Alright so first of all, there is one point that needs to be understood. In the past, languages, cultures, religions, et cetera did not spread without migration, conquest, or a lot of contact between different people. To a significant extent, that still holds true today. The Indo-European languages would never have spread without significant contact between proto-Indo-European tribes, & that includes elite dominance, conquests, migrations, etc.
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PIE tribes as you call them were only a small group of people that belonged to the R haplogroup. They "only" had an impact in Eastern Europe and parts of Northern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia.
Yes, genetic evidence indicates that they were by far predominantly R1a, but there is a possibility of some R1b mixture as well. It must be noted that I don't think the Indo-Iranians include R1b. Yes, their genetic impact is predominantly present in those regions, but their impact is by no means absent in places like Greece either, where I recall that at least 10% of the population is R1a. Let's not forget that most of Europe speaks languages descending from proto-Indo-European & that includes proto-Greek, which is related to proto-Indo-Iranian. Religious evidence exists in this case as well, alongside some archaeological evidence.
The R1a haplogroup is more or less absent from Italy and Greece and nearly totally absent in Western Europe. Those regions were populated by people belonging to the R haplogroup long before any PIE tribes migrated from Central Asia/Caspian Sea into Eastern Europe.
The R1b haplogroup for instance is found in large populations of Western Africa and they obviously had nothing to do with those PIE tribes.
My point is that non-R haplogroups make up a bigger percentage of the populations of Italy and Greece than the R haplogroup in this case R1b which is more or less absent from Central Asia, parts of Pakistan, parts of Afghanistan and Northern India etc.
In Greece it is present in at least 10% of the population from what I recall. It has presence in Italy too, ranging from about 5 to 10%. Yes, R1b exists in Western Africa as well, & there must have been some migration resulting in its presence over there, but that has nothing to do with R1a or the Kurgan hypothesis. There is no conflict here, the proto-Indo-European tribes such as the Mycenaeans that arrived in Greece ruled over an indigenous population comprised of J2 & other haplogroups. It was this elite dominance that led to the Greek population speaking an Indo-European language, following an Indo-European religion, culture, etc. This hypothesis holds the same for the population of Italy when the Latins tribe (another PIE tribe) migrated there. Italy had a local population already such as the Etruscans, but in the end it was Rome that dominated in the region & there was a lot of assimilation as such the percentage of maternal & paternal haplogroups are bound to vary. This should explain why haplogroups other than R1a are more dominant in Greece & Italy in spite of the fact that the proto-Greek speakers & Latin speakers belong to the PIE tribes & their languages are related to those such as Sanskrit.
Most of that are theories hence the name "Kurgan theory". It has more to do with linguistics than anything.
Linguistics, genetics, archaeology, culture, & even religion has been studied to gain insight on proto-Indo-European tribes, & thereby form the Kurgan hypothesis which deals with multiple issues in this regard. The Kurgan hypothesis at this point is the most accurate attempt at explaining the spread of PIE languages & tribes.
It is wrong to link the haplogroup J with Semitic people or any particular people of today. Since Semitic people are as anybody else of a mixed stock. J, R, G and E happens to be the most common haplogroups not only among the Semitic speaking people but among all Middle Eastern, North African people and to a large extent Southern Europeans and the people of the Balkans.
Actually, one particular subclade of Haplogroup J1 is linked with the spread of Semitic languages & ancient Semitic people. I never linked all of haplogroup J to Semitic people of course, just that J1 is generally associated with them. Similarly, while Semitic people have absorbed paternal & maternal lineages from outside & assimilated with them doesn't change the fact it's one subclade of haplogroup J1 that's associated with the spread of Semitic languages. A related haplogroup J2 is one of many that is found among modern day Arabic speaking populations. Some of the haplogroups that you listed are actually among the most common in the Sub-Continent too, especially R1a & as I recall even J2. Haplogroup E1b1b is most common in North Africa, & is also associated quite often with proto-Afroasiatic speakers. Its presence in Western Asia & Europe is quite less by comparison.
How do you know that the ancient Greeks and Latins belonged to the R1a haplogrup? That is highly unlikely. Besides most of them were assimilated locals that lived in those areas many thousands of years before any migrations from Central Asia/Pontic area. Actually levels of the R haplogroup on the Arabian Peninsula points to about 20-25% of the population. Some places more. About the same in the Levant and large parts of Northern Africa. But it is mostly R1b.
