thus far.

[R.Rocca]

Ties between Malopolska Corded Ware and Yamnaya came from multiple areas, including the westernmost areas that are long suspected to harbor R-L51.

Source: Wlodarczak (2014) The Traits of Early Bronze Pontic Cultures in the Development of Old Upland Corded Ware (Malopolska Groups) and Zlota Culture Communities

http://www.r1b.org/imgs/Malopolska_Yamnaya_Ties.png

[MitchellSince1893]

...Source: Piotr Wlodarczak (2014) The Traits of Early-Bronze Pontic Cultures in the Development of Old Upland Corded Ware (Malopolska Groups) and Zlota Culture Communities


In the Final Neolithic grave inventories from Malopolska, flint arrowheads are found. In the first half of the 3rd millenium, they are recorded in CWC barrow graves (rarely) and also in Zlota Culuture cemeteries [quite often: 162 items from 48 graves - Witkowska 2013]. Their incidence grows around 2600/2500 BC. The same period witnesses also rich sets of arrowheads (the largest - from grave 15, Wilczycw - comprises 30 items). The latter are related to the burials of adult men; as a rule, they are a component of rich and varied inventories. Equipping the dead with archer's gear is a new tradition in Malopolska - graves with arrowheads are not encountered either in the GAC circle or in the Baden Culture. Likewise, the tradition is not observed either in western or northern CWC regions (from there, we know only of single features with arrowheads). In these areas, archer's equipment became a frequent component of grave inventories only after ca. 2400 BC and is associated with assemblages displaying the tradition of the Bell Beaker Culture. Thus, Malopolska inventories with arrowheads are older than such assemblages by about 200-300 years.

So we have this new archer gear tradition found only in the part of Corded Ware in closest proximity to Yamnaya in the 3000 - 2500 BC timeframe i.e. it isn't found in Western nor Northern Corded Ware culture. Similar arrow heads have been found in Yamnaya to the north of the Sea of Azov.


Ties between Malopolska Corded Ware and Yamnaya came from multiple areas, including the westernmost areas that are long suspected to harbor R-L51.

Source: Wlodarczak (2014) The Traits of Early Bronze Pontic Cultures in the Development of Old Upland Corded Ware (Malopolska Groups) and Zlota Culture Communities.

http://www.r1b.org/imgs/Malopolska_Yamnaya_Ties.png
Illustrating how Yamnaya gets into the Malopolska specific Corded Ware and possibly how this particular Corded Ware eventually gets into Bell Beaker via the Małopolskan Beaker culture (which are "more directly connected to, or largely originate from, Moravian Beakers") or the Moravian Beaker?

Małopolskan from Olade paper
I4251/RISE1122/grave no. 7: 2837-2672 BCE (3990±60 BP, Ki-7926) IIR this date may be in question
Male inhumation burial (25-30 years) with northwest-southeast orientation, located on the left side. The grave goods consisted of two vessels (bowl and unornamented cup), a flint blade dagger and a flint scraper. [R1b1a1a2 + H1]


I4252/RISE1123/grave no. 1: 2463-2142 BCE (3820±50 BP, Ki-7921). Child inhumation burial (11-13 years; genetically male) with northeast-southwest orientation, located on the left side. There was a ceramic bowl and an undecorated cup. [R + U5a1a1]

I4253/RISE1124/grave no. 13: 2571-2208 BCE (3920±60 BP, Ki-7929). Male inhumation burial (25-30 years), with N-S orientation, located on the left side. The only element of equipment was a ceramic bowl, posed in the northern part of the grave." [R1b1a1a2 + U5a2c]


I could be wrong but I think we will find our elusive ancient P312 and/or direct ancestors in the Dniester River Valley basin.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Dnister-Nistru.png/280px-Dnister-Nistru.png

[rms2]

R1b-L51 Bell Beaker skeleton buried within a few miles of an R1b-Z2103[688 (I2787)] Bell Beaker skeleton and an I2a2a-M223 Bell Beaker skeleton-Two of these have [Yamnaya-Steppe ancestry].
The Vucedol R1b sample also paint a similar picture as one sample is R-Z2103, one is G2a2a1a2a-one is derived from Steppe[Yamnaya-Steppe ancestry] the other is not[G2a].
"Santa's Six Foot Elves"
http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.ca/search?updated-max=2017-07-12T10:52:00-05:00&max-results=5&start=5&by-date=false

Grave 552 (I4178, GEN 58): Male individual lying on his left side, in contracted
position. The rectangular shaped grave pit, oriented northeast–southwest, was enclosed
by a round ditch. Grave goods include a Bell Beaker, and a bowl.
I4178/GEN_58/Grave552: 2500-2200 BCE [R1b1a1a2 + J1c1b1a]

Grave 49 (I2741, GEN 20): Male individual lying of his left side, in contracted position.
The rectangular shaped grave pit, oriented northeast–southwest, was enclosed by a
round ditch. Grave goods include a Bell Beaker, a bowl, a stone wrist-guard and a
dagger. The radiocarbon date for this individual is:
I2741/GEN_20, Grave 49: 2458–2154 calBCE (3835±35 BP, Poz-83641)


....has the highest concentration of the Steppe-like ancestry of any individual within the Beaker world, and probably Western Europe for that matter. At the same rate, Szigetszentmiklós has an individual (I2741) who exhibits [I]nearly zero Steppe-like ancestry. ....




http://www.academia.edu/2917506/UNIQUE_BURIAL_OF_THE_BELL_BEAKER_CULTURE_FROM_THE_ CEMETERY_IN_SAMBORZEC_SOUTHERN_POLAND_

This is therichest BB burial discovered on the territory of Poland thus far.

The I2 Bell Beaker man I was talking about buried on Csepel Island along with that R1b-Z2103 Bell Beaker man and only a few miles from that R1b-L2 Bell Beaker man was this one, and he had plenty of steppe dna:

I2786 (2459-2206 BC) - I2a2a-M223 Szigetszentmiklós, Felső Ürge-hegyi dűlő (Hungary)

[rms2]

Seems like a pretty straight forward solution: Yamnaya-Budzhak folks took the Tisza River from near their territory to the Carpathian Basin introducing non Z2103 M269 that eventually ended up in Bell Beaker.
Plus it's a more direct route than the purely North of the Carpathian route into S. Poland into Moravia or the Danube route.

While more direct, it requires crossing the Carpathinans so it isn't the path of least resistance.

If Budzhak was a reservoir of P312 subclades a few branches down, you could have a situation were multi subclade groups were taking more than one route into Central Europe at multiple times, complicating our efforts to make this a simple to follow story.

I think the more natural route for Budzhak would have been around the south end of the Karpat (the Carpathians) and up the Danube Valley. Whether or not that's what they did, I don't know.

18095

[rms2]

. . .


I could be wrong but I think we will find our elusive ancient P312 and/or direct ancestors in the Dniester River Valley basin.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Dnister-Nistru.png/280px-Dnister-Nistru.png

I agree, and especially near the mouth of the Dniester in Budzhak country and, before Budzhak, in the old Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba territory.

The map below showing Budzhak sites comes from pages 88-89 of Svitlana Ivanova's article, Connections Between the Budzhak Culture and Central European Groups of the Corded Ware Culture:

18096

As one can see, most of them are near the northwestern Black Sea coast.

[rms2]

Here is something interesting relative to Gimbutas' idea of the blending of Yamnaya and Vucedol.

From Svitlana Ivanova, Baltic-Pontic Studies vol. 18: 2013, 86-120 PL ISSN 1231-0344, Connections Between the Budzhak Culture and Central European Groups of the Corded Ware Culture (https://tinyurl.com/y7yusvr3), page 98:



The Yamnaya population moves far westwards, Yamnaya graves bearing local features (Vucedol) are known in Gönyü in the West of Hungary, Neusiedl-am-See in eastern Austria; Essling near Vienna and Bleckendorf, Saxony-Anhalt [Harrison, Heyd 2007; Heyd 2011].

[Chad Rohlfsen]

.. not sure of a strong connection here.

[rms2]

Sorry to post so many posts in a row. Look at these beakers from the Budzhak culture. I am no expert in ancient ceramics, but to my eye they look like Bell Beaker beakers.

18097

[razyn]

The map below showing Budzhak sites comes from pages 88-89 of Svitlana Ivanova's article, Connections Between the Budzhak Culture and Central European Groups of the Corded Ware Culture:

18096

Did burial sites of the Budzhak culture end abruptly on the east bank of the lower Danube? Or just government funding to study them? On other large rivers, their settlements are on both banks, so the culture had boats.

[rms2]

.. not sure of a strong connection here.

According to Ivanova, Budzhak practiced a variety of burial poses, including crouched on the left side (eastern BB style). "Curled on the back" (typical Yamnaya pose) was the most frequent, however.

From page 91:


Five main positions of the buried body can be identified: (1) curled on the back, arms stretched along the body (Fig . 3:2, 11; 4:8) legs had been placed with knees up, but then fell to one side or the other, or fell apart (or has been deliberately placed?) in a*rhomb position (57 .2 %) (2) bent to the right, the left arm bent in the elbow, the hand at the pelvis, stomach or chest; the right arm stretched along the body (16 .3 %) (3) legs bent to the left, the right hand placed at the pelvis (13 .1 %) (4) on the right side (Fig . 3:9), with different positions of arms (7 .3 %) (5) on the crouched left side (Fig . 3:6), with different positions of arms (6 .1 %) . While some researchers trace more fractional gradation within these variants [Yarovoy 1985], others merge them into three groups: on the back, on the right side, on the left side [Rychkov 1990, Nikolova 1992] . Inhumations of variant 1 dominate in numbers and in most cases are the main ones in burial mounds.

[rms2]

Did burial sites of the Budzhak culture end abruptly on the east bank of the lower Danube? Or just government funding to study them? On other large rivers, their settlements are on both banks, so the culture had boats.

I don't know and can only go by the map of Budzhak settlements from Ivanova's article.

I'm guessing they had boats, but how skilled they were with them, I don't know. I did not see any mention of boats, ships or seafaring in Ivanova's article, except for the mention of a boat or boat-like construction on the roof of a grave at Semenovka (pp. 89, 118-119). Probably that is a strong indication that boats were important, at least in the life of the individual buried in that grave at Semenovka.

[Silesian]

The I2 Bell Beaker man I was talking about buried on Csepel Island along with that R1b-Z2103 Bell Beaker man and only a few miles from that R1b-L2 Bell Beaker man was this one, and he had plenty of steppe dna:

I2786 (2459-2206 BC) - I2a2a-M223 Szigetszentmiklós, Felső Ürge-hegyi dűlő (Hungary)

http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/ancient-human-dna_41837#10/47.5464/19.2879

The four samples 2-R1b/2-I2a classed as Bell Beaker Burials, are clumped together in same burial adjacent city Felsotag. I2786-I2a has plenty Yamnaya and sample I2741-I2a has little or no Yamnaya. How can this be? I wonder, are there any R1b Bell Beaker samples that score as low as or lower in Yamnaya Steppe component than sample I2741-I2a-M233 Bell Beaker Burial?

[rms2]

Seems like a pretty straight forward solution: Yamnaya-Budzhak folks took the Tisza River from near their territory to the Carpathian Basin introducing non Z2103 M269 that eventually ended up in Bell Beaker.
Plus it's a more direct route than the purely North of the Carpathian route into S. Poland into Moravia or the Danube route.

While more direct, it requires crossing the Carpathinans so it isn't the path of least resistance.

If Budzhak was a reservoir of P312 subclades a few branches down, you could have a situation were multi subclade groups were taking more than one route into Central Europe at multiple times, complicating our efforts to make this a simple to follow story.

I'm quoting you again because I just noticed that you may have hit on something significant.

The following is from page 111 of Ivanova's article that I have already cited a number of times above:



Włodarczak reconstructed the Danube way of westward migration of the Yamnaya tribes [Włodarczak 2010] . The routes of migration to Alfeld could be restored based on archaeological finds with the use of written sources and historic data from later epochs, e .g ., about the migration of Medieval nomads to Pannonia . Pechenegs and Cumans mastered three ways from the southern Rus steppes to the central European Plain, to Hungary: the first, through the Iron Gates; the second, through the southern Carpathians in the headwaters of the Olt, Mures and Szomes rivers; the third, from the Upper Siret and Prut rivers to the Tisza [Rasovskiy 1993: 3].


If the Pechenegs did it in the 9th or 10th century AD, then Yamnaya/Budzhak could have done it in the third millennium BC.

18098

[rms2]

http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/ancient-human-dna_41837#10/47.5464/19.2879

The four samples 2-R1b/2-I2a classed as Bell Beaker Burials, are clumped together in same burial adjacent city Felsotag. I2786-I2a has plenty Yamnaya and sample I2741-I2a has little or no Yamnaya. How can this be? I wonder, are there any R1b Bell Beaker samples that score as low as or lower in Yamnaya Steppe component than sample I2741-I2a-M233 Bell Beaker Burial?

Apparently Bell Beaker was open to recruitment from the local Old European Neolithic farmer population. All of the non-Iberian non-R1bs except for I2786 had low to no steppe dna, including an I2a in England. All of the non-Iberian R1b Bell Beaker samples had significant steppe dna. There were two Iberian Bell Beaker R1bs (one R1b1a and one R1b1, neither of them R1b-M269) who had no steppe dna. They may have been V88. Time and the raw data will tell.

[razyn]

I have to entertain the wife today, but I want to more or less bookmark the source of that 2013 Ivanova article. Lots of interesting maps, artifacts, etc. This is an Academia link, there may be other ways to view it w/o buying it (if that is even possible). https://www.academia.edu/28285769/THE_INGUL-DONETS_EARLY_BRONZE_CIVILIZATION_AS_SPRINGBOARD_FO R_TRANSMISSION_OF_PONTIC_CULTURAL_PATTERNS_TO_THE_ BALTIC_DRAINAGE_BASIN_3200_1750_BC

[rms2]

I have to entertain the wife today, but I want to more or less bookmark the source of that 2013 Ivanova article. Lots of interesting maps, artifacts, etc. This is an Academia link, there may be other ways to view it w/o buying it (if that is even possible). https://www.academia.edu/28285769/THE_INGUL-DONETS_EARLY_BRONZE_CIVILIZATION_AS_SPRINGBOARD_FO R_TRANSMISSION_OF_PONTIC_CULTURAL_PATTERNS_TO_THE_ BALTIC_DRAINAGE_BASIN_3200_1750_BC

It starts on page 86 here (https://tinyurl.com/y7yusvr3), as well, and can be read for free.

[MitchellSince1893]

...

18096

As one can see, most of them are near the northwestern Black Sea coast.

Not that it means much as it may not have been the focus of the map, but it does show Budzhak settlements going up the rivers to the Northwest, but it doesn't show them going down the Danube to the south (bottom of the map).

But it does later say
The Budzhak culture represents connections with the Carpathian and Danube, the
Corded Ware and the Globular Amphora cultures.

[rms2]

Not that it means much as it may not have been the focus of the map, but it does show Budzhak settlements going up the rivers to the Northwest, but it doesn't show them going down the Danube to the south (bottom of the map).

But it does later say


The Budzhak culture represents connections with the Carpathian and Danube, the Corded Ware and the Globular Amphora cultures.


Did you catch Post #4103 (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=273354&viewfull=1#post273354) above?

Budzhak did have connections to Corded Ware and was evidently all over the place. Riding horses probably facilitated their mobility, and maybe they were skilled with boats and portages, etc., so that they could make use of the rivers.

I updated the map I made earlier to show the Prut-to-Tisza route into Hungary.

18100

[rms2]

I did not mean to imply that the Budzhak folks navigated the Prut to near the headwaters of the Tisza. The Prut flows south, so heading north up the Prut would mean traveling against the current. That could be done by means of barges or rafts hauled by cattle driven on the nearby river bank, but the upper reaches of the Prut are not navigable and resemble swift-flowing mountain streams.

If the Budzhak people made the trip into Hungary via the Tisza valley, they probably did so on horseback and by cattle-drawn wagon.

[MitchellSince1893]

Did you catch Post #4103 (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=273354&viewfull=1#post273354) above?

Budzhak did have connections to Corded Ware and was evidently all over the place. Riding horses probably facilitated their mobility, and maybe they were skilled with boats and portages, etc., so that they could make use of the rivers.

I updated the map I made earlier to show the Prut-to-Tisza route into Hungary.

18100
I've been looking at maps of the area between the Prut and Tisza. At their closest approaches you can stay under 4000 feet above sea level and transverse from one river basis to the other.

48°11'35.60"N 24°31'19.89"E
Prut to the east, Tisza to the West, and Dniester to the north. Yellow is the overland route between the two, just under 4000 ft elevation.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/93/3b/5e/933b5ee767b40e2b163d40eecf4d0cb3.png

[Chad Rohlfsen]

According to Ivanova, Budzhak practiced a variety of burial poses, including crouched on the left side (eastern BB style). "Curled on the back" (typical Yamnaya pose) was the most frequent, however.

From page 91:

6.1% isn't much to base anything on. Gumelnita-Karanova typical burials are almost all flexed on the left side. It is also much more common in the Balkan Chalcolithic than Budzhak.

