Prehistoric Human Migrations

[skepticalbip]

There is a theory that the first migration into the Americas was by boat, following the shorelines, collecting shellfish, fishing, and killing seals, otters, etc. for food while camping on the shoreline. If this theory has any validity then there would have been no geographical barriers. Collecting food along a shoreline is certainly a much easier task than hunting big game and paddling a small skin covered boat much easier than walking while carrying belongings on your back.

I feel like you are imagining a bunch of explorers going on an "adventure", rather than a large extended family more or less just trying to survive on a landscape.

Not at all. The theory pretty much describes the same lifestyle as how eskimos survived until very recently. The difference being that the proposed group followed the shoreline south rather than like the eskimos that followed the edge of the ice sheet to Greenland. Use of a boat makes moving a family and all the necessary domestic tools much easier than a trek through thick forests, across rivers, and over mountains.

You may also note that the Australian aborigines had to have used boats to get to Australia at least 40,000 (and possibly 60,000) years ago.

 

[Politesse]

Nobody had to learn to survive in a completely novel environment; each generation lived within 50km of their birthplace, and more likely within 20km. It's an evolution, not a revolution.

And that is why it didn't happen especially quickly. No great mystery.

Though the first part of your post, I'm not as sure I agree with; while it is true that the Western mindset assumes (and through land management creates) many artificial "natural" boundaries, I have spent enough time in the American wild to know that not all sharp distinctions are human in origin.

 

[Angry Floof]

Speaking of, I just finished watching PBS' breathtaking doc on this topic: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/great-human-odyssey.html.

 

[bilby]

Nobody had to learn to survive in a completely novel environment; each generation lived within 50km of their birthplace, and more likely within 20km. It's an evolution, not a revolution.

And that is why it didn't happen especially quickly. No great mystery.

Though the first part of your post, I'm not as sure I agree with; while it is true that the Western mindset assumes (and through land management creates) many artificial "natural" boundaries, I have spent enough time in the American wild to know that not all sharp distinctions are human in origin.

Well, of course; as we both know, generalistions are always wrong.

But sharp distinctions were certainly very rare in landscapes untouched by human intervention.

 

[lpetrich]

DNA clue to origins of early Greek civilization - BBC News
noting
Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans | Nature

Dr Lazaridis explained that most of the people who created these civilizations appear to be local - deriving between 62% and 86% of their ancestry from people who introduced agriculture to Europe from Anatolia (modern Turkey) in Neolithic times, starting from about 7,000 years ago.

But the Bronze Age Mycenaean and Minoan skeletons revealed ancestry from populations originating in either the Caucasus mountains or Iran. Between 9% and 17% of their genetic make-up came from this source.

In addition, the team's paper in Nature journal reports, the Mycenaeans - but not the Minoans - show evidence of genetic input from people who lived further north, on the flat grasslands that stretch from eastern Europe to Central Asia. Between 4% and 16% of their ancestry came from this northern source.

Those flat grasslands are the steppe zone, very likely the Indo-European homeland. So that genetic contribution was from the people who brought Greek to Greece. Minoan is almost certainly not Greek and is unlikely to be Indo-European, and that fits the genetic evidence.

 

[Politesse]

There have been some interesting developments in Southeast Asian archaeology as well lately.

https://phys.org/news/2018-07-ancient-dna-year-old-controversy-southeast.html

 

[lpetrich]

8,000-Year-Old Remains Tell a Surprising Story About The Ancestry of Southeast Asia
noting
Ancient genomes document multiple waves of migration in Southeast Asian prehistory | Science
Ancient DNA testing solves 100-year-old controversy in Southeast Asian prehistory

Southeast Asians are genetically mixed. One part is hunter-gatherers who had lived there for at least 40,000 years. Another part is Neolithic Chinese farmers from the north. Other parts are later migrants.

 

[Sarpedon]

I also need to point out, again, that it does not require having experienced an arctic summer or winter to imagine a day or night that lasts extra long. This is one reason that legendary evidence must always be given lower precedence than physical evidence.

