Population strata in the West Siberian plain (Baraba forest steppe)

Also from the Population Dynamics in Prehistory and Early History (2012) volume, this is an awesome ancient DNA study which dissects a succession of archaeological cultures stretching from the beginning of the metal ages to the beginning of the Iron Age in a small region of West Siberia. As the authors write:

Our work is devoted to the analysis of human migration processes that occurred during the Bronze Age (4th–early 1st millennium BC) in the forest steppe zone between the Ob and Irtysh rivers (about 800 km from west to east). This area, known as Baraba forest steppe, stretches over 200 km from the taiga zone in the north to the steppes in the south.

The careful examination of the sequence of cultures, combining ancient mtDNA and physical anthropology paints a very compelling picture of the changes that occurred in the span of a few millennia in the Baraba forest steppe. The authors give the map on the left, with the caption: "Fig. 5 | Location of ancient human groups with a high frequency of mtDNA haplogroups U5, U4 and U2e lineages. The area of Northern Eurasian anthropological formation is marked by yellow region on the map (References: 1 Bramanti et al., 2009; 2Malmstrom et al., 2009; 3 Krause et al., 2010; 4 this study)".


The northern Eurasian anthropological formation actually combines eastern and western Eurasian features and may correspond to the Proto-Uralic type. Researchers have clashed about the origins of this population element, with some considering it a third Eurasian race that evolved independently of Caucasoids and Mongoloids, others assigning it to a much diverged branch of one of the two major Eurasian races, and still others considering it the product of admixture between east and west.


All indications are that the type, unlike the Caucasoid-Mongoloid mixtures that took place in Central Asia in the last 2 millennia, is of more ancient vintage, and represents an anthropological element that was indeed of Caucasoid-Mongoloid origins, but in the rather remote past. The authors write with respect to the most ancient periods:

In contrast to the occupation of the southern region of West Siberia, modern humans arrived in the Ob-Irtysh interfluve relatively late, at the end of the Pleistocene, about 13–14 thousand years ago (Okladnikov, Molodin, 1983; Petrin, 1986). The absence of burials dating back to this period in the region does not allow us to conduct a biological investigation of this earliest population. The most ancient anthropological material available is from the Neolithic period (4th–5th millennium BC). 

And, what of the earliest available material?

The anthropological analysis of the material allowed us to detect a specific craniological type in the Baraba population, which was assigned to one of the anthropological formations discovered by V.V. Bunak in 1956 through the analysis of Neolithic materials from the northern forest zone of the East European Plain. Bunak called it the “northern Eurasian anthropological formation” (Bunak, 1956).

This anthropological type developed in a zone that is intermediate to the geographic areas occupied by the classic Caucasoids and the Mongoloids. The exists substantial anthropological evidence showing a wide geographic distribution of this anthropological formation: from the Trans-Urals forest and the Barabian province of Western Siberia in the east to Karelia and the Baltic in the west (Chikisheva, 2010).

The mtDNA evidence seems to support the anthropological assessment:

We have analyzed 18 mtDNA samples from the Ust-Tartas population to date (Fig. 3). The results obtained thus far allow us to draw several preliminary conclusions about the genetic background in the region in the beginning of the Bronze Age. By the Early Metal Period the mtDNA pool structure was already mixed and consisted of both Western and Eastern Eurasian haplogroups in nearly equal proportions. The eastern Eurasian mtDNA cluster was represented by Haplogroups A, C, Z, D, which are most typical of modern and perhaps ancient populations located in the east of the region studied. Haplogroups C and D were predominantly represented by widely distributed root haplotypes. A lineage of Haplogroup A that was detected in two Ust-Tartas samples represents a subcluster that is apparently characteristic of West Siberia and the Volga-Ural Region. The observed presence of Haplogroup Z lineages with a high frequency in the Ust-Tartas group was unexpected, since these lineages are nearly absent in the gene pool of modern indigenous West Siberian populations.

It is worth noting that the Western Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups in the Ust-Tartas series were represented only by Haplogroup U lineages, and specifically by the three subgroups – U2e, U4, U5a1. These results are in agreement with previous data indicating that Haplogroup U lineages (particularly Subgroups U5 and U4) predominated in Eastern, Central and Northern European hunter-gatherer groups from 14000 to 4000 years ago (Bramanti et al., 2009; Malmstrom et al., 2009), and possibly in earlier periods (Krause et al., 2010). The geographic area within which this genetic feature is observed appears to be broad (Fig. 5). Apparently, Baraba was near the eastern periphery of this area.

We now have evidence of the zone of U dominance extending from Iberia in the west and all the way to Lake Baikal in the east. But, this zone is not homogeneous: its western, European, end appears to have lacked the East Eurasian lineages, while starting from Ukraine and to the East the U types were supplemented by the Mongoloid lineages.

But, there was structure within the U zone itself: according to Lillie et al. (same volume) in Ukraine during the 6th millennium BC, the West Eurasian types were represented by U1 and U3, a different mix than in the Baraba forest steppe, and haplogroup T was also present, while of the Mongoloid haplogroups only C was present.

As we head into the Bronze Age, the population of the region displayed signs of continuity:

The genetic analysis of the Odinovo and Krotovo groups (10 and 6 samples, respectively) (Fig. 3) did not reveal any differences between them and the previous Ust-Tartas group, such as the presence of new mtDNA haplogroups. The mtDNA pool structure was still mixed. The East Eurasian haplogroups were represented by the D, C, Z (in both the Odinovo and Krotovo groups) and A (in the Krotovo group) haplogroups. The East Eurasian lineages identified were phylogenetically close (lineages of haplogroups A, C, Z) or even identical (D haplogroup, 16223–16362 lineages) to the samples from the Ust-Tartas group. The West Eurasian part of the samples were represented by the U5a1 (Odinovo group) and U2e (Krotovo group) haplogroup lineages.  

Although only a small series of samples have been investigated thus far, the data obtained reveal continuity between the Odinovo and Krotovo populations and the earlier Ust-Tartas group. These findings are consistent with the autochthonous development of the Baraba populations during the Early and the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, as well as with the anthropological evidence.  

It is during the Middle and Late Bronze ages that we begin to say the first intrusive lineage into the native population mix:

The anthropological analysis of the West Siberian Andronovo population shows at least four craniological types. Three types are related to the Palaeocaucasian race and are represented by proto-European anthropological type variants. The fourth, Mongoloid, component is autochthonous. The most intensive interactions between the Andronovo migrants and the indigenous populations apparently occurred in the Baraba forest steppe and the right bank of the upper Ob River (Chikisheva and Pozdnyakov, 2003).  

To investigate the putative impact of Andronovo migrants on the mtDNA pool structure of the indigenous populations in Baraba, mtDNA samples from the Late Krotovo (n=20) and Andronovo (n=20) groups in this region were analyzed (Fig. 3) and compared to recently published data (n=10) (Keyser et al., 2009) and our own unpublished data (n=6) on mtDNA lineages from West Siberian Andronovo populations located outside the Baraba forest steppe.  

The genetic influence of migrants can be detected by the appearance of a new mtDNA haplogroup that was absent in the populations preceding the migration wave. This new mtDNA haplogroup, a West Eurasian T haplogroup, was detected in the Late Krotovo population. The T haplogroup appears simultaneously (with a 15 % frequency) in the Krotovo and Andronovo groups, but was completely absent in all preceding Baraba populations. We therefore consider the appearance of the Haplogroup T-lineage as the most likely genetic marker of the Andronovo migration wave to the region.  

This assumption is confirmed by mtDNA studies of Andronovo groups from other West Siberian areas. Haplogroup T lineages were found, with a frequency of 25 %, in the samples (n=16) taken from two Andronovo groups from the Krasnoyarsk and upper Ob River areas.  