Why do you believe that is unlikely? It was never implied that the entire of population of ancient Greece or Italy was R1a. However, both Greeks & Latins spoke an Indo-European language, hand an IE culture, religion, et cetera which in itself confirms their links to PIE tribes. The Latins arrived to Italy during the Bronze age, & their culture, language, & religion is essentially PIE. It's over there that they came in to contact with other people in Italia & eventually assimilated with them. For the Greeks, there were multiple people residing in Greece such as the Pelasgians & as I said earlier it's the Mycenaeans that are associated with the PIE tribes, not the J2 population that was already living there. The Mycenaeans arrived over 3600 years ago as speakers of the Indo- European Greek language from the Ukranian steppes. The Macedonians like them were also a R1a people which agrees with the finding that it's the northern regions of Greece where the haplogroup R1a is in dominance.
Most importantly the Y-chromonse DNA is just a tiny, tiny part of your overall ancestry.
That is correct, maternal DNA is also extremely important but the paternal DNA is used for clustering ethnic groups in general. There are reasons for that, societies themselves have evolved in to giving more emphasis on the male lineage as that of descent & it is generally male figures tribes have stated as their patriarchs. Of course the descendants also happen to generally follow the culture & identify with the ethnic groups their fathers belong to. In fact, I recall telling you myself that maternal lineage is also important when studying population migrations as well.
My point is and that is confirmed by actual DNA is that Caucasian people of the ME, including Arabs, cluster much more with each other genetically than they do with South Asians, North Asians, Far Asians (Mongoloids), and South East Asians. Regardless of the linguistic group they belong to or ethnic group. They also cluster much more with the nearby Europeans especially of Southern and Western Europe including the Balkans. Much less so with the Eastern Europeans though.
People in the Middle East especially in the Semitic regions have assimilated with each other for centuries so it should come as no surprise to anyone that they are genetically similar. Looking at the haplogroups themselves, haplogroup J2 is one of those that is present in significant amounts in Southern Europe like in countries such as Greece & is also found in the Middle East. Similarly, maternal lineages too have spread all over the world just like the paternal ones. Regardless, some ethnic groups in the Middle East being closer to Europeans doesn't mean much on its own since portions of the Middle East like Asia minor have had significant Greek, Persian, & to some extent Roman influences. Similarly, haplogroups like J2 & E1b1b exist in Europe too.
Another point was that an supposed Indian (of which about little over half of the population are speaking an Indo-European language) are not actually of "Indo-European origins" but just people assimilated and now speaking an foreign language. That is mostly the case outside areas of Northwest India. Most Indians are of a local stock and overall all Indians and South Asians cluster more with fellow South Asians than they do with outsiders including people of the Middle East. Iran is included in the ME here.
That's correct & this point of yours agrees with my own posts that the majority of the Indo-Iranian migrations happened in the north western regions of the Sub-Continent. There was assimilation outside that region too as people moved about in ancient & modern times, but everyone know that small admixture has no effect on racial phenotypes.
The exception here seems to be Afghanistan and parts
of Pakistan who also geographically closer to the ME and Central Asia than the remaining South Asia.
This portion is correct as well & agrees with my previous post. Both the Indo-Aryan & Iranic branch of Indo-Iranians settled near the Indus & many people assimilated with the Harappans too.
But even there the South Asian genetics are very prevalent. I think that it is about 50/50 in those places if I recall correctly. If you look at a persons overall DNA and not just the haplogroup they belong to on the paternal side. That obviously only makes up a tiny, tiny percentage of your overall DNA and thus ancestry.
It tends to vary even among provinces, & there have been lots of migrations in to regions like Punjab alongside assimilation. Places like Kashmir, Balochistan, et cetera are purer when it comes to having an Indo-Iranian appearance, & I quite frankly would consider it insulting if someone were to tell me that I do not descend from those ancient people. It's evident in our appearances, languages, cultures, blood, etc. Of course, I already said that over all an individual's entire DNA is important, but not everyone assimilated with other ethnic groups & that assimilation isn't always in huge amounts taking in to consideration that both Indo-Iranian men & women lived together & naturally married among each other mostly too. Regardless, the paternal lineage generally remains unchanged although mutations do occur, but if your paternal haplogroup is J1 then you do descend from them in spite of any other mixture that would have occurred along the way. In any case, I do consider maternal lineage to be equally important too, & all people should honor both their paternal & maternal heritages.
Actually, the paternal lineage constitutes half of your line of descent as does the maternal side. I think you are referring to racial phenotypes which often get corrupted as a result of admixture. Interracial marriages are a good example of that especially when the offspring looks like it belongs to one ethnic group more than the other. However, that doesn't change the fact that both parents DNA is present in the offspring.
