Intro
- Etymology of “Arya”: KE2015.
WSH
- Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (EHGs) + Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers (CHGs) in roughly equal proportions, with the majority of the Y-DNA haplogroup contribution from EHG males.
- Western Steppe Herders (WSH), or Western Steppe Pastoralists - distinct ancestral component first identified in individuals from the Eneolithic steppe around the turn of the 5th millennium BCE. Later detected in Khvalynsk, Sredny Stog, and Yamnaya cultures. Hence, aka Yamnaya Ancestry, Yamnaya-Related Ancestry, Steppe Ancestry or Steppe-Related Ancestry.
Yamnaya radiation
- high levels of WSH ancestry with some 10-18% Early European Farmer (EEF) admixture. Yamnaya Y-DNA is exclusively of the EHG and WHG type, seem to be mating with CHG and EEF females.
- WSH ancestry from this period is often referred to as Steppe Early and Middle Bronze Age (Steppe EMBA) ancestry.
- Predominantly light skinned, brown eyes and dark hair.
- They radiated out widely, merged with and dominated prior occupants in vast tracts of Eurasia. [Vid2015]
ran the ‘back of the envelope’ using reich lab qpadmin model, I estimate that something like 11% of the ancestry of modern ppl in the whole world can be modeled as ‘yamnaya’. about 850 million people if you multiple genome*person. Today nearly 50% of humans speak an Indo-European language…Their demographic impact is even more striking: if you were to pool living humans’ DNA, proportionally, one billion total Yamnaya descendants walk among us today. - Razib
- In Europe, WSH ancestry peaks among Norwegians (ca. 50%), while in South Asia, it peaks among the Kalash people (ca. 50%), according to Lazaridis et al. (2016). Narasimhan et al (2019), which employed a wider range of references in their ancestry models, found lower levels of steppe-derived ancestry among modern South Asians (e.g. ~30% among the Kalash).
European migration
- Nat, Arx.
- Half of Western European men descended from one Bronze Age ‘king’. “In Western Europe, related lineages within R1b-L11 expanded ~4.8–5.9 kya (Supplementary Fig. 14e), most markedly around 4.8 and 5.5 kya. The earlier of these times, 5.5 kya, is associated with the origin of the Bronze Age Yamnaya culture.” [N16 T16 ]
- This resulted in 60-30% population replacement (more in the northeast, least in the southwest)
Corded ware culture
- The Corded Ware is a culture that appeared that abruptly in Northern Europe between 2900 and 2800 BC, covering a vast territory of Central and Eastern Europe in a century. The name derives from the unique marks left on their pottery.
The Corded Ware culture in its mature phase is about 70% Yamnaya and 30% farmer. The farmer’s ancestry almost certainly comes exclusively through women. The Y chromosomes of the farmers were G2. There is very little of that within a few generations. It is almost all R1a.
… the men from the steppe took wives from the farmers. They killed their fathers and brothers and took them to their homesteads to bear them children. These women knew how to make pots because they did not come from nomadic backgrounds. They adapted their techniques to making pots that exhibited marks that made them resemble the baskets that their husbands brought in their wagons. - RK
Thence came Bell Beaker culture to the west and from remigration to the steppe: Sintashta culture, Andronovo culture and Srubnaya culture.
Central asia
“Indo-Europeans reached and probably overwhelmed the Eastern Steppes starting first around 5300 YBP symmetrically with the first invasion of western Europe. This eastern branch perhaps gave rise to the Tocharians though more data from the time Tocharian was actually attested would be useful. … While the Afanasievo people who represent the 1st IE invasion of the east did not mix noticeably with the east Asians.”
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IQ of Afanasievo ~92 NIH
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IIr radiation considered separately.
Branches
- Kentum (Centum) vs Satem isogloss is most famous. Albeit might be an early areal phenomenon rather than a true phylogenetic division.
- Hittite and Tocharian show no satem-like assibilation in spite of being located in the satem area.
- other Indo-European isoglosses running across the centum–satem boundary, some of which seemed of equal or greater importance in the development of daughter languages.
Genes, memes, temes
What genes, memes or temes put them at an advantage?
- Technological and biological theories
- “wheel in terms of technology & ideology played a serious role in this. The former especially because whatever else they did rapidly get from 1 place to another. " MT18.
- The people who spoke the Proto-Indo-European language lived at a critical time in a strategic place. They were positioned to benefit from innovations in transport, most important of these being the beginning of horseback riding and the invention of wheeled vehicles. [David W. Anthony in “Indo-Europeans, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World”]
- " It has been proposed that the horse and chariot tradition frequently mentioned by some poets associated with Chu state might be a further marker of this contact. It indeed appears that the chariot and the equestrian culture were transmitted on one or even more occasions from the Indo-Iranians. It appears that a robust equestrian warfare arose somewhat later than the chariot culture (often linked to the need for the stirrup for effective warfare). Proto-Indo-Iranian tradition, while aware of horseback riding and equestrian warfare, placed much greater emphasis on the chariot in war and does not seem to record a stirrup.” [MT]
- Lactose tolerance theory (discredited by genetic studies): Indo-Europeans developed a gene mutation that allowed them to digest milk even after being weaned, thus providing these nomads with a continuous and mobile source of nutrition. About a quarter of ancient DNA samples from Yamnaya sites have an allele that is associated with lactase persistence, conferring lactose tolerance into adulthood.
- However, the dharma memeplex (see here) is probably the most important competitive edge they had.