5 research outputs found
First bioanthropological evidence for Yamnaya horsemanship
The origins of horseback riding remain elusive. Scientific studies show that horses were kept for their milk ~3500 to 3000 BCE, widely accepted as indicating domestication. However, this does not confirm them to be ridden. Equipment used by early riders is rarely preserved, and the reliability of equine dental and mandibular pathologies remains contested. However, horsemanship has two interacting components: the horse as mount and the human as rider. Alterations associated with riding in human skeletons therefore possibly provide the best source of information. Here, we report five Yamnaya individuals well-dated to 3021 to 2501 calibrated BCE from kurgans in Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary, displaying changes in bone morphology and distinct pathologies associated with horseback riding. These are the oldest humans identified as riders so far
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The genetic history of the Southern Arc: a bridge between West Asia and Europe
By sequencing 727 ancient individuals from the Southern Arc (Anatolia and its neighbors in Southeastern Europe and West Asia) over 10,000 years, we contextualize its Chalcolithic period and Bronze Age (about 5000 to 1000 BCE), when extensive gene flow entangled it with the Eurasian steppe. Two streams of migration transmitted Caucasus and Anatolian/Levantine ancestry northward, and the Yamnaya pastoralists, formed on the steppe, then spread southward into the Balkans and across the Caucasus into Armenia, where they left numerous patrilineal descendants. Anatolia was transformed by intra–West Asian gene flow, with negligible impact of the later Yamnaya migrations. This contrasts with all other regions where Indo-European languages were spoken, suggesting that the homeland of the Indo-Anatolian language family was in West Asia, with only secondary dispersals of non-Anatolian Indo-Europeans from the steppe
Turanici la Dunărea Inferioară – complexe cercetate recent în nordul Munteniei / Turanians at the Lower Danube – recently investigated contexts in the northern Wallachia
The aim of this paper is to present a series of discoveries attributed to the Turkic nomadic populations (11th– 12th centuries), resulting from archaeological research conducted in 2018 and 2019 in several burial mounds placed in the localities of Târgșoru Nou and Inotești from Prahova County, as well as Lunca from Buzău county. It includes descriptions of the investigated archaeological features, the results of the anthropological and archaeozoological determinations as well as those of the physico-chemical investigations of some metal artefacts, and absolute chronology dates. Given that artefacts were part of the archaeological features investigated, we briefly present information regarding their analogies and occurrence. These discoveries highlight a time period which is otherwise scarcely known in this region and at the same time add weight to other materials already published during past years.Articolul prezintă o serie de descoperiri atribuite populațiilor turanice (sec. XI– XII), provenind din cercetări realizate în anii 2018 și 2019 în tumuli dispuși în localitățile Târgșoru Nou, Inotești din județul Prahova, respectiv Lunca în județul Buzău. Sunt descrise complexele arheologice cercetate, sunt redate rezultatele analizelor antropologice, arheozoologice, ale investigațiilor fizico-chimice asupra unor piese din metal ; totodată sunt prezentate date de cronologie absolută. Având în vedere că au fost descoperite și piese în inventarul complexelor arheologice cercetate, am inclus, sintetic, și informații privind analogiile și ocurența acestora. Aceste descoperiri contribuie la conturarea epocii într-o zonă mai puțin cunoscută și în același timp se adaugă la alte materiale deja publicate în ultima perioadă.Frînculeasa Alin, Munteanu Roxana, Garvăn Daniel, Dinu Cătălin, Negrea Octav, Preda-Bălănică Bianca, Grigoraș Laurențiu, Simalcsik Angela, Bejenaru Luminiţa, Cristea-Stan Daniela, Constantin Florin, Petruneac Marta, Focşăneanu Marin, Sava Tiberiu, Dima Andreea, Sava Gabriela, Ilie Maria. Turanici la Dunărea Inferioară – complexe cercetate recent în nordul Munteniei / Turanians at the Lower Danube – recently investigated contexts in the northern Wallachia. In: Materiale şi cercetãri arheologice (Serie nouã), N°16 2020. pp. 199-228
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Ancient DNA from Mesopotamia suggests distinct Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic migrations into Anatolia
We present the first ancient DNA data from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Mesopotamia (Southeastern Turkey and Northern Iraq), Cyprus, and the Northwestern Zagros, along with the first data from Neolithic Armenia. We show that these and neighboring populations were formed through admixture of pre-Neolithic sources related to Anatolian, Caucasus, and Levantine hunter-gatherers, forming a Neolithic continuum of ancestry mirroring the geography of West Asia. By analyzing Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic populations of Anatolia, we show that the former were derived from admixture between Mesopotamian-related and local Epipaleolithic-related sources, but the latter experienced additional Levantine-related gene flow, thus documenting at least two pulses of migration from the Fertile Crescent heartland to the early farmers of Anatolia
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A genetic probe into the ancient and medieval history of Southern Europe and West Asia
Literary and archaeological sources have preserved a rich history of Southern Europe and West Asia since the Bronze Age that can be complemented by genetics. Mycenaean period elites in Greece did not differ from the general population and included both people with some steppe ancestry and others, like the Griffin Warrior, without it. Similarly, people in the central area of the Urartian Kingdom around Lake Van lacked the steppe ancestry characteristic of the kingdom's northern provinces. Anatolia exhibited extraordinary continuity down to the Roman and Byzantine periods, with its people serving as the demographic core of much of the Roman Empire, including the city of Rome itself. During medieval times, migrations associated with Slavic and Turkic speakers profoundly affected the region