If YOU ARE ONE, BE ONE

[Stevo]

I was kind of hoping I would match R1b-East myself because that seems so cool.

Now folks are listing me as R1 on their project pages.

What's that all about?

[Lost-Sheep]

SNP Test...

Now folks are listing me as R1 on their project pages. What's that all about?

It is about $79.00 and it is called an SNP test...hehehe! Spending the $$$ is highly recommended. That way you will find out for certain your son and your dad!

Well...its of to the mother-in-law's housen in DC...<sigh>

[Stevo]

It is about $79.00 and it is called an SNP test...hehehe! Spending the $$$ is highly recommended. That way you will find out for certain your son and your dad!

Well...its of to the mother-in-law's housen in DC...<sigh>

Oh, I'm doing the SNP thing. I sprang it on the wife yesterday, and she was surprisingly understanding. She should be, since she just spent thousands on a trip to visit her mother in Russia!

Honestly, I'm just kidding around about the R1 thing. I think that is the result of some kind of flaw in those project pages. Actually, it just makes me look kind of cool and mysterious there!

FTDNA predicts R1b1 for me, and Whit Athey's Y-Haplogroup Predictor gives me an R1b1 score of 66 (50 and above means pretty firm membership in the indicated y-haplogroup).

Besides, I checked my 25 markers against Nordtvedt's chart of R1b modals, and I square pretty well with R1b-Frisian. That makes a lot of sense given what I know of my own ancestry.

I want to do the deep SNP thing to confirm my status and to try to narrow the geography down a bit.

[M.O'Connor]

well I was somewhat surprised to find i have East Euro and East R1B connections in the Ken Nordtvedt data base.

I suppose my pending SNP results may shed some kind of light on my association.

[Stevo]

well I was somewhat surprised to find i have East Euro and East R1B connections in the Ken Nordtvedt data base.

I suppose my pending SNP results may shed some kind of light on my association.

Your results via Nordtvedt's chart are fascinating. I am really curious about what your deep SNP will show.

Did you read the link that Mike Maddi posted to David Faux's theories about the Thraco-Cimmerians and R1b? It's in the R1b in Italy thread, I think (or maybe here a few pages back).

It looks pretty likely that not all R1bs wintered the last Ice Age in Iberia. Some of our ancestors - yours, mine, Mike's and Francesco's apparently - waited it out either in Italy or just north of the Black Sea.

I think the Black Sea more likely. Some of the Black Sea R1bs went East into Central Asia, while others headed West up the Danube Valley, some hanging a left along the Adriatic coast into Italy as others went right, up the Rhine and other river valleys to the North Sea, the Baltic, and Scandinavia.

[Stevo]

Check out this article, brothers.

I posted a link to it elsewhere, but not everyone pays attention to the same threads.

It does a good job in punching holes in Renfrew's and Gimbutas' theories about the origins of Indo-European languages.

[lgmayka]

It does a good job in punching holes in Renfrew's and Gimbutas' theories about the origins of Indo-European languages.

Well...that'a a matter of opinion.

The hypothesis essentially claims that:

1) The Indo-European languages hardly changed at all for tens of thousands of years, then evolved rapidly just when history started recording them!

2) The Indo-European languages stayed in place for tens of thousands of years, without significant changes in territory, until--you guessed it--as soon as history started recording them, they moved around quickly all over the map!

The bottom line here is that historical linguistics is an established science, particularly with regard to the Indo-European languages, and a large body of work makes pretty clear that the Proto-Indo-European language was still united around 4000 BC:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language

Needless to say, the speaking of a single language in those days (without breakup into dialects within a rather short period of time) was absolutely impossible beyond a rather small territory, much less across an entire 1-1/2 continents.


Frankly, the emotional stake that the author of the cited article appears to have in his hypothesis appears to be very analogous to the emotional attachment that some scientists continue to have to the Multiregional Continuity Theory of human origin (despite yDNA, mtDNA, archeology, etc.).

[Stevo]

Well...that'a a matter of opinion.

The hypothesis essentially claims that:

1) The Indo-European languages hardly changed at all for tens of thousands of years, then evolved rapidly just when history started recording them!

2) The Indo-European languages stayed in place for tens of thousands of years, without significant changes in territory, until--you guessed it--as soon as history started recording them, they moved around quickly all over the map!

The bottom line here is that historical linguistics is an established science, particularly with regard to the Indo-European languages, and a large body of work makes pretty clear that the Proto-Indo-European language was still united around 4000 BC:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language

Needless to say, the speaking of a single language in those days (without breakup into dialects within a rather short period of time) was absolutely impossible beyond a rather small territory, much less across an entire 1-1/2 continents.


Frankly, the emotional stake that the author of the cited article appears to have in his hypothesis appears to be very analogous to the emotional attachment that some scientists continue to have to the Multiregional Continuity Theory of human origin (despite yDNA, mtDNA, archeology, etc.).

I'll have to answer you later, Igmayka.