We also detected another remarkable feature in the mtDNA pool of the Andronovo group from Baraba. Most mtDNA samples belonged to haplogroups, such as the East Eurasian A and C haplogroups, that are typical of preceding Baraba indigenous populations. Still, these haplogroups were not found in the other West Siberian Andronovo groups. Apparently, the Andronovo group from Baraba assimilated the aboriginal Krotovo population, from which it obtained these East-Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups. Obviously, there was reciprocal genetic contact between the migrant and indigenous groups in the region. 

...

A small but informative series of mtDNA samples from the Baraba Late Bronze Age culture population (n=5) was analyzed (Fig. 3), revealing the presence of MtDNA lineages (East Eurasian A and C lineages) that mark the genetic continuity with aboriginal Baraba groups. At the same time, the series includes the Haplogroup-T lineage, which we believe marks the Andronovo migration wave to West Siberia. Our data is therefore consistent with the putative origin of the West Siberian Late Bronze Culture population as the result of interaction between the Baraba indigenous genetic substrate and the newly arrived group.

It is now clear that the Andronovo groups moving into the area possessed mtDNA haplogroup T and assimilated the locals with their U+East Eurasian mix. It is of course interesting that haplogroup T is the only non-U lineage found in the aforementioned study of Mariupol-type cemeteries from Neolithic Ukraine.

The earliest occurrence of haplogroup T is in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of the Near East (Tell Hallula), and this haplogroup appears all over the place in Neolithic Europe. While a recent article has suggested a pre-Neolithic dispersal of T subclades into Europe, on the basis of modern populations, this hypothesis is difficult to reconcile with the ancient DNA data.


Pending new discoveries, it appears likely that mtDNA haplogroup T represents a Neolithic entrant into the boreal zone of U dominance. This has, of course, substantial implications in the context of J.P. Mallory's concept of fault lines, as it demonstrates that the steppe populations did not evolve in isolation, but the dominant lineage in the Andronovo groups was a late entrant into the indigenous U-zone of the eastern European plain.

But, the story doesn't end here:

The analysis of mtDNA samples from the Chicha-1 population revealed some interesting patterns. Crucial changes in the composition of mtDNA haplogroups in the gene pool were observed as compared to the earlier Baraba groups studied (Fig. 3). Dominance of Western Eurasian haplogroups and the near absence of East Eurasian were observed. Additionally, several new West Eurasian haplogroups appeared in the region, including Haplogroups U1a, U3, U5b, K, H, J and W.  

The phylogeographic analysis suggests that the distribution and diversification centres of several of these mtDNA haplogroups and specific lineages are located on the west and south west of the Baraba forest steppe region, on the territory corresponding to modern-day Kazakhstan and Western Central Asia (Fig. 10). Apparently, the migration wave from the south strongly influenced the gene pool of the Baraba population in the transitional period from the Bronze to the Early Iron Age. The impact of the northern human groups was probably less evident in the south of the Baraba forest steppe, at least at the mtDNA level. 

The drastic appearance of a purely Caucasoid population at the Iron Age from a southern, east-Caspian origin perhaps corresponds to the arrival of the first steppe Iranians. The vector of proposed migration is reasonable, if we consider both the likely Indo-Iranian homeland east of the Caspian, as well as the literary evidence for Scythian mobility during this period.

All in all, this is commendable research which allows us to intuit a sequence of events:

• An early mixture zone between Caucasoids and Mongoloids
• The Bronze Age arrival of mtDNA-T bearing Andronovo groups, the first pastoralists entering the zone of U+East Eurasian boreal hunter-gatherers; these Caucasoid peoples admixed with the natives of the mixture zone.
• The early Iron Age arrival of a full-blown set of Caucasoid mtDNA lineages from the south paving the way for the Iranian Scytho-Sarmatian period

Human migrations in the southern region of the West Siberian Plain during the Bronze Age: Archaeological, palaeogenetic and anthropological data


Molodin, Vyacheslav I. et al.


In this paper we present archaeological and anthropological data on human migrations in the Western Siberian foreststeppe region during the Bronze Age (4th–beginning of 1st millennium BC). These data, accumulated over forty years of intensive research in the region, are compared to new results showing the diversity of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) lineages in this region during that period (92 mtDNA samples from seven ancient human groups). Preliminary analyses have demonstrated the usefulness of ancient DNA in tracing and unravelling patterns of past human migrations.  


Link


Prehistoric populations of Ukraine: Migration at the later Mesolithic to Neolithic transition


Lillie, Malcolm C. et al.


This paper focuses on the identification of population movements during the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in the Dnieper Basin region of Ukraine. We assess the evidence for migration from the perspective of individual life histories using a combination of palaeoanthropology/pathology, radiocarbon dating, stable isotopic studies of diet, and mtDNA. 


Link

Y chromosomes and mtDNA from late antique Bavaria

One of the papers in the aforementioned volume includes Y-STR and mtDNA data on a burial cemetery from Bavaria dating to the Imperial Roman age. I reproduce the DNA results below; the haplogroup assignments in red are my own and have been estimated with Whit Athey's haplogroup predictor using both Northwest European and Equal priors.

The number of Y-STRs is not sufficient to make very strong haplogroup assignments in some cases. Still, we can probably say that R1b, E1b1b, and I1 were present in the population. I1 might seem more likely than G2a in a few cases, but remember that a couple of G2a men were found in 7th c. Bavaria. E1b1b, another non-typical German haplogroup has also been found in Usedom from the medieval period.

Christina Sofeso, Marina Vohberger, Annika Wisnowsky, Bernd Päffgen, Michaela Harbeck, *

Verifying archaeological hypotheses: Investigations on origin and genealogical lineages of a privileged society in Upper Bavaria from Imperial Roman times (Erding, Kletthamer Feld)



During the years 2005 and 2006 approximately 2000 archaeological

finds ranging from the Neolithic Period to Late Antiquity 

were found on the Kletthamer Feld (Erding, Upper Bavaria). 

Out of this context a burial site was examined comprising 

13 individuals, some of them rich in precious grave goods. The 

inhumations were dated to the second half of the 4th to the first 

half of the 5th century – a time of upheavals in relation to the 

demographic structure of the former Roman province Raetia (today southern Bavaria).

The high proportion of male individuals within the skeletal population as well as the finding of a Roman fibula, which is seen as part of Roman military clothing, led to distinct hypotheses which we have attempted to support in this study. The hypothesis that the skeletal remains reflect a founder population from a Germanic region north of the Danube River could be rejected on the basis of stable isotope analyses. The theory of a buried family clan had to be dismissed as well, or rather, be extended to the scenario of several families being buried there with their servants. The results obtained fit the third presumption best, namely that the buried individuals were the members of a military unit interred with their families.

Population Dynamics in Prehistory and Early History (2012)

This is a great open access volume. I'll update this post if I read something in it that seems novel.

Population Dynamics in Prehistory and Early History (2012)

Ed. by Kaiser, Elke / Burger, Joachim / Schier, Wolfram

ISBN: 978-3-11-026630-6

DOI: 10.1515/9783110266306

Link

Petty identity politics indeed, or, holding a grudge is no excuse for anti-science

Living Anthropologically takes issue with my contention that the "big hole" in genetic sampling of Native groups in the US is due to "petty identity politics contra science":

1. Contemporary Native Americans have very good reasons to not participate in these studies of earliest Americans. 

Just like in “Battle of the Bones”–which attempts to make a science-versus-creationism argument for studying Native American remains–people take this “paucity of samples from North America” as an opportunity to bash contemporary Native Americans for opting out of these studies. Dienekes blog asks if this is “Petty identity politics contra science?” and commenters on various articles condemn Native groups for this supposedly “petty” refusal. 