[rms2]

Here's something interesting from page 113 of Ivanova's article, given the Malopolska Bell Beaker stuff:



The authors believe that the Dniester way linked the population of the late Eneolithic – Early Bronze Age of the North-Western Pontic Region not only with the Sokal ridge or Malopolska, where the pottery complex of the Zlota culture contained vessels comparable with the pottery of the Usatovo type [Włodarczak 2008: 520] . Probably, the Budzhak population migrated westwards to central Europe across Malopolska and northern slopes of the Carpathians. The evidence of such connections could be found in the presence of Yamnaya graves in the central European area (Fig . 15), as well as in the similarity of individual shapes of pottery and ornamental motifs (Fig. 11, 12, 18-20).


Here's Figure 17 from Ivanova's article (page 110) that shows two Budzhak burials with Corded Ware correspondences, and I would say also Bell Beaker correspondences. #1 is from Purcari (https://goo.gl/maps/t8a7yAYQ93x) in Moldova, and #2 is from Alkaliya (https://goo.gl/maps/WEh22YJhCt12) near Zatoka in Ukraine.

Note the burial posture, crouched on the left side, like Bell Beaker, and the archer's equipment. After clicking on the image, click on it again to make it larger.

18101

[rms2]

6.1% isn't much to base anything on. Gumelnita-Karanova typical burials are almost all flexed on the left side. It is also much more common in the Balkan Chalcolithic than Budzhak.

That's kind of early (4700-3950 BC) and looks like a mostly Old European farmer culture with loads of mother goddess figurines.

Plus if you look at Rich Rocca's Post #4081 (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=272911&viewfull=1#post272911) the Bulgarian stomping ground of Gumelnita-Karanova is I2a and G2a territory in the EBA.

Budzhak also made use of stone stelae, and those burials from Figure 17 I posted in my last post above are a lot like Bell Beaker burials, including archer's equipment and the crouched left side burial posture.

As I mentioned in previous posts, in the Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba culture on the Pontic steppe the most common burial posture was crouched on the side. That culture also used anthropomorphic stone stelae, mounds (kurgans), stone-lined burial cists, and stone cromlechs. Those are all things it had in common with Bell Beaker, and Budzhak occupied the northwestern part of the old Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba territory.

[rms2]

Speaking of Gumelnita-Karanovo, in her book, The Civilization of the Goddess, pp. 90-99, Gimbutas regards it as a mother goddess-worshiping, Old European Neolithic farmer culture. She says this of the physical anthropology of the Gumelnita-Karanovo people (page 93):



The Karanovo-Gumelnita population was gracile Mediterranean mixed with gracilized proto-Europid type.

[rms2]

You know, I do not know if Budzhak is the mystery pre-Bell Beaker culture we are seeking, but it fills some of the bill. I think Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba is really similar to Bell Beaker in its burial rites. I really think it might be the source of the L51, L151 or P312 in Bell Beaker.

[Chad Rohlfsen]

That's kind of early (4700-3950 BC) and looks like a mostly Old European farmer culture with loads of mother goddess figurines.

Plus if you look at Rich Rocca's Post #4081 (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=272911&viewfull=1#post272911) the Bulgarian stomping ground of Gumelnita-Karanova is I2a and G2a territory in the EBA.

Budzhak also made use of stone stelae, and those burials from Figure 17 I posted in my last post above are a lot like Bell Beaker burials, including archer's equipment and the crouched left side burial posture.

As I mentioned in previous posts, in the Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba culture on the Pontic steppe the most common burial posture was crouched on the side. That culture also used anthropomorphic stone stelae, mounds (kurgans), stone-lined burial cists, and stone cromlechs. Those are all things it had in common with Bell Beaker, and Budzhak occupied the northwestern part of the old Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba territory.

I know plenty about all of these cultures. I'm not someone that needs to read the 500 posts on Gimbutas every week or be schooled by anyone. Fixating on burial position and archery will get you to lots of cultures. Most are Chalcolithic Balkan groups with much more connection than just a burial position of 6.1%. There's also a stronger pottery connection there. Archery equipment is all over Europe. Tanged daggers likely start south of the Caucasus. There's so much of a mixed bag in Bell Beaker that you can't point to one group.

You guys fixate on one thing too much, like pressure-flaking. Bell Beaker and Yamnaya could come from anywhere east of the Rhine.

Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

[rms2]

I know plenty about all of these cultures.

Great. Teach the rest of us then.



I'm not someone that needs to read the 500 posts on Gimbutas every week or be schooled by anyone.

This might be a thread to avoid then, since the name Gimbutas is in its very title, but there is plenty of stuff here from other authors.



Fixating on burial position and archery will get you to lots of cultures. Most are Chalcolithic Balkan groups with much more connection than just a burial position of 6.1%. There's also a stronger pottery connection there. Archery equipment is all over Europe. Tanged daggers likely start south of the Caucasus. There's so much of a mixed bag in Bell Beaker that you can't point to one group.

You guys fixate on one thing too much, like pressure-flaking. Bell Beaker and Yamnaya could come from anywhere east of the Rhine.

Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

I don't recall anyone making an argument from burial position alone. Most of us have seen photos of various prehistoric burials in which the body was placed crouched on its side. It was a common burial posture. The crouched-on-the-side pose was just one of a suite of factors that might help identify a pre-Beaker culture.

I enjoy talking about this stuff and chewing it over with others. If we all just sat back and enjoyed the ride, Anthrogenica would be a pretty dull place, and, effectively, there'd be no ride at all.

[rms2]

I am not an expert on all these European Neolithic, Eneolithic and Bronze Age cultures. Often when they are mentioned on threads like this one, I have to look them up. I have learned a lot that way. In fact, I had not read much of what Gimbutas wrote until Piquerobi started this thread almost three years ago and sparked my interest. Up until Rich Rocca started the thread on Corded Ware as a possible source of the P312 in Bell Beaker, I had never heard of the Budzhak culture.

That's part of what makes all this stuff fun.

I don't know where P312 and his brothers came from, but I would like to find out. It's fun to look at the various clues with others here and try to take our best guesses.

My posting style often leaves a lot to be desired and comes off as more combative and pedantic than I would like it to. For that I apologize.

[rms2]

I frequently complain that we don't have any ancient y-dna from the thousands of kurgans in the Carpathian basin. We also don't have any ancient y-dna from the 4th and 3rd millennia BC on the Pontic steppe from cultures like Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba and Yamnaya/Budzhak.

Here's something interesting from Volker Heyd's excellent paper, Yamnaya Groups and Tumuli West of the Black Sea (http://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/mom_2259-4884_2012_act_58_1_3493.pdf) (2011), page 535, relative to the number of kurgans, the pre-Yamnaya dates of many of them, and the burial postures:



Ten thousand round tumuli characterize the plains around the lower Danube, its tributaries and the central Carpathian basin. The very origin of their erection goes often back to the 4th and the 3rd millennium B. C. About 500 excavated tumuli from the present countries of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary testify to their constructors: populations of the “Yamnaya Culture”, known also under the terms “Pit Grave Culture” or “Ochre Grave Culture”. Typical are primary single graves in rectangular pits dug into the underground before the erection of the tumuli, and secondary single graves in the tumulus filling often accompanied by a further tumulus heightening. The position of the body is either supine with flexed legs or a crouched position on the side; in any case, usually orientated in a west-east direction. Intensive strewing of ochre powder, textiles, furs and mats for the pit walls and floors, and wooden beams to cover it, are further characteristics, along with a general lack of accompanying grave gifts.


Heyd points out that steppe people were infiltrating the Carpathian basin long before Yamnaya, and, of course, Gimbutas claimed there were two waves of steppe pastoralist migrations before Yamnaya, which was her Wave 3. Perhaps the men carrying R1b-L51 were part of one or both of those earlier waves of steppe migration (Ibid, pages 543-544) :



As the Boleráz and Baden tumuli cases in Serbia and Hungary demonstrate, there are earlier, 4th millennium cal. B.C. round tumuli in the Carpathian basin3. There are also earlier north-Pontic steppe populations who infiltrated similar environments west of the Black Sea prior to the rise of the Yamnaya culture. This situation can be traced back to the second half of the 5th millennium cal. B.C. to a group of distinct burials, zoomorphic maceheads, long flint blades, triangular flint points, etc., summarized under the term Suvorovo-Novodanilovka (Govedarica 2004; Rassamakin 2004; Anthony 2007; Heyd forthcoming 2011). They also erected round personalized tumuli, though smaller in size and height, above inhumations of single individuals . . . Indeed we can find this early steppe impact throughout the 4th millennium cal. B.C.

All of these tumuli and burials demonstrate, though, that there is already a constant but perhaps low-level 4th millennium cal. B.C. steppe interaction, linking the regions north of the Black Sea with those of the west, and reaching deep into the Carpathian basin. This has to be acknowledged, even if these populations remain small, bounded to their steppe habitat with an economy adapted to this special environment, and are not always visible in the record. Indirect hints may help in seeing them, such as the frequent occurrence of horse bones, regarded as deriving from domesticated horses, in Hungarian Baden settlements (Bökönyi 1978; Benecke 1998), and in those of the south German Cham Culture (Matuschik 1999, p.80-82) and the east German Bernburg Culture (Becker 1999; Benecke 1999). These occur, however, always in low numbers, perhaps not enough to maintain and regenerate a herd. Does this point us towards otherwise archaeologically hidden horse-breeders in the Carpathian basin, before the Yamnaya? In any case, I hope to make one case clear: these are by no means Yamnaya burials in the strict definition!

[rms2]

This is interesting regarding the Bell Beaker finds in the Malopolska region of Poland on the Slovakian border and in Germany. It comes from Heyd's paper, mentioned and quoted above, Yamnaya Groups and Tumuli West of the Black Sea, page 539:



More puzzling, however, as potential Yamnaya settling and wandering areas are three other regions in Europe: the 8000 sq. km wide little Hungarian plain, called the little Alföld or Kisalföld; the north/north-central Middle Elbe-Saale area of east Germany with its fine Chernozem soils of the here Magdeburger Börde and further steppe vegetation in the shadow of the Harz mountains; and a stripe in the foreland along the east Carpathians in southeast Poland, the current border region between Romania, the Ukraine, and Poland. For all these three regions we do not have “a smoking gun” in the prehistoric record of the first half of the 3rd millennium cal. B.C. pointing towards Yamnaya tumuli and burials. What we have instead, however, are indirect hints, such as the concentration of tumuli (see below), elements of Yamnaya burial customs, anthropomorphic statue-stelae, and artefacts with eastern links or eastern origins.


This is also significant, from page 546:



We have already discussed this Yamnaya package and its content in full detail (Harrison, Heyd 2007), and it does not need to be explained here at any further length. However, three elements should be emphasized:

1) anthropomorphic stelae, as shown as typical for the Yamnaya
have a much wider distribution in the early 3rd millennium B.C.
(Cassini et al. 1995; Cassini, Fossati 2007; Heyd, Harrison 2007);

2) cord decoration: we can observe the adoption of this special
decoration technique and its appearance on pottery vessels in
many archaeological cultures in the southeast of Europe just in
the period dated by many 14C dates to the first half of the 3rd
millennium B.C. (Roman et al. 1992; Bertemes 1998);

3) tumuli.

[R.Rocca]

Related more to IE, but given the foundation of Rome myth, could be relevant for P312 as well...

Ancient warriors killed and ate their dogs as rite of passage
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2143891-ancient-warriors-killed-and-ate-their-dogs-as-rite-of-passage/

[alexfritz]

Related more to IE, but given the foundation of Rome myth, could be relevant for P312 as well...

Ancient warriors killed and ate their dogs as rite of passage
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2143891-ancient-warriors-killed-and-ate-their-dogs-as-rite-of-passage/

the 'ver sacrum' details this practise/tradition;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ver_sacrum

[epp]

Here's something interesting from Volker Heyd's excellent paper, Yamnaya Groups and Tumuli West of the Black Sea (2011), page 535, relative to the number of kurgans, the pre-Yamnaya dates of many of them, and the burial postures:

Quote Originally Posted by Volker Heyd
Ten thousand round tumuli characterize the plains around the lower Danube, its tributaries and the central Carpathian basin. The very origin of their erection goes often back to the 4th and the 3rd millennium B. C. About 500 excavated tumuli from the present countries of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary testify to their constructors: populations of the “Yamnaya Culture”, known also under the terms “Pit Grave Culture” or “Ochre Grave Culture”. Typical are primary single graves in rectangular pits dug into the underground before the erection of the tumuli, and secondary single graves in the tumulus filling often accompanied by a further tumulus heightening. The position of the body is either supine with flexed legs or a crouched position on the side; in any case, usually orientated in a west-east direction. Intensive strewing of ochre powder, textiles, furs and mats for the pit walls and floors, and wooden beams to cover it, are further characteristics, along with a general lack of accompanying grave gifts.

Heyd points out that steppe people were infiltrating the Carpathian basin long before Yamnaya, and, of course, Gimbutas claimed there were two waves of steppe pastoralist migrations before Yamnaya, which was her Wave 3. Perhaps the men carrying R1b-L51 were part of one or both of those earlier waves of steppe migration (Ibid, pages 543-544) :

Quote Originally Posted by Volker Heyd
As the Boleráz and Baden tumuli cases in Serbia and Hungary demonstrate, there are earlier, 4th millennium cal. B.C. round tumuli in the Carpathian basin3. There are also earlier north-Pontic steppe populations who infiltrated similar environments west of the Black Sea prior to the rise of the Yamnaya culture. This situation can be traced back to the second half of the 5th millennium cal. B.C. to a group of distinct burials, zoomorphic maceheads, long flint blades, triangular flint points, etc., summarized under the term Suvorovo-Novodanilovka (Govedarica 2004; Rassamakin 2004; Anthony 2007; Heyd forthcoming 2011). They also erected round personalized tumuli, though smaller in size and height, above inhumations of single individuals . . . Indeed we can find this early steppe impact throughout the 4th millennium cal. B.C.
All of these tumuli and burials demonstrate, though, that there is already a constant but perhaps low-level 4th millennium cal. B.C. steppe interaction, linking the regions north of the Black Sea with those of the west, and reaching deep into the Carpathian basin. This has to be acknowledged, even if these populations remain small, bounded to their steppe habitat with an economy adapted to this special environment, and are not always visible in the record. Indirect hints may help in seeing them, such as the frequent occurrence of horse bones, regarded as deriving from domesticated horses, in Hungarian Baden settlements (Bökönyi 1978; Benecke 1998), and in those of the south German Cham Culture (Matuschik 1999, p.80-82) and the east German Bernburg Culture (Becker 1999; Benecke 1999). These occur, however, always in low numbers, perhaps not enough to maintain and regenerate a herd. Does this point us towards otherwise archaeologically hidden horse-breeders in the Carpathian basin, before the Yamnaya? In any case, I hope to make one case clear: these are by no means Yamnaya burials in the strict definition!


I wasn’t going to continue posting on this forum, but I think you might have hit on something with Suvorovo Novodanilovka as the potential source of R1b-L51 (and possibly R1b-Yamna as well, although let’s not argue about that). The early 5th millennium westerly SN sites in Hungary and Transylvania might well be where the oldest L51 would be found - it would certainly be geographically and chronologically consistent with my estimates based on variances in modern populations. And it certainly seems a more plausible source of West European L51 than from the Caspian Steppe well over a thousand years after L51’s estimated formation date.

Do we know if there is any DNA at all from these SN sites?

I read that SN appears to have been a mobile population without settlements - this would perhaps fit within descent into BB and might help explain why early L51 appears so elusive.

L51 also seems quite sharply divided from Z2103, which could be explained by perhaps a branch-off into the Austro-Hungarian plain near to its formation date rather than during the much later Yamnayan period.

[rms2]

As far as I know, we don't have any y-dna from Suvorovo-Novodanilovka yet.

Apparently L51 and Z2103 weren't all that sharply divided. Both appear in Bell Beaker. As I mentioned in an earlier post, those R1b-Z2103 and I2a2a-M223 Bell Beaker burials on Csepel Island were only a few miles away from an R1b-L2 Bell Beaker burial. All three were roughly contemporaneous, and all three had substantial steppe dna.

L51 might have moved west from the steppe before Yamnaya, but I would focus on the archaeological record and try to convince you that modern distribution and variance are not very reliable for the 4th and 3rd millennia BC.

[rms2]

epp -

I would like to extend the olive branch of peace to you. You are obviously a very intelligent person. We need your contribution in this discussion and quest for the origin of P312.

Sorry for the bad start (on my part) on that other thread. Time to begin again and get things right.

[epp]

As far as I know, we don't have any y-dna from Suvorovo-Novodanilovka yet.
Do we have any aDNA or mtDNA from S-N? It would be interesting to see if it had an Armenian/Iranian-like component, as Yamna does.


Apparently L51 and Z2103 weren't all that sharply divided. Both appear in Bell Beaker. As I mentioned in an earlier post, those R1b-Z2103 and I2a2a-M223 Bell Beaker burials on Csepel Island were only a few miles away from an R1b-L2 Bell Beaker burial. All three were roughly contemporaneous, and all three had substantial steppe dna.
Yes, although L51 seems more divided from Z2103 than it does from R1a-M417 or indeed I2a; and you would expect L51 and Z2103 to share similar DNA if they branched away from each other only 1,000-2,000 years beforehand.


L51 might have moved west from the steppe before Yamnaya, but I would focus on the archaeological record and try to convince you that modern distribution and variance are not very reliable for the 4th and 3rd millennia BC.
Yes, it might have - do you have any opinion on whether L51 "moved west from the Steppe before Yamnaya"?
... and indeed, the 5th millennium BC for Suvorovo-Novodanilovka.
Reliability is relative, and when there is a total lack of archaeological data for L51 until BB, I would say modern data is at least better than nothing, especially as in this case it leads me to a very similar estimate to S-N.

