# Population Genetics > Autosomal Genetics >  Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past

## Jovialis

Here's a book by David Reich, coming out on March 27th.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/b...y-david-reich/




> *Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past* David Reich Pantheon: 2018.
> 
> As a field, ancient DNA is paradoxically young — just over 30 years old. And it is booming, thanks to ever-faster sequencing techniques and extraction protocols that can bait specific sections of human DNA out of the vast soup of non-human genetic material in ancient samples. Simultaneously, the field has grabbed the public imagination with findings about the distant past. One such finding was the revelation that people from the Beaker Culture significantly altered Britain’s population just 4,500 years ago. Another was the oldest ancient genome ever obtained: that of a 700,000-year-old horse, found in Canadian permafrost, that suggested the ancestor of all today’s horses, donkeys and zebras lived some 4 million years ago. I was thrown headlong into the intricacies and difficulties of the field by leading the DNA analysis of the remains of England’s King Richard III, discovered under a car park in Leicester in 2012.
> 
> 
> Few labs do ancient-DNA work. David Reich’s, set up in 2013 at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, was the first in the United States and is one of the most prestigious in the world. It is a juggernaut able to process hundreds of samples a year. Now, with Who We Are and How We Got Here, Reich gives us a window into what ancient DNA can tell us about human evolution, the peopling of the world, continent by continent, and the population mixing that makes us who we are today, genetically at least.
> 
> 
> Reich’s team has developed some of the most sophisticated statistical and bioinformatics techniques available. Using computers, they painstakingly reconstruct genomic information from fragments of DNA from ancient individuals. They then drill down in search of a new understanding of human history.
> ...

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## Jovialis

Here's an interview with David Reich about the upcoming book.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...istory/554798/

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## Angela

> Here's an interview with David Reich about the upcoming book.
> 
> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...istory/554798/


Again, thanks very much, Jovialis. :)

These were the things that struck me:

l. "*Reich:* In our hands, a successful sample costs less than $200. That’s only two or three times more than processing them on a present-day person. And maybe about one-third to one half of the samples we screen are successful at this point."

The price coming down astronomically is a huge boon. Also, people should stop complaining that the coverage isn't good enough or why don't they have X. It's hard to do, although hopefully the technology will improve more and more.

2. "After that, you see for the first time people related to later Europeanhunter-gatherers who have contributed a little bit to present-day Europeans.That happens beginning 35,000 to 37,000 years ago. Then the ice sheets descendacross northern Europe and a lot of these populations are chased into theserefuges in the southern peninsulas of Europe. After the Ice Age, there’s arepeopling of northern Europe from the southwest, probably from Spain, and thenalso from the southeast, probably from Greece and maybe even from Anatolia,Turkey."

They're still holding out that the WHG might have entered Europe from Anatolia.

3. About the "Aryan" controversy:* Reich*- "We responded to this by adding a lot of content to our papers to discuss these issues and contextualize them. Our results are actually almost diametrically opposite from what Kossina thought because these Corded Ware people come from the East, a place that Kossina would have despised as a source for them. But nevertheless it is true that there’s big population movements, and so I think what the DNA is doing is it’s forcing the hand of this discussion in archaeology, showing that in fact, major movements of people do occur. They are sometimes sharp and dramatic, and they involve large-scale population replacements over a relatively short period of time. We now can see that for the first time."

4."When you see these replacements of Neanderthals by modern humansor Europeans and Africans substantially replacing Native Americans in the last500 years or the people who built Stonehenge, who were obviouslyextraordinarily sophisticated, being replaced from these people from thecontinent, it doesn’t say something about the innate potential of these people.But it rather says something about the different immune systems or culturalmismatch.*Zhang:* On the point of immune systems, one of thehypotheses for why people from the steppe were so successful in spreadingthrough Europe is that they brought the bubonic plague with them. Since theplague is endemic to Central Asia, they may have built up immunity but theEuropean farmers they encountered had not.
*Reich:* Absolutely. The contact between people from Europe and Africa and the New World was a profound Earth-shattering event for our species, of course, in the last 500 years. But there have been profound and Earth-shattering events, again and again, every few thousand years in our history and that’s what ancient DNA is telling us."

So, no, no "Aryan" superior beings with their, what was it, blonde, flowing locks? :)

5. On the dangers of extremism in population genetics:
"Reich: I think so. I know there are extremists who are interested in genealogy and genetics. But I think those are very marginal people, and there’s, of course, a concern they may impinge on the mainstream.But if you actually take any serious look at this data, it just confounds every stereotype. It’s revealing that the differences among populations we see today are actually only a few thousand years old at most and that everybody is mixed. I think that if you pay any attention to this world, and have any degree of seriousness, then you can’t come out feeling affirmed in the racist view of the world. "

This is the only area where I'm in disagreement with him. I don't think he sufficiently appreciates the danger. For instance, I don't believe, living in academia the way he does he knows how many of these people there are, nor does he know the history and background of the people in this field. In addition, think what people in the future, armed with these kinds of tests, could do to root out anyone they think is "subhuman".

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## Jovialis

> Again, thanks very much, Jovialis. :)
> 
> These were the things that struck me:
> 
> l. "*Reich:* In our hands, a successful sample costs less than $200. That’s only two or three times more than processing them on a present-day person. And maybe about one-third to one half of the samples we screen are successful at this point."
> 
> The price coming down astronomically is a huge boon. Also, people should stop complaining that the coverage isn't good enough or why don't they have X. It's hard to do, although hopefully the technology will improve more and more.
> 
> 2. "After that, you see for the first time people related to later Europeanhunter-gatherers who have contributed a little bit to present-day Europeans.That happens beginning 35,000 to 37,000 years ago. Then the ice sheets descendacross northern Europe and a lot of these populations are chased into theserefuges in the southern peninsulas of Europe. After the Ice Age, there’s arepeopling of northern Europe from the southwest, probably from Spain, and thenalso from the southeast, probably from Greece and maybe even from Anatolia,Turkey."
> ...


You're welcome :) I'm really looking forward to this book. I placed an order for it.

The interview was very interesting, I'm surprised that it's so cost-effective. $200 is a lot lower than I expected. It will also get even cheaper, so that means these papers will come out at an even faster rate in the future.

I do share your sentiments that preventing racists from abusing the science is imperative. It is easy for people to manipulate uninformed individuals by misrepresenting the facts and attaching an extremest ideology to it. Especially when so much of it has to do with group identity, and history. Moreover, people in well established positions of power could also be influenced by this as well, or use it as a tool to manipulate their constituency. Which is an even graver danger.

Another thing is that because of these racists, it would turn off a lot of normal people; if the racist-interpretations were to be impinged on the mainstream. In the end it would hurt the field of genetics. Which is why it is important that professionals in the field make sure their work is interpreted properly.

Indeed, as Reich said the Bubonicplague had done most of the damage in terms of population replacement in Europe. Disease has been a critical variable in many events throughout history. I think it makes a lot of sense considering the large scale replacement, and not some false triumphalist assumption of racial superiority.

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## mwauthy

> You're welcome :) I'm really looking forward to this book. I placed an order for it.
> 
> The interview was very interesting, I'm surprised that it's so cost-effective. $200 is a lot lower than I expected. It will also get even cheaper, so that means these papers will come out at an even faster rate in the future.
> 
> I do share your sentiments that preventing racists from abusing the science is imperative. It is easy for people to manipulate uninformed individuals by misrepresenting the facts and attaching an extremest ideology to it. Especially when so much of it has to do with group identity, and history. Moreover, people in well established positions of power could also be influenced by this as well, or use it as a tool to manipulate their constituency. Which is an even graver danger.
> 
> Another thing is that because of these racists, it would turn off a lot of normal people; if the racist-interpretations were to be impinged on the mainstream. In the end it would hurt the field of genetics. Which is why it is important that professionals in the field make sure their work is interpreted properly.
> 
> Indeed, as Reich said the Bubonicplague had done most of the damage in terms of population replacement in Europe. Disease has been a critical variable in many events throughout history. I think it makes a lot of sense considering the large scale replacement, and not some false triumphalist assumption of racial superiority.


Looking forward to reading the book. One question I have about the Indo European invasions is were a lot of the mtdna haplogroups replaced too? That would be a good argument for disease being a large factor.

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## bicicleur

> This is the only area where I'm in disagreement with him. I don't think he sufficiently appreciates the danger. For instance, I don't believe, living in academia the way he does he knows how many of these people there are, nor does he know the history and background of the people in this field. In addition, think what people in the future, armed with these kinds of tests, could do to root out anyone they think is "subhuman". [/FONT][/FONT][/COLOR]


I think the danger coming from religion is much bigger.
Racists are marginal and everybody has been warned for them, especially Reich and others working on genetics.
There are much more people that can be indocrtinated by religion.

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## Jovialis

^^
However, there's also a lot of racist groups that combine both religious, and racial elements; nevertheless are primarily motivated by racism. Such as the Ku Klux Klan, or the Nation of Islam. The Nazis too were motivated partly by occultism, and used science to try to justify their racial-mysticism. For extremists that aren't religious; science fills that void. Thus these groups treat their racial-identity like a religion. 

So-called "christian identity" movements are another example of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Identity

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## davef

A little off topic, but its something that came to mind that I'm itching to get off my chest: 

What determines how Northern or Southern you are is just a matter of how close you are to European hunter gatherers and Steppe vs agriculturalists! The question I have in my mind to racists who are aware of this fact is what's so horrible about having more agriculturalist ancestry (btw I'm not downplaying the hunter gatherer or Steppe ancestries, else I'm no better than the Nordicists themselves.)? Agriculture is a major breakthrough! I have no good reason to be ashamed for being mostly related to them (and nobody should be ashamed for having any kind of ancestry).

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## Ownstyler

> A little off topic, but its something that came to mind that I'm itching to get off my chest: 
> 
> What determines how Northern or Southern you are is just a matter of how close you are to European hunter gatherers and Steppe vs agriculturalists! The question I have in my mind to racists who are aware of this fact is what's so horrible about having more agriculturalist ancestry (btw I'm not downplaying the hunter gatherer or Steppe ancestries, else I'm no better than the Nordicists themselves.)? Agriculture is a major breakthrough! I have no good reason to be ashamed for being mostly related to them (and nobody should be ashamed for having any kind of ancestry).


There's nothing wrong with either, but because these groups are not learning through the scientific method, they think there is. This is related to a discussion I recently had with a colleague so I'll tell you what I told him.

The problem with any fundamentalist groups is that they believe in one "truth" and they can't diverge from that. For religious fundamentalists it's a book or certain teachings, for many extreme leftists it's the fact that we are all born the same, for racists it's the fact that we are born different and their kind is superior to the rest.

All these groups have already determined the end of their "scientific research" and are now only looking to fill the equation with data. The problem is, if the data contradicts their ultimate belief, because this belief is indisputable, they conclude the data is wrong, and so they search for other data that fits their narrative. This is neither science nor truth.

Now, back to racists. Their ultimate belief is that they are superior to others. This means, whatever their ancestry is, that one will be hailed as the source of all intelligence, creativity, maybe even physical prowess. *So, to answer your question, there is nothing wrong with agriculturalists or hunter-gatherers, other than one of them contributed more to the ancestry of some racists groups, especially from North and Central Europe.*

If these groups had more J, E & G ancestry I am certain they would claim these are the source of all superior traits. As an example, look at how racists related to Neanderthals. Until recently Neanderthals were considered, at best, an intermediate form in the evolution of humans towards "pure aryans". However, as soon as it was proven that all non-Africans share some Neanderthal DNA, a whole bunch of racist theories exploded, claiming to finally have identified the source of what they think is European superiority relative to Africans.

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## bicicleur

> ^^
> However, there's also a lot of racist groups that combine both religious, and racial elements; nevertheless are primarily motivated by racism. Such as the Ku Klux Klan, or the Nation of Islam. The Nazis too were motivated partly by occultism, and used science to try to justify their racial-mysticism. For extremists that aren't religious; science fills that void. Thus these groups treat their racial-identity like a religion. 
> 
> So-called "christian identity" movements are another example of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Identity


I would go even beyond race or religion.
Look at the horrible crimes commited by communist regimes, an ideology that has nothing to do with either race or religion.
These crimes seem to be the most forgotten crimes in recent history, maybe because these regimes were very secretive about what happened on their territories.

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## Jovialis

> I would go even beyond race or religion.
> Look at the horrible crimes commited by communist regimes, an ideology that has nothing to do with either race or religion.
> These crimes seem to be the most forgotten crimes in recent history, maybe because these regimes were very secretive about what happened on their territories.


Communism is inherently a violent system, because it creates enemies out of sectors of society that are perceived to stand in the way of their goals. Marxists are radicals that believe in direct-action as a means to their end. Moreover, they prophetically believe that an inevitable violent takeover by the workers over the capitalists would happen. Communism, and Marxism are basically like religions, because they dogmatically place their social and economic tenets at the center of everything. Above the rights of the individual; they want to eradicate the individual. Politics is another example of what extremist-minded people that don't believe in religion can use to fill that void. Perhaps the same zealotry that is exhibited by religious extremists, is transferred to politics, or racist-science for non-religious people. I think that extremism of all kinds that can potentially influence others to commit atrocities needs to be stopped dead in its tracks. Which is why it is imperative that people understand the true, and objective interpretations of genetics in relation to ancient DNA. Otherwise, if left to fester, extremist will use it for ethno-nationalistic propaganda. Many of these extremist groups had small beginnings.

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## Angela

Great insights, as always, from our members. It's extremism, in all its forms, that is the problem. 

Not to be pedantic, but "farmers" weren't born farmers. They descend from hunter-gatherers too, hunter-gatherers who happened to "discover" agriculture.

I think this all goes back to the 19th century. Northern Europeans, who industrialized first, looked at themselves and at Southern Europeans, who were on average "darker", and attributed all sorts of, as Jovialis said, "mystical" and "value laden" attributes to it. With the beginnings of genetics, they also believed that these traits were the "original European" traits, which made them the "real" Europeans, and everyone else interlopers.

That's what was so ironic about the discovery that the WHG were darker than the agriculturalists who started entering Europe. 

Then the identification turned to the steppe people, only to discover that the EHG, who did seem "lighter", had admixed with Basal Eurasian heavy Caucasus type people, and that most of their early "achievements" were borrowed from surrounding "farmer" type cultures. (Only shows their good sense and adaptability to me, but there you have it.) 

It doesn't matter, though. If people want to blind themselves to the facts, they will. 

Believe me, I'm sure all this racist nonsense still goes on among the racists in the pop gen community. It's just that given that they know many people have kept screenshots of their statements in the past, and are reading their material now, they have to communicate "honestly", if you can call it that, on the dark web. 

This is why I think that the racial superiority movement is much bigger in Europe than people realize. Look at the statements coming out of Eastern Europe with absolutely no adverse consequences. Can you imagine what is said on the dark net or behind closed doors? All they've gotten out of all this genetics research is that the Germans were wrong to target them for annihilation. It's they, the Slavs, who are the real "Untermenschen". If it weren't so pathetic and frightening at the same time it would be funny.

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## ROS

It would be interesting a commitment of the scientific community in these new sciences or almost sciences in which 2 + 2 sometimes are not 4, not to be carried away by political agendas and to separate clearly the attempt to buy the scientific truth of the manipulative attempt of the true that we agree to our agenda.


The truth as always is worth it and the truth will set us free.


And as an amateur, I hope for this new science.

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## Ailchu

> A little off topic, but its something that came to mind that I'm itching to get off my chest: 
> 
> What determines how Northern or Southern you are is just a matter of how close you are to European hunter gatherers and Steppe vs agriculturalists! The question I have in my mind to racists who are aware of this fact is what's so horrible about having more agriculturalist ancestry (btw I'm not downplaying the hunter gatherer or Steppe ancestries, else I'm no better than the Nordicists themselves.)? Agriculture is a major breakthrough! I have no good reason to be ashamed for being mostly related to them (and nobody should be ashamed for having any kind of ancestry).


yes. but what if this additional WHG EHG admixture in northern europe might actually give these people an advantage to survive in northern europe. i see italians (me included) with body structures that i only rarely see among germans and vice versa. in the middle east it gets probably even more extreme after looking at people from there. i met german women who had to bend their necks to look down at me and they often also have broader shoulders than me. now this doesn't happen all the time but it happens way more often than it did in switzerland and especially with other italians. call me a nordicist but i think in that regard they or at least some of them really might be superior in some way. and i actually think its somehow sad that this is going to be gone like for example native americans. but its a question of perspective. and thats the thing. i just think that you can't fight racism with science since race categories and the value of differences are often just a question of perspective even in science.
racism will never be gone. even if our populations will be so mixed that there is no difference between them anymore. even then people will have ideals. and the fact that certain genes are superior to others, though often because of perspective, personal preference or also depending on the environment in which they need to survive, will never be gone, its nature, and this might play a huge role in future genetic medicine for example with things like crispr cas. "racism" might shift from a population level to an individual level.

i don't know. i don't think i'm a racist but i'm an opponent of globalization. it's like in physics. everything will go to greatest possible disorder once you let it happen. and imo that's a loss.

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## Angela

What the heck are you talking about? The average height of Italian men is what, 5 foot 8 to 5 foot 9? What's the average height of German women, 5' 7"?

Unless you're way below average in height, not many German women are going to have to bend their necks to talk to you. You sound like a t-roll to me, and not an Italian one. Don't you people ever get tired of playing these games? It's a Saturday night for goodness' sakes. Shouldn't you be out chasing girls or something?

The only advantage in terms of size in the modern world is the size of your IQ or other talents. Well, maybe one other one, but from what I hear I think Italian men do more than just fine in that category.

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## AdeoF

> What the heck are you talking about? The average height of Italian men is what, 5 foot 8 to 5 foot 9? What's the average height of German women, 5' 7"?
> 
> Unless you're way below average in height, not many German women are going to have to bend their necks to talk to you. You sound like a t-roll to me, and not an Italian one. Don't you people ever get tired of playing these games? It's a Saturday night for goodness' sakes. Shouldn't you be out chasing girls or something?
> 
> The only advantage in terms of size in the modern world is the size of your IQ or other talents. Well, maybe one other one, but from what I hear I think Italian men do more than just fine in that category.


*off-topic*
Well putting on the point about IQ in Italy the average score is 102 and my IQ is 98, so yeah there IQ is great but that's only a fraction on a person intelligence in my opinion. 
*on-topic*
I have seen only 2 German women in my life who are taller or the same height as me and im 5'11 so no German women are not tall but average. 

