[Quintus Curtius]

@Sonsowey:

Agreed. And good points.

Certainly, populations and people change in history as the result of conquest, colonization, and intermixing. Absolutely.

The problem that always seems to arise in these sort of discussions is that people (not you, I'm just saying in general) can't resist grafting their pet racial theories on top of the very fragmentary hard evidence we have.

One thing that is (in my opinion) supported by history is the idea that peoples from colder climates seem to conquer and assimilate peoples from warmer climates. Or, stated another way, people from the southern climes create the civilizations, and the Northerners conquer them and "reinvigorate" them (for lack of a better word). Geography and climate have had huge influences on history, far more than most people realize.

Examples:

Dorians conquering and assimilating Greeks in remote history
Indo-Aryans (speaking Sanskrit) conquering and dominating the native Dravidian peoples of India
Hyksos conquering and controlling the ancient Egyptians
Mongols conquering Chinese and Middle East
Teutonic German tribes conquering Romans in fourth and fifth centuries
British (arguably!) conquering many parts of the world

The pattern seems to be there. Northerners sweep down from the north, occupying or destroying the civilizations created by the "southern" people. They rejuvenate it, reinvigorate it, and change it. And some new civilization develops.

That's something that I've noticed in my reading of history.

Note: this should not be taken to imply that one group is "superior" to another. Far from it. It only indicates the extent to which geography and climate produce similar behavior patterns on disparate human populations.

.

[Sonsowey]

Quintus,

I don't really have a "pet" racial theory, but I understad your concern there of course. I am interested in piecing together History as best I can but I do not really care who comes out looking good or bad.

Regarding Northern people conquering Southern people, the Bantu Expansion and the Arab/Muslim conquests are powerful counter-examples.

I see this Llort guy seems quite unhappy to consider that Europeans have had dark skinned ancestors. I just take it as it comes, he seems to have emotional investment in the pignebtation of people who died thousands of years ago in a certain geographic area that is near where his anvestors lived.

[Quintus Curtius]

(02-18-2015 03:19 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

Quintus,

I don't really have a "pet" racial theory, but I understad your concern there of course. I am interested in piecing together History as best I can but I do not really care who comes out looking good or bad.

Regarding Northern people conquering Southern people, the Bantu Expansion and the Arab/Muslim conquests are powerful counter-examples.

Well said, Sonsowey, and I certainly was not implying that you yourself had any agenda. Please don't think I was directing that at you.

I was just speaking in a general sense...there are many uninformed or half-informed opinions out there.

One of the (joking) laws of forum dynamics is that, on a long enough timeline, every thread turns into a race thread, a religion thread, or a politics thread.

And yes, your counter-examples are compelling retorts to my theory. I don't have much of an answer to them, except to say that my theory should be taken to describe trends, rather than every example.

I think there is something to my theory here, even though it's somewhat flawed.

[RexImperator]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_paganism

The Baltics were basically the last pagan holdouts in Europe, and interestingly the Baltic languages are thought by linguists to be the most conservative existing languages compared to the Proto-Indo-European language.

[POASTER]

What evidence is there that "Indo Europeans" were an actual race of people? Other than commonalities in language, are there any archeological finds showing a group of ancestors for all these peoples? Language doesn't necessarily correlate with descent. Jackie Chan speaks English, but he's not Anglo-Saxon.

[berserk]

Lots of new DNA evidence popping up all the time, but it's still fragmented such as this one:

Quote:

To help unravel some of the early Eurasian steppe migration movements, we determined the Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial haplotypes and haplogroups of 26 ancient human specimens from the Krasnoyarsk area dated from between the middle of the second millennium BC. to the fourth century AD. In order to go further in the search of the geographic origin and physical traits of these south Siberian specimens, we also typed phenotype-informative single nucleotide polymorphisms.

Our autosomal, Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA analyses reveal that whereas few specimens seem to be related matrilineally or patrilineally, nearly all subjects belong to haplogroup R1a1-M17 which is thought to mark the eastward migration of the early Indo-Europeans.

Our results also confirm that at the Bronze and Iron Ages, south Siberia was a region of overwhelmingly predominant European settlement, suggesting an eastward migration of Kurgan people across the Russo-Kazakh steppe. Finally, our data indicate that at the Bronze and Iron Age timeframe, south Siberians were blue (or green)-eyed, fair-skinned and light-haired people and that they might have played a role in the early development of the Tarim Basin civilization. To the best of our knowledge, no equivalent molecular analysis has been undertaken so far.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007...009-0683-0

The Kurgan hypothesis is the mainstream most accepted hypothesis of the spread of Indo-Europeans:



Remember from the above the haplogroup R1a1-M17 found in 2nd millenia BC in present day Ukraine/Russia.