 

[lpetrich]

That's certainly correct, but it is not necessarily either-or, not necessarily all-fact or all-fiction.

Consider the case of the Hyperboreans of Greek mythology. They lived far to the north, in a place where the Sun shines 24 hours a day. That fits in well with far northern latitudes during the summer, the time when it is easiest to travel there. So that place was misunderstood as a place with 24-hour daytime all year.

 

[Sarpedon]

The stories told by travelers are not evidence of a migration. A story can be transmitted by a single person. If you want to talk about evidence of migration, you will have to provide other evidence.

 

[Jokodo]

The stories told by travelers are not evidence of a migration. A story can be transmitted by a single person. If you want to talk about evidence of migration, you will have to provide other evidence.

I don't think the Greeks would have accepted for fact one single guy's story of a place were the sun never sets.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - or at least several independent witness accounts corraborating each other.

 

[Sarpedon]

Ummm, I don't think I need to provide evidence that people will accept uncorroborated stories. It happens all the time. If you don't think that people won't believe a well-told story, you really haven't been paying attention. I also don't think the average people follow the "extraordinary claims" aphorism. Remember, that in Herodotus' History, he included the bit about the people with the faces in their torsos.

 

[lpetrich]

It would likely be several travelers describing a place where the Sun does not set -- not just one.

Politesse's link titled: Ancient DNA testing solves 100-year-old controversy in Southeast Asian prehistory
It links to
The prehistoric peopling of Southeast Asia | Science

Comparisons with present-day populations suggest two waves of mixing between resident populations. The first mix was between local hunter-gatherers and incoming farmers associated with the Neolithic spreading from South China. A second event resulted in an additional pulse of genetic material from China to Southeast Asia associated with a Bronze Age migration. McColl et al. sequenced 26 ancient genomes from Southeast Asia and Japan spanning from the late Neolithic to the Iron Age. They found that present-day populations are the result of mixing among four ancient populations, including multiple waves of genetic material from more northern East Asian populations.

 

[lpetrich]

Returning to The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia | bioRxiv it identified seven ancestral populations of the people whose genes were compared:

• “Anatolian agriculturalist-related”: represented by 7th millennium BCE western Anatolian agriculturalists
• “Western European Hunter-Gatherer (WHG)-related”: represented by Mesolithic western Europeans
• “Iranian agriculturalist-related”: represented by 8th millennium BCE pastoralists from the 197 Zagros Mountains of Iran
• “Eastern European Hunter-Gatherer (EHG)-related”: represented by hunter-gatherers from 199 diverse sites in Eastern Europe
• “West Siberian Hunter-Gatherer (West_Siberian_HG)-related”: a newly documented deep source of Eurasian ancestry represented here by three samples
• “East Asian-related”: represented in this study by Han Chinese
• “Ancient Ancestral South Indian (AASI)-related”: a hypothesized South Asian Hunter-Gatherer lineage related deeply to present-day indigenous Andaman Islanders

Our results also shed light on the question of the origins of the subset of Indo-European languages spoken in India and Europe (45). It is striking that the great majority of Indo-European speakers today living in both Europe and South Asia harbor large fractions of ancestry related to Yamnaya Steppe pastoralists (corresponding genetically to the Steppe_EMBA cluster), suggesting that “Late Proto-Indo-European”—the language ancestral to all modern Indo- European languages—was the language of the Yamnaya (46). While ancient DNA studies have documented westward movements of peoples from the Steppe that plausibly spread this ancestry to Europe (5, 31), there has not been ancient DNA evidence of the chain 488 of transmission to South Asia. Our documentation of a large-scale genetic pressure from Steppe_MLBA groups in the 2nd millennium BCE provides a prime candidate, a finding that is consistent with archaeological evidence of connections between material culture in the Kazakh middle-to-late Bronze Age Steppe and early Vedic culture in India (46).