I agree with what Jovialis said about Communism

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## Ailchu

> What the heck are you talking about? The average height of Italian men is what, 5 foot 8 to 5 foot 9? What's the average height of German women, 5' 7"?
> 
> Unless you're way below average in height, not many German women are going to have to bend their necks to talk to you. You sound like a t-roll to me, and not an Italian one. Don't you people ever get tired of playing these games? It's a Saturday night for goodness' sakes. Shouldn't you be out chasing girls or something?
> 
> The only advantage in terms of size in the modern world is the size of your IQ or other talents. Well, maybe one other one, but from what I hear I think Italian men do more than just fine in that category.


i'm not italian. i'm swiss/italian and yes i already met such women, they did not necessarily had to bend their neck to be honest, but i never met someone comparable from italy. i'm 1.75 and thats italian average. and its not only the height. its the overall body structure that seems to be different on average. maybe its because the majority of italians here come from southern italy i don't know.
i didn't say all are like this. bit it happens. it increases in northern, north-eastern germany. 
and it probably decreasesthe further south you go and then further into the middle east, north africa.

"The only advantage in terms of size in the modern world is the size of your IQ or other talents."
as already said its a question of perspective. and i doubt that there are many people who only look at iq's.

"Well, maybe one other one, but from what I hear I think Italian men do more than just fine in that category"
from what you hear? interessting.

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## Angela

> i'm not italian. i'm swiss/italian and yes i already met such women, they did not necessarily had to bend their neck to be honest, but* i never met someone comparable from italy.* i'm 1.75 and thats italian average. and its not only the height. its the overall body structure that seems to be different on average. maybe its because the majority of italians here come from southern italy i don't know.
> i didn't say all are like this. bit it happens. it increases in northern, north-eastern germany. 
> and it probably decreasesthe further south you go and then further into the middle east, north africa.
> 
> "The only advantage in terms of size in the modern world is the size of your IQ or other talents."
> as already said its a question of perspective. and i doubt that there are many people who only look at iq's.
> 
> "Well, maybe one other one, but from what I hear I think Italian men do more than just fine in that category"
> from what you hear? interessting.


Too bad you never met my 5'11 inch paternal grandmother, then (180.3 cm.). In the interests of full transparency, however, they used to recruit for the King of Italy's personal bodyguard there. :)

Gigi Buffon's mother comes from my mother's area, and also is a strapping and big boned woman. 



With all due respect, I've always been thankful I inherited my mother's more Mediterranean height and build. 

It's best not to think so stereotypically. My first cousin married a Swiss German who is about 5'8", slight boned, and has darker hair and eyes than I do. My husband, southern Italian, on the other hand, is over 6' tall, and played American college football, a sport for which you need to pack a lot of muscle. Think Joe Manganiello or the Riace bronzes. :)

You might also want to look at my thread on the people of the Appennino Parmense.
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...nnino-Parmense

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## Jovialis

I'm southern Italian, and I'm 6'2" with a mesomorphic frame. My uncle is even taller at 6'4". There's a lot of people on my mom's side who are tall.

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## davef

Southern Italians are about 5'9 on average, they're not hobbits. :)

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## Salento

I’m 5’10” - from the South of Italy -
@Davef I’m not a Hobbit. I think, ... :)

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## Ownstyler

> yes. but what if this additional WHG EHG admixture in northern europe might actually give these people an advantage to survive in northern europe. i see italians (me included) with body structures that i only rarely see among germans and vice versa. in the middle east it gets probably even more extreme after looking at people from there. i met german women who had to bend their necks to look down at me and they often also have broader shoulders than me. now this doesn't happen all the time but it happens way more often than it did in switzerland and especially with other italians. call me a nordicist but i think in that regard they or at least some of them really might be superior in some way. and i actually think its somehow sad that this is going to be gone like for example native americans. but its a question of perspective. and thats the thing. i just think that you can't fight racism with science since race categories and the value of differences are often just a question of perspective even in science.
> racism will never be gone. even if our populations will be so mixed that there is no difference between them anymore. even then people will have ideals. and the fact that certain genes are superior to others, though often because of perspective, personal preference or also depending on the environment in which they need to survive, will never be gone, its nature, and this might play a huge role in future genetic medicine for example with things like crispr cas. "racism" might shift from a population level to an individual level.
> 
> i don't know. i don't think i'm a racist but i'm an opponent of globalization. it's like in physics. everything will go to greatest possible disorder once you let it happen. and imo that's a loss.


Sorry but this does not make sense Ailchu. 

First, because Germans are not the tallest in the world right now, the tallest men are in the Dinaric mountains.

Second, you are talking as if the height difference has always been like this but it hasn't. The Dutch were among the shortest Europeans in the 19th century, but are now first if you discount Dinarics for not being a country. 

Third, look the WHG ancestry map: https://cache.eupedia.com/images/con..._admixture.png. Now look at the height map: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/91/1b...f271785d6b.jpg. Not exactly the same thing.

Also, I agree with Angela: intelligence matters most today.

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## bicicleur

> Great insights, as always, from our members. It's extremism, in all its forms, that is the problem. 
> Not to be pedantic, but "farmers" weren't born farmers. They descend from hunter-gatherers too, hunter-gatherers who happened to "discover" agriculture.
> I think this all goes back to the 19th century. Northern Europeans, who industrialized first, looked at themselves and at Southern Europeans, who were on average "darker", and attributed all sorts of, as Jovialis said, "mystical" and "value laden" attributes to it. With the beginnings of genetics, they also believed that these traits were the "original European" traits, which made them the "real" Europeans, and everyone else interlopers.
> That's what was so ironic about the discovery that the WHG were darker than the agriculturalists who started entering Europe. 
> Then the identification turned to the steppe people, only to discover that the EHG, who did seem "lighter", had admixed with Basal Eurasian heavy Caucasus type people, and that most of their early "achievements" were borrowed from surrounding "farmer" type cultures. (Only shows their good sense and adaptability to me, but there you have it.) 
> It doesn't matter, though. If people want to blind themselves to the facts, they will. 
> Believe me, I'm sure all this racist nonsense still goes on among the racists in the pop gen community. It's just that given that they know many people have kept screenshots of their statements in the past, and are reading their material now, they have to communicate "honestly", if you can call it that, on the dark web. 
> This is why I think that the racial superiority movement is much bigger in Europe than people realize. Look at the statements coming out of Eastern Europe with absolutely no adverse consequences. Can you imagine what is said on the dark net or behind closed doors? All they've gotten out of all this genetics research is that the Germans were wrong to target them for annihilation. It's they, the Slavs, who are the real "Untermenschen". If it weren't so pathetic and frightening at the same time it would be funny.


the days of the industrial revolution and European colonisation are long gone, and yes there are still some remnants of racism
I don't think there are many Europeans who worry about WHG being black or dark skinned, you have to go to the specialised fora to find them
but blaming Europeans for whatever went wrong in history and blaming everyone who opposes open EU borders or criticises multiculturalism to be a racist is not going to help, on the contrary, it will give those few true racists left a second breath

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## Angela

> Sorry but this does not make sense Ailchu. 
> 
> First, because Germans are not the tallest in the world right now, the tallest men are in the Dinaric mountains.
> 
> Second, you are talking as if the height difference has always been like this but it hasn't. The Dutch were among the shortest Europeans in the 19th century, but are now first if you discount Dinarics for not being a country. 
> 
> Third, look the WHG ancestry map: https://cache.eupedia.com/images/con..._admixture.png. Now look at the height map: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/91/1b...f271785d6b.jpg. Not exactly the same thing.
> 
> Also, I agree with Angela: intelligence matters most today.



The English, as another example, managed to create an empire that covered a good part of the globe without being particularly tall. 

I can't think of much that is sillier, particularly in this day and age, than basing some sort of superiority on height.

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## bicicleur

> The English, as another example, managed to create an empire that covered a good part of the globe without being particularly tall. 
> I can't think of much that is sillier, particularly in this day and age, than basing some sort of superiority on height.






released 1977

 :Rolleyes: 

today it's cool to be a gangsta, but such lyrics would be seen as offensive by 'correct' people

"Short People" is a song by Randy Newman from his 1977 album, Little Criminals. The verses and chorus are lyrically constructed as a prejudiced attack on short people. In contrast, the bridge states that "short people are just the same as you and I." Newman interprets the song to be about "prejudice" as was widely thought, but added that it was "about a lunatic." As with many of his songs such as "Rednecks", Newman wrote the song from the point of view of a biased narrator. Like Dire Straits' 1985 hit single, "Money for Nothing", which used the same lyrical technique, the song was misunderstood by many listeners who wrongly assumed that it reflected Newman's personal viewpoint.

these 'correct' peole already showed up in 1978

In 1978, state of Maryland delegate Isaiah Dixon attempted to introduce legislation making it illegal to play "Short People" on the radio. He was advised by Assistant Attorney General Francis B. Burch that such a law would be a violation of the First Amendment.[6]

Newman would later grow to dislike the song and its success, eventually calling it a "bad break", a "novelty record like The Chipmunks", and said it caused him to receive several threats regarding its misinterpreted message.[2] He said, "I had no idea that there was any sensitivity, I mean, that anyone could believe that anyone was as crazy as that character. To have that kind of animus against short people, and then to sing it and put it all in song and have a philosophy on it."[3] However, it ended up being included on almost every one of his greatest hits albums.[4][not in citation given]

It's only grown worse since 1978. The 'correct' people came to own the media and politics.

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## davef

> Sorry but this does not make sense Ailchu. 
> 
> First, because Germans are not the tallest in the world right now, the tallest men are in the Dinaric mountains.
> 
> Second, you are talking as if the height difference has always been like this but it hasn't. The Dutch were among the shortest Europeans in the 19th century, but are now first if you discount Dinarics for not being a country. 
> 
> Third, look the WHG ancestry map: https://cache.eupedia.com/images/con..._admixture.png. Now look at the height map: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/91/1b...f271785d6b.jpg. Not exactly the same thing.
> 
> Also, I agree with Angela: intelligence matters most today.


Intelligence matters more than height, but even without being all that bright you can still thrive and be very successful (she did say other talents are important). If you have people skills, you can succeed in psychology, business and marketing, if you have culinary skills, you can work at a great restaurant, mechanical skills can get you a six figure plumbing job, and I'm just scratching the surface. There are lots of successful people who aren't all that spectacular in terms of intelligence out there.

No need to be a genius to run a great business

edit: ok well the items I mentioned with regards to people, mechanical skills etc are forms of intelligence and even work ethic is a form of (emotional) intelligence so yes intelligence matters most if we include these other things under the intelligence blanket. No need to be tall to have these traits.

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## Angela

The reality is that this nostalgia for days of racial "purity" isn't based on the science as we now know it. 

All of the ancient dna which Reich, among others, has helped to uncover and explain should make it clear that human history is composed of periods of genetic stasis punctuated by periods of extensive admixture. 

The Magdalenians are gone, the WHG are gone, the EHG are gone, the Indo-Europeans, the first farmers are basically gone. 

To bemoan their passing is an exercise in futility.

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## davef

Wait, there are still a lot of Sardinians who are fully European farmer, right? 
But yes the northern groups (Steppe and WHG) mentioned in your post are gone in pure form. Still wonder if there are any Estonians who have very little farmer (well less than the European average of 50-60 percent i wager) out there. 

I think tomenable posted an Estonian who scored 50 percent baltic in Eurogenes, you still with us "tom"?

Note: Im not agenda driven so if there aren't any I won't pout

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## Angela

I'd say that the Sardinians from the Gennenartu are a remnant of the MN farmers, i.e. maybe Chalcolithic farmer like, like Otzi, in that they have a bigger slice of "actual" WHG than the Anatolia farmers, but yes, very close. So, that survived the longest. 

They look completely modern to me even if there is variation...







[IMG][/IMG]

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## Wigster

How strange for you guys to focus on racism from Northern Europeans when by far the most racist people on anthroforas are Southern Europeans. Mentioning that Italy has an West Asian shift or that Iberia is North African shifted will make most Italian and Iberian members quite angry and they will do everything contradict it. It's almost like they don't want to be associated in any way whatsoever with darker people, don't you think? And don't tell me it's not true. Everyone can see how difficult it is for various south Euro groups to accept (recent)non-European influence among their own ethnicity.

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## Angela

> How strange for you guys to focus on racism from Northern Europeans when by far the most racist people on anthroforas are Southern Europeans. Mentioning that Italy has an West Asian shift or that Iberia is North African shifted will make most Italian and Iberian members quite angry and they will do everything contradict it. It's almost like they don't want to be associated in any way whatsoever with darker people, don't you think? And don't tell me it's not true. Everyone can see how difficult it is for various south Euro groups to accept (recent)non-European influence among their own ethnicity.


You're kidding, right?

Here's a guy who is surprised to find Nordicist Italians on racist anthrofora! :)

Please...

Try meeting with and speaking with people from the real world, not racist losers who agonize over how much of one ancient group or another is in them, no matter their nationality.

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## Salento

> How strange for you guys to focus on racism from Northern Europeans when by far the most racist people on anthroforas are Southern Europeans. Mentioning that Italy has an West Asian shift or that Iberia is North African shifted will make most Italian and Iberian members quite angry and they will do everything contradict it. It's almost like they don't want to be associated in any way whatsoever with darker people, don't you think? And don't tell me it's not true. Everyone can see how difficult it is for various south Euro groups to accept (recent)non-European influence among their own ethnicity.


Do not Generalize !
Who are the Racist members of Eupedia ?
Name Names !

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## Angela

No, he won't, and neither will you.

That's enough. We've gone off-topic for too long. 

Btw, don't ever think you're smart enough to fool me, because you're not.

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## Salento

> No, he won't, and neither will you.
> 
> That's enough. We've gone off-topic for too long. 
> 
> Btw, don't ever think you're smart enough to fool me, because you're not.


I’m not your Enemy.
I didn’t try to fool you.

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## Wigster

> You're kidding, right?
> 
> Here's a guy who is surprised to find Nordicist Italians on racist anthrofora! :)
> 
> Please...
> 
> Try meeting with and speaking with people from the real world, not racist losers who agonize over how much of one ancient group or another is in them, no matter their nationality.


Then tell me where you'll find actual nordicist Scandinavians/Northern Europeans in real life? I have not heard once a Swede mention that ancient Romans and Greeks were nordic looking. This is something I for the first time saw in Anthroforas.

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## ROS

I see it right that each individual tries to know the origin of his people, to know his history, now well, when we empathize with supremacisms, that I am better than the other because of this, and the other, we are already wrong, the simplest thing in the world is to convince your neighborhood, town, region, country, which is better than another, this is nationalism, which if it also has racist components is a bomb, human beings should get away from these bombs, already in Europe we have enough experiences.


Not for being blond with blue eyes is better than anyone, not for being brown with brown eyes is better than anyone, it is simply an adaptation to solar radiation, simply.


The hunter-gatherers suffered an environmental adaptation that gave rise to that very dark complexion, the farmers had white skin possibly because they lived inside houses or not, but they are always adapted to the environment and above all nobody is better than anyone, this is what important, the simplest thing is to believe yourself superior to others, even consider it a basic error.


Europe is a large area that, due to its long history, is mature and European peoples must take advantage of this maturity and experience to achieve and preserve one of the best areas to live on this planet called Earth and never get into exacerbated nationalism and absurd racism among Europeans .

By the way, the women of Cerdanya seem beautiful to me.


They have a special beauty.

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## Jovialis

> Then tell me where you'll find actual nordicist Scandinavians/Northern Europeans in real life? I have not heard once a Swede mention that ancient Romans and Greeks were nordic looking. This is something I for the first time saw in Anthroforas.


Keep it up with the provocative behavior, and I'll give you another infraction.

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## Jovialis

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/s...igrations.html

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## hrvclv

We are all on this forum for the same reason : we are on a quest - a quest for identity. But during that process of trying to discover who we are, we find it hard to get rid of that cherished image of who/what we'd _like_ to be. 

Our forefathers are a part of ourselves, somehow. We feel more comfortable if we can convince ourselves they were "giants", bright, handsome, heroic, you name it... And it is all the easier to bestow on them whatever virtues we fancy since they are no longer here to disprove our "convictions". Isn't it legitimate to dream our dreams? Well, reverence for ancestors is common to a wide range of cultures. Why can't we let people glorify their own forbears if it helps them live ? After all, when we are watching a western movie, we identify more readily with Clint Eastwood or John Wayne than with the baddies facing them. Let every one of us cultivate their own intimate legends. There's no harm in that alone.

The problem with identity is that, too often, it defines itself *against* others. That's where dreams of grandeur begin to hurt. Historically, the first contact between two cultures is almost always hostile (colonization, exploitation, slavery, genocide). Native Americans won't contradict me on that. Nations, just like individuals, are caught in a sort of Darwinian competition for economic survival, cultural influence, etc. To rank top, you have to nudge your way up. So, when one tries to boost one's self-image, contempt for others is most likely waiting round the bend. That's where brains should take over.

Genetic discoveries can help. But education is the main key. Who was the greatest : Erasmus, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dante, Montaigne, Sophocles, Tolstoï... ? Which one is the most beautiful : the Parthenon, the Coliseum, the Blue Mosque, the Nevski Prospect? And who will win the next Champions' League final : Man U, la Juve, Real Madrid, or Bayern München ? The respective achievements of each culture can suffice to instil the element of mutual respect that will ensure peaceful coexistence. 

Trouble is, with most people in this day and age glued to their TV set watching moronic reality shows, there is room for pessimism.

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## Jovialis

> We are all on this forum for the same reason


Sorry, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

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## hrvclv

> Sorry, but that couldn't be further from the truth.


I know... just part of the dialectics !

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## Jovialis

> I know... just part of the dialectics !


I should elaborate. Some people are indeed here for learning more about their identity, or just genetics in general. But t-rolls only seek to cause disruption to satisfy some pathetically sadistic urge. It's probably some way for them to feel empowered, since they're probably cowards, weaklings, and social rejects in their everyday life. This is obvious since they spend prime hours of the weekend, making fake-accounts, just to cause havoc on this forum. They seriously have to be complete losers imo.

I think its ironic that these racist t-rolls who think they're superior, exhibit social traits that indicate they will most likely not pass on their genetics. Since they have a low-chance of procreating.

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## hrvclv

> I should elaborate. Some people are indeed here for learning more about their identity, or just genetics in general. But t-rolls only seek to cause disruption to satisfy some pathetically sadistic urge. It's probably some way for them to feel empowered, since they're probably cowards, weaklings, and social rejects in their everyday life. This is obvious since they spend prime hours of the weekend, making fake-accounts, just to cause havoc on this forum. They seriously have to be complete losers imo.



Don't worry. I knew exactly what you meant. I naively got caught in a few of their traps these last days. I share your opinion of them - needless to say.

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## Jovialis

> Don't worry. I knew exactly what you meant. I naively got caught in a few of their traps these last days. I share your opinion of them - needless to say.