[epp]

epp -

I would like to extend the olive branch of peace to you. You are obviously a very intelligent person. We need your contribution in this discussion and quest for the origin of P312.

Sorry for the bad start (on my part) on that other thread. Time to begin again and get things right.
Thank you. I also realise my sense of humour is not always universally understood ... or appreciated.

[rms2]

Do we have any aDNA or mtDNA from S-N? It would be interesting to see if it had an Armenian/Iranian-like component, as Yamna does.

No, I don't believe we do.



Yes, although L51 seems more divided from Z2103 than it does from R1a-M417 or indeed I2a; and you would expect L51 and Z2103 to share similar DNA if they branched away from each other only 1,000-2,000 years beforehand.

They aren't that far apart. L51 and Z2103 are brothers under L23. According to YFull, the tmrca of Z2103 is 6000 ybp, and the tmrca of L51 is 5900 ybp. Both have formation ages of 6200 ybp, so the range is 6200 ybp - 5900 ybp. In other words, they were born roughly at the same time and in the same cultural milieu.

Z2103 appears with L51 in Bell Beaker. It doesn't appear with R1a-M417 in anything yet.



Yes, it might have - do you have any opinion on whether L51 "moved west from the Steppe before Yamnaya"?
... and indeed, the 5th millennium BC for Suvorovo-Novodanilovka.

No, I don't have an opinion on that. I think it likely L51 will show up in Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba. P312 may show up in Budzhak. I don't know about Suvorovo-Novodanilovka.



Reliability is relative, and when there is a total lack of archaeological data for L51 until BB, I would say modern data is at least better than nothing, especially as in this case it leads me to a very similar estimate to S-N.

I don't agree that reliability is relative. Ancient dna is reliable. Modern dna isn't reliable for the distant past. Modern dna is better than nothing, but not much better.

[rms2]

Related more to IE, but given the foundation of Rome myth, could be relevant for P312 as well...

Ancient warriors killed and ate their dogs as rite of passage
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2143891-ancient-warriors-killed-and-ate-their-dogs-as-rite-of-passage/

I remember reading about that in Anthony's book, The Horse The Wheel and Language, page 364:



The institution of the Männerbunde or korios, the warrior brotherhood of young men bound by oath to one another and to their ancestors during a ritually mandated raid, has been reconstructed as a central part of Proto-Indo-European initiation rituals. One material trait linked to these ceremonies was the dog or wolf; the young initiates were symbolized by the dog or wolf and in some Indo-European traditions wore dog or wolf skins during their initiation. The canine teeth of dogs were frequently worn as pendants in Yamnaya graves in the western Pontic steppes, particularly in the Ingul valley, one probable region of origin of the Yamnaya migration.


I remember how I was when I was a teenager. I would have gotten into that big time.

[rms2]

From Anthony's The Horse The Wheel and Language, page 364:



The canine teeth of dogs were frequently worn as pendants in Yamnaya graves in the western Pontic steppes, particularly in the Ingul valley, one probable region of origin of the Yamnaya migration.


Anthony mentions the Ingul valley as a source of the Yamnaya migration. Interesting that the Ingul (Inhul in Ukrainian) flows into the Bug at Mykolaiv (https://goo.gl/maps/AmznEmp92Ax) just north of the Black Sea in the territory of the old Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba culture, whose burial rites were so like those of Bell Beaker.

[rms2]

Here (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?10749-Corded-Ware-origin-for-P312&p=239926&viewfull=1#post239926) is something important Rich posted earlier on another thread:



These data points have been made separately, but are pretty important when taken collectively:

Sample:...........................RISE563
Haplogroup:.....................P312+ U152+
Dating:............................2572-2512 calBCE (3955±35 BP, Poz-84553)... (recently produced C14 date from Olalde et al makes him the earliest known P312 sample to date)
Culture:...........................Bell Beaker East - Osterhofen-Altenmarkt Germany
Isotope Analysis:...............was a migrant based on this skeleton's use in a prior isotope study
Autosomal Composition:.....plots with Corded Ware samples and modern day eastern Ukrainians, Kargopol Russians and Mordovians


Note that the midpoint of RISE563's rc dates is 2542 BC, and, as Rich mentioned, he is our oldest known P312 sample to date, older than YFull's current P312 tmrca of 2450 BC (4400 ybp - 1950) but within the range of their 4800 - 4400 ybp formation-to-tmrca window (2850-2450 BC) for P312. Of course, RISE563 is older than YFull's estimates for U152, since both formation and tmrca are 2450 BC (4400 ybp).

I don't get into SNP counting, but it is interesting that in RISE563 we have a Bell Beaker R1b-U152 older than YFull's current tmrca for P312.

Thought I would throw this info back out there for consideration, since the discussion here seems to have bogged down a bit.

[jdean]

Don't suppose they made a stab at guessing where this fellow may have drifted in from ?

[epp]

They aren't that far apart. L51 and Z2103 are brothers under L23. According to YFull, the tmrca of Z2103 is 6000 ybp, and the tmrca of L51 is 5900 ybp. Both have formation ages of 6200 ybp, so the range is 6200 ybp - 5900 ybp. In other words, they were born roughly at the same time and in the same cultural milieu.
Agreed.


Z2103 appears with L51 in Bell Beaker. It doesn't appear with R1a-M417 in anything yet.
Yes - despite them living in near vicinity, and sharing autosomal DNA. Does them not appearing together in these circumstances demonstrate the limitations of our fairly sparse archaeological DNA?


Ancient dna is reliable. Modern dna isn't reliable for the distant past. Modern dna is better than nothing, but not much better.
Ancient DNA might be reliable, but often in telling us where dead end extinct lineages developed. Personally, I'm only really interested in the direct ancestors of today's populations.
If modern DNA isn't reliable, I wonder why for the most part it comes up with very similar answers to archaeological DNA.

Suvorovo-Novodanilovka people either stayed put, went somewhere or died out.

Does staying put seem likely if we are told that S-N had already spread over a wide area (coastal Bulgaria to Transylvania to Hungary to the NW Ukranian-Polish border to SE Ukraine), and in a relatively short space of time within the late fifth millennium (close to the origin dates of L51 and Z2103, and long before Yamna)?

Would it have moved deeper into the Steppe, when there were rich pickings to be had in the late 5th millennium decline of "Old Europe", which S-N might well have exacerbated and profited from?

If it did move further into Old Europe and survived, what might its y-DNA have been if not R1b-L51?

[rms2]

. . .
If modern DNA isn't reliable, I wonder why for the most part it comes up with very similar answers to archaeological DNA.

Is that true? Modern R1b-L51 has a western European distribution that is not at all reflective of its eastern origin. Not too many years ago, when modern y-dna was all we had, the consensus was that R1b spent the LGM in the Franco-Cantabrian Refuge and repopulated Europe from there. No, modern y-dna is not reliable for the 3rd millennium BC.



Suvorovo-Novodanilovka people either stayed put, went somewhere or died out.

Does staying put seem likely if we are told that S-N had already spread over a wide area (coastal Bulgaria to Transylvania to Hungary to the NW Ukranian-Polish border to SE Ukraine), and in a relatively short space of time within the late fifth millennium (close to the origin dates of L51 and Z2103, and long before Yamna)?

Would it have moved deeper into the Steppe, when there were rich pickings to be had in the late 5th millennium decline of "Old Europe", which S-N might well have exacerbated and profited from?

If it did move further into Old Europe and survived, what might its y-DNA have been if not R1b-L51?

Until we actually get some y-dna from Suvorovo-Novodanilovka, I don't know.

[rms2]

Don't suppose they made a stab at guessing where this fellow may have drifted in from ?

I don't think they did. Maybe Rich knows. I would guess from somewhere farther east than Germany.

[kinman]

I asked that question about where RISE563 might have migrated from (don't remember on which thread). Rich answered that they don't know. The evidence shows that he was a migrant from somewhere else, but that evidence cannot tell us where that "somewhere else" is.


Don't suppose they made a stab at guessing where this fellow may have drifted in from ?

[rms2]

I asked that question about where RISE563 might have migrated from (don't remember on which thread). Rich answered that they don't know. The evidence shows that he was a migrant from somewhere else, but that evidence cannot tell us where that "somewhere else" is.

Given his rc date range and autosomal profile, it isn't likely RISE563 came from any farther west.

[MitchellSince1893]

Let's stop and think about this for a second. If he was an immigrant from.the east, then that implies his father was from the east as well. It's possible RISE563 traveled west with his father and grandfather as a young child, or he could have left them behind and been first.
If RISE563 was born around 2540 BC, his father would have been born around 2570 BC and grandfather around 2600 BC.

Based on the latest dates from Iain McDonald U152 came into being around 2900 BC.

So was RISE563 part of the first wave of immigrants or was he part of an established trading network stretching from the Alps to Eastern Europe? I.e P312 and U152 were already in the area by the time RISE563 was born and he just happened to be born in the east during a trip back home/near origin during a business trip or family get together.

[kinman]

That's just one instance of YFull's numbers being very questionable, especially U152.

And I definitely think something is very wrong with Yfull's methodology if they continue to have six successive subclades with the same "formed" date:
U152 --- 4400 ybp
L2 --- 4400 ybp
Z49 --- 4400 ybp
Z142 --- 4400 ybp
FGC22963 --- 4400 ybp
FGC22940 --- 4400 ybp

So in this case, I think their estimates are clearly way off, since it is impossible to have zero years per SNP between a subclade and its parent clade, much less 6 successive subclades.

Some of my estimated dates might seem a little on the old side, but at least they make sense:
U152 --- 5100 ybp
L2 --- 4900 ybp
Z49 --- 4700 ybp
Z142 --- 4600 ybp
FGC22963 --- 4400 ybp
FGC22940 --- 4200 ybp

P.S. I obviously believe Iain's estimate for U152 is far more accurate than Yfull's.


Here (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?10749-Corded-Ware-origin-for-P312&p=239926&viewfull=1#post239926) is something important Rich posted earlier on another thread:


Note that the midpoint of RISE563's rc dates is 2542 BC, and, as Rich mentioned, he is our oldest known P312 sample to date, older than YFull's current P312 tmrca of 2450 BC (4400 ybp - 1950) but within the range of their 4800 - 4400 ybp formation-to-tmrca window (2850-2450 BC) for P312. Of course, RISE563 is older than YFull's estimates for U152, since both formation and tmrca are 2450 BC (4400 ybp).

I don't get into SNP counting, but it is interesting that in RISE563 we have a Bell Beaker R1b-U152 older than YFull's current tmrca for P312.

Thought I would throw this info back out there for consideration, since the discussion here seems to have bogged down a bit.

[rms2]

Let's stop and think about this for a second. If he was an immigrant from.the east, then that implies his father was from the east as well. It's possible RISE563 traveled west with his father and grandfather as a young child, or he could have left them behind and been first.
If RISE563 was born around 2540 BC, his father would have been born around 2570 BC and grandfather around 2600 BC.

Based on the latest dates from Iain McDonald U152 came into being around 2900 BC.

So was RISE563 part of the first wave of immigrants or was he part of an established trading network stretching from the Alps to Eastern Europe? I.e P312 and U152 were already in the area by the time RISE563 was born and he just happened to be born in the east during a trip back home/near origin during a business trip or family get together.

Maybe. I was just going by this part of Rich's post:



. . .
Isotope Analysis:...............was a migrant based on this skeleton's use in a prior isotope study
Autosomal Composition:.....plots with Corded Ware samples and modern day eastern Ukrainians, Kargopol Russians and Mordovians

[jdean]

So sounds like we might back to Bell Beaker being a Corded Ware off shot : )

OOI where was Corded Ware hanging out at this point in time ?

[rms2]

So sounds like we might back to Bell Beaker being a Corded Ware off shot : )

OOI where was Corded Ware hanging out at this point in time ?

Corded Ware started a little earlier than Bell Beaker, around 3000-2900 BC. RISE434 from Tiefbrunn in Germany has rc dates of 2880-2630 BC (midpoint 2755 BC), for example, so Corded Ware was already in Bavaria south of Regensburg well before RISE563 was born.

[rms2]

I have what may sound like a stupid question, but I'm going to ask it anyway.

What is it that prevents Bell Beaker from being seen as simply a variety of Corded Ware?

Is it the prevalence of axes in Corded Ware? There are some in Bell Beaker burials. Is it the alleged Iberian origin of Bell Beaker? That seems dubious to me at best.

Within Corded Ware there is a great deal of variation:



The Corded Ware variants most solidly grounded in literature are as follows: the Single Grave culture; the Protruding Foot Beaker culture; Corded Ware of the Alpine Pile Dwellings; Central German Corded Ware; Bohemian-Moravian Corded Ware; Małopolska Corded Ware; Złota culture; Battle-Axe culture; the Rzucewo culture; Middle Dnieper culture; and the Fatianovo culture.

Corded Ware from East to West (http://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/corded-ware-east-west)

Sometimes graves were covered with mounds; sometimes they were flat. Corded Ware even occasionally used the megalithic tombs of its predecessors. There are other internal differences between Corded Ware groups in different regions.

Here are some things Corded Ware and Bell Beaker shared in common:

1) Single graves in pits under a burial mound, sometimes in timber or stone lined cists, and in some cases with the mound surrounded by a timber palisade or stone circle (a cromlech)

2) Burial with beakers with cord impressions

3) Emphasis on archery, as indicated by the presence of arrowheads and other archery-related artifacts

4) Crouched-on-the-side burial posture, with gender-differentiated orientation (men buried on one side, women on the other)

I may be leaving some things out, like horse bones and other animal bones in burials.

Bell Beaker sometimes used anthropomorphic stelae. Did Corded Ware ever do that? (Sincere question.)

The two cultures are so similar I am wondering what it is that prevents Bell Beaker from being seen as a somewhat later extension of Corded Ware to the west. I know there are differences, but there are differences between the recognized varieties of Corded Ware, as well.

Somebody tell me what I am missing.

[Net Down G5L]

Somebody tell me what I am missing.

You are missing the same as the rest of us....further aDNA results (as if you have not said that a hundred times yourself!).

With current data I think that it is possible to construct convincing arguements for Eastern Bell Beaker being ahead; or on the bow wave of Corded Ware; within Corded Ware; or following the main wave of Corded Ware.

I think knowing the date of the P312 split is critical along with the fact that Corded is predominantly R1a and Beaker predominantly R1b (I think all the non R1b Eastern Beaker have simple explanations as "newcomers" joining the Beaker clans as the Beakers expand into the "newcomers'"non R1b territories e.g. the I DNA Boscombe Bowman).

I think it is wholly possible that BB is yet another sub-set of Corded........

But it worries me that there is such a R1a/R1b split. Also that P312 seemingly begat Df27, U152 and L21 some time before the genesis of Beaker. And in all the movement of Corded the P312 clans seem to have stayed together - possibly for hundreds of years - and then formed a distinct Beaker sub-culture within the Corded territory, such that it replaced Corded in S Bavaria and beyond.

So, I think it is most likely P312 arrived late........or...... was perhaps already ahead, somewhere on the Amber Road, before the main Corded migration arrived.

If P312 arrived early (or late) we should expect some sub-clades to be in other adjacent locations/cultures. No evidence of this yet....but so few samples to work from.

[epp]

Is that true? Modern R1b-L51 has a western European distribution that is not at all reflective of its eastern origin. Not too many years ago, when modern y-dna was all we had, the consensus was that R1b spent the LGM in the Franco-Cantabrian Refuge and repopulated Europe from there. No, modern y-dna is not reliable for the 3rd millennium BC.
The modern Western distribution of R1b-L51 is irrelevant to the analysis of modern DNA, which has for many years indicated a most likely Eastern origin for L51. I wonder whether you have focused sufficiently on the methodology of modern DNA analysis to appreciate its sophistication.


Until we actually get some y-dna from Suvorovo-Novodanilovka, I don't know.
Why do we speculate about where Bell Beaker originated, where it developed and in which direction it travelled, but cannot do the same for Suvorovo-Novodanilovka? Isn't the first wave of Steppe migration postulated by Gimbutas worthy of any consideration?

[Gravetto-Danubian]

What are current thoughts ?
We still at L51 moving from east then expanding / branching in NW Europe ?

[MitchellSince1893]

I wonder if we become too rigid in our thinking of "the Bell Beaker" people the "Corded Ware" people, the "Yamnaya" people

Who were the cassette tape people? Were they descendants of the 8 track people or the LP vinyl Album (LPVA) people? Were the CD people an amalgam of the LPVA and cassette tape people? And where did the IPOD people originate?

Since when did a man say "I'm a bow and arrow guy. I don't do battle axes". I think most men back then could quickly learn to use either.

And the pottery thing. I seriously doubt women turned their nose up at different pottery types..."I'm a corded ware girl...I wouldn't be caught dead with a bell beaker"

Just because they weren't buried with it doesn't mean they didn't use it. It may be that it didn't have a religious significance. Most people around me wear jeans, and tennis shoes every day, but if you dug up graves in any cemetery around me, very few if any would have jeans or tennis shoes in them.

[Richy]

I wonder if we become too rigid in our thinking of "the Bell Beaker" people the "Corded Ware" people, the "Yamnaya" people


Y DNA is what makes it look (North) Bell Beaker R1b P312, Corded Ware R1a M417, and (East) Yamnaya R1b Z2103 represented ethnic groups. This is why I don't think R1b L151 is from Corded Ware, Corded Ware men carried R1a M417 and that's that. Of course people of differnt ethnic background can follow the same culture but for the most part the R1b P312 nation followed the Beaker culture, the R1a M417 nation followed the Corded culture, and so on.

