# Population Genetics > Autosomal Genetics >  Neolithic farmers: Southwest Europeans or West Asians ?

## Maciamo

Dienekes ran the fragments of autosomal DNA recovered from a Neolithic farmer buried in Sweden (dated 4800 to 4000 years before present). The results came up like this:

*Euro7*

- 61.5% Northwestern European (Atlantic)
- 21.4% Southeastern European
- 17.1% Southwestern European

0% for the four other populations, including Caucasus.

*K7b*

- 59.1% Atlantic-Baltic European
- 40.9% Southern European

0% for the five other populations, including West Asia.

*K12b*

- 81% Atlantic-Mediterranean
- 8.6% Southwest Asia
- 5.5% North European
- 4.2% Caucasus
- 0.7% East Africa

----

This is all quite unexpected. All evidence point that agriculture arose in the Levant, and domestication in East Anatolia and the Caucasus, and that both spread from there to Mediterranean Europe and the Balkans, then progressively to the rest of Europe. The only point of debate was whether farming and domestication spread through massive migrations, minor migrations or simply through contact between (settled) neighbours. 

All the genetic evidence so far has supported a major colonisation of Greece, Italy and the southern Balkans by West Asian Neolithic farmers, then a demic dilution of the West Asian genes towards the Atlantic and the Baltic. This dilution could have be thought as the result of mingling between the Near-Eastern farmers and Mesolithic Europeans as the former slowly made their way deeper into Europe. After all it took over 2500 years for the farmers to reach northern Europe from Anatolia.

But what are we seeing here ? Two serious contradictions of all these hypotheses.

1) *The DNA of this Swedish Neolithic farmer contrasted sharply with that of the two contemporary hunter-gatherers* also tested (who scored extremely high at Northeastern at Euro7, Atlantic-Baltic at K7b and North European at K12b - all components nearly or completely absent in the Neolithic individual). As this was the end of the Neolithic period in Europe (Bronze Age already under way in the the steppes with the Corded Ware culture), we can therefore conclude that* Neolithic farmers did not regularly intermarry with Mesolithic Europeans* as they were advancing through Europe. It might have happened very occasionally (the 5.5% of North European at K12b), but overall *the two populations remained almost perfectly secluded from each others, in a sort of apartheid*. 

Modern Europeans are much more mixed. In most countries everybody will have a substantial amount of both Northern and Southern European DNA. Even the Scandinavians and Orcadians have about 20% of Southern European autosomal DNA nowadays. *The blending of the two gene pools must have happened after the Neolithic ended*, from the Bronze Age onwards, in the next 4,500 years until now.

2) What surprised me most about this Neolithic sample is that it was overwhelmingly Southern and Western European, and almost not West Asian/Caucasian at all. Archaeologists have retraced the spread of agriculture from the Balkans to Scandinavia following the Danube, then moving north across Germany (LBK Culture). Coming from *Southeast* Europe, how could Neolithic farmers be genetically alike to South_western_ Europeans ? If they didn't mingle with the hunter-gatherers they encountered, how could they lack almost entirely West Asian/Caucasian or Southeast European DNA ? This doesn't make sense at all. Unless of course the *farmers did not come from the LBK Culture of Germany, but directly by boats from the Megalithic cultures of Western Europe*. 

*This would explain how megalithic sites were found around Denmark and southern Sweden, virtually bypassing the Benelux and Germany*. It also explains why modern Scandinavians have such a small percentage of West Asian Y-DNA haplogroups (roughly 6% for G2a, J1, J2, E1b1b and T together) despite substantial amount of South European autosomal DNA (33% of Atlantic-Med at K12b and 14% of Mediterranean at K12 for the Swedes ). Megalithic people were seafarers. They traded from Iberia to the British Isles along the coast of France, and to Sardinia and Sicily. Continental LBK people apparently lacked the skills to build boats to colonise Scandinavia and the British Isles. That is why these regions seem to have been colonised for Southwest European farmers in the 5th millennium BCE. That would also explain the similarity between Sardinia, Corsica, Iberia, Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia is head shapes (all dolicocephalic, in contrast to the rest of Europe). We still need to find out where exactly the Megalithic culture started and how it expanded.


