Fascinating if true.
Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, Vol. 17, No 1, (2017), pp. 233-250
DECODING GÖBEKLI TEPE
WITH ARCHAEOASTRONOMY:
WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY?
Martin B. Sweatman* and Dimitrios Tsikritsis
We have interpreted much of the symbolism of Göbekli Tepe in terms of astronomical events. By matching
low-relief carvings on some of the pillars at Göbekli Tepe to star asterisms we find compelling evidence that
the famous ‘Vulture Stone’ is a date stamp for 10950 BC ± 250 yrs, which corresponds closely to the
proposed Younger Dryas event, estimated at 10890 BC. We also find evidence that a key function of Göbekli
Tepe was to observe meteor showers and record cometary encounters. Indeed, the people of Göbekli Tepe
appear to have had a special interest in the Taurid meteor stream, the same meteor stream that is proposed
as responsible for the Younger-Dryas event. Is Göbekli Tepe the ‘smoking gun’ for the Younger-Dryas
cometary encounter, and hence for coherent catastrophism?
Link (pdf)
Showing posts with label Anatolia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anatolia. Show all posts
April 21, 2017
June 07, 2016
Neolithic Aegean genomes
PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1523951113
Early farmers from across Europe directly descended from Neolithic Aegeans
Zuzana Hofmanová, Susanne Kreutzer et al.
Farming and sedentism first appeared in southwestern Asia during the early Holocene and later spread to neighboring regions, including Europe, along multiple dispersal routes. Conspicuous uncertainties remain about the relative roles of migration, cultural diffusion, and admixture with local foragers in the early Neolithization of Europe. Here we present paleogenomic data for five Neolithic individuals from northern Greece and northwestern Turkey spanning the time and region of the earliest spread of farming into Europe. We use a novel approach to recalibrate raw reads and call genotypes from ancient DNA and observe striking genetic similarity both among Aegean early farmers and with those from across Europe. Our study demonstrates a direct genetic link between Mediterranean and Central European early farmers and those of Greece and Anatolia, extending the European Neolithic migratory chain all the way back to southwestern Asia.
Link
May 12, 2016
Luwians vs. Hittites and Mycenaeans vs. Luwians
January 06, 2016
Even more Anatolian Neolithic genomes
Recently I proclaimed the problem of "Neolithization of Europe" to be "done", but it doesn't hurt to have more confirmation as this new paper does. The Anatolian data is from a different site than those used by Mathieson et al. and Hofmanová, Kreutzer et al. albeit still in the extreme northwest of Asia Minor. Nonetheless, the individual from Kumtepe doesn't seem to carry any major surprises, so "Neolithization of Europe" remains "done".
Current Biology http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.12.019
Genomic Evidence Establishes Anatolia as the Source of the European Neolithic Gene Pool
Ayça Omrak et al.
Anatolia and the Near East have long been recognized as the epicenter of the Neolithic expansion through archaeological evidence. Recent archaeogenetic studies on Neolithic European human remains have shown that the Neolithic expansion in Europe was driven westward and northward by migration from a supposed Near Eastern origin [ 1–5 ]. However, this expansion and the establishment of numerous culture complexes in the Aegean and Balkans did not occur until 8,500 before present (BP), over 2,000 years after the initial settlements in the Neolithic core area [ 6–9 ]. We present ancient genome-wide sequence data from 6,700-year-old human remains excavated from a Neolithic context in Kumtepe, located in northwestern Anatolia near the well-known (and younger) site Troy [ 10 ]. Kumtepe is one of the settlements that emerged around 7,000 BP, after the initial expansion wave brought Neolithic practices to Europe. We show that this individual displays genetic similarities to the early European Neolithic gene pool and modern-day Sardinians, as well as a genetic affinity to modern-day populations from the Near East and the Caucasus. Furthermore, modern-day Anatolians carry signatures of several admixture events from different populations that have diluted this early Neolithic farmer component, explaining why modern-day Sardinian populations, instead of modern-day Anatolian populations, are genetically more similar to the people that drove the Neolithic expansion into Europe. Anatolia’s central geographic location appears to have served as a connecting point, allowing a complex contact network with other areas of the Near East and Europe throughout, and after, the Neolithic.
Link
Current Biology http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.12.019
Genomic Evidence Establishes Anatolia as the Source of the European Neolithic Gene Pool
Ayça Omrak et al.
Anatolia and the Near East have long been recognized as the epicenter of the Neolithic expansion through archaeological evidence. Recent archaeogenetic studies on Neolithic European human remains have shown that the Neolithic expansion in Europe was driven westward and northward by migration from a supposed Near Eastern origin [ 1–5 ]. However, this expansion and the establishment of numerous culture complexes in the Aegean and Balkans did not occur until 8,500 before present (BP), over 2,000 years after the initial settlements in the Neolithic core area [ 6–9 ]. We present ancient genome-wide sequence data from 6,700-year-old human remains excavated from a Neolithic context in Kumtepe, located in northwestern Anatolia near the well-known (and younger) site Troy [ 10 ]. Kumtepe is one of the settlements that emerged around 7,000 BP, after the initial expansion wave brought Neolithic practices to Europe. We show that this individual displays genetic similarities to the early European Neolithic gene pool and modern-day Sardinians, as well as a genetic affinity to modern-day populations from the Near East and the Caucasus. Furthermore, modern-day Anatolians carry signatures of several admixture events from different populations that have diluted this early Neolithic farmer component, explaining why modern-day Sardinian populations, instead of modern-day Anatolian populations, are genetically more similar to the people that drove the Neolithic expansion into Europe. Anatolia’s central geographic location appears to have served as a connecting point, allowing a complex contact network with other areas of the Near East and Europe throughout, and after, the Neolithic.
Link
November 26, 2015
Neolithic farmers from Greece and Anatolia
A couple of new papers appeared this week. First, an article in Nature on natural selection in ancient Europe includes a sample of Anatolian Neolithic farmers and concludes that the European Neolithic farmers were descended from them with a bit of extra European hunter-gatherer admixture. Second, a new preprint on the bioRxiv includes Neolithic samples from northern Greece and finds that they too resemble the Anatolian and European farmers. I think it is time to declare the problem of "Neolithization of Europe" done. It took less than 4 years to solve it with ancient DNA. Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of papers in historical review:
Nature (2015) doi:10.1038/nature16152
Genome-wide patterns of selection in 230 ancient Eurasians
Iain Mathieson et al.
Ancient DNA makes it possible to observe natural selection directly by analysing samples from populations before, during and after adaptation events. Here we report a genome-wide scan for selection using ancient DNA, capitalizing on the largest ancient DNA data set yet assembled: 230 West Eurasians who lived between 6500 and 300 BC, including 163 with newly reported data. The new samples include, to our knowledge, the first genome-wide ancient DNA from Anatolian Neolithic farmers, whose genetic material we obtained by extracting from petrous bones, and who we show were members of the population that was the source of Europe’s first farmers. We also report a transect of the steppe region in Samara between 5600 and 300 BC, which allows us to identify admixture into the steppe from at least two external sources. We detect selection at loci associated with diet, pigmentation and immunity, and two independent episodes of selection on height.
Link
bioRxiv http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/032763
Early farmers from across Europe directly descended from Neolithic Aegeans
Zuzana Hofmanová, Susanne Kreutzer et al.
Farming and sedentism first appear in southwest Asia during the early Holocene and later spread to neighboring regions, including Europe, along multiple dispersal routes. Conspicuous uncertainties remain about the relative roles of migration, cultural diffusion and admixture with local foragers in the early Neolithisation of Europe. Here we present paleogenomic data for five Neolithic individuals from northwestern Turkey and northern Greece, spanning the time and region of the earliest spread of farming into Europe. We observe striking genetic similarity both among Aegean early farmers and with those from across Europe. Our study demonstrates a direct genetic link between Mediterranean and Central European early farmers and those of Greece and Anatolia, extending the European Neolithic migratory chain all the way back to southwestern Asia.
Link
- Keller et al. (2012): Iceman (5kya) looks Sardinian! Was this a fluke?
- Skoglund et al. (2012): No, because... Swedish farmer (5kya) looked Sardinian too! When did these "Sardinians" come to Europe?
- Lazaridis et al. (2014): No later than an LBK farmer from Germany (7kya) but what about western Europe?
- Haak, Lazaridis et al. (2015): Spanish early farmers from northern Spain looked Sardinian too
- Olalde, Schroeder et al. (2015): Ditto for Mediterranean Spain! So where did they all come from?
- Mathieson et al. (2015): Anatolia!
- Hofmanová, Kreutzer et al. (2015): via Greece!
Genome-wide patterns of selection in 230 ancient Eurasians
Iain Mathieson et al.
Ancient DNA makes it possible to observe natural selection directly by analysing samples from populations before, during and after adaptation events. Here we report a genome-wide scan for selection using ancient DNA, capitalizing on the largest ancient DNA data set yet assembled: 230 West Eurasians who lived between 6500 and 300 BC, including 163 with newly reported data. The new samples include, to our knowledge, the first genome-wide ancient DNA from Anatolian Neolithic farmers, whose genetic material we obtained by extracting from petrous bones, and who we show were members of the population that was the source of Europe’s first farmers. We also report a transect of the steppe region in Samara between 5600 and 300 BC, which allows us to identify admixture into the steppe from at least two external sources. We detect selection at loci associated with diet, pigmentation and immunity, and two independent episodes of selection on height.