[Richy]

Hey, everyone I've got a good argument to give to people who think R1b L151 is from Western Europe or Corded Ware. R1b L21 hasn't popped up in Continental Beaker folk, they carried R1b L21's brother R1b U152>L2. It's sort of like how Yamnaya didn't carry R1b P312 but carried its brother R1b Z2103. Eventually R1b L21 will be found in Continental Beaker folk and R1b L151 on the Steppe.

[Finn]

Indeed let's not make the difference between Bell Beaker and Corded Ware to strict, in certain time and places hybrides could be the case.

In case of R1b S21/U106 the so called Barbed Wire culture, a Bell Beaker derivate, or may be you can call it a BB/CW hybride was a front runner! It's cradle is North Dutch/NW Germany.

A few sources:

1. Quiles (2017)
"The best candidate for an expansion of the Pre-Germanic dialect of North-West Indo- European into Scandinavia is the Barbed Wire Beaker culture of the Low Countries and Northern Lowland (Kristiansen 2009), which would later show a period of change (Figure 16) starting ca. 1850 BC until its complete cultural change evident after ca. 1500 BC (Fokkens and Harding 2013), into the Elp culture (ca. 1800-800 BC). Samples of haplogroup R1b1a1a2a1a1-U106 are found quite late, in the Nordic Late Neolithic at Lilla Beddinge ca. 2150 BC (Allentoft et al. 2015), and in Oostwoud ca. 1881-1646 BC (Olalde et al. 2017), suggesting a connection of lineages between Jutland and the Low Countries. Modern population analysis supports this connection, showing that R1b1a1a2a1a1-U106 distribution peaks today precisely around the Netherlands."
https://www.academia.edu/33256216/Indo-European_demic_diffusion_model_2nd_edition_revised _and_updated

2. VandKilde (2005)
"The argument can be carried further into a discussion about the presentation of cultural and social identity through material means. Firstly, the boundary between ordinary Late Neolithic Culture and Beaker-enriched Late Neolithic Culture in Jutland coincidences roughly with an older cultural boundary between Single Grave Culture and Funnel-necked Beaker Culture (Glob 1944, fig. 113) in addition to a similar boundary centuries later, c. 1600 BC, between the Valsømagle and the Sögel-Wohlde metalwork styles (Vandkilde 1996, fig. 273, B; 1999 b). All three cases relate to contexts of general social change. Secondly, it is especially the frequent occurrence of Beaker pottery in settlements that makes the early Late Neolithic boundary distinct (see fig. 9). This tallies with an interpretation of Beaker pottery as first and foremost signalling a large-scaled form of social identity, which we may call cultural identity, or perhaps ethnic identity."

....

"Late Neolithic pottery is lacking in ornamentation, variability and sophistication (e.g. Schiellerup 1991, 48 ff. with references), notabky excepting northern Jutland. The plain pottery known from burials and settlement sites does not exhibit creative efforts and must have held connotations entirely different from, for instance, flint daggers and metal objects. The ware often has a rough texture, the pot wall is often thick, pot shapes are simple, and decoration, if any, consists of incised or impressed 'barbed wire' patterns, horizontal grooves or ridges in addition to an applied thick horizon- tal band below the rim. The subject is difficult due to the fact that Late Neolithic pottery is insufficiently studied, and so far chronological groupings are not distinguishable.
In east central Sweden and western Sweden, barbed wire decoration characterises the period 2460–1990 BC, whereas pots with a thickly applied clay band – so-called vulst in Danish – date to the period 1950–1780 BC (Holm et al. 1997, 220). Whether the ceramic sequence in central and eastern Denmark holds similar traits remains to be examined."

From:
http://www.jungsteinsite.uni-kiel.de/pdf/2005_vandkilde_low.pdf

3. Clarke's overview (2015) Barbed Wire and other Bell Beaker/CW derivates:

"The Northern British/North Rhine Beaker Group (N/NR)
The particular interest of the Northern/North Rhine group and its close cousin the Barbed Wire beaker group, is that both groups only just scrape within the de nition of beakers of the Bell beaker tradition. Both tlle Northern/North Rhine and the Barbed-Wire beaker groups comprise traditions of mixed Late Corded Ware and peripheral Bell beaker origin. This mixture of traditions can be recognised in the squat, protruding foot, ovoid body beakers with recurved rims, incised or grooved decoration with a poor repertoir of basic beaker motifs and a neolithic poverty of grave associations. To these factors can be added the occasional use of cremation burial rite in a small grave with the beaker beside the cremation heap, and a number of vessels without decoration below the belly.
The Northern/North Rhine beaker group then is represented by the small squat or globular vessels with protruding feet. The decoration frequently consists of heavy grooving below the rim with crude or carelessly incised zones on the body, including metopic motifs. The typical motif is the multiple outlined triangle of the diagnostic form common throughout the Corded Ware tradition and entirely alien in the Bell beaker motif assemblage (Struve, 1955,p.136).The origin of the group seems to lie in the similar assemblages found immediately North of the old Rhine Delta and along the hinterland of the Frisian coasts. The Dutch examples of this group have been partially defined by Modderman (1955) but the type is centered across the border in coastal Germany4. In this area it would appear that late and devolved Corded Ware groups integrated small bands of beaker settlers producing a pottery assemblage of hybrid character.
These folk, with their strong non-beaker background, apparently crossed the North Sea in a series of small bands somewhere around 1700 B.C. or slightly later. The settlers clustered in three foci based on the North Sea CQast: - around the Moray Firth, in the Border Counties and on the Yorkshire Wolds. The domestic assemblage included both undecorated and non-plastic rusticated ware. The main importance of these settlers from across the North Sea lies in the subsequent integration of certain of their pottery features with the later Dutch beakers of the Veluwe type, giving rise to regional insular variations such as the beake s with short, angular. all-over-grooved necks.
....
"

From:
http://rjh.ub.rug.nl/Palaeohistoria/article/view/24936/22384

Last but not least: Barbed Wire DNA connection
I'am of North Dutch stock. I recently got the results from the new developed feature K36 Ancient. Members LukaszM and Tomenable are doing a great job here. My North Dutch auDNA seems to be connected with first of all: Barbed Wire Sweden. My closest sample is namely RISE98!
(2nd closest = Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon, 3rd closest = RISE174 from Iron Age Sweden).

[1] "1. CLOSEST SINGLE ITEM DISTANCES"
CWC_Sweden_RISE98 EMA_Northumbria_NO3423
10.76911 11.74862
IA_Sweden_RISE174 CWC_Sweden_RISE94
12.13263 12.13601
BA_Unetice_Czechia_RISE577 IA_Celto-German_6DRIF3
12.80284 13.38595
IA_Celto-German_3DRIF16 BB_Germany_RISE563
14.19219 14.33519

Ok this kind of admixtures are under development, but this looks no coincidence! My ancestry (i guess about 2/3 R1b) is deeply rooted in the area where Barbed Wire Beaker left their genetic footprint or it's cradle!

https://www.mupload.nl/img/tpbpwa3amkaau.png

[rms2]

The modern Western distribution of R1b-L51 is irrelevant to the analysis of modern DNA, which has for many years indicated a most likely Eastern origin for L51. I wonder whether you have focused sufficiently on the methodology of modern DNA analysis to appreciate its sophistication.

Wait a minute. I still recall what you posted about your analysis of modern y-dna and how you placed L51 in NE France in about 4800 BC and then adjusted that to 4000 BC but no later than 3000 BC. That doesn't sound all that sophisticated to me.

What I mean by that is that you might have done everything right, but modern y-dna is giving you the wrong answers about the situation in the distant past.

Modern y-dna distribution and variance tell us about modern y-dna. They do not tell us about what was going on in the 3rd millennium BC. Too much has happened since then.



Why do we speculate about where Bell Beaker originated, where it developed and in which direction it travelled, but cannot do the same for Suvorovo-Novodanilovka? Isn't the first wave of Steppe migration postulated by Gimbutas worthy of any consideration?

We're doing what we can while we wait and hope for more ancient y-dna of the right kind and in sufficient quantity.

The first and second waves of steppe infiltration certainly are worthy of consideration. There are kurgans from them in the Carpathian basin. Ancient dna from them, especially y-dna, will tell us a lot, if we ever get it.

[rms2]

Yamnaya itself is divided into a number of regional varieties:

1. Southwest

2. Northwest

3. Lower Dnieper

4. Crimean

5. Azov

6. North Donets

7. Don

8. Volga-Ural

9. North Caucasian

(See page 211 of Mallory's In Search of the Indo-Europeans.)

Thus far we have a limited amount of y-dna from #8, and one Bulgarian from #1.

From page 211 of Mallory's In Search of the Indo-Europeans:



The final Eneolithic culture of the Pontic-Caspian region, and the last cultural entity which may putatively be assigned a Proto-Indo-European date, is the Yamnaya (Pit-grave) culture. The major floruit of this culture, substantiated by more than seventy radiocarbon dates, is about 3600-2200 BC. Its territory embraced the entire Pontic-Caspian from the Bug and Dniester rivers on the west across to the Ural and Emba rivers on the east. Such a territory, stretching 3,000 kilometres across, is so vast that many archaeologists accept the terminology of Nikolai Merpert and refer to a Yamnaya cultural-historical area rather than to a single culture.

[rms2]

What are current thoughts ?
We still at L51 moving from east then expanding / branching in NW Europe ?

That's a good question. I think with the age estimates in flux we're closer to the idea of L151/L11 moving from the east and expanding in Central Europe or beginning to expand in Central Europe.

[rms2]

At the risk of going off on a tangent, here is something on archery equipment I found interesting in the article Corded Ware from East to West (http://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/corded-ware-east-west):



An interesting find in this group [Central German Corded Ware Culture] was the grave at Göhlitzsch. On one of the stone slabs forming the grave there was engraved the image of a reflex bow and quiver. It is one of the earliest representations of this technologically advanced form of bow.

This is from the Wikipedia article on bow shape (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow_shape):



A reflex bow is a bow that has curved or curled arms which turn away from the archer throughout their length. When unstrung, the entire length of the bow curves forward from the belly (away from the archer), resembling a "C"; this differentiates a reflex bow from a recurve bow in which only the outer parts of the limbs turn away from the archer. The curves put the materials of the bow under greater stress, allowing a rather short bow to have a high draw weight and a long draw length. This allows a bow that is significantly shorter than a recurve or a longbow to shoot with the same or greater velocity and power. They became the classic weapon of the horse archers who have repeatedly conquered much of Asia and Europe; their short profile compared to longer bows made them ideal for horseback use. However, the materials and workmanship must be of high quality.

Bows of traditional materials with significant reflex are almost all composite bows, made of the classic three layers of horn, wood, and sinew; they are normally made in the recurve shape. Highly reflexed composite bows are still used in Korea and were common in Turkish and Indian traditional archery. Highly reflexed bows are more difficult to string and may reverse themselves suddenly; they have seldom been used for hunting or war.


This could be an indication that Corded Ware and Bell Beaker men were able to fire their bows from horseback, which would have given them a tremendous advantage.

[epp]

Wait a minute. I still recall what you posted about your analysis of modern y-dna and how you placed L51 in NE France in about 4800 BC and then adjusted that to 4000 BC but no later than 3000 BC. That doesn't sound all that sophisticated to me.

Either you didn’t read my post carefully enough or I didn’t explain myself clearly enough. Perhaps both.

My data analysis gave the following predictions as most likely:
MRCA of L23 (in Serbia/Romania) 4,800 BC;
MRCAs of L51 and L151 (each in NE France) 4,800 BC;
MRCAs of several subclades of L51 and L151 (predominantly in N France & the Low Countries) close to 2,900BC.

Obviously, this could do with some interpretation - L23 and L51 wouldn’t have branched off in Serbia and France at exactly the same time.

My intuitive interpretation would be as follows:
A bottleneck arose in M269 in the 6th or late 5th millennium BC. Its surviving populations branched out in the 5th millennium from a single common ancestor probably located somewhere close to the Balkans. At least two of the branches (L51 and L151) probably moved away together, as they were still in the same vicinity as each other (somewhere near to NE France) two millennia later. This suggests to me that they had probably moved close to their NE France destination sooner rather than later and developed from there, which is why I guessed a 4,000 BC migration.
There was then a second bottleneck leading to the start of L151’s thriving period commencing approximately 2,900 BC (which I am presuming is connected to the Bell Beaker phenomenon).

I don’t see this as being fundamentally dissimilar from mainstream opinion or archaeological data; and its estimates are surprisingly close to yfull’s, considering they were calculated using a completely different methodology.

There is so much consistent data for the subclades, sub-subclades and sub-sub-subclades of L151 connecting its initial thriving period to the vicinity of the Rhine that I have little interest in debating or exploring alternatives. However, the data for L51 and L151 themselves are fairly sparse, so I am less confident in their results and am interested to learn more.

When I say sophisticated, this doesn’t mean my analysis miraculously gives estimates of prefect precision. What I’m saying is that it has nothing to do with looking at modern frequency distributions and seeing how many people of each haplogroup live where.

I knew nothing about Suvorovo-Novodanilovka until you mentioned it, but I have a feeling it could possibly be the smoking gun for L23 and perhaps proto-IE in general, and also specifically for pre-Bell Beaker L51 in relation to its Hungarian (or possibly Dniester) populations. However, it doesn’t seem that anyone particularly shares my interest or curiosity or has any further information, so I will drop the subject.


The first and second waves of steppe infiltration certainly are worthy of consideration.
I'm not sure that this is entirely the best way to describe the S-N phenomenon, for reasons which I might go into in more detail later.

[rms2]

Either you didn’t read my post carefully enough or I didn’t explain myself clearly enough. Perhaps both . . .

No, I'm a pretty good reader. You said NE France 4800 BC then backed off and said 4000 BC but there no later than 3000 BC. Now you're backtracking.

In your last post you said modern distribution is irrelevant when it comes to modern dna analysis, but that cannot be, otherwise you could be talking about anywhere, even China or Brazil.

You really should cut loose the insistence on modern dna analysis. Nobody these days persists in trying to use modern dna to tell us what went on four thousand or more years ago.

Btw, anyone can plug data into McGee's Utility. I've done it myself.

epp -

With your insistence on the value of modern dna in understanding ancient origins, you're taking this discussion off in a direction that is not germane to his thread. You really should start a new thread to argue your position. Honestly, I find modern dna distribution and variance only mildly interesting. I would find it interesting for Wales and SW England, but otherwise, ho-hum.

[Silesian]

Either you didn’t read my post carefully enough or I didn’t explain myself clearly enough. Perhaps both.

My data analysis gave the following predictions as most likely:
MRCA of L23 (in Serbia/Romania) 4,800 BC;
MRCAs of L51 and L151 (each in NE France) 4,800 BC;
MRCAs of several subclades of L51 and L151 (predominantly in N France & the Low Countries) close to 2,900BC.

Obviously, this could do with some interpretation - L23 and L51 wouldn’t have branched off in Serbia and France at exactly the same time...............

I knew nothing about Suvorovo-Novodanilovka until you mentioned it, but I have a feeling it could possibly be the smoking gun for L23 and perhaps proto-IE in general, and also specifically for pre-Bell Beaker L51 in relation to its Hungarian (or possibly Dniester) populations. However, it doesn’t seem that anyone particularly shares my interest or curiosity or has any further information, so I will drop the subject.


I'm not sure that this is entirely the best way to describe the S-N phenomenon, for reasons which I might go into in more detail later.

How to come up with a parsimonious explanation for the placement of L23_Z2103_L51 using rough current estimates -placing
all three at roughly 100yrs+/-variance[L23/6300-Z2105/6200-L51/6200] in time. If we do a very rough calculation dating Hungary Bell Beaker Z2103/L51 at about 140+/- generations[@30 yr pr gen] That leaves about 60-70 generations give or take-more or less, between Hungary Bell Beakers with L51 and Z2103 and Lopatino has L23+ Z2105- L51-[210+/-gen]
For L23 -. see table
http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/copperbronzeagedna.shtml
Yamnaya Russia Lopatino II, Sok River, Samara [I]L49+, L23+, PF6399+, L150+, L1353+, PF6509+, M269+, CTS12478+, L51-, Z2105-

map-distance between Lopatino L23+[L51-/Z2105-] and Hungary Bell Beakers with Z2105/L51+
http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/ancient-human-dna_41837#3/44.40/55.02

Z2105 - Z2103
https://yfull.com/tree/R-L23/

[rms2]

. . .

I knew nothing about Suvorovo-Novodanilovka until you mentioned it, but I have a feeling it could possibly be the smoking gun for L23 and perhaps proto-IE in general, and also specifically for pre-Bell Beaker L51 in relation to its Hungarian (or possibly Dniester) populations. However, it doesn’t seem that anyone particularly shares my interest or curiosity or has any further information, so I will drop the subject . . .

I think probably everyone shares that interest, but we don't have any ancient dna from Suvorovo-Novodanilovka yet. Besides, Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba is the culture that had burial rites startlingly like those of Bell Beaker and Corded Ware.

I'd like to see a big behemoth paper on the Pontic steppe, the Carpathian basin, and the kurgans in the Tisza River valley, with hundreds, even thousands, of samples. Cast a broad net, and let's see what we catch.

[rms2]

I expected to see some arguments against the info in Post #4154 (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=276599&viewfull=1#post276599).

