The "Non-Corded Ware" IEs: Is Catacomb C. an ancestor of Greco-Armenian (?Albanian) ?

[takerunder]

After the Southern Arc paper, Lazaridis made this claim

https://twitter.com/iosif_lazaridis/...7p3NjhbY2gk3Dw

Essentially, stating that Greek, Armenian and Albanian are "basal Yamnaya" derivatives, analogous to how Anatolian is an early offshoot of Indo-Anatolian. (I don't personally buy the Albanian argument, because genetically speaking they were almost identical to north-central Italians/Tuscans pre-Slavic migration, so it's quite clear they're a genetic offshoot of MBA Central Europe.)


But the discussion of a "Graeco-Armenian" linguistic branch became problematic, when it was shown that the IE population of Armenia has been there the Bronze Age, and it's not some Balkan derivate. I always found this migration theory very kooky and far-fetched personally.



So in my head, I thought there had to have been a "south Yamnaya" group that bifurcated west/east around the Black Sea to become Greek and Armenian. Then I started reading about how the Catacomb culture was archeologically linked to Myceneans.



"Similarities between the Catacomb culture and Mycenaean Greece are particularly striking. These include types of socketed spear-heads, types of cheekpieces for horses, and the custom of making masks for the dead.[14]"

"David Anthony (2007: 306) assumes that the Catacomb culture was Indo-European-speaking.[44] It has sometimes been considered ancestral to Indo-Iranian[45][46][9] or Thracian.[2] Other scholars have suggested that the culture provided a common background for Greek, Armenian and Indo-Iranian.[2][14]"

What do you all make of this? Could this Catacomb culture serve as an ancestor to Myceneans, Armenians and/or Albanians? Or do you think the Greco-Armenian thing is a far-fetched link?

[VladimirTaraskin]

Perhaps, but not the Mycenaean period, but the Middle Helladic period

Target: GRC_Logkas_MBA:Log04
Distance: 1.8433% / 0.01843345 | R5P
26.4 ALB_Cinamak_EBA
23.8 RUS_Catacomb
22.8 BGR_Middle_C
19.2 UKR_N_o
7.8 GRC_Minoan_Lassithi

Target: ALB_Cinamak_EBA
Distance: 2.9297% / 0.02929714 | R5P
26.2 Yamnaya_BGR
25.6 RUS_Afanasievo
25.4 Corded_Ware_CZE
19.6 GRC_Manika_Helladic_EBA
3.2 TJK_Sarazm_En

[CopperAxe]

The issue is that we have no real solid evidence of Catacomb groups around the Balkans, same goes for KMK. Yamnaya on the other hand is quite well attested. Linguistics withstanding, the Catacomb groups that crossed the Caucasus were the ones around the Don-Caspian steppe and those would've have been quite geograhpically separated from the western Catacomb populations (different subgroups of Catacomb basically) and would've have been so in the early 3rd millenium BC, so even if you had Catacomb groups going down to the Balkans a proposal that these two groups spoke some common Graeco-Armenian language before migrating both ways circa 2200 BC-ish doesn't exactly cut it either.

As far as I can tell that map on wikipedia seems to have taken some serious liberties with the range and distribution of the Catacomb culture sites, especially on its western front.

[Karagjoz]

I believe it, but moreso in the case of albanian and armenian instead of greek. We know when mycenaneans emerged and it was way after the yamnaya migration. Greeks lack any real diversity of z2103 (the yamnaya line) unlike albanians and armenians. Z2103 has also never popped up in all the ancient greek samples we've had so far - mostly j2s and g2a

[takerunder]

The issue is that we have no real solid evidence of Catacomb groups around the Balkans, same goes for KMK. Yamnaya on the other hand is quite well attested.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Catacomb is like Yamnaya genetically. Idk what this "evidence" of Catacomb genetically would constitute of.

The evidence is archeological. Myceneans culturally shared many similar feats with Catacomb.

[CopperAxe]

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Catacomb is like Yamnaya genetically. Idk what this "evidence" of Catacomb genetically would constitute of.

The evidence is archeological. Myceneans culturally shared many similar feats with Catacomb.

Yes it is exactly archaeology what I am talking about. Archaeologically there is no Catacomb presence anywhere around the Balkans, hence Mycenaeans coming from Catacomb already becomes a sketchy hypothesis based on that alone. Mycenaeans having certain types spearheads or Catacomb culture making clay masks for their dead does not consitute archaeological evidence that Mycenaeans were derived from Catacomb. That is just guesswork based on the slightest of similarities, not actual archaeological evidence.

[Kale]

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Catacomb is like Yamnaya genetically. Idk what this "evidence" of Catacomb genetically would constitute of.

The evidence is archeological. Myceneans culturally shared many similar feats with Catacomb.

A number of Catacomb have small bits of Maikop and/or Steppe_Maikop derived ancestry. Once Catacomb ancestry dilutes through migration it might be hard to see autosomal, but I'd expect an odd mt or y hg to pop up here and there.

[altvred]

Yes it is exactly archaeology what I am talking about. Archaeologically there is no Catacomb presence anywhere around the Balkans, hence Mycenaeans coming from Catacomb already becomes a sketchy hypothesis based on that alone. Mycenaeans having certain types spearheads or Catacomb culture making clay masks for their dead does not consitute archaeological evidence that Mycenaeans were derived from Catacomb. That is just guesswork based on the slightest of similarities, not actual archaeological evidence.

Yep, we might as well argue that Mycenaeans came from Sintashta because of horse bits.

Furthermore, the aforementioned initial radiocarbon dates from sites with Sintashta materials did not support an earlier date. Finally, more recently reported absolute dates (see below) helped to confirm previous arguments made in Russian research that the objects from Late Bronze Age Greece did, in fact, derive from the older and more diverse psalia (or cheekpiece) of the Volga-Ural region, and therefore represent the lower chronological limit for the use of that particular discoid cheekpiece type (see Teufer Reference Teufer1999: 100; Kuz'mina Reference Kuz'mina2007: 461–62; Boroffka Reference Boroffka, Fokkens and Harding2013: 886–87).

[Billyh]

Yep, we might as well argue that Mycenaeans came from Sintashta because of horse bits.

I could see Mycenaeans coming from Srubnaya. Graeco-Aryan has been proposed before

[Cascio]

Mycenaeans only had about 10-15pc Steppe and were largely Minoan-like.