What this autosomal analysis managed to confirmed is that* Europe underwent a major population change after the Neolithic, bringing both Northeastern European and Caucasian genes to most of Europe*, with a gradient from east to west. This is indubitably the mark of the Indo-Europeans from the Pontic steppes and the North Caucasus, the theory that I have always supported. The Dodecad Project has shown before that Caucasian DNA, and notably the Gedrosia component in the K12 analysis, was higher in North Europeans, where percentages of haplogroups R1b and R1a are high, than elsewhere. The peak for the Gedrosian element within Europe is in Northwest Europe, which strongly supports the hypothesis that *R1b came from the Caucasus region after the Neolithic*. The Northeast European component, completely lacking in Neolithic samples and among modern Sardinians, correlates mostly with haplogroup R1a, but was also carried by R1b people (otherwise how could one explain over 10% of Northeast European admixture in the Ireland, Wales, England, Belgium or France, where R1a ranges from 2 to 4%). *There is a good chance that Bronze-Age R1b people carried an admixture of Northeast European, Caucasian/Gedrosian and West Asian autosomes*, as Caucasian/Gedrosian and West Asian DNA were absent from Mesolithic and Neolithic Scandinavia, but are present today.

----------


## spongetaro

Thanks! But I'm confused, I read that the farmer was closer to the modern populations of Cyprus and Greece.

On this image we see that the farmer was genetically close to Greeks, Southern Turks and French and Benelux people. That's not really southwestern Europe. Megalithic people may have been G2a as haplogroups mt N and X were found in megalithic burials. So Megalithic people were not really native south west Europeans.

The other itersting thing is the fact that the hunter gatherers are close to Lithuanians and Polish people. It could means that R1a was already present among mesolithic Scandinavians.

----------


## Knovas

Maciamo, I think you should also check this K=8 run from the Eurogenes project. Really informative IMO.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...nVkM5M3c#gid=0

Don't forget the small number of SNP's tested in both hunter gatherers and the farmer. The fact we don't see an admixture it doesn't mean it's not present, but probably very low. There's also a problem with the clusters available, because they are based in modern populations, and we don't have enough data to create truly representative groups for ancient samples.

Present clusters, even the Northeast European/Atlantic-Baltic etc. seem to be admixed with mostly Neolithic influences. It's pretty difficult to know which population is the closest to Mesolithic or Paleolithic Europeans. Davidski from the Eurogenes Project thinks the answer might be around the Baltic region, although at the same time admits that the most West Eurasian/Caucasoid population are the Basques, a fact that IMO should make them the same or even more close to genuine Europeans. Not easy to define, perhaps it's an error to asume these first inhabitants of Europe were all homegeneous from North to South, as for example I understand Davidski does: he thinks that when Iberian hunter gatherers get tested, they'll come out more similar to Lithuanians than anything else. It's difficult for me to imagine genuine I2a1a (likely for an Iberian hunter gatherer) showing the mentioned proportions. We'll see...

----------


## Maciamo

> Thanks! But I'm confused, I read that the farmer was closer to the modern populations of Cyprus and Greece.


I read it too, according to the team of Skoglund et al. But that is not at all what the Dodecad analysis shows. It's actually the opposite.

----------


## spongetaro

> I read it too, according to the team of Skoglund et al. But that is not at all what the Dodecad analysis shows. It's actually the opposite.


Still south west Europeans were already mixed with neolithic farmers from the middle east during megalithic culture. This is what ancient dna shows.

----------


## spongetaro

> .
> 
> . The peak for the Gedrosian element within Europe is in Northwest Europe, which strongly supports the hypothesis that *R1b came from the Caucasus region after the Neolithic*. .