For many years I’ve been showing the BBC production, Bones of Contention: Native American Archaeology for Introduction to Anthropology. Produced in 1995, this film is even older than “Battle of the Bones,” but it takes a BBC perspective to give a fairer presentation of U.S. politics and Native issues. What this film at least makes clear–and seems lost on so many–is that Native Americans have plenty of good reasons to still be suspicious of genetic investigation. 

Genocide. Treaty abrogation. Children sent to boarding school to be stripped of language and identity. Contemporary inequalities. The fact that every time I assign “Battle of the Bones” and screen Bones of Contention, some students openly snicker or rant about Native Americans holding back science. It’s one of the factors that went undiscussed in that re-study of Stephen Jay Gould’s Mismeasure of Man–how did Morton get all those skulls anyway?
Petty identity politics indeed.

In my opinion that is a lot of hooey to justify the unjustifiable. I won't argue about the veracity or details of this version of history, but surely native Americans from the US were not especially mistreated compared to other people colonized by Europeans?

I mean, there are now samples from Native Australians, East Indians, Sub-Saharan Africans, Native Americans from all over the Americas except the US. Why don't all these people not "hold a grudge" for their bad treatment at the hands of Europeans, but, apparently, are perfectly willing to participate in genetic research if it's explained to them how they might learn more about their ancestors from it?

And, why limit ourselves to people colonized by Europeans? Surely, Slavs, for example, have a lot of things to say about German Rassenkunde scientists belittling them, studying their skulls to "prove" they are an inferior race, and hatching up and executing plans for their annihilation. So, why do the Russians give the Denisova fingerbone to ze Max Planck folks to study, or allow them to study ancient DNA from all over their territory?

Scour the literature for a while, and you'll find plenty of (modern) Germans studying Jews, and Jews studying pretty much everybody, including many not-so-friendly Muslim populations. You'll find Russians too, studying all the subjugated ethnic groups of their former Empire, and plenty of Han Chinese scientists studying some of the 57 ethnic groups of their country. You'll find Serbs and Turks forgetting about the Battle of Kosovo or the Balkan Wars to participate in joint research about the origins of the Neolithic. You'll find Roma and Saami being studied by their native European "oppressors."

And, how about those African Americans whose ancestors were dragged across the Atlantic in chains, and forced to work as slaves, surely they have as good a reason, if not better, to be suspicious of being made an object of study by people outside their community? But, last time I checked, there were plenty of studies on that population, informing them about the sources of their African ancestors and the timing and extent of admixture with their European ones.

In short: you'll find plenty of groups with historical or even contemporary sources of conflict setting aside their differences in the interest of science.

The anti-scientific attitude of certain Native American groups cannot be ascribed to a history of oppression or conflict with the ancestors of the scientists wishing to study them. And, indeed, if Native Americans were once oppressed by the Palefaces, why don't they let themselves be studied by Chinese or Japanese researchers, or indeed by their own scientists: there are Native American geneticists after all!

There are two answers to this question:

• The cultural relativist nonsense about science being a "white man's way of knowing" that is of no use to Native groups who already know who their ancestors were.
• "petty identity politics" indeed.

If one can think of a better explanation, I'm willing to listen. But, please, no more of that "oppressed people mistrusting Western scientists" tripe.

Clovis people had Western Stemmed Tradition company

A day after the paper by Reich et al. on the three waves of colonization of the Americas in Nature, there is another paper in Science which adds to the complexity of the period of the continent's early settlement.

While the genetics of modern populations can presently identify only one wave of 'First Americans' followed by two much less important waves associated with the later spread of Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut, we have known for some time that there were pre-Clovis people living in America. The new research suggests that at the time of the Clovis culture itself, or even prior to it, there was another distinctive archaeological culture.

From the NY Times coverage:

Stone spearheads and human DNA found in Oregon caves, anthropologists say, have produced firmer evidence that these are the oldest directly dated remains of people in North America. They also show that at least two cultures with distinct technologies — not a single one, as had been supposed — shared the continent more than 13,000 years ago. 

In other words, the Clovis people, long known for their graceful fluted projectile points, were not alone in the New World. The occupants of Paisley Caves, on the east side of the Cascade Range, near the town of Paisley, left narrow-stemmed spear points shaped by different flaking techniques. These hunting implements are classified as the Western Stemmed Tradition, previously thought to be younger than the Clovis technology.

From the press release:

Dr. Jenkins says of the paradigm shifting results: 

"One of the central questions has been whether the technological evolution of hunting tools such as dart and spearheads can be attributed solely to the Clovis culture and the knowledge that these people brought from the Old World. During our excavations in the Paisley Caves we've found a completely different type of dart points. But these new points are of a completely different construction from those found in the Clovis culture. As our radiocarbon dating shows, the new finds are as old, or possibly older than the Clovis finds, which proves that the Clovis culture cannot have been the 'Mother technology' for all other technologies in America. Our results show that America was colonized by multiple cultures at the same time. And some perhaps even earlier than Clovis."

The genetic results are themselves quite interesting:

The 26 new specimens attributed to humans were radiocarbon dated byaccelerator mass spectrometry, and they range in age from 2295 ± 15 to 12,265 ± 2514Cyr., confirming the previously established range of occupation of these caves from beforeClovis in the late Pleistocene, to the late Holocene. Twenty-one specimens belonged to mitochondrial founder haplogroup A, screened for the presence of the A – G SNP atnucleotide position (np) 663 (all positions given with reference to the revised CambridgeReference Sequence). Five belonged to haplogroup B, characterized by a 9 base-pair (bp)deletion following np 8281, also present in eight of the coprolites assigned to haplogroupA (Table S17). The presence of this 9bp deletion after nucleotide 8281 has beenpreviously reported for haplogroup A (42-43), but it has also been reported forhaplogroups C and D. Therefore our results are not likely a product of crosscontamination both at the excavation site or in the lab.

There is also a podcast on the Science website.


Science 13 July 2012: Vol. 337 no. 6091 pp. 223-228 DOI: 10.1126/science.1218443

Clovis Age Western Stemmed Projectile Points and Human Coprolites at the Paisley Caves

Dennis L. Jenkins

The Paisley Caves in Oregon record the oldest directly dated human remains (DNA) in the Western Hemisphere. More than 100 high-precision radiocarbon dates show that deposits containing artifacts and coprolites ranging in age from 12,450 to 2295 14C years ago are well stratified. Western Stemmed projectile points were recovered in deposits dated to 11,070 to 11,340 14C years ago, a time contemporaneous with or preceding the Clovis technology. There is no evidence of diagnostic Clovis technology at the site. These two distinct technologies were parallel developments, not the product of a unilinear technological evolution. “Blind testing” analysis of coprolites by an independent laboratory confirms the presence of human DNA in specimens of pre-Clovis age. The colonization of the Americas involved multiple technologically divergent, and possibly genetically divergent, founding groups.

Link

Reconstructing the origin of Native American populations

A new paper by Reich et al., which echoes the title of a previous one by many of the same authors on India looks at the issue of Native American origins. Nicholas Wade has some good coverage of the new research at the NY Times:

North and South America were first populated by three waves of migrants from Siberia rather than just a single migration, say researchers who have studied the whole genomes of Native Americans in South America and Canada.

I have an informed hunch that this will not be the last paper in the Reconstructing... series.

The supplementary material (pdf) is open access, and lists the data used, some of which has been taken from the literature and some of which is new. There is apparently also a new ADMIXTUREGRAPH software used in a paper which seems to parallel a little the functionality of TreeMix. I don't see a download option for this software yet; perhaps Joe Pickrell who co-authored TreeMix and is now in Harvard may chime in about the differences/applicability of the two pieces of code.

UPDATE: And here is the press release:

Two striking exceptions to this simple dispersal were also discovered. First, Central American Chibchan-speakers have ancestry from both North and South America, reflecting back-migration from South America and mixture of two widely separated strands of Native ancestry. Second, the Naukan and coastal Chukchi from north-eastern Siberia carry 'First American' DNA. Thus, Eskimo-Aleut speakers migrated back to Asia, bringing Native American genes.