Late Proto-Indo-European was the ancestor of all the attested Indo-European languages except for the Anatolian family. Its speakers left the Indo-European homeland in an earlier migration.

We finally highlight a remarkable parallel between the prehistory of two sub-continents of Eurasia: South Asia and Europe. In both regions, West Asian agricultural technology spread from an origin in the Near East in the 7th and 6th millennia BCE (Fig. 4). In South Asia this occurred via the Iranian plateau, and in Europe via western Anatolia, with the technological spreads mediated in both cases by movements of people. An admixed population was then formed by the mixing of incoming agriculturalists and resident hunter-gatherers—in South Asia eventually giving rise to the Indus_Periphery and ASI and in Europe the Middle Neolithic genetic cluster Europe_MN. In both Europe and South Asia, populations related to the Yamnaya Steppe pastoralists arrived after this agriculturalist and hunter-gatherer admixture took place, interacting with local populations to produce mixed groups, which then mixed further with already resident agriculturalist populations to produce genetic groupings such as those found associated with Corded Ware and central European Bell Beaker artifacts in much of Europe, and the ANI genetic cluster in South Asia. These mixed groups then mixed further to produce the major gradients of ancestry in both regions. Future studies of populations from South Asia and the linguistically related Iranian world will extend and add nuance to the model presented here.

So both Europe and India had three migrations:

1. Early hunter-gatherers
2. Western Anatolia farmers
3. Yamnaya steppe Indo-European speakers

 

[lpetrich]

Parallel paleogenomic transects reveal complex genetic history of early European farmers | bioRxiv published as Parallel palaeogenomic transects reveal complex genetic history of early European farmers | Nature -- the basic outline is correct, farmers spreading outward and interbreeding with local hunter-gatherers, but the details can be complicated.

Ancient mitogenomes of Phoenicians from Sardinia and Lebanon: A story of settlement, integration, and female mobility

The Phoenicians emerged in the Northern Levant around 1800 BCE and by the 9th century BCE had spread their culture across the Mediterranean Basin, establishing trading posts, and settlements in various European Mediterranean and North African locations. Despite their widespread influence, what is known of the Phoenicians comes from what was written about them by the Greeks and Egyptians. In this study, we investigate the extent of Phoenician integration with the Sardinian communities they settled. We present 14 new ancient mitogenome sequences from pre-Phoenician (~1800 BCE) and Phoenician (~700–400 BCE) samples from Lebanon (n = 4) and Sardinia (n = 10) and compare these with 87 new complete mitogenomes from modern Lebanese and 21 recently published pre-Phoenician ancient mitogenomes from Sardinia to investigate the population dynamics of the Phoenician (Punic) site of Monte Sirai, in southern Sardinia.

So later Sardinians are descended from both earlier ones and Phoenician colonists.

 

[lpetrich]

How ancient DNA is transforming our view of the past - BBC News

Looking to the future, Prof Reich sees huge potential for uncovering as yet unknown human movements and gene exchange in different parts of the world.

"I think Africa is a place that's deeply under-represented. There are maybe only 20 genome sequences in what is the most diverse place in the world - the place with the deepest and most complex human history," said Prof Reich.

"That compares to more than 1,000 genomes from Europe right now, which is an important but small corner of the world."

He adds: "There's so much to do."

Like having better tests of hypotheses about  Bantu expansion:
Genetic variation reveals large-scale population expansion and migration during the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Bringing together linguistic and genetic evidence to test the Bantu expansion | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
The Bantu people had expanded from West Africa eastward and southward. Did the eastward and southward ones split early? Or did the southward ones split off from the eastward ones some time later? The authors of these paper decide on a late split, with a trajectory west - east - south.

 

[lpetrich]

Two IE phylogenies, three PIE migrations, and four kinds of steppe pastoralism (PDF) by David Anthony, working from Indo‐European and Computational Cladistics - Ringe - 2002 - Transactions of the Philological Society - Wiley Online Library (PDF).