In the Caucasus region, the Caucasus admixture is always higher than the Gedrosia one. Northwest Europeans who as you said have significants amounts of Gedrosia, lack caucasus admixture. And except in Kurdistan (which is not really the Caucasus) the Gedrosia admixture is not so high in the Caucasus area.
Even Armenians have only 2,5% more Gedrosia than Irish people. 
In fact all your supposed road for R1b into Western Europe (Black sea area, Danubian and Central Europe) has very low amount of Gedrosia admixture which make me think that either R1b M269 originated East of the Caspian sea or that Gedrosia admixture and R1b are not linked.

----------


## Maciamo

> Still south west Europeans were already mixed with neolithic farmers from the middle east during megalithic culture. This is what ancient dna shows.


You mean what modern Y-DNA seem to show. This ancient autosomal DNA doesn't almost show any Middle Eastern DNA in the Neolithic farmer in Sweden. That is what my original post is all about. The only other sample of Neolithic autosomal DNA we have is Ötzi, and although he does have Middle Eastern admixture (probably because he came from a region influenced by Danubian cultures), he was predominantly Southwest European.

----------


## spongetaro

> You mean what modern Y-DNA seem to show. This ancient autosomal DNA doesn't almost show any Middle Eastern DNA in the Neolithic farmer in Sweden. That is what my original post is all about. The only other sample of Neolithic autosomal DNA we have is Ötzi, and although he does have Middle Eastern admixture (probably because he came from a region influenced by Danubian cultures), he was predominantly Southwest European.


I see your point but haplogroups mt X and N were found in Megalithic burials so the Megalithic culture itself maye not be "native" to South West Europe.

----------


## zanipolo

> Dienekes ran the fragments of autosomal DNA recovered from a Neolithic farmer buried in Sweden (dated 4800 to 4000 years before present). The results came up like this:
> 
> *Euro7*
> 
> - 61.5% Northwestern European (Atlantic)
> - 21.4% Southeastern European
> - 17.1% Southwestern European
> 
> 0% for the four other populations, including Caucasus.
> ...


seems like Mr. Paabo 2009 papers are starting to come to reality. As you pointed out last year in an article , the finnic people have the highest % of European and least asian than other europeans

----------


## ElHorsto

> You mean what modern Y-DNA seem to show. This ancient autosomal DNA doesn't almost show any Middle Eastern DNA in the Neolithic farmer in Sweden.


In case we talk about the Gok4 farmer, what about the 

8.6% Soutwest-Asian, 
4.2% Caucasian
0.7% East-African

Thats 13.5% in total.

Why do you consider these figures neglectable?

Sure, Ötzi had more (approx. 33%), but that's not really orders of magnitudes, and
he was still mostly Atlantic_med (57.7%) like Gok4, the latter was just a bit more Atlantic_med (81%).

----------


## Maciamo

> In case we talk about the Gok4 farmer, what about the 
> 
> 8.6% Soutwest-Asian, 
> 4.2% Caucasian
> 0.7% East-African
> 
> Thats 13.5% in total.
> 
> Why do you consider these figures neglectable?


That's only on the K12b analysis. The K7b and Euro7 show *0%* of West Asian and Caucasian.

----------


## ElHorsto

> That's only on the K12b analysis. The K7b and Euro7 show *0%* of West Asian and Caucasian.


But tzi also has almost zero (1.7%) West-asian in K7. But in K12 he has 33% near-eastern components (caucasus+SA+...). That means that the K12 near-eastern components got subsumed into the "southern" component in K7, or am I wrong?. In this case, Gok4 having 0% west-asian would mean nothing, because he has 40% "southern" in K7, where near-east components are part of.

----------


## Alan

I think we cant determined if Neolthic farmers where South European or West Asian by using components. The thing is, and I believe Dienekes also pointed this out before. All these Caucasid components, be it Southwest Asian, North European or Atlantic Mediterranean seem to have originated from the West Asian component and through drifts moved a bit away from it.