Interestingly, I have detected some of this "Native American" component in the Chukchi as part of my world9 calculator.

UPDATE II: Of course, if you look at the map of the sampled populations, you'll notice one big hole: the USA. Petty identity politics contra science? Data on Native groups outside the US have been studied for years, and I doubt that the sky will fall over the heads of the new Canadian and South American groups that participated in this particular study. Hopefully, one day the big hole will be filled, although I'm not holding my breath of that happening anytime soon.

Nature (2012) doi:10.1038/nature11258

Reconstructing Native American population history

David Reich et al.

The peopling of the Americas has been the subject of extensive genetic, archaeological and linguistic research; however, central questions remain unresolved1, 2, 3, 4, 5. One contentious issue is whether the settlement occurred by means of a single6, 7, 8 migration or multiple streams of migration from Siberia9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. The pattern of dispersals within the Americas is also poorly understood. To address these questions at a higher resolution than was previously possible, we assembled data from 52 Native American and 17 Siberian groups genotyped at 364,470 single nucleotide polymorphisms. Here we show that Native Americans descend from at least three streams of Asian gene flow. Most descend entirely from a single ancestral population that we call ‘First American’. However, speakers of Eskimo–Aleut languages from the Arctic inherit almost half their ancestry from a second stream of Asian gene flow, and the Na-Dene-speaking Chipewyan from Canada inherit roughly one-tenth of their ancestry from a third stream. We show that the initial peopling followed a southward expansion facilitated by the coast, with sequential population splits and little gene flow after divergence, especially in South America. A major exception is in Chibchan speakers on both sides of the Panama isthmus, who have ancestry from both North and South America.

Link

Mycenaean mummy

Kristina Killgrove links to an article on Schliemann's Mycenaean mummy. The mummy hasn't actually been unknown, and I had seen a picture of it (presumably Schliemann's engraving?) in Louise Schofield's the Mycenaeans (2007) where it was said to be under study.

But, the new article does include a very good reproduction of the painting that looks a little Giger-esque to me. Perhaps there's room here for some National Geographic-style documentary; after all, mummies seem to be quite popular, and this ought to be a very interesting one, assuming 19th century attempts at preservation stood the test of time, and there's something to show.

From the paper:

Plate 203 is not a photograph but an oil-painting (Fig. 6). This is the painting made of the supposed ‘mummy’ burial in Shaft Grave I (now V) which formed the basis for the published engraving (Schliemann 1878, 297 no. 454). It is on stiff card, measuring some 585 mm in length and 382 mm in width, and shows the corpse about three-quarters life size in sombre shades of brown against a lighter yellowish brown background. The engraving omits the lower part of it in which the region of the pelvis and the tops of the femurs are visible. The painting had been folded in half to fit it into the Album, but I had it removed and framed behind glass for its better conservation.
 Schliemann gives a long and highly dramatized account of the uncovering of this burial. ‘The round face, with all its flesh, had been wonderfully preserved under its ponderous golden mask; there was no vestige of hair, but both eyes were perfectly visible, also the mouth, which, owing to the enormous weight that had pressed upon it, was wide open, and showed thirty-two beautiful teeth. From these, all the physicians who came to see the body were led to believe that the man must have died at the early age of thirty-five. The nose was entirely gone’. 16 In his initial enthusiasm Schliemann even claimed that ‘the corpse very much resembles the image which my imagination formed long ago of wide-ruling Agamemnon’. 17
 ‘The news that the tolerably well preserved body of a man of the mythic heroic age had been found, covered with golden ornaments, spread like wildfire through the Argolid, and people came by thousands from Argos, Nauplia, and the villages to see the wonder. But, nobody being able to give advice how to preserve the body,’ Schliemann telegraphed to Nauplion for an artist ‘to get at least an oil-painting made, for I was afraid that the body would crumble to pieces. Thus I am able to give a faithful likeness of the body, as it looked after all the golden ornaments had been removed’. 18
 Schliemann does not give the name of the artist; but he describes how ‘to my great joy’ the body ‘held out for two days, when a druggist from Argos, Spiridon Nicolaou by name, rendered it hard and solid by pouring on it alcohol, in which he had dissolved gumsandarac’. 19 It was then lifted with some difficulty and transported to Athens, where I can remember seeing it on the bottom shelf of a glass case in the Mycenaean room of the National Museum on my first visit to Greece shortly before the Second World War. Schliemann duly acknowledges that ‘all the trouble and expense of drugging the body so as to render it hard and solid, and raising it from the sepulchre’ and transporting it, were incurred by the Archaeological Society at Athens.20 

I'm no biochemist, but alcohol and gumsandarac doesn't sound good with respect to any potential DNA preservation.

Schliemann’s Mycenae Albums


Sinclair Hood

Link

Related:

• The face of Agamemnon
• mtDNA from Grave Circle B in Mycenae

Extraterrestrial impact caused Younger Dryas 12,900 years ago

PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1204453109

Very high-temperature impact melt products as evidence for cosmic airbursts and impacts 12,900 years ago

Ted E. Bunch et al.

It has been proposed that fragments of an asteroid or comet impacted Earth, deposited silica-and iron-rich microspherules and other proxies across several continents, and triggered the Younger Dryas cooling episode 12,900 years ago. Although many independent groups have confirmed the impact evidence, the hypothesis remains controversial because some groups have failed to do so. We examined sediment sequences from 18 dated Younger Dryas boundary (YDB) sites across three continents (North America, Europe, and Asia), spanning 12,000 km around nearly one-third of the planet. All sites display abundant microspherules in the YDB with none or few above and below. In addition, three sites (Abu Hureyra, Syria; Melrose, Pennsylvania; and Blackville, South Carolina) display vesicular, high-temperature, siliceous scoria-like objects, or SLOs, that match the spherules geochemically. We compared YDB objects with melt products from a known cosmic impact (Meteor Crater, Arizona) and from the 1945 Trinity nuclear airburst in Socorro, New Mexico, and found that all of these high-energy events produced material that is geochemically and morphologically comparable, including: (i) high-temperature, rapidly quenched microspherules and SLOs; (ii) corundum, mullite, and suessite (Fe3Si), a rare meteoritic mineral that forms under high temperatures; (iii) melted SiO2 glass, or lechatelierite, with flow textures (or schlieren) that form at > 2,200 °C; and (iv) particles with features indicative of high-energy interparticle collisions. These results are inconsistent with anthropogenic, volcanic, authigenic, and cosmic materials, yet consistent with cosmic ejecta, supporting the hypothesis of extraterrestrial airbursts/impacts 12,900 years ago. The wide geographic distribution of SLOs is consistent with multiple impactors.

Link

Oldest dairying in Sweden from Mälardalen (Funnelbeaker)

Journal of Archaeological Science Available online 5 July 2012

Lipid residue analyses of Early Neolithic funnel-beaker pottery from Skogsmossen, eastern Central Sweden, and the earliest evidence of dairying in Sweden

Sven Isaksson, , Fredrik Hallgren

This study address the question of the use and function of Early Neolithic (4000-3000 cal. BC) funnel-beaker pots from Mälardalen in eastern Central Sweden. The material studied is pottery from a wetland offering at the site Skogsmossen in the province of Västmanland. While deposited under ritual circumstances in a fen, the pots were likely used in a domestic domain on the settlement adjacent to the offering fen, prior to final deposition. The lipid analysis indicate a varied vessel use, there are traces of aquatic resources, plants, terrestrial animals and milk. The identification of milk residue is the oldest so far from Sweden.

Link

Can we retire the 60,000-year old coastal Out of Africa?