First the IE and Computational Cladistics one. Cladistics is a type of taxonomy first developed by biologists as a way of classifying organisms by way of what inferred common ancestors they have. It has some rather formidable jargon, and I won't go into it hare. Cladistics can be used to classify other entities that come in family trees, like languages. Linguist Don Ringe decided to use cladistics on the Indo-European family, since it is the best-studied of large language families. He used words with different sets of related word forms, and he also used phonological and grammatical features. Like the medio-passive (reflexive + passive-voice) endings. In Anatolian, Tocharian, and the older Italic and Celtic languages, it is -r, while in Greek and the older Germanic and Indo-Iranian languages, it is -i.

He and his colleagues got a good tree if they omitted Germanic:
Anatolian
- Tocharian
- - Albanian
- - - Italo-Celtic
- - - - Greek, Armenian
- - - - - Indo-Iranian
- - - - - Balto-Slavic

But with Germanic, they got
Anatolian
- Tocharian
- - Italo-Celtic
- - - Albanian, Germanic
- - - - Greek, Armenian
- - - - - Indo-Iranian
- - - - - Balto-Slavic

with a lot more inconsistencies. However, the inconsistencies are due to features shared with IE languages in northern and western Europe in the first millennium BCE. That suggests a lot of linguistic crosstalk between early Proto-Germanic speakers and early Proto-Italo-Celtic ones and Proto-Balto-Slavic ones.

How does that fit in with the archeological evidence? David Anthony addresses that issue.

 

[lpetrich]

In David Anthony's paper, he links Anatolian, Tocharian, and Italo-Celtic to three migrations.

The first migration was in 4400 - 4200 BCE, and it was out from what's now Ukraine north of the Crimea on the Dneiper River. This migration followed the western shore of the Black Sea southward, with a branch going inland. Large numbers of settlements were abandoned and burned there, some very culturally different people started living there, as the Cernavoda culture. Numerous artifacts from there ended up in the steppe zone from the Dneiper to the lower Volga River, hinting at long-distance trade networks.

Continuing further along the Black Sea coast, they would have ended up in Anatolia, where we find the first recorded Indo-European language: Hittite, one of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European family. Ancestors of Anatolian speakers were the first to split off from the main Indo-European group, and it is evident from archaisms in Hittite, and also from lacking Indo-European wheel-related vocabulary. Their split was before the invention of wheeled vehicles roughly around 3500 BCE.


The second migration was in 3300 - 3000 BCE, and it was far to the east, near the Altai Mountains, forming the Afanasievo culture. Some of them could easily have continued southward from there to the Tarim Basin in what is now Xinjiang in China. They would have then have become the ancestors of the Tocharian speakers, some millennia later.


The third migration was also about then, and it followed the route of the first one, though further inland. David Anthony identifies these migrants as bring the ancestors of the Italo-Celtic group, and possibly also Germanic. There were some additional outward migrations around then, like northwestward to make the Globular Amphora and Corded Ware cultures, and northeastward to make the Sintashta culure.


DA also describes four types of pastoralism (animal herding) that the steppe people had practiced.

1. Around 4500 - 4200 BCE in Khvalynsk, the main food item was fish, with land animals being eaten only on special occasions. It was mostly domesticated ones that were eaten, however.

2. Around 3300 BCE, wheeled vehicles enabled going much longer distances, making it possible to go much further into the steppes. Thus giving rise to the Yamnaya or Yamna culture.

3. Around 1900 BCE, at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, many of these pastoralists settled down near marshes, likely from the climate becoming cold and arid. Their teeth had little decay, like those of hunter-gatherers, and unlike those of farmers.

4. Around 800 BCE, at the beginning of the Iron Age and continuing all the way into the Middle Ages, agriculture becomes very evident, with the herders also growing crop plants like grains.

 

[lpetrich]

Genetic testing reveals that Europe is a melting pot, made of immigrants - "Genetic tests of ancient settlers' remains show that Europe is a melting pot of bloodlines from Africa, the Middle East, and today's Russia." - National Geographic

A good introduction to much of what's been discussed in this thread. Super short summary: Europeans are mutts.