----------


## Alan

> In the Caucasus region, the Caucasus admixture is always higher than the Gedrosia one. Northwest Europeans who as you said have significants amounts of Gedrosia, lack caucasus admixture. And except in Kurdistan (which is not really the Caucasus) the Gedrosia admixture is not so high in the Caucasus area.
> Even Armenians have only 2,5% more Gedrosia than Irish people. 
> In fact all your supposed road for R1b into Western Europe (Black sea area, Danubian and Central Europe) has very low amount of Gedrosia admixture which make me think that either R1b M269 originated East of the Caspian sea or that Gedrosia admixture and R1b are not linked.


Well like I already mentioned. The Gedrosia component is stronger in the Eastern Caucasus, Iranian plateau all the way to Central Asia. Lezgians have around 28% Gedrosia and they are a Northeastern Caucasian people.

----------


## spongetaro

> Well like I already mentioned. The Gedrosia component is stronger in the Eastern Caucasus, Iranian plateau all the way to Central Asia. Lezgians have around 28% Gedrosia and they are a Northeastern Caucasian people.



As I mentioned the problem is that the Caucasus admixture is high everwhere near the Caucasus, often higher than the Gedrosia admixture. Northwest European have high Gedrosia admixture but almost no Caucasus admixture. So the Gedrosia ad that we have in Northwest Europe can't be from the Caucasus.

----------


## Maciamo

> As I mentioned the problem is that the Caucasus admixture is high everwhere near the Caucasus, often higher than the Gedrosia admixture. Northwest European have high Gedrosia admixture but almost no Caucasus admixture. So the Gedrosia ad that we have in Northwest Europe can't be from the Caucasus.


The problem is that you are making assumptions based on present-day admixtures. I though that the confirmation that Mesolithic and Neolithic Scandinavians were much "purer" (in terms of admixtures) than modern populations would finally put an end to this kind of assumptions. What makes you think that people from the Caucasus region 5000 or 6000 years ago (so even older than our Swedish samples here) were identical or even similar to modern Caucasians (who are already quite a heterogeneous bunch) ?

How can we know that the genes that are part of the Gedrosia admixtures were already around Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Mesolithic period ? It could have been brought by Neolithic farmers and herders from the Fertile Crescent. Considering that it is so high in India, but less high in the Levant or Anatolia, it could have been brought by R1a people from Russia. Unless R1a and/or R1b originated in South Asia during the Palaeolithic, and brought some of these genes to the Eurasian steppes, while acquiring lots of local genes by marrying local women. There is so much we don't know yet.

But what seems to be clear from the testing of these three Swedish samples and Ötzi is that the Gedrosia component was absent from Europe in the Neolithic. Nowadays it is found mostly in Northern and Western Europe, especially in regions with over 60% of R1b. *In Northern Europe, the Gedrosian admixture peaks in the Netherlands, Britain and Ireland (11-16%). In Southern Europe, it peaks in the Basque country (10-11%), also the area with the most R1b. R1a-rich countries, like Russia, Poland or Lithuania, only have about 1% of Gedrosian admixture. So in Europe at least there seems to be an obvious correlation between R1b and the Gedrosia admixture.*

I am not saying that Bronze-Age R1b people were entirely Gedrosian nor even mostly Gedrosian in admixture. I have always placed the origin of haplogroup R1* around modern Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran. My migration map of R1b, unchanged for the last four years, shows that R1b appeared around modern Iran circa 20,000 years ago, then moved to the Middle East. R1b1b* (P297, now confusingly called R1b1a) would have lived around modern Kurdistan at the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago. 

Just to be clear, this was before the Neolithic revolution, and before farmers and herders recolonised all the Middle East. Local populations of hunter-gatherers in the Middle East would have been utterly different from today in terms of admixtures. Not only would each of them been fairly homogeneous (hunter-gathering tribes hardly ever mix with others), we could even suppose that many of them did not pass on their genes to the modern populations. If we tested the DNA of 20 different tribes from the Middle East 12,000 years ago, I would expect to find several extinct Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups, and perhaps some autosomal profiles that don't match anything in the modern population.

