Chernykh on Eurasian metallurgy

Bell Beaker blogger points me to this excellent new review of the Eurasian Metallurgical Provinces scheme of Yevgeny Chernykh. I also include an abstract from an earlier study by the author.

Of interest:

The metallurgical contacts and character of interrelations between eastern and western parts we can observe in the Xinjiang among the materials of eastern focuses of the Circumpontic metallurgical province and later in the rich metal collections of the West-Asian and East-Asian steppe provinces. In this sphere extreme interest presents so called Seima-Turbino transcultural phenomenon: their impressive metal forms of eastern sources spreaded from the Western China up to Baltic Sea at the turn of the III and II millennium and in the early centuries of the II mill. BCE.

I have argued before that the Seima-Turbino phenomenon is associated with the spread of Finno-Ugrians into Europe. It would certainly be in accord with a recent thesis about Finno-Ugrians arriving to the Baltic after Indo-European speakers.

Metallurgical Provinces of Eurasia in the Early Metal Age: Problems of Interrelation

General chronological frame of the Early Metal Age (EMA) in Eurasia limited from IX/VIII up to turn II/I mill. BCE. The chronological scale of this investigation founded on the systematized date base of more than 3.5 thousand calibrated 14C analyses. EMA can be subdivided into five unequal in chronological sense periods. The Early Metal Age was the epoch clear domination of the western metallurgical centers – particularly up to III mill. BCE. In all probabilities the apogee of the western predominance was incarnated in the immense of the famous Scythian world, in the limits of the first millennium BCE – i.e. beyond the EMA. The eastern centers take up the initiative of westward pressing after collapse of the Scythian world.

Link

The “Steppe Belt” of stockbreeding cultures in Eurasia during the Early Metal Age

The stock-breeding cultures of the Eurasian “steppe belt” covered approximately 7-8 million square km2 from the Lower Danube in the West to Manchuria in the East (a distance of more than 8000 km). The initial formation of the “steppe belt’cultures coincided with the flourishing of the Carpatho-Balkan metallurgical province (V millennium BC). These cultures developed during the span of the Circumpontic metallurgical province (IV-III millennium BC). Their maturation coincided with the activity of the various centers of the giant Eurasian and East-Asian metallurgical provinces (II millennium BC). The influence of these stock-breeding nomadic cultures on the historical processes of Eurasian peoples was extremely strong. The collapse of the “steppe belt” occurred as late as the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries AD.

Link

Ancient steppe populations: hints of things to come

A reader alerts me to this research summary from a German government site (pdf). The research covered seems to be that of Joachim Burger's group.

The relevant chapter is:

Schritte im weiten Raum: Neue Blicke auf Zivilisationen der Eurasischen Steppe
[steps in the vast space: New Views on civilizations of the Eurasian steppe]

I invite my German readers to translate the most interesting parts of the chapter in the comments (or at least to summarize them). A few observations on what I've been able to make sense of:

• Heterogeneity of North Pontic steppe groups with differences between Catacomb culture and earlier Yamnaya individuals
• "European" light pigmentation but with darker eyes 
• Iron Age nomadic horsemen of Central Asia/South Siberia were mixed West/East Eurasian

Here are some (little) processed Google Translate portions to whet your appetite:

[The first part of the project looked for copper and Bronze Age cultures of the steppe west and north of the Black Sea (Fig. 1). In the Late Bronze Age (around 3000 BC) came here the very mobile Yamnaya culture in appearance, their population and influence radius - as the investigations showed - apparently at the same time expanding consolidated. With the Yamnaya culture is a single burial rites used in so-called pit graves under kurgans (grave mound). Also this wont Halbno addition maggots strong trading relationships across the steppe. Around 2500 BC, they were replaced by the less mobile Katakombengrab-culture whose dissemination conduction region was significantly smaller. Population genetic analyzes of DNA occupied by the late copper to the Middle Bronze Age, a steadily increasing genetic distance between those cul tures. Between copper and time Katakombengrab culture is the genetic distance is greatest. Here the differences are much more pronounced than between early Chalcolithic cultures and Yamnaya population. This population genetic change could be an indication of discontinuity and population changes due to migration. An archaeological site of suspected immigration from eastern steppe areas but at least on the female side hardly taken place: For Central Asia typical DNA lines do not occur in the studied populations. Despite the genetic differences within the un the investigated groups are with them to popu lations, which are without doubt be described as European.Here the differences are much more pronounced than between early Chalcolithic cultures and Yamnaya population. This population genetic change could be an indication of discontinuity and population changes due to migration. An archaeological site of suspected immigration from eastern steppe areas but at least on the female side hardly taken place: For Central Asia typical DNA lines do not occur in the studied populations. Despite the genetic differences within the un the investigated groups are with them to popu lations, which are without doubt be described as European. DNA markers with known phenotype suggest a continuity between the North Pontic area of ​​4 / 3 Millennium BC and today's Europeans out. For instance, have all examined individuals tierungstyp on a bright pigments, as is prevalent in Europe today. Only the eye color has been dark in comparison to today.]