The first modern-human inhabitants of Europe arrived in around 45,000 BP (Before Present). They followed the rivers, like the Danube from the Black Sea to central Europe. Neanderthals were already there, and the two species coexisted for about 5,000 years before the Neanderthals went extinct.

This population had a population bottleneck around 27,000 BP, but recovered. They hunted the numerous large animals, like mammoths, horses, reindeer, and aurochsen (ancestors of domestic bovines), and they made paintings and engravings of their prey. Around 14,000 BP, the continental glaciers melted a bit, and these people moved northward, sometimes settling in "Mesolithic" villages. One of them was at Lepenski Vir, on the Danube, some 9,000 - 7,000 BP. The people there largely ate fish. Much like the Pacific Northwest people, which also lived in settled communities, and which also ate a lot of fish.

Then the Neolithic. Agriculture was first invented in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle east around 11,500 BP or 9,500 BCE, and early farmers spread from there westward into Anatolia (Turkey) and from there to Europe. They arrived in Greece around 6800 BCE, in Spain and central Europe around 5200 BCE, and in Britain and Scandinavia around 4000 BCE. These people created numerous ring structures in central Europe, notably the Goseck Circle for marking out the seasons, and they created passage tombs like Newgrange in Ireland.

Some surviving Neolithic-farmer genetic material has been discovered. It was preserved in a small inner-ear bone called the petrous bone, the densest bone in the body. This discovery has settled a long-argued controversy. Did agriculture spread by farmers bringing it? Did it spread from people learning it from their neighbors? Some mixture? Archeologists like to warn that pots are not people.

As they spread over Europe, they did not mix very much with the local population, a rather curious oddity.

 

[lpetrich]

About 5,400 years ago, everything changed. All across Europe, thriving Neolithic settlements shrank or disappeared altogether. The dramatic decline has puzzled archaeologists for decades. “There’s less stuff, less material, less people, less sites,” Krause says. “Without some major event, it’s hard to explain.” But there’s no sign of mass conflict or war.

After a 500-year gap, the population seemed to grow again, but something was very different. In southeastern Europe, the villages and egalitarian cemeteries of the Neolithic were replaced by imposing grave mounds covering lone adult men. Farther north, from Russia to the Rhine, a new culture sprang up, called Corded Ware after its pottery, which was decorated by pressing string into wet clay.

...
Corded Ware burials are so recognizable, archaeologists rarely need to bother with radiocarbon dating. Almost invariably, men were buried lying on their right side and women lying on their left, both with their legs curled up and their faces pointed south. In some of the Halle warehouse’s graves, women clutch purses and bags hung with canine teeth from dozens of dogs; men have stone battle-axes. In one grave, neatly contained in a wooden crate on the concrete floor of the warehouse, a woman and child are buried together.

But the people were genetically different. They did not have much Neolithic ancestry. In a big burial mound near the Danube was found

... a rectangular chamber containing the skeleton of a chieftain, lying on his back with his knees bent. Impressions from the reed mats and wood beams that formed the roof of his tomb are still clear in the dark, hard-packed earth.

“It’s a change of burial customs around 2800 B.C.,” Włodarczak says, crouching over the skeleton. “People erected mounds on a massive scale, accenting the individuality of people, accenting the role of men, accenting weapons. That’s something new in Europe.”

These new arrivals were culturally similar to the Yamnaya or Yamna people of western Ukraine, southern European Russia, and eastern Kazakhstan. Those people had horses and wagons, complete with wheels, they had copper and bronze tools and weapons, and they herded cattle. Those arrivals replaced much of the local population in Germany and Britain, and they reached Britain and Spain by 2200 BCE.

Why were they so successful? There is evidence of Yersinia pestis bacteria, organisms that cause the bubonic plague, the Black Death of late medieval Europe. Did the European farmers fall sick and die and get weakened enough to be conquered?