In this context, the original R1b people might well have had a high percentage of Gedrosian admixture, were we to test them today. However it took them 6,000 more years from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age before they moved to the Pontic Steppes. During that that they might have mixed with other people from Anatolia (G, J ?), then afterwards with the native people from the steppe (R1a).

According to my IE theory, R1b acquired horses and Bronze weapons, invaded the Balkans, and stayed there for nearly 2000 years before moving on very quickly to Central and Western Europe (all within about 500 years). *The patriarchic Indo-European R1b men would have taken (several) local wives/concubines among the conquered populations, each time diluting their original autosomes, though increasing the overall percentage of their Y-DNA signature in the European population.* 

*By the time R1b-L11 reached Central Europe, roughly 4500 years ago, R1b people were very heterogeneous*, carrying Gedrosian admixtures from their Palaeolithic origins in Iran/Anatolia (I would guess only around 20-25% by then, with a tint of South Asian as well), Northeast/East European admixtures from the steppe (I'd say 15-20%), and a compound of Southeast European, West Asian, Caucasian and Southwest Asian from their conquest of the Neolithic Balkans (this could have been higher and might account for most of these admixtures in Northern Europe). 

Naturally, R1b would have mixed again with natives in Central, then Western Europe. Considering the fast conquest from 2500 BCE onwards and the sudden explosion of R1b lineages, I would think that R1b men did slaughter or marginalise local men and took a lot of local women. This would have had for effect a sharp dilution of their autosomal gene pool. *If R1b men had children only local women, their autosomal contribution would have fallen by exactly 50%.*

----------


## Knovas

> But �tzi also has almost zero (1.7%) West-asian in K7. But in K12 he has 33% near-eastern components (caucasus+SA+...). That means that the K12 near-eastern components got subsumed into the "southern" component in K7, or am I wrong?. In this case, Gok4 having 0% west-asian would mean nothing, because he has 40% "southern" in K7, where near-east components are part of.


The K12b run most times gives a false picture and causes confusions like yours. If you want to see truly contributions from West/Central Asia, the K7b experiment is much more useful.



> I think we cant determined if Neolthic farmers where South European or West Asian by using components. The thing is, and I believe Dienekes also pointed this out before. All these Caucasid components, be it Southwest Asian, North European or Atlantic Mediterranean seem to have originated from the West Asian component and through drifts moved a bit away from it.


This can't be and I highly doubt Dienekes' made such statement. The West Asian component you see in all runs is an admixed cluster as well as the others, the main difference is that it deviates more towards East Eurasian populations than the other West Eurasian clusters. So no, modern genotypes cannot provide what you are refering to.

----------


## Goga

http://dodecad.blogspot.com/2012/01/...lculators.html

----------


## Alan

> How can we know that the genes that are part of the Gedrosia admixtures were already around Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Mesolithic period ? It could have been brought by Neolithic farmers and herders from the Fertile Crescent


Thats what I assume and mentioned ones. The Gedrosia component is on its highest among the Baluch and Burusho (which are just a bunch of Baluchis who adopted a Dravidian language). This component was brought there by Baluchis I am almost 100% sure. Baluchis themselves originated somewhere in West Iran/Mesopotamia and moved into Central Asia. However it is also possible that Gedrosia was in Central-South Asia much earlier but on fst distance maps we see that it has to have its origin in West Asia.