I know :), and to echo what you had said, for the people who are serious about genetics, this is an excerpt from what David Reich said in the interview:

_"But if you actually take any serious look at this data, it just confounds every stereotype. It’s revealing that the differences among populations we see today are actually only a few thousand years old at most and that everybody is mixed. I think that if you pay any attention to this world, and have any degree of seriousness, then you can’t come out feeling affirmed in the racist view of the world. You have to be more open to immigration. You have to be more open to the mixing of different peoples. That’s your own history."


_Nevertheless, with that last bit after the part I bolded, when it comes to immigration, I think the constituency within a nation-state have the right to regulate who they let into their country. They also have a right to preserve their culture as they see fit.

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## bicicleur

> I know :), and to echo what you had said, for the people who are serious about genetics, this is an excerpt from what David Reich said in the interview:
> _"But if you actually take any serious look at this data, it just confounds every stereotype. It’s revealing that the differences among populations we see today are actually only a few thousand years old at most and that everybody is mixed. I think that if you pay any attention to this world, and have any degree of seriousness, then you can’t come out feeling affirmed in the racist view of the world. You have to be more open to immigration. You have to be more open to the mixing of different peoples. That’s your own history."
> _Nevertheless, with that last bit after the part I bolded, when it comes to immigration, I think the constituency within a nation-state have the right to regulate who they let into their country. They also have a right to preserve their culture as they see fit.


it's not race that is the problem
it's different cultures, convictions, beliefs and prejudices that are the problem
many people have proven unable to adapt themselves in another than their native society
multiculturalism has failed because of that, not because of different skin or hair colours

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## Angela

> it's not race that is the problem
> it's different cultures, convictions, beliefs and prejudices that are the problem
> many people have proven unable to adapt themselves in another than their native society
> multiculturalism has failed because of that, not because of different skin or hair colours


Yet, Bicicleur, call it what you will, but people do judge who "belongs" and who doesn't in their society based on things like phenotype. Distrust and even hatred of "the other" is part of the human make-up whether we like it or not. It has always been a factor. The failure of "multiculturalism" in Europe is not just because new immigrants refuse to adapt themselves to native culture. It is also because the natives don't want to integrate them. They are too "foreign". 

Look at the difference between the attitude toward immigrants in Europe and in the U.S. In the U.S., if you show the slightest willingness to adapt you're accepted by most people almost immediately. You don't have to give up your headscarf or turban or eat pork or whatever, although it certainly helps. In Europe, I have two first cousins who were born in Switzerland, and they're still not considered "Swiss", and one of them is married to a Swiss German, speaks German better than Italian, and on and on. 

Even in countries like the U.S. that are built on immigration, the path to acceptance was easier the closer the incoming group was to the "natives". The Germans had an easier time than the Irish, who had an easier time than Jews and Italians, etc., and believe me, Italians of those generations were desperate to become "American".

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## Dagne

Angela, and what about how Americans treat real Americans? (meaning native people of America?)

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## Dagne

double post deleted

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## Angela

> Angela, and what about how Americans treat real Americans? (meaning native people of America?)


Do you mean is there prejudice toward them? Yes, there is in certain areas where there are reservations. I'm sorry to say it but a lot of that is because of the high rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, child and spousal abuse, that they're on welfare etc. 

Now, much of that behavior is because Europeans who came to the continent took their land and in many cases tried to take their culture as well, so it's short sighted to blame them entirely, but most people don't think too deeply about these kinds of things and just react to what they see.

This has been the fate of aboriginal, hunter-gatherer peoples all over the world, whether we're talking about Australia or Africa or Finland and Scandinavia. It's a tragedy: they just find it incredibly difficult to adjust to modern life.

There's another part of the story with regard to Amerindians, however. At the same time that some people are prejudiced toward them, others in a sense romanticize them and very much want a connection to them. Lots of Americans have stories of an Amerindian ancestor, and they desperately want it to be true. That's what has driven a lot of interest in genetic testing. There are indeed some "colonial" Americans who have a small bit of it, but fewer than thought they had it. For a good number of people, either it doesn't exist, or it was actually a part SSA ancestor who was trying to pass. 

Also, as I said upthread, human beings distrust and exclude people on a scale based on similarity to themselves. Americans are still human beings. Although SSA admixed people have been here a lot longer than Poles, let's say, they're still on the bottom in the way that they're treated.

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## bicicleur

> Yet, Bicicleur, call it what you will, but people do judge who "belongs" and who doesn't in their society based on things like phenotype. Distrust and even hatred of "the other" is part of the human make-up whether we like it or not. It has always been a factor. The failure of "multiculturalism" in Europe is not just because new immigrants refuse to adapt themselves to native culture. It is also because the natives don't want to integrate them. They are too "foreign". 
> 
> Look at the difference between the attitude toward immigrants in Europe and in the U.S. In the U.S., if you show the slightest willingness to adapt you're accepted by most people almost immediately. You don't have to give up your headscarf or turban or eat pork or whatever, although it certainly helps. In Europe, I have two first cousins who were born in Switzerland, and they're still not considered "Swiss", and one of them is married to a Swiss German, speaks German better than Italian, and on and on. 
> 
> Even in countries like the U.S. that are built on immigration, the path to acceptance was easier the closer the incoming group was to the "natives". The Germans had an easier time than the Irish, who had an easier time than Jews and Italians, etc., and believe me, Italians of those generations were desperate to become "American".


we've been over this several times
and I know about your family in Switzerland
I don't think it is the same here in Belgium, and in most places in Europe
you say Italians were desperate to become American
the main problem is that for decades the EU has allowed people in who were not desperate to become European, yet gave them all the benefits for which they gave very little in return
and I admit that through these experiences native Europeans have become quite suspicious and even prejudiced against newcomers
there was no policy toward immigration in Europe
there was a big leftist lobby who would let everyone in 
first thing about immigration is that immigrants know very well what to expect and what not to expect and to be very firm in this
if the immigrants would have to give a proper return for all the efforts and benefits given to them, and the natives knew this, they would be accepted quicker
I agree that Europe still has to learn a lot about immigration

and the U.S. is not a 100 % succes story either
those who wanted to come to the U.S. knew the rules and knew that they had to make it themselves and they did
that is a succes
there is those who got in the U.S. without wanting it themselves, and there are the natives
the black slaves didn't chose to come to the U.S.
and allthough slavery has been abolished long time ago, they feel - rightly or not - that they are discriminated and 2nd class citizens, still after all these years

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## Ailchu

"I should elaborate. Some people are indeed here for learning more about their identity, or just genetics in general."

people who are on this forum to learn about their identity are people who identifiy themselves with their genetics. what would be the purpose ot this if you didn't actually place value on it?
i mean i once talked with a friend about latest scientific stuff from this forum and he then asked me:"well thats all nice but what is this actually good for? who actually cares?"

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## Angela

It's called intellectual curiosity.

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## Ailchu

> It's called intellectual curiosity.


he's an "intellectual". but he still isn't interessted in this. interesst isn't coming from nowhere imo. 

if you study these things you must give it some kind of value. i don't want to say that you want to search your identity. there are many other reasons why you could want to give value to it. maybe some people here do not actually care that much about genetics but see them as a tool to look at the spread of ancient cultures. though then the main focus lies on the culture and not on the genetics behind it.

if i look at certain profile pictures, celts, romans, then its quite obvious for me that identity plays a big role here.

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## Angela

> he's an "intellectual". but he still isn't interessted in this. interesst isn't coming from nowhere imo. 
> 
> if you study these things you must give it some kind of value. i don't want to say that you want to search your identity. there are many other reasons why you could want to give value to it. maybe some people here do not actually care that much about genetics but see them as a tool to look at the spread of ancient cultures. though then the main focus lies on the culture and not on the genetics behind it.
> 
> if i look at certain profile pictures, celts, romans, then its quite obvious for me that identity plays a big role here.


Well, I won't speak for others. I'll speak for myself. I was a history major, European history, specifically Italian history, but also always had an interest in the history and archaeology of ancient civilizations of the Near East. 

By chance, as the result of doing some research on the Etruscans, I stumbled on the dienekes blog and was hooked. 

I thought this was a way of answering questions I'd had for years about the pre-history and early history of Italy. I didn't need to "prove" my identity to myself. I know I'm Italian; I know right where my ancestors have been for the last 1000 years or so. I did take the 23andme test and join the dodecad project, because I wanted to contribute in some way to the research. I haven't taken any other tests; I don't see the need. While it was interesting seeing the "clusters" into which my ancestry was divided, it doesn't change how I "identify" or anything like that. Whatever it is it is. 

It's just interesting seeing how we came to be us, which groups came from where to mix and create "Italians". That's it; no big angst, and nothing to prove, either to myself or anybody else. Certainly this doesn't come from any sense of wanting to prove the "superiority" of my "people". 

I should also add that I don't know any Italian Americans and certainly no Italians (other than the ones on this and other sites), who gives a damn about any of this. My relatives won't participate even if I pay for the test! I am constantly surprised by the level of interest in northern Europe with this kind of testing and analysis. Every other day it seems some country is doing massive testing. I mean, it's interesting and all that, but to be honest it seems a bit weird to me. I mean, you know you're Dutch or Icelandic or Finn or whatever. You know where your ancestors have been for many generations. What is testing the whole country or at least big swathes of it going to tell you? I don't get it, and especially when there isn't a heck of a lot of difference between people in some neighboring northern European countries, much less within each country. The British project had to go to incredibly small grained analysis to find their "clusters". Still, not my business. Whatever floats your boat, as they say.

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## davef

the non t-rolls registered here to ask questions and learn stuff

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## Salento

We are the offspring of a variety of tribes and civilizations.
Sometimes I go Roman, Neanderthal, Jefferson, Golden Man, Moka for Espresso, Eagle, today I’m going Disco. Tomorrow who knows. lol :)

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## hrvclv

> if you study these things you must give it some kind of value. i don't want to say that you want to search your identity. there are many other reasons why you could want to give value to it. maybe some people here do not actually care that much about genetics but see them as a tool to look at the spread of ancient cultures. though then the main focus lies on the culture and not on the genetics behind it.


I can't see what the problem is with identity. Why do we study history ? Why do we study ancient cultures ? 

As a Frenchman, I feel (and quite intensely so) that I am heir to ancient Greek philosophy, to Roman juristic traditions, to two thousand years of Christian influence (though I am not properly speaking a believer), to Rousseau and Voltaire, to the French Revolution, and so on and on and on... This heritage defines and conditions each of my decisions, consciously or not. It also defines the politics of my nation. It amounts to a form of cultural determinism. Understanding the heritage means understanding the decisions, their whys and wherefores. What's wrong with that ?

Genetics is just part and parcel of the package. It never drove me to despise anyone. Nor kept me from reading literature from all over the world. Our planet is a patchwork of diverse cultures. Let them live and prosper. The world is better-off as long as it keeps them alive. Identity is not the problem. Artificially constructed contempt is the problem. Ill-understood ego-boosting strategies are the problem. Narrow-mindedness, ignorance, and aggressive obscurantism are the problem.

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## mwauthy

> I can't see what the problem is with identity. Why do we study history ? Why do we study ancient cultures ? 
> 
> As a Frenchman, I feel (and quite intensely so) that I am heir to ancient Greek philosophy, to Roman juristic traditions, to two thousand years of Christian influence (though I am not properly speaking a believer), to Rousseau and Voltaire, to the French Revolution, and so on and on and on... This heritage defines and conditions each of my decisions, consciously or not. It also defines the politics of my nation. It amounts to a form of cultural determinism. Understanding the heritage means understanding the decisions, their whys and wherefores. What's wrong with that ?
> 
> Genetics is just part and parcel of the package. It never drove me to despise anyone. Nor kept me from reading literature from all over the world. Our planet is a patchwork of diverse cultures. Let them live and prosper. The world is better-off as long as it keeps them alive. Identity is not the problem. Artificially constructed contempt is the problem. Ill-understood ego-boosting strategies are the problem. Narrow-mindedness, ignorance, and aggressive obscurantism are the problem.


I feel like ethnicity is a generational thing that is in continuous evolution. As a result, it doesn’t make much sense to me to personally identify my modern life with any historical ethnicity. My love for history is more a curiosity about the human condition during different eras. 

We like to say these genes could be “Celtic” or “Roman” because of knowledge of the recent past. However, if there are 1000 generations and 1000 possible ethnicities between “Red Lady of Paviland” and the present is it logical to assign any particular snp to any one of those 1000 ethnicities? 

This hobby is fascinating to me because it helps answer some of histories mysteries and because new insights are constantly unfolding.

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## Jovialis

> Well, I won't speak for others. I'll speak for myself. I was a history major, European history, specifically Italian history, but also always had an interest in the history and archaeology of ancient civilizations of the Near East. 
> 
> By chance, as the result of doing some research on the Etruscans, I stumbled on the dienekes blog and was hooked. 
> 
> I thought this was a way of answering questions I'd had for years about the pre-history and early history of Italy. I didn't need to "prove" my identity to myself. I know I'm Italian; I know right where my ancestors have been for the last 1000 years or so. I did take the 23andme test and join the dodecad project, because I wanted to contribute in some way to the research. I haven't taken any other tests; I don't see the need. While it was interesting seeing the "clusters" into which my ancestry was divided, it doesn't change how I "identify" or anything like that. Whatever it is it is. 
> 
> It's just interesting seeing how we came to be us, which groups came from where to mix and create "Italians". That's it; no big angst, and nothing to prove, either to myself or anybody else. Certainly this doesn't come from any sense of wanting to prove the "superiority" of my "people". 
> 
> I should also add that I don't know any Italian Americans and certainly no Italians (other than the ones on this and other sites), who gives a damn about any of this. My relatives won't participate even if I pay for the test! I am constantly surprised by the level of interest in northern Europe with this kind of testing and analysis. Every other day it seems some country is doing massive testing. I mean, it's interesting and all that, but to be honest it seems a bit weird to me. I mean, you know you're Dutch or Icelandic or Finn or whatever. You know where your ancestors have been for many generations. What is testing the whole country or at least big swathes of it going to tell you? I don't get it, and especially when there isn't a heck of a lot of difference between people in some neighboring northern European countries, much less within each country. The British project had to go to incredibly small grained analysis to find their "clusters". Still, not my business. Whatever floats your boat, as they say.


My fascination with history was also what ultimately led me to my fascination with genetics. Ever since I was young, I've always regarded history as my favorite subject, and co-majored in it. I also do a lot of my own research online, to broaden my knowledge. Ancient history is also one of my favorites. When I started learning more about prehistory, I was hooked. I think it's especially exciting now that more research is being done in the area of Ancient DNA. Thanks to breakthroughs and reduction of cost in technology.

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## Jovialis

Here's an article by Razib Khan on David Reich's upcoming book:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/...eveal-history/*​*

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## Ygorcs

It seems like David Reich leaks some information about South Asian genetic history that he probably has seen in his lab but is still not ready for publication. Hopefully we'll know more about that soon enough because I can't stand the over the top noise by South Asian deluded ethno-nationalists any more who are newly emboldened by the quotes published in Indian newspapers and given by (unsurprisingly) Indian geneticists who are working and marketing their conclusions on their own, with the vaguest and, honestly, most irresponsible rhetoric. 

Since just a few days ago, I had to put up with three South Asian men telling me that the IVC was not only Indo-European and actually already Sanskrit-speaking (apparently Sanskrit was a kind of fossil for milennia), but also that the Indo-Europeans from IVC settled all of the steppes of the Middle East and were the ancestors of the Hittites, IE Europeans, ancient Arabians (what?!), Tuaregs (once again, what?!) and even the Chadic tribes (yes, just because they have high percentages of R1b, don't mind that it is R1b-V88, not M269, but how would they know these things are actually thousands of years apart?!). Oh, and yes they guarantee that the Indo-Europeans were the ANI - again, don't mind that ANI admixture is not found in many other Indo-European-speaking areas.

They're thrilled and kind of out of control with their wild speculations, because an Indian geneticist guarantees that they analyzed the ancient DNA and can state that the autosomal DNA of the IVC was totally indigenous harking back to the Palaeolithic (how likely is that in Asia, really?). They also said that there's no sign of migration either into or out of India at the time of the IVC (now that's a problem, people came to speak closely related Indo-European languages from Western Europe to China, but apparently there was no large-scale migration). 

I'm really interested to see those results, because until now they sound like at best a desperate distortion of the scientific results. I would really like to understand why so many South Asians and - as I also was "lucky" enough to find out in the last few months - Subsaharan Africans are _sooooo_ aggressively defensive against any result that suggests that they are not 100% indigenous to their territories since at least the Palaeolithic era. We're not even talking about modern ethnic/national disputes. There is a huge aversion even to suggestions that there was mixing with outsiders 5,000 or even 10,000 years ago. That's really weird for me.

----------


## bicicleur

who or what is IVC ?

----------


## Jovialis

> who or what is IVC ?


Indus Valley Civilization

----------


## Ygorcs

> I feel like ethnicity is a generational thing that is in continuous evolution. As a result, it doesn’t make much sense to me to personally identify my modern life with any historical ethnicity. My love for history is more a curiosity about the human condition during different eras. 
> 
> We like to say these genes could be “Celtic” or “Roman” because of knowledge of the recent past. However, if there are 1000 generations and 1000 possible ethnicities between “Red Lady of Paviland” and the present is it logical to assign any particular snp to any one of those 1000 ethnicities? 
> 
> This hobby is fascinating to me because it helps answer some of histories mysteries and because new insights are constantly unfolding.


I agree with you, especially if we're talking about closely related ethnicities that are ultimately just variations of one common mosaic of cultures and genetic admixtures (like most modern European ethnicities). Besides what you said, one of the problems is that very few people nowadays, mostly those whose family have lived for a long time in very isolated communities, can calmly identify with ONE ancient ethnicity without any sort of cognitive dissonance or willful blindess to not see the whole picture. If we go back 2,000 years ago, some 100 generations, how likely is that the vast majority of what they are really comes from just one old ethnic group? We're not even talking about genetic origins here, but about ethnicity, a thing that comes and goes, changes even when the labels do not change (does anyone honestly believe that modern Norwegians identify with exactly the same ethnic culture and way of life as the Norsemen of the Viking age?) and sometimes may be completely replaced even without much or any genetic turnover (especially when the shift was from one to another related ethnicity, e.g. from north Celtic to Germanic).

I think it's perfectly fine to identify with one's modern ethnicity or nationality, as long as they are totally aware that even that ethnicity or nationality is not some kind of fundamental and permanent "essence" that exists apart from the others and has "inherent" qualities that prevail over time and space, especially in comparison with neighboring peoples.