A widely popularized story has become part of the mainstream view of modern human origins. I have seen it repeated countless times in print, and it has been picked up and repeated in popular magazines and documentaries. One day, it may be worth for someone to chart how this idea came to prominence and wide acceptance, despite having very little in its favor. You can read the final death cries of its supporters in a recent Nature special issue.

The idea can be expressed as follows:

"A very small group of humans left Africa 60 thousand years ago; they were on the brink of extinction, but they managed to follow the coastline of Asia, eventually reaching Australia, and subsequently expanding to colonize the interior of the Eurasian landmass"

I have recently become aware of several new papers that directly challenge this view. Instead of writing a new post about each of them, I've decided to combine them all in one post.

The first one by Delagnes et al. in the Journal of Human Evolution describes Shi’bat Dihya 1 and 2, a couple of ~55,000-year old inland human settlements in the Wadi Surdud basin (Yemen). 


From the paper:

Our fieldwork at the Wadi Surdud in Yemen demonstrates that during the period of the supposed expansion of modern humans out of Africa ca. 60-50 ka, and their rapid dispersal toward southeastern Asia along the western and southern Arabian coastlines, the interior of this region was, in fact, occupied by well-adapted human groups who developed their own local technological tradition, deeply rooted in the Middle Paleolithic. Future research will likely reveal whether the archaeological assemblages recovered from the Wadi Surdud can be associated with the descendents of anatomically modern human groups who occupied the Arabian Peninsula during MIS 5 or the southernmost expansion of the Neanderthals.

There is a paucity of old human remains from Arabia due to local conditions, so we cannot know for sure what morphology was associated with these archaeological cultures. If we take the finds that we do have at face value, we would conclude that the Neandertal range did not reach much to the south of Israel, since (i) no Neandertal remains have been found there, while (ii) modern human remains have.

This is further reinforced by the discovery of the Nubian Complex in southern Arabia with its clear African links; it is extremely difficult to assign that to Neandertals, because that would strongly imply presence of Neandertals in Africa for which there is also no evidence.

But, I think we can infer at least three things:

• People thrived inland during the supposed Out of Africa; if there were any Out-of-Africans around this time did not have to "follow the coast".
• It is becoming increasingly difficult to discount the pre-100ka Mt. Carmel (Qafzeh/Skhul) modern humans as the Out-of-Africa that failed: together with Jebel Faya, and the Nubian Complex we are now getting a picture of thriving populations in the Near East and Arabia prior to 60ka. There is every reason to believe that pre-100ka modern humans in the Levant and probably elsewhere did not disappear to make way for the hypothesized second 60ka Out-of-Africa wave.
• If people without a modern technological package were living in the Wadi Surdud, the idea that they are descended from recent Out-of-Africans with all the technological bells and whistles of modernity disappears: these are people rooted in the local traditions, without any signs of recent African descent.

The second article is a review of the prehistory of the Arabian peninsula by Groucutt and Petraglia in Evolutionary Anthropology. One of the points made by the author, quite often forgotten in recent attempts to discover patterns of human dispersals from modern populations, is that populations don't stay put for tens of thousands of years:

As genetic studies of Arabian populations have increased in scale, they reveal a complex pattern.22–25 Such studies show that modern Arabian populations are mostly derived from Western Asia, reflecting dispersals since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). In some areas, however, there are relatively high levels of ‘‘African’’ lineages, which have generally been attributed to historical processes such as slavery.26,27 Genetic evidence, then, is poorly placed to elucidate the position of Arabia in the dispersal of hominin populations. Likewise, the extinction of regional populations means they will not be represented in contemporary genetic structure. In this situation, archeology, in the context of paleoenvironmental fluctuation, offers a key way to elucidate the dispersal of hominin populations into Arabia and their subsequent evolutionary and cultural trajectories.

In Europe where we have the best ancient DNA record, there is substantial evidence for major genetic change over the span of a few thousand years. We have evidence of substantial gene flow into East Africa over the last few thousand years. And, of course, in Africa itself we have substantial evidence for gene flow whether it is related to Bantu farmers or Nilo-Saharan pastoralists.

The authors' overall conclusion:

In general, indications of possible population connections to surrounding regions remain rather speculative, and this is compounded by the absence of fossil evidence. We suggest, however, that the emerging picture suggests a general lack of connections between Africa and Arabia after MIS 5, the last interglacial. Instead, there are perhaps indications that Arabia sometimes saw connections to the Levant.

The third paper is a book chapter by Petraglia, Groucutt, and Blinkhorn. There is plenty of interest here, but what caught my attention is this map of paleorivers in the Arabian and Thar deserts. We so often think of deserts as eternal entitities, and looking at the present-day landscape one would of course conclude that migrating humans would be stark mad to venture far from the coast.

An interesting bit from the paper:

Upper Palaeolithic stone tool industries (typified by the production of long,thin ‘blades’ as well as, often, evidence of ‘art’ and symbolism), appear in the Levant at about 47–45 ka but seem to be rare to absent in Arabia. Maher (2009) comprehensively discusses potentially later Pleistocene sites in Arabia, most of which she identifies as being located in the north-west and south-west of the peninsula. The Qaryat al-Faw site is a possible Late Pleistocene locality, containing laminar technology reminiscent of Levantine Upper and Epi-Palaeolithic assemblages (Edens 2001). The overall lack of Upper Palaeolithic technologies either suggests that human populations were not presentin MIS 3, or that Middle Palaeolithic technologies were used until more sophisticatedtechnologies were developed in the Holocene (Crassardet al.2006, Crassard 2007). Ineither case, the nature of environmental conditions is a critical factor in determining the character of human occupations and material culture. 

and:

Upper Palaeolithic industries are present in the Thar but the ages of many of these sites remain unknown. An assemblage dated to ca. 26 ka has been identified as UpperPalaeolithic at 16R Dune, although the sample size is too low for easy technological comparisons to be made (Achyuthanet al.2007). It can be reasonably hypothesised thatmany Upper Palaeolithic assemblages, containing blade and microblade technologies,date to ca. 35 ka and after (Petraglia et al.2009). Microblade innovations have beentied to more efficient hunting strategies in the face of environmental deterioration andpopulation increase at ca. 35 ka (Petraglia et al.2009). 

There is a widespread belief in the simultaneous spread of Upper Paleolithic technology and modern human populations in Eurasia. But, this is not what the actual evidence shows us. However, the evidence for an earlier appearance of UP industries in the Levant than either Arabia or India makes this hypothesis problematic. It renders the coastal migration hypothesis doubly so, because if modern humans with new technology followed the coast all the way to Australia then it is troublesome that the MP stone tools persist in the regions most adjacent to this migration route. A better explanation may be that the UP revolution should be decoupled from the migration paths of modern humans, and that it was a cultural phenomenon which originated probably in the Levant, rather than being part and parcel of the early migrating humans wherever they were found.

The final article by Dennell and Petraglia argues that the modern humans appear in South Asia long before the conventional 60-40ky time frame. A quote from the paper is useful to remember, and echoes the above discussion:

In the Levant, both Neanderthals and H.sapiens used Mousterian stone-tool assemblages, and in East and North Africa, early H. sapiens used the same lithic tool-kits as their predecessors. This indicates that stone tools are a poor indicator of the species of the hominin that made them: changes in hominin type did not necessarily result in changes in lithic technology. Conversely, unchanging lithic traditions need not imply that the type of hom-inin that used them remained the same. As example, in mainland and island Southeast Asia, there is no equivalent of the Upper Palaeolithic, and“Mode 1”, technologically-simpleflake and core assemblages persist into the late Pleistocene and even inplaces the Holocene, even though the species of hominin that made them changed from H. erectus to H. sapiens. This is in sharp contrast to a region such as western Europe, where the shift from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic was associated with the replacement of Neanderthals by H. sapiens, leaving aside a much-contested debate over the status of so-called “transitional industries” that could have been made by either. Changes in lithic technology in southern Asia are likely to have been more subtle, and discernible only through more rigorous quantitative analysis than merely noting the size andfrequency of a few common elements

I would say that "Mode 4-5 => Modern human" is quite probably true, but "Mode 1-3 => Not modern human" is not. In a sense, this is a little sad, because the more advanced modes appear much later than the hypothesized appearance of modern humans in most places of the world, so they are not of actually much use in determining when they arrived. The paleoanthropological record is a better guide, but, it is also quite sparse or hotly contested in many areas of Eurasia.