The frequency of this haplogroup on the world stage is as follows:



The R1a1-M17 is the prime Indo-European/Aryan genetic marker and is found strongest today in India and Poland/Ukraine with plenty of spread in Scandinavia.



When we know that the people living in the Kurgan (from the Kurgan IE hypothesis), had blue eyes and fair skin and that DNA evidence suggests a spread from this area into India AND we know that light skin has been associated with the Brahmin caste in India, then I think it is by the day increasingly clearer that the Indo-Europeans were most likely closest related to modern day Poles/Scandis and Russians.

[The Llort]

(02-18-2015 03:19 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

I see this Llort guy seems quite unhappy to consider that Europeans have had dark skinned ancestors. I just take it as it comes, he seems to have emotional investment in the pignebtation of people who died thousands of years ago in a certain geographic area that is near where his anvestors lived.

I actually don't really care, other than I think the argument for it is weak.

I just resented being called a troll by Deluge simply because he disagreed with me.
The guy also couldn't be bothered to defend his claims. So given that, I'm going to gracefully bow out of this discussion as it's evident there's no room for dissenting opinions.

[Deluge]

^^Be careful with conflating R1a and R1b in your post there.

Llort: If you don't even know the basics of how sexual selection works have no place in a discussion about genetics. Asking to have basic things explained to you, or being unwilling to quickly Google things yourself, shows that you do not value other people's time.

A few points:

The Neanderthal theory for light skin and light hair is myth making and has been disproved. My understanding is the genes responsible for light skin between modern Europeans and Neanderthal's are different and evolved independently, much like they did with Asians. And yes, Asians have more Neanderthal DNA than Europeans.

Aryan and Indo-European were never synonymous. The word Aryan traditionally meant the peoples of Iran, and is still used for the Indian/Iranian branch of the Indo-Europeans. The Nazi's never used Aryan as a term for Indo-Europeans either, do you really think they would call a people from the Russian steppe the master race?

As discussed on the previous page Dravidians are not the native peoples of India, they themselves were foreign invaders of the North. Beware taking a selective view of history. The Indo-Europeans, the Neolithic farmers, the Romans, the Greeks, the Huns and the Ottomans all launched their invasions from the South (East).

(02-18-2015 09:25 PM)POASTER Wrote:  

What evidence is there that "Indo Europeans" were an actual race of people? Other than commonalities in language, are there any archeological finds showing a group of ancestors for all these peoples? Language doesn't necessarily correlate with descent. Jackie Chan speaks English, but he's not Anglo-Saxon.

No one ever called the Indo-Europeans a "race", although in this discussion talking about a "race" isn't very helpful. "Races" we know today as European, Asian, African, Indian etc. did not exist at that time. The Indo-Europeans can best be described a loose grouping of tribes who had an ethnogenesis in the Russian steppe, included admixture from hunter-gathers and Neolithic farmers. There is genetic, archaeological, linguistic and religious evidence to support their existence as a "people". Beginning around 3500 B.C they tamed the horse and expanded in waves from their homeland.

[Sonsowey]

(02-18-2015 11:20 PM)The Llort Wrote:  

(02-18-2015 03:19 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

I see this Llort guy seems quite unhappy to consider that Europeans have had dark skinned ancestors. I just take it as it comes, he seems to have emotional investment in the pignebtation of people who died thousands of years ago in a certain geographic area that is near where his anvestors lived.

I actually don't really care, other than I think the argument for it is weak.

I just resented being called a troll by Deluge simply because he disagreed with me.
The guy also couldn't be bothered to defend his claims. So given that, I'm going to gracefully bow out of this discussion as it's evident there's no room for dissenting opinions.

I addressed you in a post above, read it, and respond to it with evidence. You seem to think that dark-skinned ancestors for Europeans are unlikely and don't seem to address the multi-population model for European origins, which means you simply aren't aware or are ignoring current literature on the issue.

Read that and if you think there is something interesting and factual that somehow refutes it, share that. You did not provide any sources or any backing for your claims yourself.

[Sonsowey]

(02-18-2015 11:37 PM)Deluge Wrote:  

Aryan and Indo-European were never synonymous. The word Aryan traditionally meant the peoples of Iran, and is still used for the Indian/Iranian branch of the Indo-Europeans.