The Arabs and people of the ME were usually referred to as Orientalids or Arabids by racialists and other European "experts" in connection to races or alpinids. In fact Arabs were believed to be an branch of the Mediterranean people that composed most of Northern Africa and Southern Europe (Mediterranean areas). Atlanto-Mediterranean was believed to be a branch of the Mediterranean people and their type is predominantly found in Western Europe (France, large parts of Iberia and the British Isles).
Many theories have existed in the past, but thanks to improvements in technology & of course research in the anthropological & genetic studies, we are well of aware of ethnic groups that are classified as Caucasians. Incidentally, Semitic people such as the Phoenicians founded trading colonies one of which was Carthage in the Mediterranean world. Anyway, the concept of associating people with sub-races within a race is dying. The Caucasian race for instance varies in term of appearance, skin tone, et cetera as do other races.
Lastly in general I don't like whole linguistic groups and some ethnic groups claiming whole haplogroups that predate them with thousands of years and the languages that they invented. More so when those same people did not come from the same stock but where a mixture like any other people. That group as any other group of people might have a predominant haplogroup that they belonged to but that's about it.
Actually, I think I recall seeing you do something similar to that in the past when you claimed most haplogroups as being Middle Eastern. The fact is that their place of origin does not make them your own, it's the people they are associated with that counts more. Besides, most human populations lived closer to each other geographically before drifting apart. Researchers are well aware of the fact that different haplogroups have been absorbed in to different communities, but in an effort to simplify our understandings & genetics & language, people tend to associate languages with the group they originated among. Individuals belonging to different haplogroups naturally mixed, but they managed to preserve their phenotypes for the most part. In any case, it's simply a fact that the proto-Afroasiatic language is associated with E1b1b. The proto-Semitic is associated with a subclade of J1 & PIE with R1a.
Yes, many haplogroups predate language groups, but it was those particular haplogroups that played a dominant role in that language's development & as such the researchers simply give credit where it is due. It is by no means easy to reach these conclusions. Significant work in the field on linguistics, genetics, & archaeology has taken place to reach these conclusions. In the case of languages for instance, linguists study the vocabulary present in earlier forms of a language to estimate an area where it would have been originally spoken alongside the characteristics of the people that spoke it before associating it with a particular haplogroup. My explanation doesn't emphasize the immense difficulty of this task as much as it should. Let's just say it’s not easy to study words contained in languages to understand if it had originally been spoken by an agricultural or nomadic society.
You associate the Kurgan hypothesis with language, & while it does deal with language, it isn't solely based on that. Linguistic, genetic, cultural, ancient religious, & archaeological evidence combined has resulted in its creation.
Getting back to the Latins tribe & the proto-Greek tribes, you seem to be associating modern day haplogroup percentages with ancient populations without taking various other factors in to account. The Pelasgians in Greece did not speak Greek, it's the Mycenaeans that introduced the proto-Greek language to mainland Greece itself alongside their Gods, culture, etc. The proto-Greek language is close to Indo-Iranian, any linguist can confirm that. Besides, if those people weren't R1a, why would everything about the Mycenaeans resemble the PIE tribes? They must have had contact with them if they weren't them, but the fact is that the Mycenaeans were a branch of PIE tribes & even archaeological evidence confirms that there were migrations from the Pontic Caspian steppes around the Black Sea. The war chariot apparently aided this expansion. Similarly, northern Greece has greater percentages of R1a confirming accounts that people such as the Macedonians, Thracians, et cetera that migrated there were of PIE descent & had significant influence in those areas.
This is especially true when we look at the fact that the arrival of Mycenaeans introduces an Indo-European language over there for the first time because the J2 haplogroup did not speak those languages then. They settled there in smaller quantities, but the effect of their dominance gave rise to Hellenic civilization. The Latins tribe was a small group that came to Italia in the Bronze age. They were few in number, but their language Latin was Indo-European, as were many of their customs that conformed to nomadic steppe culture. Most research claims that they migrated to Italia from the PIE homeland & as a result they are members of the PIE tribes. Since they were few in number & Italy had a significant other population, they assimilated with other people of the region. That is what results in varying percentages of different haplogroups in these regions. In fact, I am surprised that you seem to reject the association of R1a with the PIE tribes despite so much evidence to the contrary primarily in the field of genetics, linguistics, deities, culture, etc. Yet you haven't provided any proof that proto-Indo-Europeans didn't migrate to Greece or Italy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latins_(Italic_tribe)
Let's move on to Western Europe, where the haplogroup R1a is rare or absent. Despite the rarity of R1a in Western Europe, there is archaeological evidence for some type of invasion or migration alongside cultural & linguistic diffusion. The pottery in the regions of Brittania & Gaul around the time IE language began to be spoken there conformed to the inferior style of the Pontic-Caspian steppes. Archaeologists wondered why would they adopt an inferior style unless it had been imposed on them by the warlike & dominating PIE tribes. That alonside the fact that this change in pottery occurred during the same time IE languages begun to spoken there is a good sign of PIE migrations & elite dominance. However, since those PIE migrants were fewer in number in Western Europe, the dominant paternal lineage remained R1b.