To conclude a long post: the evidence for 60,000 year old Out-of-Africa is weak:

• No specific ties with Africa at this or later times
• Clearest evidence of ties between Arabia and Africa during MIS5
• Evidence for strong populations in Asia at this time, inconsistent with the failure of the modern humans sampled at Mt. Carmel in the Levant prior to 100,000 years
• Presence of primitive stone tools does not necessarily indicate absence of modern humans
• Genetic studies of modern populations should not be used as if these populations are direct descendants of first modern humans in same locales

All in all, I'd say that my "two deserts" theory whereby a Green Sahara pumped early modern humans to Asia prior to 100,000 years ago and then a deteriorating Arabian desert pumped them out post-70,000 years ago is not obviously wrong. Perhaps the pre-100ky wave went much further to the east, to India and Southeast Asia.

But, early modern humans may not have been as dominant as we often think, irrespective of when they dispersed: evidence of archaic humans persists in parts of the world down to the Holocene, and so do the simple stone tools of the Middle Paleolithic. Plus the fact that 2/2 of archaic hominins sampled so far show differential relationships to modern human groups, some of them quite unexpected (Denisova with Melanesians) ought to clue us in to the very real possibility that our distant past was quite more complex than we could ever imagine.

Journal of Human Evolution http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2012.03.008

Inland human settlement in southern Arabia 55,000 years ago. New evidence from the Wadi Surdud Middle Paleolithic site complex, western Yemen

Anne Delagnes et al.

The recovery at Shi’bat Dihya 1 (SD1) of a dense Middle Paleolithic human occupation dated to 55 ka BP sheds new light on the role of the Arabian Peninsula at the time of the alleged expansion of modern humans out of Africa. SD1 is part of a complex of Middle Paleolithic sites cut by the Wadi Surdud and interstratified within an alluvial sedimentary basin in the foothills that connect the Yemeni highlands with the Tihama coastal plain. A number of environmental proxies indicate arid conditions throughout a sequence that extends between 63 and 42 ka BP. The lithic industry is geared toward the production of a variety of end products: blades, pointed blades, pointed flakes and Levallois-like flakes with long unmodified cutting edges, made from locally available rhyolite. The occasional exploitation of other local raw materials, that fulfill distinct complementary needs, highlights the multi-functional nature of the occupation. The slightly younger Shi’bat Dihya 2 (SD2) site is characterized by a less elaborate production of flakes, together with some elements (blades and pointed flakes) similar to those found at SD1, and may indicate a cultural continuity between the two sites. The technological behaviors of the SD1 toolmakers present similarities with those documented from a number of nearly contemporaneous assemblages from southern Arabia, the Levant, the Horn of Africa and North Africa. However, they do not directly conform to any of the techno-complexes typical of the late Middle Paleolithic or late Middle Stone Age from these regions. This period would have witnessed the development of local Middle Paleolithic traditions in the Arabian Peninsula, which suggests more complex settlement dynamics and possible population interactions than commonly inferred by the current models of modern human expansion out of Africa.

Link

Evolutionary Anthropology DOI: 10.1002/evan.21308

The prehistory of the Arabian peninsula: Deserts, dispersals, and demography

Huw S. Groucutt, Michael D. Petraglia

As a geographic connection between Africa and the rest of Eurasia, the Arabian Peninsula occupies a central position in elucidating hominin evolution and dispersals. Arabia has been characterized by extreme environmental fluctuation in the Quaternary, with profound evolutionary and demographic consequences. Despite the importance of the region, Arabia remains understudied. Recent years, however, have seen major developments in environmental studies and archeology, revealing that the region contains important records that should play a significant role in future paleoanthropological narratives.1–3 The emerging picture of Arabia suggests that numerous dispersals of hominin populations into the region occurred. Populations subsequently followed autochthonous trajectories, creating a distinctive regional archeological record. Debates continue on the respective roles of regional hominin extinctions and population continuity, with the latter suggesting adaptation to arid conditions.

Link

HOMININ EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY IN THE ARABIAN DESERT AND THE THAR DESERT

Michael D. Petraglia, Huw Groucutt and James Blinkhorn

Link

Quaternary Science Reviews Volume 47, 30 July 2012, Pages 15–22

The dispersal of Homo sapiens across southern Asia: how early, how often, how complex?

Robin Dennell, Michael D. Petraglia


The timing and the paths of colonization of southern Asia by Homo sapiens are poorly known, though many population geneticists, paleoanthropologists, and archaeologists have contended that this process began with dispersal from East Africa, and occurred between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago. However, the evidence for this scenario is very weak, particularly the lack of human skeletal evidence between the Levant and Borneo before 40 ka, and other explanations are possible. Here we argue that environmental and archaeological information is increasingly indicating the likelihood that H. sapiens exited Africa much earlier than commonly thought, and may have colonized much of southern Asia well before 60,000 years ago. Additionally, we cannot exclude the possibility that several dispersal events occurred, from both North and East Africa, nor the likelihood that early populations of H. sapiens in southern Asia interbred with indigenous populations of Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homoerectus. The population history of southern Asia during the Upper Pleistocene is likely far more complex than currently envisaged.


Link

Indo-European genetic signatures in an Orcadian and a Lithuanian

In the Bronze Age Indo-European invasion of Europe, I argued that:

• A West_Asian genetic component is missing from ancient DNA sampled from Europe as recently as ~5,000 years ago.
• This component exists at appreciable frequencies in modern Europeans, reaching minima in non-Indo-European Basques and Finns.
• It is likely that the West_Asian component manifested itself in Europe post-5kya, during the Copper and Bronze Ages, and was associated with the bearers of Indo-European languages.

Of course, the West_Asian component is an abstraction created from a study of modern populations. To better understand the identity of this component, I undertook a simple experiment using the (not yet released) K5c and K8c calculators of the Dodecad Project. The are equivalent to the weac2 and K7b calculators released so far by the Project, but make use of the new Pagani et al. (2012) data on East Africa, hence the appearance of an "East_African" component at K=7 pushing back the appearance of the West_Asian component to K=8.

K5c captures the "West Eurasian cline" between the Near East and Europe, and includes the following components:

• East_Eurasian
• South_Asian
• Atlantic_Baltic
• Near_East
• African

We can say that the Atlantic_Baltic corresponds to northern Caucasoids, while the Near_East one to southern Caucasoids.

K8c includes the following components:

• Atlantic_Baltic
• West_Asian
• Siberian
• Southern
• South_Asian
• West_African
• East_Asian
• East_African

This differs from the previous one in the appearance of the Siberian and East_African components, as well as the aforementioned West_Asian one within West Eurasia.

Naturally the question arises: what can we say about the origin of West_Asian ancestry in modern Europeans? How is it related to other populations? How is it related to the northern and southern Caucasoids?

To answer these questions, I isolated an Orcadian individual (HGDP00794) and used the DIYDodecad byseg mode to construct a local ancestry map of this individual with sliding windows 500 SNP long, advanced by 50 SNPs.

In essence, this procedure assigns ancestry to local regions of the genome, and can hence be used to identify, e.g., regions with an excess of West_Asian or any other component.