----------


## MOESAN

very interesting
I agree with some conclusions but:
as for the 2 Y-R1b found in a so called Bell Beaker site of the border line Thuringen-Sachsen-Anholt (fronteer with Corded culture) DON'T FORGET THESE SAMPLES ARE RIDICULOUSLY SMALL: let's think: 1 or 2 - I see no reason to build too quickly theories on these basis -
_other problems:_ the criteria to establish the autosomal pools: arbitrary, very often not precise enough and conflicting between them (mixture between old southwestern and old north-central populations of paleo and mesolithic stock by instance, and the same for other poolings) - after all, the 'gedrosia' vs 'caucasus concept appears after the "united" 'west-asian' concept - 
a neolithic man in Sweden is not enough to evaluate the swedish neolithic people of HIS CLOSE REGION, and very less yet to evaluate the WHOLE neolithic peoples - 
there has been all kinds of propagation for agriculture and we see different new types arriving in Europe by Greece and Donau or by the Mediterranea shores - the danubian type was dominent in Normandy during the time of Celts (Gauls) and until the Viking period ; traces of this 'danubian' was found in Catalunia and in the north-italian Néolithic - the southern 'baumes-chaudes' and other southern types observed in Sardigna and Switzerland (Cardial and « children » Chassey) got everywhere, by Rhone, by Loire, by Garonne (in France) until Paris Region - in Spain too - but in a lot of places we see diverse stages of crossing (so genetic admixture)... I HOPE MORE AND MORE DATA ON THIS ANCIENT DNA BEFORE DOING TO PRECISE BETS -
i find interesting the guess of Spongetaro about Megaliths people even if I shall put some variations:
these people (I know nothing about them for Y-DNA) shows in a lot of places a crossing between eastern mediterranean types and a more occidental type strongly influenced by 'cro-magnon' (either by direct évolution or by dominent number position in crossing), I don't exclude some 'combe-capelle' or 'chancelade' elements: this mixture (my analyse on the old anthropologic surveys by my hand) seams to me being very close to the so called 'long barrows' type of COON - a type found very heavily in middle-late Neolithic of Brittain but too at the same period in some places of Gascogne (Gascoyne?) and Northern Spain, in Brittany, and on the English Channel and North Sea shores until Scandinavia (megalithic culture) - it is not say that there was always and in every megalithic region only this type but it seams by far the heavier element on almost all the maritime regions : it seams corresponding to a late stage of Neolithic and without tight link with the early Cardial period and people, littler yet with Danubian LBK = Rubané culture - 
it's very perilous to do bets on a so unsteady basis but we can imagine a seafarer people of the far Levant acculturing mesolithic people of coastal Western Europe (on a first stage) - the beautiful stone buildings of Skara Brae and the great antiquity of the first megaliths (in Brittany and Ireland and Brittain): about 4000BC, and the totally absence of this big structure before that in Occident seams as a JUMP between the Near Eastern countries and the Atlantic Sea, as if the center would have been without interest to them or as if the elite previous element was not numerous enough to subjugate other neolithic people in central Mediterranea: someones say it is the cardial people that created the megalithic culture but the first big structures seam have been built in the far North-West for I know, long before Malta by example AND BEFORE the southern France eclosion (3000-2700BC) where the cardial culture and the intrusion of some mediterranean new phenotypes of small stature 1m62 are to be seen (before megaliths) – and the phenotypes sing an other song, as said before (megalithic types : 1m66-1m68) , bigger but lower skulls, broader faces even if as little, broader mandibule (inferior jaw) etc...-
a kind of jump, yes... - the first neolithic people was in Southern France since the 6000/5500BC with pottery but without any megalith! For COON, some traits of these seafarers recalled Sumerians but the faces did not check it at all – CHARLES was not closer to the truth I mean (without speaking about his obsession of rapid adaptation of bones phenotypes, based on nothing but assumptions) – this CHARLES made a story about 'corded' or 'brünn' types acclimated to Balkans and after that adapting to the Egea, giving the true 'ibero-insular' type, where some of the people was bigger and rougher giving way (according to him) to the 'megalithic type » tale... but his own « aquitano-mediterranean (cro-magnon) », a crossing for me, appears closer to the 'long-barrows' type of COON and matches very well with the maritime and previous megaliths distribution... what he took for a type was a mixture where occidental autochtones played a big role for genes if not for culture – so, the 'gedrosia' element in « Celtic », « Basque » or « Scandinavian » could be old in these populations and even be linked to megalithism - the problem is that it proposed a way by southern e sea, not by northern European lands !
It is not a theory, only e possibility – future will tell us I hope !
The future distribution of B.B.s on shores seam being close enough to the maritime distribution of megaliths but I' m not sure at all that there is a genetic link at the beginning... maybe the attraction of some stuffs ?

