Re-theorising mobility and the formation of culture and language among the Corded Ware Culture in Europe (original) (raw)
Related papers
Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe
2015
We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost four hundred thousand polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of western and far eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ~8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary, and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ~24,000 year old Siberian 6 . By ~6,000-5,000 years ago, a resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry had occurred throughout much of Europe, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ~4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ~3/4 of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ~3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans.
2020
During the Final Eneolithic the Corded Ware Complex (CWC) emerges, chiefly identified by its specific burial rites. This complex spanned most of central Europe and exhibits demographic and cultural associations to the Yamnaya culture. To study the genetic structure and kin relations in CWC communities, we sequenced the genomes of 19 individuals located in the heartland of the CWC complex region, southeastern Poland. Whole genome sequence and strontium isotope data allowed us to investigate genetic ancestry, admixture, kinship and mobility. The analysis showed a unique pattern, not detected in other parts of poland; maternally the individuals are linked to earlier neolithic lineages, whereas on the paternal side a Steppe ancestry is clearly visible. We identified three cases of kinship. Of these two were between individuals buried in double graves. Interestingly, we identified kinship between a local and a non-local individual thus discovering a novel, previously unknown burial custom. The Neolithic Stone Age of continental Europe saw important demographic changes and population events which in recent years have been demonstrated by numerous archaeogenomic studies 1-6. The genetic ancestry, affinity and admixture processes between human groups have been traced by analyses of individuals from different time periods and geographical contexts which contextually are associated to cultural complexes with differing lifeways, burial customs and material culture expressions. The identification of the demographic event and successive development associated with the Neolithization of Europe demonstrated the importance of mobility and migration in the process of population turnover and transition towards changed lifeways (e.g. 7-9). The process took different paths in different areas of Europe which is evident in the admixture patterns between the hunter-gatherer (HG) and the farming groups but also between farming and pastoralist groups, depending on the time period. The significant transitional process around 3000 cal BCE and the appearance of the (Pontic Steppe) Yamnaya cultural complex in eastern Europe is associated with a wave of migration from East that had marked impact on the demographic (a Steppe ancestry component), cultural and social as well as linguistic development in the third Millennium BCE 1,10 .
The Neolithic transition was a dynamic time in Euro- pean prehistory of cultural, social, and technological change. Although this period has been well explored in central Europe using ancient nuclear DNA, its genetic impact on northern and eastern parts of this continent has not been as extensively studied. To broaden our understanding of the Neolithic transi- tion across Europe, we analyzed eight ancient ge- nomes: six samples (four to 1- to 4-fold coverage) from a 3,500 year temporal transect (8,300–4,800 calibrated years before present) through the Baltic region dating from the Mesolithic to the Late Neolithic and two samples spanning the Meso- lithic-Neolithic boundary from the Dnieper Rapids region of Ukraine. We find evidence that some hunt- er-gatherer ancestry persisted across the Neolithic transition in both regions. However, we also find sig- nals consistent with influxes of non-local people, most likely from northern Eurasia and the Pontic Steppe. During the Late Neolithic, this Steppe- related impact coincides with the proposed emer- gence of Indo-European languages in the Baltic region. These influences are distinct from the early farmer admixture that transformed the genetic landscape of central Europe, suggesting that changes associated with the Neolithic package in the Baltic were not driven by the same Anatolian- sourced genetic exchange.
Archaeology, Genetics, and Language in the Steppes: A Comment on Bomhard
Journal of Indo-European Studies, 2019
This paper reviews ancient human DNA from sites around the Black Sea and the Pontic-Caspian steppes in order to clarify the genetic evolution of the Yamnaya population in the steppes, and to connect the genetic evidence from Yamnaya and pre-Yamnaya Eneolithic mating networks with archaeologically defined groups. The overall purpose is to analyze A. Bomhard's hypothesis that Proto-Indo-European was a contact language that developed from interference between a pre-Northwest Caucasian type of language and a pre-Proto-Uralic type of language. I was asked to evaluate this linguistic hypothesis from genetic and archaeological perspectives.
The Slavic Ethnogenesis in the framework of the Paleolithic Continuity Theory
This contribution is based on my recent work on the problem of the origins of Indo-European ( = IE) languages (Alinei ) -and lately on Etruscan (Alinei 2003) -, and is divided in five parts: (A) the first outlines the three presently competing theories on the origins of IE languages; (B) the second summarizes the converging conclusions reached by different sciences on the problem of the origin of language and languages in general; (C) the third surveys recent theories on the origins of non IE languages in Europe; (D) the fourth illustrates examples of how the IE linguistic record can be read in the light of the Paleolithic Continuity Theory, and in comparison with the two competing theories; (E) the fifth concerns the specific problem of the Slavic ethnogenesis.
Prehistoric Language Contact on the Steppes, 2023
There have been numerous attempts to find relatives of Proto-Indo-European, not the least of which is the Indo-Uralic Hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic are alleged to descend from a common ancestor. However, attempts to prove this hypothesis have run into numerous difficulties. One difficulty concerns the inability to reconstruct the ancestral morphological system in detail, and another concerns the rather small shared vocabulary. This latter problem is further complicated by the fact that many scholars think in terms of borrowing rather than inheritance. Moreover, the lack of agreement in vocabulary affects the ability to establish viable sound correspondences and rules of combinability. This paper will attempt to show that these and other difficulties are caused, at least in large part, by the question of the origins of the Indo-European parent language. Evidence will be presented to demonstrate that Proto-Indo-European is the result of the imposition of a Eurasiatic language-to use Joseph Greenberg's term-on a population speaking one or more primordial Northwest Caucasian languages.