Link
Early farmers from across Europe directly descended from Neolithic Aegeans
Zuzana Hofmanová, Susanne Kreutzer et al.
Farming and sedentism first appear in southwest Asia during the early Holocene and later spread to neighboring regions, including Europe, along multiple dispersal routes. Conspicuous uncertainties remain about the relative roles of migration, cultural diffusion and admixture with local foragers in the early Neolithisation of Europe. Here we present paleogenomic data for five Neolithic individuals from northwestern Turkey and northern Greece, spanning the time and region of the earliest spread of farming into Europe. We observe striking genetic similarity both among Aegean early farmers and with those from across Europe. Our study demonstrates a direct genetic link between Mediterranean and Central European early farmers and those of Greece and Anatolia, extending the European Neolithic migratory chain all the way back to southwestern Asia.
Link
February 23, 2015
Spread of Leprosy into Medieval Europe
Infection, Genetics and Evolution
Volume 31, April 2015, Pages 250–256
A migration-driven model for the historical spread of leprosy in medieval Eastern and Central Europe
Helen D. Donoghue et al.
Leprosy was rare in Europe during the Roman period, yet its prevalence increased dramatically in medieval times. We examined human remains, with paleopathological lesions indicative of leprosy, dated to the 6th–11th century AD, from Central and Eastern Europe and Byzantine Anatolia. Analysis of ancient DNA and bacterial cell wall lipid biomarkers revealed Mycobacterium leprae in skeletal remains from 6th–8th century Northern Italy, 7th–11th century Hungary, 8th–9th century Austria, the Slavic Greater Moravian Empire of the 9th–10th century and 8th–10th century Byzantine samples from Northern Anatolia. These data were analyzed alongside findings published by others. M. leprae is an obligate human pathogen that has undergone an evolutionary bottleneck followed by clonal expansion. Therefore M. leprae genotypes and sub-genotypes give information about the human populations they have infected and their migration. Although data are limited, genotyping demonstrates that historical M. leprae from Byzantine Anatolia, Eastern and Central Europe resembles modern strains in Asia Minor rather than the recently characterized historical strains from North West Europe. The westward migration of peoples from Central Asia in the first millennium may have introduced different M. leprae strains into medieval Europe and certainly would have facilitated the spread of any existing leprosy. The subsequent decline of M. leprae in Europe may be due to increased host resistance. However, molecular evidence of historical leprosy and tuberculosis co-infections suggests that death from tuberculosis in leprosy patients was also a factor.
Link
A migration-driven model for the historical spread of leprosy in medieval Eastern and Central Europe
Helen D. Donoghue et al.
Leprosy was rare in Europe during the Roman period, yet its prevalence increased dramatically in medieval times. We examined human remains, with paleopathological lesions indicative of leprosy, dated to the 6th–11th century AD, from Central and Eastern Europe and Byzantine Anatolia. Analysis of ancient DNA and bacterial cell wall lipid biomarkers revealed Mycobacterium leprae in skeletal remains from 6th–8th century Northern Italy, 7th–11th century Hungary, 8th–9th century Austria, the Slavic Greater Moravian Empire of the 9th–10th century and 8th–10th century Byzantine samples from Northern Anatolia. These data were analyzed alongside findings published by others. M. leprae is an obligate human pathogen that has undergone an evolutionary bottleneck followed by clonal expansion. Therefore M. leprae genotypes and sub-genotypes give information about the human populations they have infected and their migration. Although data are limited, genotyping demonstrates that historical M. leprae from Byzantine Anatolia, Eastern and Central Europe resembles modern strains in Asia Minor rather than the recently characterized historical strains from North West Europe. The westward migration of peoples from Central Asia in the first millennium may have introduced different M. leprae strains into medieval Europe and certainly would have facilitated the spread of any existing leprosy. The subsequent decline of M. leprae in Europe may be due to increased host resistance. However, molecular evidence of historical leprosy and tuberculosis co-infections suggests that death from tuberculosis in leprosy patients was also a factor.
Link
June 10, 2014
The Mediterranean route into Europe (Paschou et al. 2014)
It is hard to imagine that there were ever any major impediments to gene flow between Anatolia and the Balkans as the Aegean islands and Hellespont are not formidable barriers to any culture with even rudimentary technology. Hopefully in the future it will become possible to look at ancient DNA from Greece and Anatolia and directly determine how the transfer of the Neolithic package into Europe took place and how much of the ancestry of modern populations stems from the Neolithic inhabitants vs. more recent shuffling of genes in either direction.
The authors also computed f3-statistics to see if populations were admixed, but found no significant evidence for it. If, for example, Dodecanesians were intermediate between mainland Greece and Anatolia they might have a negative f3(Dodecanesian; Cappadocia, Peloponnese) statistic. A negative statistic proves admixture but a positive one does not disprove it, but, in any case, there is no signal of admixture here so the results are compatible with the authors' model and probably incompatible with a recent admixture that would leave a significant negative signal (i.e., Dodecanesians/Cretans would have intermediate allele frequencies between Cappadocians and mainland Greeks).
PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1320811111
Maritime route of colonization of Europe
Peristera Paschou et al.
The Neolithic populations, which colonized Europe approximately 9,000 y ago, presumably migrated from Near East to Anatolia and from there to Central Europe through Thrace and the Balkans. An alternative route would have been island hopping across the Southern European coast. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed genome-wide DNA polymorphisms on populations bordering the Mediterranean coast and from Anatolia and mainland Europe. We observe a striking structure correlating genes with geography around the Mediterranean Sea with characteristic east to west clines of gene flow. Using population network analysis, we also find that the gene flow from Anatolia to Europe was through Dodecanese, Crete, and the Southern European coast, compatible with the hypothesis that a maritime coastal route was mainly used for the migration of Neolithic farmers to Europe.
Link
March 27, 2014
Major new article on the deep origins of Y-haplogroup R1a (Underhill et al. 2014)
Five years ago, Underhill et al. (2009) presented a major advance in the study of haplogroup R1a. Much new knowledge was added in the interim by genetic genealogists and some scientists, and now a major new paper by Peter Underhill comes to update our knowledge of this important and widely spread human lineage.
The shallow coalescence time within R1a will not surprise many genetic genealogists while its diversification in the vicinity of present-day Iran might. A ~5-7kyBP coalescence would make the expansion of R1a lineages presumably visible to future ancient DNA studies which will probably be the final arbiter of the veracity of the date estimate in this paper and its postulated place of origin.
I'll try to digest what the new information has to say about Eurasian prehistory, but in the meantime...
... I will, however, take some time to highlight the passing of the guard from Y-STRs to Y-SNPs which I had long ago anticipated. There is some lingering controversy about the substitution rate on the Y chromosome is, but it is hopeful that this will be resolved before not too long as the price of whole genome sequencing is always dropping and the samples sequenced in this study are probably the first of many to come.
In any case:
European Journal of Human Genetics , (26 March 2014) | doi:10.1038/ejhg.2014.50
The phylogenetic and geographic structure of Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a
Peter A Underhill et al.
R1a-M420 is one of the most widely spread Y-chromosome haplogroups; however, its substructure within Europe and Asia has remained poorly characterized. Using a panel of 16 244 male subjects from 126 populations sampled across Eurasia, we identified 2923 R1a-M420 Y-chromosomes and analyzed them to a highly granular phylogeographic resolution. Whole Y-chromosome sequence analysis of eight R1a and five R1b individuals suggests a divergence time of ~25 000 (95% CI: 21 300–29 000) years ago and a coalescence time within R1a-M417 of ~5800 (95% CI: 4800–6800) years. The spatial frequency distributions of R1a sub-haplogroups conclusively indicate two major groups, one found primarily in Europe and the other confined to Central and South Asia. Beyond the major European versus Asian dichotomy, we describe several younger sub-haplogroups. Based on spatial distributions and diversity patterns within the R1a-M420 clade, particularly rare basal branches detected primarily within Iran and eastern Turkey, we conclude that the initial episodes of haplogroup R1a diversification likely occurred in the vicinity of present-day Iran.
Link
The shallow coalescence time within R1a will not surprise many genetic genealogists while its diversification in the vicinity of present-day Iran might. A ~5-7kyBP coalescence would make the expansion of R1a lineages presumably visible to future ancient DNA studies which will probably be the final arbiter of the veracity of the date estimate in this paper and its postulated place of origin.
I'll try to digest what the new information has to say about Eurasian prehistory, but in the meantime...
... I will, however, take some time to highlight the passing of the guard from Y-STRs to Y-SNPs which I had long ago anticipated. There is some lingering controversy about the substitution rate on the Y chromosome is, but it is hopeful that this will be resolved before not too long as the price of whole genome sequencing is always dropping and the samples sequenced in this study are probably the first of many to come.