I know that forum well and those links are not written by professionals but by forum members.
That is by no means an appropriate response since these articles are based on findings of different researches, & multiple other sources could provide you with information regarding R1a & R1b.
Nor has it anything to do with the topics I discussed earlier namely the overall genetic closeness of the people of ME vis a vis those of South Asia, Central Asia, Far Eastern Asia and South East Asia. Also vis a vis Southern Europe/Balkans/Western Europe.
Genetically it has been proven that most of South Asia, aside from areas of Afghanistan, Northern India and Pakistan mostly originate from a local stock. That is also evident when looking at the maternal side.
Actually, the discussion on the previous thread involved even the Indus Valley Civilization as well as the Indo-Europeans. It was those points that I responded to, the inclusion of Middle Eastern people in the subject is something that you brought up. The rest of the above quote essentially agrees that regions of Afghanistan & Pakistan faced heavy Indo-Iranian migration, whereas other parts of the Sub-Continent were culturally dominated. I have brought up the same point earlier as well.
Once again haplogroup R1a has a minimal presence in Western Europe, Italy and Greece. it is only a majority in areas of Central Europe and Eastern Europe. Nowhere else in Europe.
In Greece it is present in at a minimum in about 10% of the population & in Italy it ranges from about 5 to 10%. As per findings, around the time Indo-European languages were spoken in Western Europe, elements of Indo-European culture, pottery, religion, et cetera begun to be found there too indicating contact with proto-Indo-Europeans. Languages and cultures simply did not spread without contact with its originators back then. This is exactly what the Kurgan hypothesis proposes. Other than that it essentially says that Indo-European elites would have dominated them as elites leading to the spread of PIE languages, cultures, religions, etc.
Nobody disputes the spread of the Indo-European languages and partially culture. But the Kurgan theory is not a fact but just a theory. It mostly deals with linguistics anyway and cultural assimilation.
In science, laws describe a rule that has been constantly observed such as the boiling point of water. Theories are explanations based on the findings & data that we have. When you claim that the Kurgan hypothesis is simply a theory, you need to refute all of its findings ranging from PIE culture such as the Yamna culture, the fact that the PIE homeland is around the Black Sea exactly where R1a originated. You will need to disprove the Indo-Iranian migrations too since they began their migrations from the PIE homeland to Andronovo. Furthermore, you are going to have to disprove evidence of PIE culture, religion, influencing different parts of Europe exactly around the time their languages were spoken & the migrations began. Our knowledge of the PIE tribes is increasing, & I am pretty certain future research will continue to resolve these issues & this is after all the most widely accepted hypothesis of Indo-European origins.
The presence of haplogrup I which is the dominant haplogroup of Germany and large parts of Scandinavia and some parts of Eastern Europe is for instance due to the earliest migrations from the Middle East (Fertile Crescent). Haplogroup I is an ancestor of haplogroup J. The haplogroup R1b which is the by far most dominant haplogroup of Western Europe and parts of Southern Europe has no ties to the Kurgan theory whose people belonged to the R1a haplogroup (apparently) and thus neither the supposed Kurgan theory. R1a and R1b are indeed related to each other but the R1b is likely to have originated in Anatolia thousands of years before any expansion of any PIE tribes from Central Asia/Pontic Steppe into Eastern Europe and parts of South Asia. That is evident.
Huh? Everyone knows of the presence of Haplogroup I in Germany. It doesn’t have much relevance to our discussions besides of course the Corded Ware culture. As far as I know, the earliest bodies that were studied belonging to that culture indicate the presence of R1a in the era in which Indo-European languages begun to be spoken over there. R1a & R1b are without a doubt related, & it’s incorrect to assume that they had absolutely no contact with the proto-Indo-Europeans. People from both haplogroups lived close to each other before the proto-Indo-European migrations as well, but the mixture would have been limited since R1b isn’t generally found in Indo-Iranians. The Maykop culture may have links bonding R1a & R1b since people belonging to those cultures had similar practices to the Yamna culture of R1a, but naturally not everyone belonging to R1b would have been influenced by Indo-Europeans before their expansion.
