The genetic prehistory of the Greater Caucasus[preprint Harvard/Jena]

[rozenfeld]

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/earl...medium=twitter

The genetic prehistory of the Greater Caucasus

Chuan-Chao Wang, Sabine Reinhold Reinhold, Alexey Kalmykov, Antje Wissgott, Guido Brandt, Choongwon Jeong, Olivia Cheronet, Matthew Ferry, Eadaoin Harney, Denise Keating, Swapan Mallick, Nadin Rohland, Kristin Stewardson, Anatoly R. Kantorovich, Vladimir E. Maslov, Vladimira G. Petrenko, Vladimir R. Erlikh, Biaslan C. Atabiev, Rabadan G. Magomedov, Philipp L. Kohl, Kurt W. Alt, Sandra L. Pichler, Claudia Gerling, Harald Meller, Benik Vardanyan, Larisa Yeganyan, Alexey D. Rezepkin, Dirk Mariaschk, Natalia Y. Berezina, Julia Gresky, Katharina Fuchs, Corina Knipper, Stephan Schiffels, Elena Balanovska, Oleg Balanovsky, Iain Mathieson, Thomas Higham, Yakov B. Berezin, Alexandra P. Buzhilova, Viktor Trifonov, Ron Pinhasi, Andrej B. Belinskiy, David Reich, Svend Hansen, Johannes Krause, Wolfgang Haak

doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/322347

Abstract

Archaeogenetic studies have described the formation of Eurasian 'steppe ancestry' as a mixture of Eastern and Caucasus hunter-gatherers. However, it remains unclear when and where this ancestry arose and whether it was related to a horizon of cultural innovations in the 4th millennium BCE that subsequently facilitated the advance of pastoral societies likely linked to the dispersal of Indo-European languages. To address this, we generated genome-wide SNP data from 45 prehistoric individuals along a 3000-year temporal transect in the North Caucasus. We observe a genetic separation between the groups of the Caucasus and those of the adjacent steppe. The Caucasus groups are genetically similar to contemporaneous populations south of it, suggesting that - unlike today - the Caucasus acted as a bridge rather than an insurmountable barrier to human movement. The steppe groups from Yamnaya and subsequent pastoralist cultures show evidence for previously undetected Anatolian farmer-related ancestry from different contact zones, while Steppe Maykop individuals harbour additional Upper Palaeolithic Siberian and Native American related ancestry.

[epoch]

O boy.

Maykop modeled as 63% Steppe, 30% AG3, and 7% Kennewick(!). R1/R1b1 + Q1a2(!). However, previous cultures on the Northern flank of the Caucasus such as Darkveti-Meshoko Eneolithic culture are Anatlian + CHG.

O wow...

[epoch]

Kura-Aaraxes ancestry (Anatolia+Iran) takes over after 3100. So that basically is the end of the south of the Caucasus Urheimat hypothesis.

EDIT: Maybe the details will allow for a window. Reading as we speak :-)

EDIT2: Well, there are are outliers with clear Caucasian influx buried in Maykop barrows. There is your window of opportunity, opposers.

[Dewsloth]

Wow is right. I'm printing this one out to read.

[Agamemnon]

Despite the authors' strange claim that this "opens up the possibility of a homeland of PIE south of the Caucasus" (which is indefensible from a linguistic standpoint), this study does enable us to put aside all the nonsense about Iran_N admixture in Yamnaya and does a huge disfavour to all the models placing the PIE homeland anywhere south of the Caucasus (just look at the K-A samples). This also has some very serious implications for the spread of the Iran_Chl-type admixture to SW Asia which some have also associated with Kura-Araxes.

[kingjohn]

by the way fox i checked the list of haplogroups i dont see any E
not surprising to me ......
there are a lot of r1b G2B , and j and some L and Q also j2

[Feiichy]

Really exciting paper.

I find this particulary intriguing:

When compared to present-day human populations from the Caucasus, which show a
504 clear separation into North and South Caucasus groups along the Great Caucasus
505 mountain range (Fig. 2D), our new data highlights that the situation during the Bronze
506 Age was quite different. The fact that individuals buried in kurgans in the North
507 Caucasian piedmont and foothill zone are more closely related to ancient individuals
508 from regions further south in today’s Armenia, Georgia and Iran allows us to draw
509 two major conclusions.
510
511 First, sometime after the Bronze Age present-day North Caucasian populations must
512 have received additional gene-flow from populations north of the mountain range that
513 separates them from southern Caucasians, who largely retained the Bronze Age
514 ancestry profile. The archaeological and historic records suggest numerous incursions
during the subsequent Iron Age and Medieval times48 515 , but ancient DNA from these
516 time periods is needed to test this directly.

because I often read how Armenians are ''no real Caucasians'' while this states that it is rather north Caucasians who recieved more recent external admixture.

[kingjohn]

caucasus haplogroup.png

[George]

Here is their contention:

"The insight that the Caucasus mountains served not only as a corridor for the spread of CHG/Neolithic Iranian ancestry but also for later gene-flow from the south also has a bearing on the postulated homelands of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) languages and documented gene-flows that could have carried a consecutive spread of both across West Eurasia17, 64. Perceiving the Caucasus as an occasional bridge rather than a strict border during the Eneolithic and Bronze Age opens up the possibility of a homeland of PIE south of the Caucasus, which itself provides a parsimonious explanation for an early branching off of Anatolian languages. Geographically this would also work for Armenian and Greek, for which genetic data also supports an eastern influence from Anatolia or the southern Caucasus. A potential offshoot of the Indo-Iranian branch to the east is possible, but the latest ancient DNA results from South Asia also lend weight to an LMBA spread via the steppe belt21. The spread of some or all of the proto-Indo-European branches would have been possible via the North Caucasus and Pontic region and from there, along with pastoralist expansions, to the heart of Europe. This scenario finds support from the well attested and now widely documented ‘steppe ancestry’ in European populations, the postulate of increasingly patrilinear societies in the wake of these expansions (exemplified by R1a/R1b), as attested in the latest study on the Bell Beaker phenomenon35."

Bring out the popcorn... I agree with Agamemnon about the strange linguistic issue. I don't think that is the only strange thing about the contention. Looking forward to the big artillery...

[epoch]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den%C3...sian_languages

*runs for cover*