origin of the Germanic tribes

[Eki]

All that this tells us is that the "I" and J folk probably didn't originate the Semitic languages, although many of the J folk obviously adopted them. The Sumerians of Mesopotamia, who may have been an early J population, spoke a language that was said to be unrelated to any other language & it may have been a relic of the earlier J language.

Some claim that Finnish and Sumerian languages have some similarities. Maybe they got there with Y-hg I?

http://uralica.com/fgpeople.htm

Swedes may have liked to think of themselves as superior to Finns, therefore it may have been convenient to label Finns accordingly with an "inferior" culture. So if Finns came from the east, Europeans must be Africans because they came there from the south not east, by the same logic. In fact, most modern Europeans, including at least some ancestors of Finns, can be traced through Mitochondrial DNA to one of three clans in Africa. In fact most Europeans are indigenous going back further than the last ice age. That might surprise some, but it really makes sense. How can Saami of Finland be indigenous people of Europe, but everyone else are immigrants? We know this much: part of the Finno-Ugric substratum lived in the north and part possibly came from elsewhere, perhaps even Sumeria, not Mongolia. The writer has compared Finnish and Sumerian, and indeed there does appear to be an interesting correlation. Zecharia Sitchin, who is a scholar of ancient Sumeria, states that there is a solid linguistic connection. He states a lot of other things too, which give a lot of food for imagination regarding the ancient world and how we got here. But other scholars have come to the same conclusion. If so, how did these people get up to the new lands opened by the retreat of the last Ice Age? And why did they go there? Could ancient Sumerians have gone north and lived amongst the arctic people, giving Finno-Ugric languages a Sumerian stamp? Or did they travel south after the last Ice Age and settle in Sumeria, only to disappear again, some going south to India, near Kerala, and some back up north? Every answer forms the next question.

Interestingly the Sumerians had a Gutian dynasty. Gutian sounds a bit like Goth to me.

Gutian dynasty of Sumer

The Gutian dynasty came to power in Mesopotamia around 2150 BC, by destabilising Akkad at the end of the reign of king Melem (Ur-Utu) of Unug.

The Gutians were native to Gutium in the central Zagros Range. Almost nothing is known about their origins.

The first Gutian king was Inkishuc. The last Gutian king was Tirigan, who was preceded by 21 kings, reigning roughly a total of one century (estimates vary between 80 and 120 years, with 91 years often quoted as probable). The dynasty was succeeded by the 3rd dynasty of Ur.

Another people in Mesopotamia were the Hurrians, who I find interesting, since some Finnish speaking Finns use the derogative name "hurri" of the Swedish speaking Finns. I don't know where that name "hurri" comes from. The only explanation I have heard is that it came from the Swedish-speakers being so noisy and constantly yelling "hooray", but I don't know if it's true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrians

Hurrians

The Hurrians (also Khurrites;[1] cuneiform Ḫu-ur-ri 𒄷𒌨𒊑) were a people of the Ancient Near East, who lived in northern Mesopotamia and areas to the immediate east and west, beginning approximately 2500 BC. They probably originated in the Caucasus and entered from the north, but this is not certain. Their known homeland was centred in Subartu, the Khabur River valley, and later they established themselves as rulers of small kingdoms throughout northern Mesopotamia and Syria. The largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the kingdom of Mitanni.

The Hurrians played a substantial part in the History of the Hittites.

[T E Peterman]

My understanding is that Finnish is part of the Finno-Ugric language family, which places it in the same general family as Uralic/ Altaic/ Turkic. These languages appear to be associated with the N haplogroup & are about as closely related to Indo-European as N is to R.

Note the prevalence of N is places like Finland, Karelia, Estonia -the non IE parts of northern Europe.

Timothy Peterman

[Eki]

My understanding is that Finnish is part of the Finno-Ugric language family, which places it in the same general family as Uralic/ Altaic/ Turkic. These languages appear to be associated with the N haplogroup & are about as closely related to Indo-European as N is to R.

Note the prevalence of N is places like Finland, Karelia, Estonia -the non IE parts of northern Europe.

Timothy Peterman

The provinces Satakunta and Southern Ostrobothnia in Western Finland have around 50% Y-haplogroup I1a:

http://vetinari.sitesled.com/finns.pdf

[T E Peterman]

There is a backdrop of I all over Europe, so this isn't surprising. But of the non-I component, where N dominates, Finno-Ugric languages are spoken; where R1b dominates, Celtic languages are spoken; where R1a dominates, Slavic languages are spoken; & where there is a balance between R1b & R1a, Germanic languages are spoken.

Timothy Peterman

[Eki]

There is a backdrop of I all over Europe, so this isn't surprising. But of the non-I component, where N dominates, Finno-Ugric languages are spoken; where R1b dominates, Celtic languages are spoken; where R1a dominates, Slavic languages are spoken; & where there is a balance between R1b & R1a, Germanic languages are spoken.