Also none of us know the full genetic outlooks of the earliest PIE people (the people who first started speaking Indo-European languages) and where they exactly emerged. What we know for sure though is that people belonging to that haplogroup (R( lived in large parts of the ME, Caucasus and Western Europe and Southern Europe long before any Indo-European languages evolved. Thus it is wrong to say that the PIE people that reached PARTS of South Asia are the source of the majority of the population of ancient Rome, Greece etc.
Huh? We don’t know who the earliest PIE people were? We don’t know every detail about the proto-Afroasiatic & proto-Semitic people either. However, genetic, linguistic, cultural, & religious, evidence points to R1a originating around the Black Sea exactly where the proto-Indo-European language was spoken, & there culture was naturally followed. People belonging to R1b may have lived in Western Europe before IE languages were spoken, but R1a was not that spread out all over the world back then. What’s wrong? There is nothing wrong at all because the majority of the R1a migrations occurred after the proto-Indo-European language had evolved.
Another mistake you made in this paragraph is to have made the assertion that I claimed that the majority of the population of ancient Rome & Greece was proto-Indo-European. I claimed no such thing. What I did claim was that the Mycenaeans who gave Greeks an IE language, culture, religion, et cetera were Indo-Europeans that migrated from the Pontic-Caspian steppes as proven by their language, culture, customs, rituals, etc. Similarly the Latin tribe which was a minority in Italy migrated there bringing with them the Latin culture, religion, language, & as indicated by history, Rome fought countless others for dominance over Italy including the Etruscans that were considered tyrants. The Latins tribe is claimed by everyone to be Indo-European & they migrated there around the Bronze Age. Due to their assimilation as well as the assimilation of all people in Italia, the haplogroups are bound to vary. This applies even more so in the case of Italy which faced many migrations from different people in the Roman world. This should explain the minimum amount of haplogroup R1a in Italy because it was the Latins tribe which as minority established there culture in a small part of Italy before expanding all over Italia & absorbing the entire peninsula’s population.
Also Most importantly then the R1a haplogroup branches found in Eastern Europe differ significantly from those found in South Asia. In Italy and Greece most people belonging to the R haplogroup belong to the R1b haplogroup and their branch of the R1b haplogroup differ from the R1b haplogroups found outside of Europe. For instance in Cameroon and Western Africa among Black people. So overall if you want to find a genetic closeness of people of region x with Europe or the ME or somewhere else you need to look at the overall DNA. And in terms of the Y-Chromosone DNA you have to look at your distinct branch as well.
Different branches of haplogroup J1 exist as well & only one of them is associated with the spread of Semitic languages. Paternal haplogroups mutate & evolve to & different people are indeed associated with different subclades of a haplogroup, but the point still remains that they are going to continue to be related. I have already stated that both haplogroups R1a & R1b exist in Greece & Italy, & provided an explanation as per current findings of the spread of Indo-European language & cultures in those regions. Overall DNA is at the moment close to impossible to compare since it comprises of a lot more than simply lineage. However, those distinct branches of R1a for instance point to the same source as where R1a itself originated & that is the region around the Black Sea. At the end of the day, the link between the Indo-Iranians & other proto-Indo-Europeans is naturally going to continue to exist. A person of a purer Indo-Iranian stock (paternal & maternal) would be closer to other ancient PIEs in comparison to an individual of Semitic stock, when we take not just simply bloodline but linguistic & cultural elements too. Religions today naturally can’t be compared since relatively few populations today follow their ancient religions, especially after the dominance of Abrahamic religions.
I am not mixing up anything, dear. I have read those links a long time ago. I seriously suggest that you to look past just the Y-Chromosone DNA and look more into the overall ancestry of given country and its population or region it lies in. It is much more accurate that way and gives a better understanding of not only the paternal but also maternal ancestry aside from obviously the overall. Even when you look into just one tiny, tiny part of your ancestry, the Y-Chromosone that you belong to, then notice that there are dozens of branches that differ from each other despite belonging to the same overall Y-Chromosone. For instance, as I wrote then the R1a haplogroup and its branches found in Eastern Europe differ from the ones found in parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Northern India and Bangladesh etc. Especially when it comes to age.
Once again, it was me that once told you that population origins consist of far more than paternal ancestry so I naturally do take both in to consideration. The Indo-Aryans did intermarry with local women too upon their arrival; there is absolutely no doubt that all of us contain local DNA too. The point being discussed was the relationship between Indo-European people from the paternal side as such the Y chromosome DNA remains relevant. Yes, haplogroups evolve but their ancestral origins remain, & the difference in haplogroup subclades & their age displays the era of migration alongside any unique mutations it would have undergone. However, R1a for instance has its origins around the Black Sea, & all of its branches associated with different PIE tribes spread out from there. You are mixing things up, for instance; the proto-Indo-Iranians began their migrations from the Black Sea as indicated by archaeological, genetic, cultural, & linguistic records. Other migrations towards Europe of PIE people are recorded in the form of Thracians, Mycenaeans, & various other groups that brought with them Indo-European languages & cultures. The Corded ware culture has a presence of R1a long before Slavic expansion, & it was around that time ancient IE languages were spoken then. Furthermore, you seem to confuse modern haplogroup data with ancient populations, which is essentially incorrect since places like Europe underwent waves of migrations. If were to study an Indo-Iranian’s DNA during the period of migration to the Indus, then both maternal & paternal haplogroups would be purer than they are today due to lack of mixture with the local populations of the Indus.