In any case:
Our phylogeographic data lead us to conclude that the initial episodes of R1a-M420 diversification occurred in the vicinity of Iran and Eastern Turkey, and we estimate that diversification downstream of M417/Page7 occurred ~5800 years ago. This suggests the possibility that R1a lineages accompanied demic expansions initiated during the Copper, Bronze, and Iron ages, partially replacing previous Y-chromosome strata, an interpretation consistent with albeit limited ancient DNA evidence.54, 60 However, our data do not enable us to directly ascribe the patterns of R1a geographic spread to specific prehistoric cultures or more recent demographic events. High-throughput sequencing studies of more R1a lineages will lead to further insight into the structure of the underlying tree, and ancient DNA specimens will help adjudicate the molecular clock calibration. Together these advancements will yield more refined inferences about pre-historic dispersals of peoples, their material cultures, and languages.It would of course be great to get some ancient DNA data from Iran and Eastern Turkey:
Among the 120 populations with sample sizes of at least 50 individuals and with at least 10% occurrence of R1a, just 6 met these criteria, and 5 of these 6 populations reside in modern-day Iran. Haplogroup diversities among the six populations ranged from 0.78 to 0.86 (Supplementary Table 4). Of the 24 R1a-M420*(xSRY10831.2) chromosomes in our data set, 18 were sampled in Iran and 3 were from eastern Turkey. Similarly, five of the six observed R1a1-SRY10831.2*(xM417/Page7) chromosomes were also from Iran, with the sixth occurring in a Kabardin individual from the Caucasus. Owing to the prevalence of basal lineages and the high levels of haplogroup diversities in the region, we find a compelling case for the Middle East, possibly near present-day Iran, as the geographic origin of hg R1a.Also, the finding that...
The four subhaplogroups of Z93 (branches 9-M582, 10-M560, 12-Z2125, and 17-M780, L657) constitute a multifurcation unresolved by 10 Mb of sequencing; it is likely that no further resolution of this part of the tree will be possible with current technology. Similarly, the shared European branch has just three SNPs.... seems to imply some Copper-to-Bronze Age guys did more than their fair share of fathering.
European Journal of Human Genetics , (26 March 2014) | doi:10.1038/ejhg.2014.50
The phylogenetic and geographic structure of Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a
Peter A Underhill et al.
R1a-M420 is one of the most widely spread Y-chromosome haplogroups; however, its substructure within Europe and Asia has remained poorly characterized. Using a panel of 16 244 male subjects from 126 populations sampled across Eurasia, we identified 2923 R1a-M420 Y-chromosomes and analyzed them to a highly granular phylogeographic resolution. Whole Y-chromosome sequence analysis of eight R1a and five R1b individuals suggests a divergence time of ~25 000 (95% CI: 21 300–29 000) years ago and a coalescence time within R1a-M417 of ~5800 (95% CI: 4800–6800) years. The spatial frequency distributions of R1a sub-haplogroups conclusively indicate two major groups, one found primarily in Europe and the other confined to Central and South Asia. Beyond the major European versus Asian dichotomy, we describe several younger sub-haplogroups. Based on spatial distributions and diversity patterns within the R1a-M420 clade, particularly rare basal branches detected primarily within Iran and eastern Turkey, we conclude that the initial episodes of haplogroup R1a diversification likely occurred in the vicinity of present-day Iran.
Link
November 05, 2013
European pigs replacing Near Eastern ones in Iron Age Israel
Scientific Reports 3, Article number: 3035 doi:10.1038/srep03035
Ancient DNA and Population Turnover in Southern Levantine Pigs- Signature of the Sea Peoples Migration?
Meirav Meiri et al.
Near Eastern wild boars possess a characteristic DNA signature. Unexpectedly, wild boars from Israel have the DNA sequences of European wild boars and domestic pigs. To understand how this anomaly evolved, we sequenced DNA from ancient and modern pigs from Israel. Pigs from Late Bronze Age (until ca. 1150 BCE) in Israel shared haplotypes of modern and ancient Near Eastern pigs. European haplotypes became dominant only during the Iron Age (ca. 900 BCE). This raises the possibility that European pigs were brought to the region by the Sea Peoples who migrated to the Levant at that time. Then, a complete genetic turnover took place, most likely because of repeated admixture between local and introduced European domestic pigs that went feral. Severe population bottlenecks likely accelerated this process. Introductions by humans have strongly affected the phylogeography of wild animals, and interpretations of phylogeography based on modern DNA alone should be taken with caution.
Link
August 16, 2013
Oldest gaming tokens from Başur Höyük
Small carved stones unearthed in a nearly 5,000-year-old burial could represent the earliest gaming tokens ever found, according to Turkish archaeologists who are excavating early Bronze Age graves.
Found in a burial at Basur Höyük, a 820- by 492-foot mound near Siirt in southeast Turkey, the elaborate pieces consist of 49 small stones sculpted in different shapes and painted in green, red, blue, black and white.
"Some depict pigs, dogs and pyramids, others feature round and bullet shapes. We also found dice as well as three circular tokens made of white shell and topped with a black round stone," Haluk Saglamtimur of Ege University in Izmir, Turkey, told Discovery News.This is a nice illustration of people's familiarity with several abstract geometrical shapes for the purposes of gaming.
August 04, 2013
Archaeology: The milk revolution
A couple of interesting quotes from this story:
That next step happened slowly, and it seems to have required the spread of lactase persistence. The LP allele did not become common in the population until some time after it first emerged: Burger has looked for the mutation in samples of ancient human DNA and has found it only as far back as 6,500 years ago in northern Germany.
...
Some of the LeCHE participants are now probing further back in time, as part of a project named BEAN (Bridging the European and Anatolian Neolithic), which is looking at how the first farmers and herders made their way into Europe. Burger, Thomas and their BEAN collaborators will be in Turkey this summer, tracing the origins of the Neolithic using computer models and ancient-DNA analysis in the hope of better understanding who the early farmers were, and when they arrived in Europe.
August 01, 2013
Etruscans (maybe) not from Anatolia
There have been a few papers on the topic of Etruscan origins that argue in favor or against the Anatolian origin hypothesis. Two main lines of evidence exist on the topic: discontinuity between Etruscans and modern Tuscans (except some isolates); (perceived) similarity between Etrsucans' mtDNA and that of modern-day Turks.
Personally, I am not convinced either way, because I don't find it likely that a sample of modern-day Turks has much to tell us about the prehistoric relatives of the Etruscans. After all, modern-day Turks are descended from a a few dozen ancient Anatolian ethne plus a few extra-Anatolian influences from both west and east (and perhaps north and south) plus Central Asian Turkic influence minus Christian populations. We see evidence of genetic discontinuity in places with much simpler histories than Anatolia, so to claim that modern Turks have much of anything to tell us about Iron Age Etruscans is a not-so-believable proposition.
A similar complaint is that the specificity of the Etruscan gene pool can only be established by looking at their geographical neighbors. If Etruscans were intrusive to Italy, then, presumably, they would have retained differences from the surrounding Anatolian peoples.
A third (and perhaps more subtle) caveat is that "Etruscan" is polysemous. To the archaeologist and historian, it might mean a specific culture known from its remains and the texts of Romans and Greeks with which this culture interacted. To the linguist it might mean the language spoken by this culture when it attained literacy. To the geneticist it might mean the gene pool of individuals identified by archaeologists as "Etruscan".
These categories are not necessarily congruent. My favorite example is that of "Bulgarians" or "Croats", peoples who bear the name of a Turkic and Iranic people respectively, even though today they are geographically, culturally, and linguistically completely divorced from these antecedents. Or, the more controversial example of "Romans" themselves, whose nation spoke in historical times Latin, but whose histories preserved a memory of diverse origins, including, critically, an Anatolian genealogy for their eponymous ancestor.
So, the tale of Herodotus might be true (or false) on different levels. It might turn out that Etruscans did, in fact, form an isle of ancient west Anatolian genetics in Italy. Or, it might turn out that -as in the case of the Bulgarians- both language and genes are mostly native Italian, but the founding of the Etruscan nation can still be attributed to an extraneous influence. Or, perhaps Herodotus was 100% wrong, and Tyrrhenus never sailed to Italy.
Of course, I don't expect ancient DNA from all over Italy and all over Anatolia to materialize overnight, so studies such as this do help us constrain the space of possible solutions to the problem, i.e., a model with (i) substantial female participation in Etruscan colonization, (ii) genetic continuity in Anatolia to present-day Turks, and (iii) substantial contribution of Anatolian colonists to Etruscan gene pool may be falsified. But, assumptions (i-iii) describe only a small part of the space of models consistent with the Herodotean narrative.
Am J Phys Anthropol DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.22319
Genetic evidence does not support an etruscan origin in Anatolia
Francesca Tassi et al.
The debate on the origins of Etruscans, documented in central Italy between the eighth century BC and the first century AD, dates back to antiquity. Herodotus described them as a group of immigrants from Lydia, in Western Anatolia, whereas for Dionysius of Halicarnassus they were an indigenous population. Dionysius' view is shared by most modern archeologists, but the observation of similarities between the (modern) mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) of Turks and Tuscans was interpreted as supporting an Anatolian origin of the Etruscans. However, ancient DNA evidence shows that only some isolates, and not the bulk of the modern Tuscan population, are genetically related to the Etruscans. In this study, we tested alternative models of Etruscan origins by Approximate Bayesian Computation methods, comparing levels of genetic diversity in the mtDNAs of modern and ancient populations with those obtained by millions of computer simulations. The results show that the observed genetic similarities between modern Tuscans and Anatolians cannot be attributed to an immigration wave from the East leading to the onset of the Etruscan culture in Italy. Genetic links between Tuscany and Anatolia do exist, but date back to a remote stage of prehistory, possibly but not necessarily to the spread of farmers during the Neolithic period.