Timothy Peterman

I didn't say they aren't, but at least Finno-Ugric languages (Finnish is the only one I know for certain) have been influenced by Indo-European languages. For example Finnish most recently by Swedish, Russian and English. I can't see any reason why it couldn't have been influenced by Sumerian in the past. I don't think any language is either this or that, they are often hybrids of several languages, like English is much a hybrid of French, Latin and Old Norse, in addition to other components..

[Johnserrat]

John,

I realize that you want to claim that the population geneticists still back up your position about R1b and how long it's been in Europe. But you just lost a major backer of that position.

In the new paper by Karafets, et al, among whose co-authors is Dr. Michael Hammer of the Univ. of Arizona, they estimate the ages of the various SNPs that define major haplogroups. You can view the supplementary material for this study at http://www.genome.org/cgi/data/gr.7172008/DC1/1 - on page 35 of that file you'll find the authors' estimates for haplogroup ages.

At the FTDNA conference in October in his preview presentation for this paper, Hammer gave estimates for the age of R1 as 30,000 years and R1b as 25,000. In this new paper, their estimate for R1 is 18,000. No estimate is given for R1b, but it obviously must be younger.

This study estimates I's age as 22,200 years, at mid-range of your citing of previous estimates. You state that the estimate for I's entry into Europe is 20-25,000 years ago. I's presence in Europe is thousands of years older than the new estimated age for R1 - 3 SNPs upstream of R1b1c!

So, maybe it's time for you to consider what Stevo and I have argued and you have consistently painted as unsupported by any scientific studies. You might want to take a look at the R1b1* and ht35 R1b1c Projects here at FTDNA, together with the discoveries that have been made about new SNPs upstream of most of R1b1c.

These SNPs show that the oldest form of R1b1c, called ht35, are only found at significant levels in Turkey, eastern Europe and southern Italy. They are hard to find in R1b1c's with western European ancestry. So, if the oldest forms of R1b1c (which according to Hammer et al., is certainly no more 18,000 years old and probably significantly less) are found in the east and not in the west, how is it possible that R1b1c wintered the Ice Age (if it even existed then!) in the Iberian refugium?

Mike

Mike:

I'm afraid you have missed my point. I agree that based on Karavets et al.'s latest work that R1bs would not have been in europe long enough to constitute part of europe's cro-magnon population. The cro-magnon people are believed to have been in europe at least 45,000 years ago. This means that NEITHER I1s nor R1bs could have formed part of that population based on the most recent calculations (there go my land claims!). I had a problem with Peterman effectively asserting that Is were the indigenous population of europe prior to the LGM and spoke a non-IE language when there is absolutely no basis for that assertion.

Unless I have missed something, my understanding is that R1bs are still believed to have have come out of the iberian refugium and that Is came out of the balkan refugium before both repopulated different (but overlapping)areas of western europe after the LGM. It would be nice if FTDNA would update their haplogroup descriptions to reflect their current assessment of the age and origins of the various haplogroups that settled europe.

John

[MMaddi]

Unless I have missed something, my understanding is that R1bs are still believed to have have come out of the iberian refugium and that Is came out of the balkan refugium before both repopulated different (but overlapping)areas of western europe after the LGM. It would be nice if FTDNA would update their haplogroup descriptions to reflect their current assessment of the age and origins of the various haplogroups that settled europe.

John

If you accept the new age estimate by Karafets and Hammer for R1 of 18,000 years, I don't see how you can continue to believe that R1b1c in Europe spent the Ice Age in either refugium. As I noted in my previous posting, R1b1c is three SNPs downstream, therefore younger, than R1. Since the LGM is considered to have been 20,000 years ago, it pre-dated R1's origin and, necessarily that of R1b, R1b1 and R1b1c.

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting what you're now saying you believe.

[Johnserrat]

Mike:

Despite the changes in the timelines, I haven't read that Karafets, Hammer or anyone else in the field is saying that R1b1cs are not descendant from a population that resided in the iberian refugium as of the LGM. Perhaps that will change in the near future, but Hammer and company had better have a viable alternative theory available ...

John

[PDHOTLEN]

from the east...

I'll leave it to you scholars to pick apart all the details. Haplogroup R1a/R1b came from the east on horseback. Horsemen rule! They were probably Indo-European speakers. The people (proto-Germans, etc.) they conquered were not. The (better looking) conquered females were used for makng babies; the conquered males were turned into (non-breeding) slaves. That's my current opinion of the way of the world back then.

R1a1 & U5b2

[Hando]

I'll leave it to you scholars to pick apart all the details. Haplogroup R1a/R1b came from the east on horseback. Horsemen rule! They were probably Indo-European speakers. The people (proto-Germans, etc.) they conquered were not. The (better looking) conquered females were used for makng babies; the conquered males were turned into (non-breeding) slaves. That's my current opinion of the way of the world back then.

R1a1 & U5b2

Simple, straightforward and to the point. Thank you!!

[T E Peterman]

PDHOTLEN's remarks in "from the east" are intriguing. I had once considered a scenario like this:

1. People in the eastern steppes near Mongolia domesticate the horse.

2. These horsemen become very mobile, staying on the steppes, or wherever horses could thrive -this gives them a westward thrust.

