Re: Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:

>
> One consideration is that the initial expansion of agriculture into Europe is linked to the J2 Y-Haplotype, which originate in eastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia c. 15KYA (not far western Aegean Anatolia, where the Anatolians may have lived early on).

Actually, the Luwian evidence at least seems to point to eastern Anatolia! (I take Anatolia to be north of the Mediterranean, rather than extending to Turkey's eastern border.) That does surprise me - I had associated Luwian with Lydia.

> While I have no idea which Y-haplotype was most common among the Anatolians, the IE expansion into Europe is associated with a completely different Y-haplotype, R.

The J2 expansion only went so far, so it's not unreasonable to associate it with the *Indo-Hittite* expansion. It seems that the Neolithic expansion did not lead to effective population replacement - too much local recruitment.

R1b looks south- and west-European, rather than IE. Just to confuse things, R1b is Caucasian and is strong in Armenian, and might even have been significant amongst Hattic speakers!

The IE Y-haplotype is R1a1a (not a stable name), but the association peters out in speakers of Germanic and Southern Slavic, and is strongly missing for Celtic, Italic, Albanian, Greek and Armenian. R1a1a evidence might be interpreted as supporting the out-of-India expansion of IE! However, there is also an interpretation as an outrageous coincidence.

Richard.