Link
Personally, I am not convinced either way, because I don't find it likely that a sample of modern-day Turks has much to tell us about the prehistoric relatives of the Etruscans. After all, modern-day Turks are descended from a a few dozen ancient Anatolian ethne plus a few extra-Anatolian influences from both west and east (and perhaps north and south) plus Central Asian Turkic influence minus Christian populations. We see evidence of genetic discontinuity in places with much simpler histories than Anatolia, so to claim that modern Turks have much of anything to tell us about Iron Age Etruscans is a not-so-believable proposition.
A similar complaint is that the specificity of the Etruscan gene pool can only be established by looking at their geographical neighbors. If Etruscans were intrusive to Italy, then, presumably, they would have retained differences from the surrounding Anatolian peoples.
A third (and perhaps more subtle) caveat is that "Etruscan" is polysemous. To the archaeologist and historian, it might mean a specific culture known from its remains and the texts of Romans and Greeks with which this culture interacted. To the linguist it might mean the language spoken by this culture when it attained literacy. To the geneticist it might mean the gene pool of individuals identified by archaeologists as "Etruscan".
These categories are not necessarily congruent. My favorite example is that of "Bulgarians" or "Croats", peoples who bear the name of a Turkic and Iranic people respectively, even though today they are geographically, culturally, and linguistically completely divorced from these antecedents. Or, the more controversial example of "Romans" themselves, whose nation spoke in historical times Latin, but whose histories preserved a memory of diverse origins, including, critically, an Anatolian genealogy for their eponymous ancestor.
So, the tale of Herodotus might be true (or false) on different levels. It might turn out that Etruscans did, in fact, form an isle of ancient west Anatolian genetics in Italy. Or, it might turn out that -as in the case of the Bulgarians- both language and genes are mostly native Italian, but the founding of the Etruscan nation can still be attributed to an extraneous influence. Or, perhaps Herodotus was 100% wrong, and Tyrrhenus never sailed to Italy.
Of course, I don't expect ancient DNA from all over Italy and all over Anatolia to materialize overnight, so studies such as this do help us constrain the space of possible solutions to the problem, i.e., a model with (i) substantial female participation in Etruscan colonization, (ii) genetic continuity in Anatolia to present-day Turks, and (iii) substantial contribution of Anatolian colonists to Etruscan gene pool may be falsified. But, assumptions (i-iii) describe only a small part of the space of models consistent with the Herodotean narrative.
Am J Phys Anthropol DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.22319
Genetic evidence does not support an etruscan origin in Anatolia
Francesca Tassi et al.
The debate on the origins of Etruscans, documented in central Italy between the eighth century BC and the first century AD, dates back to antiquity. Herodotus described them as a group of immigrants from Lydia, in Western Anatolia, whereas for Dionysius of Halicarnassus they were an indigenous population. Dionysius' view is shared by most modern archeologists, but the observation of similarities between the (modern) mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) of Turks and Tuscans was interpreted as supporting an Anatolian origin of the Etruscans. However, ancient DNA evidence shows that only some isolates, and not the bulk of the modern Tuscan population, are genetically related to the Etruscans. In this study, we tested alternative models of Etruscan origins by Approximate Bayesian Computation methods, comparing levels of genetic diversity in the mtDNAs of modern and ancient populations with those obtained by millions of computer simulations. The results show that the observed genetic similarities between modern Tuscans and Anatolians cannot be attributed to an immigration wave from the East leading to the onset of the Etruscan culture in Italy. Genetic links between Tuscany and Anatolia do exist, but date back to a remote stage of prehistory, possibly but not necessarily to the spread of farmers during the Neolithic period.
Link
June 25, 2013
Indo-European homeland and migrations: half a century of studies and discussions (Gamkrelidze & Ivanov 2013)
An extensive English summary of an article in Russian by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov almost 30 years since the publication of their original book. There are other articles in the volume of the JOLR presenting different views (unfortunately most behind a paywall).
Indo-European homeland and migrations: half a century of studies and discussions [In Russian with English summary]
The problem of the initial place from which the original Indo- European dialects spread over Eurasia has been studied by several generations of scholars. Few alternative points of view have been proposed: first an area near the North Sea (in the works of some scholars of the border of the 19th and 20th centuries), then the North coast of the Black Sea (an old idea of Schrader revived by Maria Gimbutas and her followers) or an area closer to the more eastern (Volga-Ural) parts of Central Eurasia. 40 years ago we suggested first in a talk at a conference, then in a series of articles and in a resulting book (published in Russian in 1984) that the Northern part of the Near East (an area close to North-East Syria and North Mesopotamia) may be considered as a possible candidate for the Indo-European homeland; similar suggestions were made by C. Renfrew and other scholars in their later works. Recent research on these topics has brought up additional evidence that seems to prove the Near Eastern hypothesis for the time that had immediately preceded the dispersal of the Indo-European protolanguage. Indirect evidence on the early presence of Indo-Europeans in the areas close to the Near East can be found in the traces of ancient contacts between linguistic families in this part of Eurasia. Such contacts between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Kartvelian have been suggested in the work of T. Gamkrelidze and G. Mach’avariani more than 60 years ago. The following studies have established a number of important loanwords from Proto-Indo-European in Proto-Kartvelian. Particularly interesting discoveries in this field were made by the late G. A. Klimov. He has found many new common elements of the two families in addition to a relatively long list in our joint work. The main difficulty in interpreting the results of his investigations is connected to the problem of a possible common Nostratic origin both of Proto-Indo-European and of Proto-Kartvelian. If these two linguistic families were originally cognate, then some part of the correspondences found by Klimov and other scholars might be traced back to the early period of Proto-Nostratic (more than 10 000 years ago). Only those words that were not inherited from this ancient time are important as a proof of the later presence of Proto-Indo-European in the area close to the Proto-Kartvelian (to the southwest of the Transcaucasian area in which the latter spread in the historic time). In our book, published in 1984, we suggested some common terms shared by these languages, explaining them as possible traces of later Indo-European (probably Indo-Iranian) migrations through the Caucasus. The study of this problem has been enriched through the recent research on Proto-North Caucasian. S. L. Nikolaev and S. A. Starostin have compiled a large etymological dictionary of this family, furthering the comparative studies started by Prince N. S. Trubetzkoy. Starostin has gathered a large collection of the terms of material culture common to North Caucasian and Indo-European. They include many names of domestic animals and animal body parts or products of cattle-breeding, plants and implements. In a special work on this subject Starostin suggested that all these terms were borrowed in the area of the Near East to the South of Transcaucasia in the early 5th mil. BC. Although we still use the traditional term “North Caucasian”, it is not geographically correct even if applied to such living languages as Abkhaz and to the extinct Ubykh (spoken originally at the southern part of the South-West Transcaucasian area). Since both Hurro-Urartian and Hattic (two ancient dialects of this linguistic group) were spoken in the regions to the South of Transcaucasia already in the 3rd mil. BC, it becomes possible to pinpoint the homeland of the whole family (which at that time was not North Caucasian) in the same area close to the supposed Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Kartvelian homelands. The fricative š in the Hurrian name for ‘horse’, eššə, and an affricate *č (> š) in the forms of the other North Caucasian dialects correspond to the Proto-Indo-European palatal stop *k’ that has become an affricate *č and then a fricative š /s in the Indo-European languages of the satəm type. Similar changes are present in the other borrowings discussed by Starostin. He supposed that the common words discovered by him were mostly borrowed from Proto-North Caucasian (or from a dialect of it) into Proto-Indo-European. The opposite direction of borrowing from an Indo-European dialect of a satəm type can be suggested due to the typologically valid laws of sound change. But no matter which direction of the borrowing should be chosen, the existence of these loanwords is beyond doubt. They clearly point to the location of the Indo-European homeland. In our monograph we suggested that several words shared by Semitic and Indo-European (such as the ancient term for ‘wine’, Hittite wiyana) can be considered Proto-Indo-European borrowings (as distinct from the rest of the most ancient old Semitic or Afro-Asiatic loanwords in Proto-Indo-European). S. A. Starostin suggested that a large number of (mainly West) Semitic words that did not have correspondences in the other Afro-Asiatic languages had been borrowed from Proto-Indo-European. He came to the conclusion: “the original Indo-European (Indo-Hittite) homeland was somewhere to the North of the Fertile Crescent from where the descendents of Indo-Hittites could have moved in two directions (starting with early 5th millennium BC) to the South where they came into the contact with the Semites, and indeed could have driven a part of them further to the South, and to the North (North-East) whence they ultimately spread both to Europe and to India”. The interference of the early dialects of Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Semitic and Proto-Kartvelian to which the early Proto-“North” Caucasian can be added might have led to the formation of a sort of linguistic zone (Sprachbund) that not only shared many words pertaining to a new farming economy, but also had several phonological and grammatical features in common. After we had published our hypothesis on the Near Eastern homeland of the Indo-Europeans, several scholars asked us why, at a time when writing had already been invented, there were no written documents testifying to the presence of Indo-Europeans in these areas. It seems that now there are several possible answers to the question. The great specialist on Iranian, W. B. Henning, who had worked for many years on the problem of the name of Tocharians, suggested in a posthumous article that their early ancestors were Gutians who had invaded Mesopotamia in ca. 2350—2200 BC. In an article written after we had already published our book, we have developed Henning’s idea (based mainly on the etymological links of Near Eastern Guti and Tukri and Central Asian names