[The second part of the project was devoted to the population dynamics of early Iron Age peoples of nomadic horsemen in the Eurasian steppe belt. Here were 900-300 BC disseminated numerous highly mobile populations that are associated with the so-called Scythian or Sakian culture (Fig. 2). The groups studied are from the areas of eastern Kazakhstan, Altai mountains, Minusinsk Basin and Tuva. They all consist of a mixture of DNALinien, which today is a part of Central and East Asia and the other in Europe. Ity of the ground because this way the populations have a remarkably high level of genetic diversity that characterizes the Altai population today.

...

The Tagar Culture (Minusinsk Basin) this shows the greatest genetic - but also cultural - distance to all other groups. Although it chronologically corresponds to the Pazyryk culture of the Altai (5th-3rd century BC) seems to be present here genetic isolation. Between the Pazyryk culture and the significantly older findings from Tuva (7 / 6th century BC), however, the genetic distance in spite of the time interval is very small. Amazingly, has the Pazyryk culture also within its range a geographic substructure: Divided into Kazakh Altai, and Cuja Ukok plateau region, show the nomadic horsemen of Cuja region in relation to the other two groups increased genetic distance.]

Ancient mtDNA from Neolithic Ukraine

From the paper:

During the Neolithic, the North Pontic Region (NPR) was home to major prehistoric cultural conglomerates, among them—the Dnieper-Donets cultural complex (DD). The DD culture has been studied in approximately 200 sites in Ukraine and Byelorussia, including settlements and large collective cemeteries of the Mariupol-type (M-t).1 The main feature of M-t cemeteries is inhumation burial in the supine position. This burial rite differs from most local Mesolithic burial traditions and is characteristic of the ‘Euro-Siberian’ zone of extended burials, which are found from Lake Baikal and the forest and forest-steppe zones of the East European Plain to the northern part of Central Europe and Scandinavia.2,3

...

The overall conclusion about the genetic composition of the builders of M-t cemeteries is that they were a genetically heterogeneous population that contained admixtures of mtDNA lineages from neighboring geographic regions as well as from the territories stretching far east. The noticeable anthropological influences of DD on local post-Neolithic populations suggest the possibility of genetic continuity in populations succeeding the people who built the M-t cemeteries. The genetic relationship between Neolithic DD populations and Copper-Bronze Age inhabitants of the North Pontic steppe is the subject of an ongoing investigation.

Journal of Human Genetics advance online publication 7 June 2012; doi: 10.1038/jhg.2012.69

Mitochondrial haplogroup C in ancient mitochondrial DNA from Ukraine extends the presence of East Eurasian genetic lineages in Neolithic Central and Eastern Europe

Alexey G Nikitin et al.

Recent studies of ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) lineages have revealed the presence of East Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups in the Central European Neolithic. Here we report the finding of East Eurasian lineages in ancient mtDNA from two Neolithic cemeteries of the North Pontic Region (NPR) in Ukraine. In our study, comprehensive haplotyping information was obtained for 7 out of 18 specimens. Although the majority of identified mtDNA haplogroups belonged to the traditional West Eurasian lineages of H and U, three specimens were determined to belong to the lineages of mtDNA haplogroup C. This find extends the presence of East Eurasian lineages in Neolithic Europe from the Carpathian Mountains to the northern shores of the Black Sea and provides the first genetic account of Neolithic mtDNA lineages from the NPR.

Link

The Quest for Noah's Flood

Video of a talk by Fredrik Hiebert at the Penn Museum.



Other interesting recent talks at the Penn:

• The Morton Collection at the Penn Museum (see previous interview and article)
• Great Riddles in Archaeology: King Arthur, Camelot, and the Quest for a Holy Grail
• A Tale of Two Cities in Dark Age Crete: Karphi and Kavousi