On this topic, I am reading a book entitled "The Aryans: A Study of Indo European Origins" by V. Gordon Childe, published in 1926.
https://archive.org/stream/TheAryansAStu...good+aryan

The author does indeed use Aryan as the name for the people who spoke Indo-European languages. When he talks about the people themselves in racial terms, he calls them Aryans, when he talks about linguistic features he calls them Indo-European.

Here's a passage from page 19 of the book:

"During the same period the Tell-al-Amarna tablets mention Aryan princes in Syria and Palestine too--Biridaswa of Yenoam, Suwardata of Keilah, Yasdata of Taanach, Artamanya of Zir-Bashan and others. These too were probably mere dynasts ruling over non-Aryan Semitic subjects."

I think Aryan indeed was a common term used synonymously with Indo-European, but of course during this period in Anthropology there were many racial theories floating around dividing humanity into differing numbers of groups with various names. I think you'll not find that there was or is one convention for naming different populations, but to say "Aryans and Indo-Europeans were never synonymous" doesn't seem accurate to me.

[Deluge]

(02-18-2015 11:59 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

(02-18-2015 11:37 PM)Deluge Wrote:  

Aryan and Indo-European were never synonymous. The word Aryan traditionally meant the peoples of Iran, and is still used for the Indian/Iranian branch of the Indo-Europeans. The Nazi's never used Aryan as a term for Indo-Europeans either, do you really think they would call a people from the Russian steppe the master race?

On this topic, I am reading a book entitled "The Aryans: A Study of Indo European Origins" by V. Gordon Childe, published in 1926.

The author does indeed use Aryan as the name for the people who spoke Indo-European languages. When he talks about the people themselves in racial terms, he calls them Aryans, when he talks about linguistic features he calls them Indo-European.

I am unfamiliar with exactly what the Nazis meant by "Aryan", or what connection they thought it had to Indo Europeans, but before Nazis made the word "Aryan" into a bad word, many anthropologists used it as a racial word. For instance he would contrast Aryan people with Semitic people, and talks about how the Mittanis (I believe) were likely some amalgamation of Aryan and Semitic people, etc.

Interesting. I knew Aryan was synonymous with Indo-European when discussing their invasions of Iran and India, but I did not know that term was being used in Europe before the Nazi's. I wonder how the Nazi's ended up using that phrase for their master race then. They definitely did not mean Indo-European when hey used it.

[Sonsowey]

(02-19-2015 12:07 AM)Deluge Wrote:  

Interesting. I knew Aryan was synonymous with Indo-European when discussing their invasions of Iran and India, but I did not know that term was being used in Europe before the Nazi's. I wonder how the Nazi's ended up using that phrase for their master race then. They definitely did not mean Indo-European when hey used it.

Yeah I think before then the word Aryan was as just any other racial word, like Semitic, Melanesian, Mongoloid, Turkish, etc. Some people may have preferred other words but the use of Aryan as a racial and linguistic term was not novel to the Nazis.

Reading about what the Nazis actually seemed to believe, was that Aryans, ie Proto-Indo-Europeans, originated in Atlantis (lol), migrated through Scandanavia into Germany roughly, and then from there spread out through Persia, India, etc.

Obviously Atlantis, I don't know what they meant by that, and they did not come through Scandanavia, but Germanic/Nordic people are indeed among the "most Indo European" out there. Slavs and Balts are right there behind them, so their idea of being superior by dint of more Aryan heritage is funny since they might have single-digits more % Indo-European heritage than Slavs.

This is the big recent paper on Indo European origins and it has this graphic showing current and ancient European populations/individuals by the % they share with Yamnaya, who are presumed to be the Indo Europeans. For the poster asking about evidence for Indo-Europeans as a racial group, this paper is the best summary of the ancient DNA evidence that makes exactly such a case.

Deluge, here is the graphic I was mentioning earlier showing that most Europeans share little ancestry with the dark-skinned, blue-eyed Hunter Gatherers that have been found.

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early...3.full.pdf

[The Llort]

(02-18-2015 11:37 PM)Deluge Wrote:  

^^Be careful with conflating R1a and R1b in your post there.

Llort: If you don't even know the basics of how sexual selection works have no place in a discussion about genetics. Asking to have basic things explained to you, or being unwilling to quickly Google things yourself, shows that you do not value other people's time.

I know how sexual selection works.

Your comment about dark skin being the result of sexual selection in India didn't make much sense. Pale skin has been considered desirable there for thousands of years, their whole caste system is practically built off that.

And just lol about wasting your time. We're having idle chat on a pick-up forum. If your time is so precious, then dare I say you shouldn't be frittering it away here.

Some guys take themselves far too seriously...

[Deluge]

Llort, everything you've said about genetics in this thread has been incorrect. Why are getting involved in a discussion you know nothing about?