I decided to use an Orcadian for this purpose, since Orcadians are Indo-European speakers from northwestern-most Europe who can be reasonably thought to have minimum admixture in historical times from groups other than (i) the pre-Indo-European substratum, (ii) Celto-Germanic superstratum which dominates western Europe.

Over 3,126 total segments, I calculated the correlation between the K5c and the K8c components:

It is clear that the K=8 West_Asian segments of the Orcadian individual correspond to the K=5 South_Asian (+0.36) and Near_East (+0.29) segments. 

The negative correlation with the K=5 Atlantic_Baltic (-0.4) component further indicates that in genomic regions where the Orcadian has West_Asian segments, there is a deficiency of Atlantic_Baltic ancestry; we can be fairly sure that these segments are not the result of common partial descent of Orcadians and West Asians from a northern Caucasoid population.

I have also repeated the above experiment, but with a Lithuanian individual (GSM536635). Lithuanians are surrounded by Indo-European and Finno-Ugric speakers, and are also relatively unlikely to have experienced other gene flow in more recent times:

The same general pattern emerges, with the K=8 West_Asian segments corresponding to K=5 Near Eastern and South Asian segments.

CONCLUSION

Chunks of DNA in an Orcadian and a Lithuanian that are labelled West_Asian tend to be related to populations of the Near East and South Asia. 

It seems fairly clear that a post-5kya link between the North Atlantic and the Indian subcontinent admits to a single parsimonious explanation: the expansion of the Indo-Europeans out of their West Asian homeland during the Copper and Bronze Ages.

Ancient European DNA using DIYHarappaWorld and MDLP5

In the Bronze Indo-European invasion of Europe I compiled the assessment of different ancient autosomal DNA data from Europe using tools developed by the Dodecad Project. I thought it might be a good idea to do the same using a different calculator, the DIYHarappaWorld.

The results are shown on the left, and should be compared against the HarrapaWorld Admixture spreadsheet. I am not very familiar with the HW components, and you should not assume that similarly named Dodecad and HarappaWorld components reflect the same entities. This is probably due to probable differences in data (e.g. lots more West Eurasian vs. South Asian participants) and methodology between the two projects.

Nonetheless, I would say that these results largely confirm the "Mediterranean" character of the "farmers" Gok4 and Oetzi from Italy and Sweden and the "North European" character of the hunter-gatherers Ajv52, Ajv70, and Bra from Sweden and Iberia. I glanced through the the HW spreadsheet, and it seems that even small discrepancies, e.g., Oetzi's 12% NE_Euro from DIYHarappaWorld vs. the 0% North_European from Dodecad K12b are consistent: note that Sardinians, the most Oetzi-like population have a similar 12% NE_Euro in the HarappaWorld spreadsheet, and 0% in the Dodecad K12b one. Hence, this is probably a case of different anchoring of the similarly named components in the two projects, rather than a manifestation of different results of the ancient samples vis a vis modern populations.

DIYHarappaWorld, like K12b, is a high-resolution calculator, and hence does not show the clear absence of the West_Asian component in prehistoric Europeans; this component spans the West Asian highlands, and is replaced in both calculators by the twin Caucasus and Gedrosia/Baloch component that are much more localized in their respective areas. Even though both Caucasus and Gedrosia/Baloch are related to-, the are not  equivalent to the West_Asian component; for example, the K12b Caucasus component includes both the K7b West_Asian and Southern in the local blend of the Caucasus, and this explains the paradox that Oetzi has no West_Asian but 1/5 Caucasus.

Nonetheless, even using the DIYHarappaWorld and K12b, we can intuit that something did change in Europe in the last 5,000 years ago. This is most evident in the levels of the "Baloch" component (=Gedrosia of Dodecad Project) which is near zero in all individuals but reaches levels of ~10% in West European populations today. Certainly, the interesting fact that the rather uniform West_Asian Indo-European adstratum in Europe is transformed (at a higher resolution) into Gedrosia in the West (e.g., Irish) and Caucasus in the East (e.g. Russians) of the continent merits further investigation

I have also tried the MDLP5 calculator on the same data (on the right). I was not able to find population average data for this calculator, but it seems that the difference between farmers and hunter-gatherers is captured by  the "Paleo-mediterranean" vs. "West-Eurasian" dichotomy.

Overall, I think this was a worthy exercise which largely confirmed the picture drawn from the original papers and my application of the Dodecad calculators over their data. It certainly seems now that a Mesolithic, North-European-like substratum experienced gene flow from a Mediterranean, South-European-like population that conveyed the new agricultural way of life during the Neolithic. Hopefully, we will get new data from the last 4-5 thousand years before too long, so that my hypothesis about the Indo-European mediated final formation of the European population during that period can be tested.

Proto-Indo-European and North Caucasian

Quite consistent with my idea that Proto-Indo-European is related to the West_Asian autosomal component.  This component occurs at a a level  greater than 50% level in modern North Caucasian speakers, is absent in Europe prior to 5,000 years ago, and occurs at levels greater or equal to 10% in most present-day Indo-European speakers from Europe.

Transactions of the Philological Society DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-968X.2012.01309.x

Areal Typology of Proto-Indo-European: The Case for Caucasian Connections

Ranko Matasović

This paper re-examines the evidence for early contacts between Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and the languages of the Caucasus. Although we were not able to find certain proofs of lexical borrowing between PIE and North Caucasian, there are a few undeniable areal-typological parallels in phonology and grammar. Some features generally attributed to PIE are not found in the majority of languages of North and Northeastern Eurasia, while they are common, or universally present, in the languages of the Caucasus (especially North Caucasus). Those features include the high consonant-to-vowel ratio, tonal accent, number suppletion in personal pronouns, the presence of gender and the morphological optative and, possibly, the presence of glottalized consonants and ergativity.

Link

Craniological and dental signatures of Out-of-Armenia

From the paper on the craniological results:

One can see a clear link between the Armenian highlands samples and the Western Europe samples (the Arcvakar sample - 17 close phenetic links are revealed). The samples from the Georgia (Samtavro /Late Bronze Age - II period) and Iran (Tepe Gissar III), Uzbekistan (Sapallitepe) are identified as the samples with closest affinities samples from Ukraine (Shirochanski) and Poland, Germany (Corded Ware culture) in particular (figure 3). This suggests that some of the European genes do actually stem from this area. So, mediterranean connections from Armenian highlands, Georgia and Central Asia are distinctly fixed in Western Europe and in the Middle-Late Bronze Age. 

... 

If true, it is suggested that the dispersal of the Indo-European languages have been accompanied by migration and some gene flow from the Armenian highlands homeland to the various historical seats of the Indo-European languages. The different rates of genetic drift and external gene flow may have contributed to the morphological differentiation and diversification amongst the different Eurasian populations. Cluster analysis has revealed a craniological series having analogies (on a complex of craniometric, odontologic characters) with representatives of the population of the Armenian highlands, the Caucasus, the Near East and Central Asia. The initial starting area (or one of the intermediate areas), as indicated by the anthropological data, would seem to be the Armenian highlands, and the Caucasus as a whole (Figure 7).

Asian Culture and History Vol. 4, No. 2; July 2012
doi:10.5539/ach.v4n2p48


Bioarchaeological Analysis Mutual Relations of Populations Armenian Highlands and Eurasia Using Craniological and Dental Nonmetric Traits

Anahit Yu. Khudaverdyan1 Institute of Archaeology and Еthnography National Academy of Science, Republic of Armenia

Abstract

Undertaken here is a multidimensional craniometric analysis of more than 254 ethnic groups of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages from the territory of Eurasia. On the basis of the received information, cluster analysis was done and has shown the genetic condensations of ethnoses and vectors of relatives or, conversely, distinctions between them. Craniometric and odontologic investigation of the Bronze Age is interesting and in connection with discussion about the origin of Indo-Europeans and about the place of their ancestral home. Different aspects of the problem of the ancestral home of Indo-Europeans are far from completely resolved and generate lively debate in the pages of scientific publications. New anthropological data allowed identification of alien Mediterranean characteristics influencing various ethnic Eurasian groups and revealed evidence of a migratory stream from the Armenian highlands and the Caucasus. This research provided new evidence of patterns of ethnic contact and intermixture in Western Eurasia

Link

The Bronze Age Indo-European invasion of Europe

Last summer, I was eagerly awaiting the publication of the genome of the Tyrolean Iceman. It is quite remarkable that only a year later, there is now autosomal DNA from half a dozen prehistoric Europeans. By comparing their DNA to that of modern populations, we are beginning to understand how the current mosaic of European peoples was formed.