If Corded Ware and Bell Beaker had reflex bows, which seems likely, they could have fired their bows from horseback. That would go a long way toward explaining the success of Bell Beaker, especially if one sees Bell Beaker as simply a later westward extension of Corded Ware.

Protruding Foot Beaker Corded Ware, which did a heck of a job of looking like Bell Beaker before Bell Beaker:

18214

[epp]

No, I'm a pretty good reader. You said NE France 4800 BC then backed off and said 4000 BC but there no later than 3000 BC. Now you're backtracking.

In your last post you said modern distribution is irrelevant when it comes to modern dna analysis, but that cannot be, otherwise you could be talking about anywhere, even China or Brazil.

You really should cut loose the insistence on modern dna analysis. Nobody these days persists in trying to use modern dna to tell us what went on four thousand or more years ago.

Btw, anyone can plug data into McGee's Utility. I've done it myself.

epp -

With your insistence on the value of modern dna in understanding ancient origins, you're taking this discussion off in a direction that is not germane to his thread. You really should start a new thread to argue your position. Honestly, I find modern dna distribution and variance only mildly interesting. I would find it interesting for Wales and SW England, but otherwise, ho-hum.

I’ve only responded to matters that you yourself have raised. No more. I’m not interested in arguing.

Let’s move onto Gimbutas, if I may. She has reframed prehistoric developments by setting them within sociological and mythological contexts, and it’s interesting how she utilises terminology (metaphors and adjectival terms) in ways that subliminally colour our perceptions of these developments and make them distinctive.

Three examples:
1. The movements of Steppe people she describes metaphorically as repeated “waves”. This makes them appear masculine, powerful, virile and intrusive, helping her to associate them with a male-centred, paternalistic warrior R1b society.
2. The Steppe people themselves she identifies as “kurgans”, associating them with death, and thereby contrasting them starkly with those in the apparently life-giving, creative, maternal society that they replaced.
3. The society that the Steppe people replaced is quaintly identified as “Old Europe”, making it seem like the vulnerable victim of the young, fit and strong.

Her vision and description is a poetic one, full of diametrical opposites; but is it accurate?

Did the Steppe R1b people and the people of Old Europe neatly divide into two opposing factions?

Is there evidence that the Steppe R1b people were more powerful and violent, or that Old Europe was not itself intrusive and violent?

Waves ebb and flow. Is there evidence that the Steppe R1b people kept crashing down on the areas they moved to and then ebbing back to the Steppe where they apparently originated, or did they often stay and build societies in the new areas to which they migrated and not move like waves at all?

Were the Steppe R1b people death-bringing destroyers or did they actually initiate creation, new invention, culture and population growth?

Was “Old Europe” really old? If it were, why was its era called the Neolithic? Its G2 societies only apparently arrived in Europe about 1,000 years before R1b-M269, and who was there before “Old Europe”? Together with I2, it seems this was the very R1b people that Gimbutas identifies as intrusive newcomers.

When there are agendas and themes being promoted, neat black-and-white distinctions drawn and the use of metaphorical terminology, it is important to approach apparently factual conclusions with caution.

[epp]

I think probably everyone shares that interest, but we don't have any ancient dna from Suvorovo-Novodanilovka yet. Besides, Mikhailovka-Kemi Oba is the culture that had burial rites startlingly like those of Bell Beaker and Corded Ware.

I'd like to see a big behemoth paper on the Pontic steppe, the Carpathian basin, and the kurgans in the Tisza River valley, with hundreds, even thousands, of samples. Cast a broad net, and let's see what we catch.
Could you get something organised?!

[rms2]

Neolithic period: no R1b-L23 and no steppe dna.

Copper/Bronze Age: R1b-L23 and steppe dna arrive, along with Indo-European language and culture.

After that Europeans are a blend of WHG, EEF, and ANE (or steppe dna).

Re Gimbutas, Old Europe was matriarchal, with an emphasis on the Mother Goddess and Mother Goddess figurines. After the arrival of the Indo-Europeans, the emphasis switched to a patriarchal system and male gods.

[rms2]

Could you get something organised?!

No, probably not.

I've been lucky thus far that Dr. Olalde has been kind enough to respond to several of my emails. I don't want to push my luck.

Several years ago, I wrote Dr. Dan Bradley when L21 was rediscovered, and he actually wrote me back. I like to think I caught his attention, but I don't know.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Needless to say, Gimbutas false dichotomy was incorrect, which is why she misattributed GAC, Remedello and Baden to steppe invaders. Similarly, her analysis of S-N needs significant modification, so it's somewhat paradoxical to use her as a basis to discover the correct hypotheses for L51. But I know this thread is about her theories, so I'll leave it at that .

[rms2]

Needless to say, Gimbutas false dichotomy was incorrect, which is why she misattributed GAC, Remedello and Baden to steppe invaders. Similarly, her analysis of S-N needs significant modification, so it's somewhat paradoxical to use her as a basis to discover the correct hypotheses for L51. But I know this thread is about her theories, so I'll leave it at that .

I think she was more right than wrong. She did not have access to our rc dates, for example.

[Silesian]

http://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/suppl/2017/05/09/135962.DC1/135962-1.pdf
page 85 comparing Yamnaya Samara with- Bell Beakers -all have more Samara than sample-Szi1.
Hungary- Szi3 has higher Yamnaya Samara score than German Corded Ware [email protected]%-18.1%
BB_Hungary_Szi1 - I2a-BB_Hungary_Szi1 0.784 0.024 0.216 0.024 0.348 0%- 78.4%
BB_Hungary_Szi3- R1b-Z2103BB_Hungary_Szi3.743 0.058 0.211 0.058 0.047 0.024 0.094 74.3%- 21.1%

[George]

I think she was more right than wrong. She did not have access to our rc dates, for example.

It!s not surprising to find that dwarves sitting on the shoulders of giants can see further than the giants. No offense intended. Especially if the dwarves are grateful. Ungrateful dwarves are just funny.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

It!s not surprising to find that dwarves sitting on the shoulders of giants can see further than the giants. No offense intended. Especially if the dwarves are grateful. Ungrateful dwarves are just funny.

Sorry, I'm not following.
Are you saying that you wish you were taller ?

[Gravetto-Danubian]

I think she was more right than wrong. She did not have access to our rc dates, for example.

Yeah and she was a feminist / anti -Russian nut
By that's not the point. I'm not here to point out what she was generally correct about, but what she was not, because it's relevant to supposed early movements of L51

[rms2]

Sorry, I'm not following.
Are you saying that you wish you were taller ?

Pretty obviously, he was saying people criticize Gimbutas without recognizing how much she got right and how far ahead of her time she was. She got some things wrong, yes, but she was way ahead of the immobilists who were de rigeur in her era.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Pretty obviously, he was saying people criticize Gimbutas without recognizing how much she got right and how far ahead of her time she was. She got some things wrong, yes, but she was way ahead of the immobilists who were de rigeur in her era.

Thanks for clarifying that
I'm not one for performing poetics like a lackey
I prefer facts

[rms2]

Yeah and she was a feminist / anti -Russian nut
By that's not the point. I'm not here to point out what she was generally correct about, but what she was not, because it's relevant to supposed early movements of L51

She was a feminist and anti-male rather than anti-Russian. She was more right than wrong.

[rms2]

Thanks for clarifying that
I'm not one for performing poetics like a lackey
I prefer facts

Everyone prefers facts, or so they say.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

She was a feminist and anti-male rather than anti-Russian. She was more right than wrong.

Yes you keep saying that "more right than wrong".
That's not the point of my original post though, is it
Anyway carry on

[rms2]

Yes you keep saying that "more right than wrong".
That's not the point of my original post though, is it
Anyway carry on

Gimbutas was a human and did not hold the chair of St. Peter in Rome. Anyone who wants to can read what she wrote and make up his or her own mind.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Gimbutas was a human and did not hold the chair of St. Peter in Rome. Anyone who wants to can read what she wrote and make up his or her own mind.

I was trying to offer some clues and insights as to how we can improve & shed new light to the Suvorovo question.
But it seems that's not what people on this thread are interested in/ capable of consuming

[alexfritz]

not sure if already posted;
some data on the mobility within and throughout (~2500-2150bc) the eastern-beaker zone;
http://www.academia.edu/2589964/Migration_in_the_Bell_Beaker_period_of_Central_Eur ope
turns out the mobility was very high and incl entire families;

[epp]

It!s not surprising to find that dwarves sitting on the shoulders of giants can see further than the giants. No offense intended. Especially if the dwarves are grateful. Ungrateful dwarves are just funny.

Gimbutas would probably have loved the symbolism of puny men sitting precariously on the shoulders of a 50 foot woman facing whichever direction she was pointing them in.

The key for us puny men is recognising the nature of the beast below us.

I like Gimbutas. She was onto something, she didn’t fold under pressure from mainstream opinion and she was a fine socio-political polemicist and creative artist.

[Silesian]

not sure if already posted;
some data on the mobility within and throughout (~2500-2150bc) the eastern-beaker zone;
http://www.academia.edu/2589964/Migration_in_the_Bell_Beaker_period_of_Central_Eur ope
turns out the mobility was very high and incl entire families;

Thank you for that interesting/great paper. Parsing enamel/bone isotope analysis; to show potential recent immigrants and local populations. Some of greatest variance [highest readings] Czech migrants. Something that is also being picked up in variance between Szi1 and Szi3 Hungarian samples.

[rms2]

On page 11 of the Price et al paper, there is a nice, succinct statement of the Dutch Model:



Analysis of radiocarbon dates compiled from this period suggests an origin in the Rhine delta shortly before 2500 BC in a Corded Ware context (Lanting and van der Waals 1976).


Given the results of Olalde et al, now would be a good time to test Corded Ware in the Rhine delta.

[epoch]

On page 11 of the Price et al paper, there is a nice, succinct statement of the Dutch Model:



Given the results of Olalde et al, now would be a good time to test Corded Ware in the Rhine delta.

I hope we have any.

[rms2]

From what I understand "Rhine delta" is really kind of a generic term for the Netherlands. Lanting and van der Waals looked on Single Grave Culture north of the Rhine and in the central Netherlands as the source of Bell Beaker.

[epoch]

From what I understand "Rhine delta" is really kind of a generic term for the Netherlands. Lanting and van der Waals looked on Single Grave Culture north of the Rhine and in the central Netherlands as the source of Bell Beaker.

What I meant is: I hope we have a good usable DNA sample. Tuithoorn was an exception because it was buried under clay but most CWC and BB burials in the Netherlands only yield silhouettes because of the acidity of the soils. But there might be something.

Example of a corpse silhouette:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b9/74/ed/b974ed330fa300ed73b904ea1f7e715a.jpg

[Finn]

From what I understand "Rhine delta" is really kind of a generic term for the Netherlands. Lanting and van der Waals looked on Single Grave Culture north of the Rhine and in the central Netherlands as the source of Bell Beaker.

Indeed!

Hereby a picture of the Single Grave (as part of CW) in the Netherlands with in blue my (especially my mothers) auDNA region. It's called the Hondsrug. A BB and CW hotspot. Through the river the Hunze in direct connection with the North Sea.

https://www.mupload.nl/img/ehlpy8a10ptaq.jpg

(derived from S. Beckerman, Corded Ware Coastal Societies, 2015)

Clarke (2015):
"The Northern British/North Rhine Beaker Group (N/NR)
The particular interest of the Northern/North Rhine group and its close cousin the Barbed Wire beaker group, is that both groups only just scrape within the defnition of beakers of the Bell beaker tradition. Both tlle Northern/North Rhine and the Barbed-Wire beaker groups comprise traditions of mixed Late Corded Ware and peripheral Bell beaker origin. This mixture of traditions can be recognised in the squat, protruding foot, ovoid body beakers with recurved rims, incised or grooved decoration with a poor repertoir of basic beaker motifs and a neolithic poverty of grave associations. To these factors can be added the occasional use of cremation burial rite in a small grave with the beaker beside the cremation heap, and a number of vessels without decoration below the belly.
The Northern/North Rhine beaker group then is represented by the small squat or globular vessels with protruding feet. The decoration frequently consists of heavy grooving below the rim with crude or carelessly incised zones on the body, including metopic motifs. The typical motif is the multiple outlined triangle of the diagnostic form common throughout the Corded Ware tradition and entirely alien in the Bell beaker motif assemblage (Struve, 1955,p.136).The origin of the group seems to lie in the similar assemblages found immediately North of the old Rhine Delta and along the hinterland of the Frisian coasts. The Dutch examples of this group have been partially defined by Modderman (1955) but the type is centered across the border in coastal Germany4. In this area it would appear that late and devolved Corded Ware groups integrated small bands of beaker settlers producing a pottery assemblage of hybrid character.
These folk, with their strong non-beaker background, apparently crossed the North Sea in a series of small bands somewhere around 1700 B.C. or slightly later. The settlers clustered in three foci based on the North Sea Coast: - around the Moray Firth, in the Border Counties and on the Yorkshire Wolds. The domestic assemblage included both undecorated and non-plastic rusticated ware. The main importance of these settlers from across the North Sea lies in the subsequent integration of certain of their pottery features with the later Dutch beakers of the Veluwe type, giving rise to regional insular variations such as the beake s with short, angular. all-over-grooved necks.

[rms2]

Single Grave Protruding Foot Beaker extends into NW Germany, I believe. Hopefully, they can find some skeletons somewhere that will yield informative dna test results, especially y-dna.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

I’ve only responded to matters that you yourself have raised. No more. I’m not interested in arguing.

Let’s move onto Gimbutas, if I may. She has reframed prehistoric developments by setting them within sociological and mythological contexts, and it’s interesting how she utilises terminology (metaphors and adjectival terms) in ways that subliminally colour our perceptions of these developments and make them distinctive.

Three examples:
1. The movements of Steppe people she describes metaphorically as repeated “waves”. This makes them appear masculine, powerful, virile and intrusive, helping her to associate them with a male-centred, paternalistic warrior R1b society.
2. The Steppe people themselves she identifies as “kurgans”, associating them with death, and thereby contrasting them starkly with those in the apparently life-giving, creative, maternal society that they replaced.
3. The society that the Steppe people replaced is quaintly identified as “Old Europe”, making it seem like the vulnerable victim of the young, fit and strong.

Her vision and description is a poetic one, full of diametrical opposites; but is it accurate?

Did the Steppe R1b people and the people of Old Europe neatly divide into two opposing factions?

Is there evidence that the Steppe R1b people were more powerful and violent, or that Old Europe was not itself intrusive and violent?

Waves ebb and flow. Is there evidence that the Steppe R1b people kept crashing down on the areas they moved to and then ebbing back to the Steppe where they apparently originated, or did they often stay and build societies in the new areas to which they migrated and not move like waves at all?

Were the Steppe R1b people death-bringing destroyers or did they actually initiate creation, new invention, culture and population growth?

Was “Old Europe” really old? If it were, why was its era called the Neolithic? Its G2 societies only apparently arrived in Europe about 1,000 years before R1b-M269, and who was there before “Old Europe”? Together with I2, it seems this was the very R1b people that Gimbutas identifies as intrusive newcomers.

When there are agendas and themes being promoted, neat black-and-white distinctions drawn and the use of metaphorical terminology, it is important to approach apparently factual conclusions with caution.

I won't answer you entire hypothesis, because it's beyond the thread.
But i will suggest to you that the Gimbutas - Mallory- Anthony model of the Suvorovo culture, and its impact on Europe / Balkans/ Anatolia is a false construct. I won't go into the latter, because, the mentioned scholars had nothing to say about it empirically apart from some personal assertions instead of a holisitic treatment of region- wide data.
But as for the inception of the Suvorovo phenomenon, the whole 'flying unicorn' scenario is a load of nonsense, and based on mis-dated material, which others here seem to think being off by 1000 years has little effect on interpretation.
What it actually represents is the acculturation of and drawing in of local Carpathian - lower Danube ;native; foragers into the varna -Karanovo VI prestige exchange system, with a net flow from west to east, reaching lastly the Volga and Kuban regions.

[rms2]

Where is the big discussion of Suvorovo-Novodanilovka? I have not seen it. I used a quote from Heyd that mentioned it in Post #4119 (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=274400&viewfull=1#post274400), and epp evidently found it interesting, since Suvorovo-Novodanilovka predates Yamnaya and is said to have been west of the Black Sea already in the second half of the 5th millennium BC. But other than a couple of mentions, no real discussion of Suvorovo-Novodanilovka has taken place.

Anyone who wants to is free to start talking about it, however. Like so many of the cultures of the western steppe, the Carpathian basin, etc., we don't have any dna from Suvorovo-Novodanilovka yet.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Where is the big discussion of Suvorovo-Novodanilovka? I have not seen it. I used a quote from Heyd that mentioned it in Post #4119 (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=274400&viewfull=1#post274400), and epp evidently found it interesting, since Suvorovo-Novodanilovka predates Yamnaya and is said to have been west of the Black Sea already in the second half of the 5th millennium BC. But other than a couple of mentions, no real discussion of Suvorovo-Novodanilovka has taken place.

Anyone who wants to is free to start talking about it, however. Like so many of the cultures of the western steppe, the Carpathian basin, etc., we don't have any dna from Suvorovo-Novodanilovka yet.

Huh. Don't we ?

[rms2]

Huh. Don't we ?

Not as far as I know. If we do have dna results from Suvorovo-Novodanilovka, that would be news, at least to me.

[kostoffj]

I wonder if we become too rigid in our thinking of "the Bell Beaker" people the "Corded Ware" people, the "Yamnaya" people

Who were the cassette tape people? Were they descendants of the 8 track people or the LP vinyl Album (LPVA) people? Were the CD people an amalgam of the LPVA and cassette tape people? And where did the IPOD people originate?