3. The horsemen encounter populations that are more settled.

4. The main advantage to horse technology is in conducting swift raids on setlled camps. The most desirable objects consisted of single items that weighed maybe 75 to 150 pounds; quickly grab & carry off on horseback, before the locals start flinging spears.

5. Under these circumstances, the "objects" that attracted the horsemen were women. Interestingly, after Native Americans adopted "horse technology" a few hundred years ago, raiding European settlers for female captives seems to have been pretty high on their list.

6. For the scenario to really work, in the case of the R folk of central Asia, one would have to assume that the population was originally characteristic of Central Asia -think Kazakhstan, the Uighurs, or other groups in eastern Siberia. One can infer that in their wanderings, these horsemen really had a strong preference for women with fair complexions, blond hair, blue eyes, etc.

7. This "Age of the Horsemen" may have only prevailed for 500 years or so, before the technology & defense from such raids spread beyond the R folk. But in the course of that time, they may have inadvertently transformed themselves from a population with Asiatic characteristics into a population with European characteristics.

Having said all of this, such a scenario would only work if the timing was right. Most archaeologists suggest that the horse was domesticated on the steppes of Central Asia in about 4,000 BC. All of the above would have had to have happened after that date (unless horses were really domesticated a lot earlier than 4,000 BC).

Timothy Peterman

[Paul_Johnsen]

It looks to me, by the above report (P.32), that not enough SNPs have been tested for my own R1a1 sample. Although I may be R1a1*, there are two other possibilities on the graph that have not been tested for in my case (P98 & PK5). And why is my SRY10381.2 negative?

G986T

I think this is because SRY10381 is consider to be "ancestral state" in R1a. This means that the SRY10381.2 is considered as a "back-mutation". Every haplogroup is "positive" for this mutation except A and R1a, as far as I know.

[PDHOTLEN]

I'm wondering about my SYR10831.2

Maybe the SYR10831.2 is "recurrent", toggling back and forth. Mine is negative, but the chart says it's supposed to be positive. Anyway, FTDNA went for M198+ as being definitive (if that's the right word) in my case for R1a1.

It looks like there is still some basic research to be done with the R1a1 line.

As for horse domestication, it may have been first domesticated by western type people, i.e. (proto)Indo-Europeans in the Ukraine or southern Russia (?).

R1a1

[Hando]

6. For the scenario to really work, in the case of the R folk of central Asia, one would have to assume that the population was originally characteristic of Central Asia -think Kazakhstan, the Uighurs, or other groups in eastern Siberia. One can infer that in their wanderings, these horsemen really had a strong preference for women with fair complexions, blond hair, blue eyes, etc.

7. This "Age of the Horsemen" may have only prevailed for 500 years or so, before the technology & defense from such raids spread beyond the R folk. But in the course of that time, they may have inadvertently transformed themselves from a population with Asiatic characteristics into a population with European characteristics.

Timothy Peterman

So you are assuming that indiginous European genes such as Scandinavian with charasteristics that were fair complexioned, blond haired, blue eyed, were "raided" by asiatic R YDNA thus creating what we today see in countries such as Germany?

[T E Peterman]

We know that in Europe today & probably for the last few millenia, we find a mixture of blond haired/ blue eyed types (or at least those with what has come to be called a fair complexion). The further east one travels across Eurasia, the scarcer the types wotha "fair" complexion become. When one gets to East Asia, one finds a different trait complex, that could be described as Asiatic.

When one looks at mitochondrial DNA, one finds a fairly neat divide between European types (H, V, J, T, U, K, etc) and Asian types (A, B, C, D, etc). With the exception of X, which comprises a tiny minority in both the European & Asian ends of the continent, there isn't hardly any overlap.

When it comes y-DNA, the picture is totally different. Throughout Europe & the Middle East, one finds a minority of haplogroups that are almost non-existent in Asia (F, G, I, J, and E3b), especially north of the Himalayan divide. But one finds a majority in Europe, and to a lesser extent in the Indo-European speaking parts of the Middle East, of the R haplogroup, which as we know is most closely related to Q (Native Americans & northern Siberians), N (found among Turanians), O (majority haplogroup in East Asia), etc.

Thus, we have an anomaly. R is clearly part of the Asian supercluster. So what's it doing in Europe? When R migrated west, the population did NOT bring any identifiable mtDNA with it, with the possible exception of X.

Moreover, the Indo-European language family is considered by some linguists to be more closely related to the Turanian languages (Uralic, Altaic, Turkic, Manchu, etc.) than to any languages in Europe or the Middle East.

The rather colorful suggestion of IE speaking R men on horseback, either capturing or seducing European women, may prove to be fanciful. I think the timing is off, if the horse was domesticated as late as 4,000 BC. But the genetic evidence suggests that something like that clearly did happen.

And when the R folk migrated from central/ eastern Asia, they apparently completely swamped the European y-DNA gene pool, while at the same time leaving behind descendants that look more European, than they do Asian. This is an anomaly that has got to be explained.

For the record, my y-DNA is R1b1c10 (my great grandfather was from Switzerland) and my mtDNA is T1.

Timothy Peterman