----------


## hrvclv

> I think it's perfectly fine to identify with one's modern ethnicity or nationality, as long as they are totally aware that even that ethnicity or nationality is not some kind of fundamental and permanent "essence" that exists apart from the others and has "inherent" qualities that prevail over time and space, especially in comparison with neighboring peoples.


Judging from how people define themselves below their avatars on this forum, I'd say we should clearly distinguish between ethnicity and the _consciousness_ of ethnicity. By the way, does ethnicity exist outside that consciousness of one's ethnicity ? In other words, ethnicity may be a social construct, but it is primarily a psychological, personal, intimate construct.

As a social construct, transient as you seem to consider it, it did not emerge out of the blue. Just like your autosomal makeup at a given time in a given place is the result of previous encounters and changes, ethnicity is the outcome of military events, social uprisings, cultural choices, etc... It doesn't exist _apart from_ the others, in fact it does exist _thanks to_ the others, who prioritized their options (slightly or significantly) differently. It is defined and conditioned by history, the history of men and the history of ideas. Our present is child to our past. As such, it is indeed not a "permanent essence", but it can be a reliable element of reference to build a behavior on.

Alongside that cultural/historical dimension of ethnicity, there is the _idea_ each individual forms of his ethnicity - his own intimate feeling of who he is. That too may be subject to alteration and change over time. The question is: Can we violate that ? Can we judge ? Everyone is entitled to develop his own self-image, as long as it does not drive him to harm his fellow human brothers. Ethnicity is eminently subjective, and as such, disconnected from how much DNA (real or assumed) one got from a given group. It has to do with Myth, not with time and space. It is beyond control, that's why it sometimes turns dangerous, when self-criticism and self-restraint fail.

----------


## Ygorcs

> Judging from how people define themselves below their avatars on this forum, I'd say we should clearly distinguish between ethnicity and the _consciousness_ of ethnicity. By the way, does ethnicity exist outside that consciousness of one's ethnicity ? In other words, ethnicity may be a social construct, but it is primarily a psychological, personal, intimate construct.
> 
> As a social construct, transient as you seem to consider it, it did not emerge out of the blue. Just like your autosomal makeup at a given time in a given place is the result of previous encounters and changes, ethnicity is the outcome of military events, social uprisings, cultural choices, etc... It doesn't exist _apart from_ the others, in fact it does exist _thanks to_ the others, who prioritized their options (slightly or significantly) differently. It is defined and conditioned by history, the history of men and the history of ideas. Our present is child to our past. As such, it is indeed not a "permanent essence", but it can be a reliable element of reference to build a behavior on.
> 
> Alongside that cultural/historical dimension of ethnicity, there is the _idea_ each individual forms of his ethnicity - his own intimate feeling of who he is. That too may be subject to alteration and change over time. The question is: Can we violate that ? Can we judge ? Everyone is entitled to develop his own self-image, as long as it does not drive him to harm his fellow human brothers. Ethnicity is eminently subjective, and as such, disconnected from how much DNA (real or assumed) one got from a given group. It has to do with Myth, not with time and space. It is beyond control, that's why it sometimes turns dangerous, when self-criticism and self-restraint fail.


I absolurely agree with you. It is just that I always try to have it clearly stuck in my mind that, yes, ethnicities do exist "thanks to the others", as you say, but those others were often also the (partial) ancestors of other modern ethnicities, or people from other ethnicities that somehow contributed to what my ethnicity is like now (not just genetically, as you say etnicity is not about percentages in one's DNA, but a sort of collectively construed myth that allows us to organize better in a complex society). Identifying with one's ethnicity is ultimately a bit subjective, but as you say it's not "out of the blue", it's part of a historic and social process, but that process, we should never forget, was unvariably impermanent and often messy, so that our present ethnicity can't be seamlessly linked to any ancient ethnicity in a sort of unbroken line. It's always an ongoing and still imperfect process, and one which is spongy, not shielded from similary ongoing processes of ethnogenesis and organic change in other ethnicities nearby.

----------


## Angela

Well, it's out. I was going to get the Kindle version, but for textbooks I like print, so I don't know when it will arrive.

----------


## Angela

The Intro doesn't have a lot of content in it, but it does have this map from 2015 which I had forgotten about...explains a lot all by itself. It's labeled "farmers". I have to take a look at the paper to see how precisely it's defined.

[IMG][/IMG]

Even the chapter headings are causing some heartburn in all the expected cases: lots of "Iranian farmer" admixture. :)

----------


## Jovialis

> The Intro doesn't have a lot of content in it, but it does have this map from 2015 which I had forgotten about...explains a lot all by itself. It's labeled "farmers". I have to take a look at the paper to see how precisely it's defined.
> 
> [IMG][/IMG]
> 
> Even the chapter headings are causing some heartburn in all the expected cases: lots of "Iranian farmer" admixture. :)


I'm looking forward to delving into the book later this evening.

----------


## Angela

> I'm looking forward to delving into the book later this evening.


Well, this has got the usual suspects in an uproar, predictably:

"Ancient DNA available from this time in Anatolia shows no evidence of steppe ancestry similar to that in the Yamnaya (although the evidence here is circumstantial as no ancient DNA from the *Hittites* themselves *has yet be published*). This suggests to me that the* most likely location of the population that first spoke an Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus Mountains, perhaps in present-day Iran or Armenia*, because ancient DNA from people who lived there matches what we would expect for a source population both for the Yamnaya and for ancient Anatolians. If this scenario is right *the population sent one branch up into the steppe-mixing with steppe hunter-gatherers in a one-to-one ratio to become the Yamnaya as descriebed earlier- and another to Anatolia to found the ancestors of people there who spoke languages such as Hittite."

*
I think it's noteworthy that he says no ancient DNA from the Hittites has yet been "published". He doesn't say it hasn't been found, or analyzed, he just says it hasn't been published. Is that his usual, lawyerly precision with words because perhaps someone out there has analyzed them but not yet published, or is it because his lab has analyzed them but just not published yet. There's those 2000 samples he says that are analyzed but not yet written about.

So, I guess we still don't know, except we know how he, and presumably his Lab mates, are leaning.

----------


## Ailchu

> Well, this has got the usual suspects in an uproar, predictably: "Ancient DNA available from this time in Anatolia shows no evidence of steppe ancestry similar to that in the Yamnaya (although the evidence here is circumstantial as no ancient DNA from the *Hittites* themselves *has yet be published*). This suggests to me that the* most likely location of the population that first spoke an Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus Mountains, perhaps in present-day Iran or Armenia*, because ancient DNA from people who lived there matches what we would expect for a source population both for the Yamnaya and for ancient Anatolians. If this scenario is right *the population sent one branch up into the steppe-mixing with steppe hunter-gatherers in a one-to-one ratio to become the Yamnaya as descriebed earlier- and another to Anatolia to found the ancestors of people there who spoke languages such as Hittite."*  I think it's noteworthy that he says no ancient DNA from the Hittites has yet been "published". He doesn't say it hasn't been found, or analyzed, he just says it hasn't been published. Is that his usual, lawyerly precision with words because perhaps someone out there has analyzed them but not yet published, or is it because his lab has analyzed them but just not published yet. There's those 2000 samples he says that are analyzed but not yet written about. So, I guess we still don't know, except we know how he, and presumably his Lab mates, are leaning.


 i doubt his lab analyzed it or else he probably wouldn't make speculations in his book. isn't the indo-iranian language branch supposed to be one of the if not the youngest of the indo european tree. so if it originated in what is now iran it would not have affected southern iran for thousands of years while spreading north and west before it spread south?

----------


## Angela

> i doubt his lab analyzed it or else he wouldn't make speculations in his book. what's interessting for me is that the indo-iranian language branch is speculated to be one of the if not the youngest of the indo european tree. so if it originated in iran it would not have affected southern iran for hundreds of years while spreading north and west before it spread south?


He's not suggesting that Indo-Iranian arose in the south Caucasus. It would be the most ancient form of IE, the one that gave rise to the Anatolian branch.

----------


## Ygorcs

> Well, this has got the usual suspects in an uproar, predictably:
> 
> "Ancient DNA available from this time in Anatolia shows no evidence of steppe ancestry similar to that in the Yamnaya (although the evidence here is circumstantial as no ancient DNA from the *Hittites* themselves *has yet be published*). This suggests to me that the* most likely location of the population that first spoke an Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus Mountains, perhaps in present-day Iran or Armenia*, because ancient DNA from people who lived there matches what we would expect for a source population both for the Yamnaya and for ancient Anatolians. If this scenario is right *the population sent one branch up into the steppe-mixing with steppe hunter-gatherers in a one-to-one ratio to become the Yamnaya as descriebed earlier- and another to Anatolia to found the ancestors of people there who spoke languages such as Hittite."
> 
> *
> I think it's noteworthy that he says no ancient DNA from the Hittites has yet been "published". He doesn't say it hasn't been found, or analyzed, he just says it hasn't been published. Is that his usual, lawyerly precision with words because perhaps someone out there has analyzed them but not yet published, or is it because his lab has analyzed them but just not published yet. There's those 2000 samples he says that are analyzed but not yet written about.
> 
> So, I guess we still don't know, except we know how he, and presumably his Lab mates, are leaning.


That's really at least potentially game-changing. There'll be a lot of noise and resistance in many places, I bet. But just to make things clearer as I try to establish a chronology of facts and cultures in my mind (nothing too scientific, just my personal speculations that I wait to be confirmed, refined or totally destroyed by the next publications)... Do we know for certain what was the main autosomal admixtures of the Sredny Stog and where its earliest cultural influences came from? Is it possible that ancestor/sister clades of R1b-M269 were already quite common and diverse (well, in maps of diversity of R1b clades the area around the Black Sea coast always comes up in highlighted colors) in Transcaucasia or - as some speculated even years ago - in the Maykop area specifically? What would've been, if any, the relevance of Sredny Stog (there were some R1b found in it, or am I mistaken?) to the PIE cultural and linguistic formation, or should we now presume that there was a wholesale transformation and "Yamnization" of the entire steppe caused by the mixing of the EHG locals with that dominant Caucasian influx? I'm a bit confused as you can see...

----------


## Johane Derite

> Well, this has got the usual suspects in an uproar, predictably:
> 
> "Ancient DNA available from this time in Anatolia shows no evidence of steppe ancestry similar to that in the Yamnaya (although the evidence here is circumstantial as no ancient DNA from the *Hittites* themselves *has yet be published*). This suggests to me that the* most likely location of the population that first spoke an Indo-European language was south of the Caucasus Mountains, perhaps in present-day Iran or Armenia*, because ancient DNA from people who lived there matches what we would expect for a source population both for the Yamnaya and for ancient Anatolians. If this scenario is right *the population sent one branch up into the steppe-mixing with steppe hunter-gatherers in a one-to-one ratio to become the Yamnaya as descriebed earlier- and another to Anatolia to found the ancestors of people there who spoke languages such as Hittite."
> 
> *
> I think it's noteworthy that he says no ancient DNA from the Hittites has yet been "published". He doesn't say it hasn't been found, or analyzed, he just says it hasn't been published. Is that his usual, lawyerly precision with words because perhaps someone out there has analyzed them but not yet published, or is it because his lab has analyzed them but just not published yet. There's those 2000 samples he says that are analyzed but not yet written about.
> 
> So, I guess we still don't know, except we know how he, and presumably his Lab mates, are leaning.



Moderators should prepare for firestorms if this is true. 

Anyone that is on anthrogenica should go see what is just beginning to unfold... 

Get your popcorn ready

----------


## hrvclv

If the oldest forms of PIE were located south of the Caucasus, they were probably spoken by predominantly R1b people. How come the R1a people in the forested steppe of the north ended up speaking IE without notable influx of R1b ? You can borrow technological innovations from neighbors. It is harder to conceive why a people would give up their language. I think there still remains a lot for us to discover about PIE.

----------


## Ygorcs

> If the oldest forms of PIE were located south of the Caucasus, they were probably spoken by predominantly R1b people. How come the R1a people in the forested steppe of the north ended up speaking IE without notable influx of R1b ? You can borrow technological innovations from neighbors. It is harder to conceive why a people would give up their language. I think there still remains a lot for us to discover about PIE.


If the R1b men came also with many women and they were all full of CHG and some EHG admixture (which I think is most probable), then I don't think it is a big problem. The R1a men would've been coopted into the more advanced and prestigious culture originally brought by a majority of R1b men and their wives and daughters, possibly first as a useful lingua franca and "high status" 2nd language, then as the language of the elite (remember how many Ottoman Turks spoke Persian at the courts, or English elite, even those native to Britain, learned to speak French at the courts), and finally the common language of all the people, especially if there was a sizeable proportion of mothers, grandmothers and aunts of southern Early PIE origin, native speakers, among them through exogamy. I have imagined a similar scenario, but with an inverse influence, that is, the imposition of an originally EHG R1a/I2 language over a significant substrate of R1b language with more links to Old Europe or the Caucasus (this language could've even have influenced the later language of R1a men decisively, as a conquered but still prestigious and widely known language, much like it happened with Armenian vis a vis Hurro-Urartian much later)... So I think the opposite scenario (imposition of R1b language onto R1a people) is also at least possible.

----------


## Angela

Maciamo speculated years ago that R1b moved onto the steppe from the south if I remember correctly. He's been right about a lot of things.

We'll see what the ancient genomes show.

I'll tell you one thing: it doesn't seem as if Reich, and his Lab, I presume, are entertaining any horse riding cowboys raiding into the Caucasus for brides. :)

It's early days yet, though. It could be another yDna that just daughtered out or became a minority as the language and culture spread, if this is even the way it actually happened. Speculation is one thing, a paper that presents ancient dna and creates a well reasoned and persuasive argument is another, and we don't have the latter. 

@Johane,
I'll never understand the passion over this issue. Speaking personally, what does it matter where a language first started? 

@hrvclv,
Well, I speculated a couple of years ago that it was possible that the R1a "forest steppe" people were Indo-Europeanized, not Indo-European in the sense of language, culture, etc. but I stopped talking about it because the blowback was about the level of a Category 5 Hurricane. :)

Ed. Now the argument is going to be that the Hittites weren't "REAL" Indo-Europeans. They just never stop.

----------


## davef

Sadly, I'm sure Dave Reich made a lot of enemies due to his discussion about race not being a social construct and his new book. I wouldn't go by the overall average review score on amazon or other big commerce site when making a decision to buy the book, since I expect it to be dragged down quite a bit due to people blaming the messenger so to speak...

Edit: 
Angela:"Ed. Now the argument is going to be that the Hittites weren't "REAL" Indo-Europeans. They just never stop." 

Don't know what to say about that  :Useless:

----------


## Yetos

ok

I will try to find the book,
yet till it reach my country will take at least a month.



But still I have my 2 precautions


*1. question*  
history told us 
that he was powerfull against human cities,



could he be responsible for a genetic holocaust? 
remember the plague of Athenean democracy Λοιμος

*2. question* 
still wonndering for the 2 bellow, 
again I use Eupedia maps
A dilemma as i understood it following Macciamo logic and posts






Vasquez/ Gasgones 
have Gedrosian, but not Caucasian admixture.

Slavs have Caucasian but no Gedrosian admixture
*
ANY POSIBLE CLUE?



*and to make a joke, 
I do not know your taste of humor,
but mine sometimes is bad,
IF Africans gain some immunity to embola,
could Europe be a 'black' continent?
and how much?

----------


## Angela

This is what I meant above about the modeling using "Iran Farmer":


*Steppe:
Steppe pastorialist = Iran farmers + Steppe hunter gatheres (note distinction between Iran farmers with EEF and Anatolian below)

India:
ASI = Iran Farmers + Indian hunters
ANI = Steppe pastorialist + Iran farmers
Present India = ANI + ASI

Europe:
European farmers (EEF) = Anatolian farmer + European hunter gatherers
Northern European (Bronze age) =Eastern european farmer + Steppe pastorialist
South European Aegeans (Bronze age) =Iran farmers + European farmers
Present day Europeans = North + South european bronze age populations


**I don't see anything there about steppe into Aegean Bronze Age. Is he going with the Greek from Anatolia scenario?

For ANI by Iranian farmers do they mean BMAC farmers?*

----------


## Saetrus

> Vasquez/ Gasgones 
> have Gedrosian, but not Caucasian admixture.
> 
> Slavs have Caucasian but no Gedrosian admixture
> *
> ANY POSIBLE CLUE?*


There were two Indoeuropean expansions into Europe, one north that created EHG-CHG people in the Steppe, and one west that mixed with local farmers and spread R1b-L51, the Gedrosian component is related to the Indoeuropeans who expanded west.

----------


## Angela

Also,

""From seven thousand until five thousand years ago, we observed a steady influx into the steppe of *a population whose ancestors traced their origins to the south- as it bore genetic affinity to ancient and present-day Armenia and Iran-eventually crystallizing in the Yamnaya, who were about a one-to-one ratio of ancestry of those two sources. A good guess is that the migration proceeded via the Caucasus isthmus between the Black and Caspian Seas."

*

@Yetos, 
Those are clusters based on modern populations. Using them obscures more than enlightens.

----------


## Ownstyler

Can someone tell me why this issue is so controversial? Who is so sensitive to IE having started south of the Caucasus and why?

One more question from the discussion above. I understand Reich is suggesting Steppe IE had Iran/Armenian admixture. But does his model of IE spread involve two different waves, one that goes Iran/Armenia-->Anatolia-->Balkans and one that is basically the Bronze Age IE from the Steppe into the rest of Europe. If this is the case, should we not have two distinct IE groups? One would have Armenian, Anatolian, Greek and Albanian, and the other would have all the Slavic, Latin, Celtic and Germanic languages.

Or does his model suggest that it went from Armenia/Iran into the Steppe and then everywhere else from there?

----------


## Ygorcs

> This is what I meant above about the modeling using "Iran Farmer":
> 
> 
> *Steppe:
> Steppe pastorialist = Iran farmers + Steppe hunter gatheres (note distinction between Iran farmers with EEF and Anatolian below)
> 
> India:
> ASI = Iran Farmers + Indian hunters
> ANI = Steppe pastorialist + Iran farmers
> ...


Well, then ANI and Steppe Bronze Age were _already_ very similar to each even in the absence of any big population replacement? By the way, when is the ANI admixture dated, is it just a mid Bronze Age phenomenon (~2,000 BC)? If that's the case, then is it really believable that the ENTIRE Indian subcontinent (virtually half of Europe) was simply ASI before the Bronze Age?

----------


## Ygorcs

> Can someone tell me why this issue is so controversial? Who is so sensitive to IE having started south of the Caucasus and why?