I don't deny that the Kurgan theory is possible but all I am saying is that it is mostly based on linguistics and the expansion of culture. Most people that came under them got assimialitd culturally and linguistically. Not genetically. If that was the case Europe would be 100 times more homogenous.
Incorrect, it’s not based on linguistics entirely due to the fact that genetic evidence of R1a originating near the Black Sea. Similarly, archaeological, cultural, & religious evidence has also been taken in to account resulting in the formation of this hypothesis. Evidence in the form of pottery, war chariots, religions, & even burial techniques corresponding to the Pontic Caspian steppes exists. People do not change their language & culture without contact with the originators of that language & culture thus contact between PIE tribes & Western Europeans is bound to have occurred. Europe needs not be 100 times homogenous as a result of that since PIE tribes dominated as elite over the indigenous populations & when they did assimilate, it was both men & women that would have intermarried so most paternal lineages would be preserved.
Also I don't agree with the people of the Kurgan theory having any major genetic input to the people of ancient Greece or Italy. In fact you yourself point out to them likely belonging to the haplogroup R1a, which seems correct given the mummies/skeletons found in Russia on the Pontic Steppe, but the problem with that is that this haplogorup is nearly absent in Italy and Greece. More so in Grreece. But still it is not more than 10-20% if I recall.
R1a exists in both Italy & Greece regardless of the percentages indicating contact with PIE tribes. They are the ones that brought them the Latin language & culture, & the same goes for Greece in the form of Mycenaeans. Northern regions of Greece where R1a is more prevalent fits perfectly with the migration of PIE tribes alongside the change in language, culture, & religion that resulted from the process. Since they dominated as elites & imposed their culture & language on the local population, they need not be the majority as per the Kurgan hypothesis. The Pelasgians for instance did not speak the proto-Greek language which is related to Indo-Iranian.
In general I have a problem with people equating language = with some kind of haplogroup that WAS thought to be the dominant haplogroup among the proto-speakers of language x or y. Or the logic that most of those proto-speakers were even of the same stock to begin with! The likelyhood and logic point against such a thing. Hence why you have so many differences, branches etc. just in terms of the Y-Chromosone DNA among speakers of the same language family. Let alone their entire DNA!
That's all fine. I will be waiting although I am soon going to bed.
I have already answered this query earlier on. I will repeat the earlier part again. Yes, many haplogroups predate language groups, but it was those particular haplogroups that played a dominant role in that language's development & as such the researchers simply give credit where it is due. It is by no means easy to reach these conclusions. Significant work in the field on linguistics, genetics, & archaeology has taken place to reach these conclusions. In the case of languages for instance, linguists study the vocabulary present in earlier forms of a language to estimate an area where it would have been originally spoken alongside the characteristics of the people that spoke it before associating it with a particular haplogroup. My explanation doesn't emphasize the immense difficulty of this task as much as it should. Let's just say it’s not easy to study words contained in languages to understand if it had originally been spoken by an agricultural or nomadic society. There are dominant haplogroups in proto speakers of different languages & no researcher has a problem with that, but naturally other haplogroups would have interacted with them to. Likelihood & logic do not go against this at all. The proto-Afroasiatic speakers were E1b1b, & the spread of their languages matches perfectly with the spread of & migrations of people belonging to the haplogroup E1b1b. In this case linguistic & genetic evidence matches as it does for the Kurgan hypothesis. Would there have been other haplogroups alongside proto-Afroasiatic speakers? Of course, just as R1b would have also interacted with PIE tribes in the Yamna culture. Those branches in haplogroups evolved later on & weren’t present at the time the haplogroup first appeared. Similarly, people belonging to haplogroups of different branches would still live together & Middle Eastern society for instance is also proof of that. Different subclades of J1 exist in the Middle East itself & some of them are associated with the spread of Semitic languages.