(02-19-2015 12:22 AM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early...3.full.pdf

It's interesting that Estonians have the highest WHG admixture being a Finnic speaking group, and their very high share of N Y-DNA. My understanding was the Finnic languages and Haplogroup N entered Europe from North Asia (and the Steppe in the case of the Huns), and that N may have mutated in modern China. Do you know if Finnic peoples and WHG have a shared ancestry?

On the topic of Baltic languages they are indeed the most archaic sounding IE language family, but not the oldest per-se. Similar to how American and Irish accents sound more similar to 17th century English than modern English in England does today, retaining things like Rhotic pronunciation and other "archaic" features. Baltic itself is a descendant of a common Balto-Slavic language.

[Sonsowey]

Deluge, I would recommend you go to the Eurogenes blog with that question on Estonians, I have no idea there.

I know almost nothing about Uralic languages and the non IE people of Europe.

Estonians here seem basically the same as Lithuanians, there likely is an answer out there as to whether Estonians and Lithuanians were one people who were divided by different elites who taught them differing languages, but I do not know about that. Gonna go read and see what I come up with.

I see already the Uralic kangusges may have originated in the Volga region not at all far from the PIE homeland...

[The Llort]

(02-19-2015 01:21 AM)Deluge Wrote:  

Llort, everything you've said about genetics in this thread has been incorrect. Why are getting involved in a discussion you know nothing about?

For a guy who has repeatedly dodged my questions, I think your knowledge on the subject is questionable at best.

Aside from that, this discussion is not just about genetics...

[Deluge]

(02-19-2015 01:24 AM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

Deluge, I would recommend you go to the Eurogenes blog with that question on Estonians, I have no idea there.

I know almost nothing about Uralic languages and the non IE people of Europe.

Estonians here seem basically the same as Lithuanians, there likely is an answer out there as to whether Estonians and Lithuanians were one people who were divided by different elites who taught them differing languages, but I do not know about that. Gonna go read and see what I come up with.

I see already the Uralic kangusges may have originated in the Volga region not at all far from the PIE homeland...

The Hungarian people don't seem much different genetically than their West Slav speaking neighbours, the Hungarian language is a classic example of elite language displacement. The Finnish people themselves are clearly set apart genetically from the rest of Europe. The Estonians speak a Finnic language, but cluster closely with the Balts and Northern Russians, although all of them share a high preponderance of the Finnic Haplogroup N.

In many ways this region of Europe is an outlier. Both in genetic and linguistic terms but also religion (last hold out of paganism) and phenotype.

[Ricky Rose]

(02-18-2015 07:15 AM)bojangles Wrote:  

I wrote about this in another thread. Me and Krauser had a big chat whilst we were in Croatia filming. It centered around why Hinduism still held strong and why India despite it's immense population was always invaded in the past (always). We focused on the religion aspects and concluded that it was teh freedom that religion gave which became it's own downfall. Hinduism has a structure as do other polytheistic religions, however your level of worship is not dictated nor are you supposed to follow fervently. This is the opposite to monotheism, which is a structure for control, a single god, you do must do this, you must do that, you must do this in the name of "whoever". When you're able to control the actions and thoughts of your followers than they will go to hell and back to ensure you succeed. Great example of this could be the initial battles between the Islamic Arabs and the Sassanids. There was on force of 18,000 men believing in the will of Allah who set off into Persia to take down the Sassanids, they fought 4 battles, each time with an army of around 30-50,000 and won every single one. The Sassanids weren't fighting in the name of God, they were fighting for their emperor. The Arabs were fighting in the name of God and were willing to die for him.

This is probably why the end result of all the Crusades was technically status quo (the arabs got back Jerusalem). You had 2 montheistic religions killing each other in the name of God. Meanwhile back to Hinduism, people here aren't going to spread Hinduism in the name of God, they truly don't give a shit, they care more about being 'good' about 'good karma' about 'dharma'. You can't exactly expand your religion and kill unbelievers if you're supposed to be good, truthful and virtuous throughout your life.

Very true. Indian Dharmic religions are not based on control and genocide unlike their monotheistic counterparts. It's pure spirituality hence the booming popularity of yoga everywhere.

[bojangles]

I recommend you read the History of India by John Keay guys. The first 2 sections are about prehistoric India, the Aryan invasion, the pre-existing Harappan culture and the roots of Hinduism. Brilliant book.