Well, I presume some of them - not all, some are simply a bit "uncomfortable" with Early PIE not being _reeeeally_ European - find it most hard to accept that PIE may have come with people who definitely _did not_ fit their ideal "white man" with lily white skin (even though they were light skinned, they were probably light as most modern Iranians or Syrians, not like any present Northern European, but that we already knew and would be true even if PIE had arisen in the steppes, but of course among a steppe people with less 5,000 years of genetic evolution on skin pigmentation).

----------


## IronSide

> Well, I presume some of them - not all, some are simply a bit "uncomfortable" with Early PIE not being _reeeeally_ European - find it most hard to accept that PIE may have come with people who definitely _did not_ fit their ideal "white man" with lily white skin (even though they were light skinned, they were probably light as most modern Iranians or Syrians, not like any present Northern European, but that we already knew and would be true even if PIE had arisen in the steppes, but of course among a steppe people with less 5,000 years of genetic evolution on skin pigmentation).


What is really European in their mindset ? Europeans could be modelled as a mixture of the Near Eastern cline + European HG cline. anyone who fits this model is European.

European hunter-gatherers aren't European in the same sense Near Easterners are not European.

----------


## davef

Just out of curiosity, are you folks getting anything out of the book and learning new things? Or is it geared towards people who haven't seen forums like ours or kept up with the latest research?

----------


## Yetos

> Can someone tell me why this issue is so controversial? Who is so sensitive to IE having started south of the Caucasus and why?
> 
> One more question from the discussion above. I understand Reich is suggesting Steppe IE had Iran/Armenian admixture. But does his model of IE spread involve two different waves, one that goes Iran/Armenia-->Anatolia-->Balkans and one that is basically the Bronze Age IE from the Steppe into the rest of Europe. If this is the case, should we not have two distinct IE groups? One would have Armenian, Anatolian, Greek and Albanian, and the other would have all the Slavic, Latin, Celtic and Germanic languages.
> 
> Or does his model suggest that it went from Armenia/Iran into the Steppe and then everywhere else from there?


That is what I Believe years today in the forum,
but my first guess, Laz area was wrong, it seems it was the Caspian shores, and not the black sea shores.

Yes we have not 2 but 3 IE migrations to Europe,

the Steppe and the Anatolian and both.

in fact considering the Graeco-Aryan,
Steppe IE enter 2 waves in Europe
one as Early mixed with Caucas
and one pure that passed from Iran/aryan before.

----------


## davef

> What is really European in their mindset ? Europeans could be modelled as a mixture of the Near Eastern cline + European HG cline. anyone who fits this model is European.
> 
> European hunter-gatherers aren't European in the same sense Near Easterners are not European.


You hit the nail on the head!!

----------


## Salento

It’s not always easy to capture the vibe and mood of a post and at times it’s hard to tell if someone is been serious, joking, mocking, sarcastic, cruel, or agenda driven. Most of us (me included), should try to be more clear. 

I’m not talking about Davef, Yetos, Ironside, Angela, Jovalis, and....... LOL

----------


## Yetos

> Sorry, I can't resist but that rat is CUUUUUTE!!! :) Worthless post, but still..:)


I wonder how much is that still ..... to consider worthless,
something that even modern populations do not show.
I think you got the point.

----------


## Yetos

> @Yetos, 
> Those are clusters based on modern populations. Using them obscures more than enlightens.



Yes Angela.
but if even modern populations do show the expected results of an ancient presence, .......
I passed, but I did not left a single mark?

----------


## Ygorcs

> What is really European in their mindset ? Europeans could be modelled as a mixture of the Near Eastern cline + European HG cline. anyone who fits this model is European.
> 
> European hunter-gatherers aren't European in the same sense Near Easterners are not European.


Yes, definitely, I agree with you, but I wouldn't expect that reasonability and coherence from "them" if I were you. It's bound to be a disappointment.  :Wink:

----------


## Balkanite

> Can someone tell me why this issue is so controversial? Who is so sensitive to IE having started south of the Caucasus and why?
> 
> One more question from the discussion above. I understand Reich is suggesting Steppe IE had Iran/Armenian admixture. But does his model of IE spread involve two different waves, one that goes Iran/Armenia-->Anatolia-->Balkans and one that is basically the Bronze Age IE from the Steppe into the rest of Europe. If this is the case, should we not have two distinct IE groups? One would have Armenian, Anatolian, Greek and Albanian, and the other would have all the Slavic, Latin, Celtic and Germanic languages.
> 
> Or does his model suggest that it went from Armenia/Iran into the Steppe and then everywhere else from there?


For scholars it is not really that controversial. Of course there are always some outliers, some nazis who want the urheimat to be i germany, some indian nationalists want it to be in India, and so on. But the majority of academics go with the steppe hypothesis or the anatolian hypothesis. 

The main reason people on these blogs are so much against IE coming from south of the caucasus, is because it would totally debunk EHG as some übermensch group (which some eastern euros today are trying do make them look like). Because if IE came from the south, it probably means theres a good chance some kind of J2b, G2a, R1b (or all 3) went to the steppe and assimilated the EHG's into Indo europeans.

----------


## IronSide

> *2. question* 
> still wonndering for the 2 bellow, 
> again I use Eupedia maps
> A dilemma as i understood it following Macciamo logic and posts
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ...


These clusters are indeed based on moderns, but I think they do "correlate" with some ancient populations.

When you cluster people at K=3, you usually get West_Eurasian, East_Eurasian, and African clusters. at a higher K, West_Eurasian divides into a Baltic_Atlantic cluster and a Near Eastern cluster, these two ultimately divide into the four closely related clusters: 

1-Southwest Asian. 
2-Mediterranean. 
3-North European. 
4-West Asian.

4 is different from 1, 1 is high in Arabians, Levantines, and North Africans. While 4 is Caucasian, Iranian, and South_Central Asian.

When running ancient samples through calculators that employ this scheme, Iran_N and CHG score high levels of West Asian, European farmers have high Meditteranean, SHG are high in North European, and Natufians are high in Southwest Asian.

At higher K, West Asian separates into two clusters: Caucasian and Baloch/Gedrosia.

Abkhasians are a Caucasian people, they have about 50% West Asian and 25% Meditteranean, but when you have a Caucasus cluster they become 70% Caucasian, 20% Baloch, and 0% Meditteranean !! why ?

Caucasus cluster contains the Med Alleles that were previously assigned to Meditteranean, when you run ancient samples, European farmers are now 35+ Caucasian.

Look at this PCA, Abkhasians and Georgians, who are the modal populations for the Caucasus cluster, are closer to the Meditteranean than the Makrani and Baloch peoples, who are high in Gedrosia.



The reason why the Yamnaya had Baloch but not Caucasus is because they didn't have adequate EEF ancestry that would make it more Caucasian.

----------


## hrvclv

Well... the conclusion I draw from all your remarks above is a bit discouraging : when we run our data through the calculators, they refer to a number of "original populations". For the sake of clarity, we end up taking those categories for granted, as if they were "rock bottom", unique, clearly distinct populations. 

But Anatolian Farmers were, to varying degrees, Natufian + Caucasus + NW Iran. 
Steppe were EHG + WHG + Caucasus + NW Iran, but not all of them, if I get it right. And EHG themselves were WHG + ANE.

At the end of the day, it becomes simply impossible for a western European to trace what share of his "Caucasus" came with EEF, what share came with Steppe. The same goes for SW Asia. And what about that WHG the calculators assign to me ? Was it here in western Europe 20,000 years ago ? How much of it was picked on the way during migrations ? How much of it was already part of the Steppe admixture ?  :Sad: 

Can we reasonably hope that over time geneticists will be able to refine their analyses precisely enough for such questions to be cleared ?

PS : How does the Kura-Araxes culture fit into the patterns described upthread ? If they did speak some form of IE (of which I have no idea), they could be a link in the NW Iran > Anatolia > Balkans > Graeco-Thracian hypothesis (?).

----------


## bicicleur

for those who think R1b-M269 crossed the Caucasus to get to the Pontic steppe, I think it is strange we don't find any in early Armenian
afaik the earliest is the Yamna R1b-Z2103 and it postdates Yamna

if the PIE was in Transkaukasia, it is not sure they were R1b-M269

as for the Hittites, bear in mind that it was a multilinqual, multi-ethnical empire under IE leadership
proof of that is to be found in the multilingual library of Hatussa
it was not a solid block like Egypt, it was more a confederacy of semi-autonomous tribes paying tribute to the Hittite kings
every time the Hittite king went to war, he had to ask a military contingency from each of these tribes
that made the empire weak every time there was a dispute over succession

the Hittite empire came to existence when a small IE tribe conquered the land of the Hatti, who were non-IE
before that the Assyrians had their own free-trade zone in the land of the Hatti, maybe even a colony

but weren't there other languages of the 'Anatolian branch' like e.g. Luwian?

----------


## IronSide

> for those who think R1b-M269 crossed the Caucasus to get to the Pontic steppe, I think it is strange we don't find any in early Armenian
> afaik the earliest is the Yamna R1b-Z2103 and it postdates Yamna
> if the PIE was in Transkaukasia, it is not sure they were R1b-M269
> as for the Hittites, bear in mind that it was a multilinqual, multi-ethnical empire under IE leadership
> proof of that is to be found in the multilingual library of Hatussa
> it was not a solid block like Egypt, it was more a confederacy of semi-autonomous tribes paying tribute to the Hittite kings
> every time the Hittite king went to war, he had to ask a military contingency from each of these tribes
> that made the empire weak every time there was a dispute over succession
> *the Hittite empire came to existence when a small IE tribe conquered the land of the Hatti*, who were non-IE
> ...


How did you determine they were a small tribe ? There are many Anatolian languages in Anatolia, that to me doesn't suggest they were a small tribe.

----------


## bicicleur

> How did you determine they were a small tribe ? There are many Anatolian languages in Anatolia, that to me doesn't suggest they were a small tribe.


The Hittite language was a distinct member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family, and along with the related Luwian language, is the oldest historically attested Indo-European language.[2] Hittites referred to their native land as Hatti. The conventional name "Hittites" is due to their initial identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Despite their use of the name Hatti for their core territory, the Hittites should be distinguished from the Hattians, an earlier people who inhabited the same region (until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC) and spoke an unrelated language known as Hattic.[3]

They were not Luwian, they were another tribe.
The Assyrians don't mention them, they mention the Hatti, whose land all of a sudden is conquered by the Hittites, and it becomes the core area of the new empire. It is speculated that the Hittites were a herding tribe, to the southeast of the land of the Hatti.
The Hatti were not displaced, they became part of the empire, and probably most of them kept speaking the Hattian language.
Hittite was the language of the ruling elite though and became the official language of the empire.

----------


## IronSide

> The Hittite language was a distinct member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family, and along with the related Luwian language, is the oldest historically attested Indo-European language.[2] Hittites referred to their native land as Hatti. The conventional name "Hittites" is due to their initial identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Despite their use of the name Hatti for their core territory, the Hittites should be distinguished from the Hattians, an earlier people who inhabited the same region (until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC) and spoke an unrelated language known as Hattic.[3]
> They were not Luwian, they were another tribe.
> The Assyrians don't mention them, they mention the Hatti, whose land all of a sudden is conquered by the Hittites, and it becomes the core area of the new empire. It is speculated that the Hittites were a herding tribe, to the southeast of the land of the Hatti.


Given that their name didn't pass to their city, ok, granted.

But were the Luwians, Palaians, and Lydians small tribes too ? if they weren't then some admixture should have accompanied their arrival.

----------


## bicicleur

> Given that their name didn't pass to their city, ok, granted.
> But were the Luwians, Palaians, and Lydians small tribes too ? if they weren't then some admixture should have accompanied their arrival.


I don't know. It is strange that all these Anatolian tribes emerge ca 4 ka out of nowhere, while it seperated from PIE some 2000 years earlier.

----------


## IronSide

> I don't know. It is strange that all these Anatolian tribes emerge ca 4 ka out of nowhere, while it seperated from PIE some 2000 years earlier.


They may have been there before 4 ka, the absence of written records doesn't imply they didn't exist.

----------


## Angela

> These clusters are indeed based on moderns, but I think they do "correlate" with some ancient populations.
> When you cluster people at K=3, you usually get West_Eurasian, East_Eurasian, and African clusters. at a higher K, West_Eurasian divides into a Baltic_Atlantic cluster and a Near Eastern cluster, these two ultimately divide into the four closely related clusters: 
> 1-Southwest Asian. 
> 2-Mediterranean. 
> 3-North European. 
> 4-West Asian.
> 4 is different from 1, 1 is high in Arabians, Levantines, and North Africans. While 4 is Caucasian, Iranian, and South_Central Asian.
> When running ancient samples through calculators that employ this scheme, Iran_N and CHG score high levels of West Asian, European farmers have high Meditteranean, SHG are high in North European, and Natufians are high in Southwest Asian.
> At higher K, West Asian separates into two clusters: Caucasian and Baloch/Gedrosia.
> ...


I don't disagree, but as Dienekes pointed out himself about his and other people's calculators, "Caucasus" is not exactly the same component in each calculator. The clusters are not always exactly the same, so, it's important not to make any concrete and rigid conclusions when using them.

Also, I'd be wary of using the amateur analyses showing things like 35% Caucasus in EEF. Frankly, imo, most of the people posting this stuff have no idea what they're doing. They throw everything except the kitchen sink at the algorithms and if they like the result they post it. I see people mixing samples from wildly different eras, for example. 

One thing is clear. If we stick to one calculator and compare the samples, the "Caucasus" cluster increased in European farmers with time, with Copper Age Otzi having a good chunk. 

[IMG][/IMG]

So, this movement of more CHG heavy people started in the Copper Age, and I think got even heavier in the Bronze Age. 

What I also know is that you can't look at the "Gedrosia" cluster percentages and think you're getting the "Indo-European" input in certain areas. Italy is an example. Every academic study shows that at least for Northern Italy and Tuscany, the Indo-European "steppe" percentage is around 25-30% depending on the area. That's far more than what the Gedrosia map shows. 

That's what I mean when I say that it can confuse people more than enlighten them.

----------


## bicicleur

> They may have been there before 4 ka, the absence of written records doesn't imply they didn't exist.


yes, but unnoticed by Assyrians or others, unlike the Hattians

----------


## bicicleur

I just ordered my hardcover copy, but it will probably take 3 weeks to cross the Ocean and get delivered here.

----------


## hrvclv

> Also, I'd be wary of using the amateur analyses showing things like 35% Caucasus in EEF. Frankly, imo, most of the people posting this stuff have no idea what they're doing. They throw everything except the kitchen sink at the algorithms and if they like the result they post it. I see people mixing samples from wildly different eras, for example. 
> One thing is clear. If we stick to one calculator and compare the samples, the "Caucasus" cluster increased in European farmers with time, with Copper Age Otzi having a good chunk. 
> So, this movement of more CHG heavy people started in the Copper Age, and I think got even heavier in the Bronze Age. 
> What I also know is that you can't look at the "Gedrosia" cluster percentages and think you're getting the "Indo-European" input in certain areas. Italy is an example. Every academic study shows that at least for Northern Italy and Tuscany, the Indo-European "steppe" percentage is around 25-30% depending on the area. That's far more than what the Gedrosia map shows. 
> That's what I mean when I say that it can confuse people more than enlighten them.


As one of those amateurs you quite legitimately incriminate, I confirm that those Caucasus and Gedrosia percentages have always baffled me. I have my own hypothesis about the rise of Caucasus and Gedrosia percentages in copper age Europe though. What I imagine is a rather massive wave of newcomers from the Kura-Araxes culture, distinct from and much posterior to the original Farmer migrations. A movement that would be somehow parallel (and perhaps simultaneous) to the migration from the steppe further north. They would have brought a lot of J to Greece, for example, but with Anatolia on the way, they would have been quite farmer-admixed by the time they got there - blending as much as replacing. 

They could even have spoken an Anatolian IE language. Which would explain why Mycenians spoke IE without drastically altering the autosomal makeup of ancient Greece after their arrival. Let me repeat I am an amateur. If what's above is simply foolish, feel free to say so.

----------


## Angela

> What is really European in their mindset ? Europeans could be modelled as a mixture of the Near Eastern cline + European HG cline. anyone who fits this model is European.
> 
> European hunter-gatherers aren't European in the same sense Near Easterners are not European.


There's nothing logical about their stance. The scientists have been telling us for years that "Europeans" are a mixture of three ancient populations (and those are again a mixture of other ancient populations) in different proportions depending on the area. The *earliest* you could start talking about "Europeans" as an "ethnic" cluster is the Bronze Age. 

A lot of the furor is really just a form of disguised racism, imho. First the usual suspects wanted to define Europeans by how much WHG, because it was the "native" (really just the first to arrive, of course) group. When it turned out they might have been dark skinned, it was suddenly the EHG (the SHG were the really light ones, but there's little evidence they had a big impact) proportion that was important. However, the language, the cultural changes were "Indo-European", so that was the important thing. Unfortunately, data came out that the "Indo-Europeans" were, according to the researchers, close to 50% modern "Armenian like". That couldn't be allowed to stand. I remember what seemed like months of frantic modeling to show it wasn't so. At worst, it was half Georgian like. Somehow Georgians are more acceptable, maybe because looking "Armenian" is, for these people, associated with looking Jewish. Same goes for "Iranian like" I guess: it's too dark and Muslim as well. So, the push came to define it solely as "CHG" Caucasus "hunters" and imply they had been north of the Caucasus so they weren't REALLY Middle Easterners. 

Well, the chickens came home to roost, and before this book. The "Indo-European" ancestry by which they try to define "European-ness" is REALLY half "Middle Eastern", although now they say "West Asian", as if that's more palatable. 

It couldn't happen to more deserving people. :)

@Ygorcs
Why do you say steppe people and ANI were already *very* similar? They both had an "Iranian farmer" like component, to use Reich's terminology, heavily CHG, but the other half was wildly different: EHG vs. ASI

I don't know why it should be surprising if all of India was ASI before the arrival of the Iranian farmers and the steppe people. All of Europe was WHG. All of the New World was Amerindian, mostly from one migration pulse. 

@Yetos,
The Caspian shores look like a good bet also just going by the geography: that's the only corridor I see other than some mountain passes. 

We've discussed this on the site a lot of times.

I'm really interested to see if they have the pertinent Iranian samples, and Maykop as well. 

@Bicicleur,
If it *is* some form of R1b the pertinent samples may be unpublished, coming perhaps from areas closer to Iran. Years ago Jean Manco had speculated that perhaps R1b and R1a could have spent part of the year south of the Caucasus. Who knows, maybe she was right.

It could also be another y lineage, however, perhaps the more "northern" G2a or J2b.