of corresponding Indo-European Kuchean and Tocharian ethnic groups), also paying attention to the possible explanation of some names of Gutian kings preserved in Sumerian texts. Recently it has been suggested that an unknown “Pre-Sumerian” language, reconstructed on the basis of the phonetic values of many cuneiform signs, was an archaic “Euphratic” Indo-European dialect spoken in Southern Mesopotamia in the second half of the 4th mil. BC. According to this hypothesis, the phonetic values of approximately one hundred of the early signs that are different from the Sumerian ones go back to the Euphratic words. A large number of Anatolian personal names (of a very archaic Indo-European type) have been found in the Old Assyrian texts from trade colonies in Asia Minor. The continuation of the excavations in Kanish that have yielded more than 23000 cuneiform tablets has made it possible to discover in them many Anatolian Indo-European names and loanwords. The Old Assyrian documents in Kanish are encountered in the archaeological levels II and Ib dated by the first centuries of the 2nd mil. BC (on the base of the recently found lists of eponyms); they precede Old Hittite texts for ca. 250 years. At that time the two Anatolian groups of dialects — a Northern (Hittite) one, displaying centum dialect features, and a Southern (Luwian), partly similar to the satəm languages — were already quite distinct. From the very beginning, the idea of the Indo-European homeland in the Near East was connected to the discovery of a possible link between the appearance of speakers of Indo-European dialects in Europe and the spread of the new farming technology. This trend of thought has been developed in the archeological works of Sir Colin Renfrew. Subsequent attempts to support this hypothetical connection were made by comparing genetic data on the time and space characteristics of the European population. The farming terms common to Indo-European and other linguistic families discussed above show that the innovations were not restricted to one group of languages and were transmitted and exchanged between different ethnic formations. The area of the interference of these families coincides with the kernel of the rising farming in the Near East. That process of global (multilingual and multicultural) change had led to the diffusion of the results of the Neolithic revolution. The main directions of this diffusion coincide with the trends of the Indo-European migrations, but the new objects might have been introduced earlier than some of their Indo-European names and the latter might precede the coming of those who coined the terms. The spread of Near Eastern innovations in Europe roughly coincides with the split of Proto-Indo-European (possibly in the early 5th mil. BC), but some elements of the new technology and economy might have penetrated it much earlier (partly through the farmers close to the Tyrrhenian population as represented 5300 years ago by the genome of the Tyrolean Iceman). The diffusion took several thousand years and was probably already all over Europe ca. 3550 BC. At that time Indo-European migrations were only beginning. The speakers of the dialects of Proto-Indo-European living near the kernel of the technological revolution in Anatolia should have acquired the main results of this development. The growth of farming economy in Europe became more active with the split of the proto-language and the dispersal of the Indo-Europeans. The astonishing scope and speed of that process were afforded by the use of the domesticated horse and wheeled vehicles. The Indo-Europeans did not have to be pioneers in this field, but they were probably skillful in spreading other peoples’ innovations. Recent work on the Botai culture of North Kazakhstan makes it possible to suppose a contribution of the Proto-Yeniseian people to the development of horse domestication. For approximately fifteen hundred years serious preparatory work on horse domestication and the use of wheeled vehicles had been going on in different parts of Eurasia. Then, almost suddenly, the results are witnessed. On the border of the 3rd and 2nd mil. BC both of these important innovations appear together, usually in a context implying the presence of Indo-Europeans: traces of Near East-type chariots and the ritual use of the horse are clear in (probably Ancient Iranian) Margiana (Gonur), we see chariots on the Anatolian type of seals in Kanish; Hurrian sculptures and other symbols of horse abound in Urkeš as if foretelling the future Mespotamian-Aryan and Hurrian excellent training of horses in Mitanni (as later in Urartu). One of the first examples of the sacrificial horses used together with chariots in an archaic ritual was found in Sintashta; the following studies of the cities of the Transuralian Sintashta-Arkaim area made it clear that some Indo-European (and maybe Iranian as well) elements were at least partly present there. The movement of Indo-Europeans to the north of the Caspian Sea in the northeast direction documented in the Sintashta-Arkaim complex led them much farther to the Altai-Sayany area where recent genetic investigations found traces of a Caucasoid element. Another Indo-European group moving in a parallel eastward direction using the South Silk Road caused the presence of a similar anthropological group among the population of Central Asia. It may be supposed that the Caucasoid anthropological type of the Iranian and/or Tocharian population of Eastern Turkestan, attested in the mummies recently found there as well as in the contemporary images of the native people, should be considered as the result of these migrations from the West to the East. The problem whether the boats played a role comparable to that of chariots at the time of early migrations is still to be decided by maritime archaeology. It seems that before the efficient use of chariots and horses, long-term mass movements were hardly possible. The first changes in the geographical position of separate dialects, e.g. when the Anatolians separated the Greeks from the rest of the East Indo-European group (that included the Armenians and Indo-Iranians), were caused by rather small-scale migrations close to the original homeland in the Near East.
Link
Indo-European homeland and migrations: half a century of studies and discussions [In Russian with English summary]
The problem of the initial place from which the original Indo- European dialects spread over Eurasia has been studied by several generations of scholars. Few alternative points of view have been proposed: first an area near the North Sea (in the works of some scholars of the border of the 19th and 20th centuries), then the North coast of the Black Sea (an old idea of Schrader revived by Maria Gimbutas and her followers) or an area closer to the more eastern (Volga-Ural) parts of Central Eurasia. 40 years ago we suggested first in a talk at a conference, then in a series of articles and in a resulting book (published in Russian in 1984) that the Northern part of the Near East (an area close to North-East Syria and North Mesopotamia) may be considered as a possible candidate for the Indo-European homeland; similar suggestions were made by C. Renfrew and other scholars in their later works. Recent research on these topics has brought up additional evidence that seems to prove the Near Eastern hypothesis for the time that had immediately preceded the dispersal of the Indo-European protolanguage. Indirect evidence on the early presence of Indo-Europeans in the areas close to the Near East can be found in the traces of ancient contacts between linguistic families in this part of Eurasia. Such contacts between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Kartvelian have been suggested in the work of T. Gamkrelidze and G. Mach’avariani more than 60 years ago. The following studies have established a number of important loanwords from Proto-Indo-European in Proto-Kartvelian. Particularly interesting discoveries in this field were made by the late G. A. Klimov. He has found many new common elements of the two families in addition to a relatively long list in our joint work. The main difficulty in interpreting the results of his investigations is connected to the problem of a possible common Nostratic origin both of Proto-Indo-European and of Proto-Kartvelian. If these two linguistic families were originally cognate, then some part of the correspondences found by Klimov and other scholars might be traced back to the early period of Proto-Nostratic (more than 10 000 years ago). Only those words that were not inherited from this ancient time are important as a proof of the later presence of Proto-Indo-European in the area close to the Proto-Kartvelian (to the southwest of the Transcaucasian area in which the latter spread in the historic time). In our book, published in 1984, we suggested some common terms shared by these languages, explaining them as possible traces of later Indo-European (probably Indo-Iranian) migrations through the Caucasus. The study of this problem has been enriched through the recent research on Proto-North Caucasian. S. L. Nikolaev and S. A. Starostin have compiled a large etymological dictionary of this family, furthering the comparative studies started by Prince N. S. Trubetzkoy. Starostin has gathered a large collection of the terms of material culture common to North Caucasian and Indo-European. They include many names of domestic animals and animal body parts or products of cattle-breeding, plants and implements. In a special work on this subject Starostin suggested that all these terms were borrowed in the area of the Near East to the South of Transcaucasia in the early 5th mil. BC. Although we still use the traditional term “North Caucasian”, it is not geographically correct even if applied to such living languages as Abkhaz and to the extinct Ubykh (spoken originally at the southern part of the South-West Transcaucasian area). Since both Hurro-Urartian and Hattic (two ancient dialects of this linguistic group) were spoken in the regions to the South of Transcaucasia already in the 3rd mil. BC, it becomes possible to pinpoint the homeland of the whole family (which at that time was not North Caucasian) in the same area close to the supposed Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Kartvelian homelands. The fricative š in the Hurrian name for ‘horse’, eššə, and an affricate *č (> š) in the forms of the other North Caucasian dialects correspond to the Proto-Indo-European palatal stop *k’ that has become an affricate *č and then a fricative š /s in the Indo-European languages of the satəm type. Similar changes are present in the other borrowings discussed by Starostin. He supposed that the common words discovered by him were mostly borrowed from Proto-North Caucasian (or from a dialect of it) into Proto-Indo-European. The opposite direction of borrowing from an Indo-European dialect of a satəm type can be suggested due to the typologically valid laws of sound change. But no matter which direction of the borrowing should be chosen, the existence of these loanwords is beyond doubt. They clearly point to the location of the Indo-European homeland. In our monograph we suggested that several words shared by Semitic and Indo-European (such as the ancient term for ‘wine’, Hittite wiyana) can be considered Proto-Indo-European borrowings (as distinct from the rest of the most ancient old Semitic or Afro-Asiatic loanwords in Proto-Indo-European). S. A. Starostin suggested that a large number of (mainly West) Semitic words that did not have correspondences in the other Afro-Asiatic languages had been borrowed from Proto-Indo-European. He came to the conclusion: “the original Indo-European (Indo-Hittite) homeland was somewhere to the North of the Fertile Crescent from where the descendents of Indo-Hittites could