The ancient samples vary greatly in the number of SNPs tested, and we cannot be sure how well they map to the restricted range of modern populations. Nonetheless, a crystal clear general pattern seems to emerge, at least in its broadest outlines (Sources: Oetzi the Iceman, Neolithic Swedes, Mesolithic Iberians):

We can plainly see that European hunter-gatherers best map to the modern Atlantic_Baltic population component. This is well represented in the remotest areas of Europe, the ones most distant from the Near Eastern womb of nations. It can be reasonably supposed that the modern Atlantic_Baltic component partially captures alleles present in the ancient European hunter-gatherers, the mtDNA haplogroup U population that seems to stretch from Iberia to Siberia. (However, note, that this does not mean that the Atlantic_Baltic component represents hunter-gatherer ancestry only.)

Conversely, ancient European farmers also possess a large chunk of the Southern component which is absent in the hunter-gatherers. This occurs at high frequencies today around the Mediterranean and reaches its maximum in the Near East. It is clear that there is direct evidence that farming came to Europe not as an idea, but as a people, just as archaeology and physical anthropology had always indicated -- until the rather modern distaste for migration set in.

But there is another component present in modern Europe, the West_Asian which is conspicuous in its absence in all the ancient samples so far. This component reaches its highest occurrence in the highlands of West Asia, from Anatolia and the Caucasus all the way to the Indian subcontinent. It is well represented in modern Europeans, reaching its minima in the Iberian peninsula, Sardinia, and Finland. A sampling of populations, including those closest geographically to the ancient samples:

There are several observations we can make:

• The West_Asian component has a pan-European distribution: it must have been involved in a pan-European process rather than a more localized historical phenomenon.
• Its absence from prehistoric individuals down to ~5ky ago suggests that it may have been added to the European population at a later date, although it may already have been present in currently unsampled areas (e.g., the Balkans) prior to 5kya.
• It reaches its lowest occurrence in areas where non-Indo-European languages have been spoken (Basques and Iberia in general, Sardinia, and Finland)

The post-5kya timeframe is also conventionally accepted by linguists for either the dispersal of Indo-European languages, or at least of a significant subset thereof.

In that respect, it is important to note the correspondence between the West_Asian autosomal component and the k5 component of Metspalu et al. (2011): the latter is the major West Eurasian element in the Indian subcontinent. If a major episode of West Eurasian admixture took place in India 1,200-4,000 years ago, and keeping in mind uncertainties about dating, it may very well be that this corresponds, at least in part, to the eastern manifestation of the same phenomenon.

The Bronze Age is an important transitional phase in European archaeology: distinctive archaeological cultures with distinctive physical types make their appearance across the continent. There appears to be substantial innovation in metallurgy, weapons and transportation, increase in raiding, abandonment of settlements, and formation of broad-range confederacies with distinctive archaeological markers.

I propose that a quantum leap in social complexity occurred during this period. Remarkably, after ~4,000YBP, there are no longer farmers and hunter-gatherers as distinct cultures anywhere in Europe, and their mtDNA gene pools begin to expand in synch with each other. It may very well be that climatic upheavals framing this period may have triggered population movements, both Indo-European and Semitic.


Perhaps, through a combination of better technology and social organization, the Indo-European speaking nucleus, originally one among many linguistic groups of the prehistoric Near East were able to transmit their language, culture, and ideology to much larger populations, by alternatively subjugating or incorporating them. We can thus view the Indo-European bearers as "creative destructors", upsetting the balance of established societies and re-creating them in their own image.

Both the wide differences in genetic composition among present-day Indo-European speakers, and their early-attested physical contrasts testify to the fact that the original IE nucleus did not maintain itself apart --at least not for long!-- from the populations they encountered; in this they appear different from the earlier farmers who apparently kept their Mediterranean affinity even in the northernmost edge of their expansion, thousands of years after their entry into Europe.

Nonetheless, some of the legacy of the earliest Indo-European speakers does appear to persist down to the present day in the genomes of their linguistic descendants, and I predict that when we sample later (post 5-4kya) individuals we will finally find the West_Asian piece that is missing from the European puzzle.

* * *

ADDENDUM:

On the right are the K12b results for the ancient individuals, which further suggest that the Mesolithic Europeans possessed a Northern European affinity that is lacking in the farmer individuals. Conversely, farmer individuals have an excess of the Atlantic_Med component, and also a presence of the Southwest_Asian one.

These results are compatible with the above discussion, as well as the observation by Sánchez-Quinto et al. (2012) that:

the position of La Braña individuals in the 1000 Genomes Project data and the 1KGPomnichip PCAs suggests that the uniform Mesolithic substrate could be related to modern Northern European populations but may represent a gene pool that is no longer present in contemporary Southern European populations.

I wrote a small survey a couple years ago, in which I argued that:

I will simply say that the recent results of Bramanti et al. for a U-dominated older mtDNA stratum in Central/North-eastern Europe can be reasonably extended to cover both North-western Europe and northern Eurasia up to Lake Baikal, the prehistoric limit between Caucasoids and Mongoloids.

The extension of U dominance to Iberia, as well as the detection of the North European autosomal signal in both Iberia as well as, presumably, Siberia, seems to make the case for the existence of this postulated zone pretty clear.

One could very well call this boreal population Ancestral Northwest Eurasians (ANWEA) and parallelize it with the Ancestral South Indians (ASI). These Paleolithic substrata frame the Eurasian landmass on opposite latitudinal ends, and were the receptacles of the great chain of migrations which began in the Neolithic womb of nations. One of the final episodes of this process was the dispersal of the Indo-European languages during the Copper and Bronze Ages.

UPDATE (July 3): Indo-European genetic signatures in an Orcadian genome and a Lithuanian and Ancient European DNA using DIYHarappaWorld and MDLP5

20,000-year old pottery from China

From NYTimes:

The ceramics probably consisted of simple concave vessels that were likely used for cooking food, said Ofer Bar-Yosef, an archaeologist at Harvard and an author of the study, which appears in the journal Science. 

“What it seems is that in China, the making of pottery started 20,000 years ago and never stopped,” he said. “The Chinese kitchen was always based on cooking and steaming; they never made, as in other parts of Asia, breads.”

Science 29 June 2012:

Vol. 336 no. 6089 pp. 1696-1700

DOI: 10.1126/science.1218643

Early Pottery at 20,000 Years Ago in Xianrendong Cave, China

Xiaohong Wu et al.

ABSTRACT

The invention of pottery introduced fundamental shifts in human subsistence practices and sociosymbolic behaviors. Here, we describe the dating of the early pottery from Xianrendong Cave, Jiangxi Province, China, and the micromorphology of the stratigraphic contexts of the pottery sherds and radiocarbon samples. The radiocarbon ages of the archaeological contexts of the earliest sherds are 20,000 to 19,000 calendar years before the present, 2000 to 3000 years older than other pottery found in East Asia and elsewhere. The occupations in the cave demonstrate that pottery was produced by mobile foragers who hunted and gathered during the Late Glacial Maximum. These vessels may have served as cooking devices. The early date shows that pottery was first made and used 10 millennia or more before the emergence of agriculture.

Link