Since when did a man say "I'm a bow and arrow guy. I don't do battle axes". I think most men back then could quickly learn to use either.

And the pottery thing. I seriously doubt women turned their nose up at different pottery types..."I'm a corded ware girl...I wouldn't be caught dead with a bell beaker"

Just because they weren't buried with it doesn't mean they didn't use it. It may be that it didn't have a religious significance. Most people around me wear jeans, and tennis shoes every day, but if you dug up graves in any cemetery around me, very few if any would have jeans or tennis shoes in them.

Our current age seems unique to me in that there are really few culturally-defining styles in material culture, everywhere you look there is a hodgepodge of style and design ... I think this mostly a factor of scale and commercialization, before the 20th century, cultures were marked by distinct styles in the production of material objects, whether pots, clothing, buildings, arts, and so forth. A tribe, a culture in Bronze Age Europe (or anywhere else) would have their own way of making pots (for instance) and that was how pots were made. Everyone would make and decorate pots in about the same way. Anything different from that standard would be foreign, so most people would not see foreign objects at all, or only occasionally through trade or plunder.

You are projecting a very modern mindset afforded through unprecendented wealth and technological change backwards onto ancient people. Your example is pretty good - you go from cassette tape to 8 track to CDs and then iPods to demonstrate variety but look closer - that is a dramatic change in technology and material culture in a single generation. The ancients would have never experienced that. The dizzying rate of technological and social change we experience today is unprecedented in human history so it's a poor guide for putting yourself in the shoes of the ancients. Things changed very slowly, not only technology but also culture. And of course while there were trade links with other cultures, even long distance ones, it is not like today when the container ship rolls in from China with a cornucopia of stuff. Foreign goods would be rare to non-existent for most outside the eltie, and generally people would have little contact with foreigners.

We do know our ancestors were materially poor compared to us, people had little in general and I think it's a mistake to postulate a rich and varied material culture beyond grave goods. Certainly grave goods aren't the entirety of those cultures' material culture but I think it's representative and certainly of the best stuff.

[kostoffj]

At the risk of going off on a tangent, here is something on archery equipment I found interesting in the article Corded Ware from East to West (http://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/corded-ware-east-west):



This is from the Wikipedia article on bow shape (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow_shape):



This could be an indication that Corded Ware and Bell Beaker men were able to fire their bows from horseback, which would have given them a tremendous advantage.

Short reflex bows would definitely make horse archery possible but it's my understanding that actual cavalry - riders fighting from horseback - was not seen until the Iron Age. Prior to that chariotry was how horses were used in battle. A long bow would be impractical for a chariot too though, so reflex bows would be helpful here too.

Even without fighting from horseback, horses would be a big advantage for whoever had them if the other side didn't have them. Chariots and wagons would enable raiders to raid far away from their homes - the victims would have little warning of a raid, and it would be over and the loot on its way home before neighboring kin and communities could organize and come to the aid of the raid victims. IMO that would be the greatest virtue of having horses, even beyond the tactical advantage on the battlefield.

[rms2]

Fighting from horseback is as simple as swinging a mace or club or stabbing with or tossing a spear from the back of a horse. It does not require organized cavalry tactics. Amerindians without stirrups were able to fire their bows from horseback. I don't see why Corded Ware and Bell Beaker men with reflex bows could not have done just as well.

Chariotry requires some pretty sophisticated construction techniques. Pretty obviously, simply clubbing or stabbing someone from the back of a horse preceded it.

A simple technique of using horses in warfare is the mounted infantry, i.e., riding horses to a place, dismounting, engaging in combat on foot, then remounting and riding away. That would greatly facilitate raiding, especially cattle raiding.

[rms2]

It might be a good idea to start another P312/Corded Ware thread like the one we had before. Anyway, here is something from the article Corded Ware from East to West (http://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/corded-ware-east-west) that reminded me of Olalde et al's finding that Globular Amphora + TRB (Funnel Beaker) is the best fit for the Neolithic farmer component in non-Iberian Bell Beaker:



In many regions (from the Lower Rhine basin to Kujavia and Małopolska), the Corded Ware culture appeared alongside the late periods of the Funnel Beaker culture. In the area between central Germany and the Russian lowland, one can observe a long period where it existed alongside the Globular Amphora culture. In Kujavia, this lasted through the entire development of the local Corded Ware culture. In the western part of its domain (to the Vistula River), one can observe its contemporaneity with the Bell Beakers, a period lasting to the middle of the third millennium b.c.


I know that was discussed before, but that seems to me a nice summary.

[epoch]

Single Grave Protruding Foot Beaker extends into NW Germany, I believe. Hopefully, they can find some skeletons somewhere that will yield informative dna test results, especially y-dna.

In the West-Frisia area, same area from where the Tuithoorn samples are, are at least two full skeletons. Two articles in Dutch:

http://onh.nl/nl-NL/verhaal/19/west-friesland-bewoning-in-de-prehistorie

Describes, amongst other finds, a crouched burial of a woman ("Mies") with a hole in her head and signs of malnutrition, found in Sijbeskarspel.

http://onh.nl//nl-NL/verhaal/12696/cees-de-steentijdman

Describes a man from Mienakker, called "Cees". Site is a well known Single Grave Culture (The term now used by Dutch archaeologists) site. It has a reconstruction based on the skeleton. He was most likely not buried normally but "buried" above ground as his lower legs seem to have been eaten by wolves or dogs.

PDF on Mienakker, in English, with a good extensive description of the burial (Chap. 10) which already suggest DNA sampling in the last paragraph.

https://cultureelerfgoed.nl/sites/default/files/publications/nar045-mienakker-eng.pdf


PS: The reconstruction could most certainly pass as a present day local. But that could obviously also be because it is a local reconstruction

[rms2]

Maybe I am mistaken, but I get the vibe of a sort of self-righteous boycott of this thread. Okay, if no one wants to talk about this stuff. We can just wait for the next ancient dna paper that relates to this topic.

[epp]

I wonder why few appear keen to give the Suvorovo culture any consideration at all on this thread.

After all, Gimbutas identified this as the first wave of Kurgan warriors and indo-european ideology into East Central Europe, starting in the Danube basin at around 4,300 BC (the same as yfull’s date for the MRCA of R1b-M269). She then suggested traces of this movement continuing into Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, Bavaria and SW Germany/the Upper Rhine between 4,000 and 3,500 BC, and then into Britain around 3,500 BC. She must have been as bizarre as I am, as this all seems remarkably similar to the estimates from my own data analysis for Bell Beaker’s ancestors R1b-L51 and R1b-L151.

What is it we don't like about Suvorovo? We may not have archaeological DNA released for it, but we don't for early L51 either and that doesn't stop people considering it.

[rms2]

. . .
What is it we don't like about Suvorovo? We may not have archaeological DNA released for it, but we don't for early L51 either and that doesn't stop people considering it.

Go ahead. Talk about it all you want.

I don't think anyone has anything against it. I'd be glad to talk about it.

We have L51 in Bell Beaker, mostly in the form of P312. That gives us something to talk about. Suvorovo-Novodanilovka is more of a genetic unknown.

[rms2]

. . .
After all, Gimbutas identified this as the first wave of Kurgan warriors and indo-european ideology into . . . Britain around 3,500 BC. She must have been as bizarre as I am, as this all seems remarkably similar to the estimates from my own data analysis for Bell Beaker’s ancestors R1b-L51 and R1b-L151 . . .


Gimbutas never said Suvorovo-Novodanilovka made it into Britain in the 4th millennium BC. She did remark on some burial mounds in Derbyshire and in Linkardstown in Ireland as possibly representing the farthest extent west of her Kurgan Wave I, but she never claimed they made much of an impression, and Olalde et al did not find any steppe dna that early in Britain. Cassidy et al did not find any that early in Ireland either.

Gimbutas was pretty sharp, but she did make some mistakes.

Your analysis was based on modern dna and so bears no relationship to what Gimbutas had to say or to the 4th or 3rd millennia BC.

[Chad Rohlfsen]

Longbows of the Meare Heath type are likely. Too big for horseback archery as they were about as tall as the archer. Just going by the bow pendant appearance anyway. Reflex bows are Asiatic in origin and appear much later.

I can come back to your question on the CA Balkans later. It's late here.

[rms2]

I'm definitely no expert on archery in the third millennium BC. I was just going by what was written in the article, Corded Ware from East to West (http://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/corded-ware-east-west):



An interesting find in this group [Central German Corded Ware Culture] was the grave at Göhlitzsch. On one of the stone slabs forming the grave there was engraved the image of a reflex bow and quiver. It is one of the earliest representations of this technologically advanced form of bow.

[jdean]

I'm definitely no expert on archery in the third millennium BC. I was just going by what was written in the article, Corded Ware from East to West (http://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/corded-ware-east-west):

I think this is the minky

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i269/onnega/Ghlitzsch.jpg

[rms2]

I made a Google sheet of Corded Ware test results here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1F8HuPA4qMeRPxXQNF-qfvYBd8LLp2HnHV-oBh8rtpAk/edit?usp=sharing), and here's a little screenshot of it:

18264

I tried to list the cultural variants of Corded Ware into which the samples fall, but I am not sure of most of them, so they are followed by a question mark. Anyway, it looks like the only cultural variant at all well represented (if I am right about the classification) is Central German Corded Ware.

Here are the cultural variants and the number of y-dna test results for each of them:

1. Single Grave culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 y-dna results

2. Protruding Foot Beaker culture . . . . . . . . . 0

3. Corded Ware of the Alpine Pile Dwellings . . . 0

4. Central German Corded Ware . . . . . . . . . . . 14?

5. Bohemian-Moravian Corded Ware . . . . . . . . 0

6. Małopolska Corded Ware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

7. Złota culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

8. Battle-Axe culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

9. Rzucewo culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4?

10. Middle Dnieper culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

11. Fatianovo culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

[epp]

We can just wait for the next ancient dna paper that relates to this topic.
I wouldn't hold your breath. Published ancient DNA is often a bit of a disappointment. Either they only publish the mtDNA, or aDNA that varies widely depending on how it's measured, or they only show a general haplogroup (leaving us to guess the precise SNP) or they test sites in the less interesting locations or time periods. Perhaps I just expect too much.

[epp]

I made a Google sheet of Corded Ware test results here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1F8HuPA4qMeRPxXQNF-qfvYBd8LLp2HnHV-oBh8rtpAk/edit?usp=sharing), and here's a little screenshot of it:

18264

I tried to list the cultural variants of Corded Ware into which the samples fall, but I am not sure of most of them, so they are followed by a question mark. Anyway, it looks like the only cultural variant at all well represented (if I am right about the classification) is Central German Corded Ware.

Here are the cultural variants and the number of y-dna test results for each of them:

1. Single Grave culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 y-dna results

2. Protruding Foot Beaker culture . . . . . . . . . 0

3. Corded Ware of the Alpine Pile Dwellings . . . 0

4. Central German Corded Ware . . . . . . . . . . . 14?

5. Bohemian-Moravian Corded Ware . . . . . . . . 0

6. Małopolska Corded Ware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

7. Złota culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

8. Battle-Axe culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

9. Rzucewo culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4?

10. Middle Dnieper culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

11. Fatianovo culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
Do you know if aDNA was tested in Rzucewo? I wonder whether it might show a closer or less close relationship with R1b Yamna, compared to the German samples?

[Pribislav]

I made a Google sheet of Corded Ware test results here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1F8HuPA4qMeRPxXQNF-qfvYBd8LLp2HnHV-oBh8rtpAk/edit?usp=sharing), and here's a little screenshot of it:

You missed some samples ascribed to middle/late Neolithic but in fact belonging to Corded Ware: RISE61 (Kyndelöse, Denmark, 2650-2300 BC, R1a-Z284) and Gyvakarai 1 (Lithuania, 2620-2470 BC, R1a-Z645). Case can be made that Olsund (Sweden, 2573-2145 BC, R1a-Z645) also belonged to CW. He was in the right period, he was Z645, and supplementary material from Mittnik et al. states that:


Ölsund is located 20 km from the contemporary settlement site Hedningahällan, with an assemblage that show a mix of local hunter-gatherer tradition and CWC influences.

[rms2]

You missed some samples ascribed to middle/late Neolithic but in fact belonging to Corded Ware: RISE61 (Kyndelöse, Denmark, 2650-2300 BC, R1a-Z284) and Gyvakarai 1 (Lithuania, 2620-2470 BC, R1a-Z645). Case can be made that Olsund (Sweden, 2573-2145 BC, R1a-Z645) also belonged to CW. He was in the right period, he was Z645, and supplementary material from Mittnik et al. states that:

I'm reluctant to count something as Corded Ware if there is any doubt about that attribution.

[rms2]

Do you know if aDNA was tested in Rzucewo? I wonder whether it might show a closer or less close relationship with R1b Yamna, compared to the German samples?

I have a question mark after Rzucewo because I am not sure those four Estonian Corded Ware samples belong to that variant. I concluded they might simply because Rzucewo is a Baltic variant.

One would have to go to the paper in which those results appear to check their autosomal dna.

[epp]

Let's assume Gimbutas' hypothesis and yfull's 4,300 BC most recent common ancestor for R1b-M269 are roughly correct. This would mean one single Steppe man (since the split from M73 13,300 years ago) fathering every R1b-Bell Beaker person and every such R1b person still alive today.

Precisely where on the Steppe do we think this man would most likely have lived, and why?

The Steppe is a big place, with some identifying it all the way from Northern Italy to Hungary to Latvia to China to the Caucasus. I know Steppe people were mobile, but this man would only have been born in one place. Where?

[rms2]

Let's assume Gimbutas' hypothesis and yfull's 4,300 BC most recent common ancestor for R1b-M269 are roughly correct. This would mean one single Steppe man (since the split from M73 13,300 years ago) fathering every R1b-Bell Beaker person and every such R1b person still alive today.

Precisely where on the Steppe do we think this man would most likely have lived, and why?

The Steppe is a big place, with some identifying it all the way from Northern Italy to Hungary to Latvia to China to the Caucasus. I know Steppe people were mobile, but this man would only have been born in one place. Where?

Late Sredni Stog probably.

[epp]

I have a question mark after Rzucewo because I am not sure those four Estonian Corded Ware samples belong to that variant. I concluded they might simply because Rzucewo is a Baltic variant.

One would have to go to the paper in which those results appear to check their autosomal dna.
I've seen one Estonian CW from 2,600 BC whose aDNA looks very dissimilar to German CW and is reported to have 0% North Caucasus and a significant amount of French and Iberian - doesn't look Yamnayan at all. Perhaps CW was multi-ethnic in the beginning, and spread to the Baltic States before the Yamnayan CW people themselves did?

[epp]

Late Sredni Stog probably.
According to what I've read, a site near Sredni Stog was the Eastern limit of the known Suvorovo culture (which extended over a large area from Hungary to Transylvania to coastal Bulgaria to the Danube basin to the upper Dniester to the lower Dnieper) and its sites have been dated to between 4,300 and 4,000 BC. My guess too is that M269 probably originated within this area, and that Eastern Steppe R1b people died out completely for whatever reason.

[rms2]

According to what I've read, a site near Sredni Stog was the Eastern limit of the known Suvorovo culture (which extended over a large area from Hungary to Transylvania to coastal Bulgaria to the Danube basin to the upper Dniester to the lower Dnieper) and its sites have been dated to between 4,300 and 4,000 BC. My guess too is that M269 probably originated within this area, and that Eastern Steppe R1b people died out completely for whatever reason.

Z2103 is still pretty frequent on the eastern steppe.

L51 appears to have moved west pretty much lock, stock and barrel.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Not as far as I know. If we do have dna results from Suvorovo-Novodanilovka, that would be news, at least to me.

Sorry I was being intentionally vague
It has been studied (mtDNA only as yet), here (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0128810), called Decea Mureşului (Romania variant).
I didn't want to "jinx" the success of its followup GW version
So they could be L51, or I2a2. Anyone's guess that

[epp]

Z2103 is still pretty frequent on the eastern steppe.

L51 appears to have moved west pretty much lock, stock and barrel.
Agreed. Possibly Z2103 from a Sredny Stog root obliterated its Eastern Steppe cousins, or perhaps their demise was triggered by later Indo-Aryans.
L51 might have been the Transylvanian/Hungarian branch (one of these sites has been dated to 4,000 BC) or even the upper Dniester one.

[epp]

Sorry I was being intentionally vague
It has been studied (mtDNA only as yet), here (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0128810), called Decea Mureşului (Romania variant).
I didn't want to "jinx" the success of its followup GW version
So they could be L51, or I2a2. Anyone's guess that
A follow up at Mureşului could be very interesting.
I note that its mtDNA group is distinct from both preceding and subsequent groups in Romania, and has its highest European frequency in France.

[rms2]

Sorry I was being intentionally vague
It has been studied (mtDNA only as yet), here (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0128810), called Decea Mureşului (Romania variant).
I didn't want to "jinx" the success of its followup GW version
So they could be L51, or I2a2. Anyone's guess that

And I meant y-dna results.

[epp]

The culture that Gimbutas identified as the first wave of the Kurgan people (Suvorovo-Novodanilovka) extended over a large area from Bulgaria, through Danubian Romania, Transylvania, Hungary, up to the Dniester (almost as far as Poland) and across to the Central-Ukrainian Dnieper.