It seems to me that the Indo-European speakers in Anatolia covered a pretty wide area:



I know that the samples Reich is talking about were from southwestern Anatolia. So, you'd think there'd be some hint of "steppe" in that area, no?

----------


## Johane Derite

> There were two Indoeuropean expansions into Europe, one north that created EHG-CHG people in the Steppe, and one west that mixed with local farmers and spread R1b-L51, the Gedrosian component is related to the Indoeuropeans who expanded west.


I haven't heard this one before. 





This is Maciamo's explanation on the R1b page:

Towards the end of the 5th millennium, an elite starts to develop with cattle, horses and copper used as status symbols. It is at the turn of the Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog periods that R1b-M269's main subclade, L23, is thought to have appeared, around 4,500 BCE. 99% of Indo-European R1b descends from this L23 clade. The other branch descended from M269 is PF7562, which is found mostly in the Balkans, Turkey and Armenia today, and may represent an early Steppe migration to the Balkans dating from the Sredny Stog period.











From this article https://r1b-pf7562.blogspot.am/: 

""In the mythology of the ancient Greeks, the Illyrians and Celts are relatives: "A later version of this mythic genealogy gives as parents Polyphemus and Galatea, who gave birth to Celtus, Galas, and Illyrius, three brothers, progenitors respectively of Celts, Galatians and Illyrians expresses perceived similarities to Celts and Gauls on the part of the mythographe. " Carriers PF7562 and Z2103 in Bashkortostan and Dagestan are descendants of representatives of a pit archaeological culture: the sub-Bashkirs and Dagestanis are the same as the fossil remains of the Yam culture. Yamnaya culture"



Do these distributions and maps align?

Also I think J2b2-L283 seems to corroborate with M269:

----------


## Angela

> I haven't heard this one before. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is Maciamo's explanation on the R1b page:
> 
> Towards the end of the 5th millennium, an elite starts to develop with cattle, horses and copper used as status symbols. It is at the turn of the Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog periods that R1b-M269's main subclade, L23, is thought to have appeared, around 4,500 BCE. 99% of Indo-European R1b descends from this L23 clade. The other branch descended from M269 is PF7562, which is found mostly in the Balkans, Turkey and Armenia today, and may represent an early Steppe migration to the Balkans dating from the Sredny Stog period.
> ...


Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that there is a too rigid attempt to precisely align yDna lineage with language. 

Y lines can be wildly different in terms of autosomal make up. Just look at the J1 sample in Karelia, or all the I2a farmers in Europe. Language is the same. The language a y line speaks can differ over time. Look at all the R1b and R1a Turkic speakers. 

The question which I find very interesting is whether the so called "West Asian" lineages of R1b, the more upstream ones that show up a lot in the Balkans and southern Italy as well as in the Middle East are all from originally non-Indo-European speaking people, or if some of it is from early "Anatolian" Indo-European speakers. 

It would really help to know the y lines of the non J2a Mycenaeans, although the argument could still be made that it came early from the steppe, as was Maciamo's position. 

That's why I want to start reading the book, to see if there are any further clues as to which way the Reich Lab is leaning in terms of whether the first Greek speakers came down from the steppe through the Balkans, or perhaps from the northern Anatolian coast. 

One factor not to lose sight of is that we're now finding a lot of ancient R1b in the Balkans. If it was also in the Caucasus or nearby, we're talking about an incredible range.

----------


## Pygmalion

Let's make things clear. Hittite and Luwian were both very closely related, Lydian on the other hand, is quite different from Hittite and Luwian despite being part of the Anatolian branch of the Indoeuropean family, also while Luwian and Hittite are recorded since the second millenium bc, Lydian is only attested since the 8-7th century bc, and because of this some scholars believe Lydians might have migrated to Lydia after the bronze age , because the only bronze age inscriptions from the area that would later become Lydia in the iron age are all Luwian. Also let's not confuse Lydian with Lycian, although the names sound similar, Lycian is considered to be a dialect of Luwian, along with the Carian, Sidetic and Pisidic languages.

----------


## Angela

> Please let's not mix things up. Hittite and Luwian were both very closely related, Lydian on the other hand, is quite different from Hittite and Luwian despite being part of the Anatolian branch of the Indoeuropean family, also while Luwian and Hittite are recorded since the second millenium bc, Lydian is only attested since the 8-7th century bc, and because of this some scholars believe Lydians might have migrated to Lydia after the bronze age , because the only bronze age inscriptions from the area that would later become Lydia in the iron age are all Luwian. Also let's not confuse Lydian with Lycian, although the names sound similar, Lycian is considered to be a dialect of Luwian, along with the Carian, Sidetic and Pisidic languages.


All very interesting, but the fact remains that if the speakers of those languages arrived in Anatolia from the steppe via the Balkans, we should see quite a bit of WHG and EHG, and from the samples which have been published from southwestern Anatolia where Anatolian languages were present, they're not there.

Now, that's not a lot of samples, but given the Reich Lab has 2000 analyzed but not published samples, and he's going out on a limb with a speculation like this, I think it may be true either that the "Anatolian" languages originated in Anatolia, or perhaps that they moved south through the Caucasus. Since he doesn't mention that as a possibility, perhaps they have other samples from around Leyla Tepe, for example, or from the Stans that leads him to believe the first form of IE was spoken south of the Caucasus. 

I don't know what the real answer is. Even given who he is, without a paper and actual samples, I can't make a judgment.

----------


## Yetos

> These clusters are indeed based on moderns, but I think they do "correlate" with some ancient populations.
> 
> When you cluster people at K=3, you usually get West_Eurasian, East_Eurasian, and African clusters. at a higher K, West_Eurasian divides into a Baltic_Atlantic cluster and a Near Eastern cluster, these two ultimately divide into the four closely related clusters: 
> 
> 1-Southwest Asian. 
> 2-Mediterranean. 
> 3-North European. 
> 4-West Asian.
> 
> ...



Τhank you Iron
but I think you just add a clue to my observation,

cause I still believe that aryan came from Steppe to Yamnaa 
but made a circle of caspian sea, 

I have the feeling,
and the vision of IEanisation of steppe,

I mean could Gedrosian be IEanised ?
and then enter Europe from North paths of Caucasus??

and become so high to Europe, especially Western after the known plate disease strikes,
as immune?

straight as possible,
could Gedrosian not to be a proto-mark of IE,
but a second IEnised and then expand?

----------


## Yetos

> for those who think R1b-M269 crossed the Caucasus to get to the Pontic steppe, I think it is strange we don't find any in early Armenian
> afaik the earliest is the Yamna R1b-Z2103 and it postdates Yamna
> 
> if the PIE was in Transkaukasia, it is not sure they were R1b-M269
> 
> as for the Hittites, bear in mind that it was a multilinqual, multi-ethnical empire under IE leadership
> proof of that is to be found in the multilingual library of Hatussa
> it was not a solid block like Egypt, it was more a confederacy of semi-autonomous tribes paying tribute to the Hittite kings
> every time the Hittite king went to war, he had to ask a military contingency from each of these tribes
> ...



hm
I am thinking

Hettit and Hattian are the most known in the Hettit empire,

could it be the Same as Mycenean Minoan?
as the last Lazarides papper?

you jusτ add a new horizon to see the view
or you just deceive my view?

hmmm

----------


## IronSide

> There's nothing logical about their stance. The scientists have been telling us for years that "Europeans" are a mixture of three ancient populations (and those are again a mixture of other ancient populations) in different proportions depending on the area. The *earliest* you could start talking about "Europeans" as an "ethnic" cluster is the Bronze Age. 
> 
> A lot of the furor is really just a form of disguised racism, imho. First the usual suspects wanted to define Europeans by how much WHG, because it was the "native" (really just the first to arrive, of course) group. When it turned out they might have been dark skinned, it was suddenly the EHG (the SHG were the really light ones, but there's little evidence they had a big impact) proportion that was important. However, the language, the cultural changes were "Indo-European", so that was the important thing. Unfortunately, data came out that the "Indo-Europeans" were, according to the researchers, close to 50% modern "Armenian like". That couldn't be allowed to stand. I remember what seemed like months of frantic modeling to show it wasn't so. At worst, it was half Georgian like. Somehow Georgians are more acceptable, maybe because looking "Armenian" is, for these people, associated with looking Jewish. Same goes for "Iranian like" I guess: it's too dark and Muslim as well. So, the push came to define it solely as "CHG" Caucasus "hunters" and imply they had been north of the Caucasus so they weren't REALLY Middle Easterners. 
> 
> Well, the chickens came home to roost, and before this book. The "Indo-European" ancestry by which they try to define "European-ness" is REALLY half "Middle Eastern", although now they say "West Asian", as if that's more palatable. 
> 
> It couldn't happen to more deserving people. :)


Well, as long as they dont have political influence, who cares :)

Middle Easterns should turn out to be a mixture of Basal Eurasians and groups related to European hunter-gatherers, with further dilution of Basal compared to the Neolithic, by ancestry in the direction of Europe actually. We're composed of the same elements, with different proportions.

That doesn't mean racism is justified when we're not descended from the same populations :) I just felt saying that. must be my diplomatic leaning personality.

----------


## Angela

> Well, as long as they dont have political influence, who cares :)
> Middle Easterns should turn out to be a mixture of Basal Eurasians and groups related to European hunter-gatherers, with further dilution of Basal compared to the Neolithic, by ancestry in the direction of Europe actually. We're composed of the same elements, with different proportions.
> That doesn't mean racism is justified when we're not descended from the same populations :) I just felt saying that. must be my diplomatic leaning personality.


Looks to me like they have a lot of political influence in Eastern Europe, and look set to have more, and it's starting in Western Europe, too. Goebbels said that if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth. He's right. Sometimes what look like ridiculous, stupid demagogues amass a lot of power. 

Sorry, but I think you have a very short-sighted view, particularly as a member of a group that would be targeted.

----------


## Yetos

> Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that there is a too rigid attempt to precisely align yDna lineage with language. 
> 
> Y lines can be wildly different in terms of autosomal make up. Just look at the J1 sample in Karelia, or all the I2a farmers in Europe. Language is the same. The language a y line speaks can differ over time. Look at all the R1b and R1a Turkic speakers. 
> 
> The question which I find very interesting is whether the so called "West Asian" lineages of R1b, the more upstream ones that show up a lot in the Balkans and southern Italy as well as in the Middle East are all from originally non-Indo-European speaking people, or if some of it is from early "Anatolian" Indo-European speakers. 
> 
> It would really help to know the y lines of the non J2a Mycenaeans, although the argument could still be made that it came early from the steppe, as was Maciamo's position. 
> 
> That's why I want to start reading the book, to see if there are any further clues as to which way the Reich Lab is leaning in terms of whether the first Greek speakers came down from the steppe through the Balkans, or perhaps from the northern Anatolian coast. 
> ...


*
AT LAST

*I love you now,
*
That is the main problem,
*
and that creates more Questions,
for example

the root of 'Lazarides' proved genetically Myceneans and their road,
*IS TOTTALY OUT OF YAMNAANS 

So instead of one migration from steppe to Yamnaa to Europe
We might had 2 tottaly unconnected different migrations

and in my eyes there is also the iron age Schytian migration
a 3rd wave heavily steppe.


AND TO CONTINUE
IF WE CONSIDER G as IE
especially the G2a, Kleitos etc
THEN WE MIGHT HAVE IE SPOKEN IN BALKANS MUCH BEFORE R1b and R1a,

WHICH MEANS THAT R1b/R1a Genetical marks does not fit with where PIE first spoken
**But got IEanised just before enter Europe.
and/but its migration show the IE language expansion only,
But not the proto-land of where IE spoken
(allow me to use the term proto-land, I do not know how else to express it)
*

----------


## Angela

> *
> AT LAST
> 
> *I love you now,
> 
> That is the main problem,
> 
> and that creates more Questions,
> for example
> ...


You should have loved me all along; I always thought there were two possibilities! :)

An interesting fact is that Afghans may be even more "steppe" than Europeans. I think they have 50% or more "steppe". Does that mean they're more "European" than Spaniards, and able to fit into European culture? This is the kind of unintended consequences you get from the stupidity that some of the people in this hobby peddle.

The Scythians were Tajik like from what I've seen, which actually makes sense. Remember all the modeling trying to prove they were Slavs? 

What a tangled web, indeed.

----------


## IronSide

> Looks to me like they have a lot of political influence in Eastern Europe, and look set to have more, and it's starting in Western Europe, too. Goebbels said that if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth. He's right. Sometimes what look like ridiculous, stupid demagogues amass a lot of power. 
> 
> Sorry, but I think you have a very short-sighted view, particularly as a member of a group that would be targeted.


Maybe I have :) we all die eventually.

As to my group being targeted, my group doesn't think we're one group, we still target each other :)

----------


## Yetos

> You should have loved me all along; I always thought there were two possibilities! :)
> 
> An interesting fact is that Afghans may be even more "steppe" than Europeans. I think they have 50% or more "steppe". Does that mean they're more "European" than Spaniards, and able to fit into European culture? This is the kind of unintended consequences you get from the stupidity that some of the people in this hobby peddle.
> 
> The Scythians were Tajik like from what I've seen, which actually makes sense. Remember all the modeling trying to prove they were Slavs? 
> 
> What a tangled web, indeed.


personally I believe that Scythians contribute to Slavic identification/ethnogenesis
but not the oposite.

in fact I believe they were Steppe Satem para-Aryan speakers,
and ancient historians describe quite well considering them outer-Persians (Iranians)
or maybe due to linguistic Satem ? ....


there are thoughts,
that we all afraid to express,
since we are all not gods,
and in a very open new field as genetics
EACH YEAR WE MIGHT REGREAT WHAT WE SAID THE YEAR BEFORE,
yet as search 'walks' better say runs,
today we have some stable to consider as basis,

----------


## Yetos

As the power of my mouse




HIS NAME IS ΜΥΣ Ο ΠΟΝΤΙΚΟΣ
BLACK SEA MOUSE,
he loves to travel with ships, and live in harbors
*
AND HE IS POWERFULL

*consider that he Killed millions of humans
some still consider it responsible for

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Athens


neither is he, a 'weak' against humans

----------


## Ygorcs

> 


Hey, completely off topic, but I couldn't resist this doubt: why is WHG so distant from EHG? I thought I had read that EHG was basically a mix of something like WHG with (a minor percentage of, something ~30%) ANE. Isn't that right? If EHG and WHG shared a large percentage of their ancestry, why would they be so unlike each other in the PCA?

----------


## IronSide

> Hey, completely off topic, but I couldn't resist this doubt: why is WHG so distant from EHG? I thought I had read that EHG was basically a mix of something like WHG with (a minor percentage of, something ~30%) ANE. Isn't that right? If EHG and WHG shared a large percentage of their ancestry, why would they be so unlike each other in the PCA?


No, the majority of the ancestry of EHG is ANE, which they share with Native Americans. about 75% ANE, the rest is WHG.

----------


## Falco

> This is what I meant above about the modeling using "Iran Farmer":
> 
> 
> *Steppe:
> Steppe pastorialist = Iran farmers + Steppe hunter gatheres (note distinction between Iran farmers with EEF and Anatolian below)
> 
> India:
> ASI = Iran Farmers + Indian hunters
> ANI = Steppe pastorialist + Iran farmers
> ...


How exactly can Iranian Farmer be modeled? Judging from the chart just above my post it looks like Neolithic Iranian is about half Basal Eurasian but what else? That chart doesn't specify.

----------


## Yetos

i posted in another thread,

I am repeating my shelf,
Sorry,

many times I even deny myshelf
many times I choose nearby areas,
passage through Caucasus

but seems new aproach suggests this model
for the listuistic term of IE,



and not this





Gush how many years to pass to crystalize our view?

@ Ironside

consider about Ballochi and caucasian in Yamnaa,
which model fits best you believe?

----------


## Angela

> As one of those amateurs you quite legitimately incriminate, I confirm that those Caucasus and Gedrosia percentages have always baffled me. I have my own hypothesis about the rise of Caucasus and Gedrosia percentages in copper age Europe though. What I imagine is a rather massive wave of newcomers from the Kura-Araxes culture, distinct from and much posterior to the original Farmer migrations. A movement that would be somehow parallel (and perhaps simultaneous) to the migration from the steppe further north. They would have brought a lot of J to Greece, for example, but with Anatolia on the way, they would have been quite farmer-admixed by the time they got there - blending as much as replacing. 
> They could even have spoken an Anatolian IE language. Which would explain why Mycenians spoke IE without drastically altering the autosomal makeup of ancient Greece after their arrival. Let me repeat I am an amateur. If what's above is simply foolish, feel free to say so.


Well, I guess we're both foolish if that's wrong, because I've said something similar in the past, at least in so far as I've speculated that there might have been a sort of pincer like movement of "CHG like" ancestry, with one going onto the steppe and then from there into at least central and northern Europe, and one going more westward across Anatolia, hitting southeast Europe and Italy more heavily, but also filtering through into Iberia, and then moving north from those areas.

I've referred back to the old Dienekes idea of the Caucasus as a sort of "womb of nations", a continuation of what happened with the Neolithic farmers spreading north/northwest to other parts of West Asia and Europe, southeast to India, south to Egypt and Africa, and west, also along the southern coast of the Mediterranean, i.e. North Africa. Then the steppe component also radiated to far flung areas. 

Where I differ is in holding that the Gedrosia component is the only one that tracks the movements from the steppe. If that were the case, why does the map of it show much less than the 25-30% of steppe we know is in Northern Italy and Tuscany, for example?

We're all amateurs, btw, even the famous bloggers. Some of us have just been at it for ten years and more.

----------


## Angela

This is the Johannes Krause (Max Planck Institute) model for the spread of IE. He presented it at a conference. When he introduced it, he said this is the model "we" came up with...I don't know the identity of the "we". Nor do I know if "they've" modified it.



I don't think this is precisely what Reich is talking about. He sees something coming from the steppe to India. The graphic above also doesn't show the "Iranian" farmer input into South Asia.

----------


## ROS

This map is more concordant in general lines with reality, I do not say that it is something definitive, but it can give an answer to:


- Centum vs satem
- R1b vs R1a main European haplogroups.


That I consider that the hypothesis of the steppe does not respond to any of these questions.


But of course it follows the incognita of Ibero, Vasco, Aquitano and its relationship with R1b.


- There will not also be a question:
a) Ibero, Basque, Aquitano, (Western R1b = Languages IE centum (anatolicas without steppe) + no IE) vs b) steppe (R1a = IE satem + other languages that being far from the classical Grego-Latin culture we do not know what they are)

Bell culture with steppe = a + b

I also observe that the Indo-European homeland is increasingly farther south, each time it is closer to the fertile half moon or the origin of agriculture, if this were confirmed it would be a colossal historical lesson.