have moved in two directions (starting with early 5th millennium BC) to the South where they came into the contact with the Semites, and indeed could have driven a part of them further to the South, and to the North (North-East) whence they ultimately spread both to Europe and to India”. The interference of the early dialects of Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Semitic and Proto-Kartvelian to which the early Proto-“North” Caucasian can be added might have led to the formation of a sort of linguistic zone (Sprachbund) that not only shared many words pertaining to a new farming economy, but also had several phonological and grammatical features in common. After we had published our hypothesis on the Near Eastern homeland of the Indo-Europeans, several scholars asked us why, at a time when writing had already been invented, there were no written documents testifying to the presence of Indo-Europeans in these areas. It seems that now there are several possible answers to the question. The great specialist on Iranian, W. B. Henning, who had worked for many years on the problem of the name of Tocharians, suggested in a posthumous article that their early ancestors were Gutians who had invaded Mesopotamia in ca. 2350—2200 BC. In an article written after we had already published our book, we have developed Henning’s idea (based mainly on the etymological links of Near Eastern Guti and Tukri and Central Asian names of corresponding Indo-European Kuchean and Tocharian ethnic groups), also paying attention to the possible explanation of some names of Gutian kings preserved in Sumerian texts. Recently it has been suggested that an unknown “Pre-Sumerian” language, reconstructed on the basis of the phonetic values of many cuneiform signs, was an archaic “Euphratic” Indo-European dialect spoken in Southern Mesopotamia in the second half of the 4th mil. BC. According to this hypothesis, the phonetic values of approximately one hundred of the early signs that are different from the Sumerian ones go back to the Euphratic words. A large number of Anatolian personal names (of a very archaic Indo-European type) have been found in the Old Assyrian texts from trade colonies in Asia Minor. The continuation of the excavations in Kanish that have yielded more than 23000 cuneiform tablets has made it possible to discover in them many Anatolian Indo-European names and loanwords. The Old Assyrian documents in Kanish are encountered in the archaeological levels II and Ib dated by the first centuries of the 2nd mil. BC (on the base of the recently found lists of eponyms); they precede Old Hittite texts for ca. 250 years. At that time the two Anatolian groups of dialects — a Northern (Hittite) one, displaying centum dialect features, and a Southern (Luwian), partly similar to the satəm languages — were already quite distinct. From the very beginning, the idea of the Indo-European homeland in the Near East was connected to the discovery of a possible link between the appearance of speakers of Indo-European dialects in Europe and the spread of the new farming technology. This trend of thought has been developed in the archeological works of Sir Colin Renfrew. Subsequent attempts to support this hypothetical connection were made by comparing genetic data on the time and space characteristics of the European population. The farming terms common to Indo-European and other linguistic families discussed above show that the innovations were not restricted to one group of languages and were transmitted and exchanged between different ethnic formations. The area of the interference of these families coincides with the kernel of the rising farming in the Near East. That process of global (multilingual and multicultural) change had led to the diffusion of the results of the Neolithic revolution. The main directions of this diffusion coincide with the trends of the Indo-European migrations, but the new objects might have been introduced earlier than some of their Indo-European names and the latter might precede the coming of those who coined the terms. The spread of Near Eastern innovations in Europe roughly coincides with the split of Proto-Indo-European (possibly in the early 5th mil. BC), but some elements of the new technology and economy might have penetrated it much earlier (partly through the farmers close to the Tyrrhenian population as represented 5300 years ago by the genome of the Tyrolean Iceman). The diffusion took several thousand years and was probably already all over Europe ca. 3550 BC. At that time Indo-European migrations were only beginning. The speakers of the dialects of Proto-Indo-European living near the kernel of the technological revolution in Anatolia should have acquired the main results of this development. The growth of farming economy in Europe became more active with the split of the proto-language and the dispersal of the Indo-Europeans. The astonishing scope and speed of that process were afforded by the use of the domesticated horse and wheeled vehicles. The Indo-Europeans did not have to be pioneers in this field, but they were probably skillful in spreading other peoples’ innovations. Recent work on the Botai culture of North Kazakhstan makes it possible to suppose a contribution of the Proto-Yeniseian people to the development of horse domestication. For approximately fifteen hundred years serious preparatory work on horse domestication and the use of wheeled vehicles had been going on in different parts of Eurasia. Then, almost suddenly, the results are witnessed. On the border of the 3rd and 2nd mil. BC both of these important innovations appear together, usually in a context implying the presence of Indo-Europeans: traces of Near East-type chariots and the ritual use of the horse are clear in (probably Ancient Iranian) Margiana (Gonur), we see chariots on the Anatolian type of seals in Kanish; Hurrian sculptures and other symbols of horse abound in Urkeš as if foretelling the future Mespotamian-Aryan and Hurrian excellent training of horses in Mitanni (as later in Urartu). One of the first examples of the sacrificial horses used together with chariots in an archaic ritual was found in Sintashta; the following studies of the cities of the Transuralian Sintashta-Arkaim area made it clear that some Indo-European (and maybe Iranian as well) elements were at least partly present there. The movement of Indo-Europeans to the north of the Caspian Sea in the northeast direction documented in the Sintashta-Arkaim complex led them much farther to the Altai-Sayany area where recent genetic investigations found traces of a Caucasoid element. Another Indo-European group moving in a parallel eastward direction using the South Silk Road caused the presence of a similar anthropological group among the population of Central Asia. It may be supposed that the Caucasoid anthropological type of the Iranian and/or Tocharian population of Eastern Turkestan, attested in the mummies recently found there as well as in the contemporary images of the native people, should be considered as the result of these migrations from the West to the East. The problem whether the boats played a role comparable to that of chariots at the time of early migrations is still to be decided by maritime archaeology. It seems that before the efficient use of chariots and horses, long-term mass movements were hardly possible. The first changes in the geographical position of separate dialects, e.g. when the Anatolians separated the Greeks from the rest of the East Indo-European group (that included the Armenians and Indo-Iranians), were caused by rather small-scale migrations close to the original homeland in the Near East.
Link
June 21, 2013
The Maikop Singularity
From The Maikop Singularity: The Unequal Accumulation of Wealth on the Bronze Age Eurasian Steppe? by Philip L. Kohl (in Social Complexity in Prehistoric Eurasia)
The Maikop parallels with northern Mesopotamia or, more broadly, with the ancient Near East, and the seemingly consistent and growing number of calibrated radiocarbon determinations (currently more than 40 such dates; E. N. Chernykh personal communication) not only date the Maikop phenomenon more securely but also suggest some connections -albeit hard to specify- with larger historical processes, such as the north Mesopotamian, and later Uruk expansion into eastern Anatolia. The calibrated radiocarbon dates suggest that the Maikop culture seems to have had a formative influence on kurgan burial rituals and what now appears to be the later Pit-Grave (Yamnaya) culture on the Eurasian steppe (Chernykh and Orlovskaya 2004a: 97).
...
In other words, the fact that such a symbolic Mesopotamian practice is attested in the richest known "royal," or chiefly, Maikop burial must have significance not only for the earlier dating of the Maikop culture, but also for determining aspects of its cultural affiliation and formation.
Other scholars have focused on the northern steppe component of the Maikop culture. ... V. A. Trifonov (2004: 58-60) in a reappraisal and comparison of the so-called royal tomb at Arslantepe with the Novosvobodnaya-phase Maikop burials, reverses the arrow of cultural transmission and borrowing and argues for an eastern Anatolian Chalcolithic origin of the Novosvobodnaya tombs, such as documented at Korucutepe. Thus, if Trifonov is correct, and if the calibrated radiocarbon dates securely place Maikop chronologically before the emergence of the Pit-Grave (Yamnaya) horizon, then somewhat counterintuitively, the origins of raising large barrows or kurgans above the broad, flat expanse of the steppes may not have been indigenous but may have been derived from eastern Anatolia or the northern periphery of the greater ancient Near East.
...
It is probably futile to seek a single source from which the Maikop culture emerged.Related:
March 31, 2013
December 30, 2012
Trojan pottery across the Bronze/Iron Age boundary
TROY POTTERY HOLDS A KEY TO THE GREAT BRONZE AGE COLLAPSE
Journal of Archaeological Science Available online 12 November 2012
Cultural dynamics and ceramic resource use at Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Troy, northwestern Turkey
Peter Grave et al.
Changes in resource use over time can provide insight into technological choice and the extent of long term stability in cultural practices. In this paper we re-evaluate the evidence for a marked demographic shift at the inception of the Early Iron Age at Troy by applying a robust macroscale analysis of changing ceramic resource use over the Late Bronze and Iron Age. We use a combination of new and legacy analytical datasets (NAA and XRF), from excavated ceramics, to evaluate the potential compositional range of local resources (based on comparisons with sediments from within a 10 kilometer site radius). Results show a clear distinction between sediment-defined local and non-local ceramic compositional groups. Two discrete local ceramic resources have been previously identified and we confirm a third local resource for a major class of EIA handmade wares and cooking pots. This third source appears to derive from a residual resource on the Troy peninsula (rather than adjacent alluvial valleys). The presence of a group of large and heavy pithoi among the non-local groups raises questions about their regional or maritime origin.
Link
Before the sack of Troy, the city looked east towards the powerful Hittite Empire. But this political powerhouse collapsed around the time that Troy was destroyed. Grave says the post-conflict pottery is Balkan in style because the Trojans were keen to align themselves with the people there, who had become the new political elite and powerbase in the region.Related:
The collapse of the Late Bronze Age political and economic structures of the eastern Mediterranean undercut elite production spheres serving this network at Troy.