The Tripolye culture identified by Gimbutas as part of pre-Kurgan Old Europe extended over a similar area from Danubian Romania, Transylvania, the Dniester (as far as Poland) and across to the Central-Ukrainian Dnieper.

In the last few centuries of the fifth millennium BC, both cultures existed and thrived in largely the same geographical areas. SN people appear to have been the wealthiest and most successful Steppe populations of their time. Tripolye people appear to have been the wealthiest and most successful of the Old Europe populations of their time. Graves contain items and bones appearing to derive from both of these cultures and peoples; there appears to have been some sort of collaboration or fusion between them, although not necessarily as equal partners.

Yfull estimates that the single male ancestor of all R1b-M269 Steppe-ancestral people lived at the start of the SN period (4,300 BC), and branched out just as the SN culture was itself branching out over a wide geographical area.

Does it seem a reasonable proposition that subsequent R1b-M269 Yamnayan populations found in similar areas to SN and R1b-M269 Bell Beaker populations found just West of these areas most likely descend from a SN root?

Also, if we assume this is so, then:
1. Where would this M269 root most likely have been located? R1b samples from the mid-fifth millennium extend from Bulgaria to the Eastern Steppe. Sites in Transylvania and Hungary are less likely, having slightly later radiocarbon dates than at the Danube delta. All sites contain Bulgarian copper, suggesting a flow Eastwards from the Western Pontic. The Tripolye culture extended Eastwards towards the Dnieper during the SN period. The earliest confirmed site (dated approximately 4,300 BC) is located close to the Danube delta. The earliest full kurgan is located close to the Danube delta. Accordingly, although pre-M269 individuals may have originated in the Central or Eastern Steppe, I would suggest a M269 common ancestor located somewhere along the Black Sea coast between Bulgaria and the mouth of the Dniester.

2. From which branch of SN would R1b-L151 Bell Beaker most likely have arisen? The Hungarian/Transylvanian branch, the Upper Dniester branch or a branch that zig-zagged from Western to Eastern Pontic and back to Western again with Yamnaya?

I realise we don’t know the answers to these questions, but any thoughts?

[rms2]

I think you may be on the right track in the sense that it was western steppe peoples who spread R1b-M269 west of the Dniester.

[epp]

I2a2a1b was on the Steppe in the same Dnieper settlement with R1b in the mid-5th millennium. It also moved from the Steppe into Northern Germany during the mid-4th millennium with Globular Amphora. Would it have completely extricated itself from R1b living amongst it in doing this, or is it likely that R1b was also present to some degree within Globular Amphora?

There is a first wave Steppe culture site at Chapli on the Upper Dniester, which is closely-linked to Dnieper sites. It is dated to approximately 4,000 BC (close to L151's formation date), and is near to where Globular Amphora is estimated to have originated only a few centuries later. Is this likely to be the cradle from which R1b-L151 emerged, later forming Bell Beaker on coming into contact with proto-Corded Ware R1a-M417 communities near the mouth of the Elbe?

[rms2]

None of the Globular Amphora samples from Mathieson et al had any steppe dna, and none of them was R1 of any kind. Gimbutas believed there were some steppe elites in Globular Amphora, but if that is true, it's evidently going to take many more samples to find them.

[epp]

None of the Globular Amphora samples from Mathieson et al had any steppe dna, and none of them was R1 of any kind. Gimbutas believed there were some steppe elites in Globular Amphora, but if that is true, it's evidently going to take many more samples to find them.
It might just take one more sample to find R1b - Mathieson didn't look at very many.

Dereivka Sredny Stog had both I2a2a1b and R1b contemporaneously - if I2a2a1b didn't have Steppe DNA, did R1b Sredny Stog have it either?

By Steppe DNA, do you mean South Asian admixture?

[Generalissimo]

I2a2a1b was on the Steppe in the same Dnieper settlement with R1b in the mid-5th millennium. It also moved from the Steppe into Northern Germany during the mid-4th millennium with Globular Amphora. Would it have completely extricated itself from R1b living amongst it in doing this, or is it likely that R1b was also present to some degree within Globular Amphora?

There is a first wave Steppe culture site at Chapli on the Upper Dniester, which is closely-linked to Dnieper sites. It is dated to approximately 4,000 BC (close to L151's formation date), and is near to where Globular Amphora is estimated to have originated only a few centuries later. Is this likely to be the cradle from which R1b-L151 emerged, later forming Bell Beaker on coming into contact with proto-Corded Ware R1a-M417 communities near the mouth of the Elbe?

Proto-Corded Ware isn't from the mouth of the Elbe, it's from the steppe, because early Corded Ware is indistinguishable from Yamnaya from Samara.

How hard is that to understand?

[epp]

Proto-Corded Ware isn't from the mouth of the Elbe, it's from the steppe, because early Corded Ware is indistinguishable from Yamnaya from Samara.

How hard is that to understand?
I imagine if "early Corded Ware" were indistinguishable from Yamnaya, it would still be called Yamnaya.

People on this forum have told me that the earliest Corded Ware sites are along the Baltic (Poland). They might be wrong, but even so I don't see any need to be rude about it.

Do you have anything useful to contribute about my suggestion re- Chapli and Globular Amphora?

[Generalissimo]

I imagine if "early Corded Ware" were indistinguishable from Yamnaya, it would still be called Yamnaya.

Well those early Corded Ware individuals are indistinguishable from Yamnaya genetically and they're called Corded Ware. So that's that.


Do you have anything useful to contribute about my suggestion re- Chapli and Globular Amphora?

Yes, I have a suggestion for you: do some reading about genome-wide (autosomal) DNA before dazzling us with more of your theories.

[epp]

Well those early Corded Ware individuals are indistinguishable from Yamnaya genetically and they're called Corded Ware. So that's that.
Distinguishable geographically. Distinguishable culturally. Wholly different y-dna. 20-40% different a-DNA, depending on which measure you use.


Yes, I have a suggestion for you: do some reading about genome-wide (autosomal) DNA before dazzling us with more of your theories.
Personal abuse again that has nothing to do with the Chapli or GA matters that I raised.
Does anyone have anything useful to contribute?

[Generalissimo]

20-40% different a-DNA, depending on which measure you use.

Practically no different using all measures.

That's the point I was making that you missed.

[pegasus]

Well those early Corded Ware individuals are indistinguishable from Yamnaya genetically and they're called Corded Ware. So that's that.



Yes, I have a suggestion for you: do some reading about genome-wide (autosomal) DNA before dazzling us with more of your theories.

The whole point of CW is the cultural and genetic mixing with local Northern Europeans, just as the ethnogenesis of Yamnaya occurs with the mixing between EHGs and CHGs, otherwise we would still be calling Yamnaya people Khalvynsk .

[jeanL]

Hey rms2; do you remember when you made fun of the idea of local Bell Beaker people taking Corded Ware wives and acquiring Steppe Admixture that way.

Female exogamy and gene pool diversification at the transition from the Final Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age in central Europe (http://www.pnas.org.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/content/early/2017/08/29/1706355114.full.pdf)


Human mobility has been vigorously debated as a key factor for the spread of bronze technology and profound changes in burial practices as well as material culture in central Europe at the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. However, the relevance of individual residential changes and their importance among specific age and sex groups are still poorly understood. Here, we present ancient DNA analysis, stable isotope data of oxygen, and
radiogenic isotope ratios of strontium for 84 radiocarbon-dated skeletons from seven archaeological sites of the Late Neolithic Bell Beaker Complex and the Early Bronze Age from the Lech River valley in southern Bavaria, Germany. Complete mitochondrial genomes documented a diversification of maternal lineages over time. The isotope ratios disclosed the majority of the females to be nonlocal, while this is the case for only a few males and subadults. Most nonlocal females arrived in the study area as adults, but we do not detect their offspring among the sampled individuals. The striking patterns of patrilocality and female exogamy prevailed over at least 800 y between about 2500 and 1700 BC. The persisting residential rules and even a direct kinship relation across the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age add to the archaeological evidence of continuing traditions from the Bell Beaker Complex to the Early Bronze Age. The results also attest to female mobility as a driving force for regional and supraregional communication and exchange at the dawn of the European metal ages.


Here is even more spelled out for you:


Patrilocal residential rules, kinship ties, female exogamy, and supraregional
connections. The combination of Sr and O isotope data identified
22 of 83 investigated individuals (26.5%) as nonlocal or temporarily
living away from the Lech River valley during childhood.
Among them were 17/28 (60.7%) females, 3/27 (11.1%) males,
2/27 (7.4%) subadults, and 0/1 (0%) adult individuals of indeterminate
sex (Dataset S1, Table 8). These individuals were
distributed equally among the sites and burials of the BBC (5/18 =
27.8%) and the EBA (17/65 = 26.2%). The numbers are minimum
estimates because the local isotope ranges are not exclusive to the
Lech River valley, and individuals with similar 87Sr/86Sr ratios of
both sampled teeth may have moved undetectably between geologically
similar landscapes.
The high proportion of nonlocal females occurs at the same time
as a high and increasing haplotype diversity, i.e., a high diversity of
maternal lineages, and is consistent with a patrilocal residential
system and female exogamy (39, 40). Predominantly nonlocal females
were also found in BBC contexts in southern Bavaria (especially
if 0.71050 is used as 87Sr/86Sr cutoff), Austria, Hungary, the
Czech Republic (18), and Britain (21), among CWC burials in
southern Germany (12), and EBA inhumations in central Germany
(24), pointing to a supraregional prevalence of patrilocal residential
rules. The pattern is, however, most striking in the Lech River valley

[rms2]

jeanL-

That report does not even come close to saying that BB men took CW wives and acquired steppe dna that way. You're letting the wish become father to the thought (again).

That idea is patently ridiculous.

Besides, there is already a thread on that topic here (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?11880-Female-exogamy-amp-gene-pool-diversification-at-the-transition-from-the-Final-Neolithic).

[Generalissimo]

The whole point of CW is the cultural and genetic mixing with local Northern Europeans, just as the ethnogenesis of Yamnaya occurs with the mixing between EHGs and CHGs, otherwise we would still be calling Yamnaya people Khalvynsk .

So who were the early Corded Ware people that looked like Yamnaya genetically? They were Yamnaya according to you?

Why are they referred to as Corded Ware and not Yamnaya in the relevant papers?

[ADW_1981]

Hey rms2; do you remember when you made fun of the idea of local Bell Beaker people taking Corded Ware wives and acquiring Steppe Admixture that way.

Female exogamy and gene pool diversification at the transition from the Final Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age in central Europe (http://www.pnas.org.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/content/early/2017/08/29/1706355114.full.pdf)




Here is even more spelled out for you:


Even more spelled out : "Most nonlocal females arrived in the study area as adults, but we do not detect their offspring among the sampled individuals. "

So much for passing on the "Steppe" admixture via "Steppe" women then. Not exactly supporting your theory is it?

[rms2]

From what I get out of the Knipper paper, it merely concludes there was female exogamy between 2500 BC and 1700 BC in the Lech Valley. BB men took wives from outside the local area, and those women belonged to a variety of mtDNA haplogroups. It does not say they were CW women from nearby CW settlements. How could they be, if they were non-local?

By 2500 BC, CW was already well established in Germany, so the CW women of the Lech Valley would have been locals and were probably not recent immigrants.

I have not given much thought to why BB men in the Lech Valley would be bringing in non-local women. Perhaps there was a shortage of women, so BB men were bringing in BB women from outside that particular area. Maybe they were marrying non-local Neolithic farmer women. Rather than acquiring steppe admixture by marrying CW women, perhaps they were acquiring Neolithic farmer admixture by marrying Neolithic farmer women.

Thus far there is no evidence of R1b-L23 in the central or western European Neolithic farmer cultures, and no lack of steppe dna in non-Iberian BB by the very beginning of the period with which this study deals.

[alexfritz]

the lech-valley itself is prob not excluded by this 800y supra-regional pattern, in that local lech-valley females might turn up in other sites themselves, pos in the exact opposite direction from where the non-local females originated from; i think this goes hand in hand with goldberg et al that the steppe migrations were proportionally higher male than female and this pattern (obs also in cw eulau) was just to prevent eventual incest and its consequences;

[pegasus]

So who were the early Corded Ware people that looked like Yamnaya genetically? They were Yamnaya according to you?

Why are they referred to as Corded Ware and not Yamnaya in the relevant papers?

Obviously when any people arrive in a region, mixing occurs shortly after. Epp is correct for all the reasons he listed. Its not that hard to put 2 and 2 together you know.

[Generalissimo]

Obviously when any people arrive in a region, mixing occurs shortly after. Epp is correct for all the reasons he listed. Its not that hard to put 2 and 2 together you know.

You're not making any sense whatsoever because the Corded Ware individuals that look like Yamnaya are from what is considered Corded Ware culture, and not any proto-Corded Ware culture or Yamnaya, and not from the mouth of the Elbe. So Epp is talking nonsense as well.

Do you comprehend what I just said?

[pegasus]

You're not making any sense whatsoever because the Corded Ware individuals that look like Yamnaya are from what is considered Corded Ware culture, and not any proto-Corded Ware culture or Yamnaya, and not from the mouth of the Elbe. So Epp is talking nonsense as well.

Do you comprehend what I just said?

Sorry for the late reply I don't perpetually live on the forum like you do. I don't see why you seem so perturbed. For the second time , when a new population arrives on the scene , mixing occurs after ( cultural and genetic) , but there is a distinction between Corded Ware and Yamnaya , just as there is a distinction between Khalvynsk or Samara people. Corded Ware and BB are cultural events specific to mainly mainland Europe so where you think they picked up CHG from, the Rhine ?

[epp]

You're not making any sense whatsoever because the Corded Ware individuals that look like Yamnaya are from what is considered Corded Ware culture, and not any proto-Corded Ware culture or Yamnaya, and not from the mouth of the Elbe. So Epp is talking nonsense as well.

Do you comprehend what I just said?
Not really - I'm afraid I find your English here really quite muddly and rambling. Sorry, but you did ask.

I've checked two autosomal DNA comparisons between Corded Ware and Yamnaya, which showed a 67% match and a 68% match. I'm told another measure shows a 79% match, although I haven't seen it. Personally, this is not what I would call indistinguishable; and might just identify an ancestral population partly in common, rather than a flow of people from one culture into the other.

Far more striking are the a-DNA comparisons between Corded Ware and Bell Beaker populations which are almost indistinguishable, showing matches of 80% to over 90%. Perhaps this relationship is generally overlooked because neither of these cultures was centred on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, so it becomes politically incorrect to mention it?

The close genetic association between L151 Bell Beaker and Corded Ware is indicative to me of Bell Beaker and Corded Ware perhaps being varieties of the same culture, and of a generally Northern development point for L151. And two other pieces of circumstantial evidence lend additional weight to this:
1. I found a 63% a-DNA match between Bell Beaker and Neolithic Funnel Beaker (an early North European culture) - indeed, significantly stronger than the match I found between Bell Beaker and Yamnaya.
2. Surviving basal R1b-M73 appears predominantly in Bell Beaker-ancestral North West European populations, and archaeological evidence suggests that M73 was formative in the Eastern Baltic states, suggesting that L151 and M73 might have moved Westwards together along the Baltic, rather than L151 expanding from down South close to the Alps.

Additionally, Bell Beaker is substantially more closely matched than Corded Ware is with Neolithic Funnel Beaker, despite Corded Ware and Funnel Beaker covering similar areas. This is perhaps indicative of Bell Beaker-ancestral populations arriving in the Funnel Beaker areas of Poland and the German Baltic before Corded Ware populations did.

When Gimbutas referred to the three waves of Kurgans, I wonder whether our exclusive focus on the third (Yamnayan) wave is missing the other two thirds of the picture. If we were to look anywhere for the earliest L151, I think I would now suggest the early 5th millennium first wave Steppe culture site of Chapli in the Upper Dniester, near the Polish border.

[epp]

Sorry for the late reply I don't perpetually live on the forum like you do. I don't see why you seem so perturbed. For the second time , when a new population arrives on the scene , mixing occurs after ( cultural and genetic) , but there is a distinction between Corded Ware and Yamnaya , just as there is a distinction between Khalvynsk or Samara people. Corded Ware and BB are cultural events specific to mainly mainland Europe so where you think they picked up CHG from, the Rhine ?
Good question. And still very much an open one.

[rms2]

. . .
1. I found a 63% a-DNA match between Bell Beaker and Neolithic Funnel Beaker (an early North European culture) . . .

Can you provide a reference for that? Where did you find that?



2. Surviving basal R1b-M73 appears predominantly in Bell Beaker-ancestral North West European populations . . .


A couple of things: What do you mean by "Bell Beaker-ancestral North West European populations"?

Second, R1b-M73 is scarce in NW Europe.

18613

[epp]

Can you provide a reference for that? Where did you find that?
Is this a surprise? Does it differ from other samples you've seen - in which case, what do these show? And is CW a closer match with BB than it is with Yamnaya in the samples you've looked at?


A couple of things: What do you mean by "Bell Beaker-ancestral North West European populations"?
Areas which are heavily P312 today.


Second, R1b-M73 is scarce in NW Europe.

18613
Yes, and it is substantially of the basal type found in M73-formational Neolithic Eastern Baltic.

[rms2]

Is this a surprise? Does it differ from other samples you've seen - in which case, what do these show? And is CW a closer match with BB than it is with Yamnaya in the samples you've looked at?

Since apparently you can't answer my question, you were blowing smoke. I asked for a source for your claim that BB was 63% TRB (Funnel Beaker), and you answered that way. You did not provide a source, you just blathered on.