Well colossal not because this had already been a hypothesis before the steppe

----------


## hrvclv

> Where I differ is in holding that the Gedrosia component is the only one that tracks the movements from the steppe. If that were the case, why does the map of it show much less than the 25-30% of steppe we know is in Northern Italy and Tuscany, for example?


If Maciamo's map of R1b movements is right (and, as you often say, his intuitions are often right), R1b would have moved round the southern tip of the Caspian, then up towards the Caucasus, before crossing over to the steppe. Gedrosia is basically NW Iran, right. So the R1b could have picked up some Gedrosia on the way, around Lake Urmia or Lake Van, and taken it with them to the North. 

So Gedrosia would be a percentage of the percentage of Steppe that Tuscans have - a fraction of a fraction. So the figures may not be irreconcilable after all.

Btw, thanks for your "encouragements". Sometimes I feel my hypotheses are based on such fragmentary knowledge that I should just... shut up ! What incites me to express them in spite of all is the fact that, when I speak nonsense, I learn so much from the responses you guys give to my nonsense !!

----------


## ROS

It also explains why Anatolia, Greece, Italy, most of France and Spain have so little steppe, Angela recalled that Afghanistan has more steppe than these countries, and if it has 50% more Afghanistan than most European countries.

----------


## hrvclv

> This is the Johannes Krause (Max Planck Institute) model for the spread of IE. He presented it at a conference. When he introduced it, he said this is the model "we" came up with...I don't know the identity of the "we". Nor do I know if "they've" modified it.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think this is precisely what Reich is talking about. He sees something coming from the steppe to India. The graphic above also doesn't show the "Iranian" farmer input into South Asia.


Sorry, but personally, I don't find this map very helpful. EHG in Estonia ? No-one further East ? No room made for ANE ? Natufians all packed together, all E, G, T haplos in the same bag ? The green arrows - supposedly showing the expansion of IE languages (?) - shooting away just the same from CHG and from Yamna ? It's not just simplistic, in my view ; it's downright misleading.

----------


## ROS

This map explains the greater number of contradictions that are currently being discussed, logically no map of these will explain the complex reality, but as a scheme it is quite interesting and revealing of certain issues.


The south of Europe is not clear enough and I start to think that the north is not, some hypothesis are loaded with nationalism and this should be avoided, I do not dedicate myself to these subjects and I have it as a hobby I observe some ways of describing the reality something tendencionsas, is a subject that is not less is trying to describe the linguistic and genetic origins of European peoples, we must be careful and prudent, are not minor issues, scientific objectivity must be imposed at all costs, the truth will always end Knowing itself next year or within 3000 years.

----------


## Angela

> This map is more concordant in general lines with reality, I do not say that it is something definitive, but it can give an answer to:
> 
> 
> - Centum vs satem
> - R1b vs R1a main European haplogroups.
> 
> 
> That I consider that the hypothesis of the steppe does not respond to any of these questions.
> 
> ...


Actually, one of the problems with pushing the homeland of proto or pre-proto IE too far south is precisely agriculture, because the "steppe" people had only rudimentary farming and there's not much "farming" vocabulary in early IE, at least if we're going to give a lot of credence to "reconstructions" of the early forms.

One possible explanation, if the "homeland" was as far south as the highlands of Armenia and the Iranian plateau, is that these people didn't find the steppe conducive at that time for farming, and so they relied on their domesticated animals instead. 

I used to think that perhaps they left so early that all they had at that time were the animals and some pulses. I'd have to check, but I think that already by 6000 BC, before the movement onto the steppe if I'm understanding Reich correctly, groups like the Shuvaleri so beloved y Olympic Mons already were growing crops.

----------


## Angela

> Sorry, but personally, I don't find this map very helpful. EHG in Estonia ? No-one further East ? No room made for ANE ? Natufians all packed together, all E, G, T haplos in the same bag ? The green arrows - supposedly showing the expansion of IE languages (?) - shooting away just the same from CHG and from Yamna ? It's not just simplistic, in my view ; it's downright misleading.


I've already said I don't think this is precisely what Reich had in mind, and I'm not necessarily a proponent of it, much less did I create it, so no need to be "sorry", but I must say I don't understand the issue with the things you cite.

Why would an ancient population like ANE be on this map? They're talking about a period around, at the earliest, maybe 10,000 years ago. Do you know how old the ANE sample is? Clearly, it's also not a map aiming to show every possible place where you could find EHG. SHG isn't there either. It's not about that.

Nor do I know what you mean about Natufians being "all packed together" with no distinction terms of ylineage. Again, this isn't a map about the yDna of the farmers. All it's trying to show is the spread of farmers from the Levant Neolithic north into both western and eastern Anatolia. There's absolutely nothing misleading about it. 

Where have you ever seen a map of the spread of the Indo-European languages which shows the kind of detail you're talking about?

What they should have included, imo, is a line showing the spread of farmers into India, as I mentioned above.

I also believe, although I'm perfectly willing to change my mind if there is evidence to the contrary, that a steppe population, or steppe admixed population entered India bearing R1a and the Indo-European Indian languages, and if I'm understanding the Krause schematic, I don't see that depicted there.

----------


## Ygorcs

> @Ygorcs
> Why do you say steppe people and ANI were already *very* similar? They both had an "Iranian farmer" like component, to use Reich's terminology, heavily CHG, but the other half was wildly different: EHG vs. ASI
> 
> I don't know why it should be surprising if all of India was ASI before the arrival of the Iranian farmers and the steppe people. All of Europe was WHG. All of the New World was Amerindian, mostly from one migration pulse.


I said that - not that I believe it, I was actually surprised and suspicious about it - because the admixtures you cited, I presume ipsis litteris, from David Reich's book cited exactly this: Steppe pastoralists - Iranian farmers + EHG / ANI - Iranian farmers + Steppe pastoralists. I also thought that ANI had at least a good chunk of ASI, but unless that was a typo if it were actually just Iran_N + Steppe then it was just not much more than an Iranian-enriched steppe-like admixture. But I may have understood what you wrote incorrectly, of course.

----------


## A. Papadimitriou

I think I don't agree with Reich and the main reason is that the non-IE languages in Anatolia were found in Eastern (Hurrian, Urartian) and Central Northern (Hattic) parts of it.

That being said, I believed that that apart from the proto-Armenians, the Medes too were very much like Armenia MLBA. The difference between Armenia EBA (possibly NE? Caucasian speaking) and Armenia MLBA is the extra Anatolian 'Farmer' + EHG admixture that could have arrived there from Balkans. (That is certainly true about the 'farmer' admixture)

I have some problems with dates that make me not sure but we will see (and I understand that my view can be in some ways.. Eurocentric or... Euranatoliocentric, that's why I don't write often about it -- I find no need to place the proto-language anywhere though)

I still consider Indo-European a European/Anatolian 'farmer' language (I think though the movements of the 'farmers' were more complex than what is thought and only a subset of them is responsible for the morphology of reconstructed 'Late PIE')

----------


## hrvclv

> I've already said I don't think this is precisely what Reich had in mind, and I'm not necessarily a proponent of it, much less did I create it, so no need to be "sorry", but I must say I don't understand the issue with the things you cite.
> 
> Why would an ancient population like ANE be on this map? They're talking about a period around, at the earliest, maybe 10,000 years ago. Do you know how old the ANE sample is? Clearly, it's also not a map aiming to show every possible place where you could find EHG. SHG isn't there either. It's not about that.
> 
> Nor do I know what you mean about Natufians being "all packed together" with no distinction terms of ylineage. Again, this isn't a map about the yDna of the farmers. All it's trying to show is the spread of farmers from the Levant Neolithic north into both western and eastern Anatolia. There's absolutely nothing misleading about it. 
> 
> Where have you ever seen a map of the spread of the Indo-European languages which shows the kind of detail you're talking about?
> 
> What they should have included, imo, is a line showing the spread of farmers into India, as I mentioned above.
> ...


What I find confusing about "your" map (I am quite aware you didn't make it) is that we don't know for sure what we are talking about. One green arrow starts from Yamna, which is a cultural horizon. This one apparently has to do with language (?). Another leaves from CHG, which is a genetic pool. The red arrows refer to farming, which is neither of the above.

Linguistically, my hunch is that PIE owes a lot to the central siberian ANE part of the EHG, so their absence is regrettable if what we are talking about is language. Also, as you point out, no R1a arrow eastwards. So we end up wondering whether we are talking about economic models (farming), genes ("chg"), or languages (Yamna / IE).

----------


## Angela

> What I find confusing about "your" map (I am quite aware you didn't make it) is that we don't know for sure what we are talking about. One green arrow starts from Yamna, which is a cultural horizon. This one apparently has to do with language (?). Another leaves from CHG, which is a genetic pool. The red arrows refer to farming, which is neither of the above.
> Linguistically, my hunch is that PIE owes a lot to the central siberian ANE part of the EHG, so their absence is regrettable if what we are talking about is language. Also, as you point out, no R1a arrow eastwards. So we end up wondering whether we are talking about economic models (farming), genes ("chg"), or languages (Yamna / IE).


The point is that in terms of the spread of the Indo-European languages, every extant theory, including the preferred PC Steppe origin and spread theory, is that genes *are* languages, even if we're only talking about the genes of the elite. 

@Ygorcs,
There are no typos so far as I know. That's the admixture as Reich, and I presume his Lab, sees it. As I said upthread, looking only at the genes, it was a radiating movement out of the general area of the Caucasus, both onto the steppe and then into Europe (and west into the Aegean and then Europe), south into the rest of the Near East, and into India. India in effect would get a double "dose", if you will, because it was the primary component of the farmers who migrated there and 50% of the steppe pastoralists. Imho it's obvious by just looking at them. 

The only thing that is new here is that Reich seems to believe that there's a good chance that the language went with this component in its later movements.

@
Papadimitriou,

The Anatolian languages weren't only in eastern Anatolia. Also, not even Renfrew believes any longer in his own theory of the spread of the Indo-European languages with the early farmers.

----------


## A. Papadimitriou

> @Papadimitriou,The Anatolian languages weren't only in eastern Anatolia. Also, not even Renfrew believes any longer in his own theory of the spread of the Indo-European languages with the early farmers.[/IMG]


Yes, the originally non-Indoeuropean speaking area was in the Eastern and Central-Northern Anatolia. That's why I believe Reich is wrong, although that region certainly played a role for Armenian and Indo-Iranian (at least Western Iranian) .Luwians were in the west and south.What Renfrew believes is irrelevant for me. I was never a fan.

----------


## Angela

@Papdimitiriou,
That's a very flimsy reason for not giving credence to this theory, imo. This is where the languages are attested much later in history, at a time when it was old enough to have differentiated. 

There's absolutely nothing to say that the original proto-language wasn't further to the east.

As for IE or even proto-IE spreading with farmers, that's much too early for that language, and the original vocabulary is not "agricultural" in nature.

----------


## Ailchu

> Hey, completely off topic, but I couldn't resist this doubt: why is WHG so distant from EHG? I thought I had read that EHG was basically a mix of something like WHG with (a minor percentage of, something ~30%) ANE. Isn't that right? If EHG and WHG shared a large percentage of their ancestry, why would they be so unlike each other in the PCA?


seems like you shoudln't take pca's too serious. yamna should be 50/50 and according to that graphic from kraus more like 45%EHG and 55% CHG. it doesn't look like this on your pca either.


though i do nnot trust the max planck institute that much. they wrote in one of their magazines last year that all neanderthals and all european hunter gatherers were dark skinned and that the first mutations for lighter skin were found in early european farrmers.
i think that is all wrong.

----------


## Saetrus

> I haven't heard this one before. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is Maciamo's explanation on the R1b page:
> 
> Towards the end of the 5th millennium, an elite starts to develop with cattle, horses and copper used as status symbols. It is at the turn of the Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog periods that R1b-M269's main subclade, L23, is thought to have appeared, around 4,500 BCE. 99% of Indo-European R1b descends from this L23 clade. The other branch descended from M269 is PF7562, which is found mostly in the Balkans, Turkey and Armenia today, and may represent an early Steppe migration to the Balkans dating from the Sredny Stog period.
> ...



R1b-M269 was not in the Steppe, the variance of R1b-M269 is heavily concentrated in the Shulaveri-Shomu area meaning it was there for a long time before it went anywhere else


Only R1b-Z2103 went north, the rest of R1b-L23 was part of the expansion west(Centum expansion).


R1b-L51 was in northern Italy and southern France before it's expansion with Bell Beaker, then the two Indoeuropean waves clash and Bell Beaker invades Corded Ware territory.




I don't think only J2b2-L283 is Indoeuropean, the map of J2

----------


## IronSide

> seems like you shoudln't take pca's too serious. yamna should be 50/50 and according to that graphic from kraus more like 45%EHG and 55% CHG. it doesn't look like this on your pca either.
> 
> 
> though i do nnot trust the max planck institute that much. they wrote in one of their magazines last year that all neanderthals and all *european hunter gatherers were dark skinned and that the first mutations for lighter skin were found in early european farrmers.
> i think that is all wrong*.


Why do you think that's wrong ? do you have evidence to support your claim ?

----------


## bicicleur

> Why do you think that's wrong ? do you have evidence to support your claim ?


I haven't seen that magazine,
but EHG were light skinned too
and I guess Neanderthals also

----------


## A. Papadimitriou

> @Papdimitiriou,
> That's a very flimsy reason for not giving credence to this theory, imo. This is where the languages are attested much later in history, at a time when it was old enough to have differentiated. 
> 
> There's absolutely nothing to say that the original proto-language wasn't further to the east.
> 
> As for IE or even proto-IE spreading with farmers, that's much too early for that language, and the original vocabulary is not "agricultural" in nature.


There are agricultural terms. See here some: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-E...ry#Agriculture
And the groups which are labeled EEF or ANF etc weren't just farmers.

Concerning Late PIE, inverting Gimbutas' theory is my first option* (but an ultimate homeland can be further East or South-East, _theoretically_)

But placing the PIE homeland in regions where we later find non-IE languages probably related to North East Caucasian doesn't seem optimal to me. Though, I don't know what arguments he can use.

Also. I don't know with which culture he will try to associate PIE.

Edit:
*Early IE (from W/SW Anatolia to C. & N. Europe at least): ANF/EEF, Late PIE includes HG admixture (and they could have been elites or parts of the elites in some cases)

----------


## Yetos

Found the book 
Fast shipping cost twice the prize and 4-6 days  :Innocent: 
normal shipping cost 0 E and 28 days !!!!!  :Thinking: 
books swim very slow  :Angry: 


plz do not read it before me  :Grin:

----------


## Jovialis

"Analyzing our data, he (Lazaridis) found that about ten thousand years ago there were at least four major populations in West Eurasia- the farmers of the Fertile Crescent, the farmers of Iran, the hunter-gatherers of central and western Europe, and the hunter-gatherers of eastern Europe. All these populations differed from one another as much as Europeans differ from East Asians today. Scholars interested in trying to create ancestry-based racial classifications, had they lived ten thousand years ago, would have categorized these groups as "races," even though none of these groups survives in unmixed form today...The fusion of these highly different populations into today's West Eurasians is vividly evident in what might be considered the classic Northern European look: blue eyes, light skin, and blond hair. Analysis of ancient DNA data shows that western European hunter-gatherers around eight thousand years ago had blue eyes but dark skin and hair, a combination that is rare today. The first farmers of Europe mostly had light skin but dark hair and eyes- thus light skin in Europe largely owes its origin to migrating farmers. The earliest known example of the classic European blond hair mutation is in an Ancient North Eurasian from the Lake Baikal region of eastern Siberia from seventeen thousand years ago. The hundreds of millions of copies of this mutation in central and western Europe today likely derive from a massive migration into the region of people, an event that is in the next chapter" (Reich 2018)

----------


## Angela

> "Analyzing our data, he (Lazaridis) found that about ten thousand years ago there were at least four major populations in West Eurasia- the farmers of the Fertile Crescent, the farmers of Iran, the hunter-gatherers of central and western Europe, and the hunter-gatherers of eastern Europe. All these populations differed from one another as much as Europeans differ from East Asians today. Scholars interested in trying to create ancestry-based racial classifications, had they lived ten thousand years ago, would have categorized these groups as "races," even though none of these groups survives in unmixed form today...The fusion of these highly different populations into today's West Eurasians is vividly evident in what might be considered the classic Northern European look: blue eyes, light skin, and blond hair. Analysis of ancient DNA data shows that western European hunter-gatherers around eight thousand years ago had blue eyes but dark skin and hair, a combination that is rare today. The first farmers of Europe mostly had light skin but dark hair and eyes- thus light skin in Europe largely owes its origin to migrating farmers. The earliest known example of the classic European blond hair mutation is in an Ancient North Eurasian from the Lake Baikal region of eastern Siberia from seventeen thousand years ago. The hundreds of millions of copies of this mutation in central and western Europe today likely derive from a massive migration into the region of people, an event that is in the next chapter" (Reich 2018)


Amazing, isn't it? Blue eyes from the WHG, fair skin from the farmers and blonde hair from ANE. That's what happens from admixture, I guess.

You couldn't have convinced anyone ten years ago that people with this combo didn't spring fully formed from the head of Zeus like Athena. Well, I guess there are still die hards who want to believe it even today.

----------


## bicicleur

> Amazing, isn't it? Blue eyes from the WHG, fair skin from the farmers and blonde hair from ANE. That's what happens from admixture, I guess.
> 
> You couldn't have convinced anyone ten years ago that people with this combo didn't spring fully formed from the head of Zeus like Athena. Well, I guess there are still die hards who want to believe it even today.


I'm still convinced it's not only admixture, but also natural selection plays a big role too.
Uptill now studies have failed to demonstrate that connection, maybe because knowledge of genes and combination of genes is still to limited today, but that should change soon, as DNA analysis becomes cheaper and more widespread.

----------


## Angela

> I'm still convinced it's not only admixture, but also natural selection plays a big role too.
> Uptill now studies have failed to demonstrate that connection, maybe because knowledge of genes and combination of genes is still to limited today, but that should change soon, as DNA analysis becomes cheaper and more widespread.


Yes, absolutely. I agree.

----------


## Jovialis

> Amazing, isn't it? Blue eyes from the WHG, fair skin from the farmers and blonde hair from ANE. That's what happens from admixture, I guess.
> 
> You couldn't have convinced anyone ten years ago that people with this combo didn't spring fully formed from the head of Zeus like Athena. Well, I guess there are still die hards who want to believe it even today.


Yeah, you'd figure this would be elementary by now for people that come to forums like this. For example, the reaction to the cheddar man reconstruction.