Yes, I have read about the R1a being present in Germany. Actually it is among the biggest if not the biggest marker of Eastern Germany (Mecklenburg Vorpommern, Brandenburg and to a smaller extent Saxony. There is somewhat of a consensus that this comes from the Slavic people who are predominantly R1a and we know from history that there were big, big Slavic population movements into Eastern Germany. Even to this day there are remnants of them seen among the Sorb people. Slavs were the majority of those parts of Germany until 500-600 years ago. Many got Germanized and thus were assimilated but that obviously did not change their ancestry. Or the names of cities etc. Berlin being one of the many examples.
But once you cross south into Bavaria and West Germany (basically the old Western Germany) the R1a is barely present. At least at very small percentages. That's quite interesting and points to the above theory being correct or at least largely.
If you look at the work of European racialists discussing phenotypes they point to the same thing. They called those Slavic looking Eastern Germans belonging to the R1a haplogroup (mostly mind you) for Balto-Slavics in appearance. That's due to the similarity of the Slavic and Baltic languages who again happens to have a very close relation to the Kurgan theory. If I am not wrong the women behind the Kurgan Theory was an Lithuanian herself.
Ah, once again you are looking at the modern day population which has evolved considerably due to migrations, assimilation, conquests, etc. What has to be taken in to consideration is the stock of the ancient population. The Corded ware culture existed long before Slavic migrations which if I am not mistaken took place in the 5 or 6th century CE. It is true that a lot of R1a over there appears from them, but the Corded ware culture existed long before that era of Slavic migrations perhaps more than 4000 years ago. Some of the bodies studied from that era contain the R1a haplogroup & it is also within that time period when Indo-European languages were spoken there & elements from that culture were adopted by the arrivals of proto-Germanic speakers that dominated R1b & haplogroup I. Since they were present in smaller amounts, elite dominance eventually came to an end but traces of R1a in the modern population going back to those times might still remain even if it’s rare.
Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog: Y-chromosomes and mtDNA from Eulau (Corded Ware Culture, Germany)
The presence of R1a in the Middle East towards the eastern regions of Arabia & the Levant isn’t extraordinary. Indo-Iranians had significant interaction with people in those regions & some would have been absorbed by them to. Similarly, the Indo-Aryan Mitanni kingdom existed nearby to & is a good example of elite dominance ruling over a primarily Hurrian populace. Furthermore, Indo-Europeans have travelled to regions like Anatolia for centuries, & have had significant interactions with Semitic people throughout history. R1b in North Africa will be present from migrations as well. By the way, R1b is also present in Pakistan & eastern portions of Arab too. The history of R1a & R1b is significantly mixed with each other in many ways including contact with PIEs during the Yamna culture too.
As I explained earlier, the Kurgan hypothesis explains the spread of R1a, the proto-Indo-European language, culture, religions, etc. You accept portions of it like Indo-Iranian migrations, but you reject other aspects of it such as its influence on Greeks through Mycenaeans despite the archaeological & historical evidence to the contrary. Please note that the Kurgan hypothesis is the mainstream view & evidence from various sources including the Corded ware culture corroborates this point. Since you deny that Indo-European tribes influenced Greek civilization, then answer how did proto-Greek (IE language), culture, Gods, et cetera show up in that area? That would be impossible without significant contact with PIE tribes. People simply do not absorb languages, cultures, burial techniques, & Gods without some sort of dominance or interaction. Besides, R1a is present in Greece which agrees with the point that Mycenaeans dominated the local population of Greece & the presence of R1a in northern regions is in no conflict with the arrival of Indo-Europeans in the form of Thracians, Macedonians, et cetera in that region.