The people of Early Iron Age Troy shifted their focus to elaborating their own household ceramic traditions to re-establish their role in newly configured social and economic networks that now looked to the Balkans rather than the Hittite Anatolia.
- The comings and goings of Near Eastern and European domestic pigs (Ottoni et al. 2012)
- Armenians as Phrygian colonists
- Homer and Archaeology
- Sea Peoples invade: 1192–1190 BC
- The eclipse of 1178BC and the return of Odysseus to Ithaca
Journal of Archaeological Science Available online 12 November 2012
Cultural dynamics and ceramic resource use at Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Troy, northwestern Turkey
Peter Grave et al.
Changes in resource use over time can provide insight into technological choice and the extent of long term stability in cultural practices. In this paper we re-evaluate the evidence for a marked demographic shift at the inception of the Early Iron Age at Troy by applying a robust macroscale analysis of changing ceramic resource use over the Late Bronze and Iron Age. We use a combination of new and legacy analytical datasets (NAA and XRF), from excavated ceramics, to evaluate the potential compositional range of local resources (based on comparisons with sediments from within a 10 kilometer site radius). Results show a clear distinction between sediment-defined local and non-local ceramic compositional groups. Two discrete local ceramic resources have been previously identified and we confirm a third local resource for a major class of EIA handmade wares and cooking pots. This third source appears to derive from a residual resource on the Troy peninsula (rather than adjacent alluvial valleys). The presence of a group of large and heavy pithoi among the non-local groups raises questions about their regional or maritime origin.
Link
December 21, 2012
Armenian origin of Hamshenis
Hum Biol. 2012 Aug;84(4):405-22
Paternal lineage analysis supports an armenian rather than a central asian genetic origin of the hamshenis.
Authors: Margaryan A, Harutyunyan A, Khachatryan Z, Khudoyan A, Yepiskoposyan L
Abstract
The Hamshenis are an isolated geographic group of Armenians with a strong ethnic identity who, until the early decades of the twentieth century, inhabited the Pontus area on the southern coast of the Black Sea. Scholars hold alternative views on their origin, proposing Eastern Armenia, Western Armenia, and Central Asia, respectively, as their most likely homeland. To ascertain whether genetic data from the nonrecombining portion of the Y chromosome are supportive of any of these suggestions, we screened 82 Armenian males of Hamsheni descent for 12 biallelic and 6 microsatellite Y-chromosomal markers. These data were compared with the corresponding data set from the representative populations of the three candidate regions. Genetic difference between the Hamshenis and other groups is significant and backs up the hypothesis of the Armenian origin of the Hamshenis, indicating central historical Armenia as a homeland of the ancestral population. This inference is further strengthened by the results of admixture analysis, which does not support the Central-Asian hypothesis of the Hamshenis' origin. Genetic diversity values and patterns of genetic distances suggest a high degree of genetic isolation of the Hamshenis consistent with their retention of a distinct and ancient dialect of the Armenian language.
Link
Paternal lineage analysis supports an armenian rather than a central asian genetic origin of the hamshenis.
Authors: Margaryan A, Harutyunyan A, Khachatryan Z, Khudoyan A, Yepiskoposyan L
Abstract
The Hamshenis are an isolated geographic group of Armenians with a strong ethnic identity who, until the early decades of the twentieth century, inhabited the Pontus area on the southern coast of the Black Sea. Scholars hold alternative views on their origin, proposing Eastern Armenia, Western Armenia, and Central Asia, respectively, as their most likely homeland. To ascertain whether genetic data from the nonrecombining portion of the Y chromosome are supportive of any of these suggestions, we screened 82 Armenian males of Hamsheni descent for 12 biallelic and 6 microsatellite Y-chromosomal markers. These data were compared with the corresponding data set from the representative populations of the three candidate regions. Genetic difference between the Hamshenis and other groups is significant and backs up the hypothesis of the Armenian origin of the Hamshenis, indicating central historical Armenia as a homeland of the ancestral population. This inference is further strengthened by the results of admixture analysis, which does not support the Central-Asian hypothesis of the Hamshenis' origin. Genetic diversity values and patterns of genetic distances suggest a high degree of genetic isolation of the Hamshenis consistent with their retention of a distinct and ancient dialect of the Armenian language.
Link
November 23, 2012
The comings and goings of Near Eastern and European domestic pigs (Ottoni et al. 2012)
This is an excellent paper whose findings re: pig domestication seem to parallel many of my own observations regarding the flow of human populations. It is open access, so you can read it for yourselves, but the following figure illustrates the situation admirably:
The left-right arrangement of the columns corresponds to a west-east longitude across West Asia. It can be easily seen that some of the early domestic samples (yellow, bottom row) are concentrated in the west (Y1 haplotype), while others (blue, Arm1T) in the east.
Neolithic European samples possessed the Y1 haplotype, but lacked the Arm1T one. So, the authors conclude that:
In Europe itself, the early Near Eastern domestic pigs were replaced by European ones:
In any case, the interesting thing is that pigs carrying the "European" haplotype went the other way, crossing from Europe to Asia. The beginning of this process seems to have occurred in the Middle Bronze Age:
The beautiful temporal transect presented in the Figure may also prove useful for students of ancient human DNA. I'd love to see how humans living close to sites #14-16, dominated by Arm1T haplotypes throughout history might differ from those of Neolithic West Anatolia, and whether the "mixed" Iron Age sample from Lidar Höyük shows evidence of the arrival of European-like human populations to accompany the European pigs.
Mol Biol Evol (2012) doi: 10.1093/molbev/mss261
Pig domestication and human-mediated dispersal in western Eurasia revealed through ancient DNA and geometric morphometrics
Claudio Ottoni et al.
Zooarcheological evidence suggests that pigs were domesticated in Southwest Asia ∼8,500 BC. They then spread across the Middle and Near East and westward into Europe alongside early agriculturalists. European pigs were either domesticated independently or appeared so as a result of admixture between introduced pigs and European wild boar. These pigs not only replaced those with Near Eastern signatures in Europe, they subsequently also replaced indigenous domestic pigs in the Near East. The specific details of these processes, however, remain unknown. To address questions related to early pig domestication, dispersal, and turnover in the Near East, we analyzed ancient mitochondrial DNA and dental geometric morphometric variation in 393 ancient pig specimens representing 48 archeological sites (from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to the Medieval period) from Armenia, Cyprus, Georgia, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Our results firstly reveal the genetic signature of early domestic pigs in Eastern Turkey. We also demonstrate that these early pigs differed genetically from those in western Anatolia that were introduced to Europe during the Neolithic expansion. In addition, we present a significantly more refined chronology for the introduction of European domestic pigs into Asia Minor that took place during the Bronze Age, nearly 1,000 years earlier than previously detected. By the 5th century AD, European signatures completely replaced the endemic lineages possibly coinciding with the demographic and societal changes during the Anatolian Bronze and Iron Ages.
Link
The left-right arrangement of the columns corresponds to a west-east longitude across West Asia. It can be easily seen that some of the early domestic samples (yellow, bottom row) are concentrated in the west (Y1 haplotype), while others (blue, Arm1T) in the east.
Neolithic European samples possessed the Y1 haplotype, but lacked the Arm1T one. So, the authors conclude that:
The ancient Anatolian data presented here reveal that both wild and possibly domestic Neolithic pigs (identified using traditional metrics) possessed Y1 haplotypes ... The presence of these lineages corroborates the supposition that the earliest domestic pigs in Europe originated from populations originally domesticated in the Near East, conclusively linking the Neolithization of Europe with Neolithic cultures of western Anatolia (Larson et al. 2007a; Haak et al. 2010).I have repeatedly highlighted the "puzzle" of the early European Neolithic: the signature Y-haplogroup G2a was unaccompanied by other common Near Eastern lineages, and the modal "West Asian" ancestral component in present-day West Asian populations seems to have been absent in early Neolithic samples, which were dominated by a "Sardinian-like" population. I have argued that this meant that the European Neolithic was drawn from a limited founder source that was more "Mediterranean/Southern" autosomally than "West Asian", at least in terms of the components identified by the Dodecad Project.
In Europe itself, the early Near Eastern domestic pigs were replaced by European ones:
Ancient DNA extracted from early Neolithic domestic pigs in Europe resolved this paradox by demonstrating that early domestic pigs in the Balkans and central Europe shared haplotypes with modern Near Eastern wild boar (Larson et al. 2007a). The absence of Near Eastern haplotypes in pre-Neolithic European wild boar suggested that early domestic pigs in Europe must have been introduced from the Near East by the mid 6th millennium BC before spreading to the Paris basin by the early 4th millennium BC (Larson et al. 2007a).
By 3,900 BC, however, virtually all domestic pigs in Europe possessed haplotypes from an indigenous European domestication process (Larson et al. 2007a) only found in European wild boar. This genetic turnover may have resulted from the accumulated introgression of local female wild boar into imported domestic stocks, or from an indigenous European domestication process (Larson et al. 2007a).We have seen that early Neolithic domestic pigs came from Western Anatolia, but apparently these did not last, but were replaced in Europe by pigs carrying mtDNA of European wild boar. An additional possibility is that the European wild boar were better adapted to local conditions in Europe, so the stock of European farmers gradually became "local" due to artificial/natural selection favoring the local "European" type. It might also be that in accordance with Bergmann's rule, European-descended pigs were simply bigger, and thus more economically productive.