----------


## Ailchu

> Why do you think that's wrong ? do you have evidence to support your claim ?


i think its first mentioned in the study from haak who first looked at 2 such alleles. he found that they were missing in WHG. one of them was present in EEF. both of them were fixated in SHG.

now if those facts were correct i would have nothing against the magazin but they wrote incorrect and unclear info. and i think that politics are the only real reason why they did it. the writer may have thought that it would make no sense to talk about SHG or EHG because the most important thing is to show that WHG had darker skin and europeans got the alleles for light skin from farmers. the rest is not important and uninteressting. politics have nothing to look for here and it's just sad how scientist fear with every step they do what kind of signal they send. they basically become politicians themselves.

----------


## Johane Derite

Reich has tested 3748 samples, of which only ~700 have been published (as of nov12, 2017). 

I think that this is an indication that he might know not just "some" things that aren't public yet, but LOTS.

----------


## OkTex

> Judging from how people define themselves below their avatars on this forum, I'd say we should clearly distinguish between ethnicity and the _consciousness_ of ethnicity. By the way, does ethnicity exist outside that consciousness of one's ethnicity ? In other words, ethnicity may be a social construct, but it is primarily a psychological, personal, intimate construct.
> 
> As a social construct, transient as you seem to consider it, it did not emerge out of the blue. Just like your autosomal makeup at a given time in a given place is the result of previous encounters and changes, ethnicity is the outcome of military events, social uprisings, cultural choices, etc... It doesn't exist _apart from_ the others, in fact it does exist _thanks to_ the others, who prioritized their options (slightly or significantly) differently. It is defined and conditioned by history, the history of men and the history of ideas. Our present is child to our past. As such, it is indeed not a "permanent essence", but it can be a reliable element of reference to build a behavior on.
> 
> Alongside that cultural/historical dimension of ethnicity, there is the _idea_ each individual forms of his ethnicity - his own intimate feeling of who he is. That too may be subject to alteration and change over time. The question is: Can we violate that ? Can we judge ? Everyone is entitled to develop his own self-image, as long as it does not drive him to harm his fellow human brothers. Ethnicity is eminently subjective, and as such, disconnected from how much DNA (real or assumed) one got from a given group. It has to do with Myth, not with time and space. It is beyond control, that's why it sometimes turns dangerous, when self-criticism and self-restraint fail.


Can’t add to this... well-formulated thoughts that agree with my mindset!

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## Angela

An interesting question was raised on Razib Khan's blog about the coalescence of mtDna in relation to the place of the San in the tree of human splits.

"Something that confused me very early on in the book- the San are shown branching off from the rest of humanity prior to Mitochondrial Eve. How can Eve be a common ancestor in this case? Admixture?"

"Calibration on the coalescence of the last common ancestor of all mitochondrial DNA lineages for humans has changed several times, the last estimates are for a time to last common ancestor for all mtDNA lineages being around 100 to 200 thousand years ago. This is curious in light of the fact that both fossils and genomics are starting to suggest that anatomically modern humans emerged in their current form 200 to 400 thousand years ago.The shallower coalescence isn’t that surprising. Y and mtDNA both have lower effective population sizes and so higher turnover rates. These high turnover rates mean the extinction of other lineages. As most of you know, the extinction of these mtDNA lineages does not mean that the genetic material of other women alive at the same time as “mtDNA Eve” is not present in modern humans (though who knows what it means to say there’s distinctive genetic material left after all these generations with recombination). Eve was always simply a personification of the coalescence of the mtDNA genealogy. Both the Y and mtDNA phylogenies and coalescence were useful in their time. They pointed to the likely important role of Africa in the origin of modern humans, and the relatively recent time depth of our species. *But their coalescence at a specific time was somewhat random around a certain expected value. This is why it was not surprising at all that “Y chromosomal Adam” and “mtDNA Eve” lived at different times (there is some evidence that the Y chromosome has had a lower long-term effective population size).*
*The above question is inspired by the fact that San Bushmen seem to diverge earlier in their total genome than in their mtDNA. There’s always been a distinction in the literature between demographic divergence between two populations, and the divergence of their genetic genealogies. Oftentimes daughter populations share genetic variation that dates back to before their separation. But sometimes, you have this situation where it seems that the starting point of genetic variation post-dates the divergence between population.*
*What’s the explanation? I think the simplest one is admixture and reciprocal gene flow, as implied by the commenter. In fact, Pontus Skoglund’s latest African ancient DNA paper implies that there was some sort of isolation-by-distance cline in the eastern part of the continent, from modern Ethiopia far to the south."

**https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2018/...medium=twitter*

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## bicicleur

It seems to me that the San are the result of an admixture of a more recent population coming from the north maybe some 80 ka with Y-DNA A1b1 and an old 'ghost' population that was allready in Southern Africa 300 ka or earlier.

The same goes for the Aterians, descendants from the Irhoud skulls in the Atlas Mts. None of their DNA is known, but recently it has been suggested that Yoruba also contains some archaïc 'ghost' DNA.

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## Angela

> It seems to me that the San are the result of an admixture of a more recent population coming from the north maybe some 80 ka with Y-DNA A1b1 and an old 'ghost' population that was allready in Southern Africa 300 ka or earlier.
> The same goes for the Aterians, descendants from the Irhoud skulls in the Atlas Mts. None of their DNA is known, but recently it has been suggested that Yoruba also contains some archaïc 'ghost' DNA.


Razib also thinks they're the result of admixture:

"And, it may also turn out that the San Bushmen themselves are an admixture between two very different populations, one more like other eastern Africans, and one basal to this clade. If so, then it may be that their divergence estimate is a compound, and the most divergent mtDNA lineages come from the eastern African population that mixed with the more basal population."

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## Sile

> Yes, the originally non-Indoeuropean speaking area was in the Eastern and Central-Northern Anatolia. That's why I believe Reich is wrong, although that region certainly played a role for Armenian and Indo-Iranian (at least Western Iranian) .Luwians were in the west and south.What Renfrew believes is irrelevant for me. I was never a fan.


Luwians where in the east of anatolia and eventually migrated west

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOd_hodh7Mc

They are non-semetic linguistic group ............hitties at the end converted to Luwian

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## A. Papadimitriou

> Luwians where in the east of anatolia and eventually migrated west
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOd_hodh7Mc
> 
> They are non-semetic linguistic group ............hitties at the end converted to Luwian


Sorry. Maybe I should have used the term Eastern Turkey.

If the term Anatolia is used for that region, a SE origin is possible.


The Hattian part was towards the NE and the Hurrian-related outside it.

(I didn't watch the video because, even though I like how she writes the presentation is boring.)

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## bicicleur

> Razib also thinks they're the result of admixture:
> "And, it may also turn out that the San Bushmen themselves are an admixture between two very different populations, one more like other eastern Africans, and one basal to this clade. If so, then it may be that their divergence estimate is a compound, and the most divergent mtDNA lineages come from the eastern African population that mixed with the more basal population."


A1b1 is the brother of BT, the Nubian Complex clade which arrived in Arabia at least 106 ka
so A1b1 would be a Nubian Complex clade that stayed in Africa, ancestral to the northeastern ancestor of the San (Nubian Complex was northeastern African in origin)
this culture may be the result of the San mixture : 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stillbay
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howiesons_Poort
they were quite advanced at that time

I think the godfather of Nubian Complex is A0-T (TMRCA 161.3 ka)
https://www.yfull.com/tree/A0-T/
this clade includes all extant humans except the vey rare A00 clade

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## FIREYWOTAN

The fact that were able to ask those questions makes life a little more special if not significant. Finding out that others are and can be excited as a gift especially when so much of life has become a collection of tweets. The fact that the search brings us closer to a core truth is one of hose defining moments. Yet the greatest piece of the puzzle is sharing our insights. It never stops building a story that motivates me to dig deeper still. Thanks for sharing the magic of the search.

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## Angela

John Hawks has written a review about Reich's book.

See:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-we-...ome-1523399111

Frankly, I think it's much ado about nothing. Reich could have been more diplomatic about the hesitancy of indigenous people to give permission for some of these remains to be used, but honestly, we're talking about an ear bone! How are we forgetting about the humanity of this individual human being by grinding up a small piece of his ear. I think we're honoring it. We'll learn far more about him and about our shared humanity from analyzing it in this way than by putting it on a shelf and looking at it the way physical anthropologists do. 

Obviously, I think we should treat the remains with respect and dignity. I mentioned on this thread that I didn't like the way Zink was handling the remains of Oetzi and the way he spoke about him. 

The only thing with which I agree is that David Reich is very naive about how "political", and yes, agenda driven some people are about these remains and any potential results. He thinks most people are objective or try to be, but he's wrong about that. He gives them too much credit.

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## Jovialis

> John Hawks has written a review about Reich's book.
> 
> See:
> https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-we-...ome-1523399111
> 
> Frankly, I think it's much ado about nothing. Reich could have been more diplomatic about the hesitancy of indigenous people to give permission for some of these remains to be used, but honestly, we're talking about an ear bone! How are we forgetting about the humanity of this individual human being by grinding up a small piece of his ear. I think we're honoring it. We'll learn far more about him and about our shared humanity from analyzing it in this way than by putting it on a shelf and looking at it the way physical anthropologists do. 
> 
> Obviously, I think we should treat the remains with respect and dignity. I mentioned on this thread that I didn't like the way Zink was handling the remains of Oetzi and the way he spoke about him. 
> 
> The only thing with which I agree is that David Reich is very naive about how "political", and yes, agenda driven some people are about these remains and any potential results. He thinks most people are objective or try to be, but he's wrong about that. He gives them too much credit.


I agree, the potential of understanding more about these ancient individuals is far more important than just preserving the bones. The information that we can get from them serves to honor their memory. It gives them even greater importance, than they previously had.

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## Jovialis

Here's a Q&A with David Reich that was published earlier today.

http://www.newswise.com/articles/the...st-david-reich

Here's details on the type of grant they are using, that was also in the article. Check out the results tab, it has links to the papers they've published with it.

https://projectreporter.nih.gov/proj...fm?aid=9304269

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## FIREYWOTAN

Thank you for sharing the the latest updates. Newswise — 
The capacity to see beyond the highs and lows of both success and failure. Any time questions and answers are shared it opens a new perspective.

For the past few decades, new evidence aboutancient humans—in the form of skeletal remains, tools, and other artifacts—hastrickled in, inching us closer to an understanding of how our species evolvedand spread out across the planet. In just the past few years, however,knowledge of our deep past expanded significantly thanks to a series oftechnological breakthroughs in sequencing of ancient human genomes. Thistechnology can be used to find genetic links among populations of humanancestors dating back hundreds of thousands of years.In addition to advances in genomic technology,another factor is driving the explosion of new discoveries—aninch-long section of the human skull. Found near our ears, this pyramid-shapedportion of the temporal bone is nicknamed the petrous bone. The bone is veryhard, possibly because it needs to protect fragile structures such as thecochlea, which translates sound into brain signals, and the semicircularcanals, which help us maintain our balance. Perhaps because the petrous bone isso dense, it also is the bone in the body that best preserves DNA after aperson dies. As a result, archaeologists are scrambling to study samples takenfrom this pyramid-shaped structure to unlock the mysteries of our species’formative years.
To learn more about the petrousbone and its use in archaeology, as well as other advances in the field, Ispoke with NIGMS grantee David Reich, a genetic archaeologist from Harvard Medical Schooland the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and one of the world’s leading expertsin ancient human DNA.
I couldn't stop thinking about the significance of recent finds and discoveries.

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## Jovialis

http://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2018...rd-david-reich

Here's a radio interview with David Reich that came out yesterday.

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## Angela

> http://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2018...rd-david-reich
> 
> Here's a radio interview with David Reich that came out yesterday.


The thing that struck me the most is when he explained that the general public loses respect for science when it pronounces things which simple common sense indicates just isn't true, and that even if western scientists don't pursue these topics, scientists in other parts of the world undoubtedly will, so western scientists need to engage with this material and guide the public in how it should be interpreted.

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## Jovialis

> The thing that struck me the most is when he explained that the general public loses respect for science when it pronounces things which simple common sense indicates just isn't true, and that even if western scientists don't pursue these topics, scientists in other parts of the world undoubtedly will, so western scientists need to engage with this material and guide the public in how it should be interpreted.


I thought that was a compelling statement as well. Also, when he said, if we don't have objective scientific analysis to be a guide, the void will be filled with pseudo-science.

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## Angela

> I thought that was a compelling statement as well. Also, when he said, if we don't have objective scientific analysis to be a guide, the void will be filled with pseudo-science.


That's exactly right.

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## IronSide

The most informative chapter to me was the one on Africa, it really changed my perspective on the history of the continent.

Africa is far from the static background where nothing happened, its genetic history is quite young compared to Eurasia, with a lot of migrations and linguistic groups. Farmers from West Africa changed the history of the continent forever, their migrations spread Bantu languages.

Nilo-Saharan speakers are cattle herders in the East, but what is their origin? they're not identical to East African foragers (similar to Hadza), because they share more than half the ancestry with West African farmers, did they migrate from the west ?

When did West Eurasian ancestry arrive to East Africa? Mota is not that old, Bronze Age? and still no WEur ancestry, the chapter argues for an early Iron Age date for a vast migration. If that is the case, where were they before? Arabia? what caused them to move?

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## Jovialis

New second edition coming out next month!

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## IronSide

> New second edition coming out next month!


He'll need to make a new edition every year it seems :)

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## Jovialis

> New second edition coming out next month!


I've checked almost every day this month, and I still haven't seen a new edition yet. Perhaps David Reich decided to wait on it due to other significant discoveries that are currently in progress? There's still a couple days left.

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## bicicleur

> I've checked almost every day this month, and I still haven't seen a new edition yet. Perhaps David Reich decided to wait on it due to other significant discoveries that are currently in progress? There's still a couple days left.


there is not so much news lately
are all the skeletons and other human remains with good prospects for DNA typing done?
do we have to wait till fresh skeletons will be discovered?

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## Angela

> there is not so much news lately
> are all the skeletons and other human remains with good prospects for DNA typing done?
> do we have to wait till fresh skeletons will be discovered?


Doesn't the Reich Lab alone have a couple of thousand specimens? they just have to analyze them all and prepare papers.

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## bicicleur

> Doesn't the Reich Lab alone have a couple of thousand specimens? they just have to analyze them all and prepare papers.


what's the matter then?
what takes them so long?

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## Jovialis

> what's the matter then?
> what takes them so long?


I recall that the grant that they've received for all of these studies was about $400k. Despite the fact that the cost to sequence the ancient samples is relatively low. I think it's possible their concern is to make it as cost effective as possible.

I believe it was about $200 to sequence an ancient sample. With 1/3rd of them being successful. So they probably want to make sure the samples they are willing to spend the money on are of particular high quality. That's my speculation.

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## Angela

> I recall that the grant that they've received for all of these studies was about $400k. Despite the fact that the cost to sequence the ancient samples is relatively low. I think it's possible their concern is to make it as cost effective as possible.
> 
> I believe it was about $200 to sequence an ancient sample. With 1/3rd of them being successful. So they probably want to make sure the samples they are willing to spend the money on are of particular high quality. That's my speculation.


Plus, all their grad students have to get a paper to their credit. That's part of their function as a teaching institution. I also think that given their reputation they can't be slap dash. I'll be interested to see if they incorporate some of the new programs which have come out recently.

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## bicicleur

well, let's wait a bit longer then
it should be worth it

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## Ed the Red

Haven’t posted for awhile. This whole scenario of paying for your blood results is quite a moneymaker. But can be used beneficially for sure. I had no problem giving my DNA up. The results were exact from what I already researched on my family history. The problem is that after your recent inclusions of genetic history (ie. grandparents) things start to be obscure and are updated often. I tested with 23 and me

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## Ed the Red

> Plus, all their grad students have to get a paper to their credit. That's part of their function as a teaching institution. I also think that given their reputation they can't be slap dash. I'll be interested to see if they incorporate some of the new programs which have come out recently.





> Haven’t posted for awhile. This whole scenario of paying for your blood results is quite a moneymaker. But can be used beneficially for sure. I had no problem giving my DNA up. The results were exact from what I already researched on my family history. The problem is that after your recent inclusions of genetic history (ie. grandparents) things start to be obscure and are updated often. I tested with 23 and me


It’s gonna be really hard to define a population as they were mixing from time continuum. Most Europeans have a percentage of Neanderthal, and as far as I know they have no explanation of their beginning, might be a mystery for a very long time!

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## Jovialis

I don't know if anyone posted this yet. But I saw that it was relatively recent.

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## Jovialis

I just noticed some blatant dishonesty on Wikipedia. Some unscrupulous weasel tried to purport Razib Khan's review of the Reich book as unfavorable. When the very first sentence right off the bat of the link for it states this:




> "So I read the final version of Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. *It’s good.* *"
> 
> *https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2018/...he-human-past/


I swear, it is truly pathetic how some detractors behave. However, Wikipedia is prone to this kind of disinformation, and half-truths. Disgusting.

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## Angela

> I just noticed some blatant dishonesty on Wikipedia. Some unscrupulous weasel tried to purport Razib Khan's review of the Reich book as unfavorable. When the very first sentence right off the bat of the link for it states this:
> 
> 
> 
> I swear, it is truly pathetic how some detractors behave. However, Wikipedia is prone to this kind of disinformation, and half-truths. Disgusting.


Whole topics are totally distorted there. If possible, I use an older source like the Britannica, or a university web site, or I go to one of the original papers and follow the citations to get the whole story.

Just look at the misinformation and slanting that appear here. The same people are changing Wiki.

Twitter is even worse in terms of the vituperation, piling on, etc. that goes on there, and usually by the most "left" or "progressive" leaning people. It's toxic. I'm so glad I never used it. 

In addition to being a force for good, the media can be a force for bad, something that can be manipulated by dishonest, agenda driven people, and also something that further drives the divide between different points of view. When you're demonized, it's hard not to respond in kind.

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## Jovialis

> Whole topics are totally distorted there. If possible, I use an older source like the Britannica, or a university web site, or I go to one of the original papers and follow the citations to get the whole story.
> 
> Just look at the misinformation and slanting that appear here. The same people are changing Wiki.
> 
> Twitter is even worse in terms of the vituperation, piling on, etc. that goes on there, and usually by the most "left" or "progressive" leaning people. It's toxic. I'm so glad I never used it. 
> 
> In addition to being a force for good, the media can be a force for bad, something that can be manipulated by dishonest, agenda driven people, and also something that further drives the divide between different points of view. When you're demonized, it's hard not to respond in kind.


Indeed, the obfuscation of facts by left-wing hardliners, is just as damaging to discourse as ethno-nationalist propaganda.

PC liberals are just more "well intentioned" morons, like the religious extremists, and communists before them. I too have never used twitter, and never plan on in the future.

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