----------


## ElHorsto

> ... - the first neolithic people was in Southern France since the 6000/5500BC with pottery but without any megalith! For COON, some traits of these seafarers recalled Sumerians but the faces did not check it at all





> so, the 'gedrosia' element in « Celtic », « Basque » or « Scandinavian » could be old in these populations and even be linked to megalithism - the problem is that it proposed a way by southern e sea, not by northern European lands !
> It is not a theory, only e possibility – future will tell us I hope !


I also think this possibility should be kept in mind. Especially that what you write about a possible Sumerian connection being mentioned by somebody already (e.g. Coon) is very interesting, because I also had this idea already. The relatively high Gedrosia component of Basques could be a hint for a neolithic origin of their language. The Sumerian language is peculiar like the basque and there are some remarkable similarities, although officially it has not been accepted by scholars. I know this all is still very speculative and data are perhaps unreliable, but I think it could be possible that the gedosia component could have left the near-east before caucasus and south-west asian "components" merged and settled in the former land of "gedrosians" (North-west Iran, Mesopotamia or somewhere near). A recent bayesian analysis yielded 3750 BC as most likely date of semitic language genesism, which is late enough. That could be an explanation for the lack of caucasus on the altantic fringe. I'm aware that talking in terms of "caucasus", "gedrosian" etc. is simplistic, but that's all we have currently. It also should not be forgotteh that the "Atlantic_med" component today still reaches approx. 20% in the middle east itself.
After all, I'm undecided and consider Maciamo's scenario of a land-route of IE (with some modifications) also very likely.

----------


## Alan

More informations about the Baluch People. I usually do not quote Wikipedia but this article seems to be correct.






> The Baloch or Baluch (Balochi: بلوچ) are an ethnic group who mainly inhabit the Balochistan region in the southeast corner of the Iranian plateau in Western Asia.
> 
> The Baluch people mainly speak Baluchi, which is a branch of the Iranian languages, *and more specifically of the North-western Iranian languages*,* that is highly influenced by that of Mesopotamia and shares similarities with Kurdish and other languages of the region. It also contains archaic features reminiscent of Old Persian and Avestan.*[7] They inhabit mountainous terrains and deserts, and maintain a very distinct cultural identity. The Baloch-speaking population worldwide is estimated to be in the range of 10 to 15 million.[citation needed] However,* the exact number of Baloch and those who are or claim to be of Baloch ancestry is difficult to determine. In the Punjab province of Pakistan almost 10% of peoples are Balochi.[citation needed] Most of them speak Saraiki but in the Jhang area of Punjab, the majority of the Baloch population speak Punjabi also.*[citation needed]
> 
> *It is possible that there are more Baloch than simply those who claim Balochi as their mother tongue.* *This, however, raises the question as to who is and is not a Baloch, as many surrounding peoples claim to be of Baloch descent but do not speak Balochi. The Brahui, having lived in proximity to the Baloch, have absorbed substantial linguistic and genetic admixture from the Baloch and in many cases are indistinguishable. Despite very few cultural differences from the Baloch, the Brahui are still regarded as a separate group on account of language difference.
> *


 The Baluchis came from West Iran/Mesopotamia and played a huge role in spreading Gedrosia, this is my opinion.

----------


## MOESAN

I find very interesting these last two posts we are doing bets, but alternative bets can be fructuous wait and see more discoverings

----------


## MOESAN

I add that a south maritime way for the 'gedrosian' minority is not stupid even if the continental way keeps its chances- 
other problem? a kinf of basque language was (maybe, according to a survey on finnish saami language) spoken before the Finn Saami colonized northern Scandinavia - that doesn't match too well with the south maritime way because if basque is a megalithic language, it - Could we figure out some basque speaking tribes (not too numerous) travelling side by side or in not too bad relations with numerous I-Eans and keeping their languages??? it remains for me that the not "autochtonous" element in first Megalithic Culture of Western Europe coasts came surely enough from East Mediterranea but then what language???
could we imagine that the finnish languages came in Saamiland after the Megaliths one (-4000/-3000)???

