The article by a respected consortium of collaborating
geneticists which appeared in SCIENCE (10 Nov. 2000)
and to which Steve Long kindly drew our attention
should be must reading (for those who have not yet
managed to do this). It establishes (until further
notice) that Europe's more recent populations derive
primarily from three major areas (westernmost E.;
easternmost E. (descendants of Paleolithic groups)
plus the Middle East). It suggests that the genetic
influence of neolithic farmers from Anatolia was far
stronger in Southern and Mediterranean Europe (incl.
Greece) than in Central Europe, and in doing so
bolsters the case for acculturation rather than
migration and assimilation in the agricultural "wave
of advance" scenario. But what it cannot do is to
provide us (as yet) with any clear conclusions
concerning the emergence and expansion of IE. Hapl.
Eu19 is strongly linked to the territory of present
day Ukraine by Cavalli-Sforza's former student
Santachiara-Benerecetti. But its pulsations therefrom
began in 11,000 BC and therefore any association with
peoples and events of a much later date must be
effected with extreme caution. What geneticists should
do, it seems to me, is to complete their data
gathering by studying populations from Belarus, the
Baltic countries, and Central European Russia. It
seems almost certain, for instance, that the high % of
Hapl. Eu19 in the Udmurtian sample (these are
Ugrofinnic speakers)cannot be linked to an influence
from the Yamna culture. The probability that successor
cultures of Yamna carried Eu19 eastward into northern
India and Pakistan is strong, but this needs to be
checked in Iran and Afghanistan. It is abundantly
clear that Eu19 could not have easily and immediately
spread to Poland and Hungary from the Yamnites. They
never made it there as such in highly appreciable
numbers, as far as I remember from my earlier
readings. Intermediary links must be sought. The
Corded Ware peoples of the 3rd mill. BC are a possible
candidate, but this requires further research and
archaeological corroboration. It remains possible that
the Slavic diffusions of the 6th and 7th centuries
"donated" much of this Eu19 (and in Hungary we might
also think of the earlier contribution by Sarmatian
Yazigi and other groups from the East). At any rate,
and Piotr might have something to say here, it seems
rather doubtful that Poland was populated ca. 600 BC
by satem-speaking Indo-Iranians, carriers of Eu19. The
Lusatian culture was going strong, and Scythian hammer
blows were still a century or more away.
Unfortunately, genes, things and languages do not
correlate that neatly.
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