In any case, the interesting thing is that pigs carrying the "European" haplotype went the other way, crossing from Europe to Asia. The beginning of this process seems to have occurred in the Middle Bronze Age:
The temporal and geographic distribution of genetic haplotypes presented in our study demonstrates that the first AMS dated pig with European ancestry (haplotype A) appeared almost 1,000 years earlier than the Armenian samples in a Late Bronze Age context (~1,600-1,440 BC) at Lidar Höyük (fig. 1). An even earlier Middle Bronze Age specimen from the same site also possessed a European signature, but a directI have written how increased mobility and long-range networks associated with the new metallurgical class facilitated commerce during the Bronze Age. The authors suggest the possibility of Minoan-Mycenaean/Hittite involvement during the Bronze Age, which are certainly plausible conduits for European pigs to have crossed the Aegean at this time. But, as you can see from the figure, the "European" pigs are still outliers during the Middle and Bronze Ages, but become common in the Iron Age sample from Lidar Höyük, and eventually replacing local types throughout Anatolia and Armenia, but, apparently, not Iran:
AMS date for this specimen could not be obtained.
The frequency of pigs with European ancestry increased rapidly from the 12th century BC, and by the 5th century AD domestic pigs exhibiting a Near Eastern genetic signature had all but disappeared across Anatolia and the southern Caucasus. Though we did not detect European signatures in the ancient Iranian samples (fig. 1), the eastward spread of European lineages may have continued into Iran later than the Iron Age since European lineages have been found in wild caught modern Iranian samples (Larson et al. 2007a).Of course a 12th century BC increase in European domestic pigs is entirely consistent -chronologically- with the Phrygian/Armenian settlement in Anatolia, and this association is further reinforced by the lack of European signatures in pigs from Iran where Phrygo-Armenians did not settle. The increase in European pigs could later be mediated by the Greek colonization, and the increase in trade during antiquity, just as trade would later introduce East Asian pig DNA into Europe.
The beautiful temporal transect presented in the Figure may also prove useful for students of ancient human DNA. I'd love to see how humans living close to sites #14-16, dominated by Arm1T haplotypes throughout history might differ from those of Neolithic West Anatolia, and whether the "mixed" Iron Age sample from Lidar Höyük shows evidence of the arrival of European-like human populations to accompany the European pigs.
Mol Biol Evol (2012) doi: 10.1093/molbev/mss261
Pig domestication and human-mediated dispersal in western Eurasia revealed through ancient DNA and geometric morphometrics
Claudio Ottoni et al.
Zooarcheological evidence suggests that pigs were domesticated in Southwest Asia ∼8,500 BC. They then spread across the Middle and Near East and westward into Europe alongside early agriculturalists. European pigs were either domesticated independently or appeared so as a result of admixture between introduced pigs and European wild boar. These pigs not only replaced those with Near Eastern signatures in Europe, they subsequently also replaced indigenous domestic pigs in the Near East. The specific details of these processes, however, remain unknown. To address questions related to early pig domestication, dispersal, and turnover in the Near East, we analyzed ancient mitochondrial DNA and dental geometric morphometric variation in 393 ancient pig specimens representing 48 archeological sites (from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to the Medieval period) from Armenia, Cyprus, Georgia, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Our results firstly reveal the genetic signature of early domestic pigs in Eastern Turkey. We also demonstrate that these early pigs differed genetically from those in western Anatolia that were introduced to Europe during the Neolithic expansion. In addition, we present a significantly more refined chronology for the introduction of European domestic pigs into Asia Minor that took place during the Bronze Age, nearly 1,000 years earlier than previously detected. By the 5th century AD, European signatures completely replaced the endemic lineages possibly coinciding with the demographic and societal changes during the Anatolian Bronze and Iron Ages.
Link
November 10, 2012
Investigating East Asian admixture in Balkans/Anatolia/Caucasus
I used ALDER with a dataset of populations from the Balkans, Anatolia, and Caucasus, using the She, Japanese, Miaozu, and Dai as East Asian references. A few caveats for this analysis:
I have already discussed the Turkish signal of admixture at length elsewhere. I will note that the Iranian_D sample produces similar or younger admixture dates, which would make sense, given the fact that the Iranians came under control of the Mongols, while the successes of the latter in Anatolia were short-lived.
A very interesting signal is that of the North Ossetians which show admixture ~9-10 centuries ago. This seems to have occurred a little after the foundation of the kingdom of Alania, and I think it makes excellent sense to view it as the signal of Eurasian nomads (who must have carried some East Asian admixture at that time) intermingling with pre-Iranic local Caucasus populations, Two other populations from the Caucasus, the Georgians and Lezgins (and also the Abkhaz and Chechens) show earlier admixture signals that could very well date to the period of east-west Eurasian migrations inaugurated by the Huns, although a possible Sassanian origin of such influence cannot be overlooked.
The Kurds are another interesting case where the Dodecad sample and the Yunusbayev et al sample produce very different dates. The different number of SNPs may be at play here, or it may be that some Dodecad participants have recent Turkish ancestry that cause the admixture date average to appear lower, although the globe13 analysis suggests that the "East Asian" found here may be in fact "South Asian".
It seems to me that with large, dense, and well-curated sample sets from several of these populations, their admixture dynamics will become more distinct.
- Some populations may possess "South Asian" admixture which may be mistaken for East Asian
- Populations differ in the number of SNPs used in the analysis; for example, the Armenian_D sample includes mostly Family Finder data which has a smaller overlap with the SNP set used
- Populations differ in the number of individuals used, from a low of 5 (e.g., Turkish_Cypriot) to a high of 45 (Armenian_D)
I have already discussed the Turkish signal of admixture at length elsewhere. I will note that the Iranian_D sample produces similar or younger admixture dates, which would make sense, given the fact that the Iranians came under control of the Mongols, while the successes of the latter in Anatolia were short-lived.
A very interesting signal is that of the North Ossetians which show admixture ~9-10 centuries ago. This seems to have occurred a little after the foundation of the kingdom of Alania, and I think it makes excellent sense to view it as the signal of Eurasian nomads (who must have carried some East Asian admixture at that time) intermingling with pre-Iranic local Caucasus populations, Two other populations from the Caucasus, the Georgians and Lezgins (and also the Abkhaz and Chechens) show earlier admixture signals that could very well date to the period of east-west Eurasian migrations inaugurated by the Huns, although a possible Sassanian origin of such influence cannot be overlooked.
The Kurds are another interesting case where the Dodecad sample and the Yunusbayev et al sample produce very different dates. The different number of SNPs may be at play here, or it may be that some Dodecad participants have recent Turkish ancestry that cause the admixture date average to appear lower, although the globe13 analysis suggests that the "East Asian" found here may be in fact "South Asian".
It seems to me that with large, dense, and well-curated sample sets from several of these populations, their admixture dynamics will become more distinct.
September 24, 2012
rolloff analysis of French as a mixture of Sardinian+Burusho
I obtain f3(French; Sardinian, Burusho) = -0.002652 (Z=-13.541) on the basis of 446,917 SNPs. This is the strongest signal of admixture in the French that involves a population that is high on the "West_Asian" component whose influence I have been investigating.
I thus carried out rolloff analysis using the French as a target population and the Sardinians and Burusho as reference populations. The exponential fit can be seen below:
The jackknife gives 239.556 +/- 50.553 generations for this admixture, which corresponds (assuming a generation length of 29 years) to 6,950 +/- 1,470 years.
Analysis of autosomal DNA from the Tyrolean Iceman and a Neolithic TRB farmer from Sweden have revealed an absence of the West Asian ancestral component and a Sardinian-like Neolithic population c. 5ka in Europe. This population may have extended to at least to the Balkans in space and down to the Iron Age in time.
In my opinion, the simplest explanaton for the evidence is that the admixture picked up by rolloff took place in West Asia itself c. 7ka, and then this population begun its movement into Europe at some post-5ka time period.
Importantly, the K=12 Caucasus component appears as a mixture of the K=7 West_Asian and Southern components. The former (West_Asian) is the most important one in the Burusho, and the latter (Southern) is the most important one in Sardinians.
European Neolithic farmers, of presumably West Asian origin only possessed Y-haplogroup G2a out of the wide variety of haplogroups found in West Asia today. They also lacked the West_Asian component which is modal in West Asia today. There is also physical anthropological evidence from Greece and Anatolia, for an introduction of new population elements during the Bronze Age.
These facts combine to make me believe that there were population movements across West Asia which preceded the Indo-European invasion of Europe during late pre-history. That event is then best seen as an extension of a broader Eurasian phenomenon that affected substantially both the western parts of Asia and Europe.
Taking all the evidence into account, I hypothesize that:- a "Southern"/"Atlantic_Med"/Sardinian-like population substratum existed in West Asia, and this spawned the early European Neolithic.
- a new "West_Asian"/Burusho-like population arrived from the east, perhaps associated with the Halaf/Hassuna cultures, or from some other unknown center of dispersal in the Transcaucasus or Iran. Mobility may have been encouraged post-8.2 kiloyear event.
- these two elements began mixing ~7 thousand years ago in West Asia
- the admixed population expanded at some post-5ka period into Western Europe.
(Obviously, more rolloff analyses are needed to study these ideas; the current one took about ~3 days, which was a little faster than I expected.)
Related (?): Is Burushaski Indo-European?
Image credit: Don Perrault (source)
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