Areas which are heavily P312 today.

That's not an answer either. You mean where BB originated? It certainly did not originate in NW Europe. It went there, but it did not start there.



Yes, and it is substantially of the basal type found in M73-formational Neolithic Eastern Baltic.

That is not NW Europe, as you claimed. R1b-M73 today is a central Asian clade. The Baltic is also not in NW Europe.

[epp]

Since apparently you can't answer my question, you were blowing smoke. I asked for a source for your claim that BB was 63% TRB (Funnel Beaker), and you answered that way. You did not provide a source, you just blathered on.
I can answer your question, but wanted to see first whether your interest was genuine and wondered whether you would answer any of my related questions or bother looking into it yourself. It appears from your answer that you have no real interest in researching this topic and won't answer any of my four questions.


That's not an answer either. You mean where BB originated? It certainly did not originate in NW Europe. It went there, but it did not start there.
More indications of your agenda. When I give you an answer, you tell me that it's not an answer.


That is not NW Europe, as you claimed. R1b-M73 today is a central Asian clade. The Baltic is also not in NW Europe.
Oh dear - back to the rms2 of old!

For anyone genuinely interested in looking into it further:
1. The Funnel Beaker samples with close a-DNA matches to the Bell Beaker samples all came from the same area of North Central Germany, separated by approximately 1,500 years. They're quite easy to look up.
2. Formational and basal R1b-M73 were found in archaeological Eastern Baltic. The same basal M73 now appears in small numbers in countries like France and Britain, but not in Russia, Ukraine or Central Asia. The point is that this apparent move of basal M73 from Eastern Baltic to current P312 areas would mirror any move of L151 from Polish Funnel Beaker to current P312 areas. Perhaps one moved with the other?

[rms2]

I can answer your question, but wanted to see first whether your interest was genuine and wondered whether you would answer any of my related questions or bother looking into it yourself. It appears from your answer that you have no real interest in researching this topic and won't answer any of my four questions.

I think it's probably time to just ignore you, epp. You said you found a BB person who was 63% TRB, but when I asked you to provide the source of that information, you would not or could not.



More indications of your agenda. When I give you an answer, you tell me that it's not an answer.

My agenda is pretty transparent. I think R1b-L51 is of steppe origin until proven otherwise. There you have it, but everyone here knew that already.

I asked you what you meant by "Bell Beaker-ancestral North West European populations". Your answer was "Areas which are heavily P312 today." That was an answer of sorts, but it did not clarify things for me, because "Bell Beaker-ancestral North West European populations" sounds like you meant that the ancestors of the BB people came from NW Europe. But your answer, "Areas which are heavily P312 today", makes it sound like you really meant "Bell Beaker-descendant NW European populations", i.e., the places where most of the descendants of BB people live today.



Oh dear - back to the rms2 of old!


He never left, and he still knows that R1b-M73 is extremely scarce in NW Europe, where you claimed "[s]urviving basal R1b-M73 appears predominantly" today.

Sorry, but what you claimed is just not true.



For anyone genuinely interested in looking into it further:
1. The Funnel Beaker samples with close a-DNA matches to the Bell Beaker samples all came from the same area of North Central Germany, separated by approximately 1,500 years. They're quite easy to look up.

Why not show them to us, if they're so easy to look up? Where did you find these BB/TRB matches, like the BB you claimed is 63% TRB?



2. Formational and basal R1b-M73 were found in archaeological Eastern Baltic. The same basal M73 now appears in small numbers in countries like France and Britain, but not in Russia, Ukraine or Central Asia. The point is that this apparent move of basal M73 from Eastern Baltic to current P312 areas would mirror any move of L151 from Polish Funnel Beaker to current P312 areas. Perhaps one moved with the other?

Once again you are using modern y-dna to bolster claims about ancient y-dna. Can you provide some examples of these modern day basal R1b-M73s from France and Britain? Are you aware that the modern pot is full of ingredients that have been added to it and stirred vigorously over the millennia? That's why modern y-dna isn't all that useful in the quest for ancient origins. It's not of no use, but it must be used cautiously.

I really seriously doubt the BB people who went to Britain and France included any R1b-M73 and that R1b-M73 men there today are their descendants. That's not impossible, but it doesn't seem likely.

It's far more likely that R1b-M73 men in Britain and France today are either recent immigrants themselves or the descendants of recent or relatively recent immigrants.

[epp]

You said you found a BB person who was 63% TRB, but when I asked you to provide the source of that information, you would not or could not.

I didn’t say I found “a BB person who was 63% TRB”. I said I found “a 63% a-DNA match between Bell Beaker and Neolithic Funnel Beaker” (it was a comparison between two groups of samples shown on a website called Genetiker). I’m not particularly interested in the mass of noise that is autosomal DNA, which looks to me like people fiddling around with a huge variety of measures until they find one that best fits their fixed viewpoints and petty agendas - however, I looked it up because I was advised on this forum to do so.

I haven’t looked at all the different studies and varieties, and merely picked this as it was the first one I came across. I must emphasise that a 63% match between BB and TRB does not mean (as you put it) that “a BB person was 63% TRB”, merely that there was a 63% association calculated between the two based on the criteria the tester decided to select. The same BB samples were, on average, also calculated as 51% Yamnaya-associated and 24% Spanish Neolithic-associated, but obviously you cannot say that 63% of the person comes from TRB, another 51% from Yamnaya and another 24% from Spanish Neolithic, as this sums to well over 100%. Likewise, the 67% association calculated between Corded Ware and Yamnaya does not mean that two thirds of Corded Ware were Yamnayan, or vice versa, and could simply indicate that they had common ancestors thousands of years beforehand.

I know little about a-DNA and place little reliance on it, but as you seemed surprised by the results I mentioned, I was interested whether they were fundamentally different to other studies, and more significantly whether the strikingly close association between BB and CW samples was something that had been replicated or noticed generally. Unfortunately, neither you nor anyone else could be bothered to explain why these results might be considered significant, nor answer any of the questions I raised on the matter.


I asked you what you meant by "Bell Beaker-ancestral North West European populations". Your answer was "Areas which are heavily P312 today." That was an answer of sorts, but it did not clarify things for me, because "Bell Beaker-ancestral North West European populations" sounds like you meant that the ancestors of the BB people came from NW Europe. But your answer, "Areas which are heavily P312 today", makes it sound like you really meant "Bell Beaker-descendant NW European populations", i.e., the places where most of the descendants of BB people live today.

To clarify, by “Bell Beaker-ancestral”, I was using the dictionary definition of ancestral, i.e. referring to populations that “pertain to or descend from Bell Beaker ancestors”. I wrote “Bell Beaker-ancestral North West European populations”, and not North West European-ancestral Bell Beaker populations. What I say, and what you think I mean, usually seem to be two different things.



He never left, and he still knows that R1b-M73 is extremely scarce in NW Europe, where you claimed "[s]urviving basal R1b-M73 appears predominantly" today.

Sorry, but what you claimed is just not true.


It's far more likely that R1b-M73 men in Britain and France today are either recent immigrants themselves or the descendants of recent or relatively recent immigrants.

According to FTDNA’s website there are two confirmed basal M73(xM478) samples - a Matthis Rapp from France and a Bartholomew Paige from England - and another five samples with similar STR profiles - Joseph Smit (presumably Dutch), Giorgio Mainenti from Italy, Juan Sanchez Ortega from Spain, Gioacchino Vizzaccaro from Italy and William Playle from England. On the other hand, FTDNA has many samples of M73>M478, all of which are located East of the Baltic.

Perhaps, as you say, “it's far more likely that R1b-M73 men in Britain and France today are either recent immigrants themselves or the descendants of recent or relatively recent immigrants” - perhaps these seven West European M73(xM478) individuals are all really from the Urals, and decided only recently to get themselves together and migrate en masse to a variety of different countries in Western Europe, changing all their names accordingly, and leaving every one of their M478 cousins from 13,000 years ago behind. I’ll leave other forum users to come to their own conclusions on whether my claim that surviving basal M73(XM478) appears predominantly West European is, as you say, “just not true” or whether you have been a little presumptuous in asserting this so dismissively.

The whole process has been slow and unnecessarily confrontational, but I think I have learned enough to arrive at a preliminary conclusion that in my opinion is best supported by the evidence - that R1b-M269 most likely arose along the Western coast of the Black Sea on the fringes of Old Europe, and that its L151 branch was most likely within Gimbutas’ first wave of Steppe migrations up the Dniester into Poland and Northern Germany, from where it was later pushed Westwards by related Yamna-infused Corded Ware populations to a base near the Rhine, from where it thrived and expanded, most noticeably within Bell Beaker.

This opinion has evolved gradually, and is not in any way fixed - I await evidence that will probably result in further revision.


I think it's probably time to just ignore you, epp.
You can ignore me, but I might not go away. :) There are still a few related and unrelated topics I am interested in finding out more about.

[rms2]

I didn’t say I found “a BB person who was 63% TRB”. I said I found “a 63% a-DNA match between Bell Beaker and Neolithic Funnel Beaker” (it was a comparison between two groups of samples shown on a website called Genetiker) . . .

Can you provide a link to that information?




To clarify, by “Bell Beaker-ancestral”, I was using the dictionary definition of ancestral, i.e. referring to populations that “pertain to or descend from Bell Beaker ancestors”. I wrote “Bell Beaker-ancestral North West European populations”, and not North West European-ancestral Bell Beaker populations. What I say, and what you think I mean, usually seem to be two different things.

It seemed to me awkward wording that wasn't clear, which is why I asked you what you meant by it.



According to FTDNA’s website there are two confirmed basal M73(xM478) samples - a Matthis Rapp from France and a Bartholomew Paige from England - and another five samples with similar STR profiles - Joseph Smit (presumably Dutch), Giorgio Mainenti from Italy, Juan Sanchez Ortega from Spain, Gioacchino Vizzaccaro from Italy and William Playle from England. On the other hand, FTDNA has many samples of M73>M478, all of which are located East of the Baltic.

Thanks for that answer.

I doubt the ancestors of those two confirmed R1b-M73 men got to western Europe with Bell Beaker, but anything is possible. "Similar STR profiles" cannot be counted as R1b-M73, especially when used to bolster a controversial premise.

Eastern Europe and central Asia are under sampled when compared with western Europe. It isn't likely we have anything even remotely resembling a good cross section of R1b-M73 test results in FTDNA's database.



Perhaps, as you say, “it's far more likely that R1b-M73 men in Britain and France today are either recent immigrants themselves or the descendants of recent or relatively recent immigrants” - perhaps these seven West European M73(xM478) individuals are all really from the Urals, and decided only recently to get themselves together and migrate en masse to a variety of different countries in Western Europe, changing all their names accordingly, and leaving every one of their M478 cousins from 13,000 years ago behind. I’ll leave other forum users to come to their own conclusions on whether my claim that surviving basal M73(XM478) appears predominantly West European is, as you say, “just not true” or whether you have been a little presumptuous in asserting this so dismissively.

En masse? Two confirmed R1b-M73xM478 men, one with an mdka in France and the other with an mdka in England? That can charitably be characterized as excessive hyperbole where R1b-M73 in western Europe is concerned, where its frequency is under 1%.

And no R1b-M73 of any kind in Bell Beaker thus far.



The whole process has been slow and unnecessarily confrontational, but I think I have learned enough to arrive at a preliminary conclusion that in my opinion is best supported by the evidence - that R1b-M269 most likely arose along the Western coast of the Black Sea on the fringes of Old Europe, and that its L151 branch was most likely within Gimbutas’ first wave of Steppe migrations up the Dniester into Poland and Northern Germany, from where it was later pushed Westwards by related Yamna-infused Corded Ware populations to a base near the Rhine, from where it thrived and expanded, most noticeably within Bell Beaker.

This opinion has evolved gradually, and is not in any way fixed - I await evidence that will probably result in further revision . . .

You might be right about that. Time may tell.

[Finn]

The only reasonable candidate for the biggest spread of R1b (U106/S21) in Northwestern Europe is the Barbed Wire annex Elp culture. This was also the beginning of the Bronze Age in that area.

The push came from the Steppe, from the Unetice culture, the central European Hungarian/Moravian room. The so called Sögel-Wohlde warriors (derived from the Unetice culture) were the initiators of the Bronze age in Northwest Europe. They had an extended network reaching from England, Northern Netherlands, Northwest Germany, Southern Scandinavia even into their Moravian/Hungarian heartland. They triggered the Nordic Bronze Age.

If we want to make a change to solve this case ( (=key to the R1b spread in NW Europe) we must probably organize a crowd funding for a DNA test for one of of those "warriors" namely the so called "chieftain of Drouwen", here is his tumulus grave:

https://www.mupload.nl/img/m8jvfomhhwkph.jpg

[alexfritz]

The only reasonable candidate for the biggest spread of R1b (U106/S21) in Northwestern Europe is the Barbed Wire annex Elp culture. This was also the beginning of the Bronze Age in that area.

The push came from the Steppe, from the Unetice culture, the central European Hungarian/Moravian room. The so called Sögel-Wohlde warriors (derived from the Unetice culture) were the initiators of the Bronze age in Northwest Europe. They had an extended network reaching from England, Northern Netherlands, Northwest Germany, Southern Scandinavia even into their Moravian/Hungarian heartland. They triggered the Nordic Bronze Age.

If we want to make a change to solve this case ( (=key to the R1b spread in NW Europe) we must probably organize a crowd funding for a DNA test for one of of those "warriors" namely the so called "chieftain of Drouwen", here is his tumulus grave:

https://www.mupload.nl/img/m8jvfomhhwkph.jpg

i dont know, the Olalde et al BB_Netherlands and BB_England look pretty solid for R1b NW_Europe already; in Britain there was a continuity to the Rathlin bronze-agers but in europe seems there at least a bit of an R1 collapse with Urnfield BR2 J2a1, Unetice heavy I2, Lichtensteinhöhle heavy I2, Vatya I2 and the R1a1a1 lineage in scandinavia (kyndelose/viby/olsund) largely replaced by I1 at least by the iron-age;

[Gravetto-Danubian]

i dont know, the Olalde et al BB_Netherlands and BB_England look pretty solid for R1b NW_Europe already; in Britain there was a continuity to the Rathlin bronze-agers but in europe seems there at least a bit of an R1 collapse with Urnfield BR2 J2a1, Unetice heavy I2, Lichtensteinhöhle heavy I2, Vatya I2 and the R1a1a1 lineage in scandinavia (kyndelose/viby/olsund) largely replaced by I1 at least by the iron-age;

Not to mention the BB collapse in north Italy and its replacement by Danubian -tell derived Polada culture; the Mycenean paper, etc.
Certainly shapes my view of how temperate Europe was IE'zed ;)

[Finn]

Not to mention the BB collapse in north Italy and its replacement by Danubian -tell derived Polada culture; the Mycenean paper, etc.
Certainly shapes my view of how temperate Europe was (actually) IE'zed ;)



i dont know, the Olalde et al BB_Netherlands and BB_England look pretty solid for R1b NW_Europe already; in Britain there was a continuity to the Rathlin bronze-agers but in europe seems there at least a bit of an R1 collapse with Urnfield BR2 J2a1, Unetice heavy I2, Lichtensteinhöhle heavy I2, Vatya I2 and the R1a1a1 lineage in scandinavia (kyndelose/viby/olsund) largely replaced by I1 at least by the iron-age;

I think what i state above and what Olaide has researched are congruent. The problem is a different national tradition, and along the different archeologist, in "naming" and "timing". In the British tradition Beakerfolk is usually broad. See for the Dutch one:

https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/19822/Fokkens_2001_The%20periodisation%20of%20the%20Dutc h%20Bronze%20Age%20a%20critical%20review[1]_Redacted.pdf?sequence=1

Barbed Wire and the Elp Culture are Bell Beaker derivates. The Unetice related "Sögel" warriors modified the Bell Beaker culture into Bronze Age direction.

The oldest Barbed Wire sample is R1b/U106 Rise98 Lilla Beddinge Sweden that's about 2300-2000 BC. In the transition from Barbed Wire to Elp Culture around 1800 BC we find R1b/U106 Tuithoorn, Oostwoud in the Northern Netherlands, also R1b-U106. The R1b-U106 Viby Sweden sample and the Dutch Tuithoorn sample are cultural connected and obvious genetically too.

So as close as we can get ;)

[Gravetto-Danubian]

I think what i state above and what Olaide has researched are congruent. The problem is different national traditions, and along the different archeologist, in "naming" and "timing". In the British tradition Beakerfolk is usually broad. See for the Dutch one:

https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/19822/Fokkens_2001_The%20periodisation%20of%20the%20Dutc h%20Bronze%20Age%20a%20critical%20review[1]_Redacted.pdf?sequence=1

Barbed Wire and the Elp Culture are Bell Beaker derivates. The Unetice related "Sögel" warriors modified the Bell Beaker culture into Bronze Age direction.

The oldest Barbed Wire sample is R1b/U106 Rise94, Viby Sweden that's about 2000 BC. In the transition from Barbed Wire to Elp Culture around 1800 BC we find R1b/U106 Tuithoorn, Oostwoud in the Northern Netherlands, also R1b-U106. The R1b-U106 Viby Sweden sample and the Dutch Tuithoorn sample are cultural connected and obvious genetically too.

So as close as we can get ;)

i agree. Things were happening after the initial "Beaker people" event (a few hundred years after), which are perhaps more directly relevant for the IE linguistic "blocks'.
But sorry, I digress from the main theme of this thread.