----------


## ElHorsto

> I add that a south maritime way for the 'gedrosian' minority is not stupid even if the continental way keeps its chances- 
> other problem? a kinf of basque language was (maybe, according to a survey on finnish saami language) spoken before the Finn Saami colonized northern Scandinavia


Right, those are two hypotheses which may be independent from each other. If one of them appears wrong (near-eastern origin of basque language), then the other still can be right. 
Not sure if I already mentioned, but an IE-origin of the Gedrosian component by land route into western europe is questioned a bit once more when looking at the genetic peculiarities of the basques, which are obvious, but surprisingly not by a decreased gedrosian component, but by decreased north_euro component instead, similar to Sardinia. So it could be possible that IE might have brought only north_euro components to WE, without gedrosian.




> - that doesn't match too well with the south maritime way because if basque is a megalithic language, it - Could we figure out some basque speaking tribes (not too numerous) travelling side by side or in not too bad relations with numerous I-Eans and keeping their languages??? it remains for me that the not "autochtonous" element in first Megalithic Culture of Western Europe coasts came surely enough from East Mediterranea but then what language???


Speculation: Maybe the basque language really was originally based on old european languages, but later got mixed with advanced terms (f.i. metal-working) from megalithic peoples and others.

----------


## MOESAN

> Right, those are two hypotheses which may be independent from each other. If one of them appears wrong (near-eastern origin of basque language), then the other still can be right. 
> Not sure if I already mentioned, but an IE-origin of the Gedrosian component by land route into western europe is questioned a bit once more when looking at the genetic peculiarities of the basques, which are obvious, but surprisingly not by a decreased gedrosian component, but by decreased north_euro component instead, similar to Sardinia. So it could be possible that IE might have brought only north_euro components to WE, without gedrosian.
> 
> 
> 
> Speculation: Maybe the basque language really was originally based on old european languages, but later got mixed with advanced terms (f.i. metal-working) from megalithic peoples and others.


I find interesting your analysis
so, if I understand well, possibly a pre-I-E old european (mesolithic? older?) language, after that technical terms from Eastern Mediterranea (Levant) send there by the elite that accultured Atlantic coastal populations? just before the I-Eans arriving?
Why not? Some say (it's debated) that iberian language was a mixture of an undetermined non-I-E element, an basco-aquitan non I-E element, and some celtic loans... Some others note common terms in basque, sardignan substrate and other mediterranean coastal languages (albanian too, I believe) - maybe not so old as the basis of proto-basque but later the words send there by this supposed maritime elite I was speaking about?
good night (it 's good for the brain work)

----------


## ElHorsto

> Not sure if I already mentioned, but an IE-origin of the Gedrosian component by land route into western europe is questioned a bit once more when looking at the genetic peculiarities of the basques, which are obvious, but surprisingly not by a decreased gedrosian component, but by decreased north_euro component instead, similar to Sardinia. So it could be possible that IE might have brought only north_euro components to WE, without gedrosian.


Although I have to admit that the recent neolithic genetic samples support a different story for scandinavia than for iberia. Maybe the various R1b lineages could support these different stories too, I don't know. Without the basques, the IE explanation for R1b and "gedrosian" would be somewhat likely. It's undecidable at the moment.

----------


## Haustor

What if R1b folks did not enter Europe through Balkan but went to North Africa and then divide themselves into two groups. One group entered Europe across Gibraltar and the other went south (huge number of R1b around Cameroon)?

That could explain why some population lack "gedrosian" component and it would also mean that we should look for that component in some sub Saharan population.

----------


## Wilhelm

> What if R1b folks did not enter Europe through Balkan but went to North Africa and then divide themselves into two groups. One group entered Europe across Gibraltar and the other went south (huge number of R1b around Cameroon)?
> 
> That could explain why some population lack "gedrosian" component and it would also mean that we should look for that component in some sub Saharan population.


lol, because they are two completely different branches of R1b.

----------

