Posted on 02/11/2019 8:14:41 PM PST by SunkenCiv
An international research team, coordinated by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH) and the Eurasia Department of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in Berlin, is the first to carry out systematic genetic investigations in the Caucasus region... based on analyses of genome-wide data from 45 individuals in the steppe and mountainous areas of the North Caucasus. The skeletal remains, which are between 6,500 and 3,500 years old, show that the groups living throughout the Caucasus region were genetically similar, despite the harsh mountain terrain, but that there was a sharp genetic boundary to the adjacent steppe areas in the north...
Over the centuries, an interaction zone was formed, where the traditions of the Mesopotamian civilization and those of the Caucasus met with the cultures of the steppe. This intertwining is evident in the cultural exchange and transfer of technological and social innovations, as well as the occasional exchange of genes, which the study shows also took place between groups of quite distinct genetic backgrounds...
The skeletal remains studied come from different Bronze Age cultures. The Maykop culture in particular, based on its spectacular grave goods, which had close parallels in the south, was long regarded as a population that had migrated to the North Caucasus from Mesopotamia.
The current paleogenetic study paints a more nuanced picture of mobility during the Bronze Age. People with a distinct southern Caucasus ancestry were already north of the mountain ridges by the 5th millennium BC. It is highly likely that these groups formed the basis for the local Early Bronze Age Maykop culture of the 4th millennium BC. Intriguingly, the Maykop individuals tested are genetically distinct from the groups in the adjacent steppes to the north.
(Excerpt) Read more at popular-archaeology.com ...
I had one of those DNA things done in order to lay to rest family lore that one of my ancestors was Native American. It turned out that we had nary a smidgeon. All Scot, Irish, British, Saxon, Norman, and Scandinavian, about as white as white can be...with one exception. There was a tiny trace of DNA from the Caucasus. Since then I’ve been scratching my noggin trying to figure out how that might have happened. This map may explain that.
“the Eurasia Department of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in Berlin, is the first to carry out systematic genetic investigations in the Caucasus region”
Yo Germany, this whole Aryan thing really hasn’t been good for you. There’s a world of things to explore. Find something....anything.
Something to remember...in ages past when Romans were conquering everything around the area of the Med. and into Europe...once conquered, subject people became property of the Romans and whole populations were moved around as they were sold/traded.
I remember reading Gibbon who said that toward the end of the Empire, there was not enough gold/silver etc. for the valuation of commodities and slaves became currency.
It sort of explains how/why genetic stuff may be confusing
There seems to have been a prehistoric migration from the Caucasus/eastern Asia Minor region (where agriculture was first developed) into Europe, which would account for Europeans having a bit of DNA from that region.
During the Ice Age, Scandinavia was under an ice sheet. Later it was repopulated in part by people moving north from the Balkans...but that may have been earlier than the invasion of southeastern Europe by Anatolian farmers.
Did the women of the Maykop culture wear make-up? Inquiring minds want to know.
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