WeepingElf wrote:Which language(s) the Beaker Folk probably spoke of course also depends on where they came from, a question on which there is no consensus yet. Some scholars assume that they came from the Iberian peninsula, others that they came from Central Europe. Perhaps a combination of both - a Central European origin and a back-migration, perhaps after acquiring metallurgy, from the Iberian peninsula. If the Beaker Folk originated in Central Europe, a relationship between their languages and IE seems plausible (but in no way certain), if they originated in the Iberian peninsula, less so.
The Beakerfolk in Ireland and central europe definitely came from the steppe. They look exactly like PIEs, and pretty much like modern europeans. The only notable difference are the R1b linneages (shared with Yamna, but not with Corded Ware). I don't think we have iberian beakerfolk samples yet, so it's possible their culture just peacefully spread to the invading indo-europeans...
Intriguingly, the R1a in Indo-Iranian populations goes along with
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How about a Grand Unified Theory?
- at some point, caucasian and eastern hunter gather peoples mingled on the steppe and created an agro-pastoralist society. We should probably associate this with Sredny Stog or a similar pontic culture, although it also works if we think of this happening further east, in Sogdia say. [These people were mostly R1b, but also had R1a linneages)
- some of those people came west; some didn't. Those who didn't became the Yamnaya - the reason they look genetically more like the originators is that in a less populated area their genes were less diluted. Those who went west, on the other hand, began to take in neolithic european genes.
- through this expansion, these Kurgans came to rule an area from the urals to the atlantic. But rather than a big empire, there were probably many different groups floating around, migrating backward and forward for a while, like the way the germanic tribes confusedly invaded Rome.
- in the west, two Kurgan civilisations developed, merging their natural advantages (horses, more developed livestock practices, probably a large-scale military structure) with the developments of the local agricultural populations (more developed pottery, probably more developed masonry and fortifications, in some places marine technology). These were the Beakerfolk in the far west and Corded Ware in the centre. Yamna was thus the third in a row of three sister cultures, the most genetically and culturally 'pure' of the three.
- The Yamna and the Beakerfolk both retain the dominant R1b of their ancestors. However, due to a quirk in the elite families that give rise to Corded Ware, combined with founder effects (all these populations are small and fairly inbred), Corded Ware happens to end up R1a.
- Here's the twist: Proto-Indo-European is the language of the Corded Ware Culture (or the preceding Globular Amphorae Culture). The Kurgans instead spoke what we might call Atlanto-Hittite. West of the Rhine they speak one of a family of Atlantic languages, cousins of PIE.
- Other non-PIE Atlanto-Hittite languages are spoken in the Yamna culture, and perhaps on the periphery of Corded Ware - eg in the Danubian basin
- A group of PIEs gather at the eastern edge of Corded Ware, and develop satemisation. A branch of these people then take their european technologies and re-invade the steppe, not stopping until they conquer the BMACs
- the Tocharians and the Afanasievo can be interpreted either as the easternmost PIE group and the first to go east, or else as a Yamna group outside PIE proper
- Around 2000BC, Anatolians, another non-PIE branch of AH, move into Anatolia. We don't know where from - they could be Yamna, they could be over the caucasus or from the east, or they could just come from Europe. Let's say Europe, that's neater: if Corded Ware is PIE proper, Anatolian could be spoken in the Danube or the like. They move south into both Anatolia and Greece, causing all the trouble there, but they're followed closely by the Greeks, who take over Greece. Perhaps this disruption forces a group from around here to sail west and found Etruria? [On the other hand, the I haplotypes in central Italy and peaking in croatia look like Neolithic Farmer linneages, so the Etruscans could be descendents of the Cardials?] The Greeks don't fully replace the genes of the people they conquer in Greece - it's an elite movement rather than a general population shift as elsewhere.
- a thousand years later, the bronze age collapses. Taking advantage of the chaos, western PIE-ers, particularly Celts, expand into Atlantic and pre-AH areas. They eliminate the Atlantic languages as a result (though these may linger on into the early historical period in Iberia as some or all of the paleaohispanic languages). However, since the underlying cultures are similar, the invaders don't totally overturn the local populations - R1b linneages remain most common - and since both populations are Kurgans there's no really noticeable change in the genes.
- meanwhile, if you believe in Indo-Uralic, the Yamna might speak Uralic. Alternatively, and more likely I think, the Uralics (whether IU or not) get their 'IE' loanwords from the Yamna languages, not necessarily from 'PIE proper'.