So did Western Europe incur any sort of invasion or dominance of a minority PIE elites bringing with them their language & culture? At the moment, all of the pieces of this puzzle do not fit together, but there is considerable evidence as per the various evidences that have been uncovered so far to match the Kurgan hypothesis. It is very difficult to imagine as to how Germanic, Celtic, Italic & various other Indo-European languages would have been adopted by Western Europeans without some sort of domination or elite influence. Some people have suggested that minor elite interaction result to let’s say the dominance of IE languages. However, people simply do not change their language or way of life just by coming across a few PIE speakers. In fact, even in recent history languages & cultures have never changed without some sort of intensive interaction between individuals. Some of the evidence comes from linguistics, other comes from pottery styles changing, whereas even more comes from remains of burial chambers & the fact that they corroborate with the PIE style. Let’s not forget about religion either, Gods like Zeus are of Indo-European in origin. Indo-Aryans themselves have an equivalent of Zeus or the “sky father”. Genetics itself indicates the interaction between members of R1a & R1b before migrations. Similarly, it would be impossible for the Greeks to speak a proto version of the Greek language, or adopt IE practices without some migrations, remains of which remain in the population as postulated by the elite dominance of IE people in the form of Mycenaeans. Even the Minoans did not speak an Indo-European language. All aspects of evidence ranging from genetic, linguistic, archaeological, cultural, & religious evidence are covered by the Kurgan hypothesis. There is enough evidence of proto-Indo-Europeans influencing & assimilating with other Europeans of various different haplogroups including R1b & J2. Another thing to note is that during the Bronze Age expansion, the culture of Western Europe went from being matrilineal to being patrilineal. The study of ancient populations from different regions of Bronze Age Europe such as the previously mentioned Corded ware culture shows the presence of R1a long before the Slavic migrations. There need not have been any massive R1a migrations in ancient Western Europe, even small scale migrations with military or some sort of dominance would suffice in changing the culture, language, & rituals in those regions. All in all, we have enough evidence for PIE expansion & the moment at which IE languages appear in Western European is in no conflict with the migration of those tribes. There are pieces of the puzzle that remain missing but further research shall without a doubt resolve those problems & further develop the Kurgan hypothesis. Let’s not forget that languages like proto-Greek are essentially the sister languages of proto-Indo-Iranian, just like how Latin is the sister language of Sanskrit; the oldest IE language. Subclades of the haplogroup R1b managed to arrive in Western Europe during the Bronze Age too, so this also indicates that Kurgan tribes would have influenced R1b even before migrations. Many Western European countries still retain some presence of R1a, some of which arrived in modern times while the rest in the past.
Here is some information regarding the Mycenaeans.
http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/mycenaean-civilization.html
Mycenaean civilization (mĪsēnēˈən) [
key], an ancient
Aegean civilization known from the excavations at
Mycenae and other sites. They were first undertaken by Heinrich
Schliemann and others after 1876, and they helped to revise the early history of Greece. Divided into Early Helladic (c.2800–2000 B.C.), Middle Helladic (c.2000–1500 B.C.), and Late Helladic (c.1500–1100 B.C.) periods, the chronology roughly parallels that of the contemporary
Minoan civilization. The Mycenaeans entered Greece from the north or northeast c.2000 B.C., displacing, seemingly without violence, the older Neolithic culture, which can be dated as early as 4000 B.C.
These Indo-European Greek-speaking invaders brought with them advanced techniques in pottery, metallurgy, and architecture. Mercantile contact with Crete advanced and strongly influenced their culture, and by 1600 B.C., Mycenae had become a major center of the ancient world. The exact relationship of Mycenaean Greece to Crete between 1600 and 1400 B.C. is extremely complex, with both areas evidently competing for maritime control of the Mediterranean. After the violent destruction of Knossos c.1400 B.C., Mycenae achieved supremacy, and much of the Minoan cultural tradition was transferred to the mainland. The Mycenaean commercial empire and consequent cultural influence lasted from 1400 to 1200 B.C., when the invasion of the
Dorians ushered in a period of decline for Greece. Events from 1100 to 900 B.C. are extremely obscure, but by the 9th cent. B.C. the centers of wealth and population showed a decisive shift. Although the Mycenaeans had certain innovations of their own, they drew much of their cultural inspiration from the Minoans. The great Mycenaean cities—Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, Thebes, Orchomenos—were noted for their heavy, complex fortifications and the massive, cyclopean quality of their masonry, while Minoan cities were totally unfortified. Mycenaean palaces were built around great halls called megara rather than around an open space as in Crete. Unlike the Cretans, the Mycenaeans were bearded and wore armor in battle. Their written language, preserved on numerous clay tablets from Pylos, Mycenae, and Knossos, appears to be a form of archaic Greek linguistically related to ancient Cypriot. The presence of this script, known as Linear B, at Knossos c.1500 B.C. indicates that Mycenaean Greeks had invaded and dominated Crete during the Late Minoan period before the final collapse c.1400 B.C. The works of Homer have been radically reevaluated since the archaeological discoveries of Mycenaean Greece. He is now considered to give admirable glimpses of the culture of the late Mycenaean civilization of the 12th cent. B.C. (see
Achaeans).
This link based on Eupedia could be useful too.
Eupedia / Maciamo : Y-DNA haplogroups of ancient civilizations | Old Europe
Please ignore any grammatical or spelling errors in this post. A small point to note here is that Western Europe, Greece & Italy had smaller yet dominating presence of Indo-European people. Greece was always mixed, but their elite aristocratic class was Indo-European, & some argue that so were the Roman Patrician families & of course the warriors among the early Celtic tribes. It's Eastern Europe & the Indus & Afghanistan region where they were a true majority upon migrations. In fact, the Indo-Iranian migrations from Andronovo are said to span the course of a 1000 years.