Personally, I don't buy any of the three major alternatives without modification, but I find Renfrew's probably the least tenable.

My own idea is kind of a cross between the Paleolithic Continuity Theory and Gimbutas' Kurgan Theory.

[Stevo]

Have you all seen the chart and map here?

HT2 (Haplotype 2) is mine. It appears to be the Frisian R1b group. Notice its clinal distribution. It is most common in Denmark, southwestern Norway, Germany and the Low Countries.

The different haplotypes appear to be based on seven markers. I guess those are the seven markers that seem to distinguish them from each other.

[Reiker]

Great chart there, Stevo! Like how it shows the gradient or cline..

I'm R1b1c...but 13-24-16... ......not anywhere on that chart

[lgmayka]

My own idea is kind of a cross between the Paleolithic Continuity Theory and Gimbutas' Kurgan Theory.

One demonstrably false point of Alinei's article is this:
---
What is now called the Romance area - closely corresponding to the area of the Epigravettian Paleolithic culture, of Mesolithic cultures such as Castelnovian and Sauveterrian, and of the Impresso/Cardial culture of Neolithic - instead of representing solely the remnant of Roman imperialism, must now be seen as mainly an original Italid (or Italoid, or Ibero-Dalmatic) linguistic area, in which several proto-languages akin to Latin, besides Latin and the other Italic languages, were spoken (besides Alinei 2000, see also 1991, 1997cd, 1998b, 1998c, 2000c, 2001b, 2001c), and for the speakers of which the Latin of Rome must have been an (easy to learn) superstrate.
---

In other words, this claims that Gaul and Iberia (as well as Italy) have spoken Italic languages for tens of thousands of years. Alinei is apparently unaware that Gaul's use of a Celtic language is historically documented.

Once one recognizes the historical record that Gaul almost totally abandoned Celtic in favor of Latin, it becomes obvious that similar language substitution may have occurred all across Europe, for various reasons.

Ever since the rise of European nationalism in the 19th century, many writers have assumed that the emotional need to preserve one's language across generations is an inherent part of the human psyche. But it is not! Throughout history, many peoples treated language primarily as an instrument of commerce, and uncomplainingly switched (across several generations) when another language came along that met their commercial needs better.

A simple example just in the past 100 years is the abandonment of Polish "dialects." (Keep in mind that classification as a "dialect" rather than a "language" is as much a political decision as a linguistic one.) My grandparents spoke a particular southern Polish dialect except when they absolutely had to communicate in standard Polish (or English). My parents could speak that dialect when necessary, but generally preferred to speak English (or standard Polish) in public. My own generation spoke English directly from childhood, and when I did learn Polish in high school and college, I learned the standard form. No one in my extended family seriously suggested that I should spend time learning our ancestral dialect!

Such is how one language is dropped and another is adopted.

[Stevo]

Igmayka -

I'll have to get back to you to really thoroughly discuss the whole Indo-European question, but remember, "Italid" is probably being used by Alinei to refer to the entire Italo-Celtic complex, and not merely to the languages of the Italian Peninsula. I am sure Alinei and the linguists of Continuitas are well aware that the peoples of Gaul spoke Celtic languages. That fact probably aided their assimilation and vulgarization (in the sense of popularization) of Latin, since Latin and the Celtic languages are in fact fairly closely related.

[F.E.C.]

The Paleolithic Continuity Theory can also be appealing but It seems that behind the author's categorical refusal of the Indo-European Calcolithic Invasion theory there is a purely "ideological pulse".

I've got no degree in genetics nor anthropology, but my belief as simple enthusiast is that the actual Europeans are the descendents of paleolithic hunters/gatherers, mesolithic farmers from the Near East, and some PIE populations coming from central Asia as well.
For what concerns the Indo-Europeans I don't think they greatly contributed to the western Europeans' genes and I don't know their habits, but I also don't exclude those people migrated en masse to Europe, were warlike, technologically advanced, but overall used to ride horses and wield axes.

Actually it seems to me a strong emotional charge emerges from Alinei's words and my impression is he thinks anyone who gives some credit to the possibility that, afterall, something like the Kurgans or whatever could exist is a sort of Nazi.

[Stevo]

Have you guys actually read the entirety of Continuitas' intro page?

I see no reason to impute base motives to Alinei, as if he has some sort of personal agenda. What makes the opinions of Renfrew and Gimbutas supposedly above reproach? They have no agendas of their own?

Continuitas and the PCT are supported by a number of professional linguists, members of the faculties of several universities.

Hopefully, I will get a chance to discuss this issue in depth with you all when time allows. I am at work right now on a break, but that does not allow sufficient time to get into the details of the various IE theories.

[F.E.C.]

What makes the opinions of Renfrew and Gimbutas supposedly above reproach?

Nothing at all.

They have no agendas of their own?

It could easily be.

I'm only saying I'm more for a solution that could be defined as 2/4 PCTist, 1/4 kurganist and 1/4 NDTist.

In my opinion the names he picks to support one theory and bash the other reveal his bias.