[berserk]

Aryan is Indo-European. Aryan refers to the people who spoke a proto-indo-european language. In an earlier thread I made called Hidden history of the Swastika, I show how the Swastika has been numerous in antique Europe and how the earliest known Swastika is a 10.000 BC carving in a mammoth tooth in Ukraine. Co-inciding perfectly with a European home for the Aryan/Indo-Europeans.

The Swastika is most likely a clear Aryan symbol and that's why it was widely used pre-Nazi in the US and Britain. All these things we are discussing was common knowledge pre-WW2. Hitler and the Nazis did not do much meaningful research but simply perverted the existing science. Most of the research was done by Americans, Brits and some Germans.

Deluge, did you read any of the studies I've linked, clearly showing considerable interest and proof in recent years of the pale skin Neanderthal hypothesis?

As you may be aware, East Asians also have very pale skin, some Japanese are as pale as Scandinavians, I mean skin as white as the whitest European you can find. Plenty of Chinese and Koreans are also more white than "yellow". How does that disprove anything regarding the white skin theory?

The study you're showing with the blue eyes, dark skin theory is the only one of its kind, while the Neanderthal theory has numerous facts backing it up. This is a heavily politicked field of science, for reasons you can probably figure out. DNA is still an emerging field and the Neander genome is barely understood.

Besides, if you've read any of the links in my previous posts, you'd have seen we now know when the split happened between Euros and Asians and it was around 45.000 years ago. That leaves plenty of time for new mixes with other hominid groups on their way to Asia. We know that South East Asians have significant Homo Denisovan mix and I'm sure more will be discovered along the way.

[Deluge]

You can call anybody Aryan if you like, but the word Aryan itself comes from Sanskrit and for millennia only used in the context of Iran (the word itself is derives from Aryan) and South Asia, hence why Aryan is only used today to refer only to the subset of Indo-Europeans who migrated South rather than West, and not Indo-Europeans generally. Saying Aryans invaded Europe would mean that is was an Iranian/Indian invasion.

Also, the Neanderthal theory for light skin and eyes has been disproved. Like I said before, the genetic mutations responsible for these genes are not the same ones responsible for these features in Europeans, or Asians for that matter. They evolved independently of each other, and blue eyes preceded the introduction of white skin. "Europeans" did not become white skinned until as late as the Neolithic, much later than previously thought. Like Sonsowey this cast doubts on the Vitamin deficiency theory for it's spread.

[berserk]

^ You need to link some sources for those claims of the white skin neanderthal theory being disproved, it is simply not true. I've linked you to several discussions of the recent new studies on this topic. Your basis for dark skinned Euros is based on a single 5 year old study and doesn't prove anything, but that there was a dark skinned European at that time, while the studies I've linked are more recent and based on a much greater dataset.

I don't know why that is so interesting though if white skin is neanderthal or not. There are plenty of other neanderthal traits found in Europe that isn't found much in other populations, such as occupital bun, marked brow ridges and elongated skulls.

http://www.abroadintheyard.com/20-physic...anderthal/

This is getting off topic, interesting as it is.

[Deluge]

(02-19-2015 09:06 AM)berserk Wrote:  

^ You need to link some sources for those claims of the white skin neanderthal theory being disproved, it is simply not true. I've linked you to several discussions of the recent new studies on this topic. Your basis for dark skinned Euros is based on a single 5 year old study and doesn't prove anything, but that there was a dark skinned European at that time, while the studies I've linked are more recent and based on a much greater dataset.

Wait, are you arguing whether "Europeans" had dark skin for most of Europe's history? Or that dark skinned "Europeans" for a time also had blue eyes? If it's the former then... And the finding which confirmed WHG had dark skin and blue eyes is one year old, not five. And it happened to be the first full sequence of a WHG genome, hence the discovery. Saying it "doesn't prove anything" is ridiculous, you can't argue your way around a corpse, let alone what we know about the timing of different mutations.

Europe has been inhabited by Homo sapiens for 45,000 years, but it's people have only had white skin for the last ~11,000 years, almost 30,000 years after the Neanderthals died out.

The genetic mutations responsible for light skin in Neanderthals, Europeans and Asians are all distinct and evolved independently of one another. Also, most Neanderthals did not even have light skin in the first place

[Sonsowey]

Llort getting banned, might be the first "Vitamin-D-Deficiency-led-to-European-Skin-Depigmentation Troll" we've seen.

[Sonsowey]

(02-19-2015 07:14 AM)bojangles Wrote:  

I recommend you read the History of India by John Keay guys. The first 2 sections are about prehistoric India, the Aryan invasion, the pre-existing Harappan culture and the roots of Hinduism. Brilliant book.

Bojangles,

Thanks for the recommendation, do you want to share what you remember from the book?